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207 8 Reconstruction and Reduction: Natorp and Husserl on Method and the Question of Subjectivity Introduction Paul Natorp’s influence on the development of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology , especially on the transcendental reduction and genetic method in Husserl, has been vastly underestimated. Husserl’s contemporary , Natorp (1854–1924) was an exact observer and critic of Husserl’s philosophical development from before the publication of his Logical Investigations (1900/1901) and up to Natorp’s death. Moreover, Natorp was the single contemporary philosopher with whom Husserl had the most intimate contact, as is witnessed by their extensive correspondence.1 Natorp provided the “interface” through which Husserl came into contact with the neo-Kantianism that was then prevalent in Germany philosophy, as well as with Kant himself.2 As Husserl acknowledged after his transcendental turn, it was his discussions with representatives of the transcendental tradition, that is, the neo-Kantians, that aided him in developing a full-fledgedtranscendental phenomenology. His closest ally among these erstwhile opponents was undoubtedly Natorp.3 The relation between phenomenology and neo-Kantianism remains to a large extent an untold story, though the intersections between both schools are extensive. But to tell this story will prove decisive for the development of twentieth-century philosophy and beyond, and disentangling the many strands of these interactions has more than just historical merit. The present chapter can only be the beginning of this story, which will be continued in the next two chapters, and it will focus on the relation between Natorp and Husserl and the most important issue that fueled their discussion. This issue is that of the status of transcendental philosophy, especially as it purports to be the method proper for the analysis of concrete subjectivity. The original impulse to undertake such an endeavor came, interestingly, from Natorp, whose philosophical psychology —in contradistinction to other brands of psychology, such as Brentano ’s “descriptive psychology”—intended to carry out such an analysis 208 H U S S E R L , K A N T , A N D N E O - K A N T I A N I S M within the framework of the “Marburg” transcendental method inaugurated by his teacher Hermann Cohen. In so doing, however, Natorp was already in a sense going beyond Cohen’s methodological confines. He found in Husserl a kindred spirit in such an attempt, as shall be shown. While Husserl was striving to develop his own philosophical method and school—this tendency called the “phenomenological movement” is akin to what was frequently called the “movement back to Kant”—he nevertheless with one eye, and competitively, peered at the neo-Kantians. Husserl’s philosophical method of phenomenological reduction and his turn to transcendental phenomenology were developed in close discussion with Natorp. This was so much the case that many of Husserl’s followers believed, upon readingIdeas I (1913), that he had become a Kantian himself and had thereby fallen back into the naive or speculative idealism that phenomenology had supposedly overcome once and for all.4 However, it is more appropriate to say that the influence that representatives of the neo-Kantian tradition exerted on Husserl helped him come into his own. Natorp’s influence on Husserl also extends to the very way phenomenological description should be carried out. As has been argued by Iso Kern in his Husserl und Kant (1964)—the first study to address this topic—and again more recently by Donn Welton in The Other Husserl (2000; 443n38), the development of Husserl’s later genetic phenomenological method is inspired by Natorp’s concept of a “reconstructive ” analysis of consciousness. Put more strongly, Husserl would have been unable to attain this late stage without Natorp’s influence. Hence, this chapter will claim that Natorp was the decisive factor that led Husserl to develop both the phenomenological reduction and his later genetic phenomenology. Although their philosophical presuppositions and education, as well as their understanding of the nature of philosophy , were quite different from the outset,5 Natorp and Husserl were working on parallel problems and in close proximity, which enabled them to benefit from each other. For his part, Natorp was attempting to draft a philosophical psychology that intended to counter the “objectifying” tendency of the transcendental method developed by his teacher Hermann Cohen. This was called for, according to Natorp, in order to recapture the concrete life of the subject. And indeed, the same philosophical motivation lay behind Husserl’s phenomenology and its call to the “things themselves.” Yet it was...

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