Abstract
In the prologue of his De Ente et Essentia, Thomas Aquinas explicitly suggests that philosophy is involved in exploring what is referred to by the most universal concepts, namely what the Medieval tradition labeled, among others, “transcendentals”. This paper intends to show in which sense Husserl’s ontological considerations, scattered in many texts, should be considered as an attempt to fulfill this far-reaching task. To do so, we will focus on some of the main conceptual articulations belonging to Husserl’s “cartography of universality”: “object” or “something”, “essence”, “thing”, “being” and “substance”. Spelling out these different notions should make it plain how Husserl understands universality itself, and how he arranges types, levels, and degrees of universality. But it should also make clear why ontology, though the first step, is not, and cannot be, the end of the story—namely, why, according to Husserl, a full-fledged, historically recent science, called “constitutive phenomenology”, is also required.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See Smith, 1996.
- 3.
The starting point was to be found, again, in Aristotle and its Scholastic reception. See Husserl Hua-Mat III and Majolino, 2021.
- 4.
- 5.
“The problem of a radical ‘classification’ of the sciences is, in the main, the problem of separating regions; and this, in turn, requires antecedent investigations in pure logic like those which were conducted here along some lines. On the other side, to be sure, a phenomenology is also required—of which we still know nothing”.
- 6.
“We define now as logical categories or categories of the logical region, any object whatever: the fundamental concepts of pure logic which occur in those axioms—the concepts by means of which, in the total set of axioms, the logical essence of any object whatever becomes determined, or the concepts which express the unconditionnally necessary and constituent determinations of an object as object [eines Gegenstandes als solchen], of anything whatever [eines irgend Etwas] in so far as it can be something [Etwas] at all” (Husserl, 1983, 22/21). More on this infra.4.
- 7.
Within the limited frame of this article, we will not be able to tackle this last, crucial issue. Developments on this point are to be found for instance in §15–19 of Husserl’s Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge.
- 8.
- 9.
On what follows, see Majolino, 2020.
- 10.
On the relation between Aristotle’s and (according to the latter) Plato’s universal and Husserl’s eidos, see Djian, 2020.
- 11.
See Mohanty, 1997, 3–7
- 12.
See below for more details on this concept.
- 13.
On a more general and systematical survey of Husserl’s mereology, see Smith, 1982.
- 14.
“The meaning components, or the components of the proposition categories, constitute a matter that can only be connected and fit together in specific ways, or else no unitary whole emerges, no unitary meaning results. And precisely the same holds of relatively unitary parts in propositions, for example, complex subject thoughts or predicate thoughts. A pattern of separating unitary meaning from nonsense, therefore, prevails in the meaning sphere independently of truth and falsehood” (Husserl, 2008, 72–73/70).
- 15.
- 16.
See Bachelard, 1957.
- 17.
- 18.
See Trizio, 2012.
- 19.
What follows must be viewed as a personal attempt to offer a systematical development on “being” and “substance” on the basis of some hints offered here and there by Husserl. Needless to say, I try to be as much true to him as I can, but I do not offer here what could be considered as Husserl’s theory verbatim. To attempt to offer such a theory would indeed largely exceed the limited frame of this paper.
- 20.
The relation these two parts maintain with each other is to be understood as a unilateral foundation of Existenz on Essenz. Indeed, we can imagine objects having an Essenz but no Existenz. For instance, pure possibilities, on which pure eidetic seeing is grounded, are neither real nor really possible objects, since they exclude any relation to the factual world. Hence, they do not exist, but it is quite clear they have an Essenz—since, as we have just said, it is on the basis on pure possibilities that pure eidê are acquired. More on this in Djian, 2020 and 2021.
- 21.
This broadening being grounded on the mereological fact that any natural object is either a material thing or grounded on a material layer.
Bibliography
Aertsen, J. (1996). Medieval philosophy and the transcendentals: The case of Thomas Aquinas. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Aertsen, J. (2012). Medieval philosophy as transcendental thought. From Philip the chancellor (ca. 1225) to Francisco Suárez. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Bachelard, S. (1957). La logique de Husserl. Étude sur “Logique formelle et logique transcendantale”. Paris: PUF.
Bernet, R. (2004). Conscience et existence. Paris: PUF.
De Santis, D. (2015). Wesen, Eidos, idea. Remarks on the “Platonism” of Jean Héring and Roman Ingarden. Studia Phaenomenologica, 15, 155–180.
Djian, A. (2020). Hen Epi Pollôn. The origin of Husserl’s eidetic variation and the divide between Plato and Aristotle on the universal. Studia Phaenomenologica, 20, 121–145.
Djian, A. (2021). Husserl et l’horizon comme problème. Une contribution à l’histoire de la phénoménologie. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses du Septentrion.
Federici Vescovini, G. (Ed.). (2001). Le problème des Transcendantaux du XIVe au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Vrin.
Goris, W., & Aertsen, J. (2019). Medieval theories of transcendentals. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Husserl, E. (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. An introduction to phenomenological philosophy (D. Carr, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Husserl, E. (1973). Experience and judgment. Investigations in a genealogy of logic (J. S. Churchill & K. Ameriks, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. First book. General introduction to a pure phenomenology (F. Kersten, Trans.). The Hague/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Husserl, E. (1989). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. Second book. Studies in the phenomenology of constitution (R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer, Trans.). Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Husserl, E. (2001). Husserliana XXXIII. In R. Bernet & D. Lohmar (Eds.), Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein (1917–18). Dordrecht: Springer.
Husserl, E. (2008). Introduction to logic and theory of knowledge. Lectures 1906–1907 (C. Ortiz Hill, Trans.). Dordrecht: Springer.
Kant, I., Guyer, P., & Wood, A. W. (Eds., Translator). (1999). The Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant in translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lohmar, D. (2000). Edmund Husserls “Formale und Transzendentale Logik”. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Majolino, C. (2012). Multiplicity, manifolds and varieties of constitution: A manifesto. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, XII, 155–182.
Majolino, C. (2015). Individuum and region of being: On the unifying principle of Husserl’s ‘headless’ ontology. In A. Staiti (Ed.), Commentary on Husserl’s ideas I (pp. 33–50). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
Majolino, C. (2020). Husserl and the reach of attitude. Philosophische Forschungen, 1, 85–108.
Majolino, C. (2021). Mapping Husserl’s ontology and its boundaries. In H. Jacobs (Ed.), The Husserlian mind. London: Routledge, chap. 38.
Miller, R. T., & Aquinis T. (1997). On being and essence. Internet Medieval Source Book. Fordham University Center for Medieval Studies.
Mohanty, J. N. (1997). Phenomenology: Between essentialism and transcendental philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Smith, B. (Ed.). (1982). Parts and moments. Studies in logic and formal ontology. München: Philosophia Verlag.
Smith, B. (1996). Austrian philosophy. The legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago-LaSalle: Open Court.
Sowa, R. (2007). Wesen und Wesensgesetzte in der deskriptiven Eidetik Edmund Husserls. Phänomenologische Forschung, 5–37.
Sowa, R. (2010). Eidos. In H. H. Gander (Ed.), Husserl-Lexicon. Darmstadt: WBG.
Stein, E. (2000a). What is philosophy? A conversation between Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas. In L. Gerber & M. Linssen (Ed.), Knowledge and faith. Collected works of Edith Stein. Vol. VIII (W. Redmond, Trans.). Washington: D. C.: ICS Publications.
Stein, E. (2000b). Husserl and Aquinas: A comparison (1929). In L. Gerber & M. Linssen (Eds.), Knowledge and faith. Collected works of Edith Stein. Vol. VIII (W. Redmond, Trans.) Washington: D.C.: ICS Publications.
Summa, M. (2013). Process and relation: Husserl’s theory of individuation revisited. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, XII, 109–135.
Trizio, E. (2012). Husserl and the mind-body problem. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, 11, 1–15.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Djian, A. (2022). Husserl’s Transcendentals? On Object, Essence, Thing, Being and Substance. In: Mariani Zini, F. (eds) The Meaning of Something. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09610-5_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09610-5_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-09609-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-09610-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)