Edmund Husserl
Logische Untersuchungen
Klassiker Auslegen Herausgegeben von Otfried Höffe
Band 35
Otfried Höffe ist o. Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Tübingen
Edmund Husserl
Logische Untersuchungen
Herausgegeben von Verena Mayer unter Mitwirkung von
Christopher Erhard
Akademie Verlag
Titelabbildung: Edmund Husserl, © Husserl-Archives Leuven
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ISBN: 978-3-05-004391-3
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Inhalt
Zitierweise und Siglen . . . VII Vorwort . . . IX
1.
Einleitung
Verena Mayer . . . 1 2.
Husserl’s concept of Pure Logic (Prolegomena, §§ 1–16, 62–72)
Richard Tieszen . . . 9 3.
Husserl’s Arguments against Logical Psychologism (Prolegomena, §§ 17–61)
Robert Hanna . . . 27 4.
Husserls phänomenologische Semiotik (I. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 1–23)
Vittorio De Palma . . . 43 5.
Die Objektivität der Bedeutung (I. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 24–35)
Gianfranco Soldati . . . 61 6.
Zugang zum Idealen: Spezies und Abstraktion (II. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 1–12)
Peter Simons . . . 77 7.
The Critique of Empiricist Accounts of Abstraction (II. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 13–42)
A. D. Smith . . . 93
I Inhalt 8.
Wholes, Parts, and Phenomenological Methodology (III. Logische Untersuchung)
John J. Drummond . . . 105
9. Grammatik und Intentionalität (IV. Logische Untersuchung) Jocelyn Benoist . . . 123
10. Intentionalität und Bewusstsein (V. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 1–21, Beilage der VI. Untersuchung ) Dan Zahavi . . . 139
11. Die Bedeutung objektivierender Akte (V. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 22–45) Verena Mayer/Christopher Erhard . . . 159
12. Intention und Erfüllung, Evidenz und Wahrheit (VI. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 1–39, 67–70) Rudolf Bernet . . . 189
13. Kategoriale Anschauung (VI. Logische Untersuchung, §§ 40–66) Dieter Lohmar . . . 209
Auswahlbibliographie . . . 238
Personenregister . . . 243
Sachregister . . . 245
Hinweise zu den Autoren . . . 248
Zitierweise und Siglen
Husserls Texte werden nach der Husserliana-Ausgabe zitiert: Edmund Husserl 1950 ff.: Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke. Den Haag/Dordrecht.
Als Abkürzung wird die Sigle „Hua“ mitsamt Bandangabe in römischen und Seitenangabe in arabischen Ziffern verwendet.
Bei englischsprachigen Beiträgen sind die von den Autoren indivi- duell angegebenen Textausgaben und Zitationsweisen maßgeblich. Die Materialienbände werden mit „Hua Mat“ mitsamt Band- und Seitennum- mer zitiert. Folgende Ausgaben der Husserliana werden verwendet:
Hua I Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge. Hrsg. und eingeleitet von Stephan Strasser. Nachdruck der 2. verb. Auflage. 1991
Hua II Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen. Hrsg. und eingeleitet von Walter Biemel. Nachdruck der 2. erg. Auflage. 1973
Hua III Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. (= Ideen I) In zwei Bänden. 1. Halbband: Text der 1.–3. Auflage; 2. Halbband: Ergänzende Texte (1912–1929). Neu hrsg. von Karl Schuhmann. Nachdruck. 1976 Hua IV Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie.
Zweites Buch: Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Hrsg. von Marly Biemel. 1952 (=Ideen II)
Hua VI Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. Hrsg.
von Walter Biemel. Nachdruck der 2. verb. Auflage. 1976
Hua IX Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. Hrsg. von Walter Biemel. 2. verb. Auflage. 1968
Hua X Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1893–1917). Hrsg. von Rudolf Boehm. Nachdruck der 2. verb. Auflage. 1969
Hua XI Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten (1918–1926). Hrsg. von Margot Fleischer. 1966
Hua XII Philosophie der Arithmetik. Mit ergänzenden Texten (1890–1901). Hrsg. von Lothar Eley. 1970
Hua XIII Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil:
905–1920. Hrsg. von Iso Kern. 1973
Hua XVI Ding und Raum. Vorlesungen 1907. Hrsg. von Ulrich Claesges. 1973 Hua XVII Formale und transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen
Vernunft. Mit ergänzenden Texten. Hrsg. von Paul Janssen. 1974
Hua XVIII Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik. Text der 1. und 2. Auflage. Hrsg. von Elmar Holenstein. 1975
Hua XIX/1 Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Hrsg. von Ursula Panzer. 1984 Hua XIX/2 Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur
Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Hrsg. von Ursula Panzer. 1984
VIII Zitierweise und Siglen
Hua XX/1 Logische Untersuchungen. Ergänzungsband. Erster Teil. Entwürfe zur Umarbeitung der VI. Untersuchung und zur Vorrede für die Neuauflage der Logischen Untersuchungen (Sommer 1913). Hrsg. von Ullrich Melle. 2002 Hua XX/2 Logische Untersuchungen. Ergänzungsband. Zweiter Teil. Texte für die
Neufassung der VI. Untersuchung: Zur Phänomenologie des Ausdrucks und der Erkenntnis (1893/94–1921). Hrsg. von Ullrich Melle. 2005
Hua XXII Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890–1910). Hrsg. von Bernhard Rang. 1979 Hua XXIII Phantasie, Bildbewußtsein, Erinnerung. Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen
Vergegenwärtigungen. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1898–1925). Hrsg. von Eduard Marbach. 1980
Hua XXIV Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesungen 1906/07. Hrsg.
von Ullrich Melle. 1984
Hua XXVI Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre. Sommersemester 1908. Hrsg. von Ursula Panzer. 1987
Hua XXVIII Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre (1908–1914). Hrsg. von Ullrich Melle.
1988
Hua XXXI Aktive Synthesen. Aus der Vorlesung „Transzendentale Logik“ 1920/21.
Ergänzungsband zu „Analysen zur passiven Synthesis“. Hrsg. von Roland Breeur. 2000
Hua XXXVI Transzendentaler Idealismus. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908–1921). Hrsg. von Robin D. Rollinger in Verbindung mit Rochus Sowa. 2003
Hua Mat II Logik. Vorlesung 1902/03. Hrsg. von Elisabeth Schumann. 2001 Hua Mat III Allgemeine Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesung 1902/03. Hrsg. von Elisabeth
Schuhmann. 2001
Hua Mat V Urteilstheorie. Vorlesung 1905. Hrsg. von Elisabeth Schuhmann. 2002
Zitierte Manuskripte aus dem Nachlass:
Ms. L Bernauer Manuskripte Ms. A Mundane Phänomenologie
Vorwort
Der vorliegende Kommentarband zu den Logischen Untersuchungen erscheint zu Husserls 150. Geburtstag im Jahr 2009. Damit ein solches Gemeinschaftswerk rechtzeitig fertig gestellt werden konnte, waren viel- fache Anstrengungen notwendig. Ich bedanke mich bei Rudolf Bernet und dem Husserl-Archiv Leuwen für die freundliche Überlassung des Titelfotos; bei Dieter Lohmar für die bereitwillige Unterstützung bei der Autorensuche; und nicht zuletzt bei den Autoren, die ihre Manuskripte mit bewundernswerter Pünktlichkeit eingereicht haben. Mein besonderer Dank gilt Christopher Erhard, der den Band von der Konzeption bis zur Fertigstellung sachkundig und engagiert begleitet hat.
Verena Mayer
1
Verena Mayer
Einleitung
Husserls Logische Untersuchungen sind eines der detailliertesten Bücher, die je über die Phänomenologie des Bewusstseins geschrieben wurden.
Die beiden 1900 (Prolegomena) und 1901 (Logische Untersuchungen) erschienenen Bände waren das Ergebnis zehnjähriger Arbeit und sind unter mannigfachen Geburtswehen publiziert worden. Insbesondere der erste Band, die Prolegomena zu einer reinen Logik, wurde sogleich von der Fachwelt viel beachtet; dieses Buch scheint dem damals vorherrschenden Psychologismus den Todesstoß versetzt zu haben. Auch der zweite Band hat eine breite Wirkung entfaltet. Er enthält nicht nur Beiträge zu den in den philosophischen Schriften der Zeit vielfach diskutierten Themen Bedeutung, Begriff, Urteil, Erkenntnis und Wahrheit, sondern weitet diese Analysen auch auf damit verbundene Bewusstseinsakte, wie Wahr- nehmungen, Imaginationen und die Intentionalität schlechthin aus. Indem Husserl immer wieder Erkenntnisse früherer Kapitel aufnimmt, schafft er schließlich ein umfassendes Gesamtbild der Struktur von objektiven Erkenntnisleistungen. Mit einer Trennschärfe, die erst in der zweiten Auflage ganz sichtbar wird, scheidet Husserl dabei das Psychologische aus der Analyse des Bewusstseins-überhaupt aus und argumentiert für die Notwendigkeit einer Einsicht in Wesenszusammenhänge, welche die von uns immer schon beanspruchte Objektivität der Erkenntnis überhaupt erst möglich macht. Der genaue Blick auf die Strukturen, die dem Bewusst- sein beim Urteilen und Erkennen zugrundeliegen, die Unterscheidung der verschiedenen Arten von Gegenständen und intentionalen Bezugnahmen, überhaupt das Insistieren auf der Vielschichtigkeit unserer Bewusstseins- phänomene machen den bis heute bei weitem nicht ausgeschöpften Reich- tum der Untersuchungen aus. Das Werk profitiert immer noch davon, dass
Verena Mayer
sein Verfasser sich nicht von den populären Dichotomien seiner Zeit – hier Psychologismus, dort Logizismus – vereinnahmen ließ, sondern konse- quent seinen dritten Weg verfolgte, der in der systematischen Rückbin- dung des Objektiven an das urteilende und erkennende Subjekt besteht.
Diese Rückbindung kann heute als die Haupttugend der Logischen Unter- suchungen gelten.
In ihren Grundstrukturen hat Husserl die hier formulierten Erkennt- nisse mit wenigen Ausnahmen beibehalten und oft stillschweigend in der späteren Entwicklung seiner Gedanken vorausgesetzt. So legt er etwa mit der Analyse intentionaler Akte bereits die Spur für das spätere Konzept eines tranzendentalen Subjekts, auch wenn er in den Untersuchungen noch schreibt, er könne das „primitive [reine] Ich als notwendiges Beziehungs- zentrum [intentionaler Akte] schlechterdings nicht […] finden.“ (Hua XIX/1, 374) Die Unterscheidung zwischen abhängigen und selbstständigen Teilen, die er von Brentano übernimmt und in der dritten Untersuchung ausbaut, wird später kaum noch thematisiert, ist aber in der durch das ganze spätere Werk wiederkehrenden Rede von Konstitution, Fundierung und Moment ständig präsent. Eine genaue Kenntnis der Logischen Unter- suchungen ist deshalb für das Verständnis der übrigen Schriften Husserls unabdingbar, sie verlangt aber auch vom modernen Leser nicht wenig Anstrengung. Denn es ist nicht nur so, dass Husserl eine eigene Terminolo- gie mit manchmal formalem Exaktheitsanspruch entwickelt, die er zumeist (aber doch nicht immer) konsequent über das Werk hinweg einsetzt. Wer etwa den spezifischen Gebrauch, den Husserl von dem Wort „Vorstellung“
macht, nicht beachtet, wird leicht in interpretatorische Untiefen geraten.
Darüber hinaus aber verlangt der systematische Blick auf die essentiellen Strukturen von Bewusstseinsakten eine ganz eigenartige philosophische Einstellung, die Husserl später mit dem Terminus epoché gekennzeichnet hat. Husserl argumentiert in der Regel nicht, sondern beschreibt, was er vorfindet, er analysiert, klassifiziert und rekonstruiert die elementaren Einheiten des Bewustseins, die er Akte nennt, und die weit mehr umfas- sen als die Urteile, Wahrnehmungen und Empfindungen, von denen die klassische Erkenntnistheorie ausgeht. Husserl betätigt sich so gesehen am Bewusstsein etwa wie ein Botaniker an der Pflanzenwelt. Er ordnet und zeigt Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten auf, er weist philosophische Behauptungen, die nicht durch Bewusstseinstatsachen evident begrün- det sind, zurück, und überhaupt interessieren ihn metaphysische Annah- men, etwa über die Struktur von Wahrnehmungen oder Urteilen, ebenso wenig wie entsprechende empirisch-psychologische Untersuchungen.
Nicht umsonst steht der phänomenologische Wahlspruch „zu den Sachen
Einleitung
selbst“ schon im Vorwort der Untersuchungen (Hua XVIII, VI): also weg von theoretischen Annahmen und hin zu dem, was in der Analyse unserer Bewusstseinsakte unmittelbar ersichtlich wird.
Diese Beschreibung der Logischen Untersuchungen soll nicht nahelegen, dass das Werk ein bloßes Sammelsurium von Beobachtungen und Analy- sen ohne inneren Zusammenhang darstelle. Tatsächlich ist es oft so gelesen worden. Schon zeitgenössische Rezipienten haben etwa das Fehlen einer inneren Verbindung zwischen dem ersten und dem zweiten Band beklagt und den zweiten als einen Rückfall in den vom ersten zurückgewiesenen Psychologismus betrachtet. Husserl, der diese Kritik als schmerzhaftes Missverständnis betrachtete, spricht in einem Zusatz zur Einleitung von einer „natürlichen Reihenfolge“ der Themen, macht aber gleichzeitig darauf aufmerksam, dass die Untersuchung sich „gleichsam im Zickzack“
bewege, da sie immer wieder Unklarheiten beseitigen müsse, bevor sie auf ihrem Weg fortschreiten könne. Ausgangspunkt ist dabei die Zurück- weisung des Psychologismus in der Logik und Mathematik des 19. Jahr- hunderts, die Husserl in den Prolegomena vornimmt. Die scharfsinnigen und überaus einflussreichen Argumente dieses ersten Bandes der Logischen Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die Logik nicht in psychischen Ereignissen oder Gesetzen und ebensowenig in kulturellen Faktoren begründet sein kann. Husserl bleibt aber in diesem Band eine eingehende eigene Begrün- dung der Logik schuldig. Die Erkenntnis, dass die Logik ideale Gesetze darstellt, die jeder Wissenschaft vorhergehen, läuft jedenfalls nicht auf die Fregesche Behauptung hinaus, dass solche Gesetze in einem „dritten Reich“ der Gedanken lokalisiert seien, von wo sie auf rätselhafte Weise ins faktische Denken hinüberwanderten. Vielmehr fragt Husserl am Ende der Prolegomena explizit, was nun für den Philosophen zu tun bleibe, da gezeigt wurde, dass Logik und Mathematik grundlegender als jede empirische Wissenschaft sind, und beantwortet diese Frage so: „Dem Philosophen ist es nicht genug, daß wir uns in der Welt zurechtfinden, daß wir Gesetze als Formeln haben, nach denen wir den künftigen Verlauf der Dinge voraus- sagen, den vergangenen rekonstruieren können; sondern was das Wesen von ‚Ding‘, ‚Vorgang‘, ‚Ursache‘, ‚Wirkung‘, ‚Raum‘, ‚Zeit‘ u.dgl. ist, will er zur Klarheit bringen; und weiter, was dieses Wesen für wunderbare Affinität zu dem Wesen des Denkens hat, daß es gedacht, des Erkennens, daß es erkannt, der Bedeutungen, daß es bedeutet sein kann usf.“ (Hua XVIII, 254) Es geht dem Philosophen mit anderen Worten um das, was Husserl das „Korrelationsapriori“ nennt: die notwendige Entsprechung und Beziehung zwischen den Akten des Bewusstseins und seinen Gegen- ständen, und damit auch um die Frage, wie sich die allem wissenschaft-
Verena Mayer
lichen Denken grundliegenden logisch-mathematischen Strukturen im Bewusstsein konstituieren.
Diesen Fragen geht der zweite Band der Logischen Untersuchungen nach.
Für den Leser des ersten Bandes ist dabei nicht ohne weiteres ersichtlich, weshalb die folgenden Untersuchungen mit einer Analyse der Bedeutung einsetzen, oder was die vielfältigen Themen, die darauf folgen, die etwa über logische Grammatik, Teil-Ganzes-Beziehungen, Intentionalität oder Evidenz handeln., mit der zuvor erwiesenen Idealität von Logik und Mathe- matik zu tun haben sollen. In den Ideen zu einer einen Phänomenologie aus dem Jahr 1913, die sich in vieler Hinsicht als weiterführender Kommentar zu den Logischen Untersuchungen lesen lassen, schildert Husserl den Zusam- menhang kurz und gedrängt so:
„Da jede Wissenschaft nach ihrem theoretischen Gehalt, nach allem, was in ihr ‚Lehre‘ ist (Lehrsatz, Beweis, Theorie), sich im spezifisch
‚logischen‘ Medium, in dem des Ausdrucks objektiviert, so sind die Probleme von Ausdruck und Bedeutung für den von allgemein logischen Interessen geleiteten Philosophen und Psychologen die Nächsten, und sie sind dann auch die ersten, welche überhaupt, sobald man ihnen ernstlich auf den Grund zu kommen sucht, zu phänomenologischen Wesenserforschungen drängen. Man wird von da aus zu den Fragen geführt, wie das ‚Ausdrücken‘ von
‚Ausgedrücktem‘ zu verstehen sei, wie ausdrückliche Erlebnisse zu nicht ausdrücklichen stehen, und was die letzteren im hinzutretenden Ausdrücken erfahren: man wird sich auf deren ‚Intentionalität‘
verwiesen finden, auf den ihnen ‚immanenten Sinn‘, auf ‚Materie‘
und ‚Qualität‘ […].“ (Hua III/1, 258)
Während also Husserl in den Prolegomena den Begriff der reinen Logik, letztlich als eine formale Wissenschaftstheorie, entwickelt (siehe dazu in diesem Band den Beitrag von Richard Tieszen) und diesen gegen die psychologistische Vereinnahmung verteidigt (Robert Hanna), untersucht er im zweiten Band die apriorischen Beziehungen der reinen Logik zum Bewusstsein, insbesondere zum sprachlichen Ausdruck, zum Denken und schließlich zum Erkennen. Seinem Motto „zu den Sachen selbst!“ folgend, rekurriert er dabei nicht auf theoretische Konstrukte und überlieferte Begriffsbestimmungen, sondern erarbeitet sich jeden Aspekt des Bewusst- seins, der dabei auf die eine oder andere Weise ins Spiel kommt, deskriptiv und von Grund auf neu. Die Grundlegung der reinen Logik gerät damit zu einer umfassenden Strukturbeschreibung des Bewusstseins und seiner Akte überhaupt.
Einleitung
Es ist einleuchtend, dass Husserl, wenn er die „Affinität“ der Logik zum Bewusstsein klären will, von den sprachlichen Ausdrücken ausgeht, und also zunächst eine Beschreibung der Beziehungen von Ausdruck und Bedeutung, und damit eine Semantik, vorlegt. (Vittorio De Palma) Die Untersuchung der Relation zwischen Ausdruck und Ausgedrücktem führt ihn dabei sogleich in das Problem der idealen Einheit der Bedeutung gegenüber der Mannigfaltigkeit der Bedeutungsakte, das unter dem Titel der okkasionellen oder indexikalischen Ausdrücke auch die analytische Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts vielfach beschäftigt hat. Für die reine Logik der Prolegomena und ihre Psychologismuskritik ist dabei wesentlich, dass die Bedeutungen – die „logischen“ Inhalte der Bedeutungsakte – von den psychologischen Erlebnissen scharf geschieden werden. (Gianfranco Soldati) Da Husserl hier die von ihm selbst später zurückgewiesene Auffas- sung vertritt, die Bedeutung eines Ausdrucks sei die „Spezies“ der entspre- chenden Bedeutungsakte und werde durch einen Prozess der Abstraktion gewonnen, folgt in „natürlicher Reihenfolge“ die II. Untersuchung über
„die ideale Einheit der Spezies und die neueren Abstraktionstheorien“.
(Peter Simons, Arthur Smith)
Die III. Untersuchung nimmt nun den Begriff der Abstraktion zum Anlass, den Unterschied zwischen „abstrakten“ und „konkreten“ Inhalten von Akten zu analysieren. (John Drummond) Genauer geht Husserl nun von der weitgehend historisch-philosophischen Erörterung der Begriffe in der II. Untersuchung zu eigentlich formalen Unterschieden zwischen Ganzen und Teilen über. Die von Brentano übernommene „Mereologie“
erlaubt ihm dabei eine gegenüber der Tradition durchaus neue Definition der Termini „abstrakt“ und „konkret“, welche dann die Basis für eine phäno- menologische Theorie der sog. „ideierenden Abstraktion“ und die formale Grundlage für viele weitere phänomenologische Deskriptionen bildet. Erst in der VI. Untersuchung über die Idee der reinen Grammatik (Jocelyn Benoist) kehrt Husserl dann wieder ausführlich zur Ebene der Ausdrücke und ihrer Bedeutungen zurück, und zwar indem er die zuvor entwickelte Unterscheidung der selbstständigen und der unselbstständigen Teile auf die sprachlichen Zeichen anwendet. Keineswegs hat er hier die eigentliche und ursprüngliche Aufgabe, die Grundlegung der reinen Logik, aus den Augen verloren. Vielmehr scheidet die reine Grammatik Sinn von Unsinn und gibt damit „der reinen Logik die möglichen Bedeutungsformen vor“, auch wenn sie noch nicht die eigentlichen logischen Gesetze formuliert (Hua XVIII, 295).
Die V. Untersuchung erst widmet sich direkt der Frage, die als der eigentliche Zweck des zweiten Bandes bezeichnet worden war: wie wir
Verena Mayer
uns nämlich in Bedeutungs- und anderen Akten auf die Gegenstände dieser Akte beziehen, und in welcher Weise die Inhalte der Akte mit ihren Gegenständen in Beziehung stehen. Das übergreifende Thema ist der Begriff der Intentionalität (Dan Zahavi), den Husserl von Bren- tano übernimmt, aber in seiner eigenen Weise ausformt. Intentionalität stellt den entscheidenden Bezug zwischen „deskriptiver Psychologie“
und Logik her, der in den Prolegomena noch eher ein Rätsel geblieben war; die Beschreibung ihrer Struktur und ihrer Dynamik erklärt uns, wie wir zu den Sachen selbst kommen. Akte, in denen wir dies versuchen, nennt Husserl nun objektivierende Akte, und widmet der Abgrenzung und Beschreibung ihrer Struktur einen großen Teil der V. Untersuchung.
(Verena Mayer/Christopher Erhard) Die VI. Untersuchung handelt dann von der Frage, wie wir die Sachen nicht nur „treffen“, sondern wie wir zu Erkenntnis von ihnen gelangen können, und wodurch sich solche Erkenntnisakte auszeichnen. Der bis dahin oft in Anspruch genommene Begriff der Evidenz findet hier seine Aufklärung. (Rudolf Bernet) Aber da das Ziel der Untersuchungen die Frage der Erkenntnis der reinen Logik ist, kann es nicht nur um die Erkenntnis von empirischen Tatsa- chen gehen. Vielmehr muss Husserl nun auch klären, wie wir zu wahrer Einsicht in logische Gesetze und Grundbegriffe gelangen können. Die VI. Untersuchung enthält daher auch eine Analyse der Struktur der kate- gorialen Erkenntnis. (Dieter Lohmar)
Damit ist das Projekt, das in den Prolegomena umrissen worden war, in groben Zügen vollendet, allerdings, wie Husserl bald bemerkt, mit vielen Unklarheiten und Sprüngen. Schon bald macht er sich an eine Umarbei- tung, von der die Bände XX/1 und XX/2 der Husserliana beredtes Zeugnis geben. Dabei und währenddessen aber wandeln sich seine Auffassung in manchen Hinsichten so entscheidend, dass er schließlich das Projekt der Umarbeitung fallen lässt. Nur wenig korrigierte Neuauflagen erscheinen, die allerdings an vielen Stellen sowohl die Kontinuität, als auch die Diffe- renz deutlich erkennen lassen. Seine Umgestaltungen betrachtete Husserl dabei niemals als einen Wechsel in der „Theorie“, vielmehr waren es stets die Sachen selbst, die ihn bei genauerer Analyse zu Änderungen zwangen.
Wie die Kommentare dieses Bandes zeigen, lässt sich diese Dynamik viel- fach in den Logischen Untersuchungen selbst schon beobachten. Überhaupt ist die Phänomenologie, wie sie sich in den Logischen Untersuchungen erst- mals en détail darstellt, ein offenes Projekt, eine, wie Husserl einmal in den Ideen I schreibt, „anfangende Wissenschaft“, die zur Weiterentwicklung, Präzisierung und Umgestaltung einlädt. Als Motto dieses Bandes, der zur lebendigen Weiterführung dessen anregen soll, was man eine analytische
Einleitung
Phänomenologie nennen könnte, mag daher das folgende Bekenntnis aus den Ideen I dienen, wo Husserl schreibt:
„Unser Verfahren ist das eines Forschungsreisenden in einem unbekannten Weltteile, der sorgsam beschreibt, was sich ihm auf seinen ungebahnten Wegen, die nicht immer die kürzesten sein werden, darbietet. Ihn darf das sichere Bewußtsein erfüllen, zur Aussage zu bringen, was nach Zeit und Umständen ausgesagt werden mußte und was, weil es treuer Ausdruck von Gesehenem ist, immerfort seinen Wert behält – wenn auch neue Forschungen neue Beschreibungen mit vielfachen Besserungen erfordern werden.
In gleicher Gesinnung wollen wir im weiteren getreue Darsteller der phänomenologischen Gestaltungen sein und uns im übrigen den Habitus innerer Freiheit auch gegen unsere Beschreibungen wahren.“ (Hua III/1, 201)
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Richard Tieszen
Husserl’s concept of Pure Logic (Prolegomena, §§ 1–16, 62–72)
Husserl’s conception of logic in the Logische Untersuchungen is quite differ- ent from the view of logic he held in his first book, Philosophie der Arith- metik (PA). The Logische Untersuchungen open with the Prolegomena to Pure Logic which contain an extended critique of the view that logic and math- ematics have their foundations in psychology. Underwriting this critique of psychologism is Husserl’s sharp new distinction between real and ideal objects and truths. The comments on ideal objects and ideal truths in the Logische Untersuchungen suggest a newfound platonism about logic and mathematics. In the text of the Prolegomena Husserl credits a number of figures with helping him to arrive at his new conception of pure logic. He mentions in particular Kant, Herbart, Lotze, Leibniz, Lange and Bolz- ano. Leibniz and Bolzano are held in high regard and it is Bolzano and Lotze who are especially praised as the anti-psychologistic logicians. Lotze is given credit for showing how a form of platonism about logic can be defended. In his characterization of the positive tasks of pure logic, as we will see below, Husserl also points to ideas in the work of Riemann, Grass- man, Lie, Cantor, and some other figures.
1. Pure Logic as the Science of All Possible Sciences
At the outset of the Prolegomena Husserl asks whether logic is a theoretical or practical discipline, whether it is a formal discipline or not, whether is has the character of an a priori, demonstrative discipline or of an empirical, inductive discipline, and whether it is independent of the other sciences, especially of psychology and metaphysics (Hua XVIII, § 3). Husserl’s goal
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is to demarcate the domain of pure logic as an independent science. Logic is endangered, he says, through confusions with other sciences, especially psychology and some other empirical sciences. In the Prolegomena he will seek to sharpen the conception of pure logic as an a priori, theoreti- cal discipline that is formal and demonstrative in nature. Several different conceptions of logic are considered along the way – logic as algorithmic, as normative, and as technical practice – but it is argued that they fail to do justice to pure logic as theoretical science. In Logische Untersuchungen we are presented with a conception of logic that is quite different from the one in his earlier work: pure theoretical logic is now said to be concerned with ‚ideal‘ meanings. Moreover, it is also concerned with the ontologi- cal correlates of ideal meanings, ideal objects and ideal states of affairs. In Logische Untersuchungen pure mathematics is taken to be part of pure logic in this broad sense.
Logic is described in the Prolegomena as the „science of all possible sciences“ or as the „theory of science“. Husserl says (in § 12) that excellent thoughts towards the circumscription of logic are to be found in Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre. The essence of science consists of the unity of knowl- edge in a whole system of grounded validations. Husserl examines at some length the nature of the unity of science, i. e., the interconnections of things and the interconnections of truths in science (§§ 62–64). The realm of truth is not a disordered chaos but is dominated and unified by law. The investigation and presentation of truths must therefore also be systematic.
Connections of validation are governed by reason and order, by regulative laws, not by caprice or chance (§§ 6–8). In mathematics, for example, we can find many examples of reasoning about different kinds of objects (e. g., triangles, numbers) that have the form „Every A is B, a is an A, and there- fore a is a B“. Here we are carrying out a valid piece of reasoning that is precisely not a function of chance or caprice. Arguments that take us validly from given pieces of knowledge to new knowledge always have a form that applies to countlessly many examples. Validating procedures do not stand in isolation. With them a definite type is always brought out. Forms of reason- ing of the kind just cited are free of all essential relation to some limited field of knowledge. Logic is what makes possible the existence of sciences.
All testing, invention and discovery rests on regularities of form. It is the wide degree of independence of form from a field of knowledge that makes possible a „theory of science“. Were there no such independence there would be only coordinated logics corresponding separately to the different sciences. There would not be a general logic. Husserl says that in fact both are needed. There should be investigations into the theory of science as it
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 11
concerns all sciences and, supplementary to these, particular investigations concerning the theory and method of the separate specific sciences.
Some of the methods used in science are validation procedures but some are simply auxiliary devices for validation procedures (§ 9). The theory of science needs to take both of these into account. In passages that are interesting to read in connection with PA, Husserl says that some scien- tific procedures are abbreviations or substitutions for validating arguments and are used to economize thought. These are methods or procedures that originally received their sense and value from such validations but are now used without cognitive insight. Among these auxiliary devices Husserl includes algorithmic methods. Their function is „to save as as much genu- ine deductive mental work as is possible by artificially arranged mechanical operations on sensible signs.“ They may be executed blindly. Husserl says that whatever marvels these methods may achieve, their sense and justifica- tion depends on thought that can be validated. All „mechanical methods“, including those of calculating machines, are included among these auxiliary methods.
Logic, as theory of science, is in a sense a normative discipline. It seeks that which pertains to genuine, valid science as such, so as to use this Idea of science to measure whether the empirically given sciences are in agree- ment with this Idea, to what degree they approach it, and where they offend against it. With this norm as its end, logic readily gives rise to a technology.
Logic will have many practical uses in this role. Husserl asks whether the definition of logic as a technology, as an applied or practical logic, really captures the essential character of logic. His answer is that it does not.
Furthermore, even if logic has a normative function the logical laws are not themselves normative prescriptions. They do not, as part of their content, tell us how one should judge. They can be employed for normative purposes but they are not therefore norms. Anyone who judges both that every A is a B and every B is a C ought to also judge that every A is a C.
What we are told in logic itself, however, is only that if every A is a B and every B is a C then it is also true that every A is a C. There are no norma- tive terms in the latter case (§ 16). A different thought-content is involved.
Purely theoretical statements admit of normative transformations but that does not make them normative statements.
Logic has a normative function but every normative discipline presup- poses one or more theoretical disciplines as its foundation. In the sense just suggested, it must have a theoretical content that is not itself normative.
Every normative discipline demands that we know certain non-norma- tive truths and the latter are taken from certain theoretical sciences. We
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are therefore led to the question: which theoretical sciences provide the essential foundations of the theory of science? In particular, does logic have its place in sciences that have already been marked off and independently developed?
2. Pure Logic, Psychologism, Empiricism, and Relativism
One of the central answers to these questions in Husserl’s time was that it is psychology that provides the foundations of logic. The philosophers Mill, Lipps, Sigwart, Wundt, and others had made such claims. In thinking of logic as normative, psychologistic thinkers point out that what is regulated by logic is the mental activities or products of those who reason. What logic talks about are concepts, judgments, deductions, and so on. These are all taken to be psychological activities or products. Husserl claims that psychologistic arguments show only that normative logic may be helped by psychology, not that psychology provides the essential foundation of normative logic. The possibility remains open that „pure logic“ is the foundation of normative logic. Earlier thinkers may not have succeeded in making clear what pure logic is but this should give us all the more reason to seek such clarification.
Husserl proceeds to critically examine the view that psychology is the foundation of logic. The critique of psychologism is similar in a number of ways to Frege’s (Frege 1893 and 1894), except that Husserl goes into much more detail. As the critique unfolds we learn about many of the features of pure logic. Husserl’s arguments continue to be of interest today since many of the same issues are still in play in efforts to naturalize logic and math- ematics.
Husserl starts by pointing out that psychology is supposed to be a factual or empirical science (§ 21). It has so far lacked genuine and exact laws. The propositions of psychology are merely vague generalizations from experi- ence. They are propositions about approximate regularities. If this is the case then there are serious consequences for the psychologistic logicians.
If psychological laws lack exactness then the same must be true for the laws of logic. Laws of logic and mathematics, however, are exact. Even if one had exact natural laws in psychology it is still true that natural laws are not a priori. They are instead established by induction from singular facts of sense experience. They are probabilities. Thus, laws of logic would have to be probabilities. But this seems patently false. Laws of logic have an a priori validity. Husserl says that we know about basic a priori laws on
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 13
the basis of direct insight. Laws of logic are not causal laws. Psychologis- tic logicians confuse the contents of judgment with judgments as psycho- logical processes or entities. The latter are real events having causes and effects. A law of logic, however, ought not to be confused with the judging or with knowledge of the law. The ideal ought not to be confused with the real. There is a fundamental and essential gulf between ideal and real laws, between normative and causal regulation, logical and real necessity, logical and real grounds. There is no conceivable gradation that could mediate between the ideal and the real.
Another consequence of psychologism is that logical laws must them- selves be psychological in content. This, according to Husserl, is palpa- bly false. No logical law implies a matter of fact. Laws of logic presup- pose nothing mental. They presuppose no facts of psychic life. They do so no more than the laws of pure mathematics do. One should not confuse the psychological „presuppositions“ and „bases“ of the knowledge of a law with the logical presuppositions, the grounds and premises, of that law.
Psychological dependence, or dependence of origin, is distinct from logical demonstration and justification. In comments that indicate his newfound platonism, Husserl says that the truth of laws of logic is raised above time.
One cannot attach temporal being to it. It does not arise or perish (§ 24).
Husserl considers Mill’s psychologistic account of some particular laws of logic, e. g., the law of contradiction. For Mill, this law states nothing more than the real incompatibility of two acts of judgment. Mill’s inter- pretation, Husserl argues, yields a wholly vague, scientifically unproven empirical proposition, not a law of logic. What the law of contradiction is about is the ideal impossibility that the two propositions could both be true.
Husserl is led to a broader consideration of basic errors of empiricism by his examination of psychologism (§ 26). He says that extreme empiri- cism is as absurd as extreme skepticism. It destroys the possibility of the rational justification of mediate knowledge (in the form of deductive infer- ence) and so destroys its own possibility as a scientifically proven theory.
Since it puts full trust only in the singular judgments of sense experience it abandons all hope of rationally justifying mediate knowledge. It will not acknowledge as immediate insights and as given truths the ultimate prin- ciples upon which the justification of mediate knowledge depends. Instead, it tries to derive them from sense experience and induction. Empiricism appeals to a naive, uncritical everyday experience to found logical laws, instead of to immediately evident universal principles. Husserl considers Hume to be a moderate empiricist since he distinguished matters of fact from relations of ideas and surrendered only the former to sense experi-
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ence. Nonetheless, Hume’s position is also untenable. For Hume, mediate judgments of fact never permit of rational justification but only of psycho- logical explanation. This must apply to Hume’s theory itself. Husserl says that our capacity to ideate universals in singulars, to „see“ a concept in an empirical presentation and to be assured of the identity of our conceptual intentions in repeated presentations, is presupposed by the possibility of knowledge. Just as we can intuit one concept in an act of ideation as the single species whose unity against various instances is given with insight, so can we apprehend with evidence the logical laws relating to concepts (see also Investigations II and VI). These concepts are ideal unities. Wherever we can carry out conceptual presentations in this sense we can also apply logical laws. The validity of these laws, however, is absolutely unrestricted.
It does not depend on our power nor on anyone’s power to achieve acts of conceptual presentation, nor to sustain or repeat such acts. Investigation II of the Logische Untersuchungen supplements these arguments on the nature of pure logic. It is filled with objections to nominalism, conceptualism, and the empiricist theories of abstraction of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Mill.
It is argued that psychologism and, more generally, empiricism, is a skep- tical relativism. Empiricism about logic undermines itself. One can distin- guish individual from specific relativism. In the former case one makes truth relative to each person, while in the latter case one makes it relative to humans as a species. Husserl’s term for species relativism is „anthropolo- gism“. Husserl of course argues that both forms of relativism about logic are absurd. Sigwart in particular is singled out for his anthropologism. Sigwart resolves truth into conscious experiences. Experiences are real particulars, temporally determinate, that come into being and pass away. According to Husserl, however, truth is an „Idea“ that is beyond time. It makes no sense to give truth a date in time nor a duration that extends through time. Truth can of course be apprehended or grasped but this is not like apprehend- ing some empirical content that comes into being and then vanishes at some later stage. The experience of truth is experience of a universal, an Idea. Other beings could not have logical principles different from ours. To think that this is a possibility is to confuse psychological or anthropological possibility with logical possibility. All change affects sensory individuals.
It makes no sense in regard to concepts. Real possibilities involve sensory individuals but ideal possibilities do not.
If we think of truth as ideal in this sense then the empirical sciences as a whole only approximate truth, just as real objects only approximate ideal objects. These kinds of remarks, which occur throughout the Prole- gomena, are the basis for the claim that Husserl has adopted a kind of
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 15
rationalistic platonism about logic and mathematics in the Logische Unter- suchungen. A number of later philosophers and logicians who were inspired by Husserl’s writings, such as Kurt Gödel (Gödel 1961, and Tieszen 2005, Part II), would no doubt have found this rationalistic platonism attractive.
Husserl says that we are conscious of truth as we are conscious of a species, e. g., the color red, as an ideal object. A red object may stand before us but this object is not the (ideal) species red. The concrete object here does not contain the species as a psychological or metaphysical part. The non-independent moment of red (as opposed to a piece – see Investigation III) that is given to us is itself something individual, something here and now that arises and vanishes with the concrete whole object. It is similar but is not identical in different red objects. Redness, however, is an ideal unity that does not come into being or pass away. The part (moment) red is not Redness itself but is an instance of redness. Just as universal objects differ from singular ones, so too do our acts in apprehending them. Reference to an individual in consciousness is different from reference to its species, or its Idea (see also Investigations II and VI). In several acts of ideation we come to be aware of the identity of the ideal unities that are meant in our single acts. This is a strict identity. There is awareness of an identical species. Truth is likewise an Idea. We are aware of the unity and identity of truth over against the dispersed multitude of concrete compared cases.
Husserl says that the statements „It is the truth that P“ and „There could have been thinking beings having insight into judgments to the effect that P“ are equivalent. If there are not intelligent beings or if they are in a real sense impossible then the ideal possibilities remain without actual fulfill- ment. The apprehension of truth is simply nowhere realized. Each truth, however, retains its ideal being and remains what it is. It is a case of validity in the timeless realm of Ideas (§ 39). This idea of truth could not be merely relative to the human species. That would be to miss its sense. The rela- tivization of truth presupposes the objective being of the fixed point with respect to which things are relative. In not seeing this, relativism is caught in a contradiction.
Logic might seem to be about mental phenomena and processes since it speaks of judgments, proofs, and so on. Husserl says that if we compare logic with mathematics we will see that logic could not be about mental phenomena. In the nineteenth century psychologism had not taken hold in the foundations of mathematics as it had in logic. Psychologism, Husserl notes, would also make mathematics a branch of psychology. Husserl thinks that there is a theoretical unity of logic and mathematics. Like pure math- ematics, the territory to be investigated by pure logic is an ideal territory
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(§ 46). Mathematics, Husserl says, no longer needs to fight for its indepen- dent existence. (Husserl would perhaps be surprised at the extent to which philosophers since his time have attempted in various ways to naturalize mathematics.) We would have no numbers without counting, no sums without addition, and so on, and yet no one regards the theories of pure mathematics as parts of psychology. In a section of Logische Untersuchungen that should be read in connection with the earlier view of PA, Husserl says that counting and arithmetical operations as facts, as mental acts proceed- ing in time, are certainly of concern to psychology since psychology just is the empirical science of mental facts. Arithmetic, however, is different.
Numbers, sums, products and so on are not causal acts of counting, adding and multiplying that are carried out here and there. They are not the same as the presentations in which they are given. The number 5 is not my own or any other person’s counting of 5. In the counting of 5 we have 5 as a possible object of acts of presentation whereas the number 5 itself is the ideal species of a form whose concrete instances are found in what becomes objective in certain acts of counting, in the collective whole constituted thereby. The number cannot be regarded as a part or side of a mental experience. Therefore, it is not something real. If we are to conceive of 5 correctly we will first have an articulate, collective presentation of this or that set of five objects. In this act a collection is intuitively given in a certain formal articulation as an instance of the number species in question. On the basis of this intuited individual we perform an abstraction. That is, we not only isolate the non-independent moment of collective form in what is before us but we apprehend the Idea in it. The number 5, as the species of the form, is the reference of this conscious act. We can see how Husserl is now grafting his ontology and epistemology of ideal objects onto his earlier PA account of number. What we are now meaning, he says, is not this individual instance, not the intuited object as a whole, not the form imma- nent in it but still inseparable from it. What we mean is rather the ideal form-species that is identical in whatever mental act it may be individuated in as an intuitively constituted collection. It is a species that is untouched by the contingency, temporality and transience of our mental acts. Acts of counting arise and pass away. Arithmetical propositions tell us nothing about what is real, neither about the real things counted nor the real acts in which they are counted. The propositions of arithmetic are laws rooted in the ideal essence of the genus Number. The singulars that come within the range of these laws are ideal singulars, the determinate numbers that are the lowest specific differences of the genus number. What has been said here about pure arithmetic likewise carries over at all points to pure logic.
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 17
Terms such as „judgment“, „concept“, „proof“, and so on are equivocal. On the one hand they stand for mental states that belong to psychology but, on the other hand, they stand for ideal entities. One must always be careful to separate these two meanings.
It is yet another prejudice of psychologism to hold that the recognition of the truth of a judgment can be adequately understood in terms of the psychology of inner evidence. Pure laws of logic, however, say nothing about the psychology of inner evidence or its conditions. Psychological possibilities about inner evidence are real possibilities but what is psycho- logically impossible may very well be ideally possible. There are, for exam- ple, decimal numbers with trillions of places and there are truths relating to them. No one can actually imagine such numbers nor do the additions, multiplications and so on relating to them. Inner evidence here is psycho- logically impossible yet, ideally speaking, it represents a possible state of mind. Moreover, inner evidence is often taken to be a special feeling that attends some judgments. This view must be categorically rejected. The correct view of „inner evidence“ in the case of logic and mathematics is that inner evidence is the experience of truth as ideal. Truth is an Idea whose particular case is an actual experience in an inwardly evident judgment. A judgment that is not self-evident stands to a self-evident judgment much as an arbitrary positing of an object in imagination stands to its adequate perception. A thing adequately perceived is not a thing merely meant in some matter or other. It is a thing given in our act as what we mean. As in the realm of perception, the unseen does not coincide with the non-exis- tent. Lack of inner evidence does not amount to untruth. Evidence is the experience of agreement between meaning and what is itself present, the meant. It is the experience of agreement between the sense of an assertion and the self-given state of affairs. (These ideas are treated in more detail in Investigations I and VI, and also in other works of Husserl.) The Idea of this agreement is truth, whose ideality is also its objectivity. To have evidence in this sense is also to be aware that no other person could have evidence that is at variance with our own. If evidence were merely a matter of subjective or even intersubjective feeling then it would not be possible to escape skepticism about claims to evidence.
The problems of psychologism, empiricism, relativism, and natural- ism about logic result, generally speaking, from failing to clearly grasp the distinction between the real and the ideal.
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3. Pure Logic, Economy of Thought, and Evolutionary Biology
Yet another empiricist attempt to find a basis for logic and epistemology can be found in the efforts to provide a biological basis for these disciplines (§§ 52–56). Husserl’s discussion of this kind of „biologism“ is especially relevant to recent developments in philosophy and the sciences. Husserl has in mind the work of Avenarius and Mach, who were thinking at a relatively early stage about logic in connection with evolutionary biology.
Avenarius’ doctrine of least action and Mach’s doctrine of an economy of thought are examined in the Prolegomena. Here one thinks of science in terms of evolution or adaptation. One conceives of science as the most purposive (economical, power-saving) adaptation of thought to the varied fields of phenomena. In particular, a creature will be better adapted the more rapidly or efficiently it can perform the acts needed for its survival and success. This leads to the notion of an „economy of thought“. Our intellectual powers are severely limited, as Husserl himself already noted in PA. There is a fairly narrow sphere within which complex, abstract notions can be fully understood. A significant effort has to be made to understand complexities of this sort. When these facts are considered it is all the more amazing that the more comprehensive rational theories and sciences should have been developed at all. How could sciences such as mathematics, with their towering structures of thought, be possible? Art and method make it possible to overcome the defects of our cognitive constitution. They permit an indirect achievement by way of symbolic processes from which intu- ition, all true understanding and inner evidence are absent. One has some sense of security, however, in using such arts and methods to economize thought. There are certain natural processes of thought economy that are then perfected and developed. Once the methods have been developed and justified they can be used without insight. They can be used mechanically.
The reduction of insight to mechanism in our thought processes leads to an indirect mastery over the complexities of thought that admit of no direct mastery. Here Husserl gives many examples from mathematics (§ 54). The surrogative, operational concepts that are developed on this basis turn signs into „counters“ and make possible extensive fields of mathematical thought and research. They take these areas down from the exhausting heights of abstraction to comfortable intuitive ways where imagination, guided by insight, can move within the limits of rules, as in regulated games.
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 19
A vast thought economy is present in recent purely mathematical disci- plines. Genuine thought is replaced by surrogative, signitive thinking. This economy leads to formal generalizations of our original trains of thought.
In this manner, the horizon of deductive disciplines is greatly enlarged.
Out of elementary arithmetic, for example, arises a more generalized form of arithmetic in which numbers and magnitudes no longer count as basic concepts but merely as chance objects of application. Fully conscious reflection now takes place and the pure theory of manifolds (see below) emerges as a further extension. In its form it covers all possible deductive systems. The form-system of formal arithmetic is merely one of its special instances.
Husserl thinks all of this contains important insights and ought to be investigated in great detail. Its relation to logic as a practical technology is immediately understandable. It yields an important foundation for such a technology. Here Husserl especially praises the work of Mach. We need to keep in mind, however, that Avenarius and Mach base their ideas about an economy of thought on certain biological facts. Ultimately, we are dealing with a branch of the theory of evolution. For just this reason, these thinkers are able to throw light on practical epistemology and the methodology of scientific research but not at all on pure epistemology and the ideal laws of pure logic. Husserl says that all of the arguments against psychologism and relativism mentioned above can be brought to bear on the effort to found logic and pure epistemology on a biological economy of thought.
The principle of economy can be thought of either as something factually given or as logically ideal. People like Mach and Avenarius tacitly substi- tute the former for the latter. We see that it is a supreme goal of science to arrange facts under laws that are as general as possible and in this manner bring them together with the maximum possible rationality. This maxi- mization is an ideal of a pervasive, all-embracing rationality. The „basic laws“ would be laws of supreme coverage and efficacy, whose knowledge yields the maximum of insight and explanation in some field. The axioms of elementary geometry are examples of this. If we idealize this, we have the notion that there are no limits to our power to deduce and subsume.
The goal or principle of maximal rationality in this sense is the supreme goal of the rational sciences. It is self-evident that it would be better for us to know laws more general than those that we already possess at a given time. Such laws would lead us back to grounds that are deeper and more embracing. This principle, however, is no mere empirical, biological prin- ciple. It is a purely ideal principle, and an eminently normative one. To identify the movement toward maximum possible rationality with a drift
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towards biological adaptation, or to derive the former from the latter, amounts to confusion. It parallels the psychologistic misreadings of laws of logic and their misconception as laws of nature. The ideal movement of logical thinking is towards maximal rationality. The thought economist who engages in biologism turns this into a real, empirical drift of human thought, bases it on a vague principle of power-saving, and ultimately on adaptation. One is certainly justified in speaking of an economy of thought but only in that one compares one’s actual thought with an ideal norm. The ideal validity of this norm is presupposed by all talk of an economy of thinking. It is therefore not a possible explanatory outcome of a theory of such economy. We measure our empirical thinking against our ideal thinking and we then say that the former to some extent runs as if guided by the latter. Before all economizing of thought we must already know our ideal. We must know what science ideally aims at. Pure logic is prior to biological thought economy. It is absurd to base the former on the latter.
4. Pure Logic
When Husserl turns toward his own positive view of pure logic (§§ 62–
72) he refers, as we noted above, to the views of Herbart, Lotze, Leibniz, Lange and Bolzano. His view emerges out of an examination of the work of these thinkers but cannot be wholly identified with any one of them. His suggestions about the nature of pure logic begin with reflections on what constitutes the unity of science. Given Husserl’s very broad conception of logic, this becomes a question about the conditions of the possibility of theory in general. He is of course concerned with ideal conditions, not real conditions of knowledge. Truths of science are what they are whether we have insight into them or not. Since they do not hold insofar as we have insight into them, but we can only have insight into them insofar as they hold, they must be regarded as objective or ideal conditions for the possi- bility of our knowledge of them. Logical justification of a given theory, i. e., justification in virtue of its pure form, demands that we go back to the essence of its form, to the concepts and laws that are ideal constit- uents of theory in general that regulate in an a priori, deductive fashion all specializations of the Idea of theory in its possible kinds. Thus, we are dealing with an a priori, theoretical, nomological science that concerns the ideal essence of science as such. As noted earlier, we are concerned with the theory of theory, or the science of the sciences. Echoing Leibniz and
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 21
Bolzano, Husserl says that pure logic in this broad sense will even include the pure theory of probability.
Husserl describes three tasks that should be assigned to pure logic in this sense. The description of these tasks in the Prolegomena is not nearly as clear as it could be. It is possible, however, to form a clearer conception of the tasks by consulting Husserl’s Formale und transzendentale Logik (Hua XVII, FTL) and Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie (Hua XXIV, see also Tieszen 2004). My comments below will be informed, in part, by these sources.
The first task of pure logic is to lay down and clarify the primitive concepts that make possible the interconnected web of theory. Husserl divides the primitive concepts into two groups: concepts that involve categories of meaning and concepts that involve objective categories. Concepts that involve the meaning of expressions are, among others, concept, proposition, and truth. The elementary connective forms of logic are also involved here:
conjunction, disjunction, conditional linkage of propositions, and so on.
The correlative ontological concepts such as object, state of affairs, unity, number, relation, and connection fall on the side of the pure formal objective categories.
Husserl contributes to the development of this first task of pure logic in Investigation IV of the Logische Untersuchungen, which is on the idea of pure grammar. In Investigation III on parts and wholes Husserl distin- guished independent from non-independent parts, and in Investigation IV he applies this distinction to ideal meanings. The distinction between independent and non-independent meanings is at the foundation of essen- tial categories of meaning on which many a priori laws of meaning rest.
These laws abstract from the objective validity or truth of propositions.
They precede such matters. They are laws of grammar that provide pure logic with possible meaning-forms. These are the a priori forms of complex meanings that are significant as wholes. Such laws guard against senselessness (Unsinn), which occurs when we combine meaningful parts to form a whole that is not meaningful, as in „a round or“. Laws that guard against senseless- ness are to be distinguished from laws that guard against formal or analytic nonsense (Widersinn), i. e., absurdity or formal contradiction. In the latter case we have meaningful wholes that are nonetheless contradictory, such as
„a round square“. The laws of grammar merely tell us what is required in the case of complex meanings if we are to have a significant semantic unity.
As such, they are a priori patterns in which meanings belonging to different semantic categories can be united to form one meaning instead of producing chaos. Husserl’s view of grammar includes not only formal syntax but also
22 Richard Tieszen
categorial grammar. Within pure logic, we need to distinguish the pure theory of semantic forms from the pure theory of validity which presup- poses it. Building on these ideas, Husserl wishes to promote the old idea, conceived by the rationalists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of an a priori or universal grammar. As is to be expected, he contrasts the idea of universal grammar with the idea of founding grammar on psychol- ogy or other empirical sciences.
The second task of pure logic is to find the laws concerning (i) the possi- ble truth or falsity of meanings (propositions) as such, purely on the basis of their categorial formal structure, and (ii) the laws concerning the objective correlates of propositional meanings, that is, of the being and non-being of objects as such and of states of affairs as such, on the basis of their pure categorial form. The laws in the one case concern meanings and in the other case concern objects as such. On the side of meaning we have, for example, theories of inference and laws that guard against formal or analytic nonsense (Widersinn), i. e., absurdity or formal contradiction. On the side of the objective correlates, of formal ontology, we have, for example, the pure theory of multiplicities or the pure theory of numbers. We should try to find the laws, which in their formal universality, span all possible meanings and objects, under which every particular theory or science is ranged, and which it must obey if it is to be valid. Husserl says that not every theory presupposes every such law as the ground of its possibility and validity.
Rather, the ideal completeness of the theories and laws in question will yield a comprehensive fund from which each particular valid theory derives the ideal grounds of essential being appropriate to its form.
In FTL the grammar of pure logic is included in what Husserl calls the first level of formal logic. The first level is concerned, as is the first task of logic in Logische Untersuchungen, with the mere possibility of judgments as judgments, without inquiring into whether they are true of false or even whether they are merely consistent or contradictory. Husserl’s second task of pure logic in Logische Untersuchungen is in some ways a precursor of what is described as the second level of logic in FTL The second level of logic in FTL is concerned with the possible forms of true judgments. Husserl calls this „consequence-logic“ (Konsequenzlogik) or the „logic of non-contradiction“
Here we are to focus on the question of whether a given form is included in or excluded by the forms of judgments in a premise set. In the former case we have an analytic consequence relation while in the later case we have an analytic anti-consequence, or an analytic contradiction. Husserl says that this second level of logic concerns only the (non)-contradictoriness of judgments. It is not yet concerned with the truth of judgments. Judgments
Husserl’s concept of PURE LOGIC 23
may be formally consistent with one another or not. If not, then they have no possibility of all being true, and this is purely a matter of form. Laws at this level would guard against Widersinn. Non-contradiction is a condition for possible truth. The ontological correlate of a consistent formal theory is a formal ontology or „manifold“. In FTL Husserl goes on to distinguish a third level of logic, which he calls truth-logic (Wahrheitslogik). This is an inquiry into the formal laws of possible truth. The idea in FTL is that gram- maticality is a condition for the possibility of consistency of judgments, and consistency of judgments is a condition for the possibility of truth of judg- ments. Some additional ideas about the second and third levels of logic in FTL are anticipated to some extent in Logische Untersuchungen in Investiga- tion VI (see, e. g., Chps. 4 and 8).
Husserl says in Logische Untersuchungen that with the completion of the first two tasks of pure logic we will have done justice to the Idea of a science of the conditions of the possibility of a theory in general. Once we under- stand these conditions, however, we might ask whether, at the highest level of abstraction, there could be a theory that covers all possible deductive theories. What is needed, according to Husserl’s third task of pure logic, is a theory of the possible forms of theories or a „pure theory of manifolds“.
The forms of theories are not mutually unrelated. Husserl says that there will be a definite, ordered procedure which will enable us to construct the possible forms of theories, to survey their legal connections, and to pass from one to the other by varying their basic determining factors. There will be universal propositions that will govern the legal connection and the transformation and mutual interchange of these forms, if not for the forms of theory generally then at least for the forms of theory belonging to defined classes. Husserl says that he is not claiming that mathematicians themselves have as yet correctly discerned the ideal essence of such a new discipline or have risen to the height of abstraction of an all-comprehen- sive theory. Mathematicians, however, have used the term „manifold“ for the objective correlates of possible formal theories. The term „manifold“
covers possible fields of knowledge over which theories of various forms will preside. The objects in a manifold are not determined directly as indi- vidual or specific singulars, nor indirectly by way of their material species or genera, but solely by the form of the connections attributed to them. These connections are as little determined in content as are their objects. Only their form is determined through the forms of the laws that are assumed to hold of them. The most general idea of a theory of manifolds is that it is to be a science that works out the form of the essential types of possible theories and investigates their legal relations with one another. All actual
