Husserl and nagel on subjectivity and the limits of physical objectivity

Continental Philosophy Review

Volumn 35, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 353-377

  Ratcliffe, Matthew ^a  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 2142793895     PISSN: 13872842     EISSN: 15731103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1023934903646     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. I am much indebted to three anonymous referees for very helpful reports on earlier versions of this paper. I am also grateful to Dolores Dooley, Joan McCarthy, Sinéad Murphy, Norman Sieroka, Alan Thomas and an audience at the Royal Irish Academy 2001 Conference for some very helpful comments.
2. J. Petitot, F.J. Varela, B. Pachoud and J. Roy, eds. Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), pp. 1-2. Petitot, Varela, Pachoud and Roy remark that "even though this concern for naturalization is not unanimous, and is actually even dismissed by a minor-ity, it can hardly be denied that it lies at the core of current research in the field" (p. xiv). Not all the contributors to the volume endorse this kind of scientific naturalism.
3. This quotation refers specifically to Husserl's position on the gulf between phenomenology and the mathematics of his time.
4. For example, Dennett says of Nagel that "it takes courage to stand up for mystery, and cleverness to be taken seriously. Nagel repeatedly answers that he has no answers to the problems he raises, but prefers his mystification to the demystifying efforts of others" (D.C. Dennett, The Intentional Stance, Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press, 1987, p. 5).
5. For the purposes of this discussion, I use the terms "naturalism" and "objectivism" interchangeably. "Naturalism" is a more specific doctrine, which assumes objectivism and also adds that the sciences constitute the best vehicle for understanding the structure of the objective world. However, the argument of this paper is concerned with assumptions common to both doctrines. I regard Nagel's "physical objectivity" as synonymous with "the naturalistic standpoint" and his "scientism" as synonymous with "naturalism".
6. Originally published in Philosophical Review 83 (1974), pp. 435-450.
7. Reprinted in T. Nagel ( 1979) Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 165-180.
8. See, forexample, Hofstadter's commentary on Nagel's article, in D. Hofstadter and D.C. Dennett eds. The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul (London: Penguin Books, 1981), pp. 403-414. See also Dennett (1987, Ch. 1).
9. T. Nagel, The View From Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 7.
10. In Nagel (1979, pp. 196-213).
11. Nagel (1986, p. 29) repeats his earlier criticism of dualism.
12. Nagel treats 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity' as graded properties of perspectives had by a subject. His question is whether the subject herself, who adopts variably subjective or objective perspectives upon the world, can ever be fully integrated into an objective perspective, thus accounting for all subjective phenomena in wholly objective terms. 'Subjectivity' and 'objectivity' can also refer to the properties of entities encountered by a subject, indicating their dependence upon or independence from a subject's point of view. In what follows, I employ both senses of these terms.
13. Of course, our physicalist might retort by arguing that a vast web of inductive evidence makes our 'faith' in 'physical objectivity' perfectly rational. But Nagel could simply reply that physicalism's failure to tackle the problem of consciousness is strong inductive evidence of its limitations as a form of understanding, a line which is vindicated by Chalmer's observation that many philosophers have simply given up on the 'hard problem of [phenomenal] consciousness' and turned to easier problems instead (D. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. xi-xii).
14. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), hereafter CM.
15. For the purposes of this paper, unless otherwise stated I identify 'world' with the 'objective world', in relation to which Nagel ponders the place of the subject. However, it is worth keeping in mind that Husserl also employs a very different conception of world, as a pre-given horizon that is presupposed by the objective world upon which the empirical sciences operate.
16. For Husserl's critique of the Cartesian ego, see also his Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), Part 2, §16-§19, hereafter Crisis.
17. "Phenomenological Psychology and Transcendental Phenomenology" (article from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1927).
18. Reprinted in D. Welton, ed. The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 322-336: 330.
19. Husserl also addresses the paradox in the Crisis. For his attempt to resolve it, see Crisis, Part III, §53-§54.
20. D. Carr, The Paradox of Subjectivity: Self in the Transcendental Tradition (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 9.
21. T. Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997).
22. For Husserl's argument against this sort of relativism, see Cartesian Meditations §60, p. 140. Husserl's account of intersubjectivity in the Fifth Meditation is complex, ambiguous and highly problematic. However, the utility of my comparison between Nagel and Husserl will not hinge on the acceptability of Husserl's account. For the purpose of this paper, I want merely to make clear that, for both philosophers, the sense we have of an objective world is closely tied to intersubjectivity.
23. It should be made clear however that the rejection of physical objectivity as a totalizing understanding does not entail that 'anything goes'. The point is simply that physical objectivity is a form of understanding that is tied to only certain methods and goals, and should be acknowledged as such rather than overly generalized or even universalized. 'Good for something' does not imply 'good for everything' and an acknowledgement of this certainly does not entail that all forms of understanding are as good as each other in all contexts.
24. Nagel thinks that all other objective sciences will be similarly limited.
25. P.M. Churchland, "Eliminative Materialism and the Prepositional Attitudes" Journal of Philosophy 78 (1981), pp. 67-70.
26. Similar interpretations to the one I defend in this section are proposed by H. Hall ("Was Husserl a Realist or an Idealist?", in Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science, H.J. Dreyfus and H. Hall, eds. (Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press, 1982), pp. 169-190 and D. Carr (1999) amongst others.
27. P. Lübcke, "A Semantic Interpretation of Husserl's Epoché," Synthese 118 (1999), 1-12, p. 9.
28. D. Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 169.
29. Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. W.R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Humanities Press, 1931), p. 43.
30. The irreducibility of the basic relationship of transcendental constitution does not imply that constitution is a simple phenomenon. It may have many different and complex variants. For example, Husserl distinguishes between 'static' and 'genetic' constitution and between 'active' and 'passive' constitutional genesis. (See e.g., Fourth Cartesian Meditation).
31. Author's Preface to the 1931 English translation of Ideas, pp. 20-21.
32. Nagel might also seek further ammunition for such claims by drawing from the later Heidegger's work on technology, e.g., "The Question Concerning Technology", in Heidegger's Basic Writings, ed. D.F. Krell (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 311-341. Heidegger's use of the term 'enframing' [Ge-stell] has much in common with Nagel's 'physical objectivity'; a background of understanding that serves to reveal the world in a certain way - because we are so immersed in it, we take for granted that it puts us in contact with the way things are. Heidegger maintains, like Nagel, that technological 'enframing' (similar to physical objectivity in being the essence of scientific thinking) is only one form of understanding or 'way of revealing beings' amongst many, which, though it increasingly comes to totalise, is restrictive and misses much of our possible understanding of Being. Though, I suspect that Nagel would find Heidegger's relativistic tendencies and the later Heidegger's leanings towards mysticism extremely unappealing, limited comparisons might still prove fruitful.
33. Of course, Husserl's epoché faces a number of serious problems. First of all, it is less than clear how it is possible at all. What are we actually doing when we abstain from the natural attitude? How do we do it? To this, one might retort that the Husserlian epoché is no more mysterious than the objective, 'detached' attitude that scientists supposedly take up. It may also be possible to renounce some of Husserl's stronger claims, such as that the epoché involves a complete absence of prejudice and a total suspension of the natural attitude, whilst preserving the idea that some kind of perspectival switch can illuminate, wholly or partially, constitutive structures that are invisible to an objectivist stance, which takes the givenness of the objective world as its starting point.
34. Perhaps the most provocative title is Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error (London: Picador, 1995).
35. D.C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Allen Lane: Penguin Press, 1991).
36. I use the term 'thing' rather loosely to include 'object' and 'process'. The only indispensable characteristic of 'thinghood' that I want to insist on is 'objectivity'.
37. In fact, Dennett appears to oscillate between the naturalism he explicitly endorses and a more Husserlian perspective. See Carr's "Phenomenology and Fiction in Dennett," International Journal of Philosophical Studies 6 (1998), pp. 331-344 for an examination of the relationship between Dennett's scientific objectivism and his fictional self. Carr argues that Dennett's scientific objectivism is an unargued assumption or act of faith. It is also something that rests uneasily with his 'heterophenomenology'. See Carr (1998, 1999) for some interesting comparisons between Dennett's notion of a 'stance' and Husserl's epoché.
38. See also D.L. Thompson, "Phenomenology and Heterophenomenology: Husserl and Dennett on Reality and Science," in Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment, eds. D. Ross, A. Brook and D. Thompson (Cambridge MA, London: MIT Press, 2000), pp. 201-218) for a comparison between Husserl's phenomenology and Dennett's heterophenomenology.
39. One might contend that, as with most things, Kant actually got there first. I am thinking of his discussion of the paralogisms of pure reason (Critique of Pure Reason, ed. V. Politis, London: Everyman, 1993, Transcendental Dialectic Book II, Chapter 1) where he argues against the Cartesian tendency to conceive of the subject as object:The Unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which therefore the category of substance - which always presupposes a given intuition - cannot be applied (p. 270)
40. However, there are differences; Kant's account incorporates things in themselves, which seem to presuppose a sense of the objective, consciousness being only a condition for the unity of phenomena. Husserl rejects 'things in themselves', avoids idealism and redirects the emphasis from the conditions of knowledge to the conditions of meaning.