\| \ 1WWINlmlmlHillNWlHWIHHHIWMM ruecw I - “asthma“: -.. ‘4-0“‘ ‘ u A" LIBRA RY l Michigan 5"“ University This is to certify that the thesis entitled . I 144 {Ito’asr/707/‘oy, HJSva-VIJ €603, V“ “‘5 x7e Ca Whey/s Edi/(y [AllYOSa/ly presented by F/ a moan-L L 94.. Kai/POL! 9.4 has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for M» A. degree in 10(\l'(°9o1‘-M)I :LJM CZ. vim“ Major professor Date E]; /T90 0-7639 OVERDUE FINES: 25¢ per day per item RETURNING LIBRARY MATERIALS: 3:. ' Place in book return to move w a?“ “VI. e W charge from circulation records AN INVESTIGATION OF NUSSERL'S RELEVANCE TO CARNAP'S EARLY PHILOSOPHY by Francine Lea Kitchen A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Philosophy 1980 ABSTRACT AN INVESTIGATION OF HUSSERL'S RELEVANCE TO CARNAP'S EARLY PHILOSOPHY 3)! Francine Lea Kitchen This thesis is inspired by a desire to know whether Rudolf Carnap's early work. Ihs-Lesisa5-§xrusturs-91-3hs ggglg, was influenced by the philcsOphy of Edmund Husserl. Starting from mentions of Husserl in Carnap's work, i find many issues on which to compare the philosophical systems of Husserl and Carnap. The primary similarities center around the issue of psychologism and the notions of construction and constitution. Husserl's critique of psychologism is examined and found to be illuminating when applied to Carnap's philosophy. Husserl's system of constituting noetic-noematic essences is compared with Carnap's system of reconstruction by logical definition. It is concluded that there are sound reasons for believing that Carrap's constructional system was connected to Pusserl's constitutive system. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professors Uinston Hilkinson, Richard Peterson, and Richard Hall for helping to make it come out right, and Professors Rhoda Kotzin and Hilliam Callaghan for their support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.‘OCOOIIOOOCO‘OCC;0.000....00‘01 CHAPTER 2: HUSSERUS CRITIQUE 0F NATURALISH .......-...10 CH‘PTER 3: 12§5§ OOIOIOOEOOCCIOOOIIOOIOD;00......‘000026 1. 2. CNAPTER 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Essences ....o....oo..o.o...........o...........26 PPGSUDDOSTETOVTS ................................29 Int05tion'......................................31 The Engkhg .....................................30 Pure Consciousness .............................31 Noema and Noesis ........S......................34 Constitution ...................................35 4: AUEQAV ....................................43 Introduction'...................................43 Elementary Experiences .........................45 The Three Levels ...............................49 The Essence Problem ............................50 Constructions'..................................52 The SYSteM . .....................................54 SUMIaPY omen-oomommommoooooaoomcoco-.0000...dam-55 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS ...............................57 APPENDICES .0.0.0.;000000000‘00000......0000IOIOCOCOO'00.064 BIBLIOGRAPHY .0...COCOIOOOOOOOEOOIOOOOCOOO‘00......-0.0.69 iii C!AEIEB-1£--I!IBQQH£IIQ! In the course of my studies of analytic philosophy, Rudolf Carnap stood out as a philosopher whose theory was more firmly grounded in the individual subject's experience than other formal analytic philosophers (for example, Hintikka, Moore, Russell, Ouine, Goodman, Ayer). Upon first studying Edmund Husserl, I learned that Carnap praised Husserl's attack on psychologism, which made me wonder what else they had in common. In the process of forming a proposal for a possible thesis (of which the present work is the aotualization), I discovered a confusing collage of overlapping issues that they had in common. Two of those issues have been chosen to form the skeleton of this paper: (1) structural similarities of their constructional systems--that is, category resemblance and order of categories, and (2) an epistemological foundation in the experience of the subject. The scope has teen narrowed by limiting discussion to the earliest works of both philosophers, that is, Husserl's and Carnap's publications up to 1928, which was the year of publication of Carnap's Losisshs-Athau-dsr-uslt- The temporal relationships among the works of Carnap and Husserl that are emphasized in thare paper is obviously important. Husserl's Lnsissbs---udsersushunssn (Losisal Ingestiggtiggsl, volumes 1 and 2, appeared in 19(0-1901. His Idegn_1 was published in 1913. These are the two works of Husserl that Carnap cites in gg;_gggi§gh_ 2 (Ihs-Lesisal-§trustu£s-21-£hs-!2£ld. commonly referred to as the 531939), which was published in 1928. The purpose of this paper is to compare Carnap's early philosophy with Husserl's, and to search out similarities while acknowledging differences. These two philosophers have interesting similarities and dissimilarities. Both Husserl and Carnap came to philoSOphy from mathematics and were influenced by Frege. Following is an example, although slightly digressive, of the sort of investigation that is under way here. Robert C. Solomon, in his article "Sense and Essence,”(1) makes an attempt similar to the present one by trying to bridge the gap between Frege and Husserl. This is particularly relevant since Carnap was also strongly influenced by Frege. Solomon says: In this essay, I have attempted to make some sense out of one of Husserl's most obscure and most central concepts (that is, essence). As a result, I hope that I have indicated the direction which philosophers on both sides of the analysis-phenomenology breach must follow if there is to be a serious meeting of philosophical cultures. [P.501] Husserl's choice of the notion of 'essence' as a central concept resulted in his detractors' accusing him of Platonic realism. He has also been accused of being opposed to factual science. In order to clear up these misguided criticisms, Solomon purposes to reevaluate Husserl's doctrine of 'essence'. The first important point to (1) Robert C. Solomon, "Sense and Essence: Frege and Husserl." Internasisnal-2nil2s22hisal-suaItsrlx. 10 (1970): 278-401. 3 remember about Husserl's essences is that the knowledge of essences is completely independent of any ontological commitment concerning the actual existence of essences or actual experience of any particulars that embody those essences. This is not to say, however, that essences are independent of all possible facts. Essences, in fact, require the possibility of particulars that embody those essences. Solomon's article represents a precursor to the present paper in trying to bridge the gap between husserl and formal linguistic analysis. Carnap is not only implicated by being also a formal linguistic philosopher, but additionally by having been a direct heir of Frege's philosophy. Both Husserl and Carnap were concerned with the foundation of logic and philosophy. Husserl was originally motivated by the problem of founding logic, although he later moved away from that field. Both developed an epistemic theory (theory of perception and meaning) that provides an alternative to phenomenalist sense data theories by basing their theory on the actual primordial experience of the subject rather than on sense data. Today philosophers in the analytic tradition think of them as very different and emphasize Carnap's rejection of what he calls metaphysical issues such as intuitions of essences. Husserl and Carnap were each a primary founder of two separate branches of contemporary philosophy. Carnap later came to discount the value of Husserl to his own thought, perhaps 4 because Carnap's philosophy developed in a direction away from Husserl's. The tendency to emphasize their differences should be set aside for the duration of this investigation in order to discover their complementarity. The most obvious similarity is that Carnap agreed with Husserl's attack on psychologism. This issue will be discussed at length in Chapter 2. Erazim Kohak points out another similarity: Carnap, Hittgenstein, and Husserl all started with a conception of lived experience and all encountered a critical challenge in the nggblgn_-__91-_-_;hg in:ecsubiestixs-xsliditx-91-susb-caoscieases- Carnap's forceful reconstruction of physicalism...was a brilliant attempt to escape privacy of lived experience by translating it into its public physical counterparts.(2) Husserl also attempts to escape the privacy of lived experience, but by constituting it into categories or structures of experience or essences. A comparison of Husserl's constitutions and Carnap's constructions is the unifying thread that weaves itself‘ throughout this paper. Husserl and Carnap both use the words 'construction' and 'oonstitution'. They are, however, speaking of different, although structurally similar, enterprises. In order to promote clarity on the differences between their enterprises, Husserl's system will be called constitutive, while Carnap's is called constructional. The major difference between them is that Carnap does, but Husserl doesn't, believe that a concept (or object) is (2) Erazim Kohak, 1ge1_ and Exaggjgngg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p.180. 5 reducible to (is nothing but the relationship between) its components (or constituents). Husserl describes objects in terms of the comporents upon which they are founded; but, unlike Carnap, he believes they exist as objects in themselves (which isn't to say that they're independent of their constituents). In this sense, Hussecl's constitutions are more compatible with a subject's experience of concepts as something in themselves, as something more than their constituents. For this reason, I think Husserl's system is more firmly founded in the subject's experience than is Carnap's. Although I do not intend to argue it in this essay, I agree with Husserl that ”getting back to the subject“ is an .effective antidote to some tendencies in philosOphy’. Those tendencies are the multiplication of metaphysical entities (such as some forms of sense data theory) that have no basis in experience, and also the enforcement of analytical empirical methods upon disciplines (such as philosophy) that cannot be based on physical sciences. For example, some talk of sense data pays no head to the fact that the occurrence of sense data in all perception is orly a hypothesis and not an obvious feature of experience. Sense data are only an abstraction from experience and not a part of experience. Absurdities arise out of this when philosOphers try to prove the existence of sense data. This is another in a long line of dubious arguments for the existence of metaphysical entities. I believe one could 6 avoid such absurdities by limiting one's philosophical talk to those concepts that have a firm foundation in the subject's experience. Also, the tendency to apply the method of the natural sciences to the human sciences results in errors such as, in anthropology, failing to get a sympathetic understanding of a culture under study, or, in psychology, ignoring aspects of the human psyche that cannot be evidenced in observable behavior. I believe these oversights can be counteracted by, for example, noticing that the subject does not experience his or her emotional life as merely a set of behavior and realizing that this has important consequences for the choice of a method with which to study the human psyche. The fact that experience is possible only with a subject has implications too often ignored, as in the examples above. The implications are that subjectivity is a part of all experience that should be taken into account in any discussion of experience. He will find in the Lesisal-§tnustucs-si--tbs--h9:Idl3) not only that Carnap uses Husserl's gpgkhg (8.64, p.101), but that Husserl's thoughts on a constitutive system in Iggg§(4) have some connection with Carnap's constructional system (8.3, p.9). Appendix A consists of a chart showing the sections and pages in the Agfbay where Carnap refers to <3) Rudolf Carnap. Ibs--LosisaI-§trustuns-ot-the-scrls-and Easugsntablsas--io Philssenhx. trans. Rolf A. George (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). Hereafter referred to as the guinea. <4) Edmund Husserl. Idsass--§snsral--£ntzsdustiso--32-:urs Engggmggglggy, trans. H.R. Boyce Gibson (London: Collier Books, 1962. 7 Husserl, and the corresponding pages of the German and English editions of 1932;, together with the specific subjects discussed at those points. This paper will expound elements in Ideas that may have partially inspired Carnap's constructional system. This paper will also propose that Carnap's unanalysable given is more similar to Husserl's stream of experience than it is to sense data theories. Other relevant points will be brought up in the course of the exposition of Idea; and of the Aujbgn. These secondary issues are: the status of essences, presuppositionlessness, psychologism (in Chapter 2), and epistemic priority. I will be looking for structural similarities in their constructional systems. That is to say that in both systems certain types of objects are ordered similarly: for example, individual experiences are epistemically prior to intersubjective physical objects that are epistemically prior to cultural objects. Both philosOphers underwent changes in their philosophy. After their early work (for example, Pusserl's Ideas and Carnap's Agibgu) the differences became more pronounced. During their early work both emphasized a structural system based on immediate experience. Therefore, we will be concerned only with these early works. The following references evidence Husserl's influence on Carnap's first philosOphical work, which concerned space. The relevant change in Carnap's philosophy is pointed out by Robert S Cohen in his article, "Dialectical Haterialism”:(5) In Carnap's early investigation of theories of space, he sneaks-oi_iaasdia:slx-intuitsd-csscuses along with empirically furnished knowledge. Within a few years, he had begun his distinguished career as a defender of a thoroughly empirical knowledge, which is open to qualified observers by rationally specifiable procedures. But in the phenomenological empiricism of 1928 (publication of the Agibgg), hg___§ggk§ vetiiisations-bx-rsauctions-to-scnsc-data--xbich--bave tbe--saas--di£sst.--2s£sain and intuitiss-sheractsc-as flugsgglis_intgg;jggs, By 1931, Carnap had erected the structure of scientific theories on a contingent foundation of similarly intuited...protocols, contingent in the sense that the primitive protocols are records of direct experience for which empirical or logical justification is neither needed nor possible. [9.145-146] According to Adolf Grunbaum in his article "Carnap on Foundations of Geometry,”(6) Carnap, in his doctoral dissertation (”Der Paum” or ”On Space," Berlin, 1922, Eantstudicn. no.56). canons:d----tnc----ahcnoacnclosisal essssaotisn.a-2:12ri-21-flussscll -intuitias-21-ssssnsss when discussing the topological features of intuitive visual space (p.664). Grunbaum quotes Carnap's dissertaticr: 'Experience does not provide the justification for them (the axioms governing the topology of visual space), the axioms are...independent of the 'quantity of experience', that is, knowledge of them does not, as in the case of a posteriori propositiors, become ever more reliable through multiply repeated experience. For. as--uusss£l--has--sh2!o.-we-s:s-dsalins-bsr3-99: with-1as§s-in-tbc--scnas--91--smoiricalIx--asssctaincd nealitiss--but--:ashes--aith--1hs-ssssnss-£:sidgsiz-91 cattain-nressntations--wbose--socsial--ca£urc--sar--bc stase:d--in--a-sinsle-iaesdiats-sanenisas:- CP-ZZ. as quoted by Grunbaum; cf. also p.62 per Grunbaum.) (5) Robert S. Cohen, ”Dialectical Naterialism," The Ebilosonhx--oI-BudclI-Ca£nao. ed- Paul A. Schilpp (Lordon= Cambridge University Press, 1963), pp. 99-158. (6) Adolf Grunbaum, "Carnap on Foundations of Geometry," in Ibs--£hilcsonhx--91--fludcli--Carnaa. ed. Paul A. Schilpp (London: Cambridge University Press, 1963). 9 In the Agibgu when discussing other works related to constructing space, Carnap mentions Oskar Becker as a mediating influence between himself and Husserl (Agibgg, p.193). In most likelihood Carnap refers to an article Becker published in 1923 entitled "Contributions Toward a Phenomenological Foundation of Geometry and Its Applications to Physics."(7) Harvin Farber(8) says of Becker's article that it is a highly competent interpretation that uses not only Husserl's ideas, but Husserl's manuscripts. These points show that Carnap's early work on space was influenced by Hussert. (7) Oskar Becker, "Contributions Toward a Phenomenological Foundation of Geometry and Its Applications to Physics," Iabnbush--lust-flbilessnbis-und-ohasneesnolssissbs-£srssbuns. 1923, cited by Herbert Spiegelberg, Ihg__2henggggglggisal fisssasnts--a--flistsnisal--IntredusSIQn (The Hague: Niihoff. 1976), pp.601-602. <8) Marvin Farber. Ihs-£suedatisn-91-fibstoasnglesxs_§daund Husserl-and-tbs-flusst-12£-a-3192rsus-§sisnse--9-----jlcscab! (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943), p.22n. £fl££1§8-3i-fl9§§§8kl§-£311IQ!§-QE-!AI!BALI§! This chapter consists of a discussion of phenomenalism, phenomenology, positivism, psychologism, and the relationships between them. Husserl's critique of naturalism from "PhilosOphy as a Rigorous Science”(9) will be discussed at length. According to phenomenalism, all perception contains sense data that are the subject's data of immediate experience - for example, color patches, shapes, sounds, Smells, or tactile feelings. (Husserl also uses the term 'sense data' or 'hyletic data', but in a different sense.) Phenomenology, in its mose general use (which originated with Husserl) means the purely descriptive study of any subject matter. However, it also has a more specific, explicitly Husserlian use - that is, that of using the phenomenological method. The phenomenological method consists in the intuition of essences (described more carefully in Chapter 3) through use of the method of free (imaginative) variation to formulate a pure description of phenomens. This method is supposed to incorporate no presuppositions. Husserlian phenomenologists believe not only that presuppositionless inquiry is possible, but that it is the only true philosophy. Reflection will show that a phenomenologist will disapprove of the phenomenalist's presupposition (or (9) Edmund Husserl, "Philosophy as Ebeneesnglssx-and-the-£risis-oi-£hilgss Lauer (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 196 a Rigorous Science," any, trans. Quentin S). 2 11 unfounded supposition) that the material world can be reduced to sense data, which (for the phenomenologist) have a dubious ontological status. This disapproval stems not so much from disagreement with the assumption, but rather from disapproval of having any presuppositions at all. The phenomenologist's advice to the phenomenalist would be to examine his or her presupposition. If the implications of these assumptions are shown to conflict with our experience of the world, than the proposed reduction must be abandoned. Logical empiricism (or logical positivism) was developed by the Vienna Circle, a group of philosophers who wanted to give an account of science that would do justice to the central 'importance of mathematics, logic and theoretical physics without abandoning Hach's general doctrine that science is the description of experience. Carnap came to be regarded as the leading exponent of their ideas. Carnap was chiefly influenced by Russell, Frege, and Mach. This positivism of the twentieth century can be characterized by the belief that if a proposition is neither analytic nor empirical, then it is not cognitively meaningful. The positivism of the nineteerth century with which Husserl he familiar was characterized as the belief that all human behavior can be described by natural laws. Carnap's constructional theory is in the phenomenalist tradition of using sense data as a basis for a philosophical system. The object of such a system is to find the smallest number of types of basic experience and similarity relations 12 between them from which to construct everything else. The terms 'construction' and 'reducticn' are inverse operations within Carnap's logical method. In the Agibag reductions are presented as formal definitions of a certain type of concept in terms of a simpler, more basic concept. You might imagine starting out with some complex statement and proceeding to define every word in concepts that are in turn defined in terms of more basic objects. You would get a nested series of definitions that would show that the complex sentence can be constructed out of more basic concepts. The hope is that one will choose basic elements that are epistemically justified by being epistemically primitive. In Carnap's system, these are Ielementary experiences', which are each a time slice of experience or the subject's stream of experience at one particular moment. Carnap's elementary experiences are_ total time slices of experience, not just colored patches, etc. (which is what some positivists meant by sense data). According to Carnap, sense data are based on the primordial total experience. Carnap wants to find the smallest number of primitive relations among elementary experiences from which to build his logical structure of the world. Carnap's main acknowledged point of agreement with Husserl is on their mutual criticism of psychologism. In L9915al-£2undations-21-Engbabilitx.<10) Carnap points out (10) Rudolf Carnap. Ibs L9 sisal--sun m; 11 f C 95 - ans fl-Ensbabilitx (Chicago: University 0 hic cago Press, 19 C). 13 that although a logician may sound psychologistic in his or her foundational remarks, the actual working out of the logic is usually purely format. Carnap goes on to defend the purely formal character of logic. In this he would seem to be in complete agreement with Husserl. But, as we shall see shortly, Husserl would criticize Carnap's founding logic on a practical choice. Carnap partially attributes the fact that "the great majority of contemporary writers in modern logic'... are free of psychologism" to “the efforts of [Fnege and] '... Edmund Husserl, who emphasized the neccessity of a clear distinction between empirical psychological problems and nonempirical logical problems and pointed out the confusion caused by psychologism” (p.40). Now let us turn to Husserl's critique of naturalism from ”Philosophy as a Rigorous Science.” Husserl wished to instigate a revolution in philosophy in order to free philosophy of the naturalistic assumptions in which philosophy and other human sciences (that is, psychology, history, sociology, anthropology) had become bogged down. He believed that this revolution was necessary for the progress of knowledge, and he proposed to accomplish the revolution by revealing the absurdities of naturalistic procedure (p.76). In criticizing naturalism, he was not criticizing the procedures of natural science. Rather, he was objecting to the application of the methods of natural science to other fields. The methods of natural science are out of place in the human sciences Disciplines such as 14 philosophy, psychology, and sociology have been corrupted by the prejudices of naturalism in so much as they have used empirico-analytic methods. The use of such methods is inappropriate to the human sciences because, although we experience physical objects in causal, space-time relationships, we do not experience social, psychological, and philosophical objects in causal, space-time relationships. Rather, we experience the object domain of the human sciences as relationships among structures of experience which can be made clear to us through careful reflection. Husserl elaborated this careful reflection into a complicated phenomenological method (bracketing, the gpgkbg, reductions). The naturalism Husserl criticized consists of the advocacy of scientific method (that is, empirical-analytic method) and its extension to philosophy and the human sciences. He used the term 'naturalism' to include empirioism and positivism ' in referring to the nineteenth-century movement started by Auguste Comte, which supported the following premises. Empirical science is the only valid knowledge' and empirical facts are the only possible objects of knowledge. There is no proper method for philosophy except the method of empirical science. The task of philosophy is to find the general principles common to all sciences and to use them as guides to human conduct and as a basis for social organization. A corollary of this is that all human behavior is governed by natural laws. 15 Husserl echoEd the Kantian critique of reason when he provided a critique of the pretended scientific procedure of naturalism. He did so in order to develop a truly rigorous scientific philosophy in the interests of human culture. He shared with naturalists the goal of philosophy as a strict science. He praised naturalism for having such a goal. But he said that naturalists erroneously believes that naturalism has accomplished its goal (p.78). Therefore it was important that he criticize naturalistic philosophy. Husserl used the word 'science' and 'scientific' to mean something broader than empiricaL science. For Husserl, science was a body of indubitable and objective truths. Scientific philosophy should be clear and certain (at least about its basis). Nothing must be taken for granted. The natural scientist looks upon everything as 'nature' as opposed to 'spirit'. In doing so he or she sees only physical nature, sometimes carrying this to the extreme of explaining psychical nature in purely physical terms. In this sense, naturalism is equivalent to many forms of positivism because Husserl is speaking of the tendency to apply the method of the natural sciences to all fields of inquiry. Husserl discredited both the naturalizing of human consciousness and the naturalizing of ideas, ideals, and norms. By advocating the naturalization of ideas, naturalism becomes absurd. For example, if the naturalist reduces formal logic (or ethics) to natural laws of thinking 16 (applied psychology), he or she falls into the fallacy of psychologism. Psychologism is refuted by pointing out that logicians do not investigate how human beings do thinke-they investigate valid reasoning. Husserl's phenomenological pgkhg enables an individual's psychology to be suspended from any investigation (see discussion of transcendental consciousness in Chapter 3). Husserl elaborately refuted the fallacy of psychologism in Losisal--lnxsstisatiens. volume 1.(11) Many philosophers (especially Frege, Husserl and Carnap) have refuted psychologism, and others have at least denied holding the position of psychologism. Husserl argues that logical laws are not based on psychological laws because logical laws are exact and non-empirical while psychological laws are vague, and because logical laws are certain and thus not based on induction, which yields only probable validity, and because logical laws make no empirical claim (while psychology does) about the existence of psychic events. Carnap argues that there is not just one single language determined by psychological laws, but that there are many equally appropriate languages from which to chooss. Naturalists may deny the error of psychologism, but if they advocate using the method of the natural sciences in the human sciences, they do not avoid the absurdity revealed by Husserl's critique (p.80). There is an absurdity (11) Edmund Husserl, ngjggl-;nygstiggtign§, trans. J. H. Findlay (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970). 17 involved in the advocacy by naturalists of natural scientific method. In the case of a logician, the advocacy of valid laws of reason involves a normative judgment that is inconsistent with a naturalist belief that all human enterprise is governed only by natural laws. Carnap addresses this point by saying that logic consists of syntactical rules we choose to accept.(12) The choice of these rules is admittedly a normative judgment. For Carnap, logic is independent of experience, and it is not a science of essences as Husserl would have it; rather it is a set of normative laws. For Husserl this is another example of the absurdity of psychologism, in that it reduces logic to human norms just as the standard form of psychologism reduces logic to natural laws of human behavior. Husserl insisted that logic is a science of essences. Husserl divides knowledge into sciences of fact (or experience) and sciences of essence. A science of essence is one free from positings of actual fact--that is, no experience as experience can provide the epistemological grounding. For mathematics, logic, and philosophy, it is essential insight and not experience that supplies the ultimate grounds. To be grounded in essential insight means that the essential contents of the science are mediated through thought, rather than being experiential fact (Igggg, S. 7). Husserl seems to come to this view as a result of <12) Rudolf Carnap. Ehilosoabx-and-tcsisal--§xntaa (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1935). 18 struggling with other explanations and finding them guilty of some form of psychologism. Logic and philosophy are a priori sciences, dealing with rational concepts and necessary truths. But instead of deducing what is true of the world from a priori assumptions, phenomenology looks at the world and discovers what it is like. For most positivists, logic is an empirical science--that is, it is based on psychology. Carnap set himself apart from other positivists on this issue and, in doing so, is in closer agreement with Husserl than other positivists-are. In his early work, Carnap went so far as to consider as cognitively meaningful the justification of induction.(13) (Quine, as a counter-example, would consider that only as an empirical question.) As we shall see shortly, Husserl considered the epistemological foundation of logic an important antidote to psychologism. In the case of natural scientists in general, the advocacy of the natural scientific method is a normative judgment. Husserl believed that natural laws and normative laws should exist side by side, each with their own methods of investigation. Phenomenology is the proper method for investigation of normative laws and the human sciences. Haturalism's claim that everything is governed by natural laws is absurd because the advocacy of any method is governed by a normative judgment, not a natural law. The (13) Rudolf Carnap, "0n Inductive Logic," ECQQQQiLiIX; Egalitaatisn.-and-§iaelisisx. ed. Marguerite "- Foster and Michael L. Martin (New york: Odyssey Press, 1966). 19 choice for whatever reason of one method over another, one set of rules over another, is not governed by natural laws. Husserl described the naturalist as one who wants to understand the essence of genuine truth (or goodness or beauty) but who believes that this goal is to be attained through a philosophy based on natural science. The naturalist is acting upon normative presuppositions to the extent that he or she sets up values--that is, that he or she chooses the method with which we should work (p.817. The fact that this is a normative judgment is obscured because reason itself has been naturalized, so that the naturalist denies that the judgment is normative. That is to say, the naturalist believes that the problematic normative judgment is governed by natural laws (that it is not really a normative judgment). Thus when confronted with values, those normative laws turn into natural laws. Carnap indicates that we can hope in the future to derive to an ever greater extent known extra-physical laws (governing human behavior) from known physical laws.(14) Therefore, Carnap might say that what is a normative judgment in one context (choosing laws of logic), would turn out to be a natural law in a broader context (human decision behavior). Husserl said that it is absurd to deny that normative judgments are normative. Since the critic of naturalism can't point to any 95915139; consequences of the absurdity, (14) Rudolf Carnap, "The Philosopher Replies," In; Ehilgseabx-21-Eugelt-£a£nae. ed- paul A. Schilpp (London: Cambridge University Press, 1963), p.883. 20 and since that's the only evidence a naturalist will accept, the naturalist is not shaken from his or her beliefs (p.82). For Carnap and other positivists an austere definition of logic and of philosOphy has normative consequences for all philosOphers. Carnap started to develop his verifiability principle around the time of the writing of the Agibgg. According to the verifiability principle, any question that cannot be empirically tested is not cognitively meaningful. The set of questions not cognitively meaningful includes aesthetics and metaphysics. Consequently Carnap believes that philosOphers shbuld not concern themselves with aesthetics or metaphysics. Carnap 'makes this normative judgment without apology. This is a fine example of the absurdity of naturalism as pointed out by Husserl. As regards other questions of philosophy, Carnap believes that ethics and epistemology are based on psychology, which leaves nothing for philosophers but logic. The main point of Husserl's phenomenology is to re-establish a firm methodological foundation in philosophy for examining consciousness, perceiving, and conceiving. For Husserl the problem of psychologism goes even further than the absurdity stated earlier. The problem of psychologism is the problem of finding an epistemological foundation for the sciences that avoids naturalistic, behavioral, and experimental psychology. Psychologism can appear in other forms.‘ The form of psychologism bearirg on the matter of epistemological foundation is the belief that 21 epistemology is based on a causal account of meaning, cognition, certainty, and evidence (as opposed to intuitions of essences). That causal account would be an explanation in terms of natural laws. Carnap's empiricist (as opposed to rationalist or idealist) theory of epistemology is just such a causal account. Although Carnap didn't reduce epistemology to psychology (the bold form of psychologism), he does seem to say that it is based on normative decisions which presumably in turn are governed by natural laws. for example, he believed that meaning is based on normative decisions about what words mean and that evidence is a question of which system of logic is chosen to be used in an area of study. In Ebilsseobx-and-Lsaisal-§xntax. Carnap wrote that epistemology (after elimination of its metaphysical and psychological elements) is a part of logical syntax (Chapter 3, Section 5). As I indicated earlier, however, Carnap's position seems to be less literally empirical than other positivists'. But any naturalist's causal account of philosophical issues is for Husserl merely an extension of the fallacy of psychologism. -Now let us turn from the epistemological foundation of philosophy and psychology to the epistemological foundation of logic. For its lack of epistemological foundation (as well as for the absurdity of the normative belief), Husserl would criticize a Carnapian analysis of logic as a practical method. In his later work, Carnap assumes that logic doesn't need any epistemological foundation (although 22 earlier he considered the justification of induction as meaningful). If logic is just a set of rules chosen to govern the game of logic, then there's no need to explain how we know those rules; they are justified through their practical usefulness in our rational reconstruction of science. The Carnapian definition of logic revises logic from the theoretical "science of sciences" to a practical calculus. But Husserl is concerned to lay the epistemological foundations of logic as well as of other disciplines. For Husserl logic is not just a set of practical rules; it is a theoretical science of essences (ideal laws) that can be epistemologically grounded by phenomenology. There are at least two valid methods of investigating reality: the method of the natural sciences and the method of phenomenology. Each must be used in its own proper sphere. The arguments presented in this chapter comprise two lines of argument. The first line of argumnt concerns the various ways in which the absurdity of naturalism manifests itself. That absurdity can be manifested in simple psychologism or in a normative belief that natural scientific method should apply to the human sciences. But Husserl argues that the human sciences are not physical sciences as are the natural sciences, and therefore cannot have an empirical explanation. The only sciences that can be empirically founded are the physical sciences, because empirical observations and facts exist only ir those 23 sciences. According to Husserl, philosophy is a science of essences, not a science of facts. Epistemology and other branches of philosophy as well as other human sciences can only be founded (constituted) through essential investigation for which Husserl has developed the phenomenological method. The second line of argument concerns epistemology. Naturalism applies the method of the natural sciences to philosophy which results in the elimination of epistemology in favor of logic and empirical psychology. According to Husserl this makes philosophy impossible because scientific philosophy should be an eidetic science which investigates the epistemological foundations of all disciplines. The chief service of empiricism is to have saved humankind from such philosophical illusions as scholastic entities and metaphysical artifice. Husserl agrees that natural science should be concerned with the experiencible real fact-world. But philosophy is not a natural science. There are some judgments that should not permit of being grounded in experience but that do fall properly into the domain of philosophy. Having discredited naturalism, Husserl also makes a positive criticism. Contrary to naturalism's prejudice, a method of inquiry can be scientific without being positivistic. Phenomenology is to be a rigorous science, but it is not positivistic. Phenomenology, as pointed out earlier, shares a common goal with naturalism. Husserl's 24 goal is a genuinely rigorous scientific philosOphy, which, if propagated, will rescue human culture from crisis and put it back on the path to greatness. Husserl's own words are almost religious in their appeal to science. There is, perhaps, in all modern life no more powerfully, more irresistibly progressing idea than that of science. Nothing will hinder its victorious advance. In fact, with regard to its legitimate aims, it is all-embracing. Looked upon in its ideal perfection, it would be reason itself, which could have no other authority equal or superior to itself. [P.82] These claims on behalf of science are made with no explanation or justification. They seem to be self-evident to Husserl. But one of the lessons to be learned from phenomenology is that presuppositions are often unquestioned precisely because they seem self-evident to their holder. The phenomenological method should enable one to avoid presuppositions. It is not surprising in the era most influenced by naturalism to find such presuppositions. But it is ironic to find such views in a philosopher who advocated an intellectual revolution by means of getting rid of the presuppositions of naturalism. Just because Husserl points out the value-ladenness of naturalism, it doesn't follow that phenomenology is value-free. Hhereas Husserl says that objectivism (a naturalistic attitude that treats theoretical entities as real entities) can be overcome by pure theory (that is, phenomenology), Jurgen Habermas<15) (15) Jurgen Habermas. snowlsdss-and-Uuman-Intsrssts. trans- Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), Appendix. 25 says that the only way to overcome objectivism is to acknowledge a dependence on interests and to abandon the illusion of pure theory. Although Husserl acknowledges that all reality is constituted by human experience, his faith in pure theory (independent of human experience) implies that phenomenology as pure theory is not likewise constitued--otherwise it wouldn't be pug; theory. This is a contradiction unless phenomenology is not to be included in the domain of reality. Later critiques of Husserl's phenomenology find the possibility of a presuppositionless philosophy _doubtful and point to presuppositions in Husserl's philosophy. Such a critique is especially meaningful in light of Husserl himself holding a presupposition that can be explained by his own historical CONteXt m SUAEIEB-§1--IQ§A§ The following discussion of Husserl's Igggs has a double purpose: to introduce the reader to Husserl's text and to draw out similarities with Carnap. Only the major issues of 193;; are discussed here, and many fine points glossed over. The comparisons with Carnap come out most strongly in the sections on noema and noesis and on constitution. (Section numbers from Igggs precede the exposition of a section. These are included for reference reasons, but are extraneous to the present discussion.) Phenomenology is a science of essences (or structures of experience, rather than of facts. 5.1: All facts are based on the ”object-giving intuition" found ir each person's natural experience. Object-giving intuitions (or experiences) operate on more than one level. The primordial object-giving experience is sensory perception. This is our first indication in Igggg of levels of experience. 5.2: A subject's acts of cognition posit real things as having spatio-temporal existence that characterizes the natural standpoint. Such "facts" of existence are contingent, meaning that the things need not exist. But the things also have necessary characteristics without which they wouldn't be the things that they are-ewhich implies for Husserl that they have an essence. They have some kind of essential being (Eidos) which can be apprehended with varying degrees .26 27 of clarity. Essences are always general, but they have varying degrees of universality. In distinguishing fact from essence, Husserl is distinguishing the particular from the universal. For example, any cognition of a table includes the postulate that the table exists in space and time. An object must exist in space and time and have legs and a flat top in order to be a table. The essence of tables includes these characteristics. 5.3: Essences are the objects of eidetic intuition. An essence is an object of a type different from empirical objects. The object of an empirical intuition (or sense experience) is an individual object, and the object of an essential intuition is an individual object, although of a different kind. Essences are universals, whereas objects of empirical intuition are particulars. Hhen setting out to grasp an essence, the subject (who is a phenomenologist) can proceed either from a direct sense experience or from imagination with the method of free variation. One formulates an understanding of the essential nature of something based on one's experiences of it and/or on one's imaginings of it. 5.4: In doing so, however, the subject must be careful not only that his or her eidetic intuitions are free from presuppositions, but also that he or she remember that the positing of an essence does not imply any positing of an actual individual object. 5.22: All objects are not necessarily intersubjective empirical objects, and all reality is not necessarily 28 intersubjective empirical reality. Essence or Idea or Eidos should not be reduced to merely psychological facts such as mental constructions; they are a different type of reality. $.23: Essential insight is a primordial object-giving act of the subject's thought and is analogous to sensory perception, not to more imagination. $.24: Husserl claims that whenever an empiricist gives grounds for his or her convictions, he or she is guided by essential insights (whether acknowledged or not) because foundational remarks are never empirical. (This was discussed in Chapter 2.) Husserl would say that Carnap's enterprise is guided by essential insights that give him his "time slices of experience." $.75: Phenomenology is a purely descriptive philosophy and as such does not rely upon inferences. It is possible, however, to use inferred ideas alongside descriptive phenomenology. Such inferred ideas might make up the connections for a 'mathesis of experience' (from the Greek 'mathesis,' meaning 'learning') which would be a counterpart to descriptive phenomenology. This passage could be interpreted as admitting that a formal logical system of experience like Carnap's constructional theory can exist as a counterpart to descriptive phenomenology. Husserl's description of eidetic inquiry may allow that constructional theory is an eidetic pursuit. Husserl allows that mathematics and logic are eidetic disciplines. Clearly they are inferential. An inquiry is said to be eidetic 29 because it is concerned with essences. Carnap cites this -passage specifically when referring to influences on his constructional system. Carnap states (Agibgu, 8.3, p.9) that there is a connection between his construction theory and the goal proposed by Husserl in Iggg; S.7S--namely, a 'mathesis of experiences.' 2.-£rssuenssisisns This discussion of essences brings up an important issue. Husserl has been criticized for having presuppositions in - spite of his supposedly presuppositionless philosophy. Marvin Farber in his article "The Ideal of a Presuppositionless Philosophy,"(16) points out that Husserl's presuppositions include a belief (1) that cognitive experience (that is, intuition) is self-validating, (2) that the world is pre-given rather than manufactured by the subject, and (3) that intuition can yield an understanding of essences (as well a of sensory objects). The first two of these presuppositions Husserl shares with other philosophers of his historical period, including Carnap. The last presupposition is somewhat distinctive of Husserl and is, of course, not shared by the later Carnap. But in his doctoral dissertaion, Carnap did accept this presupposition (see Chapter 1). Husserl's talk (16) Marvin Farber, "The Ideal of a Presuppositionless Philosophy." in Ebeesasaslsazs--1bs--2hilsssabx--s£--§9auad Unasstl--and--its-lntsrescission. ed- Joseph J- Kockelnane (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1967). 30 of intuitions of essences is explained and partially justified in the next section. 3.-Intuitisn $.18: Partial motivation for Husserl's defense of intuition of essences came from the fact that empiricism had denied Ideas, Essence, or knowledge of essential being. Such a hostility to Ideas is dangerous because, according to Husserl, the eidetic grounding of any sciences that accepts such a prejudice is hindered. Knowledge of essential being must be the basis of the epistemological toundation for any science. $.20: Empirical intuition gives only singular elements and no generalities. It must rely on induction. But such general truths as are gained by inferences are not experiencible, nor are principles of inference. The justification for such truths and principles lies in the eidetic realm. Both kinds of intuition (empirical and eidetic) are equally valuable as experience for the justification of knowledge. A traditional empiricist would claim to use only empirical intuition, but when considering foundational remarks within empiricism we must entertain the possibility that eidetic intuition is used. s.-Ibe-Enokbc 5.28: The natural standpoint is the mode of consciousness wherein the physical and social world is given the whole attention of the subject. 5.30: The natural 31 standpoint, if verbalized, entails positing objects as things that exist in the real world. 5.31: The epgkhg is a suspension of belief or disbelief, and serves as a method by which the phenomenologist gains certain insights. Doubting the being of anything entails a suspension of the thesis of the natural standpoint. This does not mean abandoning the thesis or changing one's convictions. Rather, the suspension sets the thesis out of action, disconnects it, "brackets” it. The gggkhg is a refraining from judgment. This issue is important because it is by means of the eggkhg that presuppositions are avoided--that is, by bracketing any theses of transcendent reality. $.32: Dcubting the thesis of the natural standpoint entails disconnecting ourselves from the methodology of the natural sciences. He could not do so if we were positivists, because positivists are' concerned with constituting a science free of metaphysics by allowing only the methodology of the natural sciences. Instead we are concerned with the eidetic grounding of any inquiry. §.-Eu:s-£29asisusnsss $.59: Husserl brackets the ratural sciences as well as formal logic as such. In doing this he disconnects presuppositions like (according to Farber) a belief in the reality of the spatio-temporal world, a belief that scientific theories can be used to interpret the world, a belief that there is some independent or continuous 32 existence, and a belief in the existence of one's own body or empirically conditioned ego. Although a method of formal logic such as Carnap's practical calculus would be bracketed because it is not grounded in eidetic intuition, the phenomenologist must draw upon formal generalities concerning concepts, propositions, inferences, etc. The gngkhg brackets the particular methods of certain disciplines (for example, theory of numbers, theory of classes, theory of relations) in order to define a starting point for eidetic investigation. Theory of classes and of relations are important in Carnap's constructional system. More will be said at the beginning of the next chapter about the fact that Husserl proposes to bracket what for Carnap is his central methodology. $.33: Consciousness itself, because it is not separate from the epgkhg, has a being of its own that is unaffected by the phenomenological gpgkhg. Husserl refers to this as the "phenomenological residuum" because it remains after the phenomenological disconnection. Thus the phenomenological gpgkhg renders pure consciousness (or transcendental consciousness) accessible to investigation. 8.80: During natural observing, recollecting, approving, wishing, being glad, or any other mental act, the psychological ego is actually present as part of the mental act or consciousness. But after performing the transcendental ggokhe the subjectiveness of the psychological ego is no longer part of the mental act. It 33 has become part of the object perceived. The object is not the same; now the object is the psychological consciousness itself. For example, in transcendental reflection, one's psychological weaknesses and prejudices can become the object of reflection whereas prior to the transcendental gngkhg they were part of how one perceived. Thus Husserl distinguishes between the experience itself that contains the experiencing ego and the pure (transcendental) consciousness, or, again, between the subjective phase of the experiencing and the contents of the experience with the ego suspended. The pure consciousness is no longer part of the contents of experience. 5.53: The psychological ego (or empirical ego) can become an object of essential perception if it is bracketed. This transcendental reduction enables psychological consciousness to be suspended from the investigation, and it allows escape from the explication that thinking must be based on psychology (the error of psychologism). This reduction reveals pure consciousness (or transcendental consciousness) as the phenomenological residuum. This is the second bracketing that Husserl describes. The first was the bracketing of the natural standpoint; the second is the bracketing of the psychological ego. These are sometimes referred to as the first and second phenomenological reduction, or alternatively as the phenomenological reduction and the transcendental reduction. 5.54: Husserl claims that the realm of pure consciousness is open to investigation on an 34 intuitional basis and it promises knowledge of the highest scientific value. Husserl is attempting to establish some objective validity for subjectivity. In doing this, Husserl implies that a purely descriptive investigation of subjectivity must somehow attain objectivity (intersubjective validity). ”any sympathetic philcsOphers (for example, Martin Heidegger and Robert E. Solomon) agree that this (his 'transcendental turn') marks the place where Husserl goes off in a direction they cannot follow. Contemporary philOSOphers of science have asked: How is objectivity in science or philosophy possible9 That is, how can the subject be separated from its historical/psychological context? Husserl's belief in pure consciousness and Carnap's faith in the scientific method are both unargued presuppositions. é.-ussss-and-flsssis 5.88: The noema is the intentional object, the object of consciousness, what we think we perceive, the contents of experience. when the phenomenologist brackets ouestions about the existence of the objects of a perception, he or she is left with the noema, the intentional object disconnected from any existential thesis. 8.90: Every intentional experience has its intentional object (noema), or, as Husserl sometimes calls it, its objective meaning. 5.93: The noesis is the eidetic experience in the realm of 3S consciousness. There are many types of noesis, for example, perceptions of empirical objects, reflections upon objects of various sorts, memories of past events, and judgments of an ethical or aesthetic nature. All noeses have noemata associated with them, that is, every noesis ‘has some intentional object, its object of consciousness. Such noeses as judgment, sentiment, and will are referred to as the higher spheres of consciousness, as opposed to simple sensory perception. when the thesis of the natural standpoint is bracketed, the realm of consciousness (noesis) includes the psychological ego. However when the transcendental reduction takes place, the psychological ego becomes part of the intentional object (noema) and the noesis is than pure consciousness. Husserl has discussed three structure of experience. First, he discussed empirical reality, the thing as such, the real object that appears before the gpgkhe. Second, he discussed the eidetic realm of pure consciousness that appears after the gpgkhg: the noesis, which he will later elaborate with a description of modes of perception (sections 102-26; see the following section on constitution). Third, he discussed the perceived object, what we think we perceive, the noema, the object of consciousness, the content of experience, the intentional object. Zs-£sns£139:icn 36 Husserl's method of constitution consists of describing higher levels of reality in terms of an essential analysis of the elementary subjective reality which is a constituent of it. 5.99: Husserl describes modes of perception or reflection which are ways (for example, as representations, as imaginative modification, or as signifying presentations) in which the noema is presented to pure consciousness. 5.100: The modes of perception or reflection can be re-formed on new levels, so that a noesis at one level with its noema can in turn be the noema of a higher-level noesis. At the lower levels there are simple modifications of perceptions. At higher levels there are representations of various sorts. These levels dovetail into one another like Carnap's nested definitions: we can reflect upon a memory of a reflection and then focus on the remembered reflection itself (which was a reflection on an experience) and then focus on the primordial experience. These are levels of reflection and memory; there can also be levels of free fancy, or of representation, or of signification, or mixtures of these. These levels of constituted experience may have been what Carnap found in Husserl that was related to Carnap's development of his constructional system, although Husserl has a different method of using the constitutive approach. 8.101: Every noematic level is some kind of presentation (and modification) of the noemata on the level below. The lowest level, below which one cannot go, is the level of simple sensory perception. The 37 phenomenologist investigating these levels can shift his or her attention to any of these levels. wherever there are analogous groundings in the construction (that is, similar object types), there arise analogous types of noesis--that is, analogous modifications of reflection or perception. we can try to construct an example at this point. Let us imagine that one's empirical intuition of the colors and shapes emanating from across the room go together with some meaning one adds to them to form the intentional object referred to as 'book'. Many such intentional objects (noemata) when situated in a certain way relative to each other and when resting upon shelves of' a certain type (another noema) are constituents of the higher level (because constituted from books and shelves) noema: 'bookcase'. This is an element in the region of physical things. Husserl's constitution rests on principles different from“ Carnap's construction, which will be explained in Chapter 5. But it is enough for present purposes that they are both structures of categories of intentional objects that are similarly ordered. Both Husserl and Carnap use the words 'constitution' and 'construction' interchangeably. 5.135: These noetic-noematic systems of essences correspond to fundamental distinctions that are the main issues of phenomenological studies. The essence of our judgments about reality can be understood within such a noetic-noematic system of essential connections. 38 8.149: Husserl speaks of 'regions' (or categories) as concrete domains of study; the eidetic pursuits or disciplines (for example, phenomenology and mathematics) study such regions. Husserl uses the word 'region' to refer to parts of his noetic-noematic system. For example, the region 'material thing' is one of the more basic categories (see below). These have an analog in Carnap's object types or object domains. A digression of one paragraph is necessary here because we must be able in the following paragraphs to point out analogues to Carnap's object types. Here is a brief preview of Carnap's system. There are three levels, ordered by epistemic priority. First, the autopsychological objects include elementary sensual experiences, recognition of similarity between elementary experiences, and sensations--in other words, subjective experience. Second, the physical objects (intersubjective objects) include material things, the psychological self, and other persons. Third, the heteropsychological objects and cultural objects include psychological events of the other and cultural Now let us return to the manifestations and sociological groups. discussion of Husserl's regions. For Husserl every noema is part of a group of noemata that constitute the level above. These relations are not clearly described, but it will not be hard to see (when we get into the next chapter) that Carnap's well-defined relations play a role similar to what Husserl is describing here. 5.150: 39 within the thing region, one of the important tasks of phenomenology will be to elucidate the origin of the presentation of space. This was an early interest of Carnap. By elucidating the presentation of space, an insight is gained into what the idea of the material thing represents in consciousness. 8.151: The fundamental (most basic) level of experience that is constituted individually by many subjects (similar to Carnap's autopsychological objects) is the sensory thing experience. Next above this is the intersubjectively objective thing--that is, that which gives unity to the things on the lower level (similar to Carnap's physical objects). This higher order is constituted out of intersubjective experience, mediated through empathy. The interlacing of the different regions is. a difficult problem. (This is also true in Carnap's ngbgg. As a matter of fact, the rest of this exposition of Ideas could equally well be said of the Anibgu.) The experiencing subject (or psychological ego) is constituted as part of this system. Intersubjective communities are constituted on a level above the experiencing subject. Similarly, objects bearing value to subjects and cultural organizations must be described in their proper order of formation (similar to Carnap's heteropsychological objects). In 199g; the order of Husserl's constitutive system is not detailed. He can get a better idea of the structure by looking forward in time to his ngtgsjan__uggitatjgng,(17) 40 which was completed in 1929. Farber explains the order of Husserl's constructional program as follows: (1) subjective individual consciousness, that is, my own world which includes recognition of my body, material bodies, and my personality, (2) another ego distinct from me; and (3) an objective world that includes nature and culture.