Abstract
This article develops an interpretation and defense of Husserl’s account of the omnitemporality of idealities. I first examine why Husserl rejects the atemporality and temporal individuation of idealities on phenomenological grounds, specifically that these attributions prove countersensical in how they relate idealities to consciousness. As an alternative to these conceptions, I develop a two-sided interpretation of omnitemporality expressed in modal terms of actuality and possibility; the actual referring to appearances in time and the possible, to reactivation at any time, on phenomenological grounds. In defense of this interpretation of omnitemporality, I consider influential criticisms against Husserl’s account of idealities as they concern time, particularly whether the historical genesis of idealities compromises their omnitemporality by binding them to time. Ultimately, I argue that the transcendental historicity of idealities, despite being relevant to the question of validity and access, proves indifferent to their omnitemporality.
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Notes
I will not develop a theory of meaning in this article, for instance, in terms of whether meaning lies in individual concepts, their constellation in propositions, and so on. I am focused solely on the question of temporality. The significance of my argument is most evident for apodictic truth and pure logic, although the argument extends to experiential judgments as well.
Undoubtedly, there are differences between ideal objects in the domains of mathematics, logic, the various material ontologies, and so on. My analysis abstracts from these differences to consider the nature of their omnitemporality in general. Hence, as I interpret Husserl, Verstandesgegenständlichkeit includes Allgemeingegeständlichkeit or “general objectivity” of concepts, genera, and essences and Kulturgegeständlichkeit or “cultural objectivity” reflected in bound idealities, as discussed below. Ralf Becker claims instead that these are three distinct kinds of irreal objectivities with their own forms of fulfillment. For example, general objectivities are extensional concepts under which instances fall, as compared to the objectivities of the understanding that are fulfilled as the ideal pole of a synthetic act whose other pole is some real state of affairs. Becker (2002, pp. 217–220). Yet, Husserl nowhere makes such strict delineations. In fact, he seemingly includes general objectivity under objectivity of the understanding (it is “like any objectivity of the understanding”) and so with cultural objectivity (included when we think beyond an unduly “narrow sense” of objectivity of the understanding). Husserl (1973a, pp. 263, 266).
Husserl (1973a, p. 260).
Husserl (1973a, pp. 265–266).
Husserl (1973a, p. 254).
I will use the term “omnitemporal” across this essay for stylistic consistency.
Becker provides an exhaustive tracing of the terms allzeitlich, Allzeitlichkeit, and Allgegenwart in Husserl’s writings. Becker (2002, pp. 213–214). As he notes, the first appearance of the term allzeitlich is as early as 1917/18 with the Bernau Manuscripts, where we also find references to Allgegenwart. Husserl (2001a, pp. 287, 310, 312, 321f, 326, 333). Husserl directly uses the term Allzeitlichkeit in contrast to Zeitlosigkeit in his 1920/21 lectures on transcendental logic. Husserl (2000, p. 30 ff). The term Allzeitlichkeit subsequently appears in texts including Cartesian Meditations (one mention in the fifth meditation), The Crisis (one mention in the introduction), “The Origin of Geometry” (two mentions), and Experience and Judgment (a dedicated discussion in §64c).
Becker (2002, pp. 220–223).
Husserl (1969, pp. 132–133).
Other commentators have situated the discussion of omnitemporality in the context of Platonism and psychologism for the rather obvious reason that Husserl does as well. See, for example, Becker (2002) and Held (1966). I consider this context to clarify my own interpretation of omnitemporality and criticize challenges to the concept of omnitemporality that implicitly fall back to uncritical existence statements about idealities in these veins.
Becker (2002).
Becker (2002, p. 208).
Husserl (2001b, p. 634).
Lohmar (1993, p. 83).
Hardy (2013, p. 87).
Held (1966, p. 50).
Husserl (1973a, p. 259).
Husserl (1973a, p. 233).
Becker (2002, p. 213).
Husserl (2001a, pp. 321–322).
(Becker 2002, pp. 212–213). “Radikal unzeitlich können ideale Gegenstände nicht sein, weil sei schließlich im Denken und Sprechen eines Subjektes vermeint werden.”
No attempt to reformulate time consciousness would allow for an experience of atemporality. If consciousness is always temporal, there can be no directly atemporal evidence.
The “countersense” of atemporality might also be understood from the inconceivability of relating the temporal sphere of consciousness to an independently subsisting, atemporal realm of being. It is unclear how an atemporal being could appear temporally. See Becker (2002, 211).
Becker (2002, p. 209).
Husserl (1973a, p. 260).
See Husserl (1969, 154–155).
Note that even to judge some kind of identity across numerical difference is already to subsume under a self-same universal, which the reduction of idealities to temporally bounded particulars cannot account for.
Becker (2002, p. 207). “Erneut droht dadurch den zunächst ins Überzeitliche hinübergeretteten Sinn von Begriffen und Propopositionen Gefahr durch ihre radikale Verzeitlichung und mit diester möglicherweise auch ihre Relativierung.”
Husserl (1973a, p. 257).
Husserl (1969, p. 285).
Husserl (1969, p. 163).
Husserl (1973a, p. 261).
Husserl (1969, p. 155).
Husserl (1969, p. 167).
Husserl (1973a, p. 261).
Husserl (1969, 165).
Cf. Husserl (1973b, pp. 75–100).
In Formal and Transcendental Logic, Husserl also clarifies that, even under the transcendental reduction to the immanence of consciousness, the threat of psychologism remains if irreal objectivities thought by consciousness are thought to be individuated like spatiotemporal beings. Husserl (1969, p. 169).
I avoid thematizing differences between different kinds of idealities, for instance, between experiential judgments versus purely logical ones, in the context of psychologism. Yet, I emphasize that psychologism abolishes the evidential givenness of either. It cannot make sense of the truth claims implied by even experiential judgments, nor can it explain the apodictic judgments that can be made about those evidential judgments when they are analyzed as objectivities of their own.
Husserl (1969, p. 168).
Husserl (1969, p. 168).
Husserl (1969, p. 186). As Hardy explains, idealization differs from ideation insofar as the latter is instantiated in real objects, particularly as the guide perception, and the former serves only as an ideal limit or that which real objects merely approximate in principle (2013, 150).
Note that this point is not applicable to immanent real objects, although the other points below are.
Husserl (1969, p. 186).
Husserl (1969, p. 158).
Husserl (1969, p. 156).
Bernet (2023).
One might argue that, if identity is always relationally determined by context, then an external change also changes that identity as well. That may be true, but something may also be preserved through the change. The temporal locus of the ideality would not be preserved, and this can be thematized, but a core meaning would not be.
Note that omnitemporality does not hinge on awareness of it.
According to Held, “after the discovery of an ideal object, it will rightly be said that the possibility of grasping this object has existed at all times and will continue to exist at all times.” Held (1966, p. 51). “Nach der Entdeckung eines idealen Gegenstandes wird es zu Recht heißen, die Möglichkeit, diesen Gegenstand zu erfassen, habe zu jeder Zeit bestanden und werde auch alle Zeit bestehens.” This is somewhat too abstractly formulated if not qualified with the discussion of possibility and actuality above.
Becker (2002, 212).
Held (1966, p. 50). “von geradehin vollzogenen Meinungen über das, was dieses und jenes ist, hier: ob die eidetischen Gegebenheiten ‚außerhalb ‘ oder ‚innerhalb ‘ meiner, ‚in ‘ oder ‚über ‘ der Welt ….”
Held (1966, p. 50).
For instance, we might imagine a thesis about the existence of idealities in their own temporal, rather than atemporal, realm or a thesis about a retroactive causal power at the moment of their genesis. I will not examine these theses here.
What is more, either this reservoir always already exists fully, which cannot explain our experience of learning or constituting idealities over time, or is filled over time, with experience. In this latter case, we could not explain how idealities are experienced as valid for all time, including the past prior to which they first appear in consciousness.
For the possibility of thematizing idealities only at certain times, see Husserl (1969, 132–133).
Another problem arises when attempting to delimit the sphere of implied ideas. For example, in Husserl’s example “The automobile is the fastest means of travel,” we might implicitly think not only logical norms governing its sense but also various other empirical ideas in relation to which each concept is specified. The concept of a means of travel further implies other means than just the automobile. Does that mean we are implicitly thinking those others as well? If concepts are meaningful in relation to others, defined by what they subsume or are subsumed under, does any concept imply these relations, and the ideas implied by the ideas in these relations, and so on, until we imply an entire world of ideas with every thought? I must leave these questions open, although I am highly skeptical of the need to situate any one concept in a complete nexus of others for it to have meaning. In any case, what is merely implied is not presently objectified in thought, as I discuss in the main text.
Welton (1973, p. 278).
Welton, (1973, p. 293). Welton describes the dialectical core of Husserl’s genetic articulation of transcendental phenomenology as follows: first, sense precedes meaning as the pre-linguistic content to be given linguistic form; second, meaning precedes sense, insofar as sense can only be expressed through language “because the object is determined only in terms of the thematization of its horizon.”
Bernet (2023, p. 82).
Although some of the following discussion in this section and the next will appear to take a view from nowhere for the sake of simplicity of exposition, we must remember that even the existence of other subjects and human history outside of consciousness is phenomenologically bracketed. That bracketing would not prevent us from examining whether the concepts of genesis and historicity contradict that of omnitemporality or theorizing about the scenarios I present below, even if absolutely adequate evidence is not given for them (assuming they are not countersensical).
Derrida (2003, p. 127).
Derrida (2003, p. 126).
Derrida (2003, p. 126).
Derrida (1978, p. 39).
Shain (2016, p. 293).
Shain (2016, p. 302).
Husserl (1973a, p. 260).
Husserl (1970, p. 360).
“This new sort of construction will be a product [Erzeugnis] arising out of an idealizing, spiritual act, one of ‘pure’ thinking, which has its materials in the designated general pregivens of this factual humanity and human surrounding world and creates [schafft] ‘ideal objects’ out of them.” Husserl (1970, pp. 376–377). For another reference to how irreal objectivities are produced by the mind, see Husserl (1969, p. 155).
For example, Held asserts that “the ideal object, just by being discovered, is conscious as something that always has been and always will be.” Held (1966, p. 51). “In ähnlicher Weise ist der ideale Gegenstand, schon indem er entdeckt wird, bewußt als etwas, das es immer schon gab und immer geben wird …” According to Becker, “the ideal being of the unities of validity is independent of the temporal consciousness in which they manifest themselves.” Becker (2002, p. 211). “Das ideale Sein … ist gegenüber dem zeitlichen Bewußstein, in dem sie sich bekunden, unabhängig.” These statements are not necessarily false assuming further qualifications but, as they stand, are too abstractly formulated to reflect the phenomenological complexity of omnitemporality.
Husserl (1973a, p. 267).
Husserl (1973a, p. 267).
Husserl (1969, 208).
I will not discuss here how to translate things like indexicals to preserve omnitemporal sense.
Steinbock (2017, p. 113).
Husserl (1970, p. 362).
Husserl (1970, p. 373).
Derrida (1978, p. 87).
Bernet (2023, p. 85).
Bernet (2023, p. 85).
Bernet (2023, p. 80).
Husserl addresses the irreducibility of meaning to the materiality of signs and underscores how a common meaningful identity can be transmitted between contexts. If nothing is identical, we do not mean the same thing. For further discussion of this latter point, see Gendlin (2017, pp. 5–21).
Bernet (2023, p. 80).
Steinbock (2017, p. 113).
Steinbock (2017, p. 115).
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Sares, J. The omnitemporality of idealities. Cont Philos Rev 57, 113–134 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-024-09629-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-024-09629-3