Perception, Categorial Intuition and Truth in Husserl’s Sixth ‘Logical Investigation’

Abstract

The sixth Logical Investigation has played a central role in the development of Husserl’s own thought and of the phenomenological movement as well. This text works out a new phenomenological understanding of truth, which is indeed what any phenomenological ‘theory of knowledge’ necessarily aims at providing. This notion of truth brings the phenomenological investigation of the cognitive achievements of intentional consciousness to an end and it also, inevitably, confronts Husserl with the issue of a phenomenological ontology. It is, in particular, the notion of a ‘categorial intuition’ which shows clearly how the epistemological and ontological stakes are inseparably linked. On the one hand, the categorial intuition is the true answer given to logical psychologism by a phenomenological theory of knowledge: it is about the intuitive givenness of ideal objects. The analysis of this phenomenon also shows the encompassing unity of all elements belonging to a phenomenological theory of cognition: signitive and intuitive intentional acts, sensuous and categorial intuitions, acts of thought and acts of language. On the other hand, the categorial intuition reveals the ontological distinction between sensuous and ideal entities, it forces one to investigate the difference between entities and their being, and it also shows, as Husserl says with Kant, that ‘being is no real predicate’.