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The Vocabulary of Reality

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Abstract

This article seeks to extricate and explicate the unique vocabulary that was consolidated by the realistic phenomenologist Hedwig Conrad-Martius in her establishing book Realontologie, published in 1923. Among the concepts are: “Essence” (Wesenheit), “Bearer” (Träger), Self-adherence (Selbsthaftigkeit), Capability (Können), Tangentiality (Tangierbarkeit), Incorporation (Leibhaftigkeit), Internality, “Quiet,” Fullness (Fülle), Depth, Layeredness (Teilbarkeit), Abyss (Abgrund), and others. CM does not always coin them as distinguished concepts, but they function as philosophical concepts due to the meaning she pours into them and the way she uses them. The author suggests that these terms can inaugurate the realistic discourse on reality, which is noticeably almost absent in the modern philosophy that has been almost sweepingly conquered by the literal and advanced idealistic discourse.

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Notes

  1. Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Realontologie (Real ontology) [1923], special print in Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung VI 159–333 (hereafter: CM 1923). References to this book are given in the body text. Emphases in citations follow the original unless stated otherwise. The wording of the idea of primordial phenomenon that can only be intuited but not explained appears already in Goethe, see, for example: Goethe (1921: 639, 1840: 232f.).

  2. CM shared the reliance on the Husserlian “intuition of essence” (Wesensfassung) with the Munich Circle, see: CM (1916: 355, n. 1, 1956: 377, 1955: 347). For further reading about this circle see: Avé-Lallemant (1959: 89–105, 1971: 19–38), Reinach (1913: 1–163), Pfänder (1913: 325–404, 2005: 1–13), Schmücker (1956: 1–33), Ebel (1965: 1–25), Walther (1955: 190).

  3. The year mentioned first is the year of the work’s writing, while the second year denotes the year of publication. Archive materials are taken from the Munich Estate Archive, Die Nachlässe der Münchener Phänomenologen, Die Bayerische Staatsbibliotheck, München (BSM, Nachlass).

  4. The term “bearer” has several appearances already in Doctrine of Appearance, usually as a character of the I (CM 1916: 482), of the spirit (CM 1916: 407, 514), of the senses (CM 1916: 497–98), or of the body (CM 1916: 525–26), and not as an ontological creature that accompanies the essence.

  5. CM differentiated here between two fundamentals that are usually identified with each other: “self” and “autonomy”. She clarifies that the standing of a phenomenon on its essence is not equivalent to its objectivity, to its autonomy in its existence, or to its independency (180). This clarification is important considering her discussion in Doctrine of Appearance, in which she posed the aspect of autonomy in existence as fundamental in the idea of reality (CM 1916: 392). However, in Realontologie this aspect is regarded as insufficient (CM 1923: 162). It seems that the objectivity and absoluteness are considered as insufficient since they lack the aspects of reality that will be discussed later.

  6. This argument continues CM's debate with positivism that marks the beginning her oeuvre, see: CM (1912, CM 1916: 345–47; 352; 357–58; 361–65; 378; 382–86; 390–91; 398–400; 423; 425).

  7. The aspect of the self appears already in Doctrine of Appearance, where CM’s discussion aims at establishing the autonomy of the external world vis-à-vis the consciousness and the I in general, see: CM (1916: 391–396).

  8. For further reading regarding the resemblance to scholastic thinking, see: Habbel (1959).

  9. CM (1956: 340). This essay is based on seminar that CM delivered during the winter semester in 1955/1956 that dealt with phenomenology.

  10. The term “primordial” (primär) is mentioned throughout Realontologie, see: CM (1923: 174–75; 181; 235).

  11. Ghigi counts five characteristics of the real: autonomy vis-à-vis relativity of the real, whatness, materiality, personal essence, and essential stratification. Yet, in the suggested interpretation, the aspect of layeredness ) which she translates as “stratification”) is regarded as a dimension driven from that of fullness or depth that is more fundamental compared to it. See Ghigi (2008).

  12. CM's discussion here falls in line with the idea of “surface” in Doctrine of Appearance that assumes this depth without referring to it as an explicit element, see: CM (1923: 408; 425–247; 462–467; 476; 494; 526).

  13. In Doctrine of Appearance, the expression stiffness is used comprehensively (although there it is denoted by “Härte” while in Realontologie she uses “Schwere”) to signify the material givenness-mode of the object (CM 1916: 426). She argues there that despite the fact that this characteristic generates a feeling of the I, the point of stiffness is not based on its influence on the I, but in its being an indication of the reality of the material felt thing (ibid., 514). Hence, stiffness belongs to the object and not to the subject (see: Miron 2014). It appears that also in Realontologie the expression of stiffness characterizes the real being, but while CM's early efforts were addressed to purifying reality of ‘feeling givenness’ from the experience of the I, here she concentrates on distinguishing reality from its concrete appearances.

  14. CM’s first essay explored a profound critique of positivism (CM 1912). The treatise won a prize of the faculty of philosophy at the University of Göttingen, and therefor is called “Preisschrift”. Although in the appendix to this essay that was written in 1920 she wrote that to a large extent she had left the issue of positivism behind her, the subtitle of her following book, Doctrine of Appearance—“associated with a critique of positivistic theories”—continues this path, and the later writings do as well.

  15. This situation is crystalized by Husserl regarding the use of the phenomenological method, see: Husserl (1913: vol. 1 I, §63).

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  1. The Program for Hermeneutics and Culture Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Ronny Miron

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Miron, R. The Vocabulary of Reality. Hum Stud 38, 331–347 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-015-9345-5

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