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Must phenomenology remain Cartesian?

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Abstract

Husserl saw the Cartesian critique of scepticism as one of the eternal merits of Descartes’ philosophy. In doing so, he accepted the legitimacy of the very idea of a universal doubt, and sought to present as an alternative to it a renewed, specifically phenomenological concept of self-evidence, making it possible to obtain an unshakable foundation for the edifice of knowledge. This acceptance of the skeptical problem underlies his entire conceptual framework, both before and after the transcendental turn, and especially the immanence/transcendence distinction, i.e., the very basis of intentionality. In taking as its starting point an analysis of perception, the article puts forth a certain number of phenomenological arguments in order to put into question the validity of the skeptical problem and, therefore, of the Husserlian conceptual framework; it defends, in the first place, a disjunctive conception of perception and, in the second place, a holism of experience.

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Notes

  1. Husserl (1960, p. 3).

  2. Husserl (1956, p. 60).

  3. Descartes (1908, p. 515).

  4. Husserl (1956, p. 61).

  5. Husserl (1956, p. 72).

  6. Husserl (1982, p. 118).

  7. Husserl (1956, p. 62).

  8. Descartes (1908, p. 521).

  9. Popkin (1979).

  10. Husserl (2001a, p. 112).

  11. Husserl (2001a, pp. 124–125).

  12. Brentano (1995, p. 8).

  13. Brentano (1995, p. 91).

  14. Husserl (2001b, p. 365).

  15. Husserl (2001b, p. 753).

  16. Husserl (2001b, pp. 359–360).

  17. Husserl (2001b, p. 369).

  18. Husserl (1960, p. 47).

  19. Husserl (2008, p. 441).

  20. Husserl (2008, p. 168).

  21. Husserl (2008, p. 178).

  22. Husserl (1956, p. 165).

  23. Ingarden (1973, pp. 100–101).

  24. Husserl (1999, p. 4).

  25. Husserl (1960, p. 61).

  26. Husserl (1999, p. 5).

  27. Husserl (2001b, p. 169).

  28. Ms AVI 21 (1928, 1933, p. 25a): “Das transzendentale Ich is weder in noch ausser der Welt, und auch die Welt is weder in ihm noch ausser ihm.”.

  29. Fink (1966, p. 126).

  30. Husserl (1999, p. 14).

  31. Husserl (1960, p. 56).

  32. Husserl (1962, pp. 443–444).

  33. Husserl (1982, p. 63); cf. also Husserl (1962, p. 188).

  34. Husserl (1970, p. 100).

  35. Boehm (1959).

  36. Husserl (1997, pp. 14–15) (italic ours).

  37. Husserl (1997, p. 15).

  38. Hinton (1973).

  39. There is no need to make clear that we are in complete disagreement with the attempts to find in Husserl himself a disjunctive conception of perception. In Husserl and Externalism (2008, pp. 313–333), A.D. Smith defends this position by criticising three possible objections: (1) the fact that phenomenology is limited to an analysis of “phenomenal content”; (2) Husserl’s idealism; (3) the role of the épochè. But none of these arguments is decisive. The decisive argument, we believe, resides in the fact that the pre-transcendental conceptualisation—which remains nonetheless essential to the transcendental conceptualisation—of the Abschattungen is never questioned by Husserl.

  40. Austin (1962), Putnam (1999), McDowell (1998, pp. 369 sq).

  41. Straus (1956, p. 383).

  42. Straus (1956, pp. 379–380).

  43. Straus (1956, p. 379).

  44. Romano (2010).

  45. Merleau-Ponty (1945, p. 240), Heidegger (1986, p. 207).

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  1. University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Claude Romano

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  1. Claude Romano
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Correspondence to Claude Romano.

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This article is translated by John Rogrove, Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) (johnrogove@gmail.com).

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Romano, C. Must phenomenology remain Cartesian?. Cont Philos Rev 45, 425–445 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-012-9229-6

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