International Phenomenological Society

Intuition and Horizon in the Philosophy of Husserl Author(s): Henry Pietersma Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Sep., 1973), pp. 95-101 Published by: International Phenomenological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2106783 . Accessed: 15/04/2013 16:58
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DISCUSSION INTUITION AND HORIZON IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUSSERL* The termsused in the title are those usually given as translations of the German expressions Anschauung and Horizont. I do not find these translations very felicitous and will use in this paper "seeing" and "implicit context." I tryto show that Husserl's concept of seeing includes as an essential element the idea of a subject's familiarity with, and implicit reference to, a context of possible experiences in which the object now seen mightbe referredto. Withoutnoting this element and articulating it more carefully than he himself did the concept cannot be fullyunderstood. To attain what I consider to be the necessary concentration of attention for this thesis I have to bypass many details of textual exegesis and historical development of the author's thought.Finally, in my interpretationI deliberately employ a vocabulary that is some distance removed from Husserl's and hopefullysomewhat closer to that of contemporaryAnglo-American philosophy. of all, carefullynote that Husserl speaks of seeing We should, first situations or modes of in order to contrast descriptivelydifferent consciousness. In two situations something may be referred to as the same object, and as having the same determinationsor characteristics. Yet in the one case the subject has what we mightcall a close view of the object, whereas in the other he is, for instance, merely to it merelyby the use of linguistic talkingabout it and thus referring expressions. In this latter case the object itself,not somethingelse, is referredto and what is said about it is meant as something that is true about the object. But the subject does not think it necessary, or is for some reason not in a position, to examine the object close up. Husserl speaks of this sort of referenceto an object as an "empty intention,"contrasting it with a "fulfilledintention." Being used for the purpose of contrastingthings,the word "see*Withthe exceptionof two paragraphs,this paper was presentedat the APA meetingin December, 1970.

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ing" clearly can be understood only in the light of the words with which it is paired. What constitutes seeing can be appreciated only by inquiringinto what it is not; what "seeing x" means becomes clear only in the lightof the various ways in which x mightbe "intended" withoutbeing seen. As we findit stated in an early article, "talk of a seeing always involves a reference-tosome representationor other."' The second point to be noticed here is that Husserl makes this contrast in an attempt at phenomenological description. That is to say, the contrast is spoken of as a feature of experience itself. And this must mean that one situation or mode of consciousness bespeaks itselfas related by contrast to other situations or modes of consciousness. Seeing is thereforesaid to be the fulfillment of the intentional experiences with which it is contrasted.And fulfillment is a "descriptivelypeculiar awareness of fulfillment," an awareness to which one might give expression by saying something like "That's it!."2 Consistent with this line of thought Husserl holds that the intentional experiences with which seeing is contrasted are pointing the way toward such a fulfillment, occasionally speaking of consciousness as having a teleological structure.I take this to mean that an epistemic situation which is not a seeing of the object itself includes an awareness on the part of -the subject of what is lacking and a knowledge of how to proceed toward a situation of seeing.3Since this point is of direct importance for my thesis, I shall dwell on it a bit further. When an intentionalexperience is characterized as "empty,"this termdesignates a character of that experience. Now emptiness would not be a phenomenological character of a certain situation and the latter would not have the character of being somehow unsatisfactory, if the subject did not somehow view his present experience in the lightof other experiences. The character of being empty can be truly assigned as a phenomenological character only if there is an experienced relationbetween actual and potential experiences. In a moment I shall argue the same sort of interpretationfor seeing as a fulfilled intention.But firsta few other matters should be mentioned. Husserl does not define "seeing" in the manner in which "intuition" has so often been defined,namely by referenceto the kinds of does not stipulate, for example, that object it can have. His definition only simple objects, whatever they might be, can be seen. Hence his description of a mode of consciousness as one of seeing does not presuppose that the object is of a sort such that it is capable of
I "PsychologischeStudien zur elementarenLogik," PhilosophischeMonatshefte, XX (1894), p. 178.Cf. Logische Uniersuchungen, II, 2, 143-4. 2 Logische Untersuchungen, II, 2, pp. 32, 65. 3 Formale und transzendentale Logik, p. 206.

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being taken in at a single mental glance. He likewise avoids in his definitionall referenceto a definite,uniformsort of mental act. He does not maintain, for example, that seeing is always a matter of gazing or peering at something. His definitiondoes not stipulate whetherit is a simple or a complex act, easy or difficultto perform. His language may suggest a simple act of gazing or looking,particularly the term Anschauung. But I maintain that, if we attend strictly to the essential elements of his concept, we have to come to the conclusion that he is speaking of a functionalrelation between modes of consciousness; equivalently,he speaks of a mode of givenness (of an object) that is related in a certain way, namely by way of contrast,to other modes of givenness (of that same object). An intentional experience is a case of seeing whenever it functionsas a fulfillment of other experiences directed to the same object. This is why his application of the term Anschauung to apprehensions of states of affairs and what he calls essences is possible without committinghim to a denial of the traditional dichotomy of objects of experience and objects of thought.As a term with only an achievement-senseit does not pretend to describe any particular type of experience. Whatever the object of intentionalreference,and whatever the intentionalexperiences involved,"seeing" is only a designation of a role or function which one experience may have in relation to others, as when, in Husserl's language, an act of "mere intending"finds fulfillment in the act that brings its object into view. "Seeing" marks an arrival as such, whatever it is that is arriving and whatever it is arrivingat.4 The contrast which I have thus,far spoken of as crucial for a correct understandingof Husserl's doctrine of seeing is one between points on a scale. In the Logical Investigations the author uses the expression "cognitive degrees" (Erkenntnisstufen).All points on this scale have in common an intentional reference to the same object. But their position on the scale marks what we might call the subject's epistemic distance from that object, the highest point being the situation in which one sees the object itself. Below it, but still above that of a mere empty intention,Husserl places, in the case of individual material objects, the having of an image or picture of the object. In a certain sense the object is brought into view. But when
4 Good remarksare found in E. Levinas, La Thdorie de intuition dans la phdnomd~nologie de Husserl (Paris, 1930). He states: 'Il ne s'agit donc pas de mettre,dans le concept de intuition, la notion de sensible, ni celle "d'immediat," au sens de "donn6 avant toute demarche positive de espritt; il ne s'agit d'opposer intuition i la "discursion," mais d'appuyer sur le fait meme que intuition est un acte possedant son objet (106/7).' Yet he is clearly more helpfulin what he rejects as erroneous interpre$Ations than in what he suggestson the positive side. See also pp. 125, 127,134/5,140.

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the intention is animated by the concern to know what the object really is, then an image is only a seeing that anticipates, without actually achieving,the point of seeing the object itself. On this scale, then, there is nothing superior to seeing. Now if we keep in mind exactly what sort of scale is here in question, then we may also better understand the nature of the sort of achievement constitutedby seeing the object itself.As I understand him Husserl is saying somethinglike this. Seeing is, phenomenologicallyspeaking, an achievement,because in the awareness of the subject nothing is lacking. There is in his awareness nothing he could do to improve his situation vis-a-visthe object. Within the range of possible ways of gettingat the object there is no epistemic relation that might be more favorable than his present relation. In short, he has done all that he takes to be possible. If this interpretationis correct, then the intentional experience called "seeing the object itself" is one that includes awareness of a set of possible, though less favorable, situations in which the same object mightbe referredto. It includes the subject's awareness that his object, in contrast to modes in which it might be given, is now given in an optimal mode. Without this it would not be the achievement which it is. The intensive pronoun "itself" in the locution "the object itself,"as well as the emphatic "self" in the expression "selfgivenness,"serve no other purpose than that of contrastinga present mode of givenness with other modes which the subject is aware of as being possible.5 of HusAs indicated by the title of this paper, my interpretation serl's concept of seeing emphasizes the relation between this concept and that of horizon or implicit context.What he says about the phenomenon of horizon, I maintain, must be given more attention in clarifyingthe concept of seeing than he himself did. Now it seems -to me that we can go a little furtherin this direction. Seeing the object itself,we saw, involves awareness of a context of other possible experiencesof that object. What is the nature of this awareness? And what is this phenomenon of context? In order to extract from Husserl some answers to these questions I will state two of the conclusions he seems to come to in his analyses of the phenomenon of horizon: (1) A subject's awareness of the context of his actual experience involves awareness of himself as endowed with powers he can activate. What is not actually perceived, for example, is in his
bei Husserl 5 See the excellentdiscussion of Ernst Tugendhat,Der Wahrheitsbegriff und Heidegger (Berlin, 1967), pp. 55-59.

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awareness somethingthat would be perceived, if he should activate such and such powers of movement. In other words, the awareness of context consists in familiaritywith the way in which objects of various kinds "respond" in their appearances to kinds of moves he can in principle initiate. (2) The context need not be explicitly referredto, for example, by speaking about it, asking questions, visualizing details, etc. In fact such explicit referencesare possible only on the basis of an already available framework or system of implicit references which,as it were, embodies the familiarity mentioneda moment ago. Horizon is implicitcontext. Using these points for the purpose of clarifyingthe very general concept of seeing we might formulate Husserl's view somewhat as follows. Seeing the object itself is an experience or situation that includes an awareness of context in the form of a familiaritywith the ways in which objects of various kinds or categories can be approached. And the context in question is a domain that is open to our approaches prior to any particular actual approach to an object belonging to it. Seeing A itself is a mode of consciousness or situation which owes its phenomenologicalcharacter to the subject's familiarity with a domain in which he knows his way. And knowing his way means, I think,that he knows what he can do, what may be looked for if he does one of the things he can do, and the worth of the various appearances. Somethinglike this,it seems to me, is involvedin Husserl's concept of seeing the object itself. I have deliberately restricted my analysis to Husserl's general concept of Anschauung. Though in its nontechnical use the term is primarilyapplied to perceiving individual objects of a material sort, Husserl's general concept of seeing is such that perceiving is a case of a situation of seeing the object itself. He himself devoted many of his most careful analyses to perceiving. I will not undertake now to examine them, but it may be helpful to say a few things about them in order to shed some further lighton the precise import of the analyses of this paper. In perceiving a material object the subject does not see the object all at once. Yet Husserl insists that a perceptual situation is a case of seeing the object itself.The percipientis implicitlyaware that he has come as close as possible to his object and that no other situation gives a betterview.' What he means, I think,is somethinglike this. If a subject who makes the claim that he sees the object itselfis challenged,he will tryto point out that there is indeed
' Cf. Ideen, ? 43.

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nothingsuperior to his present view. He will say that there are such and such situations of being intentionallydirected upon this object, but that all of these are less favorable. He himselfmay actually have been in one of those situations; in any case he is aware of such situations as being possible. Now he will stand corrected, only if it is shown to him that that sort of object admits of, and hence requires, an approach that is better than what he took to be a seeing of the object itself.And this means that it would have been shown to him that he did not in fact do all that was possible and that he can attain a view of the object that is still better. But if this cannot be shown, then his claim to be seeing the object itself,in the sense which this paper assigns to that locution,is justified. Since the perceptual object is an external object of a material sort, however, the subject is also aware that thereis more to theobject than what he actually perceives. Now this means that there is yet another range of possible views of the object than that with respect to which the achievement of seeing the object itself is defined. To put it differently, there is not only the implicit claim that one sees the object itself, but also an implicit claim or belief that there are other perceptions of the same object. And what they yield must be consistent with the truth-claim embodied in the initial perceiving,if the latter is to stand. But the importantpoint I want to make is that the achievement-senseof perceiving is determinedby referenceto possible situations that are less favorable than perceiving,whereas furtherpossible perceptions are of the same sort and thus equally favorable. One might put it this way: furtherperceptions are not superior to the initial situation, since the case for believing that the object is what it appears to be in that situation is as strongas the case ever is for believing that kind of thing.If doubt were reasonable in this situation, then it would be reasonable in all situations. If a skeptic calls for doubt here, then the subject does not know what to do. These formulationsmake use of points in Husserl's theoryof knowledge that I do not have space to discuss, but theymay neverthelessbe helpful to come to an appreciation of the sort of thing that is meant by maintaining,in effect,that seeing the object itself may be a situation in which the object is presented only partially,as in perceptions of material objects.7 From what was just said it should also be clear that "seeing the object itself" cannot be taken to mean that, whereas in other epis7 Stephen Strasser's suggestionthat the perspectivalcharacterof perceptionsshows the need for complementing the principle of intuitionwith the principle of dialectics strikes me as indicative of an incorrectanalysis of Husserl's concept of intuitionor seeing. See his "Intuition und Dialektik in der Philosophie Edmund Husserls," Edmund Husseri, 1859-1959 (The Hague, 1959), pp. 148-153.

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temic situations the subject encountered mere appearances, he has now in this climactic situation somehow managed to crash through the veil of appearances, attained an epistemic "situation" which no longer in any way reflects the limitations of the knowing subject, and succeeded in laying hold of the object as it exists in itselfbeyond the subjective appearances. The sense in which seeing is optimal and climactic is certainlynot such that it entails its own truth.This kind of interpretationleads to a great deal of unclarity,when you get to the central parts of Husserl's theory of knowledge. I cannot now treat these matters with the degree of precision that they require. I shall only mention a few points. In Husserl's more strictlyepistemological analyses, which, to be sure, are intimatelyconnected with those dealt with in this paper, seeing the object itselfis held to be a situation which confers a right upon a cognitiveclaim in a way no other situation does. Where a subject has no conception of how he mightimprove his situation,skepticism is unreasonable, because there are in that situation no grounds for doubt. But a subject who sees the object itself and is therefore justified in claiming that the object exists and has the qualities it appears to have is not necessarily right.What is evident is not necessarily true. Though the subject is perfectlyjustified in implyingthat it is true,this justified doxastic attitude does not entail that it is true. Our interpretationof "seeing the object itself" should thereforebe such that it allows one to account also for these views of the author. Herbert Spiegelberg once maintained that granting a phenomenon the title self-givenness would be begging the question whether what is given to us is really the object itself or only a misleading pretender.8In this paper I have tried to suggest an interpretationthat would justify the application of that title to a phenomenon without begging that question. There is a very specific sense in which seeing constitutes an achievement. But this achievement does not include its own truth. HENRY PIETERSMA.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.

"Phenomenologyof Direct Evidence," Philosophyand PhenomenologicalResearch, 11 (1941-42),430/1.

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