Ilpo Hirvonen

One of the key concepts of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is the noema. Husserl uses the concept to denote the aspect of what is intended in experience as it remains within the transcendental domain of inquiry after the phenomenological reduction. Despite such seeming simplicity, Husserl’s discussion of the noema is ambiguous to the extent that it has sparked a wide-ranging debate in the secondary literature. The gist of the dispute concerns the question about the relation between the noema and the object: whether the noema is content, ontologically distinct from the object, or the object itself just considered differently in philosophical reflection. In this paper, I propose an interpretation that aims to reconcile two opposing positions of this debate (the so-called West and East Coast interpretations). The impetus for the reconciliation stems from the fact that both interpretations seem to be correct while they also suffer from their own shortcomings. I propose the reconciliation by applying a distinction Husserl makes between two areas of phenomenological investigation, neutralized pure phenomenology and non-neutralized phenomenology of reason. Having clarified the distinction between them, I suggest that both competing interpretations can be partially correct when reserved for the aspect of the noema in either of the two areas of phenomenological investigation. Finally, I show how this proposal could aid in resolving issues in the recent discussion concerning Husserl’s noema and the internalism–externalism debate in philosophy of mind.

This article-based dissertation studies the question whether Husserl could be understood as an internalist or an externalist about meaning or content. In this context, internalism and externalism represent different answers to the question whether things external to the subject, namely features of the subject’s social and physical environment, may individuate the content of the subject’s intentional states (e.g., judgments, beliefs, perceptions). Where internalism maintains that content can only be individuated by internal factors, externalism claims that content can also be individuated by external factors. Husserl has traditionally been interpreted as an internalist, but in the past few decades this interpretation has been challenged. Yet, scholars continue to disagree whether Husserl is then better understood as an externalist or as a philosopher who cannot be positioned within the internalism-externalism debate in the first place. The main results of this dissertation are that the internalism-externalism framework remains meaningful within the transcendental framework of Husserl’s philosophy and that Husserl is better understood as an externalist. These results emerge from three original research articles, which are presented and discussed in an introductory chapter. The first article analyses the argument that Husserl cannot be understood within the internalism-externalism framework because Husserl renounces a distinction between internality and externality. The article demonstrates that Husserl rejects the internal-external divide only in the spatial sense in which it is usually understood and suggests that if the internal-external divide is understood in relation to the subject’s point of view, the internal-external divide can be rendered applicable to the transcendental framework of Husserl’s philosophy. The second article evaluates the interpretational dispute about Husserl’s concept of the noema in relation to the internalism-externalism debate. The article proposes a reconciliation between two opposing interpretations of the noema by claiming that both interpretations can be correct in two separate areas of phenomenological investigation. Reconciling these two noema interpretations, the article then shows that these interpretations do not, unlike it has been previously presumed, have any direct implications for the question whether Husserl is an internalist or an externalist. The answer to this question rather hinges on what the correct way is to understand the individuation of meaning, which is not settled by either noema interpretation. The third article outlines an answer to this question. The article studies a research manuscript in which Husserl deals with the question about the identity of meaning which is associated with the philosophical problem in the internalism-externalism debate about the individuation of meaning. The article assesses different internalist interpretations of Husserl’s manuscript and proposes an externalist reading of it instead. The article develops an externalist interpretation of Husserl that reconciles the realism of externalism and the transcendental standpoint of Husserl’s phenomenology by synthesizing an asymmetrical view of individuation with Husserl’s view of the correlation between consciousness and the world.

Various interpretations of Husserl have been presented in relation to the internalism-externalism debate. The debate concerns the question whether linguistic and mental content can be determined by features that are not only internal but also external to the subject. Besides different internalist and externalist interpretations of Husserl, there are interpretations that reject both internalism and externalism as frameworks for understanding Husserl. The main reason not to commit to either externalist or internalist interpretations seems to be that the internal-external divide, which is pertinent to internalism and externalism, is purportedly inapplicable to the transcendental framework of Husserl’s phenomenology. Yet, it is not obvious how the concepts of internality and externality are understood when they are deemed inapplicable in this context, which reflects the ambiguity of the concepts in the internalism-externalism debate itself. The aim of this article is to clarify the internal-external divide and its rejection in these interpretations of Husserl. The reason why the internal-external divide has been deemed inapplicable to the transcendental framework of Husserl’s phenomenology is first located to a spatial sense in which the concepts of internality and externality are usually understood. It is then argued that the internal-external divide can be rendered applicable to the transcendental framework of Husserl’s phenomenology by reconfiguring internality and externality in relation to the subject’s point of view. In addition to Farkas’ proposal that conceives the internal-external divide in phenomenal terms, two phenomenological ways of understanding internality and externality are considered. The main problem in both Farkas’ proposal and the two phenomenological proposals is that they preclude some forms of externalism. This article solves the problem by using the two phenomenological proposals to modify Farkas’ proposal so that a broader range of externalism is enabled.

In a 1911 research manuscript, Husserl puts forth an idea that resembles Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment presented in the 1970s. In this paper, I study Husserl’s “Twin Earth” passage and assess various readings of it to determine whether Husserl is better understood as an internalist or an externalist. I define internalism as the view that content depends solely on internal factors to the subject, whereas I distinguish between two versions of externalism: weak externalism, according to which content can also depend on other subjects’ conceptions, and strong externalism, which maintains that content can also depend on the real world. Only strong externalism maintains what McGinn calls “the philosophical significance of externalism” because it entails realism about the world. I argue that Husserl is better understood as an externalist when it comes to the “Twin Earth” passage, but the more precise question regarding weak and strong externalism requires further evidence. This additional evidence concerns Husserl’s concepts of the identity of sense (Sinnesidentität) and worldly meaning (weltlicher Sinn). In evaluating externalist Husserl interpretations, I classify Smith’s externalist interpretation as weak, whereas I take Crowell’s externalist interpretation to be ambivalent. Crowell’s excellent but somewhat embryonic interpretation leaves the dependence relation between content and the real world ambiguous. I clarify this relation by assessing McGinn’s argument for the philosophical significance of externalism from the Husserlian viewpoint. Although this study is historical, it also serves a systematic purpose because the externalist interpretation of Husserl calls into question central issues in phenomenology and externalism.

This book offers an updated and comprehensive phenomenology of norms and normativity. It is the first volume that systematically tackles both the normativity of experiencing and various experiences of norms. Part I begins with a discussion of the methodological resources that phenomenology offers for the critique of epistemological, social and cultural norms. It argues that these resources are powerful and have largely been neglected in contemporary philosophy as well as social and human sciences. The second part deepens the discussion by studying the existential and moral-philosophical foundations of practical normativity. It takes on the task of illuminating the origins of normativity and offers phenomenological alternatives to the neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian approaches that dominate contemporary debates on the sources of normativity. The final part proceeds from practical normativity to the analysis of the guiding powers of values, perceptual norms, instincts and drives. These are different forms of intentionality that in various manners contribute to the constitution of human practices. By clarifying their divergences and their interrelations, the volume demonstrates that normativity is not one phenomenon but a complex set of various phenomena, with multiple origins and sources. Contemporary Phenomenologies of Normativity will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on issues of normativity in phenomenology, epistemology, ethics, and social philosophy.

One of the key concepts of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is the noema. Husserl uses the concept to denote the aspect of what is intended in experience as it remains within the transcendental domain of inquiry after the phenomenological reduction. Despite such seeming simplicity, Husserl’s discussion of the noema is ambiguous to the extent that it has sparked a wide-ranging debate in the secondary literature. The gist of the dispute concerns the question about the relation between the noema and the object: whether the noema is content, ontologically distinct from the object, or the object itself just considered differently in philosophical reflection. In this paper, I propose an interpretation that aims to reconcile two opposing positions of this debate (the so-called West and East Coast interpretations). The impetus for the reconciliation stems from the fact that both interpretations seem to be correct while they also suffer from their own shortcomings. I propose the reconciliation by applying a distinction Husserl makes between two areas of phenomenological investigation, neutralized pure phenomenology and non-neutralized phenomenology of reason. Having clarified the distinction between them, I suggest that both competing interpretations can be partially correct when reserved for the aspect of the noema in either of the two areas of phenomenological investigation. Finally, I show how this proposal could aid in resolving issues in the recent discussion concerning Husserl’s noema and the internalism–externalism debate in philosophy of mind.