Horkheimer's Criticism of Husserl (013) PH&SC

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Habip Trker
Horkheimer's Criticism of Husserl
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Article
Horkheimers Criticism
of Husserl
Habip T urker
Mardin Artuklu University, YenisehirMardin, Turkey
Abstract
This article focuses on Max Horkheimers criticism of Husserls phenomenology in basic philoso-
phical matters such as method, theory, logic, truth, metaphysics, etc. Horkheimer objects to
Husserls conception of philosophy as a mathesis universalis and of science as relativistic research.
However, he finds Husserls criticism of scientific rationalism the most important step for the
legitimacy of philosophy. According to him, Husserls method is intended to be a science of apriority.
But his understanding of apriority is static, is radically abstract, and overlooks the dialectical relation.
Therefore, his method is ahistorical and undialectical. Horkheimer does not interpret Husserls
idealism in the sense of classical idealism. However, he believes that the positivistic and Cartesian
implications in Husserls philosophy made his method less fruitful in concrete situations. Conse-
quently, he calls Husserls phenomenology abstract positivism, traditional theory and a bourgeois
ideology. Horkheimers critique focuses on Husserls early period of phenomenology.
Keywords
Critical theory, Max Horkheimer, Edmund Husserl, method, phenomenology, traditional theory
Phenomenology and critical theory are two main philosophical traditions in continental
philosophy. Phenomenology is one of the historical sources that anticipated critical
theory and played a decisive role in its formation. As is known, the founding theoretician
of critical theory is Max Horkheimer who studied with Husserl in 19201 on the recom-
mendation of Hans Cornelius. During this period he also met Martin Heidegger,
Husserls young assistant at the time. According to On Max Horkheimer, The encoun-
ter with Heidegger provided an early impetus to the process by which Horkheimer
gradually began distancing himself from the sort of Neo-Kantianism represented by
Cornelius.
1
However, his relation to phenomenology differs from that of Marcuse and
Adorno in some respects. For instance, in the process of the formation of Marcuses
Corresponding author:
Habip T urker, Mardin Artuklu University, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Department of Philosophy, Yenisehir
Yerleskesi, Mardin, Turkey.
Email: habipturker@gmail.com
Philosophy and Social Criticism
39(7) 619635
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0191453713491234
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philosophy, phenomenology (in a Heideggerian sense) played a much more important
role than it did in that of Horkheimer. Nevertheless, both Husserl and Heidegger made
a lasting impact on Horkheimers thought.
Here, I shall treat exclusively Horkheimers criticism of Husserls phenomenology.
His criticism of phenomenology is scattered in his various essays, but he devotes to
Husserls phenomenology 39 pages under two separate titles in Gesammelte Schriften
10, which consists of the essays he wrote between the years 1914 and 1931, focusing
on the first period of phenomenology. In his essays after 1930, he leveled his criticism
at phenomenology both implicitly and explicitly in a scattered way. However, Horkhei-
mers criticism refers mostly to the early period of Husserl, which is the descriptive
phenomenology of Logical Investigations.
The criticism of science and Husserls logic
Horkheimers criticism of phenomenology can be seen partially as related to his criticism
of vitalism, Cartesianism and positivism. He sometimes assesses phenomenology together
with vitalism and finds some crucial common points between them. He even cites Max
Scheler, the disciple of Husserl, together with Bergson in many places. According to John
Abromeit, The general outlines of Horkheimers reception of vitalism and phenomenol-
ogy emerge clearly from lectures he gave in the late 1920s.
2
We can describe Horkhei-
mers studies as a project aiming at re-establishing and modifying materialism by
purifying it of positivism, naturalism, even idealism and metaphysics. In this process he
made use in particular of the criticism of phenomenology and vitalism leveled at scientific
rationalism held by positivism and naturalism. Horkheimer is much more critical of phi-
losophy of life than of phenomenology. For example, Bergson is denounced for his overall
rejection of conceptual knowledge and scientific truth. Horkheimer believes that refuting
conceptual knowledge takes us to denying reason. Indeed, he shares the critiques of
Dilthey and Bergson in many respects, but he takes a critical position against what they
offer as the resolution of the problems evoked by positivism and rationalism.
Horkheimer appreciates Husserl as the last genuine epistemologist.
3
However, he
considers Husserl as a typical bourgeois philosopher. He finds Husserls criticism of sci-
entific rationalism the most important step for the legitimacy of philosophy. According
to Horkheimer, there are three steps to re-establish or rescue the legitimacy of philoso-
phy. According to Abromeit, The first tentative step was that of neo-Kantians in a
positivist epoch. The second, but the first truly substantial attempt to break the mono-
poly of positivism and to re-establish philosophy as an autonomous discipline, came
with the publication of Edmund Husserls Logical Investigations. The vitalist critique
is the next historical step in the emancipation of philosophy from science.
4
Husserls main objection to science was that all forms of positivism both in natural and
social sciences are inadequate in explaining phenomena; additionally, they are relativistic
because of being grounded only on empirical data. Thus we need a more adequate and rig-
orous science that could explain phenomena originally. While philosophy was subordinated
toscience with the dominationof positivism, Husserl attempted to reverse the process and to
show in his different works that philosophy can be established as a rigorous science and
mathesis universalis. According to Husserl, to be based on only empirical data and to reduce
620 Philosophy and Social Criticism 39(7)
ideality to natural processes in a mechanistic way are crucial mistakes of positivism. There-
fore, the arbitration of science in every matter is unacceptable.
Horkheimer gives a detailed account of Husserls logic in the Gesammelte Schriften
10 where he seems to be well aware of what Husserl intended to do. He says that accord-
ing to Husserl everything that we determine factually has just relative validity. All
regularities we found on the basis of our observing the facts have no unconditioned laws
[Gesetze]; and we can never know that these facts in future too would happen in accor-
dance with these regularities. Horkheimer goes on to say that it is Husserls strong belief
that in psychological and physiological nature alike, both the fact of consciousness and
things in space can give us only the principles that are revisable through the facts.
5
Thus,
logical laws cannot be gained from the facts. If it were so, the unconditioned validity of
these laws could not be saved. All positivism (psychologism and empiricism) is
relativism, and relativizes the validity of logical laws, whether it admits this or not. It
is capable of bestowing only probabilities [Wahrscheinlichkeit], but this is contrary to
the sense of these laws. They admit of no exception and no changeability; and they are
immediately transparent [einsichtig] as in the case of the principle of contradiction (two
contrary principles cannot be true at the same time).
6
In Husserl logical laws are the pre-
suppositions and the principles of science and all kinds of theory. However, they do not
presuppose any (factual) thing for their validity.
7
Consequently, Husserl defends the
absolute independence of logical laws from the facts.
8
Horkheimer describes this conception of logic or apriority as deficient because it is
undialectical and very radical in its division of philosophy and science. He associates this
sharp division with Husserls conception of science. He says that both Husserls and
Cohens conceptions of science are problematic. Neo-Kantians regarded natural science
as the legitimate master builder of the system; and philosophy was just the comprehen-
sion of their method. Husserl considered natural science in its empirical structure to be
vague and unphilosophical. But neither Husserl nor Cohen knew practically what natural
science is because their conception of science stems basically from the philosophical tra-
dition. Cohen understood science in the sense of Cartesian rationalism as a mathematical
system; and Husserl interpreted it in the sense of English sensualism as a factual research
that accepted the mathematical form of deductive system as the unique rigorous
scientific form.
9
Thus he appropriates neither Husserls sharp division of philosophy and
science nor relativism and absolutism. As we will see below, Horkheimer holds that to be
based on empirical data does not necessarily mean relativism. He suggests a position that
rejects both relativism and absolutism.
Horkheimer also differs from Husserl radically in the resolution of the problems
produced by science. For Husserl, the deficiency in the explanation of the phenomena
is in science itself. It cannot be reconciled with some modifications because there is a
variety of phenomena about which science has nothing to say. What science does is
an illegitimate reduction of every phenomenon to mere empirical facts. Hence, Husserl
suggests a science based on ideality. Horkheimer does not share Husserls views on the
nature of science itself; he says that the deficiency is not in science itself or because of
the science, but because of the ongoing changing of social reality.
10
He apparently
believes that science can be recovered if one considers social realitys continuous
changing.
T urker 621
It follows that he does reject Husserls idea of rigorous science or a mathesis universalis
to be developed separately fromscience. For, to take such a position would be repugnant to
the character of social phenomena. However, Horkheimer participates in Husserls denun-
ciations of current scientific method as being superficial or na ve and of its mechanistic
method in understanding profound problems. He says that science, in spite of its industrial
achievements, became unsuccessful in explaining social problems.
11
It cannot approach
ongoing changing social phenomena as it does nature. Thus its mechanistic approach to
social phenomena does not yield a correct explanation. In order to grasp the structure
of social reality or the development of men acting in history we need a theoretical deli-
neation of profoundly transformative processes which revolutionize all cultural relation-
ships. The structure is not to be mastered by simply recording events as they occur,
which was the method practiced in the old-style natural science.
12
Horkheimer points out that we are indebted to phenomenological achievements in
exposing the shortcomings of current scientific method. The criticism of phenomenolo-
gists and other philosophers led science to experience an inner crisis. For example, there
is the metaphysics of Max Scheler, who, Horkheimer writes, once again turned the
attention of science as a whole to numerous neglected areas and prepared the way at
many points for a method less hindered by conventional narrowness of outlook. Above
all, the description of important psychic phenomena, the delineation of the social types,
and the founding of a sociology of knowledge have had fruitful results.
13
Yet Hork-
heimer says that in spite of some fruitfulness, metaphysics, both phenomenologically
oriented and vitalist, has some crucial deficiencies. First, these philosophies interpreted
reality as a mythical essence, not a real living society in its historical development.
14
Their conception of life is essentialist and lacks history.
15
Horkheimer criticizes here
especially the metaphysics of Max Scheler who, unlike Husserl, regarded essential
insight [Wesensschau], as a key to open the metaphysical essences of objects. Scheler
even believed, at this time, that Wesensschau might even help liberate Europe from the
iron cage of rationalization into which it had haplessly maneuvered itself.
16
Addition-
ally, Horkheimer accuses phenomenology and vitalism of an anti-scientific character.
Such essays in the last analysis did not stimulate science but were simply negative
towards it.
17
He says that according to Husserl we cannot trust science in fundamental
questions and we cannot incorporate scientific elements into philosophy.
18
Horkheimer
opposes such a stance and definitely does not approve of the view that phenomenological
method is completely detached from science.
19
Although Husserl is right in his criticism
of science, his suggestion in the overcoming of the problems with science is untenable.
The problems with science cannot be overcome by purely theoretical insight. Only a
change in the real conditions for science within the historical process can win such a vic-
tory.
20
Yet, Husserl takes historicism as an epistemological mistake, evaluates it in the
same category as psychologism, and dismisses it from phenomenological method.
Indeed, Husserl recognizes the extraordinary value of history in the broadest sense for
the philosopher; since a deeper penetration into general life of the spirit offers the phi-
losopher a more original and hence more fundamental research than material does pene-
tration into nature.
21
However, Husserl sees historicism as something related to the
problem of truth; his sharp division of relativism and absolutism leads him to have a neg-
ative position to historicism. He says that
. . . it is easy to see that historicism, if consistently carried through, carries over into
extreme skeptical subjectivism. The ideas of truth, theory, and science would then, like all
ideas, lose their absolute validity. That an idea has validity would mean that it is a factual
construction of spirit which is held as valid and which in its contingent validity determines
thought. There would be no unqualified validity or validity in-itself.
22
Husserls aversion to history is methodical; he sees history not as a method of science
but of Geisteswissenschaften. Worldview philosophy [Weltanschauungsphilosophie] is
evaluated in this context; the task of philosophy is to be science, not to be worldview for
an age. Husserl thinks that history is not a proper way in achieving purely scientific
philosophy. So he sustains basically the Cartesian idea of science and foundationalist
epistemology in his early period. However, scientific philosophy is not a philosophy that
follows what natural sciences do; philosophy must be science in its proper way. Thus
Husserls attitude towards science cannot be interpreted as an anti-scienticism; Husserl
never rejected science, but simply suspended it; namely, he did not incorporate scientific
views into phenomenological method, since phenomenology, unlike science, uses the
first-person perspective and deals with different kinds of phenomena.
Horkheimer says that phenomenology is intended to be the autonomous science of
logical objects that are independent from the facts so that evident principles do not tol-
erate [dulden] any exception. In such logic, dialectic is missing.
23
He claims that it is
impossible immediately to get any absolute knowledge and to transfer it mechanically;
every knowledge, it does not matter how abstract it is, belongs to a concrete situation
whose special traits might not be visible [sichtbar] because of its implicitness [Selbst-
verst andlichkeit] for the members of a certain cultural circle or a historical epoch. New
insights [Einsicht] do not annihilate the earlier knowledge, but relativize and restrict
[Einschr ankung] it; whereas in Husserl concrete situation is fundamentally unimportant.
Horkheimer argues that Husserls view of immediate insight [unmittelbare Einsichtigkeit]
that aims at the absolute validity, the apriority, is virtually a means to absolutize a certain
historical condition of knowledge [Erkenntnislage].
24
The dialectic calls for expounding
the conditions everywhere. Both subject and object belong to the peculiarity of a condi-
tioning constellation [die Besonderheit der bedingenden Konstellation]. The sense and
value of knowledge always can become problematic. Thus Horkheimer thinks that Hus-
serls concept of apriority, in particular, is undialectical.
25
Horkheimer goes on to say that Husserls concept of apriority is founded on evidence
that excludes [ausschliesst] the confinement or alteration [Ver anderung] of insight
through knowledge of mediating conditions and announces immediate access to absolute
truth through intuition. Indeed, the concept of apriority became one of reasons for the
wide influence of Husserls teaching. But it means in logic a regression [R uckschritt]
compared with Cohens teaching of progressive relativizing of axioms and possible
changing of knowledge methods; and in the further development of phenomenology this
concept led to an untenable ontology.
26
Horkheimer claims that Husserl with his undia-
lectical philosophy agrees, like the neo-Kantians, with a mere mechanistic psychology
and physics. This undialectical distinction of philosophy and real sciences made
Husserls highest contemporary theories less fruitful in concrete areas.
27
As Horkheimer
sees, mechanism and ahistoricism are the common points between positivism and
T urker 623
Husserls logic in this period. Therefore, it is not an unjustified criticism to say that
Husserls early phenomenology is undialectic. In the beginning, he intended to posit,
against naturalism, phenomenology as a science of ideality which is the precondition
of the sciences of factuality. But in his criticism Horkheimer does not consider Husserls
theory of constitution, intersubjectivity and his turning towards history in crisis.
Horkheimers criticism of both phenomenology and science rotates around dialectical
materialism; he finds Husserls sharp distinction between science and philosophy unten-
able. Thus his criticism of science or positivism does not prevent him from committing to
scientific results; unlike Husserl, Horkheimer believes in unification of philosophy and
science. He says that he does not mean by this unification the absolutization of particular
scientific doctrines. With respect to his conception of the unification of science and phi-
losophy, every piece of knowledge would be taken as a representation by particular
men in a particular society, context and moment of time.
28
So he should not be accused
of being a positivist. He believes that this conception of science distinguishes material-
ism from the positivism and empirico-criticism of the 19th century. Horkheimer writes,
Despite all its its belief in the progress of science, positivism necessarily understood
science itself in an unhistorical way.
29
But a genuine materialism considers scientific
data with respect to the historical context and the process of ongoing change in society.
I think, in any case, that Horkheimers demand for the unification of science and
philosophy blurs his anti-positivistic stance because such a unification can subordinate
philosophy to science, even though scientific doctrines are not absolutized. Additionally,
the dogmatic character of scientific doctrines should be considered here, which is oppo-
site to the non-dogmatic character of philosophy.
Concisely, Horkheimer like Husserl emphasizes the independence of philosophy from
science. He interprets Husserls phenomenology as an ahistorical and undialectical
method. Thus he appropriates neither Husserls conception of philosophy nor his
conception of science, but his criticism of scientific rationalism.
Theory or mathesis universalis?
Husserl believes that his phenomenology is a method, not a theory or a philosophical
system. Although he uses the term theory or theory of essence for phenomenology
for example, in Philosophy as Rigorous Science he does not mean by it a theory that
gives non-absolute or tentative explanations, but a theory that is strict.
30
He posited phe-
nomenology as a fundamental epistemology that aims at absolute knowledge and to
found philosophy as a rigorous science. Husserl thought that he did not establish a phi-
losophical system and bring any tentative theory to explain phenomena; but just a
method to expound phenomena in their self-evidence. Horkheimer says that it is unten-
able to defend a theory of all possible theories and a theory in the sense of mathesis
universalis,
31
which aims at absolute knowledge. Husserl is, like Plato and Kant, an ahis-
torical thinker and is the chief representative of the idea that philosophy is an exact
science. That is why Horkheimer calls Husserl both a Platonist and a Kantian.
32
According to Horkheimer, there are two main theories historically: traditional theory
and critical theory. Traditional theory is generally logical and depending on the
logicians own general philosophical outlook, the most universal propositions from
which the deduction begins are themselves regarded as experiential judgments,
inductions (as with John Stuart Mill), as evident insights (as in rationalist and phenom-
enological schools) or arbitrary postulates (as in modern axiomatic approach).
33
He
regards Husserl as one of the representatives of the traditional theory and tries to justify
his claim with Husserls definition of theory and his phenomenological philosophy. He
says that Husserl, who represented the most advanced logic of the present time, defined
theory in Logical Investigations as an enclosed system of proposition for a science as a
whole.
34
Husserl sees theory entirely as a systematically linked set of propositions,
taking the form of a systematically unified deduction. Then, science becomes a certain
totality of propositions . . . emerging in one or other manner from theoretical work, in
the systematic order of which propositions a certain totality of objects acquires defini-
tion.
35
The fundamental precondition for the perspective of the traditional theory is that
all the parts of the system should intermesh thoroughly and without friction.
36
When we consider Horkheimers criticism of phenomenology, Husserls phenomen-
ology, too, must be regarded as a traditional theory which is described by Horkheimer as
a Cartesian mechanistic, undialectical and ahistorical method. According to Horkheimer,
Husserls method shares this trait with positivism. Horkheimers criticism implies that
Husserl is a Cartesian philosopher. Second, Horkheimer does not give a detailed critique
of pure phenomenology. However, he certainly does not read Husserls pure phenomen-
ology in the sense of classical idealism. From Horkheimers perspective, traditional the-
ory has basically Cartesian implications. He says that the belief in the form of rational
system became authoritative for the first step of phenomenology, where Husserl took
mathematics as his model.
37
He describes Husserls point essentially as a logical,
mathematical point and undialectic, anti-historicism. This makes Husserl a bourgeois
philosopher and closer to positivism.
The bourgeois subject is essentially a mathematical point. Such an individual cannot
carry out critical thinking since it is not the function of the individual or the function of a
sum total of individuals.
38
Thomas McCarthy writes that for Horkheimer, philosophy
is critical enlightenment, an ongoing attempt to bring reason into the world . . . [and]
radical, practically oriented reflection on reason and its realizations. He believed that
this kind of research cannot be carried out in the manner of classical philosophy.
39
Horkheimer seems to believe that Husserlian phenomenology considers mind separ-
able from the historical being and independent of it. He says that it is impossible to
detach the individual from the world and the world from the individuals. The world with
its objects is, in its present and ongoing form, a product of the activity of society as a
whole. The objects we perceive around us bear the mark of human labor and activity.
40
Horkheimer held a strongly historicist view by protesting against an essentialist per-
spective. He even regards the notion of a supernatural subject as madness and says that
[i]t is the human being who thinks, not the Ego or Reason . . . [and that] is not some-
thing abstract, such as the human essence, but always human beings living in a particular
historical epoch.
41
Husserl holds that consciousness exists independently from historical being. It has per-
fect freedom and autonomy.
42
Horkheimer sees this kind of idea as a Cartesian implication
and delineates it as an ideology in the strict sense. Thus, the bourgeois ideology appears
in the absolute and perfect freedom and autonomy of the individual. Accordingly,
T urker 625
phenomenology can be called a bourgeois ideology. As we said above, this does not mean
that Horkheimer claims that Husserls subject is a worldless subject. He obviously
acknowledges the merit of Husserls pure phenomenology and does not identify it with
traditional idealism. But Horkheimer believes that Husserls phenomenology cannot carry
out the task of critical theory because of the above-mentioned Cartesian implications.
Horkheimer does not conceive of philosophy and its problems independently of its
social-historical function. His conception of philosophy is basically an unclosed dialectical
theory. Thus, it is not surprising that he describes all schools that are not dialectical as
belonging to the traditional theory. Even though phenomenology distances itself from
positivism or empiricism, Horkheimer finds something in common between phenomenol-
ogy and other schools, which are anti-historicist, undialectic, and function mechanically.
For example, phenomenologically oriented sociologies have an identical conception of
theory with empirically oriented ones. From the empiricist perspective of sociology, the
scientist, knowing the facts, applies his or her more or less general propositions, as
hypotheses, to ever new facts. Accordingly, he or she is supposed to have reached the true
knowledge of reality. On the other hand, the phenomenologically oriented sociologist will
not bring a different conception of theory from an essentialist perspective.
43
According to
it, when we get an essential law, we have absolute knowledge because:
Every particular instance will exemplify the law. But the really hypothetical character of the
essential law is manifested as soon as the question arises whether in a particular case we are
dealing with an instance of the essence in question or of a related essence, whether we are faced
with a poor example of one type or a good example of another type. There is always, on the one
hand, the conceptually formulated knowledge and, on the other, the facts to be subsumed under
it. Such a subsumption or establishing of a relation between the simple perception or verifica-
tion of a fact and the conceptual structure of our knowing is called its theoretical explanation.
44
By these words, Horkheimer means that the phenomenological method which suggests
an essentialist perspective is not as different from empiricism as it is supposed. Although
Husserl posited phenomenology not as a deductive science, but a descriptive one,
Horkheimer does not distinguish phenomenological method from the empiricist one. The
empiricist attempts to get truth through the guidance of her or his hypotheses and general
propositions; the phenomenologist would use his or her so-called essential law as
hypothesis and general proposition. Hence, their type of functioning becomes similar.
Horkheimer goes on to say that both empirically and phenomenologically oriented
sociology overlooks something of importance: that the influence of the subject matter
on the theory, so also the application of the theory to the subject matter is not only an
intra-scientific process but a social one as well.
45
The stance of empiricist and phenom-
enologist typically reflects the stance of the individual of the bourgeois society.
46
Horkheimers subject is society more than individual; his individual is passive and
dependent. Thus he implies that the epistemic dualism, which emerges from the opposi-
tion of passivity and activity of the individual (the dualism of sense-perception and
understanding), does not hold for the society in the same measure as for the individ-
ual. Society, though made up of individuals, is an active subject.
47
However, Hor-
kheimer describes this subject, unlike the individual, as non-conscious and improper.
He separates the mode of existence of humankind and society. Historical forms of social
life have been always affected by this different mode of existence.
47
The existence of
society has either been founded directly on oppression or been the blind outcome of con-
flicting forces, but in any event not the result of conscious spontaneity on the part of free
individuals. Consequently, it appears that Horkheimers individual is conscious, but
passive; his or her society is active but non-conscious. For, she or he takes the meaning
of activity and passivity . . . according as these concepts are applied to society or to
individual. In the bourgeois economic mode the activity of society is blind and concrete,
that of individuals abstract and conscious.
48
One is tempted to ask how it becomes possible that passive and receptive individuals
make upanactive subject; since, he implies that the totalityof passivities is anactivity. Actu-
ally the backgroundof this judgement is the dialectical logic that rejects the principle of con-
tradiction. Horkheimer proposes a philosophy where the individual as an epistemological
agent does not exist. Even though he protests against the bourgeois individual as an episte-
mological subject, he pays special attention to the suffering of the individual.
I would like to ask whether Horkheimer reduces philosophy to sociology with this
conception of philosophy. His descriptions of basic philosophical problems such as
method, knowledge, truth, logic sound as if he reduces philosophy to sociology. Shortly,
Horkheimer evaluates all philosophical matters in terms of social reality. However, he
needs to warn us that the social function of philosophy must be distinguished here from
another view that identifies philosophy with one general social function, namely
ideology. Horkheimer claims that he does not reduce philosophy to sociology. For,
the critical theory is the heir not only of German idealism but of philosophy as such.
He attempts to justify his claim by saying that modern sociology takes philosophical
thought or, more correctly, thought as such as merely the expression of a specific
social situation.
49
It functions as ideology and lack comprehensive theory. Even many
schools of modern sociology are based on the notion that there is no philosophical truth,
no truth at all for humanity because they interpret all philosophical theories as accidental,
as ideology in a stereotyped way and as something determined situationally.
50
Horkheimers conception of philosophy is an interdisciplinary materialist research
project so that he deconstructs philosophy
51
in favor of sociology. However, he urges
that his project is not a sociology of knowledge in the manner of Karl Mannheim. His
critical theory shared with Mannheims sociology of knowledge a recognition of the
socially conditioned character of human thought. But he criticizes Mannheim for the
relativistic implications of his approach.
52
The problem of truth
Husserl takes both the givenness of subject and the givenness of object as the epistemo-
logical point of departure, but he rejects the traditional correspondence theory. Still, the
subject is a place of epistemological correspondence. According to Dan Zahavi, for Hus-
serl, knowledge can be characterized as an identification or synthesis between that
which is intended and that which is given.
53
Therefore, truth is not a correspondence
between consciousness and mind-independent object, but an identity between meant and
given. That is, it is a coincidence between two intentions.
53
T urker 627
Horkheimer rejects any epistemological point of departure from the subject as an indi-
vidual. He thinks that to take individual subject as an epistemological departure in order
to get absolute knowledge leads us to idealism. He calls this kind of thinking an illusion
of idealism ever since Descartes, an illusion that holds that the individual to be endowed
with perfect freedom and autonomy. Hauke Brunkhorst writes, Horkheimers philoso-
phical point of departure is the finitude and worldliness of human life, the brute fact of
the privation and misery suffered by far and away the greatest part of humanity, of
their hopes and longings and the claim to worldly happiness of individuals.
54
There-
fore, his epistemological subject is not individual, but society.
Horkheimer asserts that Cartesian language overemphasizes the logical process, but
overlooks the dialectical concrete historical process, whereas critical thought explanation
signifies not only logical process but a concrete historical one as well.
55
He enunciates
that knowledge is bound up not only with psychological and moral conditions, but also
with social conditions.
56
No doubt, this is untenable for Husserl. The knowledge bound
up with psychological, moral and social conditions is not the target at which his epistemol-
ogy aims to get, because they are relative ones. He intended to establish a science based on
ideality or a method available for having truth in itself, validity in itself. Husserl even
defends a logical Platonism
57
in Logical Investigations where he claims that no truth
is a fact, i.e. something determined as to time. A truth can indeed have as its meaning that
some thing is, that a state exists, that a change is going on, etc. The truth itself is, however,
raised above time.
58
Husserl speaks, here, on truth in the sense of ideality. Yet, this sharp
distinction between ideality and factuality is what also Horkheimer refutes. It appears that
for Husserl truth is substance more than subject. For Horkheimer, truth is more subject,
less substance.
59
He connects truth with history and freedom; truth is both practical
and theoretical.
60
Husserl does not connect truth with history, but he connects the com-
prehension of truth with the perfect freedom of the individual that is the bourgeois subject,
not the human of the socio-historical world. Horkheimer says that preference for static
principles was the great delusion of Husserls original Eidetics and he calls this kind
of sublime principles abstract-positivism.
61
According to his point of view, the notion that regards philosophy as an exact science
overlooks the relative truths in the favor of absolute truth, whereas a dialectical philo-
sophy, for example, in keeping with its principles, will tend to extract the relative truths
of the individual points of view and introduce them in its own comprehensive theory.
62
Horkheimer says that the fundamental view of phenomenology is untenable, which is
that the facts [Tatsachen] of our consciousness found [begr unden] all knowledge. All
knowledges must get their validity through immediately given objects of conscious-
ness.
63
He believes that with this notion, Husserl understands knowledge as being based
on the individual subject, not in its social product, and overlooks its dialectical process.
Our knowledge of ordinary life and scientific inquiries deserves to have the status of
truth. To say that our knowledge is open to correction is not to hold relativism or skeptic
indecision, but alertness to errors and flexibility of thought.
64
Horkheimer claims,
contrary to Husserl, that they are no less objective than pure logic. Truth is also valid
for whoever contradicts it, ignores it, or declares it unimportant.
65
He takes an exactly
opposite stance to Husserls notion of truth and holds the impossibility of an extra-
historical concept of truth. For Horkheimer it is possible that truth can be lost in the
ongoing changing process of reality. But this cannot be regarded as relativism. Acc-
ording to McCarthy, Horkheimer holds a sharp separation between false and true
consciousness in order to avoid relativism. Horkheimer rejects the traditional dichot-
omy between the ideal and the real, but this does not require a retreat to a relativism of
socially conditioned perspectives. His point is neither relativism nor absolutism, but to
retain the dichotomy between the true and false, albeit in a more modest, suitably
human form.
66
Horkheimer objects to identification between truth with historicity and
the relativism. Lambert Zuidervaart writes, The way to surpass the relativism/absolut-
ism antithesis is to take seriously the historical mediation between sociohistorical reality
and theoretical thought. Recognizing this mediation, a materialist dialectic neither denies
its own relativity nor abandons the claim to comprehensive truth.
67
On the one hand, Horkheimer misinterprets Husserls view of ideality. To say that the
fundamental view of phenomenology is untenable, which is that the facts [Tatsachen] of
our consciousness found [begr unden] all knowledge, is to overlook Husserls basic
objection to naturalism. Husserl rightly claimed that ideal meanings cannot be reduced
to natural processes. Acts are unique and unrepeatable; but ideal meanings are repeatable
and shared by everyone. Husserl tried to show that science is impossible without ideality.
Reducing ideality to empirical facts annihilates the possibility and the validity of
sciences. According to Husserl, the naturalist denies what he or she accepts in principle.
Thus ideal objects are logical preconditions of talking about something, and talking
about the validity of our judgements.
On the other hand, Husserls and Horkheimers understanding of relativism is dramati-
cally different. For Husserl relativismis unabsoluteness, uncertainty. For Horkheimer, rela-
tivismis toclaimthat there is nofalse andnotrue. Husserl defends a more radical conception
of truth. Horkheimers criticism on this issue rotates around Husserls distinction between
essence and existence, ideality and reality, the immediately givenness of the object and his
conception of subject. As we already said, the fundamental deficiency he finds in Husserls
logic is a lack of historical-dialectical orientation, which is closely related to the matter of
truth. Horkheimers empirically based research project cannot conform to Husserls non-
empirically based method. Still, Horkheimers position fromHusserls point of viewseems
to be relativistic because it is an empirically and practically oriented explanation. It is clear
that Husserls and Horkheimers concerns are fundamentally different.
Metaphysics and phenomenology
Horkheimer prefers to interpret all history of philosophy as a conflict between two
different ways of thinking: the opposition between materialism and idealism.
68
He says
that this opposition becomes more decisive in contemporary philosophy. As we said ear-
lier, one of Horkheimers main concerns is to modify and purify materialism from meta-
physics. He modifies materialism with the Kantian critique, giving a criticism of reason,
human will and freedom. According to Horkheimer, it would be misleading to read the
so-called historical conflict as one between two metaphysical tendencies. Horkheimer
writes, The primarily reason for this misunderstanding is that materialist theory and
practice are not approached in the right way.
69
Horkheimer acknowledges that most
of materialists in the history of philosophy started to philosophize with metaphysical
T urker 629
questions and then tried to justify their thesis in opposition to idealist positions. Yet, they
misunderstoodwhat materialismreally is; because materialismis neither ananswer tometa-
physical questions, nor can it be reduced to the simple claim that only matter on its move-
ment is real. He says that as long as one sees materialism as an answer to metaphysical
questions, one cannot grasp the characteristics of materialism. Thus criticismof vitalist and
phenomenologist philosophers who interpreted materialism as a na ve metaphysics is mis-
leadingand far fromunderstandingmaterialism.
70
Materialismis epistemic materialismin
the philosophically restricted sense that is concerned with the de facto limits of reason and
will, the empirical and historical preconditions of a rationally organized society. Material-
ism is the equation of the subject of knowledge with the finite human being.
71
On the contrary, Horkheimer identifies metaphysics with idealism. He regards the his-
torical fight between materialism and metaphysics as a struggle between materialism and
idealism. Every metaphysics, both the phenomenological one and others, strives for
insight into essential nature, with the idea that the nucleus of the future is already
contained in it. What metaphysics discovers must underlie not only the past but the future
as well.
72
He says that metaphysics tends to regard the whole world as the product of
reason, for reason knows only itself perfectly. . . . [I]t continues to regard absolute con-
sciousness as the reflecting mirror of the innermost reality of being.
73
Horkheimer posits materialism as a method closed to metaphysical questions; for to
make materialism open to metaphysical questions would make it an ideology. And any
materialism that functions as a worldview is pseudo-materialism because it leads us
away from historical practice.
74
Whenever materialism contains metaphysical moments,
it would becomes like idealism, or ideology. For him, positivism and metaphysics are not
opposite philosophies as it is usually thought. Positivism and metaphysics are simply
two different phases of one philosophy which downgrades natural knowledge and hypos-
tatizes abstract conceptual structures.
75
He says that positivism is really much closer
to metaphysics of intuition than to materialism, although it wrongly tries to couple the
two.
76
Horkheimer criticizes here especially Bergson; however, Husserl is not sup-
posed to be very far from this criticism. Horkheimer thinks that Husserls phenomenol-
ogy is likewise unhistorical and downgrades natural knowledge. In this respect
phenomenology, too, becomes closer to positivism than materialism does. Horkheimer
adduces that his point is neither to accept scientific knowledge as the only possible form
of the knowledge nor to embrace the view that true knowledge must emancipate itself
from science in order to explain human existence. These are the positions of romantic
spiritualism, philosophy of life and material and existential phenomenology during and
after the war.
77
Horkheimer denounces positivism because it eliminates radically the
subject not only from physics but also from the process of cognition. Positivism has
an unhistorical and uncritical conception of knowledge and hypostatizes a particular
method of procedure employed by natural science.
78
He criticizes phenomenology and
phenomenological metaphysics because they suggest unhistorical knowledge and a
knowledge purified from science.
79
For him, materialism, unlike idealism, means always
thinking of particular men within a particular period of time. It accepts neither the
autonomy of thought nor a meaning immanent in events.
80
Setting aside the phenomenological metaphysicians, what about Husserl as the initia-
tor of modern phenomenology? Husserls position in Logical Investigations has been
controversial since the early generation of phenomenologists. For example, Roman
Ingarden claimed that Husserl is a realist philosopher in Logical Investigations, but he
turned to idealism later on; and some (such as Van Breda) adduced that Husserl has been
never a realist but always an idealist.
81
In my opinion, Husserl in Logical Investigations
is not in a position where he could be called idealist or realist. It would be truer to take
Husserls stance in Logical Investigations to be neutral to both realism and idealism
because he does not speak of reality or the status of reality, but of idealities. Husserl
defends the irreducibility of idealities to factualities. If this idea can be regarded as an
idealism, then he can be called an idealist philosopher in Logical Investigations.
Likewise, Dan Zahavi describes Husserls position in Logical Investigations to be
neutral. He even says that Husserls turning to transcendental idealism is not in the sense
of traditional idealism, but an attempt to overcome both metaphysical realism and meta-
physical idealism. He interprets Husserls transcendental phenomenology as an attempt
to remove some shortcomings and obscurities in Logical Investigations.
82
Interestingly enough, Horkheimer does not regard Husserl as a metaphysician either
in descriptive phenomenology (Logical Investigations) or in pure phenomenology
(Ideas). He says rightly that in Husserl the being of general objects, of ideal unities, is
not still metaphysically meant, but his teaching allows the possibility of metaphysical
hypostatization [Hypostasierung].
83
He even says that Husserl himself turned in his
investigations towards a pure phenomenology of construction [Ausbildung] of eidetic
science on the consciousness, in which he went about the problem of constitution unlike
the usual transcendental philosophy that is in strong independence from factual
research.
84
Husserl meant by essence [Wesen] originally nothing else than the species,
the identical [das Identische] of real or imaginary examples, not metaphysical essence
of the real objects. The being of essence [Wesen] was the purely meant being by con-
sciousness; the being as the subject of possible predication [Aussage], pure logical being.
His teaching of ideas was not a metaphysical teaching, at least immediately. The domain
of essences contains many factual impossibilities, which are mere logical possibilities.
85
However, Horkheimer criticizes Husserls philosophy because it allows the possibility of
metaphysical hypostatization. For example, in Husserl the view of the independence of
acts of consciousness where essence is given belongs to the view of the independence
of essence. Husserl put the old distinction between essence and existence in central
place, even though it is not a metaphysical view.
86
Horkheimer says that despite its non-metaphysical character, phenomenology in its
fight against positivism evolved from pure logic into metaphysics and general
world-view questions. Not Husserl himself, but his students especially Max Scheler,
Adolf Reinach, Hedwig Conrad Martius and Alexander Pfaender developed a new view
of reality. Accordingly, the world that is accessible in essential insight [Wesensschau] is
not only a world of pure possibilities, but also the genuine reality itself or at least a model
of genuine reality.
87
Horkheimer levels much more criticism at Max Scheler, the most
influential phenomenologist among the early generation of Husserls students, than other
phenomenologists. Horkheimer says that Husserls conception of essence [Wesen]
turned into an intuitive Platonism in the hands of Scheler.
88
Horkheimer objects to Husserl in all basic points; his criticism focuses on Husserls
conception of philosophy as a mathesis universalis, of science as a relativistic research.
T urker 631
In Gesammelte Schriften 10, he characterises Husserls method as ahistorical and his
understanding of apriority as radically abstract and undialectical. However, Horkheimer
does not defend apparently the positivistic reducibility of ideality to factuality or the
identification of acts and meanings. Still, he refutes the dichotomy between ideal and
real. He thinks that Husserls conception of apriority is static and overlooks the dialec-
tical relation. For Horkheimer, Husserls phenomenology is the philosophy of being
rather than becoming because it neglects socio-historical reality. And the positivistic and
Cartesian implications make Husserls philosophy less fruitful in concrete situations.
Therefore, he calls Husserls phenomenology abstract positivism, traditional theory and
a bourgeois ideology. Consequently, Horkheimers criticism can be summarized in four
points. (1) He objects to the view that ideality founds all knowledge. (2) He holds that
Husserls phenomenology is an undialectic and anti-historistic method. (3) It is a
traditional theory because of the positivistic-Cartesian implications. (4) In conclusion,
it is a bourgeois ideology.
Horkheimer appropriates neither Husserls conception of philosophy nor his concep-
tion of science, but his criticism of scientific rationalism. Alongside, he does not inter-
pret Husserls idealism as a metaphysical idealism, although he identifies metaphysics
with idealism. Essence is not interpreted in a metaphysical sense. It is his merit that while
dealing with pure logic or referring to pure phenomenology he does not fall into the
misinterpretation that takes Husserl to be a Platonic metaphysician and his pure phenom-
enology to be a philosophy of the wordless subject.
Husserls phenomenology evolved from the science of logical objects to a compre-
hensive method that gives us a very original and fruitful perspective in the interpretation
of all phenomena. We must stress that Horkheimers criticism refers mostly to Husserls
early phenomenology. As far as I know, he does not give any detailed criticism of the
problem of constitution, intersubjectivity, life-world and historicity which are developed
by Husserl later on, although he acknowledges the merit of Husserls late philosophy in a
footnote.
89
Therefore his criticism must be considered in the context of Husserls early
phenomenology.
Notes
I am indebted to Professor James Swindal and the staff of Duquesne University Library, who
assisted me during the process of writing of this article. Additionally, I would like to thank
Professor Swindal for his critical assessments and TU
B
_
ITAK for its support.
1. Seyla Benhabib, Wolfgang Bonss and John McCole (eds) On Max Horkheimer (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1993), p. 4; hereafter cited as OMH.
2. John Abromeit, The Vicissitudes of the Politics of Life: Max Horkheimer and Herbert
Marcuses Reception of Phenomenology and Vitalism in Weimar Germany, conference
paper for Living Weimar: Between System and Self, University of Indiana, Bloomington,
223 September 2006, p. 10; hereafter cited as VPL; accessible @: https://scholaworks.iu.
edu/dspace/handle/2022/1833
3. See Max Horkheimer, The Latest Attack on Metaphysics, in Critical Theory, trans. M. J.
OConnell et al. (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), pp. 13287 (p. 146); Critical Theory
hereafter cited as CT.
4. Abromeit, VPL, pp. 304.
5. Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften [Collected Works], vol. 10, ed. Alfred Schmidt
(Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1990), p.303; hereafter cited as GS 10.
6. ibid., p. 304.
7. ibid., p. 306.
8. ibid.
9. ibid., p. 378.
10. Max Horkheimer, Notes on Science and the Crisis, in CT, pp. 39 (p. 6).
11. ibid., p. 5.
12. ibid., p. 6.
13. ibid.
14. ibid., p. 7.
15. ibid.
16. Abromeoit, VPL, p. 5.
17. Horkheimer, Notes on Science and the Crisis, in CT, p. 7.
18. Horkheimer, GS 10, p. 378.
19. Horkheimer believes that vitalismis moreradicallyagainst sciencethanphenomenology; it denied
even judgmental thinking. Yet he acknowledges that Husserl never denied conceptual knowledge
as the irrationalists did. See Horkheimer, Notes on Science and the Crisis, in CT, p. 7.
20. ibid., p. 9.
21. Edmund Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, in Essential Husserl The Basic Writings
in Transcendental Phenomenology, ed. Don Welton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1999), pp. 225 (p. 25); Essential Husserl hereafter cited as EH.
22. ibid., p. 23.
24. ibid.
25. ibid., p. 387.
26. ibid., pp. 3878. Horkheimer believes that in a sense Husserl founded logic ontologically
insofar as it includes a teaching of being of conceptual objects (ibid., p. 388).
27. ibid., p. 389.
28. Max Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, in CT, pp. 1046 (p. 35).
29. ibid., p. 36.
30. Edmund Husserl, Philosophy as Rigorous Science, in EH, p. 25.
32. Max Horkheimer, The Social Function of Philosophy, in CT, pp. 25372 (p. 253). Horkhei-
mer states that Husserls logic performs a duty analogously to Kantian philosophy: to develop
the apriority of science [Das apriori der Wissenschaft zu entwickeln]. Kant investigated the
apriority of natural laws, namely the necessary presuppositions that are ground of a possible
unitary experience of objective world [Die grunde der moglichkeit einheitlicher erfahrung
der gegenstaendlichen Welt] (Horkheimer, GS 10, p. 308).
33. Max Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory, in CT, pp. 188243 (p. 190).
34. Edmund Husserl, Formale und Transzendatale Logik [Formal and Transcendental Logic]
(Halle: Niemeyer, 1929), p.89; quoted in Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory, in
CT, p. 190.
35. Husserl, Formale und Transzendatale Logik, p. 79; quoted in Horkheimer, Traditional and
Critical Theory, in CT, p. 190.
T urker 633
36. ibid.
38. Horkheimer, Notes on Science and the Crisis, in CT, p. 4.
39. Thomas McCarthy, The Idea of a Critical Theory and Its Relation to Philosophy, in OMH,
pp. 12752 (p. 130).
40. Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory, in CT, p. 200.
41. Max Horkheimer, Zum Rationalismusstreit in der gegenwaertigen Philosophie [The Dispute
over Rationalismin Contemporary Philosophy], in Max Horkheimer, Kritische Theorie [Critical
Theory] (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968), 1:145/BPSS; quoted in McCarthy, Idea of a Critical
Theory, in OMH, p. 128.
42. Edmund Husserl, Ideas I, in EH, pp. 6085 (p. 63).
44. ibid., p. 193.
45. ibid., p. 196.
46. ibid., p. 199.
47. ibid., p. 200.
48. ibid.
49. Horkheimer, The Social Function of Philosophy, in CT, p. 262.
50. ibid., p. 264.
51. See Hauke Brunkhorst, Dialectical Positivism of Happiness: Horkheimers Materialist
Deconstruction of Philosophy (trans. T. McCole), in OMH, pp. 6798.
52. McCarthy, Idea of a Critical Theory, in OMH, pp. 1289.
53. Dan Zahavi, Edmund Husserls Phenomenology (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2003), p. 31; hereafter cited as EHP.
54. Brunkhorst, Dialectical Positivism of Happiness, in OMH, p. 69.
57. Zahavi rightly says that Husserl can be said to be a logical Platonist, not an ontological
Platonist (see Zahavi, EHP, part I, note 2, p. 148). Horkheimer is well aware of this difference.
58. Quotation from Husserl in Zahavi, EHP, p. 9.
59. Lambert Zuidervaart, Truth Matters: Heidegger and Horkheimer in Dialectical Disclosure,
in Phenomenology and Critical Theory The Twenty-fifth Annual Symposium of the Simon
Silverman Phenomenology Center (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 2008), p.
38; Phenomenology and Critical Theory hereafter cited as PCT. (Zuidervaart makes this
differentation between Heidegger and Horkheimer. I think the same thing holds for between
Husserl and Horkheimer).
60. ibid., in PCT, p. 49.
61. Max Horkheimer, Art and Mass Culture, in CT, pp. 27390 (p. 286).
64. Max Horkheimer, On the Problem of Truth, in Between Philosophy and Social Science,
trans. G. F. Hunter, M. S. Kramer and J. Torpey (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), pp.
177215 (p. 192); Between Philosophy and Social Science cited hereafter as BPS.
65. ibid., p. 194.
66. McCarthy, The Idea of a Critical Theory, in OMH, pp. 1289.
67. Zuidervaart, Truth Matters, in PCT, p. 49.
68. Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, in CT, p. 13.
69. ibid., pp. 1314.
70. ibid., p. 14.
71. Brunkhorst, Dialectical Positivism of Happiness, in OMH, p. 78.
72. Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, in CT, p. 25.
73. ibid., p. 27.
74. ibid., p. 35.
75. ibid., p. 40.
76. ibid., p. 39.
77. Horkheimer, The Latest Attack on Metaphysics, in CT, p. 136.
78. ibid., p. 147.
79. ibid., p. 136.
80. Horkheimer, Materialism and Metaphysics, in CT, pp. 323.
81. See Roman Ingarden, On the Motives which led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism, trans. A.
Hannibalsson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975).
82. Zahavi, EHP, p. 42.
84. ibid., p. 394.
85. ibid., p. 395.
86. ibid., p. 389.
87. ibid., p. 394.
88. ibid., p. 395.
89. See Horkheimer, The Latest Attack on Metaphysics, in CT, p. 146, n. 15.
T urker 635

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