Husserl's phenomenological discovery of the natural attitude

Continental Philosophy Review

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 153-170

  Luft, Sebastian ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEUVEN   (Belgium)

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EID: 54649083024     PISSN: 13872842     EISSN: 15731103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1010034512821     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Edmund Husserl, Briefwechel. Vol. 4: Die Freiburger Schüler, ed. with the cooperation of Elisabeth Schuhmann by Karl Schuhmann (Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: Kluwer, 1993), 91.
2. In most introductions to Husserl's philosophy the Natural Attitude is treated as a mere transitional phase to describe the phenomenological reduction; see Rudolf Bernet/Iso Kern/Eduard Marbach, Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens (Hamburg: Meiner, 1989), 58 ff. I know of no work on Husserl that explicitly devotes a chapter or section to it. Waldenfels in his study dwells on the proper right (Eigenrecht) of the Natural Attitude, but he, too, fails to give a thorough description of it.
3. See Bernhard Waldenfels, Das Zwischenreich des Dialogs. Sozialphilosophische Untersuchungen in Anschluss an Edmund Husserl (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1971), 67 ff.
4. See Edmund Husserl, "Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft" ("Philosophy As Rigorous Science"), in: Edmund Husserl, Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911-1921), mit ergänzenden Texten, ed. by Thomas Nenon and Hans Reiner Sepp, (Husserliana [Hua.] XXV) (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1987), 3 ff. I would also like to express my special thanks to Donn Welton for his comments on the content and to Talia Welsh and Felix O'Murchadha for their stylistic corrections.
5. See Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Hua. VI, ed. by Walter Biemel (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1954), §51, 176-177: "Die Aufgabe einer 'Ontologie der Lebenswelt'" ("The Task of an Ontology of the Life-World'"). Not only is the task of this ontology only feasible going back into the Natural Attitude, but also the founding of all scientific and philosophical efforts on the ground of the relativity of the Life-World can be seen as a recognition of the Natural Attitude as an "Ur-Doxa" that can never be uplifted or bracketed.
6. Eugen Fink, Nähe und Distanz. Phänomenologische Vorträge und Aufsätze, ed. by Franz-Anton Schwarz (Alber: Freiburg/Munich, 1976) 190 ff. Fink, however, sees as the central operative concepts the notions of "phenomenon", "Epoche", "constitution", "achievement" (Leistung) and "transcendental logic" (phenomenological language)
7. (see ibid, 203), himself presupposing the Natural Attitude as the basis for the issues he raises. Hence it can be said that to Fink himself the Natural Attitude remains as an operative concept overshadowed by these aforementioned notions above! Moreover, one might suspect that Fink's analysis of the phenomenological predication in §10 of the Sixth Cartesian Meditation
8. (Eugen Fink: VI. Cartesianische Meditation. Teil 1. Die Idee einer transzendentalen Methodenlehre, ed. by Hans Ebeling, Jann Holl and Guy van Kerckhoven [Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1988a]) implicitly bears a definition of the language of the Natural Attitude. Likewise does his notion of a phenomenological transcendental idealism as a dialectical relation between the Natural and Phenomenologizing Attitude (see ibid., §12, 170 ff.). However, this "definition" could only ex negative be derived from the positive definition of the attitude of the phenomenologizing ego. In other words, in Fink the Natural Attitude only becomes crucial in the enworlding of the transcendental "truths" into the Natural Attitude in the "transcendental pedagogical-implications" of phenomenology.
9. Eugen Fink, VI. Cartesianische Meditation. Teil 2, Ergänzungsband, ed. by Guy van Kerckhoven (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1988b), 104:
10. "Die beiden Titel: 'transzendentale Einstellung' und 'natürliche Einstellung' sind grundsätzlich transzendentale Begriffe [. . .]." See also Eugen Fink, Studien zur Phänomenologie 1930-1939, 113.
11. See esp. the V. Logical Investigation, in: Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band, ed. by Ursula Panzer (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1984), Hua. XIX/I: "Über intentionale Erlebnisse und ihre 'Inhalte'" ("On intentional lived-experiences and their 'contents'").
12. I use the term "life" here in order to imply all kinds of human action, not only conscious, i.e. mental acts, but also all human activity, down to physical life on the level of mere instincts which Husserl tries to grasp under the title "Triebintentionalität"
13. (see esp. Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Dritter Teil, ed. by Iso Kern (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1973) Hua XV, Text No. 34, 593 ff. and appendix XLIII, 597 ff.). As I employ this concept of intentionality as a mere basic framework for the phenomenon of attitude, it is not necessary to go into this issue of intentionality more deeply.
14. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993, 17th ed.) §32, 148 ff., esp. 149.
15. Husserl himself is not blind to these pragmatical interests, as is oftentimes insinuated. To him, these pragmatical usages are a matter of the relative being as opposed to its limes of absolute, optimal appearance, which interests the philosopher. For Husserl, the relative being comes at the very end of the account of the constitution, whereas to Heidegger, it is the próteron pròs hemás. See Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis, ed. by Margot Fleischer (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1966) Hua. XI, 23-24. "Des thematische Interesse, das in Wahrnehmungen sich auslebt, ist in unserem wissenschaftlichen Leben von praktischen Interessen geleitet, und das beruhigt sich, wenn gewisse für das jeweilige Interesse optimale Erscheinungen gewonnen sind, in denen das Ding so viel von seinem letzten Selbst zeigt, als dieses praktische Interesse fordert. Oder vielmehr es zeichnet sich als praktisches Interesse ein relatives Selbst vor: Das, was praktisch genügt, gilt als das Selbst. So ist das Haus selbst und in seinem wahren Sein, und zwar hinsichtlich seiner puren körperlichen Dinglichkeit, sehr bald optimal gegeben, also vollkommen erfahren von dem, der es als Käufer oder Verkäufer betrachtet. Für den Physiker und Chemiker erschiene solche Erfahrungs weise völlig oberflächlich und vom wahren Sein noch himmelfern."
16. See Edmund Husserl, Erste Philosophie (1923/24), ed. by Rudolf Boehm (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1959), Hua. VIII, 92 ff. "Interest" here means not only the thematic interest in the pursued object, but also, implicitly, the cothesis of the existence of that which is intended; interest as a general structure of human life always implies the thesis of the being of the world.
17. See also Edmund Husserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie, ed. by Walter Biemel (Den Haag: Nijhoff: 1962), Hua. IX, appendix XI, 410 ff., esp. 412-414
18. and Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, appendix XXV, 414 f.
19. This term is not so much used by Husserl in the way I am employing it above, but rather in Fink's stressing of the concrete situation in which I can perform the Epoche. See Eugen Fink, VI. Cartesianische Meditation, Teil 2, 23 ff. and Husserl's critical notations in footnotes 66 (23), 69, 70 (both on 24). In 70, Husserl writes, as a passing remark: "Natürlich waches Leben ist Akte vollziehen - jeder Akt hat seine Situation, aktives Leben ist ein einheitliches Leben, ein von Situation in Situation Übergehen und in ihr Ziele Haben, also von Ziel zu Ziel und im verwirklichenden Tun (Handeln im weitesten Sinn) von Erzielung, Verwirklichung zu ihren Zielen Übergehen."
20. "To referentially imply" is Anthony J. Steinbock's translation of the German verb "verweisen" (in his forthcoming translation of Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis, Hua. XI).
21. This would be the task of a phenomenological psychology which need not have performed the reduction and thus need not stand in the transcendental sphere. It would be an eidetic account of the attitudes within the Natural Attitude. One of these tasks would be to see if there is a link or necessary connection between a certain attitude and a certain fundamental mood (Grundstimmung) in Heidegger's sense. Defining the Natural Attitude itself, however, is only possible in and through the Epoche.
22. See Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, appendix XVII, 459 ff., esp. 460 "Jede jener 'Welten' [of special interests] hat ihre durch den Berufszweck bestimmte besondere Universalität, jede den unendlichen Horizont einer gewissen 'Allheit'." On the same page Husserl coins for this phenomenon the often used term "Sonderwelt," which I here translate as special world. The notion of the openness of the horizon here also implies that it is an open horizon for my possibilities within an attitude; this is an openness of "Vermöglichkeiten",
23. see Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, ibid, 164.
24. In doing so, I am aware of the fact that this is not the only meaning Husserl attributes to the notion of world. World as Life-World is also the anthropological world with its sedimentations of meaning, tradition, and culture; hence this world is also a historical world. See Edmund Husserl: Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzangsband, ed. by Reinhold N. Smid (Den Haag: Nijhoff 1993), Hua. XXIX, Text No. 28: "Die anthropologische Welt," 321 ff.,
25. and Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Ergänzangsband, ibid., Text No. 34: "Zur Kritik an den Ideen I," 424 ff., esp. 425-426. Despite these further differentiations and definitions of the notion of the Life-World, this notion, too, falls under the category of Fink's "operative concepts."
26. In this sense the Kantian notion of schema as schematism of the pure notions of the 'Verstand' (Schematismus der reinen Verstandesbegriffe) is embedded in this more universal schematism which pertains not only to objects of perception but to the totality of world appearing for the human being in this world. Whereas the Kantian model is merely epistemological, it is more deeply founded in a schematism that I shall call ontological.
27. Likewise, it can be said that the Ego is never only (pure) ego, but cannot other than live itself out in an attitude - but is not, again, only made up of attitudes.
28. See Edmund Husserl, Zür Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, appendix XI (214 ff.) as one paradigm text of the many texts of Husserl's late period where he deals with this issue. For a thorough interpretation of this concept and how from it arises the concept of the one world as the full sense of the Life-World or rather, on the contrary, how the full notion of homeworlds with their correlative alienworlds constitute the full sense of the lifeworld,
29. see Klaus Held, "Heimwelt, Fremdwelt, die eine Welt," Phänomenologische Forschungen 24/25 (1991), 305-337.
30. See also the newly published study on Husserl's concept of the homeworld in the framework of a "generative phenomenology": Anthony J. Steinbock, Home and Beyond. Generative Phenomenology after Husserl (Evanston/lllinois: Northwestern, 1995).
31. Concerning the closedness and relative expansion of this homeworld Husserl employs the image of an onion that has several layers concentrically surrounding the core, see Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, Text No. 27, 429 ff. This metaphor is however tricky, for one should not understand the universality of the world as the universal life world as the "big onion." This image only serves to illustrate the layerdness of the homeworld.
32. See Edmund Husserl, Erste Philosophie II, 20. On this note, it might be helpful to know that "naive" as well as "natural" both stem from the same Latin root, as mentioned above, i.e. nasci.
33. See Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch, 26.
34. See Plato's Meno, where the skill of mathematics functions as the paradigm case of that kind of knowledge which does not have to be learned, but is "innate" to man, cf. 82b-85e.
35. This process of science as the mathematization of nature is, of course, intrinsic to Western thought. See Husserl's famous reconstruction of this process in §9 of the Crisis. But the point above is, quod erit demonstrandum, that the scientific attitude stems from the home attitude and thus stands on the basis of the latter. Husserl saw this process as a specifically European phenomenon which, however, has left its rightful path and has to be brought back to it. He envisions this as the rightful reminiscence of the Greek idea of the Europeisation (Europäisierung) of mankind - a concept that has been highly criticized as being Euro-centred. For a defence of this idea as a (forgotten) positive category of unity, see Klaus Held, "Husserls These von der Europäisierung der Menschheit," Phänomenologie im Widerstreit: Zum 50. Geburtstag Edmund Husserls, ed. by Christoph Jamme and Otto Pöggeler (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989), 13-39.
36. See Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, 271.
37. Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, §30, 61 (my translation).
38. See Edmund Husserl, Erste Philosophie II, 36 ff.
39. This fact of the being of the world Husserl also calls an absolute fact in the sense that this original certainty and belief can never be crossed out by doubt or anullment. Analogously as the scientific attitude is naive towards its own participation in the General Thesis and thus its origin in the Natural Attitude, Fink speaks of a philosophical naivety to which the philosopher falls prey if he has not himself, although he might not stand on the ground of the General Thesis, analyzed himself, see Eugen Fink, VI. Cartesianische Meditation, Teil II, 5: "Wir stehen jetzt nach der Überwindung der Weltnaivität in einer neuen, in einer transzendentalen Naivität'. "
40. See Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, 133 ff.,
41. esp. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität, ibid., Text No. 11, 148-171.
42. This is obviously Fink's understanding of the abnormal, as something that strikes us as something from outside our horizon and thus leads us to the reduction, whereas to Husserl the abnormal is something already constituted within the normality of our homeworld. In the outline to a planned systematic work, Fink writes, as a note: "Die Anomalität als Motivation der Skepsis an der 'Weltexistenz'." (Eugen Fink, VI. Cartesianische Meditation. Teil II, 5) In his notation, Husserl replaces the term "Anomalitä t" with "Modalisierbarkeit aller Einzelerfahrung" (ibid, footnote 6) - obviously an action (a variation) within the world as opposed to an absurd or tragic event intruding our world;
43. see VI. Cartesianische Meditation. Teil II, ibid., 30 f.
44. In a later text from Husserl, from the year 1931 (Husserl read the above quoted text in 1930), he does make the connection between alienity and abnormality (Edmund Husserl, Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivät, Text No. 10, 139): "Problem der Erweiterung der Welt durch Besetzung des leeren Welthorizonts mit einer anderen historischen Totalität, einer fremden, total fremdartiger, in diesem Sinn abnormer Menschen einer abnormen Umwelt." (italics added) To Husserl, it is obviously a problem of our expanding the horizon of our own world.
45. See Anthony J. Steinbock, Home and Beyond, who makes the distinction of "anomalous" and "abnormal," the first being a discordance within our homeworld, the latter being the normality of the alienworld, intruding our own normal homeworld and thus striking us as abnormal: "When we charaterize something as discordant [. . .], discordance has merely a descriptive or normatively insignificant quality. It is not qet normatively significant as 'abnormal,' but rather 'anomalous.'"
46. (Home and Beyond, ibid., 132).