Abstract
The theme-thematic-field structure is a formal invariant of organization having universal significance. The structure is realized at every moment of conscious life, whatever object (in the broadest sense of the term) presents itself through a given act. As every formal invariant assumes a specific form in every concrete variety in which it is embodied, so is relevancy specified in every case in which a theme appears in a thematic field. As actually experienced, relevancy is always qualified and specified in accordance with, and in dependence upon, the material contents of both the theme and the thematic field.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. supra, pp. 329 ff.
- 2.
Cf. supra, p. 358.
- 3.
Part V, Section V.
- 4.
James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 293, has advanced a similar thesis, though in a quite different setting.
- 5.
Cf. supra, pp. 351 ff.
- 6.
As to the impairment of the unformulated, matter-of-course familiarity with the perceptual world under pathological conditions, especially in a case traditionally classified as “psychological blindness,” Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception, Part I, III.
- 7.
Cf. supra, pp. 37 ff.
- 8.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, §36.
- 9.
Ibid., §37.
- 10.
Cf. supra, pp. 338 ff.
- 11.
For the following, see Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, §38.
- 12.
For objects to stand in spatial relations to each other, the objects, according to Husserl (Erfahrung und Urteil, pp. 182 ff.) must coexist in objective time.
- 13.
Schutz, loc. cit., p. 545.
- 14.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, p. 191. “Vor aller Frage nach der objektiven Wirklichkeit—vor der Frage nach dem, was gewissen der ‘Erscheinungen’, der in anschaulichen Erfahrungen sich gebenden intentional en Gegenständen den Vorzug gibt, urn dessentwillen wir ihnen das Prädikat ‘wahrer’ oder ‘wirklicher Gegenstand’ zuerteilen—steht die Tatsache der Wesenseigentümlichkeit aller ‘Erscheinungen,’ der wahren oder als nichtig ausgewiesenen, dass sie Zeit gebende sind, und zwar so, dass alle gegebenen Zeiten sich in eine Zeit einfugen.”
- 15.
For the following, Cf. ibid., §§39 f.
- 16.
Cf. ibid., Section 42a; see also supra, pp. 315 ff.
- 17.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, pp. 196 ff.
- 18.
As to the “modification of neutralization” and its significance for imagination, cf. Ideen, §§109 ff.
- 19.
Idem, Erfahrung und Urteil, p. 201 f. “Es spielt hier die Einheit der Zeit ihre bestimmende Rolle als Bedingung der Möglichkeit einer Einheit der Welt, des Korrelats der Einheit ‘einer’ Erfahrung and gleichsam des Bodens, auf dem sich alle Unverträglichkeiten in Form des ‘Widerstreits’ abspielen.”
- 20.
Cf. supra, pp. 185 ff.
- 21.
Above, (Part IV, Chapter I, Section VIa) we have set forth the principle of transcendental phenomenology, according to which every object and every existent necessarily refers to acts and operations of consciousness, systematically concatenated with one another. The interpretation of every existent as correlate of a systematically organized group of acts of consciousness holds for eide as well as for all other objects of whatever description.
- 22.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, Section 43. Both relations of ideas and relations concerning matters of fact are understood by Husserl within the meaning of the definition laid down by Hume, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd. ed.), pp. 25 ff.
- 23.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, pp. 201 and 203.
- 24.
Cf. supra, pp. 376 ff.
- 25.
We confine ourselves to a minimum condition, because here we must forsake embarking upon the problems of the constitution of the Ego. The sense in which the experiences of a person are his experiences can obviously not be clarified except in connection with a general phenomenological account of the constitution of the Ego.
- 26.
Cf. supra, pp. 331 ff.
- 27.
Cf. this part, Section I.
- 28.
Schutz, “On multiple realities,” loc. cit., p. 552.
- 29.
As to these concepts, Cf. ibid., I, 3.
- 30.
Ibid., pp. 536 ff. For that very reason, mental actions, i.e., performances, are revocable, while working actions are irrevocable. Hence, responsibility in both the moral and legal sense is also confined to “working” (deeds) and does not extend to “performances” (thoughts); Cf. ibid., p. 541.
- 31.
Ibid., pp. 564 ff.
- 32.
Ibid., pp. 556 and 561. Whereas the imagining subject (or, as Schutz prefers to say, self) has freedom of discretion as to the products of his imagining, no such freedom exists for the dreamer.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 544.
- 34.
Ibid., pp. 540 ff.
- 35.
Ibid., I, 5.
- 36.
Ibid., pp. 559 ff. and 563.
- 37.
Ibid., pp. 564 ff.
- 38.
Cf., ibid., I, 6, as to the concept “world within reach.”
- 39.
Ibid., pp. 570 ff.
- 40.
Cf. ibid., pp. 573 ff. and 562 f. as to this dialectical problem.
- 41.
Cf. supra, pp. 377 ff. Schutz (loc. cit., p. 559) maintains that “… the imagining self can, in his phantasies, eliminate all the features of the standard time, except its irreversibility … . Imagining, and even dreaming, I continue to grow old.” This, we submit, refers to phenomenal time as the time in which imagining acts occur rather than to the time which pertains to a “world of imagination.” In accordance with our preceding discussion, the latter time is to be characterized as “objectivated quasi-time.” The distinction upon which we are here insisting is quite in line with, and even appears to follow from, the distinction, stressed by Schutz himself, between “imagining as a manifestation of our spontaneous life and the imageries imagined” (loc. cit., p. 556) and, similarly, between “the theorizing cogitations and the intentional cogitata of such a theorizing” (loc. cit., p. 569).
- 42.
Cf. Schutz, loc. cit., p. 549.
- 43.
For the following, Cf. ibid., pp. 552 ff.
- 44.
As to the “epochē” specific to the “finite province” of scientific theorizing, Cf. ibid., p. 567; concerning the “world of dreams,” see p. 560. The “epochē” peculiar to life in the “world of working” consists in suspension of doubt in the existence of the outer world (Cf. pp. 550 ff.). It is to be noted that Schutz uses the term epochē in a quite different sense than Husserl, with whom epochē means phenomenological reduction. Cf. our presentation of the epochē in Husserl’s sense, Part III, Section 3.
- 45.
Cf. supra, pp. 332 ff.
- 46.
Schutz’s theory, it seems, gives rise to two questions. In the first place: from which experiences do systems of relevancy other than that prevailing in the “world of daily life” originate? The question refers to those experiences which stand to the systems of relevancy under discussion in the same relation as that in which the “basic experience” of the “fundamental anxiety” stands to the system of relevancy which prevails in the “world of working.” Since, in conformity with the general trend of Schutz’s theory, the experiences under consideration are not to be presumed as basic, but rather as derived from that of the “fundamental anxiety,” the second question concerns their very derivation.
- 47.
“Natural attitude” is here understood in Husserl’s sense as opposed to the phenomenological attitude, i.e., the attitude under the phenomenological reduction Cf. our brief account of the “natural attitude” and its modification by the “phenomenological reduction,” supra, pp. 155 ff., 158 ff., and 160 ff.
- 48.
pp. 155 ff.
- 49.
Cf. James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, pp. 287 ff.
- 50.
Schutz, loc. cit., pp. 551 ff. and 557 ff.
- 51.
Ibid., p. 536.
- 52.
pp. 384 ff.
- 53.
Cf. supra, pp. 159 ff. For both the distinction and the parallelism between phenomenological psychology and constitutive or transcendental phenomenology, or what amounts to the same, between psychological and transcendental subjectivity, Cf. Husserl, Ideen, §§53 and 76: Logik, §99: “Nachwort zu meinen ‘Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie,’” loc. cit.; Cartesian Meditations, §§11, 35, 45, 57, and 61.
- 54.
We discuss Schutz’s theory in order to bring out one of its “presuppositions” without, in the present context, committing ourselves to, or entering into, a critical discussion of all the details of his theory, especially Bergson’s concept of “attention à la vie.”
- 55.
Cf. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, p. 147. “… intentional psychology already has the transcendental hidden within itself” and “Nachwort zu meinen ‘Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie,’” loc. cit., pp. 556 ff.; Cf. also supra, Part III, Section IV.
- 56.
Schutz, loc. cit., p. 551.
- 57.
Cf. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, §40 f.
- 58.
Part IV, Chapter 1, Section VI.1.
- 59.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, p. 184. Above (pp. 176) we have shown that the concept of noema, though most directly arrived at under the phenomenological reduction, may yet be established independently of the reduction. As to the parallelism between Husserl’s concept of noema and James’s concept of “object of thought,” Cf. Part III, Chapter V, Section 6. James, we remember, had laid down his concept in a mere psychological setting; transcendental and constitutive problems did not enter at all into the scope of his interests.
- 60.
This part, Section I.
- 61.
Part V, Section VII.
- 62.
Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, (2nd ed.) pp. 626 ff.; Cf. also Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, §75.
- 63.
Supra, pp. 352 ff.
- 64.
Supra, pp. 576 ff.
- 65.
Within the limits of the present book we must confine ourselves to no more than a few hints concerning the phenomenon of the world. Besides Husserl’s writings to be quoted presently, we refer to L. Landgrebe, “The World as a Phenomenological Problem,” loc. cit., and to M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception, Part II, IIIc.
- 66.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, p. 29. “Existenz eines Realen hat … nie und nimmer einen anderen Sinn als Inexistenz, als Sein im Universum, im offenen Horizont der Raum-zeitlichkeit, dem Horizont schon bekannter und nicht bloss jetzt aktuell bewusster, aber auch unbekannter, möglicherweise zur Erfahrung und künftigen Bekanntheit kommender Realen.”
- 67.
Supra, pp. 295 ff.
- 68.
Supra, pp. 358 ff.
- 69.
Cf. this part, Section 1.
- 70.
Cf. Husserl, Ideen, §§27 ff. and pp. 84 ff.; Erfahrung und Urteil, §7 f.
- 71.
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, pp. 36 f.
- 72.
Cf. supra, pp. 322 ff.
- 73.
Husserl, Logik, §48. Some conditions of the possibility of propositions qua unities of meaning have been mentioned previously; (pp. 323 ff.).
- 74.
Cf. the formulation of the two points of view by O. Becker, “Mathematische Existenz,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, vol. 8, 1927, pp. 467 ff.
- 75.
K. Goldstein, Der Aufbau des Organismus (Haag, 1934), pp. 244 ff.
- 76.
Ibid., Chapter 2.
- 77.
As to the philosophical methodology of biological knowledge, see ibid., Chapter 7; Cf. also our article, “La science biologique d’après M. K. Goldstein,” Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, vol. 129, 1940; in SPP as “Goldstein’s Conception of Biological Science, Chapter III.”
- 78.
Goldstein, loc. cit., p. 242.
- 79.
Ibid., p. 251.
- 80.
Ibid., p. 255.
- 81.
Ibid., Chapter 5.
- 82.
Ibid., p. 244. “Es ist damit, dass der Reflex ein Geschehen am Organismus ist, noch nicht gesagt, dass ihm eine Wirklichkeit in Hinsicht auf den Organismus zukommt. Wirklichkeit bedeutet doch in diesem Sinne, dass ein Vorgang zum ‘Sein,’ zur ‘Natur’ des Organismus gehört.”
- 83.
Ibid., pp. 241 ff.
- 84.
Aristotle, Metaphysica bk. θ, Chapter 6, 1048b, 6 ff.: “… all things are not said in the same sense to exist actually, but only by analogy—as A is in B or to B, C is in D or to D …” (translation by W. D. Ross, The Work of Aristotle VIII); ibid., bk. Τ, Chapter 2, l003a 32 ff. Aristotle points out that the concept of being, though it is understood in many senses must not be considered as ambiguous since all senses “refer to one starting-point”; “all that ‘is’ is related to one central point, one definite kind of thing.” That one “central point,” “starting-point,” or principle is “substance.” With reference to “substance” and the “this,” “to be” is understood in the primary or fundamental sense, while all other senses of the term prove derivative; ibid. bk. Z, Chapter 4, 1030a, 19 ff., Cf. also bk. Z, Chapter 1, 1028a, 10 ff. Obviously, the specifications of the concept of existence which we mean here must not be confounded with the mentioned distinction by Aristotle, not any more than with those which he establishes (ibid. bk. Δ, Chapter 7) between to be “in an accidental sense,” by its “own nature”—it is under this head that the previously mentioned distinctions fall—, with reference to truth and falsehood, and finally, in the sense of either potentiality or actuality.
- 85.
Landgrebe, loc. cit., p. 51, points out that “a world is not one object among others” and that the “awareness of a world—is different in kind from the awareness of particular ‘worldly’ existents.”
- 86.
Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil, §74.
- 87.
Ibid., §74a.
- 88.
Schutz, (“On Multiple Realities,” loc. cit., pp. 556 ff.) has developed this theory of Husserl in a very interesting manner and has brought out points of agreement between Husserl’s position and that of James.
- 89.
Cf. this part, Section IIb.
- 90.
Here we cannot embark upon a discussion of the operation of thematization; for some provisional remarks, Cf. our article, “Gelb-Goldstein’s concept of ‘concrete’ and ‘categorial’ attitude and the phenomenology of ideation,” loc. cit., pp. 187 ff.; in SPP, Chapter XV.
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Gurwitsch*, A. (2010). Ontological Problems. In: Zaner, R. (eds) The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973). Phaenomenologica, vol 194. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3346-8_11
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