Abstract
This curious and puzzling epigraph immediately raises two issues involved in Husserl’s understanding of the political. The first, evident in the first sentence and emphasized by Husserl himself, is the apparent paradox that the state or political community arises at once by nature and by art or practical convention. The second concerns the particular forms of superordination and subordination found in the political community.
Der natürliche Staat und der künstliche Staat. Letzteres: der Staat künstlich erwachsen aus einer Staatsvereinigung, einem Staat bildenden Verein. Ersteres: ein Staat erwachsend aus einer natürlichen Abstammungsgemeinschaft. erwachsend als Gemeinschaft der Unterordnung des Willens unter eine Autorität, des Stammeshauptes.
des Despoten, Tyrannen. etc.
The natural state and the artificial state. The last: the state arising artificially from a political unification, a union forming a state. The first: a state arising from a natural ancestral community, arising as a community of subordination of the will under an authority, of the chief, of the despot, tyrant, etc.
—Edmund Husser l
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References
Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil: 1905–1920,ed. 1st) Kern, Husserliana XIII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 110.
I have especially in mind Karl Schuhmann. Husserls Staatsphilosophie (Munich: Verlag Karl Alber Freiburg, 1988); James G. Hart, The Person and the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), chap. 5; R. Philip Buckley, “Husserl’s Notion of Authentic Community,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1992): 213–227. and Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), chap. 5; and Natalie Depraz, “Phenomenological Reduction and the Political,” Husserl Studies 12 (1995): 1–17.
Cf, e.g., Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge,ed. Stephan Strasser, Husserliana I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963); Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology,trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 169/142; Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität: Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935,ed. Iso Kern, Husserliana XV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 168, 171–72; and Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzungsband: Texte aus dem Nachlass 1934–1937,ed. Reinhold Schmid, Husserliana XXIX (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992), 3–17, 3746.
Cf. Anthony Steinbock, Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology after Husserl (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1995), 3. Cf. also Steinbock’s discussion of Husserl’s use of “Stamm” and its cognates (194–96), a root which can be translated variously as “stem” (of a plant), “trunk” (of a tree), “strain” (of bacteria), “root,” “stock” or “lineage.” We see this dimension of generativity in Husserl’s claim that the state is grounded in an Abstammungsgemeinschaft,a community formed by familial descent and ancestral relations. We shall return to this point later in the paper.
For Husserl’s discussions of the traditional character of disciplines, geometry in particular, cf. “Die Frage nach dem Ursprung der Geometrie als intentionalhistorisches Problem,” Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie,ed. Walter Biemel, 2nd ed. Husserliana VI (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962; “On the Origin of Geometry,” The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy,trans. David Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 353–378/365–86.
For Husserl’s discussion of the interpenetration of wills in the formation of a communal will, see Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution,ed. Manly Biemel, Husserliana IV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952); Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Second Book: Studies in the Phenomenology of Constitution,trans. Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 192–94/202–204; Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Zweiter Teil: 1921–1928,ed. Iso Kern, Husserliana XIV (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973), 169–70, 200–201; and Aufsätze und Vorträge (1922–1937),ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans-Reiner Sepp, Husserliana XXVII (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 22, 48–49.
Cf. Charles Taylor’s example of neighbors talking about the weather as a joint articulation; see “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal—Communitarian Debate,” Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 189. The crucial point is not the appeal to discussion and language in these examples, although both involve conversations. The crucial point is that we move beyond coordinated and cooperative actions to what Taylor calls a “common rhythm” (“To Follow a Rule,” Philosophical Arguments. 173) and to what Nancy Sherman refers to variously as “mutual interaction,” “mutual tracking,” and “mutual engagement” (“The Virtues of Common Pursuit,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53 [19931: 280). The mutual interaction can be established, for example, by nods of the head in response to another’s description of the weather; cf. Taylor, 189 and Sherman, 281. For Husserl’s discussions of communicative interaction, cf. Hua IV, 182–94/191–204, and Hua XIV, 196–97.
Cf. Hua XIV, 172–75: cf. also Robert Sokolowski, Moral Action: A Phenomenological Study (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 54–55.
Cf. John J. Drummond. “Agency. Agents. and (Sometimes) Patients,” The Truthful and the Good: Essays in Honor of Robert Sokolowski, ed. John J. Drummond and James G. Hart ( Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 1996 ), 155–56.
Cf. Hua XXVII, 28; cf. also John Drummond, “Moral Objectivity: Husserl’s Sentiments of the Understanding,” Husserl Studies 12 (1995): 179. A vocational good compares to what Charles Taylor calls a “hypergood,” a material good of overriding importance in relation to which we organize all the goods we pursue and which gives a certain moral identity to a person; cf. Sources of the Self The Making of the Modern Identity ( Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989 ), 63.
For an indication of how such a view might be developed. cf. Drummond, “Moral Objectivity,” 174–78.
Cf. Drummond, “Moral Objectivity,” 170–74.
For a discussion of authenticity as a non-manifest good, cf. Drummond, “Moral Objectivity,” 180–81.
Cf. Husserl’s version of the categorical imperative with its tie to circumstance and the possibilities existing therein; see Hua XXVIII, 52. 221. Cf. also Drummond, “Moral Objectivity,” 169–70.
For a description of the authentic community and its relation to authentic self-realization, cf. Hua XXVII. 44–54, and for the language of the community of love, cf. Hua XIV, 175. Cf. also Schuhmann, Husserls Staatsphilosophie, 49, 1 16.
Hence. Rawls’s account of the original position (A Theory of Justice [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19711, I I ff.) is an example of a confusion of philosophical and political reason insofar as its seeks to abstract from the personal, historical, and cultural
Here is a second difference between Rawls’s conception of public reason and the view of political reason I am here suggesting. Reasoning on political questions beyond the fundamental principles of justice is, according to Rawls, governed by those principles and by establishing a set of guidelines specifying both publicly acceptable ways of reasoning and also criteria limiting the kinds of reasons that can be brought to bear on political questions (cf Rawls, Political Liberalism. 223). In addition, public reason must agree, beyond the principles of justice, on “constitutional essentials,” e.g., the branches and powers of government and the basic rights and liberties of citizens immune to limitation by legislative action (ibid., 227). Finally, public reason must apply these principles of justice and constitutional essentials to particular cases. In doing so, an appeal to political values is unavoidable, but, according to Rawls’s conception of public reason, we can appeal to only those political values we “believe, in good faith, that all citizens as reasonable and rational might reasonably be expected to endorse” (ibid., 236). Hence, neutrality among competing, concrete conceptions of the 22 This recalls Husserl’s “law of absorption;” cf. Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre. 1908–1914. ed. Ullrich Melle, Husserliana XXVIII ( Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988 ), 145.
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Drummond, J.J. (2000). Political Community. In: Thompson, K., Embree, L. (eds) Phenomenology of the Political. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 38. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2606-1_4
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