kant and husserl paul ricoeur

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Ricoeur, Paul, Kant and Husserl , Philosophy Today, 10:3 (l966:Fall) p.147

KANTANDHUSSERLby paul

THE GOAL of this study is to placewith some exactitude the opposition be-tween the phenomenology of Husserland the Kantian Critique in the light ofthe great works devoted to Kant (andparticularly to his metaphysics) in thelast twenty years, and after a more com-plete reading of the published and un-published works of Husserl.Iwould like to show that this oppo-sition is not located where the neo-Kantians (who have done a critique ofthe ldeenP thought itwas. This critiqueis still based on an interpretation ofKant that is too epistemological. Theopposition ought to be located not onthe level of the exploration of the world

ricoeurof phenomena, but on the level whereKant detennines the ontological statusof the phenomena themselves.

1. First, using Husserl as guide, weshall notice behind the Kantian epi&-temology an implicit phenomenology,of which Husser} will be in some sensethe revealer. Inthis sense Husserl c0n-tinues something which was obstructedinKantianism and kept in an embryonicstate - although it was necessary toits general economy.2. Then, taking Kant as guide andtaking Kant's ontological scheme seri-

ously. we shall ask ourselves ifthe phe-nomenology of Husserl does not repre-sent both the ftowering of an implicit Thil study of Kant ibid Husserl will be includacl in "olume of C'ollected.... ys Oil Hu ... rl by Prof_or llicoelU'. The hook. to be ea.titled HUSSERL.will be plJblillh.d ~ SpriDg 1987 by th. Iforth...ut.ru UIllTenit? pnq la its:riM. Studi... In Phenomellology and Existential Phllosophy:-

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phenomenology in Kant and the destruc-tion of a problematic of Being whichhad its expression in the role of limitand of the foundation of the thing initself. We can ask ourselves if the lossof the ontological dimension of the ob-ject as phenomenon is not common toHusserl and to his neo-Kantian criticsof the beginning of this century. Thiswould be the reason they located thedebate on the sidelines.

We shall therefore be led to rein-terpret Husserlian idealism guided bythis sense of limit which is perhaps thesoul of Kantian philosophy.

3. Since the process of de-ontologi-zation of the object leads Husser! to acrisis of his own philosophy, to a criti-cal point which he himself calls tran-scendental solipsism, we shall ask our-selves if it is possible to overcome thisdifficulty and to arrive at intersubjec-tivity without the help of a practicalphilosophy in the Kantian style. Thistime, to the embarrassment of Husserlin the constitution of the alter ego, weshall come back again at a later time toKantianism in order to seek there theethical and practical determination ofthe person.

ITHE "CBlTIQUE" ASDIPLICI'J'PllENOlllENOLOQY

Since, first, Husser] is to serve asguide to bring to light an implicit phe-nomenology inKantianism, it is neces-sary to say. inat least a few words,what characteristics of Husserl's phe-nomenology we hold essential in thiswork of disclosure.

1. I insist first of all, with consid-erable force, on the necessity of dis-tinguishing inHusserl the method thathe effectively practiced and the philoso-phical interpretation of this methodwhich he developed especially in Ideen.I and in the Carie8ian Meditations. This PHILOSOPHY TODAY 148

distinction will receive its full meaningwhen the Kantian philosophy of limitwill in turn have opened to us the meta-physical decision implicit in Husserlianphenomenology.Indistinguishing the method prac-ticed and the philosophical interpreta-tion of the method. I by no means in-tend to reject off hand the philosophicalinterpretation of the famous phenome-nological reduction. This would be totransform phenomenology into a rhap-sody of lived experiences and to baptizeas phenomenology all complacency to-ward the curiosities of human life, ashappens all too often. The reduction isthe narrow gate to phenomenology. Butit is inthis very act that a methodologi-cal conversion and a metaphysical de-cision cross each other. It is there inthis very act that they must be dis-tinguished.Inits strictly methodological inten-tion the reduction is a conversion whichcauses the "for me" of every ontic posi-tion to arise; whether the being be athing, a state of affairs, a value, an ani-mate being. or a person, the l'lroX'l"reduces" it to its appearance. A con-version is necessary because the "forme" is at first concealed by the verypositing of a being. This concealed pos-iting that Husserl calls the natural. atti-tude (or the general thesis of the world)is itself concealed from reflection. Thisis why a special ascesis is necessary inorder to break its charm. Without doubtone can only speak in negative termsof this "natural thesis" because its senseonly appears in reducing it. It will besaid then it is not the belief in the ex-istence of it, still less the intuition ofit, since the reduction leaves intact thisbelieving and discloses the "seeing" inall its glory. It is rather an operationwhich interferes with intuition and be-lieving to the point that it omits itselfinthe antic positing of this or that.

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This is why the natural attitude isa restriction and a limitation. In turn.the "reduction," in spite of its negativeappearance, is the reconquest of the to-tal rapport of the Ego to its world. Ina positive way the "reduction" becomesthe "constitution" of the world for andinthe experience of consciousness.

We have said enough to outline thedistinction between method and doc-trine which will become clear only afterthe Kantian ontology has opened oureyes to a problematic other than thatof the reduction.

The act of reduction discovers therelativity of what appears to operativeconsciousness. This relativity defines thephenomenon very precisely. Neverthe-less. fO T phenomenology anything ismeaningful only inconsciousness. Phe-nomenology wants to be the science ofphenomena rigorously gained inthe pos-iting of being.Is everything problematic of Beingannulled by the reduction? Inorder toaffirm this, it is necessary to decidewhether the problematic of Being waswholly contained inthe natural attitude,that is in the positing of each beingabsolutely without relation to a con-sciousness. It must be admitted thatHusserI never tried to clarify this ques-tion. Thus. our duty is to reserve en-tirely the question of knowing whetherthe arising of the "for me" of all things.(given the thematization of the worldas phenomenon) exhausts completelythe question that can still be posed con-cerning the Being of what appears. Myfeeling is that the method practiced byHusserlleaves this question untouched.Iwill further state that the natural atti-tude is simultaneously the concealmentof the appearance-for-me of the worldand the concealment of the being of theappearance. Ifthe natural attitude losesme to the world and takes me into theworld as seen. felt, acted, its in-itself

isthe false in-itself of an existence with-out me. This in-itself is nothing but theabsolutizing of the ontic, of the "this"of "beings:' "Nature is" - there is thenaturalistic thesis. In putting an endto this omission of the subject, indis-covering the for-me of the world, the"reduction" has opened and not closedmy view to the true problematic of Be-ing, because this problematic presup-poses the acquisition of a subjectivity.It implies the reconquest of t h e subject,that being to whom Being opens itself.2. The phenomenological reduction.which has thus caused the phenomenonof the world to arise as the very mean-ing of consciousness, is the key thatopens the way to an original "experi-ence": the experience of "lived experi-ence" in its "stream of consciousness."The ldeen calls it an "immanent per-ception"; the Oartesian Meditations callit a "transcendental experience," which,like all experience. derives its validityfrom its intuitive character - from thedegree of the presence and fullness ofits object. The Jamesian echo of thewords "lived experience," "st:remn ofconsciousness," ought not to misleadus. The accent is fundamentally Car-tesian. Whereas the perception of thetranscendent thing is always dubitable,because it is caught in the flux of sil-houettes and profiles, which can alwayscease to hannonize ina unity of mean-ing, the experience of consciousnessschattet Bieh nicht 00; it does not appear"inprofile" - it isnot perceived insuc-cessive facets. Phenomenology reststherefore on an absolute perception.which is not only indubitable but apo-dictic (in the sense that it is inconceiv-able that its object, lived experience,not be).

Is this to say that phenomenologyis a new empiricism, a new phenomenal-ism? It is here that it is important torecall that Husserl never separated theKANT AND .HUSSERL

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transcendental reduction from that oth-er reduction which he called eidetic,which consists in grasping the fact inits essence (Eidos). The Ego that thei ' lrOX'l reveals, as that towhich all thingsappear, ought not to be described initsfortuitous singularity but as Efdos~Ego(Cartesian MeditatiO'nB). This change ofplan, principally obtained by the methodof imaginative variations. makes a sci-ence out of ''transcendental experience."

It is by virtue of (1) the reductionof the being to phenomenon and (2) thedescriptive e:J:peTience of lived experi-ence inthe eidetic mode that the phe-nomenology of Husser! can serve as aguide in the work of Kant. Kant himselfgives us this authorization. Inthe letterto Marcus Hen!: of February 21, 1772,he announces that the great work whichhe projects on the Limit8 of Sensibilityand Rea8an would include in its theo-retical part two sections: (1) pheno-menology ingeneral, and (2) metaphys-ics considered unquely in its nature andin its method.

However, the Critique is not calleda phenomenology and is not properlyspeaking a phenomenology. Why?

1. This question permits us to re-late the Critique to the "reducnon,"Two reasons can be given: the firstis that what we will find inthe second

part refers to this philosophy of limits-which in the Critique holds as much aplace as the investigation of the domainof the phenomena itself.

Evoking in the Preface to the sec-ond edition the "revolution" perfonnedby the Critique in the method of meta-physics, Kant declares: Hie i8t ein Trak-tat von der Methode, nicht ein Systemder WiB86n8C1Ul / t se'lbst; aber 8ie er-zeichlnet gleich'WOhl den. ganzen Umri88der8elben, 8OWOh l in Ansehung ihrerGreneen , alB auch des ganzen ;nnerenGliederbaua derselben (BXXII~xxrn).a PHILOSOPHY TODAY

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"It is a treatise on the method, not asystem of the science itself. But at thesame time itmarks out the whole planof science, both as regards its limits andas regards its entire internal structure."a

The two designs of the Oritique arehere clearly posed: to limit the phe-nomenon and to elucidate its intemalstructure. It is this second task whichcould be phenomenological.That reason is not enough of a rea-son, for the elucidation of the internalstructure of phenomenality is not eon-ducted in the style of a phenomenology.It is necessary to put in question herethe properly epistemological concern ofthe critique. The fundamental question:Uhow synthetic a priori judgments arepossible" binders a true description ofexperience. The problem de jure, whichmanifests itself in the first schema inthe Transcendental Deduction, crushesthe intention of composing a true physi~ology of Gemut. It is less concerned todescribe howmind knows than to justifythe universality of knowing by the func-tion of the synthesis of the categoriesand imally by the function of the unityof transcendental apperception. Thethree correlative notions of nature, ex-perience and objectivity bear the marksof this epistemological concern. Nature,defined (toa certain degree phenomeno-logically) as "the totality of all pheno-mena." becomes in epistemological style"nature in general considered as con-foImity to Iaw' (Ge8etzmiissigkeit).And since nature is the correlate of ex-perience, the Ge8etzrnii88'igkeit of na-ture is identiCal with the conditions ofthe po88ibility of experience itself. TheOritique, inits epistemological task, willlook for some a priori concept makingpossible the "fonnal unity of expert-ence" or else "the fonn of an experienceingeneral." It is inthis framework thatthe problem of objectivity is posed: itis the value of knowing conferred on

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empirical knowledge by its Ge8etzmiis-Bigkeit.

That is just the point. The Critiquedoes not close on a purely epistemolo-gical determination of objectivity, inother words, on a justification of con-stituted knowing (mathematical, physi-cal, metaphysical). The Analytic goesbeyond the purposes of Newtonian phys.ics, and the Aesthetic beyond that ofEuclidean and even non-Euclidean ge-ometry. Itis inthis latitude with whichthe Critique exceeds a simple epistemol-ogy that there is a chance of f'mding thebeginning of a true phenomenology.

The Copernican revolution, disen-gaged from hypothetical epistemology,is nothing else than the phenomeno-logical l f f " O J < 7 l ; it constitutes a vast reduc-tion which not only goes from consti-tuted sciences, from lmowledge whichhas succeeded to its conditions of legi-timacy, it goes from the totality ofappearance to its conditions of con-stitution. This descriptive scheme, en-veloped in the vindicatory scheme ofthe Critique.. appears whenever Kantsurrenders all claims to support from anestablished science and directly defineswhat he calls receptivity, spontaneity,synthesis, subsumption, production, re-production etc. . . . These embryonicdescriptions, often masked in defini-tions, are necessary to the epistemologi-cal enterprise itself, because the apriori..which constitutes the fonna! detennina-tions of all knowledge, is itself rootedinacts, operations, and functions, thedescription of which largely overlapsthe strict domain of the sciences. Can itbe said then that the Critique involvesa "transcendental experience"?

2. This transcendental experience,which discloses itself to the phenomen-ologist beyond the threshold of the phe-nomenological reduction, at first seemstotally foreign to the genius of Kantian-

ism. The very idea of an "experience"of the Cogito - is it not, for a Kantian,a sort of monster? To regard and de-scribe the Cogito - is it not to treat itas a phenomenon, therefore as an ob-ject in nature and not at all as the con-dition of the possibility of phenomena?Does not the combination of the tran-scendental reduction and the eidetic re-duction repudiate Kant in a most de-cisive manner by a suspicious mixtureof psychologism ("lived experience")and of Platonism (the Eidos-Ego)? Isthis not the place to recall that the "1think" of the original apperception is inno way the self grasped inits Eidos andreduced to the function of the unitywhich supports the work of the synthe-sis of understanding? How, then, can"transcendental experience" escapefrom the dilemma: Either, Iam "con-scious" of the 1 think, but this is notknowledge, .or I "know" the self, but isit a phenomenon of nature? As a matterof fact, this is the point made most ef-fectively by Husserl's neo-Kantian cri-tics. We should recognize that the Cri-tique opens a difficult way for itself outof this dilemma, which is purely on theepistemological plane: the ''1 think"and the "phenomenal self" are definedin tenns of objective knowledge. ButKant in fact escapes this dilemma when-ever he proceeds to a direct inspectionof Gemii.t. The very tenn Gemii.t, soenigmatic, designates this "field oftranscendental experience" that Hus-serI thematlzes. Itis not at aD the "1think" guaranteeing epistemologicallythe unity of experience but what Hus-serl calls -Ego Cogito Cogitata. Inshort,it is the theme of Kantian phenomen-ology itself, the theme that the uCoper_niean revolution" causes to arise. Whenit is not reduced to the quaestio juris..to the axiomatization of Newtonianphysics, the revolution is nothing elseKANT AND HUSSERL

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than the reduction of beings to theirappearance inGemid,With this guide of a transcendentalexperience of Gemut it is possible to re-capture the features of a Kantian phe-nomenology.The Transcendental Aesthetic iswithout doubt the least phenomenologi-

cal part of the Critique. The descriptionof the spatiality of the phenomenon -which Kant undertook only because ofhis concern with mathematics - iscrushed between the epistemologicalconcern of justifying, by the concept ofpure intuition, the synthetic a priorijudgments of geometry+ and the charac-teristic constructibility of rationalmathematics- on the one hand, and theontological concern of exactly locatingthe being of space on the other hand,"

Nevertheless, a phenomenology ofspatiality is implied at the moment thatspace is related to the sUbjektiven Be-schajJenheit umseres Gemuts (A 23).("to the subjective constitution of ourmind"), Only this phenomenology canestablish that the pure epistemologicalnotion ofapriori intuition coincideswiththat of a "form having its seat in thesubject.t, Kant is led to describe spaceas the way in which a subject disposesitself to receive something before theappearance of something. "To renderpossible an external intuition" is a phe-nomenological determination far widerthan "to render possible the synthetica priori judgments of geometry." It isno longer the possibility of the order oflegitimation but of constitution, of theBeschafjenheit unseree Gemilts.

The Transcendental Aesthetic nev-ertheless remains very disappointingnot only because of its embryonic butalso because of its static character.Space and time are not considered inthe movement of total experience but asa preliminary stratum achieved and in- PHILOSOPHY TODAY

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ert. This is understood once againthrough the weight of epistemology.For geometry, spatiality is not a stagein the constitution of the "thing:' itsdetennination as pure intuition oughtto end in itself in order to assure thecomplete autonomy of mathematics.But as soon as Kant sets foot onphenomenological soil and relates spaceto the possibility of being affected bysomething, he is involved in the verymovement of a dynamic constitution ofexperience and of thingness. Suddenlythe provisional juxtaposition of spaceand time is put inquestion. Space oughtto be "traversed" intemporal moments."retained" in a total image and "recog-nized" as an identical sense (A 95 sq.).The schematization accentuates evenmore the dynamic character of the spa-tial constitution itself (A 137 sq.). Thisreconquest of space by time ("time is anecessary representation which servesas the foundation of all intuitions")marks the tritunph of phenomenologyover epistemology.Moreover, insofar as we dismissfrom our concern the axiomatizing ofgeometry, everything that appearedclear in the epistemological order be-comes obscure in the phenomenologicalorder. If space is on the sensible level,we never think of anything in it, wemerely dispose ourselves to receivesomething. But then we are beneathany synthesis and it is necessary to saythat this form (epistemological) is adiverse one (phenomenological) (A 76-77). Kant even caught a glimpse of thefact that space concerns the status ofa dependent being seinem. Dasein 8O'Wohlo1s seiner Anschauung nach (die seinDasein in Beziehung aUf gegebene Ob-je7cte bestimmt) (B 72) "dependent inits existence as well as in its intuition,and which through that intuition deter-mines its existence solely inrelation togiven objects."



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At one stroke he identifies space-either the formal property of being af-fected by objects or of receiving an im-mediate representation of things - withthe intentionality of consciousness. Thisis the very movement of consciousnesstoward something considered as thepossibility of displaying, discriminating,or pluralizing any impression whatso-ever.Thus the more explicit phenomen-ology of the Analytic dispels the falseclarity of the Aesthetic, soweakly phe-nomenological.The phenomenology of the Ana-lytic is thrown into relief with evidenceif one forces himself to read it to theend, while going back from the trans-cendental theory of judgment (or theAnalytic of Principles) to the transcen-dental theory of the concept, and whilelingering with the Analogies of E:r;peri-ence before plunging into the difficultchapter on the Schematism (that forreasons which will be discussed later).Itis natural that Kant's phenomenologybe primarily a phenomenology of judg-ment; that is most fitted. to furnish apropaedeutic to epistemology. It is na-tural by contrast that Husserl's phe-nomenology be by preference a phe-nomenology of perception; that is mostfitted for illustrating a source of evi-dence, of originality and Of presence,although the Logische Untersuchungenbegin with judgment and the place ofjudgment is marked in the stratifica-tions of experience to the level ofgrounded syntheses.(We shall see in the second partother explicit reasons for this differ-ence of emphasis and of preference inthe description between Kant and Hus-serl.) In any case, the difference ofdescriptive theme ought not to hide therelationship of the method of analysis.Ifthen we come to the Analytic atlast, by way of the Analogies of Experi-

ence, we see developing an ample an-alysis of judgment as act of subswningperceptions under the rules of intellec-tuality. Kant, the epistemologist, takesthis operation for a simple "application"of the rules of the understanding pre-viously constituted. But the importanceof the description involves analysis inanother sense: subsumption is revealedas being a true constitution of experi-ence as experience understood, judgedand expressed at the predicative level.The Principles~ which from theepistemological point of view are theaxioms of a pure physics, the first syn-thetic a priori. judgments of a science ofnature, give birth to an admirable de-scription of the constitution of DingZich-keit. Beyond the principles of perma-nence, of production and of reciprocity.it is the intellectuality of the perceivedwhich is thematized. And what is ad-mirable is that, long before Husserl,Kant had tied the structures of Ding-Zichkeit to the structures of temporal-ity; the different manners inwhich ex-perience is "connected" are also thediverse ways which time structures it-self intellectually. The second analogyin particular includes a veritable phe-nomenology of the event which answersthe question, what does "to happen"mean? Itis in the object in the worldthat the phenomenologist elaborates thenotion of a regulated succession. InHus-serlian language, it will be said thatthe Analogies O f Experience develop thenoematic of experience inthe judgmentof experience. They consider judgmentfrom the side of the "judged" terminat-ing in the object. (The preceding chap-ter on the Schematism raises, on theother hand, the noetic analysis of the"event" and reflects on the operationitself of the liaison as "synthetic powerof the imagination" (B 233). We will re..turn to it later.)Ifone considers that chapter IT ofKANT AND HUSSERL

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the doctrine of judgment. the heart ofwhich is the theory of the Analogies ofExperience. shows the noematic face ofthe judgment of experience, itwill beunderstood that this noematic analysisis achieved inthe Postulates of Empiri-cal Thought in General." (A 218 sq.)These. infact, supply no new determin-ations to the object but thematize itsexistence according to the modalities ofthe real, of the possible and of the nec-essary. Now what do these postulatessignify? They simply pose the funda-mental correlation of the existence ofthings and their perceptibUity: wo alsoWakmehmung unil deren Anhang nachem.pirischen Gesetzen hinreicht, dahinreicht auch unsere Erkenntnis vom Da-sein tier Dinge (A 226). "Our Imowl-edge of the existence of things reaches,then, only so far as perception and itsadvance according to empirical laws canextend" Spatiality had furnished us thestyle of intentionality as an overture toappearance. The postulates of empiricalthought determine the actuality of in-tentionality as perceived presence ofthe thing which appears.Itis not therefore by chance thatKant has inserted in this place in the

second edition the Refutation of Ideal-ism, which is a premature definition ofintentionality: das blosse, aber em:pir-wek beetimmte, B61VU88tsein meines ei-gen Daseins beweist da8 Dasein der 08-genstiinde im Raum ausser miT (B 275) :"The mere, but empirically determined.consciousness of my own existenceproves the existence of objects in spaceoutside me." The correlation of the .'1am" and the "something is," is infactintentionality itself.

But ifthe 2nd chapter of the Tran" . .scendental Doctrine of Judgment de-velops the noematic face of the judg.ment of existence. the 1st chapter de-voted to the schematism develops the PHILOSOPHY TODAY.

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noetic face of it. This is why it is so ob-scure. It continuously anticipates, bymeans of reflection, the analogies of ex-perience which display in the object thework of judgment. Perhaps it is neces-sary to always read this chapter afterfollowing it and come back to it by a re-flexive movement which finds again"in" the Gemut what has been shown"in" the object. This is the character an-ticipated. by this chapter which explainsthe brevity of Kant in the elaborationof the schemata. But these some onehundred lines (A 144-147) are like thesubjective side of the immense noematicanalysis of the following chapter.Ifone considers it inthis way, thetheory of the schematism approacheswhat Husserl calls the auto-constitutionor the constitution of the self in tempor-ality. It is understood. that Kant washimself astonished at this verboraeneKunst in den Tiefen der menachlichenBeeZe, deren wah.re Handgriffe wir derNatur 8chwerlich jemals abraten undsie unverdeckt vor Augen legen werden(A 141) t "art concealed in the depthsof the human soul, whose real modes ofactivity nature is hardly likely ever toallow us to discover and to have open toour gaze." Never had Kant been freerinregard to his epistemological pre-oe-cupations. Never had he been nearer todiscovering the original time of con-sciousness beyond constituted time (ortime as representation according to theTranscendental Aesthetic). The time ofthe schematism is at the junction of re-ceptivity and spontaneity, of the mani-fold and unity. Itis my power of order-ing and the menace of always escapingand being defeated. It is jointly thepossible rationality of order and the ir-rationality always springing up againof experience. Itlooks toward affection,of which it is the pure flux, and towardintellectuality, since the schema typifyinit possible structuring with regard to



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the "series," to "content," and to "or-der." (A 145)Ifwe follow this phenomenology ofmind to the end, it is necessary to recon-

cile with this noetic analysis of theoperation of judgment what Kant re-peatedly was led to say of the existenceof consciousness. Ifthe noematic analy-sis culminates inthe Postulates of Em,..pirical T1unt,ght, which coordinate theexistence of things to their perceptibil-ity, the noetic analysis culminates inthe auto-determtnatton of the '1exist."But one finds only scattered notes onthis inthe Critique. It is here, in fact,that the implicit phenomenology en-counters the most notable resistance atthe very heart of Kantianism. Everyepistemological conception of objectivitytends to make of the "Ithink .. a functionof this objectivity and imposes the alter-native that we brought up at the begin-ning: either I lose "consciousness" of the"I think" - but I do not "know" it - or1lmow" the self, but it is a phenome-non in nature. 'I1lis is why phenomeno-logical description tends toward the dis-covery of a concrete subject which hasno tenable place in the system. Yet,Kant approaches it whenever he alsoapproaches primary time as productionin judgment by means of the schemat-ism and also when he determines theexistence of things as correlates of myexistence. Itis with reference to thisthat he declares: ulch bin mir meinesDaseins a1s in der Zeit bestimmt be-'WU88t (B 275) . jolglich i8t die Be-stimmung meines Daseins in der ZeitnUT durch die ExiBtenz wir1clicher Din-ge, die ioh auseer mir wahrnehme, mOg-lit;'h," (B 275-276). "I am conscious ofmy own existence as determined in time. . . consequently the detennination ofmy existence in time is possible r)nIythrough the existence of actual thingswhich I perceive outside me." The same

thing is said inthe Preface to the 2ndedition (Bx 1). The immense difficultywas that of thematizing an existencewhich would not have been the eate-gory of existence, that is a structure ofobjectivity. It is first confronted atparagraph 25 of the 2nd edition (anexistence which is not a phenomenon).The note that Kant adds there (B 158)proposes the task of grasping existencein the act of the I think which deter-mines this existence, hence before thetemporal intuition of myself whichraises my existence to the level of apsychological phenomenon (B 157).Thedifficulty is immense, especially if oneconsiders that the 1 think only passesto the act in the occasion of a manifoldwhich it logically determines. One re-calls especially the famous text in thecritique of Rational Psychology inwhich the .'1 think" is considered as anempirical proposition which includes theproposition .'1 exist." Kant tries to re-solve the problem in the framework ofhis epistemology by tying to it the ex-istence of an "indetenninte empiricalintuition" anterior to all organized ex-perience. This pennits him to say: dieE:x:iBtenz ist hier noch keine Kategorie(B 423); lithe existence here (referredto) is not a category."

Is not this existence outside cate-gory subjectivity itself, without whichthe UI think" does not merit the titleof the first person? Is it not inrelationto this original time that the Analyticdisengages itself beyond the time-rep-resentation of the Aesthetic'

Inshort, is it not the existence ofthe Gemut - of this Gemilt which isneither the I think as principle of thepossibility of the categories, not theself-phenomenon of psychological sci-ence - of this Gemut offered to tran-scendental experience by the phenom-enological reduction?KANT AND HUSSERL

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nTHE "C&lTIQUE" AS SlJBVEY OF LDDTSOur first group of analyses restedon a temporary limitation: We haveadmitted that one could distinguish inHusserl the method effectively prac-ticed from the philosophical interpre-

tation that the author constantly blendswith it, chiefly in the edited works. Itis this effective phenomenology whichhas served to reveal to us an Implicitphenomenology in the Critique. Thekinship of Kant and of Husserl is there-fore attained only at the price of a legi-timate but precarious abstraction, prac-ticed on the total intention of one andthe other work.

But a critique is something differ-ent than phenomenology, not only initsepistemological preoccupation but alsoin its ontological intention. It is herethat the Critique is more than a simpleinvestigation of the "internal structure"of knowing; it is even more so-an inves-tigation of its limits. The rooting of theknowledge of phenomena inthe thoughtof being, not convertible into knowing.gives to the Kantian Critique its pro-perly ontological dimension. To destroythis tension between knowing and think-ing. between the phenomenon and being,is to destroy Kantianism itself.

One could then wonder ifthe phe-nomenology of Husserl, which servedas a guide and as a revealer for a de-scriptive phenomenology of Kantian-ism, ought not to be considered in turnfrom the point of view of Kantian on-tology. Perhaps the philosophical inter-pretation which ismixed with the tran-scendental E 1 N J x r 1 participates in the de-struction of Kantian ontology and sanc-tions the loss of Denken in Erkennenand thus flattens philosophy into a phe-nomenology without ontology.First, let US take up again the con-scious positing of the function which the PHILOSOPHY TODAY.

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in-itself exercises in Kant with refer-ence to the survey of phenomena.Itis impossible to know Being. Butthis impossibility, which institutes asort of disappointment at the heart ofKantianism, is itself essential to thefinal significance of the phenomenon. Itis an impossibility in some active andeven positive sense. Inthe face of thisimpossibility of knowing Being, Denken-still posits Being as that which limitsthe pretension of the phenomenon toconstitute ultimate reality. Thus Den-ken confers on phenomenology its stan-dard or its ontological evaluation.One can trace throughout the Cri-tique this connection between a disap-pointment (with regard to knowledge)and a positive act of limitation.As early as the TranscendentalAesthetic" where the ontological inten-tion is constantly present. Kant sup-poses that a priori intuition is deter-mined in contrast to a creative intui-tion which we do not have. The veryimportant note of Kant on intuitus ori-ginariU8~ at the end of the Aesthetic" isclear: The Gegen-stand remains in frontof me insofar as it is not the Ent-stand"which would arise out of its own intui-tion." But this metaphysical disappoint-ment is incorporated from the outset inthe determination of the meaning ofspace and time and Introduces a nega-tive note on each page of the Aesthetic:"all our intuition is only the represen-tation of the phenomenon; the thingswhich we intuit are not in themselvessuch as we intuit them." The deficiencyof the being of the phenomenon is insome way incorporated in it. But thisabsence is itself the reverse side of apositive act of Denken, which in theAesthetic takes the fantastic form of asupposition - the supposition of the de-struction of our intuition: "Gehen. wirvon tier subjektiven Bedingung abo . . 80 bedeutet die VO1'stellung vom Rau-



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me gar nick-tEl' (A 26).s He states thesame thing further on with reference totime (A 37). This nothingness makespossible part of the notion of transcen-dental ideality; space is nothing outsideof the subjective condition (A 28). Thisincredible conception expresses the posi-tive reality of this negative one: ourlack of original intuition. This positiveone is Denken, irreducible to our beingaffected, irreducible consequently tothis "dependence" of man seinem DG-sein sowohl als seiner Anschauung nach(B 72) "with regard to his existenceand his intuition:' that the end of theAesthetic evokes. It is Denken whichposes the Ilmit,s It is not phenomenalknowledge which limits the use of thecategories to experience, it is the posit-ing of Being by Denken which limits thepretension of knowing the absolute.Knowledge, finitude. and death are thustied by an indissoluble bond which isonly recognized by the very act of Den-ken, which escapes this condition andconsiders it insome way external.One would not be at a loss to showthat this supposition of the nothingnessof our sensible knowledge illuminatesthe constant affirmation of Kant thattranscendental philosophy remains onthe dividing line which separates "twofaces" of the phenomenon (A 38), thein-itself and the for-us. "Denm, das wasuns notwendig uber die Grenze der Er-faltrung und aller Erscheinungen hi-nausgehen treibt, ist das Unbedingte,usw. (B xx) ; "For what necessarilyforces us to transcend the limits of ex-perience and of all appearances is theunconditioned ... .', Itis the uncondi-tioned which allows us to speak of thingssotern. wiT si e nickt kennen (Ibid.). "in-sofar as we do not know them."

This limiting function of the in-it-self finds a striking confirmation in theTranscendental Analytic. It completesthe meaning of "nature." By indicating

the empty position of an impossible sci-ence of creation, it keeps the knowledgeof phenomena of nature from ending ina dogmatic naturalism. This limitingfunction of the in-itself finds its mostcomplete expression in the chapter onthe Distinction of the Objects in Phe-nomena and Noumena. The concept of .the in-itself. although "problematic"(from the point of view of knowing. butnot doubly problematic, only non-con-tradictory, is necessary ('(um die sinn-liche Anschauung n.icht biB tiber dieDinge an. sick selbst auszundehnen (A254). "inorder that intuition may notbe extended to things in themselves."More clearly again: Der Begriff einesNoumenon. i8t also bloss e m Grenzbe-griff, um die Anma88'Ung tier 8innlich-keit einzuschranken~ und also nur vonnegativem Gebrauche" (A 255), "Theconcept of a noumenon is thus a mere-ly limiting concept, the function ofwhich is to curb the pretensions of sen-sibility." There would be therefore asort of hybris of sensibility: not. to besure, of sensibility as such, but of theempirical use of the understanding, ofthe positive and positivistic praxis ofthe understanding.

This notion of the use of the cate-gories is capital. for Kant distinguishesit expressly from the meaning of thecategories (A 147, A 248). This distinc-tion illuminates well what Kant under-stood by the presumption of sensibility.Kant says nothing else when be showsthe vanity of this pretension by the playof the transcendental illusion and bythe sanction of the stalemate (paralog-isms and antinomies). It is not reasonwhich is stranded inthe TranscendentalDialectic, it is rather sensibility initspretension of applying itself to thingsin themselves."

Ifwe can believe that this Kantiandoctrine serves as a guide for us to in-KANT .AND HUSSERL

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terpret the implicit philosophy of Hus-serl, we must assure ourselves that Kantwas indeed successful in harmonizingthis function of limitation with theidealism of his theory of objectivity. asthat is the extent of the jurisdiction ofthe Transcendental DeductiOn. Is ob-jectivity reduced to a synthesis imposedupon multifarious sensibility by apper-ception by means of the categories? Ifthis conception of Objectivity as produc-tion of transcendental subjectivity is in.deed the c e n t e r of the TranscendentalDedu.ctWn~ how can it be expressed byanother significance 0: the object as initself? Occasionally, it seems, the word"object" can only designate "the col-lection of my representations." and theintellectual structure of experience issufficient to detach my representationsfrom myself and oppose them to me asan opposite (one knows the example ofthe house surveyed. apprehended andrecognized) (A 190-1). Inthis sense theobject is only the Erscheinung im Ge-genverhaltnis mit den Vorstellungen tierApprehen8ion (A 191), "appearance inopposition to the representations of ap.-prehension," By distinguishing the suc-cession in the object from the succes-sion of representations, so/em man sickihrer beunssst ist (A 189), "as one isconscious of it," causality, in particular.consolidates the object of my own rep-resentations, in the opposite pole of con-sciousness. And one can speak of truth,that is, of the accord of the represen-tation with its object, since by this pro-cess of the objectivization of represen-tations there is dae davon unterscheide-ne Objekt derselben (A 191), "the ob-ject of apprehension distinct from theserepresentations." This constitution ofthe object in consciousness, as overagainst consciousness, does it not effec-tively anticipate Husserl?Kant, however, does not at alldoubt that what places the object radi- PHILOSOPHY TODAY.158

cally outside is the thing in itself. Theaim of the phenomenon beyond itselfis the non-empirical object, the tran-scendental X. That iswhy Kant balancesthe texts where objectivity originatesbetween my representations and thephenomenon from the others where thephenomena remain nUT VorsteUungen..1die -wiederu.m ihren Gegenstand haben(A 109). "only representations, whichin turn have their object." The tran-scendental object is dLJ.8.1was in allenunsem empiriBchen Begriffen ilber-haupt B eziehung au/ einen G egen.stand.1d. i. objective ReaZitiit v8T8Chaffen kanA(A 109), "what can alone confer uponall our empirical concepts ingeneral re-lation to an object. that is, objective re-ality."

Thus the realistic function of inten-tionality (the object X as ..the correlate,of the unity of apperception") pene-trates through and through the ideal-istic function of the objectification ofmy representations.

How is that possible? The key tothe problem is the distinction, funda-mental inKant but totally unknown inHusserl, between intention and intui-tion. Kant radically disassociates the re-lation to something, ... and the visionof something. The Etwas-X is an inten-tion without intuition. It is this distinc-tion which subtends thought and knowl-edge; it not only sustains the tensionbut the harmony between them.Kant has not juxtaposed the twointerpretations of objectivity, he hasgranted their reciprocity. Itis becausethe relation to the object X is an in-tention without intuition that he returnsto objectivity as unification of a mani-fold. Then the relation to the object willbe nothing other than "the necessaryunity of consciousness, and thereforealso of the synthesis of the manifold."(A109) 11The objectivity born of objec-tification returns therefore the ODt:' to



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the other (A 250); the transcendentalideality of the object returns to therealism of the thing in itself, and theformer restores the latter. The Prefaceto the 2nd Edition emphasizes this whenit presupposes the mutual implication ofthe conditioned and the unconditioned.This structure of Kantianism iswithout parallel in Husserl's phenomen-ology. Like the neo-Kantians, Hussedhas wrecked the ontological bounds ofthe phenomenon and with the sameblow ruined the possibility of a medi-tation on the limits and the foundationof phenomenality. This iswhy phenom-enology is not a "Crftfque," that is, aninspection of the limits of its own fieldof experience.

Here we have the true guide fordiscerning in the phenomenological re-duction the simply methodological con-version of which we have seen the im-plications in the first part, and the meta-physical decision which is mingled withit. The second of the Oartesian Medita-tions demonstrates clearly this surrep-titious drifting from an act of absten-tion to an act of negation. While refrain-ing (mich entMlten) from positing theworld as absolute, Iconquer it as world-perceived-in reflexive life. In short, Igain it as phenomenon, and Husserl canlegitimately say that "the world is forme that which exists and is equal to myconsciousness in a similar Cogito." Butit is here that Husserl dogmatically sup-poses that the world "finds inme andextracts from me its sense and its valid-ity!' "Ihren ganzen, ihren universalenund speziellen Sinn und ihre 8einsge'l-tung hat s1e a'U88Chlie8s1ich a'U8 80lckencogitati0ne8/'U "The world extracts itstotal sense, at. once universal and spe-cial, and its ontological validity exelu-sively from such CogitationeB/' Ingar-den already had reservations aboutthese expressions which, he said, antici-pate the result of constitution, da darin

aine metaphy8i8che Entscheidung en-thalten ist, eine Entscheidung, die einerkategari8chen TheBe iiber etuxis, wasselb8t kein Element der transzendenta-lenSubjektivitiit ist.. gleinht,u ilfor theseexpressions involve a metaphysical de-cision which can be compared to a cate-gorical thesis concerning somethingwhich isnot in itself an element of tran-scendental subjectivity."TIle profound reason for it is thatHusserl has confused the problematic ofBeing with the naive positing of"beings" in the natural attitude. Butthis naive positing is only the omissionof the relation of beings to ourselvesand is answerable to this Anmassung(presumption) of which Kant speaks.Thus, one cannot find inHusserl thisinterweaving of the two meanings ofobjectivity that we can find inKant,an objectivity conBtituted "in" us andan objectivity which is the founder "of"the phenomennon. This is why thisworld which is "for" me with regard toits meaning (and "in" me inthe inten-tional sense of "in") is also "apartfrom" me with regard to its 8einsgeZ-tung, its ontological validity. Since thel~ is the measure of Being and canbe measured by nothing, it can onlyradicalize itself; it cannot be traversedby an absolute positing which, afterthe manner of the Good in Plato, couldgive something absolute to perceive tothe subject of perception.

I wouId now like to show that thisimplicit metaphysics of non-metaphys-ics explains certain features of Husserl'sdescription itself - not the fidelity andthe devotion of attention to 4'tbe thingsthemselves" (this reproach could ruinphenomenology purely and simply), butthe preferences which tum attention tocertain constitutive layers of experiencerather than toward others.

1) First there is the function ofreason which differs profoundly in KantKANT AND HUSSERL

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and Husserl. InKant reason is Denken.itself reflecting on the "meaning" ofthe categories outside their empirical"usage." One could say that this reflec-tion is both a critique of the transcen-dental illusion and the justification ofthe ideas of reason. But Husserl employsthe word reason, generally associatedwith the words "reality" and "truth"in an entirely different sense. Each esti-mate of the pretensions of lived experi-ence to signify something of the realis a problem of reason. But this esti-mate of validity consists in comparingeach type of signification (perception assuch, imagining, judging, willing, sens-ing as such) with the original evidenceof the corresponding type.The problem of reason is not at alIoriented toward an investigation ofsome ambition without vision, of someintention without intuition. which couIdgive to a phenomenon something be--yond itself.> On the contrary. reason hasthe task of authenticating the phenom-enon itself by its own plenitude.The phenomenology of reason,then. wholly makes sport of the notionof original evidence (whether this evi-dence be perceptive, categorial, orsomething else). It is therefore a cri-tique that phenomenology develops hereinstead of Kant's. Itdoes more, infact,than describe a spectacular mode; itmeasures everything that lays claim toperceiving. Its virtue is not only de-scriptive but corrective. Every emptymeaning (for example. the symbolicsignification in which the law of for-mation is perceived) has returned tothe presence of reality as it appeared,if itmanifested itself inits Le....lwhkeit,inthe flesh. Reason is this movement ofreturning from the "modified" to "theoriginal."Thus, phenomenology has becomecritique. but inan opposite sense fromKant. InKant, intuition referred back PHILOSOPHY TODAY

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to the "I thmk" which Jimted it; inHusserl, the "I simply think" returns tothe evidence which replenishes it. Theproblem of plentitude (Fiille) has re-placed that of limit (Grenze). Indefin-ing truth by the evidence and realityby the original, Husserl no longer meetswith the problematic of the "in-itself."Kant was anxious not to be locked upin the phenomenon; Husserl was anx-ious not to be led astray by unaccom-pIished thoughts. His problem is nolonger the ontological foundation, butthe authenticity of experience.

2) But this critique of authenticityought to lead Husserl from reduction toreduction, and at first to a reduction ofthe evidence itself. All philosophy ofperception threatens to return to naiverealism, that of Husser Imore than any,inthe dimension in which it insists onthe presence "inthe flesh" of the thingitself. Itwas this hazard that Husserlnever stopped conjuring up. He furtherinsists on the return of thought to theoriginally evident, for it ought to coun-terbalance the latent hazards of this in-tuitionism inradicalizing even more theidealistic interpretation of constitution.

This iswhat the 3rd Carlesinn Me-ditation and the unpublished papers ofthe last period are concerned with.These writings tend to resolve the dis-cord always springing up between theidealistic demand of constitution -which makes of the object a unity ofpurely ideal sense - and the intuitivedemand of reason. It is therefore neces-sary to perform the reduction on evi-dence itself with respect to the Iearnedand acquired. Stripped on every side ofold, sedimented and suppressed evi-dence. the evidence is reduced to theliving present (die lebendige Gegen-wart) of consciousness. One again seeshere a new effect of this "metaphysicaldecision" in which we discern every-thing now inthe Husserlian reduction.



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Every presence remains an enigma fordescription on account of this "excess"(Zusatz) which it supplies with refer-ence to my expectation and to my moreprecise anticipations. Husserl, shatter-ing this last illusion of the "in-itself"which could slip itself into the presence,decides that the presence of the thingitself is my present. The radical other-ness attached to the presence is reducedto the novelty of the present; the pres-ence Of the other is the present of my-self. From now on it is from the side oftemporality that Husser! will search forthe secret of the constitution of every-thing supposed in itself. The old evi-dences, abolishing the movement of con-stitution where they are originally born(Ursti{tung). ascribe to themselves amysterious transcendence. The in-itselfis the part of the evidence with thepossibility of reactivating it in a newpresent. All of a group of unpublishedwritings - group C - are engaged inthis open breach with the third Medi-tation.We are returning here to the fieldof battle, the great problem of tempor-ality. Itis because Husserl has discernedbeyond the time-representation of theTranscendental Aesthetic the originaltemporality which is even prior to con-sciousness that he can defy the moreancient illusion of absolute reality. Thequestion is that of knowing whetherhe ever caught sight of the problem ofBeing.3) This iie-ontologizing of realityleads to a new tum of fortune: the pass-age of "static" constitution to "gene-tic" constitution, marked by the in-creasing role of temporality in all theproblems of origin and authenticity. Butthe "genetic" constitution is in a goodpart a "passive" genius. Erfahrung unaUrteil is the proof of this orientation ofHusserl's researches. Each positing of

sense and of presence holds in abridg-ment a history which is sedimented.,then abolished. We have already seenthis with respect to the evidence, butthis history forms itself in the "anony-mous" strata of experience. At the timeof the Ideen, Husserl did not ignore thisside of the "passivity" of consciousness;he rather considered it as the inverse ofconsciousness (as hyle by relation tothe intentional form). What remainedin the foreground was the active antici-pation of a "sense" of a significant uni-ty (thing, animal, person, value, Bach-verhalt). Above an , Husserl did not failto underscore that consciousness is amanifold which the phenomenologistmust approach with "the transcenden-tal guide of the object." Inother words,the noematic analysis had precedenceover reflection of lived experience con-sidered noematically. This concern toidentify consciousness with synthesis,with the presumption of unity. was atbottom Kantian. But this interest isprogressively displaced from the prob-lem of the unity of sense to the problemof Urstiftung~ that is, the rooting of allsense in actual obvious experience. Thisdisplacement of interest could bebrought back from logical reason toperceptive reason - the articulation ofjudgment beginning again on the activemode of structures worked out in thepre-predicative sphere of perception -and from perceptive reason to sensoryimpression with its memory retensionsand its kinesthetic protensions.

It is therefore to a new Transcen-dental Aesthetic not devoured. by aTranscendental Deduction which themore important unpublished papers ofgroups C and D of the Louvain classifi-cation apply themselves.

According to this new Transcen-dental Aesthetic, the object perceivedby alI "turns back" beneath intersub-jectivity to the primordial world suchKANT AND HUSSERL



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as appeared to the SOZU8 ipae. To the in-terior of this primordial sphere the U~x-temal object" returns by means of theretensions and protensions of temporalconstitution to the "immanent object"- to the Urimpression.

Thus, Husserl is called back fromthe genius of Kant to that of Hume.Kant grounded impressions in the pri-ority of sensibility and based the per-ceived. order completely in intellectualobjectivity. With the later Husserl itwas no longer significant to "rise" tointellectuality but, on the contrary, tobuild on the ground of the primordial,Of the pre-cognitive. Itis precisely thegenius of Hume to regress thus fromsigns, symbols, and images to impres-sions.4) One could say that by this iden-tification of reason with a critique ofthe evidence, by this reduction of theevidence to present experience and bythis return to the impression, Husserltotally identifies phenomenology withan egology without ontology.

The more manifest intention of theOarteman Mediatations is to lead tothis identification. The Second Medita-tion supposes initially that if all realityis a correlate of the Cogito, every cogi-tatio is a mode of the Cogito. The Cogi-to, for its part, is the explication of theEgo. Phenomenology thus isan egologi-cal analysis. Husserl recognized at oncethe formidable consequences: u8icher-Iich. fiingt sie also a18 reine Egologie anund al3 eine Wissenschajt, die Un8, wie68 scheint, zu einem, ooschon tromseen-denta.len 8olipsi8mua verurteilt. Es ist janoch. gar nich abZU8ehen, wie in derEinstellung der Reduktion andere Ego- nickt ala bloss weZtliche Phanomene,sondern als andere transzendentale Ego- a1s seiend sollen setzbas: werden kim-nen ..und damit Z'U mitberechtigten The-men einer phiinomenoZogischen EgoZo-gie." PHILOSOPHY TODAY

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"Assuredly it begins inthe style ofa pure egology, of a science which con-demns us, it seems, to solipsism - atleast to a transcendental solipsism. Atthis stage one absolutely cannot foreseehow, in the attitude of the reduction,it could be possible for us to posit theexistence of other Egos - not merelyas wordly phenomena, but as othertranscendent Egos, and that thus wemay make of them also the legitimatetheme of a transcendental egology." ButHusserl heroically accepts the difficultyand is just able to make out that tran-scendental solipsism. ought to remaineWe phflosophische Untertftu/e-- "a pre-liminary philosophical stage" - andought to be provisionally assumed umdie Problem.atik tier transzendentale'nIntersub;ektivitiit al8 eine ,fundierte, al-80 hOherstu/ige in reehter Weise insSpiel setzen zu 1cOnnen . ,16 "inorderto engage the problematic of transcen-dental subjectivity in the right manneras a founded problematic, hence one ofhigher degree."We shall see in the third part ofthis study whether Husserl succeededincrossing the threshold of intersubjec-tivity. Let us note for a moment to whatkind of radicalism Husserl has led thisegology and to what kind of paradoxhe has led transcendental solipsism.In the 4th Cartesian Meditation ..the Ego itself, as the Ego of the EgoCogito, is thematized: also sick in sichse1bBt als seiend kontinuierlich Konsti-tuierende8,1 '1 "it never ceases to be con-stituted in itself as existing." Husserlought then to go beyond the old thesisof the Ideen, according to which theEgo i8t tier identische PoZ der Erleb-ni88e - "the identical pole of experi-ence." The Ego is henceforth das involler KOtn7cretion genammene ego (daBwir mit demLeilmizschen Worte Monadenennen 'WOllen).:18 "the Ego taken in itstotal concretion which we will designate



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by the Leibnizian term of monad." Whatis the significance of this passage fromCartesian language to Leibnizian lan-guage? Itmarks the total triumph ofinteriority over exteriority. of the tran-scendental over the transcendent. Ev-erything which exists for me is consti-tuted inme and this constitution is myconcrete life. Then one can indeed saythat alI the problems Of constitution areincluded inthat of the phiinomenologis-chen Auslegung diese8 monadischen ego(das Problem 8einer Konstitution fursick selbBt) ... In weiterer Folge ergfbtsick die Deckung der Phii:nomenologiedieser Selbstkonstitution mit tier Phii-nomenologie uberhaupt .19 phenom-enological elucidation of this monadicEgo (the problem of its constitution foritself) . . As a further consequence, itappears that the phenomenology of thisconstitution of itself for itself coincideswith phenomenology in general." Phe-nomenology will attempt to cross thedesert of solipsism by right of philosoph-ical ascesis. Phenomenology is the sci-ence of the sole ego of which Ihaveoriginal evidence - mine. Kantianismnever could have met such a problem,not only because inits epistemologicalperspective it could never meet withconsciousness in general, the subject oftrue knowledge, but also because theGemii.t that the Critique presupposes asconcrete subject is always bent towardthe transcendental object X which es-capes the phenomenon and which can bethe ab80lute existence O f another person.The de-ontologization of the object inHusserl virtually implies that of otherbodies and of other persons. Thus thedescription of the concrete subject,placed under the sign of idealism, leadsto this metaphysical solitude which Hus-ser! has assumed with an exemplaryhonesty inspite of the consequences.This iswhy the constitution of oth-ers, which assures the passage to inter-

subjectivity, is the touchstone of defeator success, not only of phenomenologybut of the implicit philosophy of phe-nomenology.

m"CONSTITVTION OFOTHEBS" AND"RESPECT"

All aspects of phenomenology con-verge on the problem of the constitutionof others. Are we deviating, for all that.from a Kantian problematic? Are wepenetrating a new land which has notbeen cleared by the Kantian genius?Not at all. This ultimate peripeteia ofHusserlian phenomenology, issuing !'l'Omwhat is least Kantian inthe "transcen-dental experience" of Husserl, leads usback in an unforseen manner to theheart of Kantianism; indeed not to theCritique of Pure Reason.. but to thepractical philosophy.

Kant does not have a phenomenolo-gy of the knowledge of others; the phe-nomenology of Gemut is too implicitand too burdened by epistemologicalconsiderations to contain the entice-ments of a theory of intersubjectivity.At the most one can find the premisesfor it inthe Anthropology ..in the frame-work of the theory of emotions whichKant infact treats as a theory of inter-subjectivity. But all this is not much incomparison with the admirable phenom-enological essays of Husser! on EinfiiJU..ung. The theory of Einfiihlung pertainsto descriptive phenomenology before be-ing charged with resolving the paradoxof transcendental solipsism. It is mti-mately united with the phenomenologyof perception, the perception of othersbeing incorporated in the significationof the world that I perceive. It is in-scribed in the constitution of the thinginwhich it detennines the last layer ofobjectivity; it is involved. inthe consti-tution of cultural objects, of language,of institutions.KANT AND HUSSERL

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Therefore it is not on properlydescriptive ground that phenomenologyhas something to learn from Kant. Hus-serl, not Kant, is the guide here.On the other hand, we meet Kantagain in order to resolve the difficultiescreated by the philosophic interpreta-tion of the reduction, which culminatesinthe paradox of transcendental solips-ism. Husserl has not only proposed todescribe how others appear - inwhatperceptive, affective, or practical modesthe meaning of "others," of "alter ego,"is constituted - he has attempted toconstitute it "in" me and still to consti-tute it as "another."This is the task of the 5th CartesianMeditatian. One could say that this dif-ficult essay is an untenable wager: theauthor tries to constitute others as ameaning which is fonned in me, inwhatis most "proper" to the Ego, inwhatHusserl calls the sphere of belonging.But at the same time t\tat it constitutesothers in me according to idealistic exi-gency, he intends to respect the verymeaning which is attached to the pres-ence of others, as other than me and asanother me, which has its world, whichperceives me, addresses itself to me andmaintains with me the relations of in-tersubjectivity from whence emerges aunique world of science and multipleworlds of culture. Husserl wants to sac-rifice neither idealistic exigency nor do-cility to the specific traits of Ein/uhl-ung. Idealistic exigency wants others,as the thing, to be a unity of modes ofappearance, a presumed ideal sense. Thedocility of the real wants the other to"transgress" my own sphere of experi-ence, to give rise (within the limits ofmy experience) to a "surplus" of pres-ence incompatible with the inclusion ofall sense inmy lived experience.The problem of others brings tolight the latent divorce between the twotendencies of phenomenology: the de- PHILOSOPHY TODAy

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scriptive tendency and the dogmatic ten-dency. The genius of Husserl is to havepreserved the- wager to the end. Thedescriptive anxiety to respect the other-ness of others and the dogmatic anxietyto ground others in the primordialsphere of possession by the ego findtheir balance in the idea of an analogicalgrasp of the other.

The other is there himself, andnevertheless I do not see his experi-ence; the other is only appriisentiert,"appresented, t, but on the basis of hisbody, which alone is prdsentiert; "pre-sented," with an original evidence inthe sphere of my lived experience. "In"me a body is presented which appre-sents an experience other than mine.This experience is an experience likemine in virtue of the pairing (Paarung)between by body here and the otherbody over there. This configurationdoubly grounds the analogy betweeneinge!ilhlt experience and erlebt experi-ence, between the experience of the oth-er and my own.

Has Husserl succeeded inconstitut-ing the stranger as a stranger in thesphere of experience itself? Has he suc-ceeded inovercoming solipsism withoutsacrificing the egology? T h e enigma isthat the other, appresented in his bodyand analogically grasped by "passivesynthesis," has a value of being (Seins-geltung) which tears it away from myprimordial sphere. How can an analo-gy - supposing that Iam acquaintedwith others by analogy - have thistranscendent aim, whereas all otheranalogies proceed from one thing to an-other inside my experience? Ifthe bod-ies of others are constituted "In" me,how is the experience of others, whichadheres there, presented "outside" me?How can a simple harmony among themodes of appearance of behavior in-dizieren a stranger and not a more sub-tle thing from "my" world? Has Hus-



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serl succeeded in escaping to the enor-mous prestige of the constitution ofDinglichkeit - of the thing - Ina fluxof profiles, of silhouettes (Abschattun.-gen)? Are others only simple unities ofharmonious profiles?It is true that in ldeen II (thirdpart) Husserl radically opposes the con-stitution of persons to that of nature(things and animated bodies). Inone ofthe appendices he even goes so far asto oppose to the Erscheinungseinheit-...he unity of appearances" - of thething the Einheit absoluter Bekun.-dung - "unity of absolute manisfesta-tion" - of the person. The person wouldthen be much more than an array ofsilhouettes; he would be a n absolutesurging up of presence. But this opposi-tion between the person who "announceshimself" and the thing which "appears"is an opposition which description im-poses and which the philosophy of thereduction minimizes. Itimplies a com-plete overthrow of the idealistic senseof constitution; what the person an-nounces is precisely his absolute exist-ence. To constitute the person is thento mark in what subjective mode therecognition of otherness, of strangenessof other existence, is brought about.Husserl's idealism. ought to be an ob-stacle to this reversal of the sense ofconstitution.

It is here that a return to Kant isproposed, not only to complete a de-scription of the appearance of othersbut inorder to comprehend the sense ofexistence which is announced in thisappearance. It is remarkable that itshould be a philosophy that is leastarmed on the terrain of phenomenologi-cal description which leads directly tothis sense of existence. Kant introducesin the Foundation of the Metaphysic8 O fMorals the second formulation of thecategorical imperative: Handle 80) da8sdu die Menschheit 8OWOhl in deiner

Person, als in der Person emee jedenandern jederzeit als Zweck) niemals blossals Mittel brauchest (A 429), "Act insuch a way that you treat humanity aswell as inyour person as in the personof others, always at the same time as anend and never simply as a means." Onecould be offended by this brusque Intro,duction of others In the Kantian form-alism, and. one could complain that notany description of the knowledge of oth-ers precedes this practical detennina-tion of others by respect. Cannot one atfirst know the other as other and sub-sequently respect him? Kantianism sug-gests an entirely different response. Itis inrespect itself, as a practical disposi-tion, that the sole determination of theexistence of others resides.Let us examine very closely theKantian course. The existence in itselfof others is at first hypothetically posedas identical with its value: Gesetzt ober,es giibe etwas dessen Dasein an sich8elbst einen absoZuten Wert hat) too8o1 s Zweck an sich 8elbst ein Grundbestimmter Gesetze sein k6nnte~ 80'I.O'Urden ihm und nur in ihm allein derGrund eines mijglic:hen kategorischenImperatio, d.i. praktisc1um Gesetzes,liegen (A 427-8), UBut supposing thatthere may be something whose exist-ence in itself has an absolute value,something which, as an end in itself,could be a principle of determined laws,it is then in that and that alone thatthe principle of a categorical imperativeis found possible, that is, a practicallaw."In this hypothetical positing of afoundation there appears to be no dif-ference between the existential determi-nation and the practical determinationof the person. The opposition of personand thing is first practical - existen-tial: The "thing" belongs as object ofmy desire to the order of means; theperson belongs as Object (vis-a-vis) ofKANT AND HUSSERL

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respect to the order of ends in them-selves dagegen. vemunftige WesenPersonen genannt tverden.. weiZ ihreNatur 8ie schon alB Zwecke an Biehselbst . . . aus-zeichnet (A 428--9), "onthe contrary, reasonable beings arecalled persons because their nature al-ready marks them out as ends in them-selves."It wiD be objected that respect,like sympathy, is a subjective feelingand has no more power of reaching anin-itself than does sense perception ordesire. This is precisely tomistake re-spect for perception, desire, or evensympathy: respect is the practical mo-ment which grounds the transcendentaim of sympathy; sympathy as effect,has no more privilege than hate or love.This is why the enlargement, elsewherelegitimate, of Husserl's phenomenologyinthe sense indicated by Max Scheler,or by MacDougall or by the Frenchexistentialists, changes nothing in theproblem of existence, even if it doesgive a richer inventory of the modes ofthe appearance of others. Respect, as apractical feeling. sets a limit for myfaculty of acting. Thus, speaking of hu-manity, Kant establishes that it is nota "subjective aim" at which my sym-pathy aims, which should again includeit in my inclinations ala Gegenstand, denman sick 'VOn selbst wirklich zum Zwe-eke macht (A 431), "as an object ofwhich one in reality makes himself ofhis own will an end." Humanity is an"objective end" like the law of serieswhich constitutes die oberste eimchl'an-kende Bedingung oller subje1ctivenZwecke (Ibid.), "the supreme conditionrestrictive of an subjective aims." Fur-ther on, Kant calls it more forcefullydie oberBte einschrdnkende Bedingungim GelJratuJh a11er Mittel (A 438), '"thesupreme limiting condition in the use ofalImeans." The same is true of the per-son; it is "an end which exists by it- PHILOSOPHY TODAY

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self," which Ican only think of nega-tively as Uthat against which one oughtnever to act" (dem niemal8 zuwidergeha:ndelt werden mU88) (A 437).Through respect, the person finds him-self from the first situated ina field ofpersons whose mutual otherness isstrictly based on their irreducibility tomeans. When others lose this ethicaldimension that Kant calls dignity(Wurde) or absolute value, then sym-pathy loses its character of esteem andthe person is no more than bZo88es Na-turwesen, "a purely natural being" -and sympathy an animal affect.

But, one could say. the proposition:die oomunftige Natur exiBtiert alsZweck an trick. selb8t (A 429). "reason-able nature exists as an end inItself,"is only a postulate. Kant readily agrees(see his note at A 429). This postulateis the concept of a Kingdom of ends -that is, the systematic union of reason-able beings by common laws. 'TIle his-torian does not have much trouble rec-ognizing in it the Augustinian idea ofthe city of God and the Leibnizian tde.:of the reign of grace. What is properlyKantian is to have reached this idea bya movement of regression toward thefoundation of the good will. consequent-ly by the radicalizing of freedom. Theplurality and the communication. Of con-sciousness cannot bemade the object ofa description if at first they are notposited by an act of Grund1egung ("lay-ing the ground") - the communicationof consciousness then is what renderspossible the coordination of freedomsand what makes of each subjective willa freedom.

One can doubtless regret the nar-rowly juridical tricIt1J1at subsumes thismutuality of freedoms under the idea.of an a priori legislation; this iswithoutdoubt not the most remarkable thingin Kant. What remains admirable is hisnot having sought for a "sltuation" for

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the person other than his "appurten-ances" (as member or as leader) to apractical and ethical totality of persons.Outside of that he is DO longer a per-SOD. His existence can only be an exist-ence-value. The affective revelations ofothers do not go much beyond the levelof the tool or of the commodity..Thus, the absolute existence of oth-ers originally appears to the intentionof the good will; only a reflexive move-ment of Grundlegung discovers thatthis intention involves the act of placinghimself as a legislative member in anethical community.

By the same stroke, the determina-tion of the person as an existing end-in-itself brings us 'back to the problemof the thing in itself. Inthe third partwe have underscored the limiting func-tion of the thing in itself with regardto the pretensions of the phenomenon.This philosophy of limit8~totally absentfrom phenomenology, discovers on thepractical plain its full bloom, since theother is that against which Iought notto act. But at the same time the idea ofa kingdom of ends makes the positivecharacter of the faundation of the in-itself stand out. Only the determinationof the in-itself never becomes theoreti-cal or speculative but remains practi-cal and ethical. The only intelligibleworld in which I am able to "place" my-self is that to which I have access byrespect; by the autonomy of my willand respect for the autonomy of mywill and respect for the autonomy ofothers. 80 versetzen wiT uns als Gliederin die Verstandeswelt~ "we transport

ourselves into the intelligible world as itsmembers." But while entering in thisworld, I cannot mien hineinschauen,kineinempfinden (A 459), uWhile find-ing its way by thought in an intelligibleworld, practical reason never goes be-yond its limits; it could only go beyondthem if it wanted while entering in thisworld, to perceive or feel it."

Did not Kant basically demonstratethe limits not only of the pretension ofthe phenomenon, but the Hmits of phe-nomenology itself? I am able "to see,""to feel" the appearance of things, ofpersons. of values, but the absolute ex-istence of the other, model of all exist.enee, cannot be sensed; it is announcedas a stranger to my experience by thevery appearance of the other inhis be-havior, his expression, his language. hiswork. But this apparition of the otherdoes not suffice to announce itas a be-ing in-itself. Its being ought to be prac-tically posited as that which limits thepretension of my sympathy itself to re-duce the person to his desirable quality,and as that which grounds his appear-ance itself.

!tis the glory of phenomenologyto have raised to the dignty of science,by the "reduction," the investigation ofappearance. But the glory of Kantian-ism is to have known how to coordinatethe investigation of the appearance withthe limiting function of the in-itself andto the practical determination of thein-itself as freedom and an persons.

Husser! does phenomenology. ButKant limits and grounds it.

REFERENCES1. Natorp, Rickert. Kreis and Zocher.2. All Kant citations are from the edition ofthe Royal Academy of Prussia.3. The English translations are from the Nor-man Kemp Smith translation.

4. Cf. "The Transcendental Exposition of theConcept of Space," A 25.S. "Transcendental Theory of Method.,"A71Zsq.6. The initial question is of ontological order:Was sind ..... Rottm tmd Zeit! SWtd es __ k-KANT AND HUSSERL



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liche Wesenr fIS'W. (A 23) "What, then. arespace and time? Are they real existences?"7. The letter to Markus Herz of February 21,1772 already posed the problem of the Vor-stellung with reference to this strange possi-bility of an intuition productive of its object.

S. He says the same thing further on: "Wennaber ieh selbst, oder ein onder Wesen mien,ohne diese Bedingung der Sinnlichkeit, an-schauen konnte, so wUrden eben dieselbenBestimmungen, die wi,. uns [etet als Veriin-derung uorstellen, eine Erkenntnis geben, inuielcher die VOl"stellung der Zeit, mithin auchder Verande,.ung gar nick vorkiime .... "(A37) "W'enn man von ihr die besondere Be-dingung unserer Sinnlickkeit wegnimmt, souerschauindet auch der Beqrif'] der Zeit." (A37)

9. "Aber diese Erkenntnisquellen a priori be-stimmen sick eben dadurch. (dass sie blossBedingungen der Sinnlickkeit sind) ihre Gren-zen, niimlick, dass sie Moss auf Gegenstandegehen, sofern. sie als Erscheimcnqen betrach-tet userden, nicht aber Dinge at' sich selbstdarstellen;" (A 39)

10. "Der Verstond begrenzt demnack die Sinn-lichkeit, ohne dorwm sein eigenes Feld aueruieitern, und, indem er [ene warnt, dass sienicht anmasse, auf Dinge an sich selbst zuge/r.en, sondern. lediglich auf Erscheinungen,so denkt er sick selbst einen Gegenstand ansick selbst, aber nur als transzendentales Ob-jekt. . ." (A 288)11. "Es ist aber klar, doss, da wir es nur mitdem Mannigfaltigen unserer Vorstellungen zu

tun haben, 14M [enes X, was ihnen korrespon-die,.t (der Gegenstand), weil er etzuas vonallen unseren Vorstellungen Unterschiedenesse1n soil, fur uns niehts anderes sein konne,als die formale Einheit des Bezuusstseins inder Synthesis des MannigfalHgen der Vor-stellungen." (A 105)

12. Cartesianische Meditationen, Husserliana I, p.60. A similar statement is made on p. 65,lines 11-16.13. Bemerkungen von Prof. Roman /ngarden, Ap-pendix to Husserliona I, pp, 208-10,14. Paragraph 128 of Idem I at first seems tolead to this conclusion. Husserl, remarkingthat it is the same object given in anothermanner, calls the object the "X of its de-terminations." Indeed, he proposed to explainhow the noerna, "intended as such," can havea relation to objectivity (Hussertiana, III, p.315) : Jedes Noema hat einen Inhalt, niimlichseinew Sinn, und bezieht durch ihn auf seine"Gegenstand (316). But after this Kantianbeginning, the analysis turns toward a specifi-cally Husserlian theme: the new intention ofthe noema towards its object, which seemedto return beyond "sense," designates the de-gree of plentitude, the mode of "replenish-ing" sense by intuition. (paragraphs 135 andfollowing)

15. Hurrerliana, I, p. 69.1 6. Husserliona, I, p. 69.17. op, cit. p. 100.18. op. cit. p. 102.1 9. op. cit. pp. 102-103.

Paul Ricoeur"s most recent work to appear in english translation is his TheVoluntary and Involuntary, published by Northwestem University Press. Hisstudy of Freud. De l'interpretation (Paris: Ed du Seuil. 1965) is in process oftranslation cmd will be published by Yale University Press. He is at presentvisiting professor at Yale University.

PHILOSOPHY TODAY 168

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kant and husserl paul ricoeur

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