Abstract
The issue of whether the phenomenology presented in Ideen I was a metaphysical realism or an idealism came to the fore almost immediately upon its publication. The present essay is an examination of the relation of Gustav Shpet, one of Husserl’s students from the Göttingen years, to this issue via his understanding of phenomenology and, particularly, of the phenomenological reduction, as shown principally in his early published writings. For Shpet, phenomenology employs essential intuition without regard to experiential intuition. If we look on transcendental idealism as the label for this methodology, which disregards but does not deny either the empirical or its correlative species of intuition, then Shpet was such an idealist, all the while adhering to a metaphysical realism. In this way, Shpet could proclaim phenomenology to be the fundamental philosophical discipline without precluding the possibility of other philosophical disciplines insofar as they were conducted in relation to consciousness taken not as the “possession” of a human individual, but eidetically and thus not a “possession.”
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For a clear expression of this bewilderment on the part of one of Husserl’s closest disciples, see Stein (1986, p. 250).
“The problem whether Husserl was an epistemological realist or idealist (as many thought) was of particular importance to me, and I amassed all the assertions for each of the two conceptions.” (Walther 1960, p. 214).
Recently Sebastian Luft wrote, “To this day, many presentations of the reduction repeat this faulty identification of both [the phenomenological and the eidetic] methods and equate ‘eidetic intuition’ with the reduction’s establishment of the correlational a priori” (Luft 2012, p. 251). Of course, Luft is correct, but, as he admits, many have made this mistake. One question is whether Shpet was among this group making such a mistake—or did he, in effect, follow Husserl to a full phenomenological idealism?
Savin writes, “the fact that Shpet studied with Husserl in Göttingen allows us to consider him a Russian representative of this [the Munich-Göttingen] school” (Savin 1997, p. 27). If we were to accept a period of study under Husserl in Göttingen as the necessary and sufficient condition for being a representative of the Munich-Göttingen school, we would have a great number of such representatives.
For Shpet’s specific disagreements with Husserl, see Nemeth (2009), the present essay being, in intent, complementary to it. Whereas the earlier essay criticized Shpet from a Husserlian perspective, here this author assumes Shpet’s viewpoint.
Since Stein did not mention Shpet here by name, we can reasonably conclude that the two remained largely unknown to each other.
The caveat here is that Shpet appears to have made friends by this time with both Alexandre Koyré and Jean Hering, since upon his departure from Göttingen for Edinburgh in late July 1913 they both saw Shpet off, presumably at the train station. Hering was 11 years younger, and Koyré 13 years younger than Shpet (Shchedrina 2015, p. 61).
Shchedrina writes that Shpet finished work on Appearance and Sense on 16 October 1913, since “this date is written in pencil at the end of his personal copy.” The same date appears also in Shpet’s diary (Shchedrina 2014, p. 142).
In his thesis, Shpet even more explicitly wrote, “Kant’s critique can have only a negative, destructive significance, and a philosophy that wishes to be erected on it alone will have to be a negative philosophy.” (Shpet 2002, p. 43) Shpet interpreted Husserl’s early proclamation of a “return to the things themselves” as a rejection of Kantian and neo-Kantian epistemology (Shpet 2002, p. 549).
Strictly speaking, then, Husserl was not, for Shpet, a Platonist, but a representative of an ancient line of thought extending back at least as far as Plato, who was another representative, albeit the most outstanding, of that line. For a contemporary claim that Shpet saw Husserl as a Platonist, see Shijan (2005, p. 286).
Also see Husserl (Hua III/I, p. 108/115), where we find, “One must see, however, that by such an ‘abstracting’ from Nature, only something natural can be acquired and not transcendentally pure consciousness.” That is, the process of abstraction is a distillation or filtering of empirical Nature, but, as such, the remainder is still “natural.”
Shpet’s wording is, we must admit, somewhat ambiguous. He could have meant that he simply agreed with Husserl’s logic. That is, from the distinction mentioned, Husserl provided a logically valid set of conclusions, independent of the cogency of the distinction. However, Shpet could also have meant that he accepted Husserl’s distinction as correct as well as the logic leading to the conclusions. Only if we proceed with the latter interpretation, do we have a philosophically interesting claim.
After discussing the possibility of excluding the objects of the material-eidetic sciences from transcendental phenomenology, Shpet added that Husserl’s position is “fundamentally correct.” They are to be excluded despite their ideality, since they are not taken in their necessary relation to consciousness (Shpet 1991, pp. 53–54). This serves as further testimony at this point to Shpet’s adherence to phenomenological idealism, via the phenomenological reduction. Savin writes that Shpet never even once mentions the expression “transcendental reduction” in his third chapter entitled “The Phenomenological Reduction.” Although literally true, Shpet does mention in that chapter the phenomenological reduction, which he took to be the same as the transcendental reduction (Savin 1997, p. 25; see Shpet 1991, p. 59).
Elena Gurko has grounds for writing—at least from the vantage point of 1913/14—that, “A deduction to the mental processes of the other is, for Shpet, possible by means of empathy, and revealed by Husserl but not valued by him in its fundamental significance” (Gurko 1999, pp. 10–11).
Shpet could justifiably be faulted for not carefully distinguishing the eidetic reduction from the phenomenological. On my reading here, he did recognize the distinction, but his failure to be clear has led others mistakenly, I believe, to charge him with departing from Husserl in this regard. One contemporary scholar writes, “It is noteworthy that Shpet, as against Husserl, in fact made no distinction between the phenomenological reduction, properly speaking, and the eidetic reduction” (Evstropov 2014, p. 62).
That Husserl did not provide a clear elucidation of his concept of constitution is well known. Moran, undoubtedly, provides the best attempt, writing, “Husserl’s notion of constitution should perhaps be thought of as a kind of setting out or ‘positing’ (Setzung), as a giving of sense, ‘sense-bestowing’ (Sinngebung)” (Moran 2000, p. 165).
Shchedrina writes that, based on Shpet’s letters and diaries, he wrote this second volume in the period 1912–1913. While certainly the chapters on Dilthey, Wundt, Rickert, et al. may date from early in this period, Shpet’s remarks on phenomenology could not have been composed prior to the appearance of Ideen I. Yet even such a dating of those remarks leaves open the question why Shpet’s terminology in the History referring to phenomenological techniques bears a stronger resemblance to that found in his works of a few years later than it does to that found in Appearance and Sense. See Shchedrina (2014, p. 143).
The very title of Shpet’s essay, though, is an allusion to his dispute with a friend, Lev Shestov, who also was on friendly terms with Husserl but who was, one might say, a philosophical antipode of Shpet and Husserl.
That, however, some information regarding the philosophical climate in Freiburg reached Moscow during this period is clear from N. Volkov’s “Letters from Freiburg.” See Volkov (2000). Still in his 1918 Hermeneutics and its Problems Husserl’s name appears only in the last pages, and then only curtly.
References
Evstropov, M. N. (2014). Gustav Shpet: teorija smysla kak ontologija social’nosti. Vestnik Tomskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 379, 61–68.
Gurko, E. (1999). Fenomenologicheskaja redukcija v interpretacii G. G. Shpeta i Ja. Patochki. In: Shpet G. G./Comprehensio. Tret’i Shpetovskie chtenija (pp 8–11). Tomsk: Izd. Vodolej.
Hua III/1. Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. In K. Schumann (Ed.), The Hague: Nijhoff; Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. F. Kersten (Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.
Luft, S. (2012). Husserl’s method of reduction. In S. Luft & S. Overgaard (Eds.), The Routledge companion to phenomenology (pp. 243–253). New York: Routledge.
Moran, D. (2000). Introduction to phenomenology. New York: Routledge.
Nemeth, Th. (2009). Shpet’s departure from Husserl. In G. Tihanov (Ed.), Gustav Shpet’s contribution to philosophy and cultural theory (pp. 125–139). West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.
Savin, A. E. (1997). Interpretacija i kritika G. G. Shpetom filosofii Ed. Gusserlja. In: Shpet G. G./Comprehensio. Vtorye Shpetovskie chtenija (pp 24–27). Tomsk: Izd. Volodej.
Shchedrina, T. (2014). Fenomenologicheskie shtudii Gustava Shpeta: « Javlenie i smysl » v kontekste « Archiva epokhi». Gumanitarnye issledovanija v vostochnoj Siberi i na dal’nem vostoke, 1, 142–147.
Shchedrina, T. (2015). The chronicles of the life and works of Gustav Shpet. Kronos, 4, 53–90.
Shijan, A. (2005). Shpet kak Platonik. Doksa, zbirnyk naukovykh prats’ z filosofiyi ta filolohiyi, 8, 286–294.
Shpet, G. (1917). Mudrost’ ili razum? Mysl’ i slovo, 1, 1–69.
Shpet, G. (1932). Shpet, G. G. In Enciklopedicheskij slovar’ Granat (vol 50, pp 378–380). Moscow: Russkij bibliograficheskij Institut Granat
Shpet, G. (1991). Appearance and sense: Phenomenology as the fundamental science. Th. Nemeth (Trans.). Dordrecht: Kluwer
Shpet, G. (2002). Istorija kak problema logiki. Kriticheskie i metodologicheskie issledovanija. Materialy V. Mjasnikov (ed). Moscow: Pamjatniki istoricheskoj mysli
Shpet, G. (2010a). Filosofija i nauka. Lekcionnye kursy. T. Shchedrina (Ed.). Moscow: ROSSPEN.
Shpet, G. (2010b). Filosofskaja kritika: otzyvy, recenzii, obzory. T. Shchedrina (Ed.). Moscow: ROSSPEN.
Shpet, G. (2012). Filosof v kul’ture. Dokumenty i pis’ma. T. Shchedrina (Ed.). Moscow: ROSSPEN.
Shpet, G. (2015). Consciousness and its owner. Th. Nemeth (Trans.). Kronos, 4, 10–52.
Stein, E. (1986). Life in a jewish family. J. Koeppel (Trans.). Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications.
Volkov, N. (2000). Tri pis’ma iz Frejburga. In I. Chubarov (Ed.), Antologija fenomenologicheskoj filosofii v Rossii, tom 2. Moscow: Izd. Logos.
Walther, G. (1960). Zum anderen Ufer: vom Marxismus und Atheismus zum Christentum. Remagen: Otto Reichl.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nemeth, T. Gustav Shpet’s Implicit Phenomenological Idealism. Husserl Stud 34, 267–285 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-018-9229-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-018-9229-4