Phaenomenologica 222 Roberto Walton Shigeru Taguchi Roberto Rubio Editors Perception, Affectivity, and Volition in Husserl’s Phenomenology Perception, Affectivity, and Volition in Husserl’s Phenomenology PHAENOMENOLOGICA SERIES FOUNDED BY H. L. VAN BREDA AND PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE HUSSERL-ARCHIVES 222 ROBERTO WALTON SHIGERU TAGUCHI ROBERTO RUBIO PERCEPTION, AFFECTIVITY, AND VOLITION IN HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGY Editorial Board: Director: U. Melle (Husserl-Archief, Leuven) Members: R. Bernet (Husserl-Archief, Leuven), R. Breeur (Husserl-Archief, Leuven), S. IJsseling (Husserl-Archief, Leuven), H. Leonardy (Centre d’études phénoménologiques, Louvain-la-Neuve), D. Lories (CEP/ISP/Collège Désiré Mercier, Louvain-la-Neuve), J. Taminiaux (Centre d’études phénoménologiques, Louvain-la-Neuve), R. Visker (Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven) Advisory Board: R. Bernasconi (The Pennsylvania State University), D. Carr (Emory University, Atlanta), E.S. Casey (State University of New York at Stony Brook), R. Cobb-Stevens (Boston College), J.F. Courtine (Archives-Husserl, Paris), F. Dastur (Université de Paris XX), K. Düsing (Husserl- Archiv, Köln), J. Hart (Indiana University, Bloomington), K. Held (Bergische Universität Wuppertal), K.E. Kaehler (Husserl-Archiv, Köln), D. Lohmar (Husserl-Archiv, Köln), W.R. McKenna (Miami University, Oxford, USA), J.N. Mohanty (Temple University, Philadelphia), E.W. Orth (Universität Trier), C. Sini (Università degli Studi di Milano), R. Sokolowski (Catholic University of America, Washington D.C.), B. Waldenfels (Ruhr-Universität, Bochum) More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6409 Roberto Walton • Shigeru Taguchi Roberto Rubio Editors Perception, Affectivity, and Volition in Husserl’s Phenomenology Editors Roberto Walton Shigeru Taguchi Philosophy Philosophy and Cultural Sciences Universidad de Buenos Aires Hokkaido University Buenos Aires, Argentina Sapporo, Japan Roberto Rubio Philosophy Universidad Alberto Hurtado Santiago, Chile ISSN 0079-1350 ISSN 2215-0331 (electronic) Phaenomenologica ISBN 978-3-319-55338-2 ISBN 978-3-319-55340-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55340-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938284 © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Preface This volume is the result of a collaborative project whose initial impetus was the Husserl Colloquium: Perception, Affectivity and Volition, held at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago de Chile in November 2012. Motivated by the immi- nent publication of the Husserliana volume Verstand, Gemüt und Wille. Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins, the colloquium brought together an international group of scholars whose research has dealt with the phenomenological insight into the threefold articulation of reason into perception, affectivity, and volition. The col- laborative work initiated there was then further developed through the contribution of other scholars specially invited to the project. The intertwining of perception, affectivity, and volition qua aspects of reason acts as the leading thread for the investigations collected in this volume. They focus on Husserl’s broadened notion of reason, which contains spheres that are tradition- ally considered to be “irrational” or “prerational.” Part I explores the way in which these aforementioned aspects of reason mutually belong together. Parts II and III provide a closer look at each one of them. Part IV examines Husserl’s broadened notion of reason by inquiring into the rational character of history, world, and otherness. Roberto Walton opens Part I by disclosing the interrelationship between the per- ceptual, affective, and volitional spheres of reason. He focuses on their similarities by highlighting the following three issues. First, a distinction between empty inten- tions and their fulfillment, along with processes of modalization, can be shown within the framework outlined by horizons. Analogous stages regarding the estab- lishment of meaning and the attainment of truth are common both to theoretical and practical reason. Husserl speaks of emotional evidence with regard to an emotional and volitional meaning of the world so that emotion and will are also a peculiar source of legitimacy. Second, an a priori regulation through standards afforded by essences and values can also be shown. The three spheres are subject to norms that regulate the fulfillment of empty intentions. Finally, the progress of knowledge has its parallel in an open axiological linkage that consists in the attempt to attain the best possible value at each stage of an approach to infinite ideas. Here it should be v vi Preface recalled that doxic acts are themselves practical acts that have truth as a goal of the will, the value of which is apprehended through feeling. In his contribution, Luis Román Rabanaque examines the connections among the noematic correlates of perception, affectivity, and volition. From a static point of view, there is a structural parallelism among the three kinds of acts and a one-sided foundation of volition on feeling and of feeling on perception. On the other hand, from a genetic standpoint, an analysis of the lowermost hyletic components points to the co-originarity of these three spheres in the sense of a foundation that is not unilateral but rather multilateral or reciprocal. Along with this co-originarity, a cer- tain preeminence of the affective sphere manifests itself to the extent that it moti- vates both representation and volition. Part II, dedicated to the logic of perception, begins with Michael Shim’s chapter on the spatialization of perceptual consciousness. He argues that, in Husserl’s phe- nomenology of perception, the consciousness of any perceiving subject can take up space. According to Husserl, since the noema of perception is immanent to the con- sciousness of the perceiving subject, the object of perception must also be in some sense immanent. Yet, in his dispute with Brentano, Husserl claims that no inten- tional object can be immanent to any intentional act. In order to reconcile these two affirmations, the author shows that there are two different senses of immanence in Husserl: the “genuine”-sense and what Steven Crowell (2008) calls the “phenomenological”-sense. On this disambiguation, any perceptual object can be genuinely transcendent while remaining phenomenologically immanent. What is required for the second sense of immanence is a holistic conception of conscious- ness. Given this distinction, the author offers a spatialist interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology of perception. The core of this interpretation lies in the following argument. First, Husserl is a realist about the objects of perception: the object of perception is the actual object itself rather than some mental representation of any- thing like the Kantian thing in-itself. Second, the objects of perception are spatial. Therefore, if any perceptual object is immanent to some consciousness, then that consciousness must also be spatial. In Chap. 4, Pol Vandevelde shows how Husserl’s phenomenology of perception can help clarify the terms of a long-held debate in the philosophy of perception. In particular, he argues that Husserl’s notion of horizon and Searle’s notion of back- ground offer a contextual model of perception that significantly reformulates the debate regarding the conceptual vs. nonconceptual content of perception. The author illustrates the model by using a test case: the perception of an ancient Roman milestone—an example given by Husserl. According to Vandevelde, both Husserl and Searle consider that the perception of a highly cultural and historical thing hap- pens at once, without inferential mediation. He further differentiates Husserl’s and Searle’s views, arguing that Husserl’s model has the advantage of accounting for the diachronic aspect of perception. In the final contribution to this section, Sebastian Luft elaborates on how atten- tion, as located between passive perception and active, synthetic consciousness, plays a key role in genetic phenomenology, namely, in its attempt to work out the levels of consciousness from passivity to activity. He turns to Goethe’s comparison of the primal phenomenon that immediately and forcefully seizes our attention with Preface vii “the most beautiful pearls” in a chain of related phenomena. Among the phenomena appearing to us, some simply are endowed with a special quality that beckons us to investigate them, very similar to the manner in which Husserl describes the way that certain phenomena lure us to focus our attention on them. Yet, if it is the world which “chooses,” as it were, certain phenomena for us to be drawn into their mean- ingful contexts, this observation has serious consequences for phenomenology as transcendental idealism. Luft raises the question of whether attention brings us before the limits of phenomenology as transcendental idealism. This is the problem, for the theory of world-constitution, of the significance of those privileged phenom- ena in our world which leap out at us, enticing us to explore it. In Part III, Mariano Crespo tackles the topic of affectivity by exploring the affec- tive roots of morality. Engaging with the debate between the “moralists of under- standing” and “moralists of feeling,” he argues that Husserl provides a third answer that turns on an a priori theory of moral sentiment. A few main points are advanced. First, the laws that govern affective acts in the practical sphere do not express regu- larities in the factual grasping of values but rather have an a priori character that discloses the essence of the ethically appropriate and inappropriate. Second, a phe- nomenology of affective consciousness in particular and of ethics in general must not fall prey to a naturalization of consciousness because the laws of ethics are laws of reason, i.e., essential or necessary laws. Third, Husserl does not consider, as Kant does, the conflict between reason and sensibility as a distinctive element of ethics. The phenomenology of affective consciousness as a central nucleus of ethics is a moment within an a priori phenomenology of intentional consciousness. Finally, Crespo stresses that, if the task of phenomenology is to identify the essential struc- tures of the modes in which objects are given to consciousness, values can only be elucidated through a description of the affective acts through which they are origi- nally grasped. The intersubjective implications of this stance are stressed. Saulius Geniusas develops another angle of the topic of affectivity. He addresses the oldest controversy in the phenomenology of pain, which concerns the inten- tional nature of the pain experience. His exposition has a fourfold structure. First, he offers the central reasons that underlie the view that originates in Carl Stumpf’s writings, which suggests that pain is a non-intentional feeling-sensation. Secondly, he presents the evidence that underlies the Brentanian perspective, which suggests that pain is an irreducibly intentional experience. Thirdly, he argues that Edmund Husserl’s schema of apprehension – content of apprehension enables one to recon- cile these positions. In this regard, his argument shows that this schema provides the conceptual basis to defend two claims: (1) pain is an irreducibly stratified phenom- enon; (2) while some of its strata are non-intentional, others are marked by inten- tionality. Fourthly, with the aim of demonstrating the philosophical significance of this schema in the framework of phenomenological pain research, he opens a brief dialogue between phenomenology and cognitive science. He shows how this schema can help clarify the experiential structures of lobotomized, cingulotomized, and morphinized patients as well as how it can shed light on such syndromes as threat hypersymbolia, pain asymbolia, and congenital analgesia. The contributions in Part IV point toward the broadening of rationality character- istic of Husserl’s phenomenology. Luis Niel examines Husserl’s concept of viii Preface Urstiftung and analyzes its development in different contexts, from the most basic fields of passive constitution up to the realm of history. First, he presents some his- torical and etymological considerations regarding the German concepts of Stiftung and stiften. Second, he traces the first references to the concept back to the analyses of perception and the “I” as correlate. Third, he examines the multiple genetic anal- yses of passivity. Fourth, he addresses the constitution of the “I,” with special atten- tion paid to the ethical “I.” Finally, he analyzes the problem of history and the crisis of European rationality and mankind. By taking as Leitfaden the legal sense of Stiftung, Niel stresses that the primal institution of sense implies an active commit- ment that constantly has to be renewed through re-institutions of sense. Shigeru Taguchi’s contribution analyzes the way in which Husserl’s thesis on the “annihilation” of the world helps us to rehabilitate the true actuality of the real world by showing the essential role of subjective agency in the world-constitution. According to Taguchi, Husserl’s notion of “annihilation,” rather than degrading the world in contrast to consciousness, serves to work out the most fundamental essence of reality. The notion does not declare the triumph of subjectivity over the world, but rather is intended to disrupt the natural tendency of always thinking about objectiv- ity. Taguchi’s line of thinking goes as follows: what makes the world real and stead- fast is nothing other than the growing rational force of the self-organizing order of our experience. This order is not established before our consciousness begins to experience, but is rather generated when it is experienced by actual living subjects. If we categorically repudiate this kind of insight, the notion of the world might lose its reality and degenerate into an abstract ideality. Thus, the “annihilation of the world” enables us to disclose the reality of the world as a living movement that is breathing in our experience and, hence, initiates a rehabilitation of the world in its actual, intrinsically ongoing reality. Javier San Martín draws the volume to a close by revealing the most significant challenges phenomenology currently faces. He locates their source in the central issue of otherness and claims that phenomenology works this out by inquiring into intersubjectivity and our responsibility for others in the framework of an anthropol- ogy that encompasses gender, multiculturality, and environment as subject matters. In particular, he highlights four different ways the rational project of phenomenol- ogy deals with otherness: first, through the elaboration of the general problematic of the other; second, by analyzing the issue of the other sex; third, by inquiring into the otherness of other worlds (multiculturality); and, finally, through a consideration of the silent others in their two modalities, i.e., on the one hand, those who do not yet speak, future others, and, on the other hand, those who will never speak, animals. This last point leads us to the problem of the environment because we are respon- sible for the lives of the animals and their survival depends on our care of the world qua our and their home (ecology). Buenos Aires, Argentina Roberto Walton Sapporo, Japan Shigeru Taguchi Santiago, Chile Roberto Rubio May 20, 2015 Acknowledgments The editors would like to thank the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Santiago de Chile for providing financial and academic support throughout the organization of the Husserl Colloquium: Perception, Affectivity and Volition, held there in November 2012. We are also very grateful to the Universidad Alberto Hurtado for offering the facilities and equipment used in the process of editing this book. We would also like to extend a special thanks to Mr. Zachary John Hugo who participated in this project as assistant editor. Without his valuable collaboration, the edition of this book would not have been possible. ix