Daniele De De Santis

The chapter makes the case for considering the notion of monad or concrete subject as Husserl develops it in the Cartesian Meditations as the actual reply to Heidegger’s own analytics of Dasein. More specifically, three dimensions of the monad’s concreteness are identified: the monad’s worldly concreteness; its historical concreteness; and its ontological form of concreteness. The chapter also claims that the way in which Husserl presents his transcendental idealism in §41 of the Cartesian Meditations should be construed as a direct consequence of his conception of the monad and in contrast to the idea of “pure consciousness” first presented in Ideas I.

The chapter makes the strong case for considering Husserl’s transcendental idealism from §41 of the Cartesian Meditations as a most direct re-elaboration of the terminology employed by Heidegger in §31 of Being and Time (Understanding and Ex-Plication). To this end, it goes on to propose a quite peculiar interpretation of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation and, in particular, of Husserl’s account of the constitution of the transcendental monadological inter-subjectivity. The main claim is that the actual goal of Husserl’s account is to rule out the possibility that there can be more than one actual inter-subjectivity, hence more than one actual real world.

The chapter proposes a systematic assessment of Husserl’s transcendental idealism on the basis of his understanding of the nature of the monad and, in particular, of his account of the transcendental inter-subjectivity. Not only does the chapter offer a quite critical discussion of some of the most famous interpretations so far of Husserl’s idealism; it advances both a historiographical and a systematic interpretation of it that breaks once and for all with all the commonplace views on his philosophy. On the one hand, the chapter offers to the reader a meticulous reconstruction of the way in which Husserl developed his transcendental idealism; on the other hand, it makes the case for dismissing the hypothesis that Husserl explicitly presents his idealism already in Ideas I.

The chapter proposes a most systematic assessment of the notions of region and regional ontology in Husserl’s phenomenology. Contrary to what is usually assumed, the concept of region is deemed completely irreducible to a combination of non-independent parts or moments in the sense of the Third Logical Investigation. As a consequence, the chapter makes the case for a sharp distinction between the mereology of the early Husserl (and the conception of the a priori that follows from it) and the notion of regional ontology outlined in Ideas I.

The chapter proposes to consider the phenomenological ontology developed by both Jean Hering and Roman Ingarden as the main reference point to understand Heidegger’s thesis that “the essence of Dasein lies in its existence” (Being and Time, §9). Not only is Heidegger’s own project understood as a criticism of a certain phenomenological ontology, and of a certain conception of the essence-existence distinction; his project should be regarded as part of the very tradition from which he himself intends to depart. For, his own view on Dasein’s essence needs in fact to be construed as a radicalization of some of the theses underlying Hering’s and Ingarden’s theory of ideas.

The chapter provides a systematic and full reconstruction of the development of Husserl’s conception of metaphysics. Contrary to what is usually claimed, the chapter rejects the interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology as metaphysically neutral and makes the case for considering the foundation of metaphysics as the aim of his philosophy. If at the beginning of his speculation Husserl associates his notion of metaphysics with Aristotle’s first philosophy, he slowly comes to conceive of metaphysics as last philosophy, i.e., as the ultimate interpretation of factual reality. At the end of the chapter the case is also made for identifying a further conception of metaphysics (metaphysics in a new sense), which deals with the irrational nature of human existence. Hence, a new perspective on Husserl’s criticism of Heidegger is offered to the reader: Husserl is presented as a critique of Heidegger’s confusion between first and last philosophy, between the transcendental dimension of the subject and the irrational nature of human existence.

The chapter offers the first systematic assessment of Husserl’s analyses of the irrational nature of human existence. It advances both a historiographical and a systematic thesis. Historically, the chapter makes the case for considering Husserl’s meditations as part of the Fortuna-tradition that harks all the way back to Aristotle’s τύχη-doctrine and its re-elaborations by Boethius and Machiavelli. Systematically, it argues that the various forms of irrationality of human existence are understood by Husserl based on the threefold concreteness of the monad.

In the present chapter we will discuss Husserl’s theory of the a priori in the first volume of Ideas, with a special focus on the first chapter of the first section (§§1–17), which is dedicated to the distinction between fact and essence. We will clarify the distinction between essence and eidos or pure essence, as well as the formal notion of object, upon which Husserl’s arguments rely. Contrary to the usual claim to the effect that Husserl’s terminology is not rigorous enough, we will be claiming that the distinction between essence and eidos is a clear-cut one, and that by essence Husserl means only and exclusively the essence of individual objects.

In this chapter, which paves the way for our systematic discussion of the problem of the a priori in the Logical Investigations, we will reconstruct Husserl’s late retrospective assessment of the way in which he himself had understood the concept of a priori from his early works on. We will show that according to Husserl’s narrative, the Greek term eidos was introduced for two different reasons: to avoid some of the ambiguities of the expressions a priori-a posteriori as well as to have a more fine-grained terminology to account for the many meanings implied by the German term Wesen.

In the present chapter we will discuss the roots of Husserl’s criticism of psychologism and psychologistic logic in the Prolegomena to a Pure Logic. To this end, we will reconstruct what Husserl labels the metaphysical hypostatization of the ideal sphere, with which his early idealism and conception of ideal species should never be confused. Based upon a series of remarks made by Husserl and that bear on the traditional notion of the angel as a spiritual being endowed with higher capacities, we will provide the reader with the wider context only within which Husserl’s critical assessment can be fully appreciated and understood.

This chapter offers an extensive and systematic discussion of the concepts of a priori and a posteriori in the Logical Investigations, with a special focus on the Third Logical Investigation. Two strong theses will be advanced. First, that Husserl’s early idealism, which is committed to the claim that ideas are to count as objects, should be understood as a form of dianoetic idealism: its main goal being to discriminate between different forms of judgments. Two, we will be maintaining that in the Third Investigation, Husserl is not prima facie trying to develop a mereology, but rather a conception of independence and non-independence based on a re-elaboration of the concepts of law and necessity.

In the present chapter we will reconstruct the development of Husserl’s understanding of the way in which ideal objects are grasped. Three main stages will be distinguished, hence three main methodological tools: the notion of ideation and idealizing abstraction; eidetic or a priori attitude; eidetic reduction. We will extensively elaborate on the emergence of the notion of a priori attitude around 1910–1911, and we will also maintain that the introduction of the eidetic reduction in Ideas I should not be really understood as a new methodological notion but rather as a further development of the notion of attitude.

The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate that Husserl’s grand picture of the history of Western philosophy, notably modern philosophy, is to be understood as determined by a conflict between the two forms of rationality so far distinguished in the book. In particular, we will explain that starting with Descartes, the history of philosophy is characterized by a conflict or even a struggle between different ways of conceiving of the ontological form of rationality and its relation to the transcendental reason, and that Husserl is firmly convinced that only his phenomenology could provide an actual reconciliation between them.

In this chapter we discuss the last part of the first chapter of Ideas I in order to assess some of the most technical and important terms and notions that characterize Husserl’s doctrine of the a priori in 1913. In particular, we will elaborate on the distinction between a loose concept of region and a more rigorous one, only on the basis of which what Husserl means by regional or material ontology and science can be fully appreciated. In light of such crucial distinction we will reaffirm the thesis to the effect that it is a mistake to speak of material ontologies in the Logical Investigations.

In this chapter we venture to sketch two possible, future lines of research based on the idea that Husserl distinguishes two forms of reason and rationality. On the one hand, we argue that the discussion between Husserl and Heidegger on how to understand phenomenology and the nature of the subject should be read against the backdrop of the relation between the transcendental and the ontological form of rationality. On the other hand, we make the case for reading the disagreement between Husserl and the so-called realist phenomenologists as bearing upon the very question as to whether there exists a transcendental form of rationality in addition to the rationality of being.

In this chapter we will present Husserl’s discussion of psychologism and psychologistic logic in the Prolegomena to a Pure Logic. After we reconstruct what Husserl means by psychologism and how the latter’s specific misconception of the laws of logic should be understood, the claim will be advanced that psychologism’s mistake ultimately consists in disregarding the very ideal character of truth, hence of the correlation between objectuality and consciousness, regardless of the distinction between truths of reason and truths as to matters of fact.

In this final chapter we will show to what extent the very dichotomy between formal and material a priori, as originally introduced in the Logical Investigations, is re-interpreted by Husserl in terms of innate and contingent a priori as soon as the concept itself of a priori is tackled from within the perspective of the late genetic phenomenology. Of course, we will not be claiming that Husserl drops the former terminology and conceptuality once and for all; rather, the point is to understand that, from the standpoint of the self-constitution of the concrete subject, what used to go by the name of formal and material a priori refers now to two transcendental structures.

The goal of this chapter is to explain that Husserl’s conception of the function of a priori or eidetic material sciences, i.e., that of providing a full rationalization of the empirical, is deemed to be in line with the project of modern pre-Kantian philosophy, to which Husserl intends to steadily reconnect. We will also take into account Husserl’s interpretation of B. Spinoza to argue that his philosophical project should not be understood in opposition to traditional metaphysics, but rather as an attempt at purging metaphysics of its mistakes. In particular, the claim will be advanced that Husserl does not intend to reject traditional metaphysics, but only its understanding of the overall rationality of being based on the model of just one material a priori science, i.e., geometry.

In the present section we will take to the next level our previous discussion of the concept of eidos. In particular, we will discuss Husserl’s notion of eidetic or a priori sciences, with a special focus on geometry (which Husserl takes to be the most paradigmatic example of a priori, material sciences). In particular, we will argue that for Husserl the importance of geometry is that it perfectly epitomizes the function that he ascribes to every eidetic sciences, i.e., that of rationalizing the empirical world.

In the present chapter we will follow the way in which Husserl himself develops his own conceptuality and language after the Logical Investigations by paying systematic attention to some of his most important lectures. Our goal is to bring to light when, and based upon what sort of difficulties and ambiguities affecting the notion of a priori, Husserl decides to start resorting to the term eidos to designate his own view on the matter. We will also show that it is around 1907 that Husserl starts recognizing the existence of two forms of rationality, and that, consequently, the a priori should be more generally understood as the expression of the ontological form of reason.