Husserl and the Sciences: Selected Perspectives

Chapter 10 Husserl on the Communal Praxis of Science

CHAPTER TEN R. PhilipBuckley HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OF SCIENCE 1.INTRODUCTION It is well known that for a long period within the phenomenological tradition itself, there was a tendency to view the Crisistexts of Husserl's last years as marking a radical shift in his thought. Major figures such as Gadamer and Merleau-Ponty1 are well-known exponents of this view, and even circumspect and insightful subsequent scholars such as Carr tend to stress the novelty, for example, of the infusion of history into Husserl's later philosophy2 Some treat this 'novelty' as a reaction to the historical crisis of the 1930s, and also imply that the proximity and popularity of Heidegger should not be ignored.3 To the contrary, in some ofmy previous work I have tended to stress the unity of the Husserlian project from beginning to end, to suggest that such apparently 'novel' topics as 'history' themselves havea long genesis in Husserl's work and that the 'idea' of a crisis in European culture in general is itself best understood by paying close attention to the manner in which Husserl addresses 'earlier ' crises such as foundational questions in mathematics.4 Of course, using 'crisis' as a leitmotiv for Husserl's thought in its entirety does not resolve all the tensions in his philosophy. Butit helps us to understand these tensions as belonging to theinternal 213 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES dynamic ofhis project rather than arising from some unfortunate collision between radically different conceptions of philosophy which occur at incommensurate stages of his life-work. I will use this unified approach as a hermeneutic key to consider another component of Husserl's thought: his theory of community. As of late, there has been a small but growing interest in Husserl's social philosophy. Acynic might suggest that the reason for this is that Husserl's writings on inter-subjectivity were published in 1973 and that it has taken the normal human being somewhere between 20 and 30 years to digest these three massive volumes of Husserliana,5 A less 'psychologistic' interpretation ofthis phenomenon is that philosophers have realized that Husserl has an original contribution to make to the debate between radical, liberal individualism, and communitarianism. Whatever the motivation, in works such as Schuhmann's Husserls Staatsphilosophie6 and Hart's opus magnum entitled ThePersonand the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics, there is a movement to take seriously, if not critically,what Husserl has to say about society and the foundation of human community.7 This paper aims to supplement this movementby expanding the scope of the focus on Husserl's theory of community.Much of the work on this still under-developed aspect of Husserl's thought centres on the last half ofHusserliana XIV (e.g.Gemeingeist I <& II) and Husserliana XV and the Kaizo articlesof 1922-23found in Husserliana XXVII.8 It is true that Husserl's reflections on community become most explicit in his later works. Nevertheless , a return to certain earlier works and experiences can aid us in gaining insight into these later reflections. In the first partof this presentation, a succinct summary ofthe main components of Husserl's mature theory of community is given and a major difficulty in this theory is pointed out: namely, a certain tension between individual insight and shared communal insight. In the second part, a suggestion is put forth as to how this tension might be - if not resolved - at least understood by returning to certain aspects of Husserl's earlier work. Finally, the conclusion will stress that even if this tension remains unresolved, Husserl's 214 HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OF SCIENCE reflections on community have much to offer which is ofcontemporary significance. 2. HUSSERL'S UTOPIA The central feature of Husserl's theory of community is the notion of 'personality of higher-order/ Different sorts of communities ranging from the family to the state are understood as analogous to the individual 'I.' Acommunity is a "multi-headed ... yet connected subjectivity/'9 and as such a subjectivity it too has a 'personality/ displaying particular tendencies, moods, and traits such as memory - indeed, many of the features usually attributed to individual existence. Nonetheless, the community which possesses a personality is of a 'higher-order/ It is different than the individuals who comprise it, and its personal features belong to it 'uniquely/ That is, the personal features of the community are something 'new/ they are not a mere conglomeration of individual features. It is here that a first ambiguity or tension arises in Husserl's theory of community,but I think it is a fruitful tension, or at least, a tension that has to do with Husserl's phenomenological acuity. Husserl is trying to account for the real identity which occurs within various types of communal existence without making community some sort of pre-existent structure which has enveloped individual existence. Conversely, Husserl's notion of 'personality ofhigher-order' tries to maintain the essential aspects of individual existence, while still showing that something arises out ofthat individual existence that is truly new and different. Hence, a community is a real entity in its own right, but it cannot exist apart from individuals. Conversely, individuals produce something which at the same time is both completely dependent on those same individuals, but also exceeds them. One is reminded here of the nature of categorial acts, which on the one hand are something truly new, but on the other hand are founded and exist only on the basis of individual acts of perception. It is thereforenot surprising that Husserl's treatment 215 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES of community often mirrors the back and forth hermeneutic that characterizes his description of categorial acts in Logical Investigations: a continuous attempt to show how these founded acts are both rooted in and somehow beyond individual actsof perception. One positive result of Husserl's constant re-phrasing of the relationship between individual and community is that it yields a description of how an identity is gained through acommunity, without resorting to some metaphysical notion of the whole. It is true, however, that one can uncover within this fine exampleof phenomenological description a number ofprescriptiveelements. Though ontologically founded upon the individual, 'communities ' can dominate the individual and be arranged in a hierarchical and domineering fashion. Husserl describes such an "inauthentic" community as an "imperialist unity ofwill" wherein individuals are subordinate to, and submit themselves to, a central will.10 Husserl, who never displayed a particularly subtle view of empirical history, took the medieval Church as the best example of a communal organization which in a certain sense undermines its own foundation: that is, it is a power-organization which negates its origin in the free decision on the part of individuals to pursue in common a shared goal. The 'authentic' community,on the other hand, is one inwhich each individual, rather than being subordinate to the 'whole/ actually has insight into the whole and how one fits into the whole which the individual has produced. Or put slightly differently , the individual has an insight into the collective insight of the community, one knows how one's free activities merge with the free activities of others to produce a collective activity that is something larger than the sum of its parts. But this image of an emergent collective insight based on participation seems to imply at least two problematic presuppositions. First, it requires a high level of individual authenticity, that is, it demands that individuals know what they are doing and why they are doing it - a heavy demand in view of the repetitive and self-forgetful nature of modern technological life. Indeed, since for Husserl 216 HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OFSCIENCE (and this is true from his earliest analyses of 'authentic counting' in Philosophy of Arithmetic through to his call for recapturing of 'authentic' European culture at the end), authenticity always means producing the originary evidence for what one does and holds, or at the very least, being willing to strive to produce such evidence, to struggle to recollect 'evidence' from the layers of passivity and sedimentation that allow for 'smooth' functioning but also 'thoughtless' functioning - one is left with the impression that the only authentic community is one wherein everyone becomes a 'phenomenologist/ This may well be a cure for a mindlessly functioning community or culture; on the other hand, one might well question both the chances of survivaland the appealof living in a community consisting only of phenomenologists. Certainly , the mechanics of how we progress from hard-earned individual insight to individually possessing the communal insight founded upon individual insight remains puzzling. Husserl seems to be aware of many of these difficulties, and hence provides a concrete example:the community of mathematicians is used to explain this strange feat of simultaneously pursuing an individual activityand realizing that this individual activity is actually a 'part' of a larger activity.This analogy is by no means foreign to Husserl's thought: in Kaizo II he makes it clear that philosophy ought to achieve for science in general what mathematics achieves for the natural sciences. So, too, the community of mathematicians is seen as an example of authentic community, one which the community ofphilosophers and community at large ought to emulate. The authentic communityis: similar to the way the collective of mathematicians today forms a community of will, insofar as each individual work concerns a science which is a common good, and hence is intended for every other mathematician. In this community of will, the work of each mathematician profits from the work of every other mathematician , and present in everyone is the consciousness of the totality, of a common goal and of the work which ought to be mutuallydetermining and determined. There is a universal bond of wills present 217 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES which establishes the unity of will. This occurs without an imperialist organization of will, without a central will in which all single wills are centered and to which all single wills subordinate themselves readily and as whose functionaries all individuals understand themselves. [At this point, Husserl adds the remarkable footnote: "Here we could also speak of a communist unity of wills in contrast to an imperialist unity."] Here, there is consciousness of the communal goal, of the common good to be pursued, of an encompassing will of which all know themselves to be functionaries , but as free (a freedom which does not need to be renounced) and not subordinated functionaries. (It is otherwise in specific organizations of will such as Academies, etc.)11 What can we make of this example? Given that the notion of authenticity itself first appears within Husserl's early reflections on number and his distinction between authentic counting and calculation, and that these early reflections occurred within a framework which linked Husserl to the 'community' of mathematicians , it is not implausible to seek further clarification of this example, and thereby Husserl's ideal of authentic community , by 'questioning-back' into the origin of Husserl's philosophy itself. 3. HUSSERLIN GOTTINGEN In some sketchy notes from one of Husserl's earliest lectures in 1887, we find a most powerful statement condemning overspecialization in science and the type of inauthentic thinking which such specialization engenders. Husserl states: the complete researcher who strives to be a complete human being as well should never lose sight of the relation ofhis or her science to the more general and higher epistemic goals of humanity. Professional restriction to a single field is necessary; but it is reproachable to become fully absorbed in such a field. And the researcher must 218 HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OF SCIENCE appear even more reproachable, who is indifferent even to the more general questionswhich concern the foundation ofhis or her science, as well as its value and place in the realm of human knowledge in general.12 Here we have a most noble statement about science as a collective activity, one wherein scientists must grasp the meaning of their individual research within the framework of science in general and locate their singular efforts within the striving of all humankind for knowledge and meaning. One might think that a direct line can be drawn between such an ideal and the notionof authentic community from the 1920s which I have just outlined. There is, however, a further aspect ofHusserl's early thought which in some ways works against this noble ideal. In the sentence immediately preceding the previous citation, Husserl admits that specialization- though an'evil'- mayinfact be necessary for progress in science. Husserl's earliest encounter with scientific work already reveals this understanding of 'necessary specialization / It is well-known that Husserl's early thought was deeply influenced by the effort of Weierstrass to provide a solid foundation for arithmeticby means of a rigorous development of the real number system. Though we know that this earlyexperience can be seen as foreshadowing Husserl's lifelong concern with 'foundation-work/13 we also know that Husserl parted company with his mentor on 'who' should accomplish this foundational enterprise. This sort of ground work was, according to Husserl, properly a philosophical task.u Buthere we already have, in a nascent stage, the tension which is supposed to be overcome in authentic community as exemplified in none other than the community of mathematicians. That is, we see a group of 'specialists ' at work which is not in a position to understand and ground the meaning of its own collective activity. This must somehow be done by a group ofother 'specialists or 'authorities/ in this case, philosophers, who are interested not merely in certain singular achievements ofmathematics nor simply in its proper functioning, but in its meaning and in itsfoundation. 219 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES There is an ambiguity in Husserl's approach to scientific activity that I think he never fully overcame.On the one hand he accepted the advantages of specialization, and at times almost implies that for science to make progress it must be focused, and hence forgetful of broader concerns and deeper meanings. On the other hand, such forgetfulness of meaning is 'reproachable.' With regard to community, this ambiguity can perhaps be rephrased in terms of an atomistic, functionalisticvision of society where at best a very few understand how all the parts fit together , versus a wholistic, organic, participatory model where members fit together and form a goal-oriented unit whereinthey comprehend how their individual efforts contribute to theircommon goal. It is clearly this latter notion which is at work in Husserl's vision ofauthentic community in the 1920s - exemplified by none other than the community of mathematicians,who, at this nascent stage, seem to represent specialization and its forgetfulness. What might have caused such a shift? There are many plausible answers to this question, but I suggest that Husserl's experience at Gottingen to a great extent helped him to re-focus his original ideal, and come to seemathematicians as perhaps the best example ofindividuals who grasp the meaning of their own work and its relation to the collective activity of science. By Husserl's 'experience,' I mean more than the internal development of his own thought in this period; I refer to his participation not only in the formal debates within mathematics at Gottingen, but even the institutional structureof the university at that time. What did Husserl encounter in Gottingen?Tobegin with, we know that Husserl interacted with a group of mathematicians who were completely devoted to foundational problems. Though this did not preclude the possibility of a Grundlagenstreit, the fact remains that these thinkers were absolutely committed to the establishment ofa solid foundation for mathematics, and thereby laying a solid foundation for all of physical science. Concurrent with this vision of foundation work is also the fact that Hilbert was a strong opponent of narrow-minded specialization. Over220 HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OF SCIENCE coming narrow specialization did not entail, however, that one had to be a specialist in many fields! Rather, it meant for Hilbert that one must oppose the constantly recurring idealized picture of the isolated scholar and the value of his or her quiet, reclusive scholarship. To the contrary, the researcher must take an active interest in the effect one's workhas on others. In Hilbert's case, this led to an almost prophetic activism, and he felt obliged to promote vigorously what he called the "mission of mathematics."15 To have an effect on others requires that one must be in contact with them. Here, one of the more remarkable features of Gottingen was itsinterdisciplinary nature: philosophy, logic, mathematics , and physics were institutionally linked and considered as one faculty. This institutional fact undoubtedly contributed to the breadth of vision in people such as Hilbert, and perhaps could be said to have legitimized their 'philosophical' aspirations . Indeed, thinkers in Hilbert's mode saw themselves as 'philosophers / This is clearly stated in his goal to makeGottingen, as he says in a letter to Becker, the "central location for systematic philosophy," and as formulated elsewhere, to build it into "the primary centre for philosophy in Germany."16 For Hilbert, this mission consisted concretely in giving to pure theory the leadership role in science. Gottingen was, as Heelan has suggested, the "theoretical cockpitwhich waged war against the cockpit of pure experiment."17 The aim of science became the construction ofan axiomaticdeductive model wherein the chief characteristics were to be completeness, independence, and consistency. That is, the model must be based on independent axioms that do not produce contradictions and be complete in that the truth or falsity of any statement formulated in the system can be determined by calculation. Husserl shared with Hilbert an interest in axiomatic model theory and understood well the importance of such forms for natural science. Indeed, Husserl showed himself somewhat of a prophet regarding the impact which Hilbertand the circle ofmathematiciansaround him were going to have on physics in the early part of this century when he stated that "just as the old quantitativemathematics was 221 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES the big instrument of research in the natural sciences ... so the new formal mathematics will accomplish much more ... ."18 It would be false, of course, to suggest that Husserl was in complete agreement with his Gottingen colleagues. Indeed, many of the essential features of the type of 'Galilean' science critiqued in Crisis are present in Hilbert's ideas. Husserl, while granting that theory was a tremendous deductive aid and lent a precision, a power to computation that signaled a real advance for science, refused to equate the quest for theory with the quest for truth.19 Nevertheless, Heelan correctly points out that our tendency to focus on Husserl's critique of Galilean science canblind us to the fact that Husserl did not seek to abandon it, but to add to it what was necessary to make it true, complete science - the search for truth.20 Keeping this in mind, it canbe asserted thatwhile Husserl rejects certain claims about the cognitive status of 'theory/ he is able to accept the general spirit of Hilbert's programme. No wonder then, that he would later write so excitedly to Hermann Weyl - that "Hilbert is developing a new foundation formathematics - wholly inthephenomenological spirit/'21 Husserl would view such a development as paralleling his own efforts: preserving the scientific ethos so beautifully enunciated by Hilbert, and channeling it onto the correctpath to truth. In his famous lecture from 1900 before the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, Hilbert summarized his hope for mathematical science as a collective activity, and in doing so remarkably prefigures Husserl's statement from Kaizo. Hilbert concluded: the question isurged upon us today whether mathematics is doomed to the fate of the other sciences that have split up into separate branches, whose representatives hardly understand one another and whose connection becomes ever more loose. I do not believe this, nor wish it. Mathematical science is in my view an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon theconnection of its parts. For with all the variety of mathematical knowledge , we are still conscious of the similarity of logical devices, the 222 HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OF SCIENCE relationship of the ideas in mathematics as a whole and the numerous analogiesin different departments.22 What becomes clear here is that to understand the 'whole' as a totality of group activity does not necessarily mean that one has to understand the content of the whole. This suggestion, that although there exists a variety of knowledge, there is also a formal similarity between these varieties, helps us to understand what Husserl might be expecting from a community at large that is meant to mirror the community of mathematicians. It is not as if everybody must accomplish the same task or fully grasp the meaning and significance of someone else's task, but everyone must complete his or her own task with a sense of its relation to the whole and with the 'form' ofphenomenology: having insight into what one is doing, taking responsibility for it, and justifying all of one's position-takings on the basis of evidence. While not every person must conduct intricate analyses of transcendental consciousness, every individual must 'do as phenomenologists do': work towards the goal of a rational existence at the individual level and through this, at the communal level. Suchworking in the 'same way/ though in different areas, can only enhance a collective movement to rational existence. As Hilbert says a little later on in his Paris lecture, "the sharper the tools for individual research, the better the researcher understands the whole."23 For Husserl, the more successful the individual is at exercising the form of phenomenological life, the more insight the individual will have into the collective telos ofhumanity to be rational. 4. CONCLUSION Husserl's ideal ofauthentic communal life which mirrors Hilbert's idealized vision of the activity of mathematicians offers a number of positive aspects worth mentioning by means of conclusion . Not only is Husserl's ideal community extremely anti223 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES authoritarian and strongly opposed to mindless functioning (even if functionalism should be the most efficient way for a society to work), but its formal quality means that it is extremely egalitarian and participatory. Everybody can participate through individual actions in a form ofcollective rational existence, everybody can act in the style of the phenomenologist, and because of this everybody can gain some insight into how their individual activity contributes to the collectiveactivity. This openness does come with demands, some of which may be too heavy for most to meet. Clearly, many are content with a life of 'activity in passivity/ Moreover,underlying all of what has been said is the fact that it requires a great deal of work. Hilbert's community ofmathematiciansis one engaged in a commonwork, and Husserl's authentic community calls for individuals to work hard cultivating their own 'field ofvalues/ Husserl's 'work ethic' can sometimes be a little over-bearing.After all, he was occasionally critical of that other 'Gottingen Circle' around him, those bright young students, including Edith Stein, who would frequent coffee-houses, carry on free-flowing discussions, and listen to guest-speakers like Max Scheler: this was all somewhat superficial to Husserl and no substitute for the labour of phenomenological investigations. Authenticity takes work, and authentic community arises only out of individuals working in similar fashion in the various fields of human endeavour. This is reflective of Husserl's extreme voluntarism, and when it comes to the differing forms of human culture, art for example, it may be unacceptable. Nonetheless, the notion that authenticcommunity can only arise out of hard work highlights Husserl's belief that a community which rests on unreflected traditions, pure functionality, or at worst, merelyracialdeterminations, cannever be truly authentic. It is the activity of individuals which founds the collective activity, not some sort of passively received inheritance. Still, though it is authentic individual activity which lies at the baseof community, this activity can never be one of mere self-interest. Individuals must, as Husserl says, see the fruits of their activity 224 HUSSERL ON THE COMMUNAL PRAXIS OF SCIENCE as a commongood. Togoback to our example of the community of mathematicians - nobody owns the Pythagorean theorem. Work within an authentic community is public, not reclusive, and if owned by anybody, it is owned by the public. Husserl's work ethic can be taken in many ways as antithetical to the work ethic of capitalism. Though he stresses individual autonomy, Husserl moves away from an ethics of self-interest. The individual must always be willing and able to justify his or her work, but that justification is 'owed' to the public. Acrucialpart of that justification and responsibility for one's work is to highlight how the work contributes to the common good. It is thus somewhat surprising that we find in Husserl, who is so often characterized as 'Cartesian' and somewhat distant from everyday life, the basisof a political philosophy which calls incessantly for a move away from self-interestto a higher collective interest. Notes 1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologie de la perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), 61. 2 David Carr, "Husserl's Crisis and the Problem of History," in Carr, Interpreting Husserl: Critical and Comparative Studies (Dordrecht/ Boston/ Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 71-73. Elsewhere, Carr doesemphasize the continuity of Husserl's thought vis-a-vis history; see his Phenomenology and the Problem of History (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 66-67. 3 SeePaulRicoeur, "Husserl and the Sense of History,"in P.Ricoeur, Husserl: An Analysis of His Phenomenology (Evanston IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967),144. 4 See R. Philip Buckley, Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of Philosophical Responsibility (Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic, 1992); parts of the present article have appeared as "Husserl's Gottingen Years and the Genesis of the Idea of Community,"in Reinterpreting the Political: Continental Philosophy and Political Theory, ed. L. Langsdorf and S. Watson,39^9 (Albany: SUNY Press,1998). 5 Edmund Husserl, Zur Phanomenologie der Intersubjektivitat. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil (1905-1920), Zweiter Teil (1921-1928), Dritter Teil (1929225 HUSSERL AND THE SCIENCES 1935),hrsg. von Iso Kern,Husserliana XIII-XV (den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973). 6 Karl Schuhmann, Husserls Staatsphilosophie (Freiburg: Karl Alber Verlag, 1988). 7 James Hart, The Person and the Common Life: Studies in a Husserlian Social Ethics (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1992). 8 Edmund Husserl, Aufsatze und Vortrage1922-1937,hrsg. von T.Nenon und H.R. Sepp, Husserliana XXVII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), 3-122. 9 Husserl, Aufsatze und Vortrage, 22. 10 Husserl, Aufsatze und Vortrage, 53. 11 Husserl, Aufsatze und Vortrage, 53. 12 Husserl-Archive manuscript K I 28/25a. Sections of this manuscript are published in Edmund Husserl, Studien zur Arithmetik und Geometrie, hrsg. von I. Strohmeyer, Husserliana, vol. 21 (den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983). See231for the above citation, which is probably from Husserl's 1887-1888 lectures entitled, "Einleitung in die Erkenntnistheorie und Metaphysik." 13 Husserl-Archive manuscript B // 23/8a. 14 J. Philip Miller, Numbers in Presence and Absence: A Study of Husserl's Philosophy of Mathematics (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), 6. 15 David Rowe, "Klein, Hilbert, and the Gottingen Mathematical Tradition," Osiris 5 (1987): 187. 16 Volker Peckhaus, Hilbertprogramm und Kritische Philosophic: Das Gottinger Modell interdisziplinarer Zusammenarbeit zwischen Mathematik und Philosophic (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990), 223. 17 Patrick Heelan, "Husserl, Hilbert, and the Critique ofGalileanScience," in Edmund Husserl and thePhenomenological Tradition,ed. R. Sokolowski (Washington DC: CUA Press, 1988), 160. 18 Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik, hrsg. von L. Eley, Husserliana XII (den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 432. 19 Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik, 343. 20 See Heelan, "Husserl, Hilbert, and the Critique of GalileanScience." 21 D. van Dalen, "Four Letters from Edmund Husserl to Hermann Weyl," Husserl Studies 1 (1984):7. 22 Constance Reid, Hilbert (New York and Heidelberg: Springer Verlag,1970), 83. 23 Reid, Hilbert, 84. 226 ...