Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology

Contents

Preface xiii

Abbreviations xxi

Chapter 1. Contextual Narrative: The Freiburg Phenomenology Workshop, 1925–1938 1

1.1. Eugen Fink, Arrival in Freiburg 2

1.2. Fink as Assistant to Husserl, First Years: 1928–1930 10

1.3. Fink as Assistant to, Then Collaborator with, Husserl: 1930–1934 27

1.4. The Final Breakthrough: 1934–1937 54

1.5. The Ending, and Another Beginning 68

Chapter 2. Orientation I: Phenomenology Beyond the Preliminary 73

2.1. The Phenomenological Reduction—Done Only by Being Redone 75

2.2. Issues That Force the Move Beyond Preliminaries: 1927–1928 81

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2.3. The Nature of Husserl’s System 83

2.4. The Question of Time and the Question of the Subject: Pushing Noematization to the Limits 89

2.5. The Question of Time and the Question of Being 92

2.6. The Critique of Self-Conceptions 93

2.6.1. The Reduction Again: Husserl’s Own Critique of His Initiating Presentation of Phenomenology94

2.6.2. The Critique of Conceptual Schemata for ‘‘Transcendental Subjectivity’’: Reconsideration by Fink 96

2.6.2.1. Questioning the Basic Epistemological Schema—General Points 101

2.6.2.2. Critique for the ‘‘Cartesian Meditations’’ 105

2.6.2.3. Questioning the Epistemological Schema—Points for a Critique of henomenological ‘‘Idealism’’ 109

2.6.2.4. Self-Conceptions and the Question of Being 112

2.6.2.5. The Un-Humanizing of Transcendental Subjectivity: Further Demands 114

2.6.2.6. First Corollary of Un-Humanization: Critique of the I 116

2.6.2.7. Second Corollary of Un-Humanization: Critique of Psychological-Phenomenological Parallelism and Coinciding 119

2.6.2.8. Third Corollary: Performance Consciousness as Clue to the Transcendental 123

2.7. A Final Word: Continuing Phenomenology by Reradicalizing the Issues 126

Chapter 3. Orientation II: Who Is Phenomenology? Husserl—Heidegger? 128

3.1. A Third Way Beyond Mutually Opposing Constitution and Transcendence 132

3.2. Transcendence in Heidegger’s Fundamental Ontology133

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3.3. The Issues in Fink’s Critique of Fundamental Ontology137

3.3.1. The Phenomenological Reduction and the Ontological Difference; the A Priori Problem 138

3.3.2. The Basic Paradox Again, Now in Heidegger’s Analysis of Temporality; the Move Beyond Being 145

3.3.3. The Ontological Unattainability of the Subject 152

3.4. Heidegger’s Positive Contributions 155

3.4.1. The ‘‘I Am’’ as Finite ‘‘I Am in the World’’ 160

3.4.2. Philosophical Explication as Construction—Even in Transcendental Phenomenology161

3.5. The Term of A Priori Inquiry: ‘‘Ground’’ or ‘‘Origin’’? 167

Chapter 4. Fundamental Thematics I: The World 174

4.1. Reconsidering Entry-Level Treatment; Spinning the Ariadn Thread 178

4.2. The Pregivenness of the World within any Starting Point 181
4.3. Being Situated in the World: Captivation in the World 184
4.4. How the World Figures in Experience 188
4.4.1. Decentering the Object-Entititative Approach;
Horizonality189
4.4.2. Horizonality and Awareness 193
4.4.3. Performance Consciousness and Its Delineation 197
4.4.4. Putting It All Together: Reading Kant and Reading the
World 201
4.5. Detailing the World as Horizonally Pregiven 206
4.6. Reflections of Fink’s Critique Work in Husserl’s ‘‘Crisis’’-Writings 211
4.6.1. The Pregivenness of the World 212
4.6.2. De-Cartesianizing Phenomenology213
4.6.3. From the Object-World for Cognition to the World-asSurround for Wakefulness 214
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4.6.4. Identity and Difference between the Worldly and the
Transcendental 219
Chapter 5. Fundamental Thematics II: Time 224
5.1. Stage 1: Fink’s Study of Time and the Bernau Manuscripts 227
5.1.1. The Basic Time-Problematic 227
5.1.1.1. The Constitutions Carried On in Temporality—
General Orientation 238
5.1.1.2. The Constitutions of Temporality—the InStances 243
5.1.1.3. Temporality and the Problem of Origin 248
5.1.1.4. Temporality and the Constitution of the
World 251
5.1.2. Stage 1: Fink’s First Revision Plan for the Bernau
Manuscripts 258
5.1.2.1. The First Revision Plan 260
5.1.2.2. Prime Elements in the Bernau Manuscripts for
Motivating the Move Beyond Them 265
5.1.2.3. Explorations into Time by Fink, 1930–1933 271
5.1.2.3.1. The Central Structure: The Horizontal
Complex of Presenting and DePresenting 275
5.1.2.3.2. Time and the Constitution of the World:
The Five Horizons of Time 278
5.1.2.3.3. Performance Consciousness as
Unthematic Horizon-Consciousness:
Wakefulness 280
5.2. Stage 2: Reconceiving the Revision Project—The Two-Part
Treatise 288
5.2.1. The 1934 Plan: Details 293
5.2.2. Husserl’s Time-Analysis in the C-Manuscripts 295
5.2.2.1. The Living Present as the Transcendental ProtoI 295
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5.2.2.2. Bringing the Living Present/Transcendental Proto-I
under Phenomenological Scrutiny296
5.2.3. The Aporia of Time-Analysis: Reflection Across the
Transcendental Divide—Fink’s Proposals 302
5.2.3.1. Critical Points: Presentialism 303
5.2.3.2. The I as Wakefulness in the Horizonality of DePresencing 304
5.3. Stage 3: The Reversal and the Displacement 308
5.3.1. Reversal: The New Time-Book 309
5.3.2. Reversal Becomes Displacement: The Metaphysics of
Play311
Chapter 6. Fundamental Thematics III: Life and Spirit, and Entry into the
Meontic 316
6.1. Life-Philosophy, and Life as an Idea in Phenomenology 319
6.2. Life-Philosophy and Phenomenology: Outline for an Essay 323
6.2.1. The Charges against Phenomenology, 1: Consciousness an
Abstract Concept 326
6.2.2. The Charges against Phenomenology, 2: Phenomenology Has
No ‘‘Topos,’’ No ‘‘Where’’ 327
6.2.3. The Charges against Phenomenology, 3: The Hubris of
Idealism 329
6.3. Explicating Phenomenology in the Context of Criticism 330
6.3.1. The Reduction as Precondition for Thematizing Life 331
6.3.2. Phenomenology as the ‘‘Metaphysics’’ of Life as Spirit 334
6.3.3. Life in Life-Philosophy, Life in Phenomenology 338
6.3.4. Life as Pathic: Nietzsche in Phenomenology341
6.3.5. Philosophic/Phenomenological Reflection as an Act of
Life 348
6.3.6. The Aporetic of Phenomenological Reflection as an Act within
Life 355
6.4. The Double Truth of Ultimate Constitutive Explication as
Meontic 360
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6.5. Life, World, and Life-World: Husserl, Fink, and the ‘‘Crisis’’-Texts 368
Chapter 7. Critical-Systematic Core: The Meontic—in Methodology and in
the Recasting of Metaphysics 375
7.1. General Points 376
7.1.1. The ‘‘Logic of Origin,’’ 1: Meontically Dialectical
Seinssinn 381
7.1.2. The ‘‘Logic of Origin,’’ 2: The Living Question 387
7.2. The Methodological Demands of Meontic Dialectic 388
7.2.1. Methodological Features 1: Formal Indication 388
7.2.1.1. Heidegger 394
7.2.2. Methodological Features 2: Speculation 397
7.2.2.1. Speculation: Hegel and Heidegger 403
7.2.3. Methodological Features 3: Construction 408
7.2.4. Methodological Features 4: Regressive and Progressive
Phenomenology; the Analytic and the Speculative 415
7.2.4.1. Supplementary Note: Internal and External
Treatment 417
7.3. Primary Issues Interpretively Recast in Meontic Integration:
Phenomenological Metaphysics 418
7.3.1. Phenomenological Metaphysics Is More Than Ontology 427
7.3.2. The Singularity of the World 428
7.3.3. Metaphysical Themes in the ‘‘Crisis’’-Project 430
7.3.3.1. History431
7.3.3.2. Human and Transcendental Subjectivity434
7.3.3.3. The Pregiven World—Finished and Done, or in an
Ever-Continuing Constitution? 441
7.3.3.4. God 444
7.3.3.5. Addendum: Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and the
Meontic 447
7.3.4. Transition: Transcendental Articulation 451
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Chapter 8. Corollary Thematics I: Language 452
8.1. The Antecedency Status of Language 453
8.2. The Explication of Language as a Phenomenologically Speculative
Task: Internal and External Treatment 456
8.2.1. Language and the ‘‘Ontological Experience’’ 463
8.3. Ideality468
8.4. Language as Transcendentally Ambivalent, That Is, Meontically
Paradoxical 476
Chapter 9. Corollary Thematics II: Solitude and Community—
Intersubjectivity 482
9.1. Lessons in ‘‘Meditation V’’ for Beginning Again 485
9.1.1. ‘‘Meditation V,’’ a First-Stage Analytic 486
9.1.2. Limitations to Egological Meditation 489
9.1.3. Protomodal Limitations in Empathy491
9.1.4. Modifications of Protomodality492
9.1.5. Complementary Indications on Openings beyond the
Protomodal 495
9.2. Complements from the Broader Critique Context 496
9.2.1. The General Horizontal Grounding for the ‘‘Empathetic’’
Manifestness of Intersubjectivity497
9.2.2. Two Prime Features in the Grounding of
Intersubjectivity499
9.2.2.1. In-Stanciality, the Meontic Reading 502
9.2.2.2. The Performance-Awareness of Being With an
Experiencing Other in the In-Stance of Plural
Humanity505
9.2.2.3. The Materiality of PerformanceConsciousness 508
9.3. Phenomenological Monadology511
9.3.1. Transcendental Reflective Thematization and Monadic
Egoity512
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9.3.2. The Transcendental Sense of Intersubjective Monadic
Plurality514
9.3.3. History and the Transcendental ‘‘Community’’ 517
9.4. The Transcendental Sense of Human Solitude 518
Chapter 10. Beginning Again after the End of the Freiburg Phenomenology
Workshop, 1938–1946 521
10.1. Return to the University in Germany 526
10.2. Continuation: Renewing the Phenomenological Tradition of Edmund
Husserl 528
10.3. Critique and Continuation, with a Shift in Dimensional
Emphasis 533
Appendix: Longer Notations 545
Index 585