Abstract
After all the reductions are carried out phenomenology turns out to be a discipline rigorously shut up in its own shell — this thanks to the rigor and purity of its absolute object. It is free not only from all theoretical and practical presuppositions, but it also operates only with material that it is able to establish by itself. Being the foundation of all philosophical as well as special knowledge, phenomenology “accepts” nothing. It “has” only itself. In this regard we mentioned above that phenomenology can always use the Object of another attitude for its own purposes. But of course as to the content it “converts” everything in accordance with its own spirit and for its own purposes. All of this holds not only for the Objects of phenomenology but also for its means and methods. They, too, cannot be “borrowed” and cannot be founded on other attitudes and sciences. If phenomenology has to use certain formal principles, e.g. the laws of logic, it must even in those cases provide its own justification for them.
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
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author’s Notes
On this methodological reference of phenomenology to itself cf. in Husserl’s Ideas, § 65, p. 149ff.
Ideas, p. 151.
Ideas, p. 153ff.
Cf. Ideas, p.326ff.
Ideas, p. 345.
Ideas, p. 40. Cf. also Husserl, Logical Investigations, op. cit., § 51, in particular the here corrected text of the second edition.
In support of this novel translation of the term “common sense” [in English in the original — trans.] cf. T. Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. Essay VI. ch. II (ed. by Hamilton), 1880, p. 421.
B. Bosanquet, The Essentials of Logic, London, 1910, p. 153.
Ideas, p. 17.
This is the place for an interesting comparison. The demand for pure description in the natural sciences originates among the supporters of the ideal of a “mathematical natural science.” As we pointed out above, however, surely only evidence in the sphere of ideal objects is adequate evidence. The ideal of a mathematization of science is revealed here from its good and authentically philosophical side.
Ideas, p. 165.
B.V. Jakovenko in Filosofija Gusserlja, “Novye idei v filosofa,” No. 3, p. 142 writes: “Pure description in general is nonsense because every act of cognition, in the words of Husserl himself, has a specific tendency (an intention) and therefore contains categorial forms. Hence, a purely descriptive act, if such a thing in general were possible, would, properly speaking, by its purely descriptive character realize a certain preconceived tendency, and thereby actually show its non-descriptive nature. Pure description can be seen only as one type of theory or as an imperfect state of theory. The phenomenology of Husserl stands under a whole series of specific categories of psychic being. It operates with a specific method of forming concepts and is a model theoretical science. Moreover, it still presupposes the presence of psychic being as such.” 1) Phenomenology studies not only “acts of cognition,” but inten-tionality in all of its actional as well as non-actional modifications. 2) An intention has a necessary correlate: intention of something and to something. The “intentional Object” is by no means an “act.” 3) An intention can be actional, but it is not active. 4) Phenomenology has nothing in common with the voluntaristic understanding of “act” and “Aktregung” 5) The identification of intention and tendency is a mistake. 6) A “purely descriptive act” is not an “act of cognition” but is an “expression.” 7) To attribute to it the possibility of “realizing” anything whatever means: a) to take it in the psychological attitude, b) to attribute “activity.” 8) Pure description is “one type of theory,” pure theory. 9) Actually from the point of view of pragmatism pure theory is an “imperfect state of theory” because it is useless. 10) Phenomenology does not “stand under” the categories of “psychic being,” since the latter is an empirical being and phenomenology speaks of pure consciousness. 11) Phenomenology does not “form concepts,” and it considers the very formulation of the problem concerning the “formation of concepts” as fundamentally wrong. 12) Phenomenology does not “presuppose still the presence of psychic being as such” because it is concerned only with the given, as given, which “is found” (Vorgefundenes).
Ideas, pp. 169–170.
See the development of this view in Husserl: Ideas, pp. 84–88 and p. 161ff.
Ideas, p. 168.
Translator’s Notes
Ideas, p. 154.
Reading “predmetov, sushchnostej” instead of “predmetov sushchnostej.”
By translating “smotrenie” as “sight” and “usmotrenie” as “insight” we have here tried to retain the word-play evident in the Russian text.
Reading “javlenii” instead of “davlenii”
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shpet, G. (1991). The Problem of Method. In: Appearance and Sense. Phaenomenologica, vol 120. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3292-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3292-3_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-1098-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-3292-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive