A Parody of Philosophy

A Parody of Philosophy 
 
Anonymous 
 

One of the most vexing questions raised by Husserl's yet unpublished  Seventh 
Cartesian Meditation is that of the relation between the familiar (and  -- in 
spite of some recent positivistic carping about trivialities like  
consistency and meaningfulness -- obvious) principle of the  noematico-epochosynthetic 
correleticity and the Seventh Meditation's new and  radical (1) [see endnote] 
principle of  analysis-by-systematic-destruction-of-all-meaning (destitutive 
analysis). As is  well known, Husserl scholarship in this area is sharply 
divided between the  followers of Husserl's last and most faithful assistant, Johann 
Lebenswelter,  and those of Husserl's most acute French critic, Marcel 
Gaston-Gaston. Until  recently it was thought that this polar opposition stemmed 
from the different  interpretive principles employed by the two scholars: 
Lebenswelter faithfully  taking as fundamental the principle that "Husserl always 
means what he says,  even when he says he doesn't," (2) and Gaston-Gaston, on the 
other hand,  asserting that "Husserl never means what he says, especially 
when Lebenswelter  thinks he does." (3) However, recently (4) the two men both 
agreed with  Husserl's own assertion (5) that the two principles are equivalent 
for texts  written after 1859. (Husserl regards his works prior to that year 
as mere  "juvenile exercises.")
 
However, the disagreement remains and, to get to the heart of the conflict,  
let us at once examine a passage in the Seventh Meditation that has been the  
focal point of the dispute. (6)
 
"By referring to destitutive analysis, we must not be understood as  
intending (in the sense of radical directedness-to-a-preliminary-perceived  
objectivity) to imply that, speaking -- as always -- strictly within the  
finite-infinite limits of transcendental apodicticity, the object 'part-whole  synthesis' is 
even partially reducible to the noematic correlate of affective  suspension 
(in the sense of ideally intended noesis subsumed and founded by the  epoche). 
(7) For, although this is, of course, the case, our concern is this  realm of 
a fully concrete living of the a priori, is, as we have repeatedly  said, 
solely to lay bare the horizontal quasi-content of this analysis'  teleology. Here 
we may invoke Descartes' realization (fundamentally uninformed  and absurd as 
it was, being formulated in a reasonable and intelligible way for  the first 
time in our Logische Untersuchungen and even there still lacking the  
proto-foundation of a full scale synthetic analysis on the level of transcendent  
egologicism) that some things (res) are hard to understand." (8)
 
According to Lebenswelter, we can understand this pregnant (9) passage only  
by applying a destitutive analysis to its own thought (what Lebenswelter 
acutely  calls a "constitution-by-springing-back-upon-oneself"). This leads to a  
formation of a destitutional noema expressing, as Lebenswelter says, the  
essential destitution of the passage. As those familiar with the unwritten Ideen  
IV (perhaps Husserl's clearest work) will immediately realize, this destitution 
 implies the eidetic mutual transcendence of all principles, including that 
of  noematico-epochosynthetic correlaticity relative to that of destitutional  
analysis. The implications of this are as radical as they are obvious.  
Lebenswelter further supports his interpretation by appealing to certain  passages 
as yet untranscribed (10) in the MSS in the Husserl Archives at Louvain  and to 
Husserl's last words (allegedly directed to Lebenswelter): "You're always  
right, Johann." (11)
 
Gaston-Gaston accepts, as he says in a daring adaptation of terminology,  
"the hyle but not the morphe of this analysis;" that is, "What it says is  
correct, but what it does not say is not corrrect." (12) According to him, we  can 
remedy this deficiency only by trying to not-say, not what Husserl said or  did 
not say, but what he did not not-say. However, this is not as easy as it  
seems. The proposed analysis cannot be carried out until Husserl's texts are  
expressed in maximally clear form; hence, according to Gaston-Gaston, we must  
begin by translating the entire Husserlian corpus into French. After this has  
been done (13) it will be necessary to make a detailed application of  
Gaston-Gaston's technique of analyse aneant (a more radical version of  Lebenswelter's 
destitutive analysis which is designed to destroy destitution).  This 
application will, according to Gaston-Gaston, result in an apocalyptic  vision of 
phenomenology in which Husserl's true meaning will be revealed. (14)  (However, 
he does not agree with the view of the Dutch theologian, Fr. van  Vlumpt, that 
this will effect the conversion of the Jews.)
 
The dispute between Lebenswelter and Gaston-Gaston will very likely come to  
a head this July in Vienna when, at the annual convention of the  
Phenomenologists International, the two men will meet in the finals of the  world-wide 
Eidetic Intuition Competition. (15) Whatever the outcome, we may  confidently 
expect a revindication of Husserl's classic dictum: "It is bad to be  wrong, but 
it is worse to be understood."
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--  NOTES
1. For a discussion of the highly interesting and important question of  
whether this principle is radically radical and -- if it is -- if this is so in  a 
radical sense, cf Brunhilde Jackson, "The Roots of the Radical," Harvard,  
1959, unpublishable doctoral dissertation.
2. First stated in his early and  perhaps over-enthusiastic Jarbuch article 
"Phenomenologie uber alles." p.  15.
 
3. Asserted in this form in his recent "Phenomenologie et les Evenement du  
Mai," p. 85.
 
4. At the Louvain "Conference on World Population Control by the use of the  
Phenomenological Method."
 
5. The remark is contained in a ms. discovered belatedly by Van Breda in  the 
pocket of an old pair of pants. Husserl recently told me that the ms. is  
genuine (August 3, 
1968, private communication).
 
6. Both Lebenswelter and Gaston-Gaston agree that the fact that the  
secretary who transcribed the only copy of this text from Husserl's oral  presentation 
did not know German is of historical but not philosophical  interest.
 
7. (Husserl's note) "I would have hardly thought that the elementary  caution 
expressed in this sentence would have to be stated. But I now find it  
necessary because of numerous and repeated misinterpretations by critics who  seem 
incapable of understanding the simple and direct statements of my Logische  
Untersuchungen (not to mention the almost popular form given my thought in Ideen  
I)."
 
8. (Husserl's note) "In this regard, I am happy to refer to the preliminary  
sketch of an approach to this analysis which was developed in part by my  
student, the late Herr Strenge Wissenschaft, in the 27 volumes of his unfinished  
doctoral thesis."
 
9. Cf. above, footnote 4.
 
10 The transcription has been unaccountably delayed. Perhaps there is  
something to the rumors (current in Gaston-Gaston's camp) that the messages in  
question are Frau Husserl's grocery lists?
 
11. Cf. Lebenswelter's very moving "I Remember Husserl," Bonn, 1969.
 
12. Here, of course, Gaston-Gaston is referring to his own  
(Sartrean-inspired) definitions of hyle as "that which a thing itself is not  insofar as it is 
not itself," and morphe as "that which a thing (as no thing) is  insofar as it 
is not itself itself." Unfortunately, our translation cannot fully  reproduce 
the poetic quality of the French original.
 
13. The project is underway but has been slowed by diputes over  
Gaston-Gaston's demand that, once the translation is completed (if not before),  all 
German versions of Husserl's work be destroyed.
 
14. Two American television networks plan to provide live coverage of the  
vision as it occurs.
 
15. Each philosopher will be shown three essences (chosen by an impartial  
panel of experts from the Husserl Archives); the first to correctly identify and 
 completely constitute all three will be the winner. Such a competition is, 
to my  mind, the best possible demonstration of the objective, scientific 
character of  phenomenology.
 
 
Jud:
Ring any bells?
 


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