Husserl And The Source of Apodicticity
The central
focus of the following essay concerns one of the most prominent themes in Husserl's Cartesian
Meditations - apodicticity: More specifically, an attempt will be made to investigate
the form of the argument which Husserl uses in the Meditations to arrive at
apodictic principles that can serve as a fundamental, essential, and certain
grounds through which true 'philosophy' (in Husserl's sense of a phenomological
self-critique) can arise.
The term
"form" is emphasized in the foregoing in order to isolate the ‘shape’
of the argument used by Husserl in the Meditations from the issue of whether his
argument is, ultimately, tenable in the manner in which Husserl intends it to be. Although
I believe the answer to the latter issue is that Husserl's argument concerning the
possibility of acquiring apodicticity through purely rational means is not capable
of being proven, the substantiation of my contention would involve a separate, though
related, critical analysis which is beyond the scope of the present essay.
Moreover,
the nature of the ‘form’ of Husserl’s argument has been selected as the
primary focus of the present essay for another reason. Before one can pursue a serious
critical exploration of Husserl's position with respect to apodicticity and whether, or
not, such an approach is able to withstand close philosophical scrutiny, one must try to
come to terms with the character of the argument which one proposes to critically analyze.
In other
words, before one critically can explore the ‘legitimacy’ of Husserl’s
perspective concerning apodicticity, one must understand the nature of his position.
However, achieving such an understanding is not always easily accomplished.
Indeed, part
of the plan of this essay is to try to demonstrate how one philosopher, David Michael
Levin in his book Reason and Evidence in Husserl's Phenomenology, has taken a
critical stance concerning Husserl's Cartesian Meditations that seriously distorts
the latter's position vis-a-vis apodicticity and the issue of ‘adequate’
evidence (in Husserl’s sense). In addition, Levin appears to overlook what may be the
very heart of the Meditations.
One of
themes in Levin’s book - or, at least, the portion of it dealing with the Meditations
- is to chart the relationship between adequate evidence and apodicticity. Without being
unfair to Levin, his thesis could be construed as one of attempting to show the
"intrinsic untenability" of the apodictic principle, while, simultaneously,
trying to salvage certain other aspects of Husserl's phenomenology which Levin considers
to be philosophically worthwhile.
More
precisely (and leaving aside the issue of what Levin considers worthwhile in Husserl),
Levin is bothered by what appear to be the inconsistences between Husserl's statements
about adequate evidence, on the one hand, and his statements about achieving apodicticity,
on the other hand. According to Levin, if apodictic principles are to serve as the
foundations upon which the edifice of a rigorous science of philosophy is to be built, and
if apodictic principles are to be truly absolute, essential, universal and necessary such
that they cannot be challenged or overturned by any means whatsoever, then, obviously,
those principles cannot be functionally dependent on that which can be challenged or
overturned.
Levin feels,
however, that Husserl is committed to making apodicticity a function of evidence and,
consequently, opens himself (i.e., Husserl) up to criticism on this point since
"evidence" can be demonstrated to be always in an unfulfilled condition with
respect to the endless horizons which surround one's attending to any object of
consciousness - horizons that must be explicated if the "object" is to become
fully concrete and perfectly known. But since adequate evidence (in the sense of rendering
an "object" fully concrete) is - as even Husserl himself would admit - only an
ideal which serves to guide certain aspects of one's meditating and is not actually
realizable, then, to the extent that apodicticity is functionally dependent on the notion
of evidence, one, seriously, could question the indubitability of any principles which
Husserl claimed were apodictic.
In short,
according to Levin:
"(1)
Husserl's strong sense of apodicticity presupposes (requires) the demonstration of
adequate evidence (as Husserl originally thought in Erste Philosophie).
(2) Husserl
has neither demonstrated such adequacy, nor shown how it is possible for there to be
(strong) apodicticity when the evidence is either demonstrably non-adequate or else not
demonstrably adequate.
(3) Indeed,
the objective transcendence of the items to which Husserl wants to ascribe apodicticity
counts as weighty (though not, of course, apodictically conclusive) grounds for thinking
adequacy is impossible, or at least not demonstrable.
(4) So
either Husserl has to admit his case for (strong) apodicticity is thus far inconclusive,
or he has to forego this sense altogether and embrace an explicitly weaker sense, a
defensible evidential claim defined in terms of inadequacy (or at least, the
non-demonstrability, thus far, of adequate evidence).(p. 132)"
Levin
proceeds to develop a number of criticisms directed toward supporting the skeletal outline
of the foregoing argument.
Given that
Levin binds the notion of apodicticity to the issue of adequate evidence and that many of
his criticisms of Husserl's position in the Meditations rest on the legitimacy of
such an interpretation, then, considering the manner in which Husserl approaches the
issues of evidential adequacy and apodicticity such that someone (for example, Levin)
might have been led to believe apodicticity entailed a certain number of fatal flaws (of
the sort noted by Levin in the previous quote), may be a worthwhile exercise. The
following meditations, however, are not intended to be a definite analysis but are
provided as being suggestive of certain possibilities.
In
Husserl’s first meditation, one comes across the following:
"Any
evidence is a grasping of something itself that is, or is thus, a grasping in the mode
"it itself", with full certainty of its being, a certainty that accordingly
excludes every doubt. But it does not follow that full certainty excludes the
conceivability that what is evident could subsequently become doubtful, or the
conceivability that being could prove to be illusion." (p. 15, Husserl, Cartesian
Meditations).
Shortly
after encountering the above quotation, one runs into Husserl's conception of 'apodictic
evidence' which:
"... is
not merely certainty of the affairs or affair - complexes (states-of-affairs) evident in
it; rather it discloses itself, to a critical reflection, as having the signal peculiarity
of being at the same time the absolutes unimaginableness (inconceivability) of their
non-being, and thus excluding in advance every doubt as "objectless",
empty." (p. 15-16).
However,
earlier in the First Meditation, Husserl had stated there was an equivalency between the
phrases "absolute certainty" and "absolute indubitability". Given this
equivalency of phraseology, together with the material in the foregoing two excerpts, one
is confronted with what seems to be a potential ambiguity or confusion. If evidence is
capable of signifying a "full certainty of its being" (i.e., absolute certainty)
in the process of its being consciously grasped and, yet, subsequently, may be shown to be
doubtful or illusory (at least Husserl doesn't rule out such a possibility, and he claims
that full certainty doesn't rule out such a possibility either), then, one wonders how
"absolute certainty" can be construed as equivalent to "absolute
indubitability" when the latter tends to be associated with the apodictic notion of
an evidence that discloses itself in a manner such that its non-being is considered to be
inconceivable and every doubt concerning its being (its possible being that is) is said to
be empty?
One's
puzzlement is further expanded when Husserl - in the context of the same discussion which
establishes an equivalency between "absolute certainty" and absolute
indubitability" - differentiates between an "adequate evidence" that
represents the perfected, harmonious synthesis involved in the bringing to fulfillment of
attendant meanings (i.e., the exhaustive explication of horizons) and the "different
perfection" entailed by apodicticity which not only can occur with respect to
evidences that are inadequate but has, according to Husserl, "a higher dignity"
as well. Again, one has difficulty understanding exactly how "absolute
certainty" and "absolute indubitability" can be considered to be equivalent
phrases.
Unfortunately,
because there are only some fleeting, oblique references to this problem in the remainder
of the First Meditation and within the Second Meditation, one's puzzlement is not quickly
resolved. One does not encounter these issues again, in any concentrated fashion, until
the relatively short Third Meditation in, when Husserl, fairly congently, elaborates on
his position concerning the notion of evidence.
The Third
Meditation is an explication, as it were, of some of the factors surrounding the idea of
"evidence" and serves to reconfirm the synoptic version of "adequate
evidence" that appears on page 16 of the First Meditation. Thus, for example, when
discussing the experiential evidence related to specific objects in the "real
Objective world", Husserl speaks of:
"... a
multiform horizon of unfulfilled anticipations (which, however, are in need of
fulfillment) and, accordingly, contents of a mere meaning, which refer us to corresponding
potential evidences. This imperfect evidence becomes more nearly perfect in the
actualizing synthetic transitions from evidence to evidence but necessarily in such a
manner that no imaginable synthesis of this kind is completed as an adequate evidence: any
such synthesis must always involve unfulfilled, expectant and accompanying meanings. At
the same time there always remains the open possibility that the belief in being, which
extends into the anticipation, will not be fulfilled, that what is appearing in the mode
"it itself" nevertheless does not exist or is different." (pp. 61-6)
Against the
foregoing background, Husserl reiterates the idea of adequate evidence in relation to
"actually existing objects" as:
"...
the system of evidences relating to the object and belonging together in such a manner
that they combine to make up one (though perhaps an infinite) total evidence. This would
be an absolutely perfect evidence, which would finally present the object itself in
respect of all it is - an evidence in whose synthesis everything that is still unfulfilled
expectant intention, in the particular evidences founding the synthesis, would attain
adequate fulfilment." (p. 63)
However,
Husserl acknowledges that the idea of "adequate fulfilment" (or "total
evidence" or "absolutely perfect evidence") is only an 'ideal'. The actual
attainment o such an ideal is out of the question in relation to objectively real objects
because there always remains the possibility of illusion and dis-confirmation creeping in
through one of the potentialities of the expectant meanings implicit in the horizons
concerning one's investigation of the given "object" to which one is attending.
Consequently,
one seems to have returned to (or, perhaps, one has never left) the position of the First
Meditation - namely, that which is made evident to consciousness can be grasped with
absolute certainty in the moment of grasping but the evidence represented by that which is
made evident is insufficient to guarantee the apodicticity of what has been grasped. In
other words, the evidence has not been perfected, or is incomplete, due to the unfulfilled
expectant meanings that arise in conjunction with a given "object".
Yet, because
Husserl has equated "absolute certainty" with "absolute
indubitability" - an equivalency, moreover, which is fraught, as previously
indicated, with a certain ambiguity, lending an aura of confusion to the relationship
between evidence and apodicticity - and because "absolute certainty" has been
shown, in the context of evidential considerations, to be of a potentially, transitory
nature, then, therefore, a shadow has been cast on the status of absolute indubitability
(i.e., apodicticity) with respect to that which is given as evident to consciousness.
Furthermore,
to the extent one interprets apodicticity to mean: "an evidentially guaranteed
incorrigibility" (as Levin does, p. 126), then, one seems well on one’s way to
demonstrating that "Husserl's strong sense of apodicticity presupposes the
demonstration of adequate evidence" (Levin's first claim listed previously in this
essay). One also appears to be in a position to claim that Husserl has not "shown how
there can be (strong) apodicticity when evidence" is inadequate (Levin's second
claim).
In
conjunction with the foregoing, Levin (in pointing out the differences between Husserl's
position in the Erste Philosophie and the reformulation appearing in the Cartesian
Meditations concerning the adequate evidence/apodicticity distinction - the latter no
longer requiring adequate evidences in the Meditations), claims that Husserl:
"...
gives us not the slightest trace of an argument to support his new position" (p.
127),
but proceeds
to try to piece together an argument that is, according to Levin, fair to Husserl's
overall position.
What is of
interest here is that the interpretation which Levin proceeds to work-out involves
suggesting Husserl might have relied on:
"...
his insights into the eidetic structure of the transcendental ego. And it undoubtedly
seemed to him that the purely a priori elucidation of this egological structure could be
blessed with a certain freedom from temporal determination. Now this freedom, as he saw
it, is precisely the condition for the possibility of apodicticity." (p. 129)
Levin,
however, rejects his own interpretation, which is unfortunate since this could have
provided an opportunity - had it been pursued - for demonstrating a way through which
Husserl might have been able to meet Levin's criticisms of the notion of apodicticity.
Moreover, given that Levin had provided considerable indications, earlier in his chapter
dealing with the Meditations (for example, see the discussion on pages 120-125), about
having understood the importance of eidetic structure for Husserl's approach, one is
mystified why Levin did not further investigate the issue of eidetic structure with
respect to his own proffered suggestion in order to determine if Husserl does have - at
least, in the form of Husserl's argument - a legitimate means of countering his
(i.e., Levin's) criticisms.
Although one
understands how Levin could have developed doubts concerning the indubitability of
apodictic evidence due to the problems surrounding the relationship between "absolute
certainty" and "absolute indubitability", one of the basic errors that
Levin makes in his analysis of the Meditations is to tie apodicticity to adequate
evidence. In other words, in maintaining that the former is generated through, and
guaranteed by, the latter, Levin sets-up the problem in an incorrect manner by directing
attention away from what should be the primary focus.
For example,
according to Levin, Husserl cannot:
"...
deny that the apodictic title of an evidence presupposes (requires) its demonstrable
adequacy." (p. 130)
However, in
a very significant sense, evidence is not what bears the apodictic title. Rather,
one’s mode of consciousness concerning the evidence (that which is evident to
consciousness) is what can, potentially, lay claim to the to the title of apodicticity.
The
foregoing distinction leads to, at least, two possibilities - or, perhaps, one should say
that the distinction leads to, at least, one possibility which can be considered from two
different, but intimately related, perspectives. (a) One needs to examine the fundamental
nature of the modes of consciousness in which the evidence appears in order to arrive at a
theory of how apodicticity is generated; (b) one needs to explore the manner in which
evidence contains, even when inadequate, sufficient properties to allow, under appropriate
conditions, an apodictic identification of the state of affairs to which the evidence is
related.
What is
important here is that both (a) and (b) suggest avenues to pursue which may not require
the presupposition of adequate evidence in order to establish apodicticity. Implicit in
the first possibility is the suggestion that the structures of different modes of
consciousness are such that apodicticity is a function of conscious insight into the
characteristics manifested by the evidence given to consciousness, rather than a matter of
accumulating or perfecting evidence with respect to establishing adequate evidence. The
second possibility indicates that the structural aspects of the evidence may reveal a
sufficient amount of information, when attended to in the appropriate manner, to give rise
to apodicticity - not in the sense of the potentially transitory manner of "absolute
certainty" discussed previously, but in a manner that concerns universal and
necessary (i.e., lasting) dimensions which disclose the fundamental nature of the evidence
to one's consciousness.
Moreover,
obviously, both (a) and (b) may be interconnected in such a way that the features of
consciousness merge with the features of the evidence given to consciousness in something
akin to a 'perfect fit' that is independent of the adequate evidence requirement posited
by Levin. For example, mystics, from a variety of spiritual traditions, have been alluding
to something of this sort for thousands of years.
The question
to ask at this point is whether there is anything in the Meditations which, on the
one hand, might permit an individual to interpret Husserl as denying what Levin claims he
cannot deny - namely, that the apodictic title of an evidence presupposes (requires) its
demonstrable adequacy - yet, which, on the other hand, could assume a form similar to the
possibilities (a) and (b) outlined above. The position being put forth in this essay is
that not only is there much in Husserl that might permit such an interpretation, but these
features of the Meditations represent the very heart of Husserl's position.
Generally,
Husserl uses the term "noetic" to refer to those descriptions concerning the
issue of conscious modes of the cogito, while those descriptions involving references to
the intentional object (i.e., that which is given as evident) are usually termed
"noematic". Presumably, possibility (a), mentioned previously, signifies a
noetic theme while possibility (b) is more oriented (although not entirely) toward a
noematic theme.
Together,
they determine the interfacing with respect to which the phenomenologist or meditator
works a series of methodological reductions in order to penetrate, ultimately, to the
underlying rules and laws that govern the possibilities according to which the interfacing
manifests itself, or could manifest itself. Furthermore both the notion of
phenomenological reduction and the dimension of rules that are said to underlie the
‘noetic-noematic’ interaction are of considerable importance in documenting the nature of Levin's misconceptions concerning Husserl on the matter of apodicticity, and, consequently, each will be examined briefly in
order to provide a minimal basis for analyzing Levin's position in relation to Husserl on
the matter of apodicticity.
Toward the
end of the Fourth Meditation (a meditation which seems to contain the very fiber from
which many of the most central themes of phenomenology are woven), Husserl makes the
following statement:
"If
these (i.e., the tasks of uncovering implicit intentionality) are seen and undertaken,
there results a universal phenomenology, as a self-explication of the ego, carried out
with continuous evidence and at the same time with concreteness. Stated more precisely;
first, a self-explication in the pregnant sense, showing systematically how the ego
constitutes itself, in respect of its own proper essence, as existent in itself and for
itself; then, secondly a self-explication in the broadened sense, which goes on from there
to show how, by virtue of this proper essence, the ego likewise constitutes in itself
something "other", something "Objective", and thus constitutes
everything without exception that ever has for one, in the Ego, existential status as
non-Ego." (p. 85)
This
statement is both very problematical, as well as being, potentially, very revealing with
respect to Husserl's position in the Meditations. The statement is problematical in
that Cairns (the translator of the Meditations) has given a footnote indicating
that in Husserl's written manuscript there had been "three exclamation points
opposite the passage beginning with: "Stated more precisely...".
Cairns goes
on to stipulate that Husserl had marked the passage (which according to Cairns extends
until the end of the paragraph) as being unsatisfactory. A problem arises, however, since
the meaning of "unsatisfactory" is ambiguous.
One doesn't
know whether Husserl meant the passage was misleading in some way, or whether the passage
conveyed a, generally, correct sense but needed further work, or even whether the
"unsatisfactory" notation referred to the whole passage as Cairn presumes is the
case. A further problem emerges in relation to the passage in question since the passage
contains programmatical material for establishing phenomenological priorities that relate,
on a fundamental level, to the possibilities, (a) and (b), mentioned earlier in this essay
- the problem being whether or not Husserl was committed to maintaining the approach
suggested in the passage.
Fortunately,
there seem to be enough indications elsewhere in the Fourth Meditation to establish that
whatever Husserl's misgivings were about the passage, they did not alter the
phenomenological importance of the meditator's task - namely, to determine his or her own
"proper essence" as a mandatory first step before proceeding to explore the
noematic characteristics of consciousness. Noematic issues, as pointed out earlier, are
related to, from the perspective of the ego or cogito - the "other" - both in
the sense of mere "objects", as well as to a special class of phenomena that
concerned monads that were 'separate from', in a sense, the ego pole of identity that was
the ground in which such phenomena appeared.
As
substantiation for this essay's claim with respect to a meditator's priority task to seek
her or his own essence, consider the following:
"I must
develop a purely eidetic phenomenology and that in the latter alone the first
actualization of a philosophical science ... takes place or can take place. After
transcendental reduction, my true interest is directed to my pure ego, to the uncovering
of this de facto ego. But the uncovering can become genuinely scientific, only if I go
back to the apodictic principles that pertain to this ego as exemplifying the eidos ego:
the essential universalities and necessities by means of which the fact is to be related
to its rational grounds (those of pure possibility) and those made scientific
(logical)." (p. 72)
In other
words, once having made the transcendental turn, as it were, and suspended one's belief
concerning matters of ontology that extend beyond the being of consciousness, the next
step is to pursue a process of eidetic reduction which involves the uncovering of the de
facto ego in a way that will allow one to arrive at the eidos ego - the source of all
essential universalities and necessities that structure and constitute consciousness. This
marks the phenomenological point through which one hopes to actualize a rigorous
philosophical science with respect to the rest of conscious experience.
This same
point is brought out at the beginning of the Fourth Meditation - although not as
explicitly and as clearly as the foregoing - when Husserl changes the thematic focus of
the discussion which had dominated, in many ways, the first three meditations:
"Since
we were busied up to now with the intentional relation of consciousness to object, cogito
to cogitatum, only that synthesis stood out for us which "polarizes" the
multiplicities of actual and possible consciousness toward identical objects, accordingly
in relation to objects as poles, synthetic unities. Now we encounter a second
polarization, a second kind of synthesis, which embraces all the particular multiplicities
of cogitationes collectively and in its own manner, namely as belonging to the identical
Ego, who, as the active and affected subject of consciousness, lives in all processes of
consciousness and is related, through them, to all object-poles." (p. 66)
According to
Husserl, the principles underlying, and manifested through, this second kind of synthesis,
involving the "ego pole", place one in the realm of the eidos ego - that is, the
source of all essential universalities and necessities through which consciouness is
structured and constituted. Moreover, since Husserls previously quoted words clearly
indicate that this second kind of polarization "embraces all the particular
multiplicities of cogitationes collectively and in its own manner, namely as belonging to
the identical Ego", one seems justified in concluding that this second issue of
phenomenological polarization was of more fundamental importance than the sort of
polarization involving objects since the ego pole serves as a ground for the latter.
The
foregoing conclusion becomes more substantial in the context of Husserl's discussion of
active and passive generation, during which he says:
"...
anything built by activity necessarily presupposes, as the lowest level, a possibility
that gives something beforehand; and when we trace anything built actively, we run into
constitution by passive generation." (p. 78)
Surely, for
Husserl, it is the eidos ego which signifies the most basic level of phenomenology and
which gives beforehand - by way of its, allegedly, necessary and universal laws - the
rules by which generation or constitution of particularized consciousness is to proceed.
In a sense, the eidos ego represents an activity (or set of activities) that presupposes
its own passivity - a passivity which is manifested in the form of the structural
properties and principles that make active genesis possible.
All of which
is to say, but in a different way, that:
"Eidetic
phenomenology, accordingly, explores the universal a priori without which neither I nor
any transcendental Ego whatever is "imaginable"; or, since every eidetic
universality has the value of an unbreakable law, eidetic phenomenology explores the all
embracing laws that prescribe for every factual statement about something transcendent the
possible sense ... of that statement." (pp. 71-72)
Throughout
the Fourth Meditation, Husserl is immersed in trying to construct the transition from: an
emphasis on the empirical descriptions of a cogito-cogitatum relationship, to: an emphasis
on eidetic descriptions that set the contexts of possible meanings and senses that can be
explicated as expectant and attendant dimensions of the horizons that follow from any
given noetic-noematic synthetic interfacing of conscious experience. Indeed, it is this
sort of shift in emphasis and focus which, if realized, can fulfill an expectant meaning
contained in a quote early in the Second Meditation:
"The
bare identity of the "I am" is not the only thing given as indubitable in
transcendental self-experience. Rather there extends through all the particular data of
actual and possible self-experience - even though they are not absolutely indubitable in
respect of single details - a universal apodictically experienceable structure of the Ego
(for example, the immanent temporal form belonging to the stream of subjective processes),
perhaps it can also be shown, as something dependent on that structure, and indeed as part
of it, that the Ego is apodictically pre-delineated, for itself, as a concrete Ego
existing with an individual content made up of subjective processes, abilities, and
dispositions." (pp. 28-29)
By
participating in the process of eidetic reduction and, if successful, uncovering the
various layers that exist between the naive "self" of the Lebenswelt (the life
world) and the eidos ego of transcendental idealism, one is placed in a position of
showing the manner in which the Ego is "apodictically pre-delineated, for itself, as
a concrete Ego". Allegedly, this concrete Ego gives expression to certain structural
features and operational aspects representing the absolute, necessary basis for the
constituting of experience and which, therefore, allow for the possibility of knowing,
apodictically, the essential structure of what is so constituted - even though the
particularizations horizonally surrounding this structure may not be "absolutely
indubitable in respect of single details.
Although the
manner in which pre-delineation relates to the universal a priori (i.e., prior to, and
independent of, experience) that is to be explored through means of phenomenological
analysis is fairly obvious in Husserl's presentation of the Fourth Meditation, one might
note that there is a sense in which horizons too are pre-delineated, as Husserl himself
points out in the Second Meditation:
"The
horizons are "pre-delineated" potentialities of conscious life at a particular
time. Precisely thereby we uncover the objective sense meant implicitly in the actual
cogito, though never with more than a certain degree of foreshadowing. This sense, the
cogitatum qua cogitatum, is never present to actual consciousness as a finished datum; it
becomes "clarified" only through explication of the given horizon and the new
horizons continuously awakened. The pre-delineation itself, to be sure, is at all times
imperfect; yet, with its indeterminateness, it has a determinate structure." (p. 45)
Despite the
fact that Husserl does not seem to make an overt, easily identifiable connection between
the determinate structure of horizonal pre-delineation and the determinate structure of
eidetic pre-delineation, it seems perfectly consistent with, if not implicit in, Husserl's
position to maintain that the determinateness of horizonal pre-delineation is due, in
large part, to the passive genesis associated with the eidos ego and it’s alleged, a
priori characteristics. In other words, because the eidos ego is what it is, horizons are
what they are - that is, the latter (at least structurally) are functionally dependent on
the pure possibilities inherent in the former in accordance with the innate a priori
principles of constitution.
Consequently,
for Husserl, there may be an essential, structural bridge linking the horizontal component
of the congitatum qua cogitatum and the eidetic dimension of the cogito qua cogito, which,
potentially, involves apodicticity. Nevertheless, this bridge, if it actually exists,
entirely by-passes the issue of adequate evidence since the bridge is not so much a
function of evidential considerations of the indefinite sort associated with the
clarification of horizons, as it is a matter of what is apodictically evident on the basis
of eidetic, a priori universals that bind noetics to noematics together and which
represent the structural pre-delineation through which conscious experience is made
possible and intelligible.
One might
even say that evidence, in the context of adequacy, has not been completely purified
(through eidetic analysis) of its objective or naive prejudices. This is because the
establishing of adequate evidence involves an indefinite explication of horizons and is,
therefore, already removed from the realm of determinate structures associated with
universal and necessary principles that, theoretically, are apodictically and directly
intuited by the eidos ego.
At one point
during the Second Meditation (see page 49), Husserl acknowledges that a phenomenological
meditator, when first considering the possibility of a transcendental phenomenology, is
very likely to consider such an enterprise as being extremely suspect due to the
fleetingness and transitoriness of conscious phenomena. Moreover, Husserl indicates that
any methodological attempt to treat conscious processes in a manner similar to the
procedures employed by ‘objective science’ is bound to fail since conscious
processes are not capable of being subsumed "under the idea of objects determinable
by fixed concepts" as is said to be true of objects of the objective sciences.
Then,
Husserl goes on to contend that:
"In
spite of that, however, the idea of an intentional analysis is legitimate, since, in the
flux of intentional synthesis (which creates unity in all consciousness and which,
noetically and noematically, constitutes unity of objective sense) an essentially
necessary conformity to type prevails and can be apprehended in strict concepts." (p.
49)
The phrase
"an essentially necessary conformity to type" which appears above is intimately
related to two further developments that are elaborated upon immediately following the
foregoing quotation. In the first development, Husserl speaks of how:
"In the
particularization of that type (i.e., ego-cogito-cogitatum), and of its description, the
intentional object (on the side belonging to the cogitatum) plays... the role of
"transcendental clue" to the typical infinite multiplicities of possible
cogitationes, that in a possible synthesis, bear the intentional object within them... as
the same meant object." (p. 50)
The emphasis
here is on the notion of "transcendental clue" since it relates to the second
development concerning the transcendental theory in which Husserl maintains that:
"Each
type brought out by these clues is to be asked about its noetic-noematic structure ....If
one keeps no matter what object fixed in its form or category and maintains continuous
evidence of its identity throughout the change in modes of consciousness of it, one sees
that no matter how fluid these may be... still they are by no means variable without
restriction. They are always restricted to a set of structural types which is
"invariable. ... To explicate systematically just this set of structural types is the
task of transcendental theory, which, if it restricts itself to an objective universality
as its clue, is called theory of the transcendental constitution of any object whatever,
as an object of the form or category in question." (p. 51)
On the basis
of these last three quotes, one seems to have legitimate grounds for interpreting Husserl
as, in effect, claiming that the cogitatum is capable of playing a role of transcendental
clue which allows the eidos ego to access the essential identity of the structural
typology reflected in the clue. If one adds to this a second development in the Fourth
Meditation in which eidetic analysis provides a means of exploring the principles that
underlie the constitution of the synthetic unity of the noetic-noematic interfacing, then,
one again arrives at a methodological framework that allows - at least in terms of the
form of the argument - for the possibilities of apodicticity concerning the structure of
conscious phenomena, despite the presence of inadequate evidence.
One can, of
course, question if the apodictic status of the eidetic understanding is justified in
terms of whether Husserl has provided a legitimate means of reaching the eidos ego such
that one's understanding is absolute, necessary and universal and, therefore, apodictic.
Nonetheless, as indicated in the first part of the present essay, this sort of question
remains, to an extent, separate (though, obviously, closely related to) the issue at hand
which concerns the form of Husserl's argument, and this ‘form’ of
argument is what Levin appears to have overlooked in the latter’s analysis of the Cartesian
Meditations.
Thus, when
Levin claims Husserl has not shown that the transcendental ego is capable of producing
adequate evidence and asks one to remember:
"...
that adequate evidence is an intuitional completeness and fulness corresponding perfectly
to the noetic intentional sense..."
and,
further, stipulates that:
"Adequacy
for an intentional meaning occurs if and only if the meaning is exhaustively filled out by
the evidence...",
he (i.e.,
Levin) confuses the issue by focusing on only one possibility (adequate evidence) to the
exclusion of a theme that is central to Husserl's concerns in the Meditations - namely,
the notion of apodicticity as a function of the eidos ego. Indeed, when Levin speaks of
"intuitional completeness" he interprets this phrase as something which only can
be satisfied through the fulfillment of the attendant potentialities inherent in, and
surrounding, the original meaning, while, simultaneously, neglecting the sense of
intuitional completeness that, allegedly, is rooted in the eidos ego's recognition of the
a priori, universal principles which generate the structure of conscious experience in
terms of the way noetical and noematic dimensions of such experience are synthetically
unified or constituted.
In short,
the issue is not whether the transcendental ego permits an adequate evidence which will
guarantee apodicticity (as Levin argues) but whether, on the one hand, an individual
meditator is capable (as Husserl argues) of reaching the essential, purified ground of a
priori, universal principles through eidetic analysis and whether, on the other hand the
eidos ego - once reached (by means of various rounds of phenomenological reduction) - is
actually capable of directly intuiting the principles underlying noetic-noematic
structures that are reflected in the typology contained in the transcendental clues
provided by cogitata or intentional objects.
On the basis
of the foregoing considerations and with respect to the form of Levin's argument which was
stated earlier in this essay, the thrust of his basic criticism (premise 1) which makes
apodicticity dependent on adequate evidence appears to be misconceived as far as Husserl's
actual position on apodicticity in the Meditations is concerned. Furthermore,
Levin's claim (premise 2) that Husserl has not shown how apodicticity is possible in the
face of inadequate evidence is misdirected in a fashion parallel to the first premise of
Levin's argument since Levin has not given sufficient weight to the very heart of
Husserl's position concerning the eidos ego - despite his having briefly considered such a
possibility (although in a superficial fashion) during the course of his analysis.
Moreover - and, for reasons similar to those which relate to Levin's first two premises -
Levin seems to be in no position to maintain the third claim of his argument involving
Husserl's desire to ascribe apodicticity to certain aspects of transcendental experience
since, once again, Levin has misunderstood the form of Husserl's argument with respect to
the source of apodicticity.
Consequently,
Levin does not appear to have demonstrated that Husserl must back down on the issue of
apodicticity. Levin does state a number of other criticisms concerning the Meditations
which might profitably be explored in detail but involve a certain number of issues (e.g.,
the question of the apodictic critique and the problem of inter-subjectivity) that would
lead substantially beyond the scope of the present essay and must be postponed, therefore,
until a later time.
However, the
foregoing exercise has served to bring out the form of Husserl's argument concerning
apodicticity. In addition, during the process of bringing out the general form of
Husserl’s position in the Meditations, an attempt has been made to correct
what seems to be a serious misconception of Husserl's position concerning apodicticity - a
misconception which, given Husserl's somewhat ambiguous and confusing treatment of the
meaning of "absolute certainty" and "absolute indubitability" in the
First Meditation - may be shared by various, other investigators of Husserl's
phenomenology as well.
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