On Husserl Intuition

7/28/2019 On Husserl Intuition

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International Phenomenological Society

Intuition and Horizon in the Philosophy of HusserlAuthor(s): Henry PietersmaSource: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Sep., 1973), pp. 95-101Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2106783 .

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DISCUSSIONINTUITION AND HORIZON IN THE PHILOSOPHYOF HUSSERL*

The termsused in the titleare thoseusually given as translationsof the German expressionsAnschauungand Horizont. I do not findthese translationsveryfelicitousand will use in this paper "seeing"and "implicitcontext." tryto show thatHusserl's concept of seeingincludes as an essential element the idea of a subject's familiaritywith,and implicitreferenceto, a contextof possible experiences inwhich the object now seen mightbe referred o. Withoutnotingthiselement and articulating t more carefullythan he himself did theconcept cannot be fullyunderstood.To attain what I consider to bethe necessary concentration of attention for this thesis I have tobypass many details of textual exegesis and historical developmentof the author's thought.Finally, in my interpretation deliberatelyemploy a vocabulary that is some distance removed fromHusserl'sand hopefully omewhat closer to thatof contemporaryAnglo-Ameri-can philosophy.We should,first fall, carefullynote thatHusserl speaks of seeingin order to contrast descriptivelydifferent ituations or modes ofconsciousness. In two situations somethingmay be referred to asthesame object, and as havingthesame determinations r character-istics.Yet in theone case the subject has what we mightcall a closeview of the object, whereas in the other he is, for instance,merelytalking bout it and thusreferringo itmerelyby theuse of linguisticexpressions. n this lattercase the object itself,not something lse, isreferredto and what is said about it is meant as somethingthat istrue about the object. But the subject does not think it necessary,or is for some reason not in a position, to examine the object closeup. Husserl speaks of this sortof reference o an object as an "emptyintention," ontrasting t with a "fulfilled ntention."Being used for the purpose of contrastingthings,the word "see-*With he exceptionof two paragraphs,this paper was presented t theAPAmeeting nDecember, 1970.

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96 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHing" clearly can be understood only in the lightof the words withwhich it is paired. What constitutesseeing can be appreciated onlybyinquiring ntowhat it is not; what "seeing x" means becomes clearonly in the lightof the various ways in whichx mightbe "intended"withoutbeing seen. As we find t stated in an early article,"talk of aseeingalways involves a reference to ome representation r other."'The second point to be noticed here is that Husserl makes thiscontrast in an attempt at phenomenologicaldescription.That is tosay, the contrast is spoken of as a featureof experience itself. Andthismustmean that one situation or mode ofconsciousness bespeaksitself s related bycontrastto othersituations or modes of conscious-ness. Seeing is therefore aid to be the fulfillment f the intentionalexperienceswithwhich it is contrasted. And fulfillments a "descrip-tivelypeculiar awareness of fulfillment,"n awareness to which onemight give expression by saying something like "That's it!."2 Con-sistentwith this line of thoughtHusserl holds that the intentionalexperiences with which seeing is contrasted are pointing the waytoward such a fulfillment,ccasionally speaking of consciousness ashavinga teleological structure. take this to mean that an epistemicsituationwhich is not a seeing of the object itself ncludes an aware-ness on the part of -thesubject of what is lacking and a knowledgeof how to proceed toward a situation of seeing.3Since this point isof direct importanceformy thesis, I shall dwell on it a bit further.When an intentionalexperience is characterizedas "empty,"thistermdesignates a characterof thatexperience.Now emptinesswouldnot be a phenomenologicalcharacter of a certain situation and thelatter would not have the character of being somehowunsatisfactory,if the subject did not somehow view his present experience in thelightof otherexperiences.The character of beingempty can be trulyassigned as a phenomenological character only if there is an experi-enced relation betweenactual and potentialexperiences. n a momentI shall argue the same sort of interpretation orseeing as a fulfilledintention.But first fewothermatters should be mentioned.Husserl does not define"seeing" in the manner in which "intui-tion"has so often been defined,namely by referenceto the kinds ofobject it can have. His definition oes not stipulate,forexample, thatonly simple objects, whatever theymightbe, can be seen. Hence hisdescriptionof a mode of consciousness as one of seeing does notpresuppose that the object is of a sort such that it is capable of

I "PsychologischeStudien zur elementarenLogik," PhilosophischeMonatshefte,XX(1894), p. 178.Cf. LogischeUniersuchungen,I, 2, 143-4.2 LogischeUntersuchungen,I, 2, pp. 32, 65.3 Formale und transzendentale ogik, p. 206.



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INTUITION AND HORIZON IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUSSERL 97being taken in at a single mental glance. He likewise avoids in hisdefinition ll reference to a definite, niformsort of mental act. Hedoes not maintain,for example, that seeing is always a matter ofgazing or peering at something.His definitiondoes not stipulatewhether t is a simple or a complex act, easy or difficult o perform.His language may suggest a simple act of gazing or looking, particu-larly the termAnschauung.But I maintain that, fwe attend strictlyto theessential elementsof his concept,we have to come to the con-clusion that he is speakingof a functionalrelationbetweenmodes ofconsciousness; equivalently,he speaks of a mode of givenness (of anobject) that s related in a certain way,namely by way of contrast,toother modes of givenness (of that same object). An intentionalex-perience is a case of seeingwhenever t functions s a fulfillment fotherexperiences directed to the same object. This is whyhis appli-cation of the termAnschauung to apprehensions of states of affairsand what he calls essences is possible withoutcommittinghim to adenial of the traditional dichotomy of objects of experience andobjects of thought.As a termwith only an achievement-sense t doesnot pretendto describe any particular type of experience. Whateverthe object of intentionalreference, nd whatever the intentional ex-periences involved, seeing" is only a designation of a role or functionwhich one experience may have in relation to others, as when, inHusserl's language, an act of "mere intending"findsfulfillmentn theact thatbrings ts object into view."Seeing" marks an arrival as such,whatever it is that is arriving and whatever it is arriving at.4

The contrast which I have thus,far spoken of as crucial for acorrectunderstandingof Husserl's doctrine of seeing is one betweenpoints on a scale. In the Logical Investigations the author uses theexpression "cognitive degrees" (Erkenntnisstufen).All points on thisscale have in common an intentionalreferenceto the same object.But their position on the scale marks what we mightcall the sub-ject's epistemic distance from that object, the highest point beingthe situation in which one sees the object itself. Below it, but stillabove thatof a mere empty ntention,Husserl places, in the case ofindividualmaterial objects, the having of an image or picture of theobject. In a certain sense the object is brought into view. But when4Good remarks re found n E. Levinas, La Thdorie de intuition dans la phdnom-

d~nologie e Husserl (Paris, 1930). He states: 'Il ne s'agit donc pas de mettre,dans leconcept de intuition, la notionde sensible, ni celle "d'immediat," au sens de "donn6avant toutedemarche positive de espritt; il ne s'agit d'opposer intuition i la "dis-cursion," mais d'appuyer sur le faitmeme que intuition est un acte possedant sonobjet (106/7).' Yet he is clearlymore helpful n what he rejects as erroneous nterpre$A-tions thanin whathe suggestson thepositiveside. See also pp. 125, 127,134/5, 40.



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98 PHILOSOPHYANDPHENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHthe intention s animated by the concern to know what the objectreally is, then an image is only a seeing that anticipates, withoutactually achieving,the pointof seeing theobject itself.On this scale, then,there is nothingsuperior to seeing. Now ifwe keep in mind exactlywhat sort of scale is here in question, thenwe mayalso betterunderstandthe nature of the sortof achievementconstitutedby seeing the object itself.As I understandhim Husserlis sayingsomething ike this. Seeing is, phenomenologically peaking,an achievement,because in the awareness of the subject nothing slacking. There is in his awareness nothinghe could do to improvehis situation vis-a-visthe object. Withinthe range of possible waysof getting t the object there is no epistemic relation that mightbemore favorable than his present relation. In short,he has done allthathe takes to be possible.If this interpretation s correct, then the intentionalexperiencecalled "seeing the object itself"is one that includes awareness of aset of possible, thoughless favorable,situations in which the sameobject mightbe referred o. It includes the subject's awareness thathis object, in contrast to modes in which it mightbe given, is nowgiven in an optimal mode. Withoutthis it would not be the achieve-mentwhich it is. The intensivepronoun "itself"in the locution "theobject itself," s well as the emphatic "self" in the expression "self-givenness," erve no otherpurpose than thatof contrasting presentmode of givennesswith other modes which the subject is aware ofas being possible.5As indicatedby the titleof thispaper, myinterpretation f Hus-serl's concept of seeing emphasizes the relationbetween thisconceptand that of horizonor implicitcontext.What he says about the phe-nomenon of horizon, I maintain,must be given more attention inclarifying he concept of seeing than he himselfdid. Now it seems-to me that we can go a little further n this direction. Seeing theobject itself,we saw, involves awareness of a context of other pos-sible experiencesof thatobject. What is the natureof thisawareness?And what is this phenomenonof context? In order to extract fromHusserl some answers to these questions I will state two of the con-clusions he seems to come to in his analyses of the phenomenonofhorizon:(1) A subject's awareness of the context of his actual experienceinvolves awareness of himselfas endowed with powers he canactivate. What is not actually perceived, for example, is in his

5 See theexcellentdiscussion of Ernst Tugendhat,Der Wahrheitsbegriffei Husserlund Heidegger Berlin, 1967),pp. 55-59.



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INTUITION ANDHORIZON IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUSSERL 99awareness somethingthat would be perceived, f he should acti-vate such and such powers of movement. In other words, theawareness of context consists in familiaritywith the way inwhich objects of various kinds "respond" in theirappearancesto kinds of moves he can in principle nitiate.(2) The contextneed not be explicitlyreferredto, for example, byspeaking about it, asking questions, visualizing details, etc. Infactsuch explicitreferences re possible onlyon thebasis of analready available frameworkor system of implicit referenceswhich, s itwere,embodies thefamiliaritymentioned a momentago. Horizon is implicitcontext.

Using thesepoints for thepurpose of clarifying he verygeneral con-cept of seeing we might formulate Husserl's view somewhat asfollows. Seeing the object itself is an experience or situation thatincludes an awareness of context in the formof a familiaritywiththe ways in which objects of various kinds or categories can beapproached. And the context n question is a domain that is open toour approaches prior to any particular actual approach to an objectbelongingto it.Seeing A itself is a mode of consciousness or situation whichowes its phenomenologicalcharacter to the subject's familiaritywitha domain in which he knows his way. And knowinghis way means,I think, hat he knowswhat he can do, what may be looked for if hedoes one of the thingshe can do, and the worth of the various ap-pearances. Something ike this, t seems tome, s involved n Husserl'sconcept of seeing theobject itself.I have deliberately restrictedmy analysis to Husserl's generalconcept of Anschauung.Though in its nontechnicaluse the term isprimarily pplied to perceiving ndividualobjects of a material sort,Husserl's general concept of seeing is such that perceiving s a caseof a situation of seeing the object itself.He himselfdevoted manyof his most careful analyses to perceiving. will not undertake nowto examine them,but it may be helpful to say a few thingsaboutthem n order to shed some furtherighton theprecise importof theanalyses of this paper. In perceiving a material object the subjectdoes not see theobject all at once. Yet Husserl insists that a percep-tual situation s a case of seeingtheobject itself.The percipient s im-plicitly ware thathe has come as close as possible to his object andthat no othersituationgivesa betterview.'Whathe means, I think, ssomething ike this. f a subject who makes the claim that he sees theobject itself s challenged,he will tryto pointout that there s indeed

' Cf. Ideen, ? 43.



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100 PHILOSOPHY AND) HENOMENOLOGICALESEARCHnothing uperior to his presentview. He will say that thereare suchand such situations of being intentionallydirectedupon this object,but thatall of theseare less favorable. He himselfmay actually havebeen in one of those situations; in any case he is aware of such situa-tions as being possible. Now he will stand corrected, only if it isshown to him that that sort of object admits of,and hence requires,an approach that is better than what he took to be a seeing of theobject itself.And this means that it would have been shown to himthathe did not in fact do all thatwas possible and thathe can attaina view of the object that is still better.But if this cannot be shown,then his claim to be seeing the object itself, n the sense which thispaper assigns to that ocution, s justified.Since theperceptual objectis an external object of a material sort,however,the subject is alsoaware thatthere s more to theobject thanwhat he actuallyperceives.Now thismeans that there s yetanotherrange of possible viewsof the object than that with respect to which the achievement ofseeing the object itself is defined.To put it differently,here is notonly the implicit claim that one sees the object itself,but also animplicitclaim or belief that thereare other perceptions of the sameobject. And what theyyield must be consistent with the truth-claimembodied in the initial perceiving, f the latter is to stand. But theimportantpoint I want to make is thatthe achievement-sense f per-ceiving s determinedbyreference o possible situationsthat are lessfavorable than perceiving,whereas furtherpossible perceptions areof the same sort and thus equally favorable. One mightput it thisway: furtherperceptions are not superior to the initial situation,since the case forbelieving that the object is what it appears to bein thatsituation s as strongas thecase ever is forbelievingthatkindof thing. f doubt were reasonable in this situation,thenit would bereasonable in all situations. If a skepticcalls fordoubt here,thenthesubject does not know what to do. These formulationsmake use ofpoints in Husserl's theoryof knowledgethat I do not have space todiscuss,but theymayneverthelessbe helpfulto come to an apprecia-tion of the sort of thingthat is meant by maintaining, n effect, hatseeing the object itself may be a situation in which the object ispresentedonly partially, s in perceptions of material objects.7From what was just said it should also be clear that "seeing theobject itself"cannot be taken to mean that,whereas in other epis-

7 StephenStrasser's suggestionthatthe perspectival haracterof perceptions howsthe need forcomplementing he principleof intuitionwith the principleof dialecticsstrikesme as indicativeof an incorrectanalysis of Husserl's concept of intuitionorseeing.See his "Intuitionund Dialektik n der PhilosophieEdmund Husserls," EdmundHusseri, 1859-1959The Hague, 1959),pp. 148-153.



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INTUITION AND HORIZON IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUSSERL 101temic situations the subject encountered mere appearances, he hasnow in this climactic situation somehow managed to crash throughthe veil of appearances, attained an epistemic "situation" which nolonger in any way reflects the limitationsof the knowing subject,and succeeded in layinghold of theobject as it exists in itselfbeyondthesubjective appearances. The sense in which seeing is optimal andclimactic is certainlynot such thatit entails its own truth.This kindof interpretation eads to a great deal of unclarity,when you get tothe central parts of Husserl's theoryof knowledge. I cannot nowtreat these matters with the degree of precision that they require.I shall only mention a few points.

In Husserl's more strictly pistemological analyses, which,to besure, are intimatelyconnected with those dealt with in this paper,seeing theobject itself s held to be a situationwhich confers a rightupon a cognitiveclaim in a way no othersituationdoes. Wherea sub-ject has no conception of how he might mprovehis situation,skepti-cism is unreasonable, because thereare in that situation no groundsfordoubt. But a subject who sees the object itselfand is thereforejustified in claiming that the object exists and has the qualities itappears to have is not necessarilyright.What is evident s not neces-sarily true.Though the subject is perfectlyustified in implying hatit is true,this ustifieddoxastic attitude does not entail that it is true.Our interpretation f "seeing the object itself" should thereforebesuch that it allows one to account also fortheseviews of the author.Herbert Spiegelberg once maintained that granting a phenomenonthe titleself-givennesswould be beggingthe question whetherwhatis given to us is really the object itselfor only a misleading pre-tender.8 n this paper I have tried to suggest an interpretation hatwould justify the application of that title to a phenomenonwithoutbegging that question. There is a very specific sense in which seeingconstitutesan achievement. But this achievement does not includeits own truth. HENRY PIETERSMA.UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.

"Phenomenology f Direct Evidence," Philosophy nd PhenomenologicalResearch,11 (1941-42), 30/1.

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