Husserl, Edmund (1859–1938)

The Problem of Subjectivity

Specific to Husserl's time theory is the problem of a subjectivity that constitutes time but is also related to an original temporally distributed flow of experiences. That means consciousness constitutes time and is itself temporal. In order to explain this, Husserl introduces the “absolute consciousness,” a unifying transcendental function of consciousness that is in itself atemporal. This theoretical construct is contentious not only among his interpreters but also for himself because it cannot become the subject of phenomenological analyses. Phenomenology as Husserl has developed it is a philosophy of description in a strictly scientific sense. The goal of philosophy should be the precise description of how things appear to us. It is not about how things are in themselves, but rather how we apprehend them. Our experience is a source of apodictic truths for Husserl. But the individual contents of consciousness do not belong to these truths; it is the way or the structure in which they are given that can be an apodictic truth. The Kantian distinction between the thing-in-itself and how it appears is to be found in Logical Investigations (1900–1901), but in his analyses of time Husserl gave up that sharp distinction. The thing-in-itself is then defined as the identity that can be intuited through manifold apprehensions or perspectives of it. Therefore it no longer belongs to the realm of transcendent things if transcendent is understood as being beyond the reach of our recognition.

The analyses concerning time-consciousness are fundamental to Husserl's phenomenology because time is not an object like other objects; it is rather the way in which objects are given to and apprehended by consciousness. That is why time is so fundamental to phenomenology, and its analysis stretches over the whole period of Husserl's investigations. He focuses on subjective time, the time-consciousness and not on an objective “world-time.” In general it can be said that phenomenology is always concerned with how things appear to a consciousness. The question of how things are in themselves misses the point that there is no object without a subject. This does not mean that Husserl is an idealist. He thinks that the attempt to describe something while leaving out the condition that it must be described by someone cannot be a sufficient description and, therefore, cannot be true. Husserl distinguishes two perspectives: the “natural attitude” and the “phenomenological attitude.” The former is the perspective we adopt in everyday life, in which we naturally believe in the existence of the world. In the latter, the philosopher suspends all convictions and intentions that belong to the “natural attitude,” especially convictions about existence. This suspension is called phenomenological epoche, and is gained by a reductive method that leads through different levels back to pure intention. Intention is the way in which a consciousness is directed toward an object. There are many ways in which an object can be given to a consciousness (in perception, imagination, representation, etc.). In order to describe the nature of these modes, Husserl uses variation, the so-called eidetic variation, which is a method of distinguishing between contingent and necessary features of the intention. Intentionality is the subjective structure of consciousness, which apprehends an object. In an analysis, a distinction is made between the noema (object of consciousness) and the noesis (corresponding mental activity). They can be analyzed separately, but they are not reducible to one another.

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