Précis of Edmund Husserl’s Ideas, 171 -210

Précis of Edmund Husserl’s Ideas, 171 -210
Michael Simpkins
September 3, 2008

Part Three: Methods and Problems of Pure Phenomenology

Chapter Two: Universal Structures

In this chapter Husserl will begin to lay the foundation for a more complete understanding of phenomenology. Although great strides have been made in Ideas and his earlier work, the task is still incomplete as to the major themes of this field. Before this process can begin, however, the species of absolute consciousness, or at least the traits thereof, will need to be identified and thoroughly understood. The bulk of this chapter deals with these traits. The closing section offers a glimpse of what phenomenology will ultimately offer. Out of this process will arise the investigation into the function utilized by the noetic, as Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino defines it, “the act through which the Ego bestows meaning upon its object.” What phenomenology will ultimately entail, among other things, is the study of how the noetic functions.
The opening sections of this chapter deal with reflection, or more precisely, the means by which the Ego is able to access and analyze perceptions. By grasping some aspect of consciousness the Ego contemplates the, heretofore unexamined, now. In this way reflection also becomes its own mental process with multiple layers and an object available for inquiry. The now, identified by reflection, is accompanied by the realization that this mental process had to exist before and this can also be extended into the future. And finally, this stream of mental processes, through reflection, can then be made an object for further phenomenological investigation.
Husserl also addresses critics of phenomenology who claim that it lacks a method by which to evaluate, or even ascertain, knowledge of the now without some type of reflection. But he dismisses their objections outright, for there exists no method of any kind to substantiate any cognitions as true, be they reflectionally modified or not. Simply put, this is as foundational a science as can be acquired and he compares it to the way physics is grounded in mathematics.
The next section is an explanation of the necessary reduction done to arrive at the pure Ego. Each act upon the mental process reveals an I; I smell or I taste or I judge, etc. By bracketing out this I the pure subject of the act is revealed and from the essence of the act, by working backwards, the Ego is found. From here a dual nature consisting of a subjectively oriented side and an objectively oriented side should be evident.
Husserl addresses time as well and how phenomenological time differs from cosmic time. Time is unique in the phenomenological context in that temporality belongs to each mental process. Husserl moves on from here to deal with Idea and Intentionality. The former is the classification of that process, after reflection, linking two or more mental processes together. This is invaluable as it provides the basis for understanding “the stream of mental processes as a unity.” Intentionality then completes the understanding of this stream. If reflection is act exercised by the Ego then the term chosen to explain the capability allowing for this regard is intentionality, again to refer to Banchetti-Robino, “consciousness is intentionality.”

§ 77. Reflection as a Fundamental Peculiarity of the Sphere of Mental Processes. Studies in Reflection.

Here Husserl describes both the importance of reflection and how it operates. The Ego, while living its mental processes, is also able to focus on some particular aspect of the process it has just lived. This directing of attention towards some piece of the process is called reflection. Timothy Stapleton clarifies this say that even though “an experience is given absolutely in reflection…Husserl is not saying that an experience so given is perceived in its completeness.”[i] These subsequent reflections become “mental processes and, as reflections, can become the substrates of new reflections; and so on ad infinitum.”[ii] In this way reflections can become object for the Ego. Even more important is the fact that the mental process which became reflected upon offers an understanding of the present. From this it is clear that the mental process was occurring without our regarding it and obviously exists absent the reflection. He goes on to more fully explain this with the example of an individual practicing some course of theoretical thought and unknowingly finding pleasure in their contemplations. At some point the individual awakes to this pleasure and regards it as occurring. Though this regarding just now occurred, it is realized that the joy, the mental process, preceded the recognition. Clearly then, this reflection is a modification that differs from that which is lived.

§ 78. The Phenomenological Study of Reflections on Mental Processes.

In this section Husserl clearly lays out what will be undertaken; “the task of this chapter is to distinguish the different ‘reflections’ and analyze them all in a systematic order.” Reflection is a modification of consciousness and paramount because it includes both the seizing upon of something immanent and the experiencing of something immanent. From here he moves on to how we can arrive back at impressions and the relationship between the stream of mental processes and the ego.

§ 79. Critical Excursis. Phenomenology and the Difficulties of “Self-observation.”

In the following section Husserl addresses some of the criticism directed towards phenomenology. The most important of these objections, Husserl believed, is how an individual would be able to state anything whatsoever about a pure mental process for it is “neither knowledge nor the object of knowledge.”[iii] But Husserl is quick to throw their own argument back at them, saying that no type of reflection could ever provide an absolutely certain truth concerning mental processes. The detractors have no foundation to base their arguments, for one simply cannot doubt the cognitive signification of reflection.

§ 80. The Relationship of Mental Processes to the Pure Ego.

The relationship of the Ego to each mental process is of primary concern in this section. Within this dichotomy the individual, the I, becomes apparent. Aware of this self-recognition the I can be bracketed out and what is left is the cogito and the pure subject of the act. Within the essence of the act is something which acts upon the mental processes, by tracing back from the mental process we arrive at the pure Ego. Here the dual nature of the mental process becomes evident as possessing purely subjective moments of the mode of consciousness and the content of the mental process turned away from the Ego.[iv]

§ 81. Phenomenological Time and Consciousness of Time.

Time is a difficult concept due to the fact that the pure mental process operates in its own category of time, as Husserl calls phenomenological time, as opposed to the time found in the natural world, cosmic time. He compares this distinction to that of an object compared to the sensation of that object on an individual’s mind. Time is also distinguished in that no mental process can escape temporality.

§ 82. Continuation. The Three-fold Horizon of Mental Processes As At The Same Time the Horizon of Reflection On Mental Processes.

Husserl elaborates on the previous section with a more thorough analysis of the Now. By necessity the present cannot have existed without the past and similarly this understanding can be extended into the future. This explains the entirety of temporality concerning any mental processes upon which the Ego can act: Now, Before, and Later.

§ 83. Seizing Upon the Unitary Stream of Mental Processes as “Idea.”

The interpretation of Idea posited by Husserl in this section is rather enlightening. Through reflection the Ego regards some aspect of the mental process and can, in a like manner, move from mental process to mental process. The interesting part of Husserl’s conception is that an individual’s thoughts can never be isolated, they always exist in a stream from which the Ego continually navigates. The result of this, though self-evident, is proven—that no two identical mental processes are possible. Each reflection is determined from the earlier stream of consciousness and therefore to even conceive of two sharing the same processes is impossible, there would be no basis by which to conclude they were distinct and not, in fact, the same mental process.

§ 84. Intentionality as Principal Theme of Phenomenology.

If reflection is the act by which the Ego directs itself to the mental processes, then the quality of the mental process by which this is possible is known as intentionality. It is the “intentional act…in which subjective consciousness synthesizes the sensuous data that is given to it and bestows sense or meaning upon it.”[v] Every mental process conserves this ability and may be acted upon at any time, but not necessarily so, and it would not even be possible to act upon every instance. Frederick Olafson clearly explains the concept intentionality as “the object-referring or ‘objectifying’ function of mental acts, and he made the crucially important distinction between two senses of ‘intentional object,’ namely, between the object that is intended and the object as it is intended.”[vi]

On Terminology

Though this section would be better placed at the beginning of the text, it nevertheless is useful here as it helps to explain why much of the language used in this work is so difficult. Due to the fact that Phenomenology was such a new discipline, at the time of Husserl’s writing, that it was not possible, or even advisable, to devise hard definitions for the terms and constructs he is working to elucidate. The nebulous nature of the terminology will only be corrected as phenomenology advances to a much higher level.

§ 85. Sensuous , Intentive

This is likely the most difficult section within this chapter as the complexity of the concepts matches the terminology. Husserl desired to separate out the sensuous mental processes, the actual sensations that can be observed, from the entire mental process open to intention by the Ego. He terms the former, those immediate perceptions concerning color, touch, tone, et cetera, hyletic Data and the latter as a noetic moment. In short, the noetic is a stratum that bestows sense, giving form to the content of the hyletic.

§ 86. The Functional Problems.

The closing section of this chapter provides deeper insight into what phenomenology offers. The difficulty concerning the noetic is the process by which it operates, its function. Consciousness, here, can best be thought of as neutral. That is, it offers no insight or means by which to distinguish true from false, real from illusion, to the consciousness they are all one and the same. What, therefore, is the process by which an individual can begin separating out these difficulties? This will be the domain of phenomenology. To “make itself master of the essentially unique set of problems which mental processes offer, and offer purely by their eidetic essence, as intentive mental processes, as ‘consciousness-of.’”[vii]
[i] Timothy Stapleton. Husserl and Heidegger: The Question of a Phenomenological Beginning.
[ii] Ideas, 173.
[iii] Ideas, 182.
[iv] Ideas, 191.
[v] Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino. “Ibn Sina and Husserl on Intention and Intentionality.”
[vi] Frederick Olafson. “Husserl’s Theory of Intentionality in Contemporary Perspective.”
[vii] Ideas, 210.