Husserl and the A Priori: Phenomenology and Rationality
Contributions to Phenomenology (CTPH, volume 114)
Springer Cham
2021
Hardback
XIII, 331
Reviewed by: Shuai Zuo (Fudan University)
It’s unusual to write a review of a book published four years ago. However, one research book doesn’t lose its value because it is in the past. The problem of a priori, and a series of concepts such as idea, eidos, essence, rationality etc., are apparently not as attractive as the concepts such as reduction, pure consciousness, time etc. This is understandable, since it seems that many discussions of the a priori revolve around metaphysical problems, which are speculative instead of descriptive. However, phenomenology doesn’t start with transcendental reduction, there are hidden motivations that lead Husserl step by step to transcendental reduction. To thoroughly study a priori truth is no doubt one of those motivations. Actually, we could find the structure of ontological concern – transcendental concern in Husserl’s important books, such as two volumes of Logical Investigation; the first Chapter and the others in Ideas I, the first half and the second in Formal and Transcendental Logic. We should take serious of Husserl’s “metaphysical” thought. There is a reason why Heidegger said ontology is possible only as phenomenology (cf. Heidegger 1967, 35).
What just said is corresponding to Santis’s ambition, which is clear in the very beginning of this book. Santis worries that if Husserl scholars have eyes only for present, phenomenology might lose its propria principia, and disappear in the future (cf. De Santis, 2021, 3-4). Maybe one of the examples of “present” refers to the frontier interdisciplinary research between phenomenology and other sciences. This kind of research is no doubt pivotal for phenomenology to keep alive. However, to what extent could it keep alive as itself? Only by understanding that question clearly could phenomenologists truly know their position and what they could contribute in the interdisciplinary trend. In this sense, Santis’s book is very inspiring. For example, it’s impressive to trace Husserl’s thought back to the rationalism, i.e., from Descartes to Kant (Part VI). What Santis has done is not only put Husserl in a historical line, instead, he points out the most profound contribution that phenomenology provides to philosophy, and that is the understanding of Rationalität/Vernünftigkeit.
This book is not a straightforward, step-by-step argument but rather resembles a circular labyrinth. The questions Santis raises at the beginning are only addressed at the end. He juxtaposes his thoughts in between, and those thoughts are also relevant. On the one hand, some parts of the argument have overlapping tasks, for instance, the discussions of essence, idea in the third part and the discussions of eidos in the fifth part. On the other hand, every part contributes to the understanding of the ultimate question: a priori. This is also the author’s interpretation of the system of the book through Schopenhauer’s mouth: a single thought must “preserve its most perfect unity. If, all the same, it can be split up into parts for the purpose of being communicated, the connection of these parts must once more be organic, that is, of such a kind that every part supports the whole just as much as it is supported by the whole” (8). It’s obvious that the whole and the part support each other, but in my view, this organic nature is still hidden in the fog and can be clarified by summarizing. Before the specific summary, let’s take a look of the basic theme and structures of this book.
The central question of this book is the relation between ontic a priori and constitutive a priori. Among the eight parts of the book, apart from the introduction in the first part and the conclusion in the last part, strictly speaking, only the seventh part deals with the constitutive a priori. Parts II to VI are all concerned with the ontic a priori. Santis provides the background of some crucial concepts by analyzing their historical development, especially in part III and IV. Accordingly, these parts tend to consider ontic rationality (Rationalität). In part VII, Santis starts discussing constitutive a priori in the perspective of genetic phenomenology. Santis tries to argue that the a priori laws have its resource in the self-constitution of monad. If Santis successfully finish this argument, we would understand Husserl’s position between realism and idealism. However, since Santis’s main concern is ontic a priori rather than constitutive a priori (8, 9), this problem is only touched upon and there left a space for further discussion. I would like to take the structure of ontic a priori – constitutive a priori, or the dichotomy between Rationalität and Vernünftigkeit as a main clue in this review.
I’ll start with Part III. If it’s proper to say that the book is a circular labyrinth, then the real circle starts in Part III. Part III is the longest part in the whole book, the first half of this part concerns why Husserl gradually replaced “idea” with eidos, which is actually the only meaning of a priori. The second half provides a detailed analysis of the development of concepts such as species, idea, essence, a priori, laws and necessity.
Let’s begin by stating that a priori is an adjective that describes nouns. The next question is: what kinds of nouns can it describe? Essences and ideas are certainly among them. Besides, some particular judgments could also be regarded as a priori. The key standard is foundation (Begründung). A proposition, a knowledge, or even a truth could be called a priori “means nothing else but stating its own specific Begründung” (126). The foundation is conceptual essentialities (126), pure essence (128-129). According to the first half of part III, pure essence is eidos, and they are both distinguished from species. Species is universal (Allgemeine), which is obtained by generalization, while essences are obtained by formalization. Husserl realized this in around 1905. In around 1912, pure essence or idea is gradually separated from the other two meanings of essence. Essence could still be intuited while pure essence couldn’t, instead, it could only be obtained through extrapolation (Herausschauung) (118). Just like geometrical concepts, pure essences are also ideal limit. (119)
To be more specific, pure essence are also foundation for a priori laws (138). That means, the pure essences in themselves have certain laws. If some particular judgments are necessary, the reason would be that they are the particularization of relevant laws. For instance, the proposition “this yellow must extend over one flat” is necessary, because the pure essence of color is independent of pure essence of extension.
Therefore, pure essence is the key concept. We are committed that there are pure essences and corresponding laws. Pure essences and laws could be particularized into individual judgments, and the latter could also be purged or retrieved to the former. Here we are first confronted with Rationalität and Rationalisierung. If we could successfully retrieve any particular judgments to laws governed by pure essences, then this judgment is rational. We could also explore pure essences and laws in phenomenological perspective. Then the question is on what acts does the pure essences and laws are grounded? In contrast with a posteriori empirical judgment, as Santis quoted, “essential judgments are characterized by the fact that they do not need perception and experience, yet still some intuition through which their states of affairs are given” (134; Hua V 42). Although Santis doesn’t explicitly mention, here concerns the problem of constitutive a priori. How does subjectivity constitute pure essence and laws? What does it mean by saying “still some intuitions are given”. Only solving this question could we understand phenomenological Vernünftigkeit, which refers to the acts that conform with pure essences and laws. We should keep this in mind, for it will be touched upon in detail in the seventh part.
The fourth part discusses three methodological variations through Logical Investigations to Ideas I, i.e., ideation, eidetic attitude and eidetic reduction. This part intersects with part III, since it discusses the method apprehending pure essences.
First method is ideation or idealizing abstraction. We could abstract some specific moment from other moments in some given empirical thing, besides, individuality should also be abstracted (De Santis, 2021,159). For instance, there is a red stone in front of me, I could abstract red quality from extension and other moments, and I could also abstract the idea red from “this-here”. I no longer grasp spatiotemporal thing, but the intemporal pure essence instead. Ideation or idealizing abstraction is categorical act, and it is founded on sensuous act. “Foundation” doesn’t mean that categorical acts must first intend the objects of sensuous acts, then to idea. As Santis summarizes as Ideation 7: “The act of ideation, or universal intuition, is a categorial act of the type that does not co-intend the objectuality originally given by the founding act” (163). Therefore, abstraction is not the proper term anymore. Categorical acts intend to idea or pure essences directly, there is nothing to be abstracted from.
The second method is eidetic or a priori attitude. According to what is discussed in part III, it is not difficult to understand a priori attitude. In empirical attitude, objectualities of existence (Daseinsgegenständlichkeiten) are given, while in a priori attitude, objectualities of essence (Wesensgegenständlichkeiten) (168). The distinctive feature of the a priori attitude is that, under this attitude, it is not only ideas that are given; rather, it is the ideal world itself that is emphasized as being given (168).
The third method is eidetic reduction in Ideas I. In analogy with transcendental reduction, we could distinct three steps of eidetic reduction.
- A given individual lived-experience is … eidetically excluded, i.e., bracketed, as an individual existence, hence assumed as an exemplar.
- Based on the given exemplar, a relevant pure essence is brought to consciousness and thus submitted per se to scientifc investigation.
- “Application” of a relevant eidetic law to the previously excluded individual existence. (179)
In all these three stages, we can find one similar structure. In ideation there is founding sensuous acts and founded categorical acts. In the second stage, there is basing empirical attitude and based a priori attitude. In the third, there is exemplar as the beginning, and then the operation of reduction. We can summarize them as sensuous acts-categorical acts; empirical attitude-a priori attitude; exemplar-pure essence. In all of these three pairs, how could we obtain the latter from the former, and guarantee that the latter is eidetic? This is also the key problem between ontic a priori and constitutive a priori in the whole book. This clue is always implied in Santis’s arguments, although he doesn’t mention that.
Part V meticulously analyzes the first chapter of Ideas I, it is divided into three themes. First is to explain further what eidos is; then, based on the understanding of eidos, Santis analyzes eidetic science; finally, the complicated concepts “region” and “material ontology” are clarified. The first two steps are leading to the third, and material ontology plays a crucial role in part VI. We could even argue it is Husserl’s special material ontology that distinguishes him from the traditional rationalism.
In both part III and IV, eidos had already been discussed. It is different with species and individual essence. Part V clarifies the difference between eidos with essence once again. Essence is “the stock or set of predicates pertaining to an ‘individual object’ as an entity that is in such and such a way”, while eidos “comes under ‘truths’ belonging to ‘different levels of universality’” (188). That means eidos doesn’t affiliate to empirical objectuality, rather, it is a new kind of objectuality. It might be proper to distinguish two structures, essence-individual and eidos-exemplar. I hold that the latter structure is solid in the whole book from now on.
Based on the discussion of eidos, we can understand what eidetic science is. The task of eidetic science consists in “a systematic rationalization of the empirical”, and the paradigm is geometry (205). The process from exemplar to eidos is identified as an act of rationalization, then eidetic science designates a rational system of empirical realities. Here things become complex, because under the title of “eidetic science” there are two possibilities, one is pure formal sciences, such as pure logic; the other is material ontology, such as pure phenomenology. Remember in part III we take idea as Kantian limit concept, for instance, “2” and “the eidos red” are both limit idea. Now we should keep in mind that although we could use Rationalität and eidetic science to describe the process from two tables to “2”, and from red table to the “eidos red”, there are slightly differences between them. I’ll leave this for now and only focus on the third point of this part, i.e., region and material ontology.
In §9 of Ideas I, region is simply the highest material genus, while in §16, Husserl gave a more rigorous definition of region: “With the concepts ‘individuum’ and ‘concretum,’ the scientific-theoretical and fundamental concept of region is also defined in a rigorously ‘analytic’ way. Region is nothing else but the entire, supreme generic unity belonging to a concretum, i.e., the essentially united connection of the supreme genera that pertain to the lowest differences within the concretum” (Hua III, 36). This is the sentence that leads Santis’s exploration. Region is no longer highest genus. For instance, sensuous quality could be the highest genus of one particular red, but it is not region. Region is the unity of the highest genera. But not any highest genera could be held together, only those that belong to the lowest differences within the concretum could become a unity. Unlike abstractum, concretum or concrete essence are independent. Color essence, for instance, is abstractum because it can only exist with extension. By contrast, stone essence or computer essence are concretum, since they don’t need to be with others. However, stone or computer are not lowest difference yet, because they could further be subdivided to diamond, laptop etc. Below lowest differences there is no more species. Lowest differences could only be individualized through tode ti. If a concretum is individualized according to this path, then we obtain individuum. Others such as one ruby red is individual rather than individuum.
We can only understand region by this seemingly “tedious” explanation. But this is not some intellectual game invented by phenomenologist. Instead, this implies several crucial points. For example, it means that eidetic reduction always commences with individuum, and what’s more important, the laws mentioned in earlier part are exactly the “regional axioms”, i.e., “the highest synthetic and a priori ‘laws’ that rule over the genera and species subordinate to it” (220). It is also clear now why the laws are founded on genus, and strictly speaking, on region.
Therefore, there is solid eidos-exemplar structure. Through rationalization, exemplars could be retrieved to their laws, which are based on region. The laws in region are different with the laws governed by pure formal field such as pure logic. But they are both eidetic sciences. Before distinguishing these two kinds of eidetic sciences in detail, Santis put Husserl in the history of philosophy. This movement precisely responses his concern at the very beginning of this book. Instead of staring at present, he tries to focus on past and clarifies Husserl’s unique contribution to philosophy.
I take Part VI as the most impressive in the book. Santis put Husserl in the tradition from Descartes to Kant, presents the Husserl’s breakthrough of rationalism. The writing style may lead one to become engrossed in contemplating each individual philosopher’s questions, while neglecting the overall interest. I contend that there is one leading thread: from modern philosophy to Kant, all neglected material a priori.
Husserl belongs to the rationalism tradition, and he placed its historical origin in Plato (cf. 248). The belief of rationalism is reason (Vernunft), i.e., individual experience acts could be rational. Spinoza represented the first radical peak of rationalism, who argued that “the totality of being” is immanently rational (242). Husserl would agree with this, since the function of eidetic science is the rationalization of experiences. According to Santis, Husserl borrowed Spinoza’s term “sub specie aeternitatis” to describe this function (243). Sub specie aeternitatis can be interpreted as seeing something from the perspective of eternity, which, in fact, means adopting an eidetic attitude (237). Husserl’s use of Spinoza’s terminology was based entirely on his own philosophy. We must understand eternity in the structure of eidos-exemplar. That means Husserl only partly agree with Spinoza and other rationalist. Santis summaries it as follows: “Husserl agrees on the form but disagrees on the content; he embraces the very same philosophical aspirations of the old rationalists, yet he rejects the way in which their project was first understood and carried out” (245). What “content” didn’t Husserl agree on?
Santis traces the history of rationalism from Plato according to Crisis. In Plato’s ancient philosophy, idea and empirical things are not completely divided, empirical world are méthexis of the ideal world. Even in Euclid’s geometry, ideas can always be applied to the world of experience (252). Galileo followed but reshaped (umgestalten) this path, radically mathematizing nature and thus nature itself is idealized (ibid.). Galileo’s nature purified all real things into mathematical or physical expressions, so that every real had a mathematical index. Everything in the natural world, including psychological experiences, is seen as part of this grand universe dominated by causality. Modern philosophy, beginning with Descartes, adopted an understanding of rationality influenced by Galileo. In other words, modern philosophy pursues the path of formal a priori. Spinoza’s imitation of the geometry and Leibniz’s mathematica universalis are examples. Husserl criticized Leibniz for failing to recognize rationality within experience itself. Instead, Leibniz rationalized experience through thought (Denken), resulting in an experience that was reduced to being purely mathematical. Leibniz didn’t see the difference between formal a priori and material a priori (263); Wolff traced all experience back to the law of contradiction (264). Kant is an exception. Kant is opposed to an extreme logicism (264), since he argued “synthetic a priori”. However, Kant still failed to see the rationality inside the material, missing the real sense of the material a priori. Therefore, from Descartes to Kant, the neglect of material a priori is the content that Husserl disagreed with.
Besides the main thread of formal and material a priori, the analysis of modern philosophy is also accompanied by logical rationality (Rationalität) and transcendental reason (Vernunft). By idealizing nature, Galileo’s theory should be monistic, because psyche is also collected into causal nature. However, the dualism has already been prepared (254). Why? I think Santis implies that it wasn’t feasible to naturalizing psyche completely. We could indeed rationalize and study psyche in the way of natural science, however, modern philosophers also realized that there is transcendental reason. Descartes’s “I think” and Leibniz’s “monad” are proof. Unfortunately, modern philosophy has always failed to highlight this unique transcendental reason of psyche, and always confused it with naturalized psyche. This is the meaning of “misadventure of rationality” in the title of this part.
Only now could we understand clearly the two kinds of eidetic sciences, one is exact science such as pure logic; the other is descriptive science such as phenomenology. The whole modern science, and also Kant, emphasized exact science, hence only emphasized one kind of rationality. The particular rationality of material, which leads to material ontology, is missing.
Material ontology are explained in part VII by genetic phenomenology. According to the critical acceptance of modern science, now we could understand material a priori, it refers to the rationality immanent to empirical entities. Material has its own laws. Just like Husserl said, color is inseparable with extension, this is material a priori, instead of analytic a priori (cf. Hua XXVIII, 403). How two understand the unique laws belonging to material? Santis analyzes two similar laws according to the second version of the third logical investigation:
a. example of formal law: There cannot be a king (master, father) without subjects (servants, children) etc.
b. example of material law: A color cannot be without something colored, or A color cannot be without some space that it covers. (De Santis 2021, 275)
Husserl must prove that the latter is synthetic law. Both these two kinds of law are different with another kind:
c. example of pure analytic law: A whole cannot be without parts. (275)
For our purpose, we can only focus on the first two. What’s the difference between the relation king-subject and color-something colored? They have different correlatives. Santis gives a final determination about correlative after solid research: “Two expressions are correlative when their relation is included in them as an implicit content, or, better, as an implicit meaning” (281). According to this determination, when we say “color”, the expression doesn’t implicitly include its relation with something colored. By contrast, the expression “king” or “father” actually implies its relation with “subject” or “child”. I think it need more research to reinforce this argument[1]. But I will accept it and turn to following constitutive a priori.
Until now, the discussion is confined in ontic a priori, formal laws and material laws are directly accepted. The analysis up to this point maybe serve as the strongest defense of Husserl as a realist. As for constitutive a priori, Santis analyzes it and its relation with ontic a priori by genetic phenomenology.
The structure of synthetic a priori disclosed above has its root in ego’s “form-system”. “[W]ith the genesis of the ego itself implying at the same time the ‘genetic development’ of the ontological structure in question” (289). In the constitution of egoic monad, the ontological structure is simultaneously constituted. Both formal a priori and material a priori are grounded in the constitution of monad. With this turn, “formal a priori” is changed to “innate a priori”, while “material a priori” to “contingent a priori”.
“Innate” (eingeborene) doesn’t mean people could find out formal laws in their head, instead, it means “the lawfulness that rules over the process of the intentional self-constitution of the monad” (291). There are laws in the self-constitution of the monad, only then the monad could be regarded as rational. Constitutive laws and ontological laws overlap each other. Which “comes first”? Is it legal to ask this question? Let’s turn to contingent a priori first and then ponder in this question.
Material a priori is synthetic, it designates laws pertaining to two different moments. This kind of law is also independent of empirical material, and also refers to universality. But it is restricted compare with the universality of formal a priori (cf. 297).
How to understand this restriction? If we turn to the perspective of subjectivity, then “material” is changed to hyle or hyletic. If subjectivity is constituted, various formal laws are required—such as the intrinsic formal laws mentioned earlier. Even hyle itself is a formal concept (p. 298), for subjectivity is inconceivable without perceptive capacity. However, what is perceived concretely, i.e., hyle, is entirely contingent (kontingent). For example, if a subject is affected by color, this is contingent; a person born blind has never been affected by color. Yet, once affected by color, the subject gains insight into the essence of color, such as the essential relation between color and extension.
Furthermore, the dimension of subjective genesis also triggers a change in the understanding of the temporality of “essence” or “idea.” In Logical Investigations, what stands in opposition to reality is the idea. Real entities are individuated and has spatiotemporal positions, whereas ideal entities are characterized by in-temporality. In genetic view, what opposes reality is no longer the idea but irreality, since ideas/irreality can fully participate in reality. The temporality of irreality is no longer in-temporality, but omni-temporalit instead. Being omni-temporal means irreality still has a form of temporality, which allows the irreality, such as idea, pure essence, eidos or essential relations, to establish a connection with subjectivity. This connection is twofold: on the one hand, the omni-temporal irreality can be reactivated (Reaktivierung) by the subject, undergo particularization, and enter into the mundane world. On the other hand, irreality inevitably undergoes subjective constitution (311).
In light of this argument, the a priori relations constructed by irreality—whether analytical or synthetic a priori—are embedded within the genetic constitution of the monadic ego.
If the earlier parts describe Husserl as realism, part VII describes Husserl as idealism. Santis also deals with this dichotomy in conclusion (319). Santis argues that there are two forms of intelligibility, we could call them ontological and transcendental rationality. These two must be combine together (ibid.). How to understand this combination in detail? This is not the main task of this book, as Santis claims more than once that the Vernunft and Vernünftigkeit is only hinted (such as 317). Also, Santis makes it clear that the task is not to explore how a priori is embedded in the monad (289). However, it could be questioned. How the formal and material a priori is embedded, or constituted in monad? Once we ask, there might be the risk of collapsing into psychologism.
We could ask, how does the innate laws, such as motivations, constitute formal laws? If the formal laws are traced back to the self-constitution of monad, and even rationality is defined by the innate laws. What’s the difference with psychologism then? Doesn’t it mean that ontological structure depends on the subjective structure? To avoid this, could it be that formal laws do not “embed” within the monad, whereas material laws do? Then could we distinguish realism Husserl with idealism Husserl according to different kinds of laws? I cannot explore it here but it might at least be a question worth to think.
Bibliography:
De Santis, Daniele. 2021. Husserl and the A Priori: Phenomenology and Rationality. Cham: Springer
Heidegger, Martin. 1967. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Husserl, Edmund. 1952. Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Drittes Buch: Die Phänomenologie und die Fundamente der Wissenschaften. Hrsg. M. Biemel. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, Edmund. 1988. Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre. 1908–1914. Hrsg. U. Melle. Den Haag: Kluwer.
[1] Whether this is semantics analysis? Santis denies it in one footnote (276-277). But still, “color includes no other implicit meanings”, this sounds very semantical. To put it another way, when we perform fantasy variation starting with a single individual color, we arrive at ‘colored something’ as the invariable element; and when we begin with a specific individual, like a king, we arrive at the ‘subject.’ What is the difference between these two types of invariable elements?
