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The Practical Reformer: On Husserl’s Socrates

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Abstract

The present essay offers a first, systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s understanding of Socrates’ philosophical position in the Ideengeschichte with a special focus on the Socratic method. Our goal is twofold. On the one hand, we aim to provide a clear presentation of the way in which Husserl himself conceives of the “beginning” of Western philosophy by tackling the specifically Socratic contribution to it. On the other hand, we will clarify in what sense, and to what extent, the assessment of Husserl’s Socrates helps shed some light upon the properly Husserlian conception of philosophy, notably, his twofold notion of “rationality.”

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Notes

  1. This list is only meant to illustrate our general point, not to present an exhaustive account of the most important views on Socrates. For a comprehensive introduction to Socrates, see Sassi (2015).

  2. Platon Begründer der echten Wissenschaft mittels der sokratischen Methode. Die neue Idee der Philosophie als der absolut gerechtfertigten Wissenschaft von der Totalität alles wahrhaft Seienden” (Hua VII, p. 298).

  3. As a consequence, the philological question as to whether Husserl directly knew the accounts by Hegel, Zeller and Gomperz will not be tackled. However, since Windelband’s handbook includes a systematic discussion of all the most important views of the time—notably, those by Hegel and Zeller—a certain degree of familiarity on the part of Husserl with all these interpretations cannot be in principle ruled out. Of course, it would be quite important and interesting to identify and directly discuss in a more systematic fashion the actual textual sources of Husserl’s own understanding of Socrates and, more generally, of the history of ancient Greek philosophy. A more comprehensive study should take into consideration his reading of both P. Natorp’s book on Plato (Platons Ideenlehre) and Cassirer’s Das Erkenntnisproblem (among others). Unfortunately, such ambition goes far beyond the scope of this paper, whose exclusive goal is to clarify, and thus introduce the reader to, the more basic topic of how Husserl understands Socrates’ philosophical contribution to the history of Greek philosophy. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for raising this issue, which we hope we will be able to address soon.

  4. This is the reason why we will not be giving priority to any of the texts just recalled; rather, our picture of Husserl’s Socrates will result from a combination of all of them. De facto, the longest and by far most systematic assessment of Socrates is the one that can be found in the 1919–1920 Einleitung in die Philosophie lectures (Hua-Mat IX): indeed, whereas in the kritische Ideengeschichte (Hua VII) Husserl merely confines himself to underlining the practical nature of the thought of Socrates (his major aim being to emphasize Plato’s “theoretical” revolution, as it were), in the 1919–1920 lectures, by contrast, much more time is dedicated to the son of Sophroniscus and his relation to the sophists. Finally, the manuscripts published in the Krisis-volume will help us shed more light upon the “Socratic method.” However, all these different accounts perfectly comply with each other, and the result of their combination is the coherent picture that will be offered in the present paper. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for prompting this explanation.

  5. We write “Xenophanes” here, although the Husserliana text says Xenophon. This might be a mistake on the part of Husserl, for the ἕν καί πᾶν doctrine belongs to the former and not to the latter, who was not even a philosopher.

  6. “Die Hauptsache ist, dass hier argumentiert wird aus der Subjektivität der Wahrnehmungsphänomene, die jeder Wahrnehmende im Wahrnehmen selbst hat, und mit dem Gedanken, dass jedes Subjekt seine Sinnlichkeit hat, die schon innerhalb desselben Subjekts eine wechselnde ist und erst recht im Übergang von Subjekt zu Subjekt. Also jedes Subjekt spricht wahr, wenn es nur getreu ausdrückt, was es, und zwar in dem zufälligen Moment, wahrnimmt: Dem gesunden Sokrates schmeckt der Wein süß, dem kranken bitter; beides ist also richtig, der Wein ist süß, etc. Wahr ist also, was ihm als wahr erscheint. Wie das Denken daran etwas ändern soll, ist nicht abzusehen. Protagoras leugnet jede Macht eines Denkens, das nicht auf Sinneserfahrung fußt und nur auseinanderlegt, was sie gibt” (Hua-Mat IX, p. 16; see also pp. 17–18).

  7. The importance of this moment in the history of philosophy is underlined by Husserl himself in a 1918 letter to Martin Heidegger: “I found that my ‘Introduction to Philosophy’ was not clear enough with respect to the development (by way of history of ideas) of the ideal of a rigorous science beginning from Plato’s methodological conceptions. So I have to work out a new lecture course. (At stake is the original theme of a critique of reason [Urmotive der Vernunftkritik] as regards Gorgias’ second argument)”. (Hua-Dok III/4, pp. 130–131).

  8. “Ist das die wirkliche Meinung des Sophisten, so ist er der Entdecker des vernunftkritischen Problems von der Möglichkeit transzendenter Erkenntnis, und Tadel verdient nur die Leichtfertigkeit, mit der er es ohne Untersuchung negativistisch beiseite tut. […] Jeder Erkennende hat unmittelbar gegeben seine eigenen Erlebnisse; auf sie kann er hinsehen, sie in ihrer unmittelbaren Wirklichkeit zweifellos erfassen, sie mit allen heraus faßbaren inneren Beständen und Zusammenhangscharakteren. Die darauf bezüglichen Wahrheiten sind aber bloß subjektive Wahrheiten. Es gibt keine objektive Wahrheit bzw. wenn es solche gäbe, so bestände nie die Möglichkeit ihrer Erkenntnis, es kann nicht den leisesten Grund geben, sie zu behaupten.” (Hua XXV, p. 136; our italics).

  9. Because they do not yet feel the need for a preliminary “critique of reason.”

  10. “He did not even discuss that topic so favored by other talkers, ‘the nature of all things:’ and avoided speculation on the so-called ‘cosmos’ of the experts [τῶν σοφιστῶν], how it works, and on the laws that govern the phenomena of the heavens: indeed he would argue that to trouble one's mind with such problems is sheer folly. In the first place, he would inquire, did these thinkers suppose that their knowledge of human affairs [τάνθρώπινα] was so complete that they must seek these new fields for the exercise of their brains; or that it was their duty to neglect human affairs and consider only things divine? […] His own conversation was ever of human things [περὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων]” (11–16). On Xenophon, see Labriola (1871), who opposes all idealistic readings of Socrates, notably those proposed by Hegel and Spaventa.

  11. As Husserl explains with reference to “theoretical” reason: “By means of the ἐποχή, we effect a reduction to our pure intention (cogito) and to what is meant purely as meant. The predicates being and non-being, and their modal variants, relate to the latter, that is, not only to objects, but to the objectual sense [gegenständlichen Sinn].” For what concerns the practical and the axiological form of reason, see Hua XLII, pp. 168; 270–277; 333–336; 375; 388; 400.

  12. “[S]ollen wir sagen, Sokrates und die Sophisten haben sich in der gemeinsamen Subjektivität ihres Standpunktes geglichen, aber auch die nähere Bestimmung dieser Subjektivität unterscheiden, oder: sie haben sich durch den Gehalt ihres Princips unterscheiden, aber in der Subjektivität desselben geglichen?” (Zeller 1846, p. 71).

  13. For the inconsistency of this cliché see Guthrie (1971, pp. 97–105): “That Socrates alone brought about the revolution which redirected man’s thoughts from nature to human affairs is one of those clichés or over-simplifications of which written history is full. No doubt the assumption […] was that the Sophists did not deserve the name of philosophers” (p. 99). It is important to notice, however, that although Guthrie rejects the cliché of Socrates’ anthropological revolution, he still seems to accept the general τὰ φυσικά-τὰ ἀνθρώπινα dichotomy as a hermeneutical filter to read the vicissitudes of the history of Greek philosophy before and after Socrates.

  14. Husserl goes without any solution of continuity from Hebammenkunst to Dialektik (Hua-Mat IX, pp. 25 and 27).

  15. Although Husserl’s view seems to comply with Aristotle’s, a major difference is to be emphasized. As the Stagirite explains in Met. Α987b, Socrates disregarded the study of the nature of everything (περἰ τῆς ὅλης φύσεως) and concerned himself only with ethical matters (τὰ ἠθικὰ), seeking in this sphere for the universal and concentrating on definition. As is reasserted in Met. Μ1078b 15–20, Socrates was devoted to the study of “moral virtues” (περὶ τὰς ἠθικὰς ἀρετὰς) “and was the first to seek a general definition of these” (περὶ τούτων ὁριζεσθαι καθόλου). If Husserl shares the emphasis on the effort to define the ethical virtues, Aristotle’s presentation of the overall character of Socrates’ enterprise (the opposition between τὰ φυσικά and τὰ ἠθικὰ) is nowhere to be found in Husserl’s account.

  16. For a systematic assessment of the method of eidetic variation, notably of some of the concepts employed by Husserl also in the present context, see De Santis (2011).

  17. As said above, however, C6 goes beyond the Socratic method and what it aims at achieving, namely, the return to evidence, the determination of the identity of sense of the object and, based upon this, that of the proper concept.

  18. Which we hold to be the most fundamental problems, on whose basis alone all the remaining issues can be addressed.

  19. “Sokrates’ Lebensreform besteht darin, dass er das wahrhaft glückliche Leben als Leben aus reiner Vernunft deutet, und das sagt, als ein Leben, in dem der Mensch in unermüdlicher Selbstbesinnung und in radikaler Rechenschaftsabgabe Kritik an seinen Lebenszwecken übt, sie sich nach ihrem echten und wahren Werte bzw. ihrem Unwerte zu klarster Einsicht bringt und sich danach entscheidet” (Hua XXXV, p. 52; see also Hua VII, p. 9, and p. 16).

  20. “Aber wie sehr Sokrates ethischer Reformator sein wollte und wie sehr er dabei in rein praktischer Wirksamkeit aufging, ohne je eine philosophische Zeile geschrieben zu haben, so hat er doch eine neue Epoche der Philosophie, und das sagt der Wissenschaft, inauguriert. Am stärksten nachgewirkt hat er durch die Art, wie er das Vertrauen auf die Möglichkeit einer objektiv gültigen Erkenntnis wiederherstellte” (Hua-Mat IX, p. 22).

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Acknowledgements

A first version of this paper was presented at the 2018 meeting of the Husserl Circle in Mexico City and was awarded the CARP Directors’ Memorial Prize in Honor of José Huertas-Jourda. I would like to thank the organizers of the conference and, in particular, the participants in the panel on phenomenology and ancient Greek philosophy (B. Hopkins, C. Majolino, I. Quepons). A second, revised, version was discussed at the Research Seminar in Phenomenology at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Charles University, Prague. I am grateful to J. Čapek and O. Švec for organizing the seminar, and to F. Rut and M. Summa for their comments and suggestions. Finally, a special thanks goes to Ada Bronowski for improving my English. This work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund-Project “Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734).

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De Santis, D. The Practical Reformer: On Husserl’s Socrates. Husserl Stud 35, 131–148 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10743-019-09245-7

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