ESSAYS IN PHENOMENOLOGY

ESSAYS IN PHENOMENOLOGY

FOR LOIS

Edmund Husser! (on the right) with Oskar Kokoschka, taken in the thirties Reproduced with the permission of the Husser/ Archives at Louvain through the courtesy of Profe«or H. L. Van Breda

ESSAYS IN PHENOMENOLOGY Edited by MAURICE NATANSON University of California, Santa Cruz Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V. 1966

ISBN 978-90-247-0042-4 ISBN 978-94-017-5403-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-5403-3 Copyright 1966 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands in 1966. Soft cover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1966 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form

EDITOR'S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The essays comprising this volume were originally published in the following form: The Editor's Introduction first appeared as "Phenomenology: A Viewing," Methodos, Vol. X, 1958; Alfred Schutz, "Some Leading Concepts ofphenomenology," Social Research, Vol. XII, 1945; Aron Gurwitsch, "The Phenomenological and the Psychological Approach to Consciousness," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. XV, 1955; James Street Fulton, "The Cartesianism of Phenomenology," Philosophical Review, Vol. XLIX, 1940; Harmon M. Chapman, "Realism and Phenomenology," in The Return to Reason (edited by John Wild), Henry Regnery, 1953; Michael Kullman and Charles Taylor, "The Pre-Objective World," Review qf Metaphysics, Vol. XII, 1958; Herbert Spiegelberg, "How Subjective is Phenomenology?," Proceedings qf the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Vol. XXXIII, 1959; Fritz Kaufmann, "Art and Phenomenology," in Philosophical Essays in Memory qf Edmund Husser! (edited by Marvin Farber), Harvard University Press, 1940; Jean-Paul Sartre, Visages, precede de Portraits officiels, Seghers, 1948, Erwin W. Straus, "The Upright Posture," Psychiatric Q_uarterry, Vol. XXVI, 1952; Paul-Louis Landsberg, The Experience qf Death and The Moral Problem qf Suicide, translated by Cynthia Rowland, Philosophical Library, 1953. I am grateful to the authors, editors, and publishers of these works for approval and permission to reprint them here, and I am especially indebted to Professor Anne P. Jones of the Department of French of Lawrence University for her translation of the Sartre selection. My thanks are due to Mrs. W. A. Bradley, Mrs. Leonore C. Hauck, Professors Marvin Farber and Herbert Spiegelberg for their courtesy in responding to my inquiries regarding copyright and other matters. Mr. G. H. Priem of Martinus Nijhoffhas been consistently helpful and kind. I alone bear responsibility for the present undertaking.

FOREWORD Fifteen years ago, Dorion Cairns concluded an article on phenomenology with a cautious appraisal of its influence in America. "Thus far," he wrote, "it continues to be an exotic." The situation today has changed: translations of the writings of Husserl, Heidegger, Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty have appeared, and commentaries on these and related thinkers are not uncommon. Moreover, discussion of phenomenological problems is increasingly becoming part of the American (if not the British) philosophical scene. Phenomenology is in danger of domestication! Signs of its accommodation include a willingness to pay tribute to Husserl's Logical Investigations by those who find relatively little to interest them in his later work, a location of what are taken to be common themes and underlying convergences of emphasis in Continental phenomenology and Anglo-American philosophy of the more nearly Wittgensteinian and Austinian varieties, and a growing impatience (shared by some phenomenologists) with expositions, explications, and interpretations of Husserl's work at the expense of original applications of phenomenology. Most bluntly put, the attitude is: Don't talk about it; do it! It would seem that we have arrived at a point where introductions to phenomenology are of doubtful value, if not superfluous. The present collection of essays is based on different assumptions and points to an alternative conception of the role of both methodology and originality in phenomenological work. Equally bluntly put, it amounts to this: Talking is a mode of doing, and understanding what one is doing becomes an inevitable part of what is done. The essays brought together here are both expository-interpretive presentations of phenomenology and examples of creative performance in phenomenology. In some cases the weight is on the expository and interpretive side, in others on the systematic description and analysis of concrete problems. I see no reason to set them in isolation; no cordon sanitaire divides them. So, for,example, understanding the phenomenological reduction, in my view, involves, indeed is, phenomenological

VIII FOREWORD work. If expositing Husserl's theory of reduction is grasping what is done through the reductions, then "mere" exposition gives way to phenomenological activity. It does not follow that any exposition attains this level, any more than it follows that any systematic analysis in philosophy is creative and original because it moves free of historical harness. Exposition has many faces, and these essays are, in fact, wideranging in their methodological as well as constructive purposes. Nor are they restricted to Husserl's phenomenology alone. The principle of selection has been to place phenomenology rather than Husserl at the center of the discussion and to include essays which deal with a variety of problems which either derive from Husserl or are meaningful extensions of his style of philosophizing. Existential themes have been chosen when their context is predominantly phenomenological. Essays have been included which are responsible presentations of Husserl's views and which contrast his thought with that of other thinkers. Some selections are devoted to specific problems or fields of research. In still other chapters, the indebtedness of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty to phenomenology is illustrated. Finally, in a few instances, problems in the horizon of phenomenology- the nature of the body and the meaning of death - are explored in independent fashion by writers who are aware of phenomenology but not bound to its formal procedures. In the total range of contributors, some are committed phenomenologists, others are sympathetic to phenomenology but remain philosophically independent ofhusserl's influence, and a few are concerned with phenomenology from an essentially critical though not hostile stance. The point of this anthology is to bring together informed and interesting essays for those who seek an understanding of phenomenology. A variegated audience is addressed: students, academics, and members of a growing community of professional people as well as laymen who have become curious to learn more about the implications of phenomenology and existential philosophy for psychology, art, religion, and social science. In addition to bringing together pieces which appeared in scattered journals and books - most of them out of print - and to presenting for the first time an English translation of Sartre's Faces, it is hoped that this phenomenological ingathering will do what the original publication of the individual chapters could not possibly have achieved: the illumination of each essay by the others in their integral relevance for the reader. Santa Cruz, California December 11, 1965 M.N.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword.. VII Introduction. 1 1. ALFRED ScHUTZ, Some Leading Concepts of Phenomenology 23 2. ARoN GuRWITSCH, The Phenomenological and the Psychological Approach to Consciousness............. 40 3. james STREET FuLTON, The Cartesianism of Phenomenology 58 4. HARMON M. CHAPMAN, Realism and Phenomenology... 79 5. MICHAEL KuLLMAN AND CHARLES TAYLOR, The Pre-Objective World................... 116 6. HERBERT SPIEGELBERG, How Subjective is Phenomenology? 137 7. FRITZ KAUFMANN, Art and Phenomenology...... 144 8. jean-paul SARTRE, Faces, Preceded by Official Portraits. 157 9. ERWIN W. STRAUS, The Upright Posture 10. PAUL-LoUis LANDSBERG, The Experience of Death 164 193 Bibliography A Note on the Contributors 233 239