Husserl’s Origin of Geometry

and the language-mathematical

mental abstractions

By
Lutz Alexander Keferstein
 Husserl’s Origin of Geometry and the
linguistic-mathematical mental abstractions

It is indeed a strange and proud form to begin an essay the way in which Hus-

serl decided to do in his Origin of Geometry. To affirm that Galileo never

thought about what or in the way the German phenomenologist did in matters of

the science of the forms is an easy exemplifier of a fallacy ad ignorantiam.1

Nevertheless, and although an issue that could create interest in any psycholo-

gist looking for unconscious projections, this statement of Husserl remains be-

ing a funny anecdote worth mentioning.

But any possible psychological complex aside, the way in which he starts the

Origin of Geometry suggests that the main difference of handling geometry

from that moment on will be based not in the traditional form, i. e., based upon

the meaning already given to it and its rules and laws and its way of being

thought, or in Husserl’s own words: “We must focus our gaze not merely upon

the ready-made, handed down geometry and upon the manner of being which its

meaning had in his thinking”2. Geometry shall thus not be seen in Husserl as

pure and mere geometry, for this would be a part of the traditional attitude that

has impeded men to see beyond the material forms. We “rather (…) inquire

back into the original meaning of the handed-down geometry 3”, a meaning that

has served as a valid basis and therefore as the central point of later develop-

ment. Being this not the case, we would fall in the traditional mistake, namely in

1
The first sentence formulated by Husserl in his Origin of Geometry says “The interest that propels us in
this work makes it necessary to engage first of all in reflections which surely never occurred to Galileo”.
Husserl, Edmund; Origin of Geometry; University of Nebraska, 1989, p157.
2
Idem
3
Ibidem

2
 the one committed by any geometer who remained within the contours of a

geometrical knowledge which has just been inherited to him, and perform any

activity or thought based on its already established principles, which for prag-

matic matters could help, but refrain us from seeing what geometry really is.

Being clear that his whole life Husserl presented himself as the developer of

the ultimate form of philosophy, he will use geometry and the meditations about

it, just as means “to carry out, in the form of philosophical meditations, self-

reflections about our own present philosophical situation… [in order to] take

possession of the meaning, method and beginning (…) of the one philosophy”4.

To achieve this goal, Husserl suggests he will approach Geometry rather as a

system of thought, i.e., as a nucleus of a system of established truths, which de-

termine human thought, emphasizing that this search for its origin does not imp-

ly a search for philological issues within the field of the multi-mentioned discip-

line. To consider Geometry as the keystone around which further principles are

developed –excluding all the evidently possible Foucaultian consequences im-

plied by taking that path, from this text- is valid, since -ultimately- Husserl ex-

plicitly takes the science of the forms as a “tradition of millennia, still present

for us, and still being worked on in a lively forward development”5, in simple

words, it could be taken as a system of established principles, which at the same

time draw the lines for their own improvement and augmentation. Geometrical

thought is then established for us, in the form of a tradition, as a cua instituted

knowledge that was inexistent previous to the genesis of this nucleus and its

4
Idem.
5
Ibidem, p. 158.

3
 truths. Nevertheless the strength of traditions, i. e., how necessary its contents

are, remains blurry in the text of Husserl, since he refers to their rising –that is

of the contents of traditions and as a consequence of those of geometry- as a

part of the Cultural World and therefore “not merely causally”6, opening a space

for an accidental rising of human social conducts and common thought. It could

appear that Husserl considered geo-anthropological factors not as causes neces-

sarily connected to the settlement of systems of truth considered to be universal,

and let the origin of human thought in the hands of unknown -yet formerly de-

finable- existent individuals, who would be then authors of new knowledge by

means of “materials at hand, whether raw or already spiritually shaped”. Any

traditional knowledge within its “unconditional general validity, naturally al-

lows for application to individually determined particular cases, though it de-

termines only that in the individual that can be grasped through subsumption”7.

That means that, just as any other tradition, geometry would be for humanity –

after its genesis and while only reproduced- nothing but a mere a posteriori

learning yet not a cognition, for it arouse “out of a first acquisition, out of first

creative activities” after which we would only “understand its persisting man-

ner of being” in a sedimentary process, for it is a “continuous synthesis in which

all acquisitions maintain their validity” and “at every present stage the total ac-

quisition is (…) the total premise for the acquisitions of the new level”8. That

means, only those having geometrical cognitions could be considered as to be

producing geometry, i. e. using the human a priori capacity to geometrize; the

6
Idem, p. 158
7
Ibidem, p. 159.
8
Idem.

4
 rest, while only learning have mere a posteriori reproduction (as in opposition

to the original production) of geometrical principles.

Although learning and not creating Geometry, the non-proto-geometer hu-

mans have doubtless the capacity of understanding it, partially because its laws

and principles –created by indeed-proto-geometer humans and therefore within

human contours- will remain stable enough to be accepted as truths. Geometry,

just as language, is the result of combining the human capacities of, first, ab-

stracting, then naming and, finally –for the non-constituting humans- learning,

and not from necessary really existent patterns in the world outside the mind9. It

therefore arises as a natural conclusion for Husserl that, due to the feature of

mathematical principles -and of any other kind- of being particularly cognized

by the mind in an isolated manner, mathematics and geometry, seen as scientif-

ic systems, cannot originally be the result of a project guided toward their dis-

covering, but are rather the spontaneous result –granted by the human mental

capacity of understanding an “essence” in/of a particular thing, i. e., the charac-

teristic(s), which make an object what it is as belonging to a higher genus, and

9
This interpretation seemed to concord with the one of Dr. David L. Thompson, who in his essay “Rorty
and Husserl on Realism, Idealism and Intersubjective Solidarity” affirms that the German Phenomenologist
early presented constitution as “acts of transcendental ego behind each empirical ego” but later modified
his thought discovering the prior-meaning function of the individual –which enabled transcendental inter-
subjectivity- . In this same essay, Dr. Thompson states that for Husserl, “Each life-world is a cultural crea-
tion, unique for each culture, not a universal human acquisition. The Western life-world has given rise to
the scientific project, a project which constitutes meanings in such a way that all who accept the project
can arrive at universal truths. (…) therefore, science is both universal and contingent. It is constituted as
the search for a universal criterion of truth, but this constitution is itself a contingent creation of a particu-
lar inter-subjective community”. The question in Husserl, according to Thompson, would be then if this
intersubjectivity can create the universality required in all positive sciences, and Husserl’s ultimate answer
would be affirmative. Source: David L. Thompson; Rorty and Husserl on Realism, Idealism and Intersub-
jective Solidarity; Philosophy, Memorial University, 1994, p. 10-14.

5
 turning it into a mental entity separated from the original object10 - of seen the

gathering of conclusions from the outside and their immediate concatenation

performed by the cognizant subject after he individually became conscious of

the accumulation of those conclusions. Mathematics are, therefore, within the

mind of the human and not in the outside world, and geometry is then a cua-

spontaneous cognition that in a preliminary stage appeared as derived from a

process consisting in intuiting (in the Kantian sense), abstracting and naming.

Geometrical definitions are since then already given. In other words humans

conceptualize and define almost concomitantly to abstractly establish patterns to

the empirical world.

But Husserl encounters within this position a problem he willingly confronts,

because “this process (…) occurs, after all, purely within the subject of the in-

ventor and thus the meaning (…) lies (…) within his mental space. But geome-

trical existence (…) is the existence of what is objectively there for ‘every-

one’”11, or in other words, geometry is an “ideal objectivity”. With this he refers

to the logical problem presented by the fact that an individual cognition of

something not really given in the outside world can be seen and accepted by an-

ybody, in other words how the particular-inside becomes the universal-outside:

never minding the variety of signs or symbols, the content remains the same and

the principles untouchable. I cannot tell if Husserl was in reality shocked by this

oxymoronic idea of the “ideal-objectivity” in matters of geometry or if his ap-

10
“Essence”, which, its own side, may also become the object of a similar process until reaching the high-
est generalization possible. I will call this feature of the human mind, from this moment on, “capacity of
abstraction”.
11
Husserl, op. Cit. , p.160.

6
parent astonishment was rather a rhetorical recourse to praise his later obvious

conclusions, since the answer to this riddle evidently lies upon the way the hu-

man mind is structured, which leaves him no further space than that in which he

dedicates his thinking to finding patterns and a later hetero-imposition of these

to the forthcoming generations, i. e., just as Husserl properly began his essay

with, through tradition and education, thus what could seem as having indepen-

dent (at the level of thought) and outer (in the mundi rei) lives, would be a mere

learning –and therefore not cognizant- process, where even the way in which we

humans pattern could be a traditional learning, without this situation weakening

the capacity of humans to find them by their own, i. e., we learned in which way

we have to pattern but to pattern and how to pattern remain being natural fea-

tures of humans (as easily seen in persons considered to be mad). In other

words, all humans have the capacity to both produce and reproduce knowledge.

Therefore, geometry is simply one of the ways in which it was taught to us the

manner in which we have to pattern, i. e., the form in which it is expected from

us a certain understanding under the risk of otherwise being considered crazy

(or, not to sound so crucial, at least dumb); furthermore it could be that we are

taught to necessarily see geometrical patterns where there are none, since per-

fect geometrical figures are non-existent. A world then in which even mathe-

matical and geometrical principles are based on ideal abstraction and developed

upon linguistics, that is, the mere creation of definitions of either real, ideal or

abstract things and their a posteriori relation to sounds, a world in which we can

not really warranty that the meaning-reference of a word had by someone is

7
 identical to the one of the others, but where another idealization is performed

aiming communication. “For language itself, in all its particularizations (…)

[is] thoroughly made up of ideal objects”12. Husserl differentiates nevertheless

between the objects given in reality in the outside world and their idealization,

and the geometrical principles, since,

1) in the former, any relation object-word determined by an articulation,

and referring to a really-existing (things) object, does not have to be necessarily

identical within the mind of the persons to allow communication and under-

standing; He then uses his ‘famous’ example of the Löwe, with which Husserl is

simply saying that whenever that word is pronounced there is no possible way

in which a person (at least one under the agreed concepts of sanity) may refer,

for example, to a dog. Without being of crucial importance if the speaker thinks

of a yellow Löwe and the listener of a black one, the ideality is taken for granted

and an identical or different internal object-word reference between the actors of

communication is non transcendental, for it has already been agreed what has to

be understood after the word is uttered. That is precisely what the “ideal-

objectivity” means in matters of basic linguistics. The meaning -and only the

meaning [that means a an abstract idea]- is indeed already fixed, yet not so the

image brought to mind. That is what makes it an ideal [meaning] –objectivity

[mental image, which contains an object] (Löwen [Lions] which, by the way,

aren’t even yellow or black, but nevertheless you understood what I wanted to

12
Idem, p. 161.

8
 say by bringing the image of a Lion which most certainly is not identical to

mine. QED.)

2) while in the latter, i. e., in the geometrical principles, there is no space

for non-identicalness aims an even understanding: 2+2=4 or ‘a triangle is the

figure whose sum of angles equals 180°’ must be universally accepted aims ma-

thematical correct thought. “Wherever something is asserted, one can distin-

guish what is thematic (…) from the assertion (…) and what is thematic here is

precisely ideal objects (in reference to geometrical principles and their content)

and quite different ones from those coming under the concept of language”13

and thus present the ideal objects of geometry as perfect examples of the prob-

lem he is concerned with, namely how do idealities of sciences “ proceed from

its primary intrapersonal origin, where it is a structure within the space of the

first inventor’s soul, to its ideal objectivity?”14.

In other words, for Husserl in the non-mathematical language there is a

co-genetic relation between the material external thing (which makes it objec-

tive) which is idealized by the mind as soon as it is named, but curiously leaves

a space for non-identical references word-object, i.e. a sort of contingency in

language, while within the boundaries of mathematics and geometry the whole

time is spoken about pure abstract idealities, since there is no such thing as a

perfect triangle, perfect circle or even groups of things (as required by any ma-

13
Idem.
14
Ibidem.

9
thematical operation) outside the human mind, yet without any space for distinct

word-idea references between communicating subjects.

But in matters of language seen not as a means but as a sphere itself,

Husserl seemed to skip analyzing the non-really existing things [i. e., objects ex-

isting in the world] that are also an integral part of non-mathematical language

and do not grant that space of a sine cua non ideality towards efficient commu-

nication either. It is true that this type of language refers to things that are there,

but only while referring directly to substantives, i. e., by mere naming things

(and that would be so obvious that the mere thought of it dangerously approach-

es a petitio principii), because while generating adjectives, substantivazing the

abstract (e. g., words like height, length, color, etc.), generating adverbs and

verbs the human makes no reference to any existing object what-so-ever, which

leaves us with the fact that mathematics and geometry could come from that

very same capacity of abstraction, since they only refer to the idealization of

patterns and creation of substantives (2, 4, 5, 8, etc. ), verbs (e. g. +, -, ÷) and

even adjectives (>,<, =) which are later expressed through symbols. The real

question would be: Do mathematics and geometry, as it seems they do, proceed

from the same linguistic-abstraction capacity itself? I. e., are mathematics and

geometry linguistic abstractions taken to the extreme?

Returning to Husserl’s original problem, i.e. “how does linguistic embo-

diment make out the merely intrasubjective structure the objective structure

which (…) is in fact present as understandable by all and is valid, already in its

linguistic expression as geometrical speech, as geometrical proposition, for all

10
 the future in its geometrical sense?”15 It seemed that Husserl would be focusing

his sight too much in the instituted idea seen as belonging to and at the same

time a sort of an independent entity (that is to say, as belonging to some one, but

in a sense acquiring autonomy as soon as it is pronounced by its original cogni-

zant) and skipped to see the human mental capacity of generating and under-

standing things the way we do, i. e., the fact that we all understand in the same

manner, and cannot go beyond that line. In other words, I claim that a mathe-

matical or geometrical (or for the case of any other abstraction what-so-ever)

name is a mere symbol that, after being cognized (which would be a simple

idealization of patterns) or learned (i. e. the mental apprehension of the idealiza-

tion of patterns showed to us), cannot be understood in any other manner (e.g.,

2+2=5 or ○≡◊ or ‘house’=♣) for that is how the human mind works and not be-

cause the idea is real in an external independent-from-humans world. Geome-

trical and mathematical principles are thus not the result of converting any intui-

tion (again in the Kantian sense) of the external-material world in to a pure idea,

yet are universal and apparently necessary since they are precisely the horizon

reached by the capacities of linguistic-abstract related thought. This claim must

not be understood as saying that all humans have to have geometrical or ma-

thematical cognitions, but as affirming that all humans are able to have them,

proved by the fact that all cultures developed a mathematical and geometrical

system as functional (yet not necessarily identical) as the one of the others. The

tension in Husserl is given since he insists to see as two different processes what

are only concomitant steps of the same one. While mathematics and language
15
Idem.

11
are for the German Phenomenologist two different and independent entities

working with each other, it seemed to me that mathematics is another form of

expressing linguistic thought, where it shall not be confused the irreductible fea-

ture of the human mind to naming with the language itself. Language is taught

and conventional, but the capacity of thinking through it is inherent to humans

in the same manner qualitatively speaking.

12