Abstract
The present chapter investigates a development in Husserl’s thought concerning cognition. In some of his later writings after the 1920s, Husserl holds that cognition is an action. This claim is available for him only if a previous idea expressed in his Logische Untersuchungen (1900/1901), according to which no act is action, has been abandoned. In addition, there must be a further reason for Husserl’s classification of cognition as action. We attempt to account for this move solely on the basis of Husserl’s discussions of cognition and action before the 1920s. The proposed account consists of two steps. First, drawing mainly on Husserl’s related manuscripts in 1909–1914, we give an outline of Husserl’s phenomenology of action in general. Second, examining some of Husserl’s discussions in the same period, we show that Husserl is already phenomenologically justified at that time to regard his analysis of cognition as dealing with a certain sort of action.
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Notes
- 1.
As Mulligan (1989, 119) points out, philosophers from the school of Brentano, including Husserl, commonly use German nominalized infinitives to avoid the so called process-product ambiguity of expressions like “Erkenntnis”. We translate such nominalized infinitives to the corresponding English gerunds. By them we mean to denote only acts or other sorts of experiences like states or processes without any exception. To denote plurality of acts, we use expressions of the form “acts of V-ing.” Or, following Mulligan, we also use gerunds in plural (“V-ings”). That may sound grammatically awkward, but gerunds in plural are indispensable to denote varieties of experience of the same sort, for instance, cognizing that p, cognizing that q and so on, neutrally (i.e. without determining whether they are acts, states, processes or whatever). Finally, for the sake of the simplicity of discussion we shall set aside the ambiguity of “cognitions” and other terms of the same sort (including “actions”), until we require such disambiguation later in the Sect. 3.
- 2.
Particularly intensive “unofficial” discussions of cognizing and cognition by Husserl are found in texts collected in Hua XX/1–2.
- 3.
Unless otherwise noted, all the translations from Husserl in this paper are ours.
- 4.
Unless otherwise noted, we refer to or cite the first edition of the Logische Untersuchungen.
- 5.
Further on this problem, see Melle 1990.
- 6.
Peucker (2011, 19n8) also cites passages in Hua XXXV, 40 and Hua VIII, 230. In addition, the following passages contain either Husserl’s explicit or implicit commitment to (CA) or something close to it: Hua VIII 193, 201; XVII, 43–44; XXVII, 187; XXXV, 379; XXXVI, 171–172.
- 7.
In German: “[J]ede Handlung ist auch physischer Vorgang und untersteht den Gesetzen und Eigentümlichkeiten physischer Vorgänge. Andererseits ist der Vorgang Handlung, er ist willentlicher Ablauf.”
- 8.
For this distinction see also Melle 1997, 180. In this paper we understand “resolution-will” and “decision-will” as interchangeable, since it seems that Husserl makes no distinction between them that would matter for our purpose here. The same holds for “action-will” and “executive-will,” even though Husserl sometimes distinguishes them (cf. Hua XXVIII, 111). This point may also be ignored as far as our present aim is concerned.
- 9.
Such a terminological change would indeed call for the reformulation of (CA), because in the passage we quote in the beginning, Husserl talks about Handeln, not Handlung. We will return to this in the Sect. 4.
- 10.
„Aber auch ein ausführender Willen kann „unbewusst” sein. Ich tue etwas im Sinn eines Willens, bin aber inzwischen mit meinen Gedanken woanders. Dann aber lebe ich wieder im Handeln” (Ms. A VI 12 I, 24b [wohl 1913/14]).
- 11.
„Das Vorsetzen ist, wird man zunächst sagen, eine Willensmeinung […] so gut wie das fiat” (A VI 12 II, 203a [wohl 1909/10]).
- 12.
Likewise, it seems that Husserl has to admit a special kind of acts in the end point of the creative process as well. For no horizontal intention toward the future is involved in that point. As far as we could see, he once talks about such an end point as having a “Charakter der vollbrachten Absicht, des erreichten Zieles” (Ms. A VI 12 II, 199a [wohl 1909/10]), but it seems not clear what he means by this phrase.
- 13.
Husserl sometimes seems to even equate fiat with action-will: “Aber wohl haben wir eine Zusammensetzung, wo in der Einheit einer Handlung mehrfach ein eigenes fiat, ein eigener Impuls, ein eigener Handlungswille, wie wir sagen können, einsetzt” (Ms. A VI 12 II, 208b [wohl 1909/10]).
- 14.
„Jeder Handlung geht „unmittelbar” ein fiat, eine Willensintention vorher, die jedenfalls in dem jetzigen Fall eine unerfüllte (und nicht selbst erfüllende) Willensintention ist. Das „unmittelbar” besagt, dass der Zeitstrecke der Handlung vorangeht eine angrenzende Zeit, „Zeitpunkt” oder Zeitstrecke, der leeren Willensintention” (Ms. A VI 12 II, 202a [wohl 1910]).
- 15.
In German: „Das fiat […] ist entweder Ansatzpunkt einer Handlung oder einer Hemmung (einer Handlung).” Here Husserl talks about the interruption of an action (or process of acting), because there is a sense in which resolution-will is fulfilled even by a failed creative process that is not completed. It seems that there is a difference between lazy planners who do not even try to carry out their plans on the one hand, and unsuccessful planners whose attempts to carry out their plans end in vein on the other. To put it in Husserl’s terms, this difference suggests that even if someone tried but failed to carry out her plan, that plan was at least set in motion and, in this special sense, the relevant act of resolution-will was fulfilled. Probably to accommodate such a case Husserl claims that a decision is fulfilled by fiat as an initial segment of the corresponding creative process (cf. Ms. A VI 12 II, 202b, quoted in Melle 1997, 182–183n).
- 16.
„Die Analogie mit intellektiven Intentionen und Erfüllungen drängt sich wieder auf. Das schlichte Urteil, das leere oder unvollkommen volle, ist Urteilsintention, es ist setzende, theoretisch setzende Intention und normalerweise setzende Meinung. Es sagt: Es ist so! Andererseits, das entsprechende einsehende Urteil sagt: Es ist wirklich so! Und so sagt es, es ist „wirklich”, nur wenn es als Bestätigung der ursprünglich leeren Intention auftritt […].” (Ms. A VI 12 II, 206a [wohl 1909/10]).
- 17.
For Husserl’s notion of acts of fulfillment as acts sui generis, see also Benoist 2008, 207–212.
- 18.
Usually “achievement” seems to imply the agency. So perhaps it would be better to introduce more neutral term than “achievement terms” in order to avoid question-begging. In this paper, however, we shall use that term in a bit metaphorical way.
- 19.
The author thanks Wolfgang Ertl for his helpful comments on this point.
- 20.
It must be noted that neither (V) nor (C) is meant to provide a part of a reductive, non-circular analysis of the voluntariness or creativity. So the appearance of “voluntariness/voluntary” or “creativity/created” on the both sides of the formulae is unproblematic.
- 21.
To be precise, what Husserl talks about in this passage is “knowing [Wissen]”. But he soon qualifies this as actual or occurrent knowing as opposed to potential or dispositional knowing, and that actual knowing is further renamed as “cognition” (cf. Hua XVIII, 29). Here Husserl uses “cognition” in the sense of “cognizing”. For the distinction between actual and potential knowing, see also the lectures on logic in 1896 (cf. Mat I, 7).
- 22.
For the general information about those issues, see Melle’s introduction in Hua XX/2, xxiv–xxv, xxxv–xxxvi.
- 23.
In fact, Husserl sometimes characterizes static or dynamic fulfillment as an “experience of transition [Übergangserlebnis]” or simply “transition” already in the Sixth Investigation (cf. Hua XIX/2, 566, 570, 582, 683).
- 24.
One year before the transition model is explicitly introduced. Husserl already holds some views that are in line with this model and one of its consequence in the Ideen I. As Tugendhat (1970, 94) points out, the implausibility of Husserl’s previous position is dissolved by the analysis of fulfillment in terms of motivation proposed in that book (cf. Hua III/1, 316). Probably in association with that analysis, he even talks about, albeit hesitantly, a parallel between every type positing or theses and willing/action (cf. Hua III/1, 281–282; see also Melle 1997, 191).
- 25.
The identification of states of affairs with true propositions is found also in the lectures on logic in 1896 (cf. Mat I, 219).
- 26.
A question that arises here would be why Husserl decides to hold the creativity of thinking rather than the Aristotelian realism. Even though, as far as we could see, Husserl gives no obvious reason for this move, we can find a potential reason that strongly motivates it. In the lecture Husserl gives in 1908, namely one year before the manuscript in question was written, Husserl was inclined to accept a broadly Aristotelian “realism”. According to this lecture, “obviously there exist objects that contain categorial forms in themselves and that can be thought in various ways […]” (Hua XXVI, 45, my emphases). On this idea, categorial objects such as the winner of Jena or the loser of Waterloo are somehow “contained” in one and the same simple object, waiting to be read-off by us in thinking. (Note that such a momentary “realism” in Husserl cannot be understood in a robust form, according to which categories are just there independently of us. It seems beyond disputation that Husserl would not accept this kind of realism after the so-called “transcendental turn” around 1908.) However, this leads Husserl to an implausible conclusion. According to his claim in the same lecture, there is a one-to-one correspondence between expressions and categorial objects (cf. Hua XXVI, 86). Thus, since there are infinitely many negative true statements about an object, Husserl would have to say that the object contains infinitely many negative characteristics that are contained in it, waiting to be simply read-off by us. To avoid such implausibility, it seems quite reasonable to hold the creativity of thinking.
- 27.
An outcome of this point is that our account of Husserl’s adoption of (CA”) is independent of another thesis of him called “universal voluntarism.” This is noteworthy because the universal voluntarism seems to face a difficulty, at least if it is to be formulated as in the report by Cairns. According to him, the universal voluntarism holds that “[e]very act carried out by the ego is a decision” (Cairns 1976, 61). If this is presupposed, to argue for the voluntariness of cognizing process would indeed be very easy, because it would be implied by the thesis. At the same time, however, the universal voluntarism implies that we have voluntary control over cognizing as well, but this is hard to believe. Cognizings involve beliefs. Then, since beliefs aim at truth, we cannot be arbitrary in believing something (cf. Williams 1973).
- 28.
For argument for the claim that every linguistic act (in Husserl’s terminology, expressing [Ausdrücken]) must be regarded as achievements, see Uemura (2009), 115.
- 29.
This paper is based on the talk given under the same title at the Husserl Arbeitstage 2012 in Leuven. I appreciate helpful questions, comments and suggestions from the audience there. I also thank the director of the Husserl Archives Leuven, Professor Ullrich Melle, for the permission to cite from unpublished manuscripts of Husserl. My thank goes to Thomas Vongehr for helping me with my research on those manuscripts; to Toru Yaegashi for allowing me to read a draft of his dissertation (Yosa ha ikani shite kôsei sareru noka. Husserl rinri-gaku no kenkyû [How is the good constituted? A Study in Husserl’s Ethics], University of Tokyo, 2013), which has made my understanding of Husserl’s ethics considerably improved; to Thomas Szanto for helping me with translating Husserl’s text into English; to Rodney Parker for making my prose sound more like English. Last but not least, I am grateful to the following people for giving me comments on previous versions of this paper: Rodney Parker, Alessandro Salice, Thomas Szanto, Marta Ubiali, Maren Wehrle, Toru Yaegashi. The author’s research is supported by the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
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Uemura, G. (2015). Husserl’s Conception of Cognition as an Action: An Inquiry into Its Prehistory. In: Ubiali, M., Wehrle, M. (eds) Feeling and Value, Willing and Action. Phaenomenologica, vol 216. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10326-6_8
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