Abstract
In the present article, I introduce Husserl’s analyses of ‘natural causality’ (Naturkausalität) and ‘volitional causality’ (Willenskausalität), which are collected in the volume ‘Wille und Handlung’ of the Husserliana edition Studien zur Struktur des Bewußtseins. My aim is to show that Husserl’s insight into these phenomena enables us to understand more clearly both the specificity of, and the relation between, the motivational nexus belonging to the sphere of the will in contrast with the causal laws of nature. In light of this understanding, in the last part of the article I reflect on whether and to what extent there is, in fact, an ontological and epistemological compatibility between volitional causality and natural causality.
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Notes
For an account of the editorial history of the Studien zur Struktur des Bewußtseins, see Melle (2014).
Leaving aside the more general studies that address Husserl’s ethics as a whole, the most recent studies that focus specifically on Husserl’s analysis of the essence of action and volition are Melle (1997), Mertens (1998, 2020), Lotz (2006), Peucker (2015), Lohmar (2016), Erhard (2019), Staiti (2019), Drummond (2020), among others.
Hereafter, where possible, all references to Husserl’s works will be made to the German pagination of the Husserliana edition (abbreviated ‘Hua’) including volume and page number. All translations are mine.
Another passage in which Husserl explicitly remarks the essential volitional character of any action is the following: “Every acting is willing. […] But the process is called action only insofar as it is characterized as a process of the will, namely it is action in and with this character of the will (creative character). Every acting is therefore eo ipso a willing […]” (Hua LXIII.3, 24).
In this respect, it must be noted that for Husserl a relation of causal consequence is said to be ‘empirical’ in two senses. First, it is ‘empirical’ insofar as it refers to a relation of succession between processes in real time, i.e. the objective time of the world of nature. Second, it is ‘empirical’ in the sense that the occurrence of the effect after the cause, although motivated and hence probable, is not an absolute necessity (see Hua XVI, 292).
In this respect, Husserl points out that “the fiat is never something in itself; it is either the starting point of an action or of an inhibition (of an action)” (Hua XLIII.3, 47).
After that, volitional causality holds between any ‘creative moment’ (kreatives Moment) of the primary action (for a definition of the notion of ‘primary action’, see §2.1 below). The creative moment is the positing of the will that corresponds to the ‘current now of the will’ (jeweiliges Willensjetzt), namely the now phase of volition within the primary action. As such, the creative moment confers the ‘productive character’ (schöpferischen Charakter) on the action by positing it as a process to be practically realized. Like the fiat, each creative moment is an empty intention of the will that fulfils itself by passing over into the intended phase of the action (see Hua XLIII.3, 26). To the unity of the action there corresponds, thus, a unity of creative moments constantly passing over into one another, whose form of temporal succession is precisely that of volitional causality.
It must be noted that the motivational causation between volition and action is not a logical relation. For Husserl’s general discussion of the fact that a volitional state of affairs is not a mere particular case of a logical state of affairs, see Hua XXVIII, §6.
Interestingly, other than describing the motivation of the will in terms of ‘volitional causality’, in the Studien Husserl describes natural causality in terms of ‘empirical motivation’. As an anonymous reviewer, who I thank, pointed out to me, this terminological practice may confuse, not to say irritate, the reader, who is taught by Husserl himself that motivation is the ‘fundamental lawfulness of spiritual life’ (Grundgesetzlichkeit des geistigen Lebens), which, therefore, should not be confused with natural causation (see Hua IV, §56f). However, the reason for which in the Studien Husserl describes natural causality as the ‘motivational nexus’ or ‘motivating’ in the sphere of nature is that the theme of his phenomenological analysis is not the objective relation of temporal succession between physical processes in the world, but rather the experience of such a relation (both in its noetic and noematic aspects). As soon as this point is clear in mind, then any irritation or unease about Husserl’s terminology should vanish. Indeed, natural causality is experienced precisely as an empirical motivation, in which, as discussed before, we have two natural processes: the givenness of the former motivating the expectation of the latter.
I translate here Einwirkungen as ‘agency,’ which has among its possible meanings that of ‘the behavior or intervention of an object producing a particular effect’ (e.g., ‘the agency of fire’ or ‘the agency of water’). I keep the singular form of the English noun, since in its plural form ‘agency’ is usually associated with the meaning of ‘business offering a service.’
Accordingly, volitional causality pertains to natural processes insofar as they appear to consciousness. As Husserl writes: “we do not put volitional causality under the natural scientific causality that implies an exact legality in the nexus of all thing-like [dinglishen] changes, namely [in the nexus; NS] of mathematical-mechanic [changes; NS] that are put under the appearing changes – for we know nothing of all this outside of natural science and above all in the sphere of mere appearance and natural experience –, but we put volitional causality under the appearing things, the appearing processes, the appearing dependencies, necessary consequences” (Hua XLIII.3, 61–62).
In this respect, Husserl notes that “[…] the volitionality of the voluntary movement, which makes up the first section of the whole ‘action’, is then essentially different from that of the second section, in which the natural outcome of the former movement flows and now flows volitionally. It now holds for the whole process with both sections that it has the character of action, since not only is there a process in general, but a process characterized as volitional in all its flow. Only the kind of ‘volitional’ on the two sides is still something essentially different. I can indeed arbitrarily direct my voluntary movement at each phase, at least within certain limits. A starting piece [Ein Stück, ein Einsatz] of the voluntary movement does not yet unequivocally determine the further [movement; NS]: the further is not a purely natural flow of the inception, as if the volition could change nothing more. It is, so to speak, the constantly creative animating of the action what is arranged, while in the second section simply flows, and the volition cannot immediately change anything about that anymore; it can at most intervene in the manner of a new voluntary movement, whose mechanical outcome yields a resultant [combined; NS] with the already flowing [movement; NS]” (Hua XLIII.3, 4).
Husserl gives some everyday examples of the functional dependence of consciousness on the body by saying: “The appearances and other contents of consciousness (lived experiences) depend of the body. If I keep the eyes closed, then I do not see the thing; I have no appearances, no perceptions. If I burn myself, then I have altered tactile sensations; a stroke and I feel pain, etc., and so [does; NS] the other, as I understand from his statements” (Hua XLIII.3, 52).
Husserl maintains that inhibitions and resistances, insofar as they concern actions, “are themselves phenomena of the will” (Hua XLIII.3, 65), which thus represent “a separate thema” of a phenomenology of volition (Hua XLIII.3, 108).
For a study of Husserl’s theory of psychophysical laws, see Yoshimi (2010).
It must be noted that, for Husserl, volitional causality is already present in the domain of the psyche as an ontological region of the world, without the need for us to track it down at the level of transcendental consciousness. In general, the Studien should be seen as Husserl’s attempt to build a systematic phenomenological psychology, rather than a transcendental phenomenology (see Melle 2014). Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that the following considerations on the compatibility between natural and volition causality concern, strictly speaking, Husserl’s phenomenological psychology of action and not its transcendental phenomenology.
It is even possible to include under volitional causality all psychic phenomena and not just the volitional ones. Indeed, volitional causality can be seen not just as the motivational nexus specific to the domain of volition, but, more in general, as the general ‘motivational causality’ (Motivationskausalität) that, for Husserl, represents the ‘fundamental lawfulness of spiritual life’ (Grundgesetzlichkeit des geistigen Lebens). In particular, while the volitional causality at the level of ‘non-voluntary doing’ (unwillkürliches Tun) represents the motivation in the passive sphere of habit and association, the volitional causality at the level of action represents the ‘motivation of reason’ (Vernunftmotivation) in the active sphere of ego’s ‘position-takings’ (Stellungnahmen). Unfortunately, due to the constraints of space, I will not go into this further here.
For a comparison between Husserl and Kim as regards the issue of mental causation, see Staiti (2010).
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to me.
One may object that the idea of physical processes that begin of themselves in correlation to psychical process contradicts determinism, according to which all physical events must be determined by antecedent empirical causes. Husserl, who contends that scientific determinism is nothing but an idealization (see Hua VI, §9), rejoins that “determinism does not rescind in any way the arising of the deed from the will and only from it” (Hua XLIII.3, 56).
For a phenomenological discussion of the possibility of naturalizing free will, see Rinofner-Kreidl (2007).
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Acknowledgments
This work is funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). I would like to thank the Husserl Archives in Leuven for giving me access to Husserl’s research manuscripts, which were still unpublished at the time of writing. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments were crucial to improving the article.
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Spano, N. Volitional causality vs natural causality: reflections on their compatibility in Husserl’s phenomenology of action. Phenom Cogn Sci 21, 669–687 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-020-09724-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-020-09724-9