Old Notes on Husserl's Cartesian Meditations
Intro and Meditation 1
Decartes's method of absolute inwardness through doubt begins phenomenology Many divergent philosophies which all long for objective truth cannot coincide because they don't criticize each other from that common ground which can be returned to through the Cartesian method. True doubt cannot even presuppose norms, logic, or math for Husserl which Decartes did in his meditations; even science itself as a presupposition must be doubted Husserl distinguishes between mediated judgments which assess a content by a given standard which ground it versus immediate judgments or "evidence" which is a self presenting affair which adjusts judgments to itself. Evidence is pure experience of something's presence or lack thereof and this evidence must be the basis for any "scientific" endeavors Husserl distinguishes between an infinity of imperfect evidences where the pure self presences which are in themselves incomplete or can retroactively be doubted versus an unspecified number of perfect evidences that cannot be imagined to be untrue and are affirmed by higher reflections. Unimaginable means the doubting of the evidence would itself produce no object. Husserl declares the world uncertain and not a basis for the sciences Husserl brackets the entire objective world in the epoche and is left with nothing but the ego which brackets in the first place to asses The Cartesian Ego rests on the uncertain ground of memory, while the uncertain flux of experiences seems to itself be grounded in the certainty of a horizon that allows experience in itself and Husserl argues the Cogito is a similar horizon to the horizon underguarding all experience Descartes' error was to Husserl trying to find an axiom to ground experience, and a prejudiced goal of wanting to ground experience for the sake of rescuing the world which (possibly leads to his substance dualism?) Husserl concludes there is an ego but it is not part of the world, which means we cannot attribute psychological character to it as that has been reduced away
Meditation 2
Husserl talks about the possibility of imagination opening up science, and later about finding certainty in the transcendental structure of the actions or identity of the cogito Husserl describes the first passive acceptance of phenomena which passes into the second critical stage of critiquing all experience. Against the cogito for Husserl is a Horizon of indeterminable capacity for determination that the harmonious flow of experience passes through and that the cogito works through. The cogito bears a cogitatum which is an object to be conscious of which itself expressed a particular kind of thing regardless of that thing’s reality or irreality. Husserl says we bracket the content of conscious acts, and in doing so we can analyze the underlying structure of perception itself, this however is constantly interrupted if we remain in a natural attitude without reflection. Cogiotationes are the various types of mental actions the cogito does to grasp its cogitatum. We can grasp the background universe of the cogito through understanding these structures and actions which underguard all particular contents. I think Husserl favors a component based bottom up structure of consciousness over a top down whole based one. The cogito synthesizes a multiplicity of flows of experience to pass through a unified object or event that all coherently pass into each other. These unified objects aforementioned are themselves united in a higher unity of an internal time that is the life of the cogito themself, and the different times inside the object are assessed relative to the cogito’s unity of internal time Part of our grasping of an object is not just what it already is or is becoming, but the horizon of that which it can become in the future; (which in some sense is tied to what the object already is.) By analyzing the potentialities of different objects of consciousness we can divide the different ways different types of objects are synthesized (because different types of objects have different potentialities?) We can also find the different types of object by dimensionalizing it along the axis of the particular intentional acts which constitute its synthesis? We find the nature of objects by cognizing these limitations we place upon them.
Meditation 3
Husserl first argues existence is essentially tied to reason, and reason is tied to the ability to form a phenomenological synthesis which presents itself as evidence, non-existence and unreason are the opposite of this. For Husserl experience all experience tends toward or outright is an evidence of what is meant or not meant, as we are constantly verifying the syntheses the intentional object is going through in correspondence to our consciousness. This process can be interrupted allowing us to realize the possibility and actuality of the object’s non-being retroactively. The given evidence seems to for Husserl alter the horizon of an intentional object’s possibilities. Husserl divides consciousness between the actual and the imaginable which he correlates with what he calls “positionality and quasi-positionality” with little if any clarification. Husserl says we make vague intentions clear by passing them through the flows of actual synthesizable experiences that correspond to the sense of the intention, but this for Husserl clarifies the object’s possibility of being rather than its actual being Husserl seems to say we can only verify the truth as true from our own positionality which means it may be filtered through categories of logic that we intend meanings for in objects when we try to synthesize them through verification. Husserl believes being only comes from the ability to be verified by the possibility to repeat an evidence in experience and then grasp that repeatability as part of the horizon of the potential in the object. The world for Husserl seems to be simply the different perspectives of our inseparable unity will all of the synthesizable experiences that unites in a horizon of possibilities for the subject. We can divide the conscious world into regions based on the structures their flows of synthesis follow along.
Meditation 4
The ego always exists for Husserl in relationship with the horizon of the of the objects its intending The ego for Husserl relates to and unites all objects in its field of life despite their multiplicity and distinction The ego is able for Husserl to attach to itself characteristics by standing by deeds which are able to be returned to or negated forming personality. The ego habituates its intelligibility of novel objects in the world into itself as its property for itself. Husserl describes the eidetic method for unraveling the essence of objects by systematically removing aspects of it until the full scope of its horizon of possibilities is opened up to its full limits Husserl describes an eidetic psyche which describes the pure pole of the ego in the mental life on its own pure terms as itself. Husserl declares the ego has an infinite number of contents but these contents are compossibly separated from each other by the eidetic universal they instantiate. Husserl suggests a historicity of habits is part of the ego’s constitution of the world’s intelligibility and the ego’s eidetic nature. Husserl divides objects into those that generate actively from the ego’s psychological activities of reason and the generation made passively which grounds reasonable generation through the pure itselfness of object made intelligible through the automatic synthesis through our historicity. Husserl notes a sense of association which goes beyond general historicity and refers back to eidetic universal of intelligibility Husserl declares the problem with analyzing the ego purely from within it as there is no objectivity to verify it yet, which leads DeCartes to invoke God in his case. Husserl declares that the investigation has led us into idealism which supposes (from what I can tell) an intersubjectively accessible world of intelligibility.
Meditation 5
Husserl is challenged by the accusation of solipsism making him need a notion of intersubjectivity, but he later clarifies phenomenology should be able to explicate the way in which such an intersubjectivity appears to us in phenomenal immanence. Husserl analyzes that the world presupposes a “thereness for everyone” (everyone being other egos) and that the appearance of other subjects displays their organic domination of their appearance. He eventually declares that the phenomena of empathy will ground not just our knowledge of others but of the world itself Husserl brackets our very historistic connection to our owning of phenomena letting a field of pure experience undifferentiated between mine and other display itself in order to show the very intentional acts of owning experiencing presupposes an alter-ego which cannot be said to be one with my owning of experience. Another result of this reduction is finding a bracket bundle of psycho-physical harmonies that is interpenetrating the world of pure pre-intersubjective nature as one ownness. We also find objects like our mind and body individuate into different flows along the field of unified ownness. Finally he concludes that the bracketing of experience into pure ownness will reveal whether what phenomena come must necessarily come from the other and which do not (if they in fact do not.) Husserl declares that in order to have a sense of ownness against the world the ego needs an alter-ego to contrast its ownness of phenomena with which is initially the world itself. We understand the nature of our ownness according to Husserl by explication the flows of potentiality of various different experiences that compose what we are in terms of their limitation as ideas. For Husserl the monad of the ego when fully bracketed will even contain the transcendent unities that form the flows of actual and possible objects as part of its life through for example habits. Husserl discusses an immanent transcendence of the world that stands steadfast constituting myself while I grasp a series of meanings for my ownness at the same time. Husserl declares that the first other we encounter is no particular other but a community of monadic subjects which give us a parallel infinite horizon of possibility. Husserl says that in order to assimilate other bodies into our ownness through a higher degree of bracketing we need to already have intuited an object similarity between their body and ours that forms a type for them to be in which is the same type as our body’s type Husserl declares all experiences of the other come in a pairing which maintains two or more in a unity that allows each to understand the other without them forming into one identity, and we do this by comparing our body to the body of others. Husserl declares that our experience of the other is rooted in the organism of the other presenting a contiguous harmony and an inability for us to access while still being aware of the organism’s potentialities Another aspect of the other is its ability to transcendently modify my psychic life from within without invoking my own historicity and retaining its own harmony. One example Husserl gives that pairs our organism with another is the hereness of our body which is contrasted yet is also paired with the thereness of another body. Husserl goes on to say that the there of the other organism can only be conceived as intrinsically separate to the here of my own, yet despite this we can as different monads learn our own potentialities through the there of the other. Husserl says we see the potential perspective of seeing objects from the perspective organism in the there as compared to our here and that we constitute the other as objects through tracking their flow through their perspectival potentiality across the common time of our consciousness. Husserl notes a higher level of intersubjectivity rooted in the ability to perceive my own otherness in the perspective of the organism of the there and the there organism’s own ownness. Husserl notes the ego is in objectification of certain potentialities among the here Husserl says we live in an interconnected series of worlds of culture and nature called lifeworlds which can subsume and bifurcate between each other, but that ultimately we gain a greater understanding by emphasizing and trying to envelop the potentials of all of them. Husserl says the ontology of the world must be reconstructed from the ground up rather than taken as given. Husserl reaches what he calls a metaphysical conclusion that the world must be one time and space composed of a single (even if separated across time and space) community of monadological selves. Husserl says psychology can be better clarified through the method of transcendental phenomenology putting a particular emphasis on empathy as an important factor in development. Husserl concludes meditation 5 that the sense in which we intend something as our own delineates what is not our own unveiling the other and revealing a monadology of selves in community with each other.
Conclusion
Husserl begins his conclusion by saying even the transcendental method ought to be criticized particularly for its reliance on certainty even if it does come to conclusions which are certain within its framework. Husserl ends his work stating we can get a better ontology and answer existential questions through a rigorous examination of the possibilities of the flow of experience that comprise us.
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