“Logical research” ( German: Logische Untersuchungen , 1900 , 1901 ) is a philosophical work by E. Husserl . Although the Logical Investigations have not yet developed all the themes characteristic of phenomenology , this is the initial work for the phenomenological movement, about which Husserl himself later said that it became “a breakthrough product” for him [1] .
The first volume of Logical Investigations (Prolegomenes to Pure Logic) was published in 1900, and the second (Investigations in Phenomenology and Theory of Knowledge) was published in 1901 .
The first volume of “Logical Investigations” is an integral and relatively small work devoted to the criticism of psychologism , that is, the reduction of the contents of consciousness to mental facts and, accordingly, logic to psychology . “... In its main content, it is simply the development of two complementary lecture courses for the summer and fall semesters of 1896 in Halle . Related to this is a great liveliness in presentation, which contributed to their influence. ” [2]
The second volume is much larger than the first in volume and inferior to it in liveliness of presentation, however, it is here that the foundations of phenomenology are laid; the book consists of 6 separate, little interconnected studies devoted to the description of the contents and structures of consciousness, freed from the power of psychology and regarded as pure entities . In preparing the second, revised edition of the VI Study expanded so much that Husserl put it in a separate book. The first part of the revised second volume was published in 1913, the second in 1921. [3]
Content
Logical research. Volume I
The first volume of “Logical Investigations” is devoted to one question - the substantiation of logic as an independent, irreducible to the psychology of science with its own subject, completely different from the subject of psychology. Husserl’s constructions are based on the postulate of the existence of ideal essences (meanings) that are accessible to vision in direct contemplation ( ideation ). If psychology deals with the facts of mental life, then the subject of logic is these ideal, timeless meanings , the sphere of the ideal. The task of pure logic is to study the primary concepts that underlie all theoretical knowledge, and to build a science of the form of theoretical knowledge.
Logic
The basis of all knowledge is directly obvious . To obtain truths that are not immediately obvious, justification is necessary. Science is the knowledge of the grounds , that is, the knowledge of the necessary (corresponding to the law ) truths. The norm of justification and the construction of a system of justifications in the sciences is logic.
Pure logic
So, logic is a normative science, prescribing laws for every science (including itself). Any normative science must be based on theory . Accordingly, the basis of normative logic is not only psychology, but above all pure logic - the totality of certain “theoretical truths”. Its laws are “binding on every possible consciousness in general”, capable of reasoning (not only human).
Tasks of Pure Logic
Pure logic explores the question of how possible and what constitutes a theory (scientific knowledge) in general. Tasks of pure logic:
1. Clarification of the primary concepts that make possible objective (primarily theoretical) cognition. These concepts are: a) categories of meaning ( truth , concept , statement ; subject , predicate , foundation and effect , conjunction , disjunction , conditional connection , inference , etc.); b) pure (formal) subject categories (something, subject, property , attitude , unity, multitude, aggregate, connection, quantity , order, ordinal number , whole, part, magnitude, etc.) that are "grouped around an empty idea something or thing in general. ” Logic is the science of the form of scientific thinking and science, the content of science is the theory, and “if any theoretical unity is, in essence, a unity of meanings and if logic is a science of theoretical unity in general, then it is obvious that logic should be a science of meanings as such, about their essential types and differences, as well as about the laws that are directly rooted in them (therefore, ideal). ”
Of fundamental importance is that the primary concepts under consideration are taken as ideal values (meanings as such , as ideal entities ), and not as specific mental acts of giving meaning.
- See also: Material and formal entities.
2. The search for “laws and theories rooted in these categories,” “according to which every theoretical research should proceed” (and forming the corresponding theories, such as inference theory ( syllogistics ), set theory, set theory, etc.).
Linking ideal primary concepts, the laws of logic themselves are ideal: “Purely logical laws are truths stemming from the very concept of truth and its essentially related concepts” [§ 50]. Unlike natural laws, they are: a) absolutely accurate, b) a priori , c) have no mental content. These are not laws on the facts of mental life, do not speak out about it and, accordingly, do not enclose it in themselves. These are not real, natural, causal laws that regulate the mental process of thinking . Unlike the laws of physics , they do not have an actual, inductive basis.
“... I understand by purely logical laws all those ideal laws that are rooted exclusively in the sense (in“ essence, ”“ content ”) of the concepts of truth, position, subject, property, relationship, connection, law, fact, etc. in a more general form, they are rooted in the sense of those concepts that are the eternal possession of all science, for they represent the categories of the building material from which science is created, as such, according to its concept. These laws should not be violated by any theoretical statement, justification or theory; not only because such a theory would be false — for it could be false even if it was contrary to any truth — but also because it would be meaningless ”(§ 37).
3. The construction of a "science of theory in general" and the types of theories. [four]
Skepticism
Husserl calls the denial of the possibility of theoretical knowledge skepticism . Skepticism may concern objective or subjective conditions of the possibility of cognition, denying, respectively, or a) logical (solidity of the concepts of truth, theory, law, in other words, their very existence) or b) noetic (the possibility of obviousness, discretion of the truth by the subject) conditions of cognition, the existence of theory as such.
Husserl rejects skepticism, noting its internal inconsistency: skepticism denies the possibility of a theory, while being itself a theory.
Empiricism , according to Husserl, is a kind of skepticism. Husserl rejects empiricism, noting that it is impossible to deduce everything from experience - the principles of this derivation that justify it are necessary, but they are not in experience. [5] .
Husserl also calls relativism a kind of skepticism. Relativism claims that the truth of something is specific to a person (for one person or for a person as such): “for each type of judging creatures, what is true must be truly consistent with their organization, according to the laws of their thinking” [6] ). This, says Husserl, is an unacceptable derivation of logical principles from facts, ideal from real.
Psychology , according to Husserl, is a kind of relativism.
Evidence
Exploring the nature of evidence , Husserl concludes that although the truths themselves are ideal, the evidence for discerning the truth is a psychic phenomenon; it is an experience of the correctness of judgment, its agreement with the truth. Evidence is an experience of truth , as adequate perception is an experience of being .
- See also: The principle of evidence
Logical research. Volume II
Volume II Part 1
In the second volume of Logical Investigations, such fundamental concepts for Husserl as “ideation” and “intentionality” appear and come to the fore. The concept of “phenomenology” appears and the teaching (in a more explicit way - in the 2nd revised edition of 1913) of the phenomenological-psychological and eidetic reductions (although these terms are not yet used) is outlined, developed in detail later (see “Ideas I” and especially Husserl's article “Phenomenology” for the British Encyclopedia ).
The sphere of pure phenomenology is set, firstly, by a distraction from naive immersion in an object and focus on the psychic act itself (experiencing consciousness) in which it is given (future phenomenological and psychological reduction ), and secondly, by turning to a priori - to experiences consciousness not as facts, but as entities (future eidetic reduction ). “... It is this area that should be investigated in detail for the purposes of theoretical-cognitive preparation and clarification of pure logic; it will further advance our research ” [7] . So in the second volume of Logical Investigations, phenomenology appears - for now, as an instrument for constructing pure logic as the fundamental principle of all theoretical knowledge; in subsequent works of Husserl, this goal will be discarded and priority will be given to the development of phenomenology itself.
Studies I and II: Sign Theory
Studies I and II are devoted to the development of sign theory.
Studies III and IV: Independent and Non-Independent Objects
Studies III and IV are devoted to the problem of independent and non-independent objects. Study III examines independent and non-independent subjects (contents of consciousness) in general; Study IV focuses on the sphere of language and, accordingly, independent and non-independent meanings.
Study V
Study V is devoted to an analysis of the composition of consciousness, and especially intentional experiences.
Husserl begins by examining three possible understandings of “consciousness”:
- Consciousness as a combination of real experiences (contents of consciousness), that is, the real “composition of the empirical Self” (which Husserl later calls noesis ).
- Consciousness as an internal perception of consciousness in the first sense, that is, its experiences (contents of consciousness). It is not proven that there can be no experiences that are not internally perceived.
- Consciousness as intentional experiences .
Further, Husserl considers the concept of intentionality and the intentional nature of consciousness, analyzes in detail the structure of the intentional act. The latter turns out to consist of 1) real and 2) intentional content. In the intentional content of the act, in turn, are distinguished: a) intentional matter, b) intentional quality (together with matter constituting an intentional essence) and c) intentional object.
Discussing the nature of intentionality, Husserl, in particular, notes that every intentional experience has as its basis a representation that is understood as an objective act (every act that makes something an object for us, represents, posits something) [8] ; it is denied that intentional experiences are based on “simple ideas” (that is, what Ideas I will call a modification of neutrality ).
Considering the structure of the intentional act, Husserl in the first edition of this book denies the existence of a pure Self and reduces it to a simple unity of consciousness. Subsequently, Husserl abandoned this point of view.
- See more: Intentionality ; Intentional structure of consciousness
Volume II Part 2
Study VI
“In the final, VI study, which, starting from the second edition, stands out as the 2nd part of volume II, the concept of cognition is considered as the realization of meaning with a certain degree of completeness. The main problem is the difference in the ways of giving real and ideal objects. Truth is described as complete identity and coincidence of meaning, thought or fixed in sign form, and meaning, realized in contemplation. Evidence in this context is an experience of such a coincidence. Accordingly, acts of cognition are distinguished - signification, contemplation (for a real object - perception, for an ideal - categorical contemplation , looking at the general) and adequate ”. [9]
Notes
- ↑ Husserl E. Preface to the second edition // Husserl E. Logical studies. T. 2.M .: DIK, 2001.S. 5.
- ↑ Husserl E. Preface to the second edition // Husserl E. Logical studies. T. 2.M .: DIK, 2001.S. 8.
- ↑ In the Russian translation, the first volume of Logical Investigations was published in 1909 (the first translation of this book into a foreign language), the first part of the second volume only in 2001 (in addition to the text of the revised edition by Husserl, the Russian translation also contains options from the first edition of the book ) The second part of the second volume (VI Study) in Russian has not yet been published.
- ↑ See also: Husserl E. Ideas for pure phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy. T. 1 . M .: DIK, 1999. § 10, 26, 134, p. 331.
- ↑ See also: Husserl E. Ideas I. § 18-20.
- ↑ Husserl E. Logical Investigations. T. 1 // Husserl E. Philosophy as a rigorous science. Novocherkassk: Saguna, 1994.S. 258.
- ↑ Husserl E. Logical Investigations. T. 2. Vv., § 1.
- ↑ For an objectifying act, see: Fundamental Means of Given .
- ↑ Molchanov V. I. [Article] “Edmund Husserl” // Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. A.A. Ivina. M .: Gardariki, 2004.
Bibliography
- Husserl E. Logical studies. T. 1. SPb., 1909. (First Russian edition.)
- Husserl E. Logical studies. T. 1 // Husserl E. Philosophy as a rigorous science. Novocherkassk: Saguna, 1994.