The Transcendence of the World: Phenomenological Studies

THE

Transcendence

OF THE

World

PHENOMENOLOGICAL

STUDIES

THE

Transcendence

OF THE

World

PHENOMENOLOGICAL

STUDIES

Richard

Holmes

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Holmes, Richard, 1941-

The transcendence of the world : phenomenological studies

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-88920-241-9

1. Transcendence (Philosophy). 2. Phenomenology.

I. Title.

BD362.H65 1995 142’.7 C94-931282-7

Copyright © 1995

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

N2L3C5

Cover design by Leslie Macredie

Printed in the United States of America

The Transcendence of the World: Phenomenological Studies has been produced from a manuscript supplied in camera-ready form by the author.

All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical— without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H3S6.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

The Project of Phenomenology

1. Explication and Descartes

2. The World According to Husserl

CHAPTER TWO

The Unification of Consciousness

CHAPTER THREE

The Constitution of Transcendent Objects

1. Edmund Husserl

2. Jean-Paul Sartre and the Transphenomenal Being of the Phenomena

3. Husserl’s Answers

CHAPTER FOUR

The World According to Heidegger

CHAPTER FIVE

The Foundation of the World

CHAPTER SIX

Excursus: A Consideration of Mental Telepathy

1.The Analogy with Memory

2. The Analogy with Aesthetic Experience

CHAPTER SEVEN

Conclusion

Afterword

Appendix

The Need for the Turn to Transcendental Phenomenology

Notes

List of Works Cited

Index

Preface

This book has been developed with two goals in mind. First, I want to bring together some of the major figures in the phenomenological movement on the topic of what it means to be a world independent of any particular awareness of it. To this end, I focus on the writings of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre as containing the most important and influential analyses of our experience of the world. Second, I am both critical as I appraise their work and radical as I develop my own analyses which strive to make sense not only of our experience of the world but of the theory of quantum mechanics that purports to describe this world. Fundamental to this task is the desire to confront the postmodern challenge to the possibility of legitimating any particular definite sense that may be given to or interpreted from our experience. What I offer here is not an anachronistic version of phenomenology that ostrich-like refuses to see the developments in contemporary philosophy since Heidegger’s End of Philosophy¹ and the whole deconstructive movement. Rather, I am interested to use phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre, as well as Derrida, to forge a common perspective that enables this explication of what it means for us to have a world. Crucial to my task is a focussing on the phenomenon of our world and how we interactively are of it and it of us. Throughout my concern is to provide an analysis that will allow a plurality of theories to defend their interpretations whether they are about literary works, ordinary physical objects, or the behaviour of microparticles. Although, at best, my present accomplishment is a sketch or preview of such a provision, its legitimacy has its roots in the phenomena and what I take to be the underlying visions and results of thinkers from Husserl to Derrida; it is offered in the spirit of co-phenomenologizing with them.

Acknowledgements

Philosophy became my vocation primarily because of Fred Kersten as he tutored me in what it means to do phenomenology. His help in establishing my background in this area of study has been immense and I continue to look to his work for guidance. As my second main teacher, Herbert Spiegelberg provided me with the most rigorous training in the humility needed to approach the results of my reading of texts and phenomena. His encyclopedic knowledge of the phenomenological movement was a tremendous resource as well. Specific encouragement and critical help from many colleagues and students through the years has been invaluable. In this connection I must at least mention Lester Embree, Richard Zaner, Osborne Wiggins, Bob Nicholls, Mano Daniel, and Wendy O’Brien-Ewara. The entire manuscript has been read and critiqued by Larry Haworth and Sandra Woolfrey and two anonymous readers for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities; I have benefited enormously from their comments and perspectives. Annemarie Klassen has done an exceptionally fine job of copy editing and the final product is very much better thanks to her work. Grace Logan was tremendously helpful as we prepared the camera-ready copy. As all may wish to attest, I cannot hold responsible anyone else for what has eventuated, but it would be strange and presumptuous to think I might have or could have done this alone. I also want to acknowledge and thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council General Research Grant Committee and Brian Hendley, the Dean of Arts at the University of Waterloo, for their financial support in aid of this publication. Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Gabriela, Nicola, Andrew, Lindsey and Paula for their continual support and affection.

Parts of this work have already appeared in the following places, although usually in somewhat different form:

An Explication of Husserl’s Notion of the Noema. Research in Phenomenology 5 (1975): 143-153.

Consciousness Revisited. Research in Phenomenology 8 (1978): 191-201.

Being-In-Itself Revisited. Dialogue 23 (1984): 397-406.

The World According to Husserl and Heidegger. Man and World 18 (1985): 373-385.

Editor’s Introduction. Eidos 7 (1989): 1-14.

Humanism and Transcendental Phenomenology. In Japanese and Western Phenomenology. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993.

Introduction

In what follows, my primary purpose is to explicate what it means to be a world transcending our awareness of it—the world of objects usually called real. I believe a correct description of consciousness and its objects yields a way of seeing the real world as something not fixed and determinate in itself out there, causing what we experience to be as we experience it. Instead, the world becomes what it is as we enact our project—objects become salient as they crystallize in our experience, not before. This contention is buttressed by working out an interpretation of quantum physics that provides, at least, a fruitful analogy for this explication of the transcendence of the world. My overall strategy is to try to redirect our attention—to move away from thinking of the real world as having its own objective meaning, independent of our awareness of it. Instead, we must rid ourselves of the prejudice which ascribes an impenetrable and independent meaning to the world and see it as transparent, yet transcendent, to consciousness.²

My secondary purpose is to provide an accessible and coherent account of both the method and results of phenomenological analysis—one that I believe can make sense of the work of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Although these thinkers are often taken as being at odds with one another, I endeavour to relate them, and the fundamental insights they have developed, in a way that shows their deep compatibility and complementarity.³ By putting together some of the basic themes from their writings, without claiming comprehensiveness or adequacy with respect to their entire rich and complex work, I have the foundation or which to build up my explication of the world. Unique to my account are two claims: (1) the world of all objects, including those we call real, emerges in concert with a community of mutually incompatible mundanized consciousnesses, and (2) the best way to appreciate this conception of the world is to view its status and constitution as analogous to that of photons (light) as we strive to appreciate the quantum weirdness associated with their seeming ability to communicate superluminally, and their ability to manifest themselves as both wavelike and particlelike. In general, the shift I am trying to inaugarate stems from my desire to mediate between the seminar room and the starry skies—the skepticism of Hume and the resistance of the real world. The melding of all our stories about the world can occur if proper attention is paid to our experience of it.

Part of what I want to demonstrate is the need to carry through with Husserl’s initial insight about what it means to do philosophy. I say philosophy because I believe any philosophical endeavour should take as its project the explication of all that is phenomenally evident. Whether my task is sorting out what it means to be an object in the physical world; determining what is the nature and status of a theory about the physical world; developing the role of aesthetic appreciations or the thrust and legitimacy of ethical pronouncements; setting out the experience of time and our awareness of our own death; or, even, assessing the validity and desirability of faith, there is always a need to carry out this task by explicating the phenomena as presented in the awareness of them.

The world is meant as at least a collection of the objects which can be said to be worldly and these are meant as objects which are believed to have a fixed and determinate existence. I may not have certainty and clarity with respect to the nature of this world but I believe it has a definite sense. Yet, it is this belief that causes the problems—I think there must be a way to know the world but it seems to escape my attempts to pin it down. Needed is a reappraisal in order to see that the world, and all other objects, owes its sense to a fundamental level of consciousness and its objects. That this is not another way of putting off the problem requires an explication of the objects of our awareness, in order to see that our wonder about the starry sky is understandable, but we need to avoid a misplaced concern for a transcendent world.

One very interesting way of demonstrating this misplacedness is through the example of coming to grips with the possibility of mental telepathy. We need not accept its actuality, but the mechanism we should use to account for its possibility is very instructive with respect to how we constitute the world as ours. To begin, I need to sketch the conception of consciousness I am here using and defending, a task I tackle by first looking at the basic project of phenomenology and then at some of Descartes’ concerns. As is known, even Husserl thought Descartes was on the right track but failed to see the need for a new conception of consciousness.⁴

CHAPTER ONE

The Project of Phenomenology