Denis Džanić

This little piece of meta-philosophical reflection presents us with a specific image of philosophy. It is an image evoking a long tradition and a host of accompanying metaphors, aims, and ideals. Notions such as radical beginnings, architectonics, ground, foundation, and absolute justification are the building blocks of this kind of thinking about the role and scope of philosophy, and Edmund Husserl is rightly identified with this tradition, as well as often viewed as one of its most prominent representatives.

An attempt to coherently present a philosophy of radical beginnings will have to account for the reasons for undertaking a new beginning, and for the nature of its radicality. For most philosophies, it is the latter part of the account that proves to be difficult. For transcendental phenomenology, as we have tried to show in the previous chapter, the difficulty is in fact inverted. And even though Husserl’s project sits comfortably in the tradition of Descartes and Kant, his notion of radicality sets it apart from them significantly. Husserl’s phenomenology operates with concept of radical investigation so strong – based on his notion of the absolute epoché – that it becomes all-pervasive, and consequently results in a global dichotomy of the natural and transcendental attitude. The famed paradox of subjectivity is one direct consequence of this dichotomy. But the latter results in a more practical problem as well. Given that the logical conclusion of ‘phenomenology of phenomenology’ is that the transcendental undertaking is, in fact, unnatural, a straightforward problem of motivation immediately springs forth. Why would anyone choose to leave the natural attitude? This is quite a complex problem, because the motivation to do so cannot even appear as a miracle, to use Sartre’s expression; heavy philosophical machinery must first be developed, and then employed, in order for the transition between the attitudes to even be possible. But that can only be done in advance then, hoping that there is a transcendental attitude or realm of some sort to be transitioned into. It is only after all of these practical problems have been acknowledged that it even makes sense to ask who is then doing phenomenology. Again, it is only because Husserl works with such a strong conception of radicality that this even becomes an issue in the first place, and that the seemingly absurd conclusion, that phenomenology is not a human activity, becomes understandable, albeit contestable.

So far, our discussion has mostly taken on the form of a critique, in both senses of the word. We have paid considerable attention to the larger, almost unprecedentedly complex context surrounding the Sixth Cartesian Meditation; in the process, we have attained some insight into the nature, role, and scope of certain concepts deeply ingrained in phenomenology. Notions such as the world, science, and radicality, as well as oppositions such as that between worldly and transcendental egos and sciences, all occupy distinct places and play operative roles in the tapestry of phenomenological methodology and activity. However, it turned out that none of these are easily isolable, or even straightforwardly identifiable, without a certain level of prior understanding of the overall project within which they assume their roles. Furthermore, these concepts bleed into each other: one cannot hope to understand Husserl’s (or Fink’s) notion of radical science without understanding his notion of the world, and similar examples abound. Thus, a critical examination of phenomenology’s central concepts presupposes at least a vague idea of the bigger picture, yet the latter can only be critically sharpened through an examination of its more specific elements.

The phenomenological concept of the world has emerged as central for our discussion so far; however, its place and role turned out to be difficult to pinpoint. Husserl and Fink agree that the world is, in a qualified way, both the starting point and the end point of phenomenological research. A conceptual tool utilized by both is the notion of ‘pregivenness’ of the world, and we have provided some general context for its appearance and role in Fink’s formulation of the problem of beginning of phenomenology. However, this notion, entailed in his concept of Weltbefangenheit, ultimately led us to a curious doctrine we referred to as epistemological anti-humanism.

The preceding chapter explored the basic motivation behind the Sixth Cartesian Meditation, and surveyed some of the intricate arguments guiding Fink’s discussion. The transcendental theory of method takes the form of a ‘phenomenology of phenomenology’, and it aims at attaining a complete understanding of the nature, style, and rank of transcendental knowledge. However, while this explains the main thrust of Husserl’s and Fink’s overall project in the Sixth Meditation, the form, scope, and the results of this transcendental meta-analysis remain vague.

Husserl’s intensive collaboration with Eugen Fink is a particularly apt point of departure for a reading looking to clarify Husserl’s complex notion of ‘humanity’. Whether the fact that it took place in the last decade of Husserl’s life imbues their collaborative work with a special kind of testamentary value is an open question; however, reasons for its peculiar importance and place within the Husserlian corpus, as well as within the wider context of phenomenology, go well beyond mere statement of historical and biographical fact. While their collaborative efforts started as an attempt to introduce systematicity and methodological uniformity into Husserl’s numerous and diverse analyses, they also exposed phenomenology to a set of new questions and problems. In this regard, Fink’s contributions were instrumental, helping unearth some deep-rooted and difficult meta-issues, themselves in need of phenomenological clarification. On Husserl’s part, much of this were inadvertent consequences of working with his ardent, but also highly original research assistant, who, as Hart notes, “… emerged very early as Husserl’s equal in ways that were not always maximally conducive to realizing Husserl’s own personal projects.” (2001: 279). Luft expresses a similar sentiment: while Fink’s originality introduced urgent challenges to Husserl’s thought, Fink was also a “Trojan horse” who wanted to “… allow inimical ideas to enter the system of Husserlian phenomenology”, which was a danger Husserl was entirely aware of (2011: 166). For these reasons, Husserl’s relation to Fink’s interventions into his own work was significantly more complex and nuanced than their straightforward and warm personal relation. This tension is especially noticeable in the context of the question regarding absolute beginnings in phenomenology, i.e., the question of its speculative dimension, and its place within Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology.

This book focuses on Edmund Husserl’s philosophical collaboration with Eugen Fink which took place in the early 1930s, and shows how their disagreement over the nature, origin, and aim of phenomenology led to a crucial divergence on the issue of who was engaging in phenomenology, and with what motivation. It provides a philosophical investigation of a key moment in the development of Husserl’s late phenomenology. The author claims that Husserl’s meta-phenomenological exploration of the theoretical and, importantly, practical underpinnings of the transcendental investigator leads him to affirm their humanity and, ultimately, to adopt an ethically charged ideal of “higher humanity” as telos of phenomenology. Fink argued that phenomenology was essentially an activity beyond the horizon of human possibility and history. In contrast, Džanić illustrates how Husserl was looking for a way to theoretically unite the purity of transcendental insight with the existential reality and practical motives of the phenomenologist. Understanding the complex aspects of this debate is crucial for understanding the Crisis-period of Husserl’s thought. This text appeals to graduate students and researchers in phenomenology and related fields of philosophy.

This paper focuses on the puzzling question of what motivates the radical epistemological shift necessary for engaging in transcendental phenomenology. Husserl touches on the problem of motivation on many occasions, but it becomes an explicit issue in Fink’s bold reimagining of the transcendental theory of method, as presented in the Sixth Cartesian Meditation. In the first section, I briefly introduce the problem as it appears in Husserl. The second section of the paper discusses Fink’s Hegelian dissolution of it. Finally, I point to several historical, practical, and ethical aspects of transcendental phenomenology, and argue that a good account of motivation for phenomenology ought to find a way to address these without hastily bracketing them.

The doctrine of the pregivenness of the world features prominently in Husserl’s numerous phenomenological analyses and descriptions of the role the world plays in our experience. Properly evaluating its function within the overall system of transcendental phenomenology is, however, by no means a straightforward task, as evidenced by many manuscripts from the 1930s. These detail various epistemological and metaphysical difficulties and potential paradoxes encumbering the notion of the pre-given world. This paper contends that some of these difficulties can be alleviated by revisiting Husserl’s late concept of the earth and, more specifically, disclosing its transcendental function in the constitution of pregivenness. To test this claim, I turn to Husserl’s 1931 manuscript describing the paradox of “the originary acquisition of the world.” I argue that the paradox is dissolved by introducing the transcendental-phenomenological concept of the earth.