1 Introduction: Lohmar’s Interpretation of Husserl’s self-criticism

In the present article, I analyze Husserl’s self-criticism regarding the account of categorial intuition developed in Logical Investigations. More specifically, I would like to address the issue of “categorial representation” (kategoriale Repräsentation). In the “Foreword to the Second Edition” of Logical Investigations (1922/1923), Husserl states that:

It does no harm to what has been said if I add that today, after twenty years of further work, I would no longer write a lot of things, that I no longer approve of some things, such as the doctrine of categorical representation (Husserl, 1984, p. 535; my translation).

Lohmar (1990) is the first scholar to thematically address Husserl’s self-criticism of his early theory of categorial representation.Footnote 1 In the article, entitled “Wo lag der Fehler der kategorialen Repräsentation? Zu Sinn und Reichweite einer Selbstkritik Husserls,” Lohmar immediately clarifies the reason why it is important to address this issue. He writes:

The categorial representative has, after all, to carry the fulfilment-function in the categorial intuition introduced by Husserl. One could equally regard it as the keystone of the phenomenological theory of knowledge in Logical Investigations (Lohmar, 1990, p. 179; my translation).

According to Husserl, knowledge always has the character of fulfillment, as it involves the identification between what is emptily intended and what is intuitively given as such. What accounts for the fullness of the intuitive act playing the fulfilling role is the so-called “representative content” (darstellende Inhalt). In the case of sensible perception, the role of representative content is played by “sensations” (Empfindungen). According to the so-called “apprehension–content of apprehension schema,” it is through the apprehension (Auffassung) of the representative content that an act of consciousness is intentionally directed to an object. Depending on the fullness of the apprehended representative content, briefly put, depending on whether the representative content, once apprehended, takes up the form of a “self-appearance” (Selbsterscheinung) of the object or not, the act is intuitive or not.Footnote 2

In the 7th chapter of Logical Investigations, Husserl offers an account of the representative content of categorial acts. Very simply put, the question that he tries to answer is the following: if sensation is the representing content of sensible acts, what is the representing content of intuitive categorial acts?

Before taking a closer look at Husserl’s account, we already know that, according to Husserl’s later self-criticism, there is something wrong with it. Importantly, although the theory of categorial representation is a technical issue of Husserl’s phenomenology, it can have deep consequences for the success of Husserl’s theory of knowledge. As Lohmar already pointed out, the theory of the representing content is the keystone of the phenomenological theory of knowledge in the Logical Investigations. Because of this, Lohmar notes the following:

A uncharitable interpretation might view this self-criticism as almost amounting to the bankruptcy of the phenomenological clarification of knowledge—especially since Husserl apparently did not a later point supplement the “missing” piece of theory (Lohmar, 1990, p. 179; my translation).

If we lack a satisfying theory of the representing content of categorial intuition, we are unable to account for knowledge as the identification between what is emptily intended and what is intuitively given as such. The risk, therefore, is that of a bankruptcy of Husserl’s clarification of the possibility of knowledge, not just in Logical Investigations but, arguably, also in Husserl’s later phenomenology. Indeed, if we consider a late text such as Formal and Transcendental Logic, in the preparatory considerations, Husserl states that:

If we stipulate, from the beginning of this variation, that the subjectivity shall always have the capacity to be and remain a “rational” and, in particular, a judicatively cognizing subjectivity, we encounter restrictive essential structures that fall under the heading of pure reason and, in particular, pure judicative reason. Such a subjectivity also involves as a presupposition a continual and essentially necessary relatedness to some hyletic components or other: as apperceptional foundations for the possible experiences that judging necessarily presupposes (Husserl 1969, 30 [26]).Footnote 3

Also for the later Husserl, a relation to “hyletic components,” which is a more precise and refined concept for the “representative contents” of Logical Investigations,Footnote 4 is a necessary presupposition of any “judicatively cognizing subjectivity.”

Notably, in his study, Lohmar aims at the clarification of the sense of Husserl’s self-criticism and the demarcation of its scope, without trying to identify Husserl’s solution. As he says at the end of the passage I quoted above, “Husserl apparently did not supplement the ‘missing’ piece of theory.” The problem of categorial representation remains a bit of a mystery. In the “Preface to the Second Edition” of Logical Investigations, Husserl does not specify where the problem of his early doctrine lies exactly. Nor does he specify it in the “Draft of a Foreword to the Logical Investigations” that he writes in 1913. Husserl’s revision of the 6th Logical Investigation, which has been printed in the Husserliana (see Husserl, 2005), reaches only up to about the 5th chapter, ending before the thematic introduction of the account of the categorial representation in the 7th chapter. Lohmar adds that even if we examine Husserl’s hand copy of Logical Investigations and take a look at this chapter, there are only very few annotations, which are not of any help.

According to Lohmar’s own interpretation, the plausible reason for Husserl’s self-criticism lies in the following mistake:

The mistake would be that the “origin” of categorial positings like, e.g., of collection is looked for in the “reflection” on the act of collection itself. If one asks—in the terms of Logical Investigations—for the content, which is apprehended here as representative, then one must also refer to the experience of the act of collection, which can be given in the reflection on the act in inner perception. Therefore, one could call the apprehended content a reflection content (Lohmar, 1990, p. 184; my translation).

Lohmar argues that Husserl makes the mistake above since he openly states that: “[…] solely reflection-contents can function as pure categorial representatives” (Husserl, 1984, 709; my translation). In making this argument, Lohmar adds, Husserl fails to break an old “habit of thinking” (Denkgewohnheit) inherited from Brentano, according to which the source of intuitiveness either lies in outer perception or in inner perception. By not breaking this habit, Husserl mistakenly holds that, since the representing content of categorial intuition is not that of outer perception, it must therefore be the representing content of inner perception:

With this [solution; NS], an argumentation would be found in which a decision is made according to the pattern given by Brentano: intuitive givenness points back to either outer or inner sensibility (Sinnlichkeit). If the outer sensibility is out of question as a source, the inner intuition must be the fundament of the given. This exclusive “scholastic” alternative corresponds to Brentano’s separation of physical phenomena, which can be given in outer perception, and psychic phenomena, which can be given intuitively only in inner perception (Lohmar, 1990, p. 183; my translation).

Lohmar’s interpretation has been so influential that in one of the most recent studies on the subject, Sacrini (2016, p. 269) still maintains that, according to Husserl in Logical Investigations, categorial intuition inaugurates “a new level of sensibility.” However, great care is needed here. There is no doubt that, already in Logical Investigations, Husserl is aware of and opposes “the epistemological confusion and psychological misuse” (Husserl, 1970, 87 [366]) affecting the distinction between inner and outer perception operated by Brentano. Husserl writes a very long and thorough appendix to the 6th Logical Investigation, in which he addresses this issue thematically. Furthermore, in Logical Investigation themselves, we already find scattered passages in which Husserl criticizes the Brentanian way of operating the distinction between inner and outer perception. Lohmar does not deny this fact. What Lohmar claims is rather that, in the specific context of the 7th chapter of the 6th Logical Investigation, Husserl, because of a habit of thinking, which, as such, remains unnoticed to him, falls prey to a mistake that he himself elsewhere criticizes on the basis of his conscious and rational beliefs.

In what follows, I will turn to show why, in my view, Lohmar’s way of interpreting the sense and scope of Husserl’s self-criticism of the theory of categorial representation leads us astray.Footnote 5 In doing this, however, I will not refer to the appendix or any other passage in which Husserl openly criticizes the Brentanian distinction between inner and outer sense. This would miss the target of Lohmar’s interpretation. What I will attempt to do, rather, is to show that even if we limit ourselves to consider the 7th chapter, and if we closely follow Husserl’s train of thought as it is articulated there, we can actually see that Husserl does not fall prey to any old habit of thinking that he inherits from Brentano. Importantly, my criticism of Lohmar is not for its own sake but is rather a necessary step to understand Husserl’s late theory of categorial representation. Indeed, if we really want to figure out what Husserl’s mature theory may be, it is fundamental that we properly understand his position in Logical Investigations.

In the following (Sect. 2), I elucidate what I consider to be Husserl’s authentic position in Logical Investigations, demonstrating that in this work, Husserl explicitly excludes the role of both outer and inner sensibility in categorial intuition. Then, in Sect. 3, I explore other potential reasons for his dissatisfaction. I clarify how these reasons are connected to Husserl’s evolving perspectives on the role of categorial representatives in empty thinking acts, which are necessarily implicated in knowledge. Additionally, I discuss his realization regarding the necessity of spontaneously repeating the passive synthesis of coincidence among the intentional matters that serve as categorial representatives in the predicative activity that yields knowledge.

2 The Intentional Matter as the Categorial Representative Content and the objectivity of categorial forms

In order to properly follow Husserl’s train of thought in the 7th chapter, the first thing we have to do is to “bracket,” i.e. not make any use of the statement that “[…] [s]olely reflection-contents can function as pure categorial representatives” (Husserl, 1984, p. 709; my translation). Husserl states this at the very end of the chapter, and since our goal is to explicate and clarify the sense of this statement, it is important that we do not already presuppose and somehow make use of it in interpreting what Husserl argues before making this very claim. Let’s not employ our explanandum as our explanans. Let’s simply start by posing the question: what are the representative contents of categorial acts?

The first candidates are the representative contents of the straightforward acts of sensible perception on which the categorial acts are founded. After all, Husserl has already introduced and described these representative contents, namely sensations (Empfindungen). Thus, it is not surprising that, in his analysis, Husserl considers first the possibility that categorial acts refer to their objects by apprehending the sensations of the underlying acts of sensible perception.

Husserl, however, immediately rules out this possibility. The reason is that (see 6th Logical Investigation, § 61), categorial activity involves no real reshaping (Umgestaltung) of sensible objects. To put it another way, a categorial form is not a real predicate of a real object. A real object, in its most basic sense, is the object of a straightforward act of sensible perception (see ibid., § 47), namely an act that grasps this object “in one blow” through a single-rayed act. This single-rayed act that does not connect, does not relate, but intends its object straightforwardly. The real object, therefore, is constituted only by real, sensible features, which, as such, can be grasped in one blow through an act of sensible perception. If we look into these sensible, real features, such as color, magnitude, shape, contact, etc., we do not find any categorial form. Of course, sensible objects can undergo categorial formation; they can be put into a categorial form, but this form leaves the real essence of these objects, intended as the sum of all their sensible features, untouched. Husserl famously gives the example of the categorial form “Being” (irrespective of whether we intend it in an existential, attributive, or predicative sense):

I can see colour, but not being-coloured. I can feel smoothness, but not being-smooth. I can hear a sound, but not that something is sounding. Being is nothing in the object, no part of it, no moment tenanting it, no quality or intensity of it, no figure of it or no internal form whatsoever, no constitutive feature of it however conceived. But being is also nothing attaching to an object: as it is no real (reales) internal feature, so also it is no real external feature, and therefore not, in the real sense, a ‘feature’ at all. For it has nothing to do with the straightforward forms of unity which bind objects into more comprehensive objects, tones into harmonies, things into more comprehensive things or arrangements of things (gardens, streets, the phenomenal external world). On these real forms of unity the external features of objects, the right and the left, the high and the low, the loud and the soft etc., are founded. Among these anything like an ‘is’ is naturally not to be found (Husserl 1970, 279 [666]).

Since categorial forms are not sensible features, they do not appear through the apprehension of sensations. Only sensible objects appear through the apprehension of sensations, which are “sensible representing contents” (sinnliche darstellende Inhalte), e.g., the sensation of color, shape, contact, etc.

Nevertheless, one might insist that the categorial apprehension of sensations is sufficient for the constitution of categorial objects. The reason would be that the intentional matter and, more specifically, the “apprehension-sense” (Auffassungsinn) of a categorial act is different from that of a sensible act, insofar as a categorial act is not single-rayed but multi-rayed. In this view, categorial acts would lack their own representing contents and would refer to their objects by apprehending the so-called “inauthentic” representing contents of the underlying acts of sensible perception. If this were really the case, however, categorial acts would be similar to signitive acts, which institute a merely contingent relation between intentional matter and representing content. Indeed, although an empty meaning is always a meaning expressed by a sensible sign, it can be associated with any sign whatsoever. Notably, Husserl maintains that the relation between intentional matter and sensible representing contents (sensations) is contingent also in the case of categorial acts:

The real lack of relation between categorial act-forms and the sense-contents of their bases, shows itself in the limitless variability of the generic characters of these contents; in other words, no genus of content lacks an a priori possibility of functioning in the foundation of categorial acts of every sort (Husserl 1970, 299 [700]).

Any type of sensation has the a priori possibility of functioning in the sensible acts upon which all possible types of categorial act-form, e.g., identity, conjunction, disjunction, etc., may be founded. However, Husserl remarks that if, based on this similarity, we conclude that categorial acts, just like signitive acts, do not have authentic but rather inauthentic representing contents, then we jeopardize the very possibility of knowledge:

But the comparison with merely signitive acts makes us vividly aware that founded acts cannot do without authentic representation, and representation as regards categorial form. We are made mindful of relations of possible fulfilment of the ‘fulness’ which intuitive acts confer on signitive ones, of the ascending scale formed among intuitive acts by variable fulness, of final adequation as an ideal limit. Representing contents constitute the difference between ‘empty’ signification and ‘full’ intuition: they are responsible for ‘fulness’, as is shown by the fact that they determine one sense of fulness (see § 22). Only intuitive acts render their object apparent, seeable, for the reason, namely, that a representing content is there, which the apprehension-form sees as a likeness, or as the very self of the object. This is a fact rooted in the universal essence of the relation of fulfilment, and must therefore be demonstrable in our present sphere too (Husserl 1970, 299 [700]).

Fullness, and hence knowledge, depends not on inauthentic but on authentic representing contents, which, once apprehended, are experienced as a self-appearance of the intentional object meant by the act. And since knowledge is a categorial business, in the sense that it is achieved at the categorial level, we must find the authentic representing contents of categorial acts if we want to account for it. Husserl draws, therefore, the following conclusion:

The categorial moment of the synthetically founded act does not bind these unessential elements [i.e., sensations; NS] of the founding acts together, but binds what is essential to them both: it connects, in all circumstances, their intentional materials, and is in a real sense founded upon these acts. This is what was said above quite generally: in all categorial acts, we maintained, the material of the founded acts was founded in the materials of the founding acts. Identity, e.g., is no immediate form of unity among sensuous contents, but is a ‘unity of consciousness’ based upon one or another (repeated or inwardly different) consciousness of the same object. This holds in all cases (Husserl 1970, 301 [704]).

In this crucial passage, Husserl has explicitly identified the representing content of all intuitive categorial acts: the intentional matter of the underlying acts—ultimately sensible acts—upon which categorial acts are founded.

Why is this not yet a satisfactory account for Husserl? Why does he bring into play the act of reflection? Paradoxically though it might seem, Husserl starts to talk about reflection precisely to warn us against the possible mistake that, in Lohmar’s view, he himself commits. Let me clarify why.

Lohmar overlooks this passage in the 7th chapter, in which Husserl writes:

Particularly in the case of adequate synthetic intuitions, immediately based on individual intuitions, must we guard against the tempting delusion of an immediate phenomenological connection present at least on this lowest level of categorial synthesis, between the representing sense-contents of the one underlying act and those of the other. In virtue of the functional dependence of the adequation (evidence) of the total act on the adequation of its founding intuitions, the situation would seem to have the following pattern: since the founding acts are adequate, the representing contents coincide with the object represented. If on such a basis the intuition of a relation arises, a relation e.g. between part and whole, the relational act too is evident in character: the relation itself is truly given with the truly given contents. The mental bond of relating, conceived as a relation among sensuous contents and objects, here binds these experienced sense-contents with a direct bond (Husserl 1970, 302 [704]; my emphasis).

In an act of reflection, the ideal of adequacy, defined by Husserl as the “self-apprehension of the whole, full object” (Husserl 1970, 238 [614]; my emphasis), is achieved. Indeed, in the act of reflection, “the representing content (der darstellende Inhalt) is the represented content (der dargestellte Inhalt)” (ibid.). That is to say, there is a strict identity between the representing content, as apprehended, and the object, as intended by the act. This object “appears as itself given with and in this content” (ibid.); thus, the content does not point to anything beyond itself, as is the case of all intentional acts in which the ideal of adequacy is not achieved. Given this, one might argue that, at least when the categorial acts are founded on acts of reflection, the categorial act of relating connects the sensible representing contents that are parts of the reflected-upon act. For example, when I perform the judgment “the sense content A is a part of the complex sense content B,” as is the case when I judge that the sensation of a tone is a part of the more encompassing whole made up of all the tone sensations through the apprehension of which I listen to a melody, I might categorially bind the tone sensations involved as parts of a whole. However, Husserl maintains that, even in this case, we should not conclude that the categorial form is nothing in the object but lies exclusively in the lived experience, since it is the connection of the sensations belonging to the latter. He writes:

Binds them with nothing, one might object. Not the sense-content, but the adequate intuitions of such contents, serve to base the unity of the relating. Here as elsewhere we must look to the objects, to the sensuous contents at once representing and represented, in order to perform the act of relating, to relate this content as whole and that content as part. Relations can only be given on a basis of given objects: objects are, however, not given in mere lived experience, in itself blind, but only and solely in percepts, in our case in the perception of lived through contents which no longer represent something beyond themselves (Husserl 1970, 302 [704]; my emphasis).

To manifest the categorial object, the categorial act binds not the sense-contents themselves but rather their adequate intuitions. In other words, the categorial act apprehends not the sensations (Empfindungen) of the founding acts of sensible perception but rather their intentional matters of the acts of reflections directed toward these sensations. For example, when judging “the sense content A is a part of the complex sense content B,” the categorial act apprehends the intentional matter of the act of reflection directed at the sense-content A (the part) and the intentional matter of the act of reflection directed at the sense-content B (the whole), respectively. The part-whole relation constituted through the apprehension of these categorial representing contents is objective: it is to be found in a given object and not just in a lived experience. Thus, even in cases where the intentional object is a categorial relation among components (i.e., sensations) belonging to an intentional act, these categorially bound components are objectified and not simply lived through. In this regard, it is essential to note, according to Husserl, that in cases of adequate evidence, there exists an identity between the intentional object and the objectively apprehended representing content. If the representing content is not apprehended, then there is no identity, because the content, by itself, is not an object.

2.1 The Possible Double Role of the Intentional Matter as a Representative Content

We observed that, under closer examination, Husserl introduces the issue of reflection not because of an old habit of thinking inherited from Brentano. On the contrary, he wants to warn us against a “tempting delusion” that might follow from the consideration of the role of inner reflection. Due to the identity between the apprehended sense-content and the intentional object that takes place in it, one might be led to believe that a categorial form, e.g., conjunction or identity, is absent in the object, existing only in the lived experience. Yet, Husserl rules this out, pointing out that the sense-content, insofar as it is apprehended, becomes objectified. Therefore, any categorial form binding sensations is always to be found in objects and never in the sensations themselves.

However, Husserl is still not fully satisfied with this clarification. His claim that categorial acts do not apprehend sense-contents necessitates further elucidation. In this regard, in the last Sect. 58 of the 7th chapter of the 6th Logical Investigation, he remarks:

It is now extremely important to bring to complete clearness the relation between the two distinctions introduced by us at the very beginning of this Investigation, the distinction between outer and inner sensibility, on the one hand, and between straightforward and categorial acts, on the other (Husserl 1970, 302 [705–706]).

It is unlikely that just now, when, by his own admission, Husserl emphasizes the need for the utmost attention, he will instead succumb to an old habit of thinking. In fact, the reason he delves deeper into the discussion of outer and inner sensibility, and, in relation to it, of sensible and categorial acts, is that there is still a dangerous ambiguity that needs clarification. Without addressing this issue, there is still the risk that one might believe categorial forms are absent in the objects but exist only in the lived experiences.

The ambiguity is as follows: the intentional matter—which Husserl has just identified as playing the role of a categorial representative—can, however, also serve as a sensible representative content. When does this happen? It occurs precisely when the intentional matter is the object of an act of reflection. The long passage in which Husserl clarifies why this is the case deserves to be reported in its entirety:

[…] to perceive an act, or an act moment, or an act-complex of any sort, is to perceive sensuously, since it is to perceive straightforwardly. […] In each case perception consists in a straightforward looking at our object. The material of perception (its apprehension-sense) stands in no necessary relation to the material of the perceived act. The whole phenomenological content of this act has rather the sheer character of representative content, it is objectively interpreted in accordance with the apprehension-form of perception, as being this very act of perception itself. For this reason also every abstraction based on inner sense, e.g. the abstraction which looks to a founded act, is a sensuous abstraction (Husserl 1970, 303[706–707]; my emphasis).

As I clarified in the previous section, if the intentional matter becomes the theme of an act of reflection, it is simultaneously the object intended and the representative content apprehended. Crucially, in this scenario the intentional matter serves as a sensible representative content. Indeed, the intentional matter is objectively apprehended by the straightforward act of reflection, which objectifies it as a component—more precisely, as a non-independent part—of the act reflected upon. Notably, this holds even if the intentional matter reflected upon is that of a categorial, and, hence, founded, act. The reason is that the act of reflection perceives always straightforwardly, irrespectively of whether it is directed toward a founded act. Inner reflection remains always a sensible act of perception, in that it does not categorially relate anything but rather intends its object “in one blow” through a single ray, just like outer perception. As Husserl states:

This cannot be doubted, since the relation of an act which perceives to an act which is perceived is no relation of foundation, even if we take a founded act to be the act perceived. The foundedness of an act does not mean that it is built on other acts in any manner whatsoever, but that a founded act, by its very nature or kind, is only possible as built upon acts of the sort which underlie it, and that, as a result, the objective correlate of the founded act has a universal element of form which can only be intuitively displayed by an object in a founded act of this kind. […] The perception, however, which we direct to a founded act could as readily be directed to a non-founded act and to any objects of outer sense, e.g. horses, colours etc. (Husserl 1970, 303 [706–707]).

To illustrate the difference between a sensible abstraction based on inner reflection, through which we objectify an intentional act or one of its components, such as the intentional matter, and a categorial abstraction based on the performance of a categorial act, Husserl provides the example of the execution of an act of identification:

If we look at an intuitive act of identification, i.e. the intuition of identity, and if we abstract from it the moment of identification we have performed a sensuous abstraction. But if, while living through an identification, we turn our regard to objective identity and make this the basis of our abstraction, we have performed a categorial abstraction. The objective moment of identity is no act, and no form of an act: it is an objective categorial unity. As against this, on the other hand, the moment of identification, that unities the founded acts phenomenologically, is a sensuous and categorial form (Husserl 1970, 303 [707]).

The moment of identification, i.e., the coincidence of the intentional matters of given acts, is an act-form that can serve a representative function. If one performs an act of reflection intentionally directed at this moment of identification itself, then this moment becomes a sensible act-form. In this context, it functions as a sensible representative content, which, insofar as apprehended, is identical to the sensible object intended, precisely as that moment of identification itself. Instead, if one performs a categorial act intentionally directed not at the moment of identification but at the relation of identity between the transcendent objects meant by underlying acts whose intentional matters coincide, then the apprehended moment of identification becomes a categorial act-form. In this case, it plays the role of a categorial representative content. Importantly, Husserl explicitly states that, in this latter case, the moment of identification between the underlying acts is lived through and not reflected upon. There is no need to perform any act of reflection for the execution of the categorial act directed toward the identity between objects. Husserl makes, thus, the following remark:

There is accordingly nothing remarkable in saying: The same psychical moments which are sensuously given in inner perception (and which therefore function in it as sensuous representing contents) may, in a founded act of the character of a categorial perception or imagination constitute a categorial form, and so sustain a totally different categorial representation (Husserl 1970, 304 [708]).

Husserl is expressing in more general terms what I just mentioned regarding the example of an act of identification. Is there any issue in this passage? I do not see any. In fact, Husserl is striving to be as precise as possible by eliminating a fundamental ambiguity, which, let me reiterate, lies in the fact that what he has identified as the categorial representative, namely the psychical moment of intentional matter, can also assume the role of a sensible representative when it becomes the intentional object of an act of reflection.

However, Lohmar criticizes this passage by arguing the following:

This concept of the fulfilment of categorial intentions has all the characteristics of the error criticized in the ‘draft’. Since for the fulfilment of categorial intentions of outer sensibility cannot be considered alone (or only partially), inner sensibility must be used as the only remaining source of intuitiveness (Lohmar, 1990, p. 189; my translation).

Why does Lohmar make this claim? I argue that he asserts this only because he interprets the passage in question in light of a claim that Husserl makes later, specifically the assertion that “[…] solely reflection-contents can function as pure categorial representatives” (Husserl, 1984, 709; my translation). If one presupposes this latter claim, then one is led to think that something can only play the role of a categorial representative as a content of reflection, and hence, only as a sensible representing content. However, this is not the way we should read the passage. Instead, we should proceed in the opposite direction; namely, we should elucidate and clarify the sense of Husserl’s later claim on the basis of the passage in question, which paves the way for it. If we do so, we simply read Husserl’s remark as stating the following:

The possible double role of the intentional matter as a representative content:

One and the same psychical moment, more precisely, the intentional matter (in all the possible unities of coincidence in which it may be experienced), can play either the role of a sensible representative content or the role of a categorial representative content, depending on whether it is objectified in a sensible act of reflection or lived through in an act of categorial intuition, respectively.

2.2 The Clarification of Husserl’s Claim that Only Reflection-Contents can Function as Pure Categorial Representatives

I hope that, after closely following Husserl’s train of thought, it is now clear why the intentional matter can serve either a sensible or a categorial representative function, but it cannot play the role of a categorial representative qua a sensible representative content. As a sensible representative content, the intentional matter is apprehended by a straightforward, single-rayed act of inner reflection and not by a categorial, multi-rayed act. Accordingly, the claim that the intentional matter plays a categorial representative function qua a reflection-content would be a mere “counter-sense” (Widersinn). On this ground, let me try to clarify why Husserl, at the end of the section, refers to reflection-contents and claims that only these contents can function as pure categorial representatives.

At the end of Chap. 7, Husserl wants to highlight some findings and consequences that follow from his discussion about what serves as a categorial representative. He has made clear that not only sensations but all acts and all their moments, including the intentional matter, play the role of sensible-contents if they are objectified in reflection. Something is a sensible-content if and only if it is apprehended by a sensible, single-rayed act, and reflection is such an act. However, Husserl has also made clear that not all sensible-contents can sustain a totally different representative function, which is not sensible but categorial. Sensations cannot sustain a categorial representative function. Because of this, a first important consequence that Husserl aims to highlight is that “in the domain of sensibility, there is an essential distinction” (Husserl 1970, 304 [708]). The critical point to note is that, by drawing the attention to this difference, Husserl does not intend to, and cannot, draw a distinction between categorial representative contents and sensible representing contents. As we just explored, a categorial representing content, by definition, cannot be a sensible content because it is apprehended through a categorial act rather than a sensible act. Setting aside the matter of categorial representation, Husserl specifically aims to establish a fundamental distinction in the domain of sensibility. Consequently, in a fully coherent manner, he states the following:

We have principally to distinguish between:

  1. 1.

    the contents of reflection, those contents which are themselves characters of acts or founded upon such characters.

  2. 2.

    the primary contents, those contents in which all contents of reflection are either immediately or mediately founded. (Husserl 1970, 304 [708]).

Importantly, the use of the notion of “foundation” serves as proof that Husserl draws a distinction between primary and reflective contents based on the assertion that only the latter can sustain a totally different categorial function. A content of reflection, in itself, is not a part of a founded act. Husserl has clarified this point by emphasizing that reflection is a straightforward and not a founded act of perception. Therefore, it is evident that if contents of reflection are immediately or mediately founded, it is only because, in reflection, we can find these contents—i.e., intentional matters, qualities, and representative contents—by examining founded acts, specifically categorial acts.Footnote 6 On the other hand, primary contents are sensations, which are not founded, as they are the representative contents of outer perception that are originally lived through:

These latter would be the contents of ‘external sensibility’, which is here plainly not defined in terms of some metaphysical distinction of outward and inward, but through the nature of its representing contents, as being ultimately foundational, phenomenologically lived-through contents (Husserl 1970, 304 [708]).

Husserl explicitly criticizes the Brentanian distinction between an “inward” and an “outward” as “metaphysical,” and distinguishes between inner and outer sensibility by referring exclusively to the notion of “foundation:” the contents of reflections are founded on the contents of external perception, i.e., sensations.

Right after identifying sensations as the ultimately foundational “primary contents,” Husserl makes the controversial statement:

Corresponding to the difference between purely sensuous and categorial objects of intuition, there is a distinction of representing contents: only reflection contents can serve as purely categorial representing contents (Husserl 1970, 304 [708]).

Considered in isolation, this statement is misleading, as it seems to suggest that something can play the role of a categorial representative only qua a reflection content. However, if we read this statement in context, as the result of what Husserl has said before making it, it is clear that what he means exactly is rather the following:

Only reflection contents can serve as purely categorial representative contents:

Among all possible sensible representative contents, only reflective contents can sustain a completely different apprehension, which is not sensible but categorial. Reflective contents are not sensations but rather the characters of acts (i.e., the intentional matter and quality of sensible acts) or the contents founded upon such characters (i.e., any intentional matter, quality, and representative content belonging to a founded acts),Footnote 7insofar as they are objectified in reflection. By sustaining a categorial apprehension, these contents do not function as sensible representative contents, as they do when objectified in reflection. Instead, they are lived through and function as categorial representatives.Footnote 8

In conclusion, can we say that Husserl, due to an old habit of thinking inherited from Brentano, mistakenly holds that, since the representative content of categorial intuition is not that of outer perception, it must therefore be the representative content of inner perception? I submit to the thesis that Husserl does not commit this mistake, as he does not claim that reflection-contents play the role of categorial representatives qua reflection-contents. On the contrary, after realizing that all components of intentional acts can play the role of sensible representatives if objectified in reflection, Husserl claims that, differently from sensations, reflection contents—more specifically intentional matters—instead of being objectified in reflection can sustain a totally different apprehension. Through this apprehension, they do not play the role of sensible but rather of categorial representatives.

3 The role of Categorial Representative Contents in Empty Categorial acts

If Lohmar’s interpretation is incorrect, what could be the reason for which, in the “Foreword to the Second Edition” of Logical Investigations, Husserl claims that he no longer approves of his theory of categorial intuition? To answer this question, I would like to consider Husserl’s later texts and discuss some possible reasons for his self-criticism. I say “possible” since Husserl does not address this issue explicitly. However, I maintain that we can identify at least two possible reasons of his dissatisfaction.

In the Studies on the Structure of Consciousness, in a research manuscript written in 1909, entitled “The Relation of Pre-predicative Presenting [Vorstellens] to Thinking [Denken]: Identification in the Proper Sense Takes Place Only in Thinking,” Husserl writes:

An identification takes place in the proper sense only between two acts of thinking, and these have on their side two presentations as a ground [Grundlage]. Presentations as a ground! Did I not previously miss an essential sense of the right distinction of the presentation-base [Vorstellungsunterlage], because I did not sharply distinguish in Logical Investigations between empty presenting (above all thinking) and empty thinking, e.g., in the empty use of a proper name? Must one not say that every act of thinking presupposes a presenting, full or empty, and builds itself over it? I noticed correctly that in the terms lies a presenting; but the thinking brings in its thinking-form, and this penetrates everything, also the terms (Husserl, 2020, 29; my translation).

In this passage, Husserl briefly states what he will discuss at length in his revisions of the 6th Logical Investigation (see Husserl, 2005). In his later view, too, an act of knowledge has the character of fulfillment and identification. Importantly, however, Husserl states here that the identification, through which the identity between what is meant and what is given is intended, does not take place through the categorial apprehension of the coincidence between an intuitive categorial act of judgment and a signitive act, which he calls a mere empty presenting. Rather, an act of identification in the proper sense, such as knowledge, takes place between two thinking acts (Denkakte), i.e., two categorial acts. The novelty of this account lies in the fact that empty categorial acts have the same structure as intuitive categorial acts. If we consider the case of a predicative judgment, we have that:

But in the latter case, would I really judge “S is p!” in the empty judgment? […] Yes, there is to consider that to the empty statement belongs the whole structure of the actually expressing statement in the modification of the emptiness, and everything modified belongs to the empty “intention” of the statement (Husserl, 2005, 239; my translation).

Husserl writes this annotation in 1909, although the manuscript to which it belongs is contained in his revisions of the 6th Logical Investigation and not in the Studies. We must be careful because both this and the previous passage that I quoted are research manuscripts, which are therefore tentative and explorative in character. It could be that they do not express Husserl’s final word on the matter. For the sake of discussion, however, let’s see why the position articulated here could indicate a reason why Husserl’s theory of categorial representation, developed in Logical Investigations, is not satisfying.

In Logical Investigations, Husserl’s uses two terms for “categorial representing content”: darstellende Inhalte but also intuitiv repräsentierende Inhalte.Footnote 9 This is no surprise because categorial representing contents are the so-called “authentic” (eigentliche) representative contents of a categorial act. To put it another way, a categorial act has “representing” contents if and insofar as it is intuitive. According to the Husserl of Logical Investigations, signitive (i.e., empty) acts have only “inauthentic” (uneigentliche) representative contents, which are the sensations through which apprehension the sign is constituted as a sensible object. Accordingly, in Husserl’s early view, an empty categorial act, such as the empty judgment “S is p,” is a mere presentation (bloße Vorstellung), devoid of any categorial representing contents but having exclusively, as its own inauthentic representative contents, the sensations of the underlying sensuous acts. However, according to the novel view sketched by Husserl in the research manuscripts taken into consideration, the whole structure of the corresponding intuitive judgment in the modification of emptiness belongs to an empty judgment. I venture to say that this means that also an empty judgment has authentic representative contents, namely, it has, as its own categorial representatives, not the sensations of the underlying acts but rather their intentional matters. The only difference is that these intentional matters are in the modified form of emptiness. How is this possible and what does it mean exactly?

Husserl’s theory of categorial representation developed in Logical Investigations already allows us to account for the empty modification of categorial representatives. In the introduction of the 6th Logical Investigation Husserl states that what he calls “representation” (Repräsentation) is the unity of representative content and apprehension-sense via the apprehension-form:

Intentional matter, the latter being divided into apprehension-sense, apprehension-form and apprehended (apperceived [apperzipierten] or representative [repräsentierenden]) content. We shall thereby pin down the concept of Apprehension or Representation, as the unity of matter [Materie] and representative content [repräsentierendem Inhalt] by way of apprehension-form (Husserl, 1970, 185 [540]; translation amended).

An apprehension (Auffassung) or representation (Repräsentation) is the unity between the matter (Materie) or apprehension-sense (Auffassungssinn), on the one hand, and representative content (repräsentierender Inhalt), on the other, via the apprehension-form (Auffassungssform). The matter or apprehension-sense determines the sense in which the intentional object is intended, while the apprehension-form determines whether the representative content apprehended through the apprehension-sense is taken up in the manner of an intuitive or a signitive representative. Therefore, it determines whether the intentional object is presented in a signitive, intuitive, or mixed way.

Given this, the following holds: whereas in the case of an intuitive categorial act the apprehension-form is intuitive, in the case of an empty categorial act the apprehension-form is signitive, such that the intended categorial object is meant emptily. Importantly, however, although it takes up a signitive apprehension-form, the representative content of empty categorial acts is not sensation, but the apprehension-sense, i.e., the intentional matter of the underlying acts on which the categorial act is founded.

A first possible reason for Husserl’s self-criticism, thus, is that in his theory of categorial representation in Logical Investigations, he does not realize that categorial representative contents play a role not only in intuitive but also in empty categorial acts. Importantly, this amendment is not just a matter of detail; it is rather essential to account phenomenologically for the possibility of knowledge. Indeed, the later Husserl claims that an act of identification in the proper sense, such as knowledge, takes place between two thinking acts, i.e., two categorial acts, and not between a thinking act and a mere presentation.

3.1 The Spontaneous Repetition of the Passive Synthesis among Intentional Matters

A possible second reason for Husserl’s self-criticism can be found by focusing on the last part of the passage from Studies quoted in the previous section. Husserl writes:

“I noticed correctly that in the terms lies a presenting; but the thinking brings in its thinking-form, and this penetrates everything, also the terms” (Husserl 2020, 29; my translation). To understand what this means exactly, one should bear in mind that, in his mature account, Husserl maintains that in the categorial activity of a predicative synthesis, the ego does not operate with the result of the explication that has passively taken place at the receptive level of sensible perception:

[…] In order for the substrate of the explication to become a subject and for the explicates to become predicates, it is necessary that the regard turn back to the unity which is passively preconstituted within the receptive activity of the process of explication and is in a sense concealed. Being turned, toward this unity in order to apprehend it implies repeating the process in a changed attitude, making an active synthesis from a passive one. This synthesis is not something which can be originally apprehended in a simple turning-toward in the manner in which, at the lower level, everything was apprehended in acts of simple turning-toward; rather, they can be perceived only by repeating the act of running-through. This takes place, as was mentioned, in a change of attitude: we do not again carry out a merely contemplative explication but an activity of predicative identification, and this is an apprehending consciousness, whose activity is characterized not by a single ray but by several rays (a polythetic activity). The action of determinative identification goes from the spontaneous apprehension of S as subject to p: the apprehending regard lives in the apprehension of its being determined as p (Husserl, 1973, 205 [256–257]; my emphasis).Footnote 10

From a noetic point of view, a predicative synthesis is not simply the categorial apprehension of the passively pre-constituted unity of coincidence between the intentional matters of the sensible acts directed toward the explicand (Explikand) and the explicate (Explikat), respectively. Indeed, being turned toward the partial unity of identity between the explicand and the explicate necessarily implies repeating the whole process of explication in a changed attitude, making an active synthesis from a passive one. More precisely, the predicative synthesis consists of the spontaneous accomplishment of the synthetic transition from S, i.e., the explicand, to p, i.e., the explicate. To give an example, let us compare this view with Husserl’s early view of Logical Investigations.

Does Husserl argue for the necessity of the repetition of the explicative synthesis in Logical Investigations? He does not. Husserl describes, as an example, how a part is categorially grasped qua a part. In doing so, he limits himself to say that the unity of coincidence taking place at the level of sensible perception assumes the role of a categorial representing content. Through its apprehension, the whole is intended qua a whole and the part is intended qua a part:

In the narrowing down of our total percept to one specific percept, the part-mention to a will not be torn out of the total appearance of A, so as to break up the latter’s unity, but an independent act will have a as its own perceptual object. At the same time one’s continuously operative total percept will coincide with this specific percept in respect of one implicit partial-intention. The ‘content’ which represents a, will be functioning as the same content in a twofold fashion and, in so far as it does this, it will effect a coincidence, a peculiar unity of the two representative functions: we shall, in other words, have two coincident apprehensions, both sustained by the representative content in question. But this unity of these two representative functions will now itself take on a representative role. It will not itself count in its own right as a lived through bond among acts: it will not set itself up as out object, but will help to set up another object. It will act representatively, and to such effect, that A will now appear to contain a in itself (or, with a reversed direction, a will appear as contained in A) (Husserl, 1970, 287 [682]; translation amended).

Crucially, in this example, Husserl explicitly states that in the categorial determination of a part qua a part, the unity of coincidence of sensible apprehensions is not objectified (in reflection) but rather lived through, taking on a categorial representative role that makes manifest another object. This clearly contradicts Lohmar’s interpretation of categorial representation. What is relevant for the present discussion is, however, that Husserl does not mention the necessity of a spontaneous repetition of the synthesis of identification, which spontaneously goes anew from the intention of A, as the whole, to the intention of α, as the part.

The unforeseen necessity of a spontaneous repetition of the process of explication offers us a second possible reason for Husserl’s self-criticism of his early theory of categorial representation. Indeed, I contend that it is precisely in this repetition that “thinking brings in its thinking-form, and this penetrates everything, also the terms” (Husserl, 2020, 29; my translation). In categorial activity, such as that of predicative synthesis, when the founding objects are spontaneously put into relation, and, correlatively, when the synthesis of the intentional matters corresponding to them is spontaneously synthetized anew and apprehended in categorial fashion, a modification takes place that imparts these intentional matters a new “role.” Let me elaborate on this point.

In Logical Investigations, Husserl remarks already that the sensible objects brought into categorial relation, such as in the case of predicative synthesis, acquire a new role:

Just as the object in a straightforward percept directly confronts us, so too does the state of affairs in the act which names it, and so too does any categorially formed object. The gradual constitution of the object has been completed, as a finished object it becomes a terms in a relation: it keeps, it seems, its constitutive sense quite unaltered. One can certainly say that the phenomenological change in sense made by entry into a relational act is at first masked by the very fact that the new form includes the whole previous apprehension-sense in itself, to which it only imparts the new sense of a ‘role’. Perception remains perception, the object is given as it was before given, ‘only’ it is ‘put into relation’. Such shaping due to our synthetic function do not alter the object itself […] (Husserl 1970, 290 [687]).

What Husserl wants to rule out is that categorial activity consists in a reshaping of the objects put into relation. Categorial activity is not an alteration of such objects, whether they be sensible objects or categorial objects that are, in turn, put into a relational unity. Notably, this is the reason why, according to Husserl, categorial activity is constitutive of new objects. If it were a reshaping of the objects put into relation, categorial activity would not constitute new objects but would rather alter them. In categorial activity, the apprehension-sense of the underlying acts, Husserl says, is modified only to the extent that the founding objects play a new role in the categorial relational unity. For example, in the case of a predicative judgment, a sensible object plays the role of the “subject,” while its property plays the role of the “predicate.”

But then, what does Husserl want to remark when, in his later view, he comes to realize that “thinking brings in its thinking-form, and this penetrates everything, also the terms”? Arguably, Husserl does not change his position on the fact that categorial activity is no alteration of the objects put into relation. However, if we consider another passage of Studies, we can see that since the attribution of a new “role” takes place through a spontaneous repetition of the activity of synthesis, this attribution has a deeper impact than what Husserl expected in Logical Investigations. In a research manuscript written in 1911, entitled “Receptive and productive objectivation. The simple grasping of a sensible-receptive pre-givenness as opposed to the grasping in the creation [Erzeugen] of new matter in higher objectivations” (see Husserl, 2020, Appendix XVIII), Husserl points out the following:

And the grasping of the state of affairs does not consist in the fact that I repeat again this turning toward and only look at a form of the connection or unity of both. Rather, I have now just the “A is b,” and it is there, in this present synthetic form, A not simply the explicand, but the A has a subject-form, just as the b has a predicate-form, and correlatively the A-consciousness, the kind of the A-grasping is a different one from before. It is not again a “straightforward” [schlicht] turning-toward and only a changed content, but the mode of turning-toward is changed, the mode of grasping [Erfassung]. In this changed grasping-mode I grasp something (in every grasping the universal of grasping is obviously there), but the something has its form. Perhaps one can say: every mode of grasping has its correlate in a grasped, that “stands there in a mode.” Not every matter is to be combined with every mode of grasping, but with the change of the mode also something changes in the matter: it gets a corresponding modal form (e.g., explicate, second level explicate, etc.) (Husserl, 2020, 235; my translation).

In Logical Investigations, Husserl already points out that a modification takes place, as he explicitly states that the new categorial form includes the whole previous apprehension-sense in itself, but imparts to it the new sense of a “role.” However, I contend that in his later view, Husserl realizes that this modification of the apprehension-sense is more radical than what he initially envisioned. This is because the acquisition of a categorial role by sensible objects, such as the role of subject by the explicand and the role of predicate by the explicate, necessarily entails that, in the spontaneously repeated process of synthesis, the consciousness of them is no longer straightforward. Therefore, we can generally state:

The modification of sensible intentional matters in categorial representation:

In the spontaneous repetition of the process of synthesis that takes place at the categorial level, once the intentional matter of sensible acts is apprehended as a categorial representative content, it is modified to the point that its apprehension-sense is no longer that of a straightforward act. Accordingly, the creation of a new matter in categorial objectivation is not only the creation of a new categorial apprehension-sense, but also the modification of the sensible intentional matters playing the role of categorial representative contents.

In Logical Investigations, Husserl does not contemplate this, as he does not yet foresee the necessity of a spontaneous repetition of the process of synthesis, which entails a renewed performance and a resulting modification of the intentions directed at the sensible objects put into relation via the categorial multi-rayed act. In other words, Husserl did not realize that, as he says in Studies, “thinking brings in its thinking-form, and this penetrates everything, also the terms” (Husserl, 2020, 29).Footnote 11

To sum up, the second possible reason for Husserl’s self-criticism of his early theory of categorial representation may be the following:

Husserl’s Mature view of the Categorial Representative: what plays the role of categorial representative content is not the synthesis among the intentional matters that is passively pre-constituted at the receptive level of sensible perception, but rather the synthesis among these intentional matters that is spontaneously constituted anew at the predicative level.Footnote 12

4 Conclusions

The title of my article, “Categorial Representation Anew,” signals my endeavor to approach Husserl’s self-criticism of his early theory of categorial representation in a novel and more constructive manner. Instead of interpreting his dissatisfaction as a flaw within the framework of his early phenomenology, I maintain that Husserl’s evolved perspectives prompt his critical reevaluation. I argue that Husserl never searched for the source of categorial intuition within inner sensibility. On the contrary, in Logical Investigations, he introduces the issue of reflection precisely to caution against such a potential error. A categorial form, e.g., identity, conjunction, disjunction, etc., is something objective. It can be found only in intentional objects and never in lived experiences. Despite this, Husserl criticizes the theory of categorial representation in this work for two main reasons: first, he revises his stance on the role of categorial representatives in empty thinking acts, and second, he recognizes the necessity to repeat the passive synthesis among intentional matters functioning as categorial representatives in the predicative activity. Although these aspects of Husserl’s thought may seem technical, they are pivotal for understanding the possibility of knowledge. Therefore, the ability to answer the question “what are the categorial representative contents that account for the fulness of intuitive categorial acts?” remains relevant for all scholars who either advocate or sympathize with Husserl’s phenomenological theory of knowledge.