Experience and Reality in the Philosophy of Edmund Husserl

CHAPTER ONE

1.                     GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1. Background to the Study

The relationship between experience and reality, subject and object has been a persistent philosophical problem. There has been thesis and antithesis owing to the different perspectives from which it has been treated. Some treat it from the epistemological perspective. This project is therefore meta-epistemic in its set up.

Rene Descartes (1590 – 1650), the father of modern philosophy tops the lists of those from whom Husserl drew insight. Descartes set out to acquire a certain and indubitable knowledge and this establish a firm foundation for knowledge. In the quest to achieve his aim, he disclaimed and eradicated all he knew about things and introduced his methodic doubt. He doubted the existence of everything. It was at this point that he realized that he who doubts must exist in order to doubt and thus affirms in his work “The Discourse on method”.

…. Whilst I thus wished to think all things false, it was absolutely essential that the “I” who thought, this should be somewhat and remarking that this truth “I” think therefore “I am” was so certain1

This implies that consciousness (I think) is prior to existence, that is, if one is conscious, he exists. Thus he considers consciousness to be the essence of man.

Husserl refused to take this doctrine whole and entire but traces of it are found in his thought. With Descartes, “…it become evident that an autonomous philosophy must begin with the meditation of a self-reflecting ego”.2

Husserl got idea of consciousness from here. He affirms that the cogito is the only absolute and objectively valid knowledge because, it is in the subjectivity of consciousness that the being of objectivity is absolute. Though agreeing with Descartes, he maintained that;

….One must go further suspending the fact that I am and that it is the concrete self “I who thinks, one must ground the cogito itself as a pure possibility generated by the meaning - constituting activity of transcendental subjectivity, the realm of absolute being, of truth and the essence.3 

Husserl’s idea of bracketing or suspending belief seems to have been drawn from Descartes denial or doubt of existence, but their difference is glaring. Husserl bracketed and never denied, that is, his bracketing never implies non-existence of things like Descartes. In his view, things are there despite their suspension, but he does not make use of any pre-supposition about them till he establishes it for himself. Husserl has a predilection for the Cartesian ways even as he criticizes its shortcomings.

Immanuel Kant postulated ideas which Husserl embraced, though with a difference in conclusion. The difference was an outcome of his move to avoid Kant’s duality. Kant had posited that things in themselves (Noumenon) are unknown but only their appearance (phenomenon) can be known. For him, things in themselves are essentially contained within phenomenon and therefore knowable. His view is in contra-distinction to Kant’s where things in themselves reside in the Noumenon and consequently unknowable. For Husserl, making such distinction would be unnecessary since things in themselves are comprehensively revealed in consciousness.

Kant helped Husserl out of Descartes claim that ideas come before reality by demonstrating that it is the egos not cogito that provides the ground for its own validity and thus says;

….True thought would no longer be that which corresponds with objective reality, rather the objective reality would be that which corresponds with true thought, that is a thought that fulfilled all the conditions necessary for it to be valid. 4

Kant got his Noumenon and phenomenon from Descartes Res cogitanz and Res Extensa and both from Plato’s ideal world and world of appearance. Descartes considered reason only for knowledge, Kant in advance combined reason and experience and Husserl in like manner proposed experience in its consciousness. His transcendental logic seems to have given birth to Husserl’s logic of experience.

Hegel talked of the absolute spirit as the totality of reality and reason. In his view “consciousness is sufficient unto itself, pure for it selfness, capable of perfect reflection”. Husserl followed such and developed his idea of consciousness as an absolute domain of knowledge responsible for the confirming of meaning on things. This is because in his view, things outside consciousness are unsignified and therefore meaningless. Even his absolute idealism is seen in Husserl’s transcendental idealism, though he also borrowed from Kant and Plato.

The British empiricists especially Hume, Locke, and William James have apart to play in Husserl’s foundation. Hume talked about phenomena, saying, that appearance manifests the existence of nothing more than itself (phenomenalism). Husserl agrees with him partly and draws a diametrically opposed conclusion for him, phenomena has essence within it and it is the task of phenomenology to make them known by examining the experience in which they are given. The “stream of thought” found in the thoughts of the W. James are seen in Husserl’s as “stream of consciousness or experiences” likewise his intentionality, though not widely proclaimed.

….British empiricism were Husserl’s introductory readings in philosophy and were of basic importance to his whole career. He recommends them to his students as one of the best ways to phenomenology, affirming that they developed the first, though inadequate type of phenomenology5 

Franz Von Brentano (1838 – 1917) on his honour as Husserl’s teacher and stimulator into philosophical career, played a major role in his foundation. He is acclaimed to have engendered the phenomenological movement because it was his descriptive psychology that Husserl renamed phenomenology. Husserl later abandoned the sense in which Bretano used it and introduced new concept into it, that is, from descriptive to transcendental. Husserl got from his acknowledged master in philosophy his quest for a scientific philosophy. This is seen from the fact his master set out to establish a fundamental reformation of philosophy in his era. He made moves to correct the error of dogmatic mysticism, traditional beliefs and skepticism. He intended to produce a scientific philosophy after this. Even Husserl’s concept of Experience, phenomena, self-evidence and time consciousness (Bretano’s awareness of time) came from Brentano. It was through Brentano that Husserl acquired his Ancient scholastic doctrines of essence and intentionality.

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