Abstract
The paper departures from how Husserl views Nature in his Ideas II and the Crisis such as it is a genuine phenomenological critique of the modern conception of nature – thus opening for realizing how the conception of modernity (contrary to what it itself says) is grounded on the Life-world and generated within the Historicity of Human Existence. I will further develop this by including some parts from Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on Nature, especially, then, in regard to Kant and his distinction between the constitutive and the reflective power of judgment. All this will, of course, occur within the perspective provided by Husserl, – and the question about the essential “nature” of Nature: is it mechanistic or is it teleological? occurs. And may they ever intertwine? In the context of this we will finally make thematic some smaller works of both M-P and Husserl in which the field of problems as regards: “Phenomenology and The Human Positioning in the Cosmos – The Life-world, Nature, Earth –” becomes elucidated.
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- 1.
Some Philosophers (the pre-Socratic, Plato, the Stoics etc.) look upon Nature as a basic feature of the world conceived as an ordered totality, the Cosmos. Others (e.g. Aristotle) look upon it more as (the) characteristic of the singular thing, rather then of the ordered totality. The nature of a thing is its “immanent principle for movement and rest”, that is – it is what decides the purpose or the teleos of the thing itself, which is immanently working in and on the thing “in-it-self”. This, then, might be distinguished from what could be done to the thing by the human hand, governed by and depending on purposes that we as humans decide. – In the Medieval Age, in Scholastic Philosophy, you have the distinction between Natura Naturas, i.e. the eternal creative nature, which is God himself as principle and cause, and Natura Naturata, i.e. the nature which is created in time and space. Both represent principles for structuring – thus continuing the thought of Antiquity. But as Antiquity thought of the whole of Nature as eternal – with its “in it self” functioning teleological principles, now it is only God, Natura Naturans, which is eternal – thus making possible that God could have created Nature differently (thus also preparing for the modern conception – there is no limitation to what God might accomplish!), for instance without any specific purposes functioning in it.
- 2.
In the tradition of Modern Philosophy that is developing from what happened in the Renaissance, there is, then, a huge discussion on epistemological and ontological questions regarding the issues of Nature and Modern Natural Science. And in a way, this also constitutes the core and the mainstream thinking of the whole tradition. And the Science itself has, of course, undergone a tremendous development both regarding modes of doing research, methods, complexity, presenting and applying results etc. And last, but not least, this whole crop of scientific knowledge within its whole historical development, has given Humanity a huge number of challenging new questions regarding our lives, organising communities and the praxes we conduct within them. Never the less, it seems (even in our time?) that elements of the basic conception of nature with the features established at the beginning of Modernity, still holds sway: Nature is a mathematical (or geometrical) manifold that is subject to causal universal laws, which are objectively determinable. – At least this seems to still represent the ideal. Thus – maybe this is the answer to the question raised right at the beginning: this is the essence and real sense of what Nature finally is?
- 3.
This is, of course, the modern optimistic outlook regarding science. God may or may not be part of this whole picture – dependent on what the individuals (subjectively) them selves think and believe.
- 4.
Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der Europäishen Wissenschaften und die Transzendentale Phänomenologie, herausgegeben von Walter Biemel, 2. Auflag, Haag, Martinus Nijhoff 1962. We will be referring to the English version, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, translated by David Carr, Northwestern University Press, Evanston 1970, using Crisis.
- 5.
Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer Reinen Phänomenologie und Phänomenologischen Philosophie, Zweites Buch, Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution, Herausgegeben von Marly Biemel, Haag, Martinus Nijhoff 1952. I will be referring to the English version Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, translated by Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer, Kluwer Academic Publisher 1989, using Ideas II.
- 6.
In the Crisis you may say Husserl is more explicitly critical – also saying the life-world is the forgotten meaning-fundament of the natural sciences. Thus it is something missing which makes the perspective of those sciences limited – something they do not themselves realize – at least not as that same perspective is being “universalized”. In the Ideas II he maybe is not that explicit on that as a loss, but what he does shows clearly that the adequate constitutional analyses of the foundtional concepts of natural science has to have an experietial grounding in how things etc. are experienced life-worldly. And, of course, you have differences regarding the historical character of constitutional analyses.
- 7.
Ideas II p.6, my italics
- 8.
Ideas II p. 8, italics by me
- 9.
Paraphrasing Ideas II p. 36
- 10.
Ideas II first p. 37 and second p. 38
- 11.
In more detail these are some of the steps bringing him to this “conclusion”. First, it is only from the appearances (and intersubjective nexus) that we can draw the sense of what a thing is in “Objective actuality,” [……. But] The Objectively real is not in my “space” or in anyone else’s, as “phenomenon” [..] but exists in Objective space, which is a formal unity of identification in the midst of changing qualities. [……] Pure space […] arises out of my appearing space not through abstraction but through an Objectification which takes as “appearances” any sensuously appearing spatial form endowed with sensuous qualities and posits it in manifolds of appearances which do not belong to an individual consciousness but to a societal consciousness as a total group of possible appearances that is constituted out of individual groups. Each subject has the totality of space […]. In principle, the thing is given and is to be given only through appearances, whose appearing contents can vary with the subjects. [……] subjects stand in a relationship of empathy and, […] can intersubjectively assure themselves of the identity of what appears therein. […] the thing is something intersubjectively identical yet is as such that it has no sensuous-intuitive content [….] it is only an empty identical something as a correlate of the identification possible according to experimental-logical rules and grounded through them […..] by the subjects that stand in the intersubjective nexus along with their corresponding acts appropriate to appearance and to experimental-logical thinking. (Ideas II, pp. 92–3)
- 12.
Ideas II pp. 384–5
- 13.
This might easily be compared to what Husserl says in The Crisis – in the appendix “The Origin of Geometry” characterizing history (and historicity) in this manner: “[…] history is from the start nothing other than the vital movement of the coexistence and the interweaving of original formations and sedimentations of meaning.” (p. 371) Also my article K. Rokstad: “On the Historicity on Understanding” in A.-T. Tymieniecka (ed.) Analecta Husserliana LIX, 401–422, 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
- 14.
Ideas II, p. 385
- 15.
M. Merleau-Ponty: Nature Course notes from the Collège de France p. 71, Northwestern University Press Evanstone, Illinois (hereafter Nature)
- 16.
All the quotes from Nature p. 72. As regards that duality Husserl did not manage to overcome M-P should here have been more precise in talking about Nature – he should have said it is the animal Nature as distinct from the material.
- 17.
Nature p. 73
- 18.
E. Husserl in M. Merleau-Ponty: Husserl at the limits of Phenomenology Edited by Leonard Lawlor with Bettina Bergo pp. 117–131 Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois 2002
- 19.
Crisis p. 51
- 20.
Nature p.73, my italics
- 21.
This all refers to the Nature pp. 74–76
- 22.
Op.cit. p. 75
- 23.
Op.cit. p. 76
- 24.
Ideas II pp. 190–91
- 25.
Op.cit. p. 76
- 26.
Op.cit. p. 76
- 27.
Op.cit., my italics
- 28.
cf. PhaS, Signs p. 175
- 29.
Nature pp. 77–78
- 30.
Nature p. 296, Notes to pp. 78–84, my italics
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Rokstad, K. (2012). Nature and Cosmos in a Phenomenological Elucidation. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Phenomenology and the Human Positioning in the Cosmos. Analecta Husserliana. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4795-1_3
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