Abstract
In Ideas II and other works, Edmund Husserl gives a constitutional analysis of material reality. His basic thought on this matter is that a material thing is constituted when it is shown to causally depend on its surrounding circumstances. In this essay, I will first try to show that this appeal to causal dependence involves an important problem, namely, the circularity or regress problem. I then consider how this problem can be solved from both theoretical and exegetical standpoints. As a key that could lead to a solution, I propose the hypothesis that Husserl’s notion of reality is holistic. By attributing this notion to Husserl, I argue that we can find a satisfactory answer to the aforementioned problem, as well as a perspicuous way of understanding some of his passages.
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- 1.
The following passage from Ideas III is particularly worthy of attention: “a thing is not an entity in general, but the identical in the nexus of causal dependencies. It is something that can live only in the atmosphere of causal lawfulness” (Hua V, p. 30).
- 2.
For example, despite the meticulous reconstruction given of Husserl’s view on material thing, Sokolowski 1974, ch.4 only briefly touches on the issue. Moreover, a recent, and otherwise excellent, study by Hardy 2013 on Husserl’s view on the physical sciences seems to find the aspects of Husserl’s thought that I will take up here to be relatively unproblematic (see especially p. 143).
- 3.
The problem of circularity I will raise here does not involve the triad of subjectivity, world, intersubjectivity which Zahavi 2003, pp. 74–6 outlined.
- 4.
Here, I will follow the characterization given by Zahavi 2003, pp. 72–3.
- 5.
The same idea is often expressed in terms of “rules” prescribed by each type of object (see, for example, Hua III/1, p. 350; Hua IV, p. 86). Also, for a useful discussion of this idea, see Sokolowski 1974, pp. 102–6.
- 6.
More precisely, Husserl seems to think that the order of the fifth and sixth stages can be interchangeable (Hua IV, p. 82).
- 7.
According to Husserl, whereas thing-schemes can fail to constitute a real thing, real things must contain thing-schemes as their basic components (Grundstück) (Hua IV, p. 37; Hua III/1, p. 350).
- 8.
Very roughly speaking, this relation can be expressed as: scheme manifold M functionally depends on scheme manifold M* iff there is some appropriate function from M* to M, that assigns for each element of M* (as causal factor) some element of M (as outcome). We should note two things about this relation. First, to be “appropriate,” the function here invoked should meet several conditions, particularly important among them would be the “natural lawfulness” condition (see §5 below). Second, the function in question should in fact be much more complex than this formulation may suggest. For, it must be sensitive to whatever intrinsic properties the dependent schemes (those in M) have, and also to what other factors (than M*) come to influence the outcome, so that the function would have to take the form of multiply conditional assignment.
- 9.
Here, one might think that there is another way we could explore. That is, one could attempt to revise (H1) in different way than by referring to (H2). Although this is in a sense what I shall do myself (see §§5 and 6 below), we should not expect the process to be easy. For, in addition to the fact that simply abandoning (H2) will not do as Husserl reading, the required revision of (H1) is not that easy. As a first example, one might be tempted to bring in some substantive notion of causality (stronger than functional dependence), and say that only those scheme manifolds which stand in this substantive causal relation are reality-constituting. Indeed, Husserl sometimes seems to suggest this route when he characterizes causality as a relation holding between real entities (Hua IV, p. 126). It is clear, however, that this maneuver does not make the situation better, if not only because of the previously mentioned problem of circularity. As a second example, it might seem promising to replace “some scheme manifold” in the right-hand of (H1) for “sufficiently many scheme manifolds” or something like that. Yet this strategy does not work either, for if one understands “sufficiently many” in a reasonably moderate sense, a high quality virtual experience machine gives counterexample, and if one understands this phrase in such a strong sense as to exclude counterexample, one would fall into circularity or question-beggingness.
- 10.
- 11.
My discussion in this paragraph owes a great deal to Keefe 2002, pp. 286–91.
- 12.
Other examples may be cited: the logical atomist (or a truthmaker non-maximalist) account of truth, non-reductive account of causation, the account of sameness of type by sparse theory of property, etc.
- 13.
The following regress argument is one instance of what Gillett 2003, pp. 712–3 calls “Structural Objection.”
- 14.
The basic distinction between the transmission model and the emergent model (which we shall see shortly) is discussed by BonJour 1985, p. 89ff., Gillett 2003, p. 715, Klein 2003, p. 726f., Morganti 2015, p. 560, among others, although the names they assign to these models are not always the same — the transmission model is sometimes called “linear” one while the emergent model is called “non-linear,” “holistic.”
- 15.
The phrase “normal” in the definient is needed to accommodate cases which have base-cases.
- 16.
One may add Leibniz’s argument for the existence of atoms to the following two examples (cited by Morganti 2015, p. 558), which takes actuality (or reality) to be transmitted from parts to whole via mereological composition.
- 17.
- 18.
This does not exclude the possibility that a system of P-entities can be extended, as is evident in the case of a belief system. See also the second question in the next section.
- 19.
The sort of coherence theory I have in mind here is that of BonJour 1985, although he later changed his position.
- 20.
For another possible illumination, see the concluding remark below.
- 21.
Suppose, on the one hand, that (H3-R) is true. Then there must be some scheme manifold—call it M*— on which M 0 functionally depends, since S is a system of functionally dependent manifolds. Furthermore, this M* must have the reality-constituting character, since S is of reality-bestowing type, and thus confers this character to all its constituents. Hence (H2-R) follows. Suppose, on the other hand, that (H2-R) is true. Then there must be some system of scheme manifold— S— which contains M 0 as constituent, since M 0 has the reality-constituting character, and under the emergent model, this is only possible when M 0 belongs to some system of reality-bestowing type. So (H3-R) follows.
- 22.
Obviously, this problem is parallel to that the coherence theory of justification faces (cf. BonJour 1985, ch.5).
- 23.
For a fulfilling discussion of a related point, see BonJour 1985, p. 90ff.
- 24.
As we saw earlier, this is roughly what (H2) instructs us to do.
References
Husserl’s Works
[Hua I] Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, hrsg. von S. Strasser, Martinus Nijhoff, 1950.
[Hua III/1] Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch, hrsg. von K. Schuhmann, Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.
[Hua IV] Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Zweites Buch, hrsg. von M. Biemel, Martinus Nijhoff, 1952.
[Hua V] Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Drittes Buch, hrsg. von M. Biemel, Martinus Nijhoff, 1971.
[Hua XXXII] Natur und Geist: Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1927, hrsg. von M. Weiler, Kluwer, 2001.
Other Works
BonJour, L. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gillett, K. 2003. Infinitism Redux? A Response to Klein. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66: 709–717.
Hardy, L. 2013. Nature’ Suit: Husserl’s Phenomenological Philosophy of the Physical Sciences. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Humberstone, L. 1997. Two Types of Circularity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57: 249–280.
Keefe, R. 2002. When Does Circularity Matter? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 102: 253–270.
Klein, P. 2003. When Infinite Regresses Are Not Vicious. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66: 718–729.
Lewis, D. 1986. A Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.
Morganti, M. 2015. Dependence, Justification and Explanation: Must Reality Be Well-Founded? Erkenntnis 80: 555–572.
Schaffer, J. 2010. Monism: The Priority of the Whole. Philosophical Review 119: 31–76.
Smith, M. 1993. Color, Transparency, Mind-Independence. In Reality, Representation, and Projection, ed. J. Haldane and C. Wright, 269–278. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sokolowski, R. 1974. Husserlian Meditations: How Words Present Things. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Zahavi, D. 2003. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Akiba, T. (2019). Things and Reality: A Problem for Husserl’s Theory of Constitution. In: de Warren, N., Taguchi, S. (eds) New Phenomenological Studies in Japan. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 101. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_3
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