Abstract
We may begin by recalling our remark that a purely linguistic ontology is not possible for the Logical Investigations (See above, p. 58). Laws of sense and reference give us the possibilities of positing objects, but actual perceptual presence is needed for us actually to posit being. The focus, then, of Husserl’s “Study on Categorial Representation” is the subjective accomplishment of categorial intuition. How does it carry out its task of bringing about an actual perceptual presence? The analogies of truth and being, by which we posit both real and categorial objects, demand certain similarities in the perceptual presence of each. This means that their intuitions must show “a genuine community of essential features.” As Husserl also expresses this, in considering the acts directed to categorial or ideal objects, “We call these new acts intuitions because, with the single exception of a ‘straightforward’ relation to the object ..., they have all the essential characteristics of intuition. We shall find in them the same essential divisions, as they also show themselves capable of essentially the same achievements of fulfillment” (LU, Tüb. ed., II/2, 165; F., p. 803).
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Notes
Schérer’s references are to Vol. II, Part 2, of the French translation, Recherches logiques, trans. H. Elie, L. Kelkel, R. Schérer (Paris, 195963). The corresponding references are LU, Tüb. ed., II/1, 399; F., p. 578; Ibid., II/ 1, 413; F., p. 587. In the first of these, Husserl terms the intentional matter of an act, the act’s intentional content when we do not include in this last the act’s presentational quality. Thus, one may present to oneself an object as actual, probable, possible, doubtful, wished for, demanded, etc. In all these “qualitative modifications,” the object as meant still has the same “matter” — i.e., the same objectively describable features (See also L U, Tüb. ed., II/ 1, 415–16; F., pp. 588–89). This matter cannot be confused with the real content of the act. As Husserl says, we must make “the important distinction… between an act’s real or phenomenological (descriptive psychological) content and its intentional content.” The examination of real content “... is the task of purely descriptive psychological analysis” (LU, Halle ed., II, 374; cf. LU, Tüb. ed., II/ 1, 397; F., p. 576). As for the intentional content (or matter), its examination belongs to logic. This position is abandoned in the second of Schérer’s references where Husserl writes, “All differences in the manner of objective reference are descriptive differences in the relevant intentional experiences.” Since the manner of objective reference has been said to be a function of the act’s intentional matter, such matter is now referred to the experience as opposed to the objectivity. In other words, it is considered not as something transcendent to the act, but as something immanently describable within it. This becomes even more explicit when Husserl finally declares that presentational quality as well as “matter” exist “... as a real (reales) moment in the descriptive content of an act of presentation” (LU, Halle ed., II, 470; cf. LU, Tüb. ed., II/ 1, 506; F., p. 657). Note that the 2nd edition substitutes reel for real. This is its common practice.
When eidetic perception is directed, not to a species of individual objects, but to that of a feature of them — e.g., to a species of color — the immediate basis for the identifying act is provided by “sensuous abstraction.” This is a “setting in relief” of the features whose species is to be eidetically perceived. See the reference cited in our text.
As Rene Schérer expresses this, “One can relate a collection to other collections and so continue ad infinitum. In such purely formal complications, which are constitutive of new objects, one is no longer required to return to the sensible at each state of the formalizing abstraction.” Instead of speaking, as we have done, of presentation and nominalization, Schérer justifies this conclusion in terms of an “abstractive consciousness.” By virtue of this, we can say that in ascending the ladder of foundations, “... the agreement with sensible objects undergoes a displacement. The `materials’ no longer directly refer to the intuition of an individual…” (op. cit., p. 326). For our position, see pp. 111–113.
Contents of reflection are formally defined “as those contents which are either themselves act characters or are founded in act characters” (LU, Tüb. ed., II/2, 180; F., p. 814). Strictly speaking, if we distinguish, in the “realm of inner sensibility,” between object and sense contents through which the object is presented, we have to say that these contents are contents of the act characters.
See p. 79, n. 2 of our text; see also LU, I111, 383; F., p. 566 where Husserl writes, “I can see nothing more evident than the distinction that comes forward here between content and act…”.
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Mensch, J.R. (1981). Categorial Representation. In: The Question of Being in Husserl’s Logical Investigations . Phaenomenologica, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3446-2_8
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