Reinach and Contemporary Philosophy 9781032330310, 9781032330525, 9781003317920

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The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy XIX

Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl’s groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Gadamer. Contributors: Emanuela Carta, Maciej Czerkawski, Francesca De Vecchi, Aurélien Djian, Christopher Erhard, Guillaume Fréchette, Hynek Janoušek, Olimpia Giuliana Loddo, Giuseppe Lorini, Karl Mertens, Riccardo Paparusso, Fabio Tommy Pellizzer, Francesco Pisano, Alessandro Salice, Denis Seron, Michela Summa, Genki Uemura, Basil Vassilicos, and Íngrid Vendrell Ferran. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors ([email protected] and [email protected]) electronically via e-mail attachments. Burt C. Hopkins is an associate member of Université de Lille, UMR-CNRS 8163 STL, France, and was a visiting researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences (2019–2020, 2022). John J. Drummond is Robert Southwell, S.J. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and the Humanities at Fordham University, USA.

The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy

General Editors Burt Hopkins, Burt C. Hopkins, University of Lille, France John J. Drummond, Fordham University, United States Founding Co-editor Steven Crowell, Rice University, United States Contributing Editors Marcus Brainard, London, United Kingdom Ronald Bruzina, University of Kentucky, United States† Algis Mickunas, Ohio University, United States Thomas Seebohm, Bonn, Germany† Thomas Sheehan, Stanford University, United States Consulting Editors Patrick Burke (Gonzaga University, Italy), Ivo de Gennaro (University of BozenBolzano, Italy), Nicholas de Warren (Pennsylvania State University, United States), James Dodd (The New School, United States), R. O. Elveton (Carleton College, United States), Parvis Emad (DePaul University (Emeritus), United States), James G. Hart (Indiana University, United States), George Heffernan (Merrimack College, United States), Nam-In Lee (Seoul National University, Republic of Korea), Claudio Majolino (University of Lille, France), Dermot Moran (Boston College, United States), James Risser (Seattle University, United States), Michael Shim (California State University, Los Angeles, United States), Andrea Staiti (University of Parma, Italy), Panos Theodorou (University of Crete, Greece), Emiliano Trizio (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice), Friedrich Wilhelm von Herrmann, Emeritus (University of Freiburg, Germany), Dan Zahavi (University of Copenhagen, Denmark Associate Editor Daniele De Santis, Charles University, Czech Republic The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy is currently covered by the following indexing, abstracting and full-text services: Philosophy Research Index, International Philosophical Bibliography, The Philosopher’s Index. The views and opinions expressed in The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board except where otherwise stated. The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy is published annually by Routledge. More volumes in the series can be found on: http:// www.routledge.com/New-Yearbook-for-Phenomenology-and-PhenomenologicalPhilosophy/book-series/NYPPP

The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy XIX Reinach and Contemporary Philosophy Edited by Burt C. Hopkins and John J. Drummond

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter Burt C. Hopkins and John J. Drummond; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Burt C. Hopkins and John J. Drummond to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-032-33031-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-33052-5 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-31792-0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/b23065 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun

Contents

Notes on Contributors

vii

PART I

Reinach and contemporary philosophy 1 Guest editors’ introduction

1 3

B ASIL VA SSI LI C O S AN D C HRI S T OP HE R E RH A RD

2 On Reinach’s realism

5

DE NIS SE RON

3 Reinach on one-membered states of affairs

18

GUIL L AUM E F R É C HE TT E

4 Legal objects: essence and existence

39

GIUS E PP E L O R IN I AN D O L I M PIA G IU LIA N A LO DDO

5 Social acts as wholes: dynamic eidetics and qualitative modifications

55

FRANCE S CA D E VE C C HI

6 To-you-ness: A phenomenological theme from Reinach

69

GE NKI UE MU R A

7 On the essence and sources of obligation: a critique of Reinach’s and Gilbert’s accounts of promises

90

KARL M E RT E N S

8 Insincere promises: What do they tell us about the nature of social acts?

113

M ICHEL A SUM MA

9 Wilhelm Schapp and the standard theory of exchanges AL ES S AND RO SA L IC E

132

vi Contents

10 Value-feeling and emotional response: origins and strengths of the alternative to the perceptual model

151

ÍNGRID VE N D RE L L F E RR A N

PART II

Varia

175

11 On the distinction between Husserl’s notions of essence and of idea in the Kantian sense

177

E MANUE L A C AR TA

12 Primitive Dasein: on signs and fetishism in Heidegger’s phenomenology

195

FAB IO TOM MY PE L L I Z ZE R

13 The logic of Being in Heidegger’s Being and Time

220

MACIE J CZ E R KA WS K I

14 Towards a phenomenology of narrative imagination: Sartre on the Why? and the What? of literature

255

AURÉL IE N D JI AN

PART III

In review

279

15 Review of S. Centrone, Studien zu Bolzano (Sankt Augustin: Akademia Verlag, 2015)

281

HYNEK JA NO U Š E K

16 Review of G. E. Rosado Haddock (Ed.), Husserl and Analytic Philosophy (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016)

289

FRANCE SCO P IS A N O

17 Review of M. Ritter, Into the World: The Movement of Patočka’s Phenomenology (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Springer, 2019)

294

RICCARDO PA P AR U SS O

Index

300

Contributors

Emanuela Carta is a postdoctoral fellow at the Husserl Archives at KU Leuven. Before that, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Montreal and the University of Fribourg and a visiting scholar at the University of Cologne. She received her PhD and the Doctor Europaeus qualification from Roma Tre University in 2018 with a dissertation entitled “Wesen, Eidos, and Normativity in Husserl’s Phenomenology”. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Graz and the Husserl Archives at KU Leuven. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of 19th- and 20thcentury Austrian and German philosophy, ethics, metaethics, value theory, and epistemology. Maciej Czerkawski is an assistant professor in Philosophy at Maria CurieSkłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin, Poland. Before that, he read a DPhil in the subject at the University of Oxford (2020). Francesca De Vecchi is professor of theoretical philosophy at San Raffaele University (Milan, Italy). Her research topics focus on qualitative social ontology and eidetics in the fields of the phenomenology of social reality, intersubjectivity and gendered personal identity. On these topics, she published in Topoi (2019), Language and Communication (2020), Rivista di Estetica (2020), Humana.mente (2016, 2019), and Studies of the Philosophy of Sociality (Springer 2013, 2014, 2016). Her current book project is about qualitative social ontology. She is co-editor in chief of the journal Phenomenology and Mind and director of the Research Centre in Phenomenology and Sciences of the Person (PERSONA) and of the Interfaculty Centre for Gender Studies (GENDER) at San Raffaele University. Aurélien Djian received his PhD from the University of Lille (France) in 2017. His recent book Husserl et le problème de l’horizon. Une contribution à l’histoire de la phénoménologie. deals with the concept of horizon in Husserl’s phenomenology. He now devotes his energy to inquire into the contemporary history of philosophy of literature, especially the relationship that Husserl-inspired philosophies maintain with literature. Christopher Erhard is faculty member at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Guillaume Fréchette (born 1976) received his PhD from the University of Hamburg (Germany) in 2006. His dissertation on objectless presentations, Gegenstandslose

viii

Contributors

Vorstellungen. Bolzano und seine Kritiker, was published in 2010. Currently scientific collaborator at the University of Geneva, he has held numerous teaching and research positions in Montréal, Trois-Rivières, Salzburg, Neuchâtel, and Zürich. His main field of research is the Austro-German philosophy from the 19th and 20th centuries. Olimpia Giuliana Loddo is post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cagliari. Her research interests include social ontology, philosophy of normativity, phenomenology, philosophy of deontic logic, legal anthropology, and philosophy of law. Giuseppe Lorini is associate professor of philosophy of law and deputy director of the Department of Law at the University of Cagliari. His research interests include social ontology, philosophy of normativity, legal anthropology, and legal ethology. Karl Mertens is professor of philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy in Würzburg University. Mertens studied philosophy, German literature, and history at the Universities of Freiburg i. Br., Zürich, and Cologne. From 2005 to 2017, he was coeditor in chief of the journal Phänomenologische Forschungen/Phenomenological Studies (Meiner). He has published several articles on theory of action, social philosophy, ethics, theory of knowledge, philosophy of mind, and phenomenology. Fabio Tommy Pellizzer (1986) received his PhD from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2019), with a work on Heidegger’s interpretations of Kant (The Unity and the Manifold. Heidegger’s Interpretation of the Synthesis between Husserl and Kant). His research focuses on Kant and phenomenology. Currently, he is working on an inter-disciplinary project at the intersection of phenomenology, anthropology, and cognitive archaeology Alessandro Salice is lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of University College Cork. Previously, Alessandro held postdoctoral positions at the University of Graz, University of Basel, University of Vienna, and Center for Subjectivity Research in Copenhagen. His expertise stretches from classical accounts of collective intentionality and joint action to phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. Alessandro has edited The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. History, Concepts, Problems (2016), together with Hans Bernhard Schmid. He is co-editor of Journal of Social Ontology and his papers have been published in several journals, including Emotion Review, Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences, European Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology, Philosophical Psychology, and Synthese. Denis Seron is lecturer and FNRS senior research associate at the University of Liège (Belgium), where he heads the Center for Phenomenological Research (CREPH). His research is centred on empiricism, the (recent and older) philosophy of mind, and Austro-German phenomenology, including Brentano and Husserl. His recent works include Ce que voir veut dire (Le Cerf, 2012) and Apparaître: Essai de philosophie phénoménologique (Brill, 2017). Michela Summa is a junior professor for theoretical philosophy at Würzburg University. She earned her PhD from KU Leuven and the University of Pavia

Contributors ix and worked subsequently as a postdoc in Heidelberg and Würzburg. In the summer semester 2018, she was guest professor for phenomenology and hermeneutics at Kassel University. She is co-editor of the volume Imagination and Social Perspectives. Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology (Routledge, 2018) and author of Spatio-temporal Intertwining. Husserl’s Transcendental Aesthetic (Dordrecht, 2014), as well as of several articles and book chapters focusing mainly on the phenomenology of time, space, intersubjectivity, social experience, and imagination. Genki Uemura received his Ph.D. from Keio University (Tokyo) in 2010. His works in English include “Husserl’s Conception of Cognition as an Action. An Inquiry into its Prehistory” (2015), “Demystifyng Roman Ingarden’s Purely Intentional Objects of Perception” (2019), and “Articulating Consciousness. Brentano and Husserl on Descriptive Analysis” (2020). Basil Vassilicos is Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at Mary Immaculate College, in Limerick. He studied at Penn State and the University of Leuven. His recent research has been on self-directed emotions, collective freedom, and the interaction between language and gestures. His current work is focused on qualities of consent and the relationship between danger and communicative action. Íngrid Vendrell Ferran is Heisenberg-professor of philosophy at the university of Marburg. Her research interests are phenomenology, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and aesthetics. Her publications include: Die Emotionen. Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie (2008) and Die Vielfalt der Erkenntnis. Eine Analyse des kognitiven Werts der Literatur (2018). She is co‐editor of the following books and special issues: Wahrheit, Wissen und Erkenntnis in der Literatur (2014), Empathie im Film (2017), Beauty (2019), and Empathy, Fiction and Imagination (2019).

Part I

Reinach and contemporary philosophy

1

Guest editors’ introduction Basil Vassilicos and Christopher Erhard

Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) was one of a number of highly talented philosophers to have been involved in phenomenology from its very beginnings. In studying alongside Husserl, it is even told that he thought of Reinach as his most gifted student, one who would continue the project of a philosophia perennis whose foundations Husserl had hoped to establish. However, as we well know, things turned out differently in at least three regards. First, after Husserl himself, it was Heidegger, not Reinach, who would become the most conspicuous if not influential historical figure in the buildout of phenomenological philosophy. Second, Reinach did not subscribe to the transcendental and, arguably, idealistic turn that Husserl gave to phenomenology. This was because he thought that the core ideas of phenomenology ought to be researched in a manner independent from, albeit possibly compatible with, the transcendental-constitutive investigation of “pure consciousness.” Third, Reinach’s life was tragically cut short during World War I, with some parts of his work only recently having been published or translated, with others irreparably lost. In Reinach’s writing, mostly published posthumously, one can find short but brilliant phenomenological analyses of a startlingly comprehensive array of important philosophical notions, animated by a thoroughly realist spirit. Nonetheless, despite its richness, up to now, Reinach’s work still has not received the attention it deserves. While there have been a few peaks in Reinach’s reception,1 more recently this lack of attention has been glaring particularly when it comes to the systematic examination of fruitful exchange between current debates and Reinachian perspectives. By means of this special issue, we hope to remedy this situation and stimulate interest in the Reinachian oeuvre. The idea for this special issue goes back to the “Reinach Centennial Conference,” in commemoration of his passing 100 years prior, which took place at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich in December 2017. One of its major goals of this conference – the inaugural meeting of the Network for Phenomenological Research – was to cover the different systematic facets and contemporary implications of Reinach’s work.

1 Two of the most important contributions to Reinach scholarship remain the volumes edited by Barry Smith and Kevin Mulligan, respectively: Parts and Moments: Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (B. Smith, ed., 1982, Philosophia, Munich) and Speech Act and Sachverhalt (K. Mulligan, ed., 1987, Springer, Dordrecht.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-2

4 Basil Vassilicos and Christopher Erhard The papers collected explore the richness of Reinach’s short but penetrating philosophical work. Basically, three topics are covered; one group of papers deals with ontology broadly construed, covering the ontological status and nature of Reinach’s realism (Denis Seron), Reinach’s contribution to the contemporary understanding of states of affairs (Guillaume Fréchette), and his ontology of legal objects (Guiseppe Lorini/Olimpia Giuliana Loddo). The second group of papers deals with social acts and their products, focusing on the structure of social acts and their nature as social encounters (Francesca De Vecchi, Genki Uemura), promises and normativity (Karl Mertens, Michela Summa), and contracts and exchanges (Alessandro Salice). A final paper in this issue covers the contemporary concerns in the philosophy of feelings, emotions and values from the perspective of Reinach and his interlocutors (Íngrid Vendrell Ferran). In this way, our contributors, with varying types of emphasis, stress the continuing relevance of Reinach’s ideas, and with novel contributions to our understanding of Reinach, they establish vistas for further research in dialogue with contemporary accounts of the respective phenomena.

2

On Reinach’s realism Denis Seron

Abstract: It is commonly assumed that Adolf Reinach (although he never applied the word to himself in his published work) was a full-fledged realist. The aim of this paper is to clarify in what sense Reinach can be called a “realist.” I identify two distinct realisms in Reinach. First, Reinach advocates a metaphysical realism. He defines logic as an ontology of mind-independent states of affaires and seeks to build up a Meinong-style theory of the object based on a non-Husserlian understanding of Husserl’s intuition of essences. Second, Reinach also defends an epistemological realism according to which the burden of proof weights not on the realist, but on the idealist: “We have the right to believe in the outside world.” Keywords: Reinach; realism; states of affairs; propositions; Meinong What was most characteristic of the Munich-Göttingen phenomenologists was their— undoubtedly non-Husserlian—interpretation of Husserl’s motto, “Back to the things themselves!” This interpretation has two distinct and closely interrelated aspects: first, an uncompromising robust realism; second, a blind faith in the intuition of essences, understood in terms of a realism of essences or ideas. Adolf Reinach’s views on these two points seem quite original when compared to the Logical Investigations and the MunichGöttingen mainstream view. The aim of this paper is to clarify in what sense, if any, Reinach can be regarded as a “realist.” The answer to this question is less obvious than it may seem. The reference to “reality” (Realität) and “real ontology” (Realontologie) does not play a central role in Reinach’s thought, as it does in other members of the Circle. Reinach never applies the word “realism” to himself in his published work, and his critique of idealism (Husserlian or otherwise) is generally more subtle and implicit than could be expected. Additionally, Reinach’s realism covers a variety of views: his critique of Husserl, his theory of states of affairs, and his interpretation of Berkeley’s esse est percipi. It is unclear whether this variety can be reduced to a univocal definition of realism. I have two starting hypotheses. I will assume, first, that Reinach can legitimately be called a “realist,” and second, that Reinach’s realism actually involves two heterogeneous components. On the one hand, his theory of states of affairs clearly assumes a metaphysical realism. On the other hand, Reinach also defended an epistemological realism as part of his theory of experience expounded in the “Introduction to Philosophy” of 1913.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-3

6 Denis Seron

2.1 Metaphysical realism Let us begin with metaphysical realism. Reinach developed an original conception of states of affairs and logical knowledge—a conception that is more akin to Meinong’s theory of objects than to Husserl’s views in the first edition of Logical Investigations. To some extent, Reinach and Husserl, in their philosophies of logic, share a common concern. Both seek to determine, so to speak, the ontological commitments of logic taken as a genuine theory. If logic is a theory, then there is a sense in which logical laws are “true”; if logical laws are true, then we must be able to identify what they are true of. There are many possible answers to this question. The logical psychologist claims that logical truths are about mental states, while the logical Platonist holds that they are about propositions conceived of as separable semantic entities. On my interpretation, Husserl’s Logical Investigations offers a third way between psychologism and Platonism.1 His line of thought is as follows: logic is certainly about propositions conceived in specie, that is, in abstraction from their realizations in mental states. However, the epistemological claim that the logician conceives of propositions in specie does not entail the metaphysical claim that propositions are separate entities. Ontologically speaking, propositions have no reality except in the mental states that potentially realize them. They are nothing outside the mind, but only properties or “species of judgments.” Logic, as a theory of propositions, therefore requires a “phenomenological foundation” that brings to light its intuitive sources in inner experience. This is the meaning of Husserl’s call “Back to the things themselves!” In a nutshell: Husserl rejects both logical Platonism and logical psychologism, affirming both the ontological inseparability of logical objects and the epistemological autonomy of logic with respect to empirical psychology. The fact that numbers are properties of groups of individuals does not imply that arithmetic is an empirical science. Likewise, the logician must apprehend propositions “in themselves,” through ideation, independently of their mental instantiations, even though propositions are no more than properties of mental states. Reinach’s theory of states of affairs largely reflects the same concern. Through his notion of state of affairs, Reinach sought to elaborate a bold realist approach to the ontology of logic, in contrast with Husserl’s approach which is not realist in the same sense. In the Investigations, Husserl endorses some form of logical realism: what is true is true in itself; what exists exists in itself. However, this realism

1 This (non-Platonist) reading of the Logical Investigations cannot be argued for here. For detailed arguments, see Denis Seron, “Phénoménologie et objectivisme sémantique dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl,” in L’idée de l’idée: Éléments de l’histoire d’un concept, ed. B. Leclercq and B. Collette-Ducic (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 245–67; Denis Seron, “Objectivité et subjectivité dans la critique husserlienne du relativisme,” in Psychologie et psychologisme, ed. M. Gyemant (Paris: Vrin, 2015), 177–201. Similar views are found in Jitendra N. Mohanty, Husserl and Frege (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), and Martin Kusch, Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge (London New York: Routledge, 1995). In my use of the term here, an object x is “separable” from another object y if, and only if, it is possible that x exists while y does not. Mind-independency is a special case of separability. In Husserl’s view, logical objects such as propositions are “ideally apprehended moments” (Momente) of certain mental acts, that is, mind-dependent objects that the logician, as opposed to the phenomenologist, studies independently of their mental realization (“in themselves,” “in specie”). See Logische Untersuchungen, in Husserliana (= Hua), Vol. XIX/1: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1984), 352 [B343], English translation: Logical Investigations, trans. John N. Findlay (London New York: Routledge, 2001), Vol. 2, 79, modified.

On Reinach’s realism 7 is basically a logical realism and, as such, a provisional (not yet phenomenological) step. Husserl’s ultimate position in the Investigations is not Bolzano’s semantic objectivism but lays out the phenomenological foundation thereof, that is, the claim that logical objects are ontologically inseparable contents of mental states of a certain type. “Phenomenological foundation of logic,” in Husserl’s view, means as much as “non-realist foundation of logical realism.” The phenomenologist is not primarily concerned with truth in itself, but with the “experience of truth” or evidence.2 In contrast with this, Reinach proposes a realist account of logical knowledge which does not entail a return to logical Platonism. Logic, he claims, is neither a theory of propositions taken as “species of judgment,” nor a psychology of judgment or a Platonist theory of propositions, but a theory of states of affairs.3 The argument for this is found in the essay on negative judgment of 1911 and in the “Introduction to Philosophy” of 1913. As a first step, Reinach sets out five necessary and sufficient conditions for being a state of affairs.4 Roughly, states of affairs and only states of affairs (1) can be believed or asserted (geglaubt oder behauptet), (2) stand in relations of implication, (3) have modalities, (4) can be positive or negative, and (5) and can be known (erkannt). It is the second condition that is crucial. States of affairs can stand in relations of implication, that is, in Reinach’s terminology, relations of “grounding” (Begründung). Wherever there is such a relation of implication, there must be one or more states of affairs. Secondly, Reinach offers the following definition of logic: Logic is (1) a general theory of science, insofar as it provides the laws of grounding in general (Begründungsgesetze) and thus gives the form for the relations of grounding that apply to all sciences; [and it is] (2) a special theory of

2 Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Hua XVIII: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, ed. Elmar Holenstein (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1975), 193 [A190]; Engl. trans., Vol. 1, 121. In the Sixth Investigation, Husserl calls “object” the content of a fulfilling intention, as opposed to the “meaning content” or content of a “meaning intention.” See Logische Untersuchungen, Hua XIX/2: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1984), 671 [A614]; Engl. trans., Vol. 2, 280: “The essential homogeneity of the function of fulfilment … obliges us to give … to each fulfilling act whatever the name of an ‘intuition,’ and to its intentional correlate the name of ‘object.’” Clearly, this object is not the object that exists mind-independently, but merely the “object as represented” or “intentional object.” This latter may thus be defined as the intentional content of an intuition. 3 To my knowledge, the only other philosopher besides Reinach who holds such views was Roderick Chisholm (see his papers “Events and propositions,” Noûs 4/1 (Feb. 1970), 15–24; “States of affairs again,” Noûs 5/2 (May 1971), 179–89; “Events without times: An essay on ontology,” Noûs 24/3 (June 1990), 413–27). Chisholm tends to reduce propositions to states of affairs and hence propositional logic to a theory of states of affairs. See “States of affairs again,” 180, note 4: “I also believe that the theorems of logic are most plausibly interpreted as pertaining to what I have called states of affairs.” This is a direct consequence of Chisholm’s definition of propositions as being states of affairs “such that the laws of propositional logic may be interpreted as being applicable to them” (“Events and propositions,” 19). 4 Adolf Reinach, “Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils,” in Sämtliche Werke: Textkritische Ausgabe, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), Vol. 1 (hereafter cited as TnU), 114–117; English translation by Barry Smith: “On the theory of the negative judgment,” in Parts and moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, ed. Barry Smith (Munich: Philosophia, 1982), 336–341. Also “Einleitung in die Philosophie,” Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 1 (hereafter cited as Einl.), 427, and “Wesen und Systematik des Urteils,” Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 1, 343–4.

8 Denis Seron science, insofar as it refers to the laws of grounding that are relevant for special sciences, and to types of special science.5 Logic is a theory of demonstration or, in equivalent terms, a theory of implication relations. (It is worth noticing that Reinach’s confusion between inference and implication creates serious difficulties, but I will not discuss this issue here.) Since logic is a theory of inference, that is, a theory that formulates rules for grounding a judgment in another judgment, its objects must be relations of implication. Now, as we have just seen, Reinach holds that relations of implication do not hold between judgments or propositions, but rather between states of affairs. Therefore, logic must be redefined in realist terms, as a theory of states of affairs—in opposition to the interpretation of logical laws as laws governing judgments or propositions in themselves: A proposition is true when the state of affairs which is correlated with it obtains (besteht). And two contradictory propositions cannot both be true because two contradictory states of affairs cannot both obtain. Thus here too the propositional law is reducible to a law which relates to states of affairs (führt auf ein Sachverhaltsgesetz zurück). At the same time this provides an example which may indicate the sense of our claim above, that the major part of traditional logic will prove to have its foundations in a general theory of states of affairs (daß große Teile der traditionellen Logik sich ihrem Fundamente nach als allgemeine Sachverhaltslehre herausstellen werden).6 In this sense, Reinach’s aim is to ontologize propositional logic. As he declares in the essay on negative judgment, “the laws of deduction … are, properly conceived, nothing other than general principles expressing relations between states of affairs.”7 This leads Reinach to reword the classic laws of traditional logic in terms of states of affairs. The principle of non-contradiction actually means that “two contradictory states of affairs cannot both obtain.”8 The principle of excluded middle means that “there is no middle between a state of affairs’ obtaining and its non-obtaining.”9 However, this conclusion needs to be qualified in two respects. First, it is important to note that Reinach’s purpose was not merely to eliminate propositions in favor of states of affairs, as Chisholm did some decades later. Reinach explicitly maintains Husserl’s distinction between proposition, state of affairs and judgment, even warning against the prevailing tendency among Austrian philosophers to confuse propositions with state of affairs.10

5 6 7 8 9 10

Einl., 453. TnU, 138, Engl. trans., 376, slightly modified. TnU, 115, Engl. trans., 339. TnU, 138, Engl. trans., 376; Einl., 477. Einl., 477. Unpublished notes, Ana 379 B II 5, 371 in the Bavarian State Library, quoted by Kevin Mulligan & Barry Smith, “Adolf Reinach, An intellectual biography,” in Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, ed. Kevin Mulligan (Cham: Springer, 1987), 24: “All Austrians confuse propositions and states of affairs continually.” Two notes in the essay on negative judgment suggest that this critique is directed, among others, against Meinong (TnU, 114 and 116; Engl. trans., 374). Reinach’s view is somewhat problematic in this respect. See the excellent discussion in James DuBois, Judgment and Sachverhalt: An Introduction to Adolf Reinach’s Phenomenological Realism (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995), 115–8, opposing Barry Smith, “Logic and the Sachverhalt,” The Monist 72/1 (1989), 52–69.

On Reinach’s realism 9 Secondly, Reinach does not mean to reduce all logical laws or categories to ontological laws or categories of states of affairs. In Reinach’s view, it still makes sense to say that logical laws are laws of judgment or proposition. As he claims in the essay on negative judgment, this is a direct consequence of the distinction between judgment, proposition, and state of affairs.11 For example, this distinction allows one to differentiate between an affirmative judgment about a negative state of affairs (I assert that this umbrella is not red) and a negative judgment about a positive state of affairs (I deny that this umbrella is red). Thus, the classification of judgments is not reducible to that of states of affairs. Reinach’s view is not that logic has nothing to do with judgments and propositions, but rather that it refers to them only in a derivative sense: logic is primarily about states of affairs. It certainly makes sense to say that logical laws, as rules of inference, are about propositions or judgments, but this talk is legitimate only in a derivative sense. In any case, Reinach’s theory of states of affairs involves a strong form of logical realism. As Reinach repeatedly claims, states of affairs, unlike propositions in Husserl’s Logical Investigations, are essentially mind-independent entities. “States of affairs,” he declares in the 1914 lecture “On Phenomenology,” “obtain independently of what consciousness apprehends them, and of whether they are apprehended by any consciousness at all.”12 This is a significant divergence from Husserl’s philosophy of logic. As suggested earlier, Husserl’s view seems to be that, although logic is epistemologically independent of psychology and relativism is therefore false, propositions are ontologically dependent moments of the mental states that instantiate them. Another interesting point concerns the Meinongian implications of Reinach’s theory of states of affairs. For the semantic objectivist, whether Platonist or Husserlian, the class of propositions includes not only true but also false propositions. Likewise, Reinach’s statal logic admits obtaining as well as non-obtaining states of affairs. In explicit reference to Meinong, Reinach separates the object from its existence and the state of affairs from its obtaining, and hence conceives of both existence and obtaining not as “essential moments” of objects and states of affairs, but as extrinsic first-order properties: Just as we can separate (real or ideal) objects from their (real or ideal) existence and recognize without further ado that certain objects, such as golden mountains and round squares, do not exist (or even, that they could not exist), so we separate also the state of affairs from its obtaining and speak of states, like the being golden of mountains or the being round of squares which do not obtain or, again, which could not obtain.13

11 Cf. TnU, 122; Engl. trans., 351. 12 Adolf Reinach, “Über Phänomenologie,” Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 1 (henceforth cited as ÜP), 544–5; Engl. trans., 213 modified. See also TnU, 137, Engl. trans., 374. 13 TnU, 116–7; Engl. trans., 340-341 slightly modified. See on this point James DuBois, Judgment and Sachverhalt, 32–4. Other members of the Circle such as Pfänder and Conrad-Martius have developed on this basis an original interpretation of existential judgments that is quite characteristic of the Munich-Göttingen phenomenology. See Alexander Pfänder, “Logik,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 4 (1921), 139–499; Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Das Sein (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1957).

10 Denis Seron This view leads us into the heart of Reinach’s realism. It is tempting to regard his realist philosophy, like those of Conrad-Martius and Ingarden, as a variant of Meinong’s theory of objects. The philosopher’s task, according to Reinach, is first of all to distinguish types of objects and to clarify the corresponding modes of being: “Insofar as philosophy is ontology or the a priori theory of objects (Gegenstandslehre), it has to do with the analysis of all possible kinds of object as such.”14 Philosophy is primarily ontology. And since existence and obtaining are not intrinsic characters of objects and states of affairs, this ontology must include nonexisting objects and non-obtaining states of affairs. Interestingly, Reinach, like Husserl in the Ideas I, prefers to use the term “ontology” instead of “theory of object.”15 The reason for this is that he uses the word “object” to denote entities that are not states of affairs, and subsumes both objects and states of affairs under the umbrella term “objectivity” (Gegenständlichkeit).16 It is anything but clear what such a Meinong-style ontology has to do with the phenomenology of the Logical Investigations. This question points to a second important component of Reinach’s philosophical program as a whole. There is something more involved in Reinach’s ontology than in Meinong’s theory of object. And this something more, in Reinach’s view, is the intuition of essences, which he views as definitive of phenomenology. In the “Introduction to Philosophy,” Reinach imposes on his phenomenology two constraints which he terms the “major thesis” and the “principle” of phenomenology (Hauptsatz und Grundsatz der Phänomenologie). The “major thesis” corresponds to the task of classifying and clarifying types of objects: “To every domain of objects,” Reinach claims, “there corresponds a sphere of a priori content—a priori laws of essence, and this sphere is to be investigated prior to any empirical proof.”17 The “principle” adds a further condition: Much work and effort are needed for one to know the essential structures and reach the things themselves. It has been said that phenomenology starts with the “intuition of essences.” This sounds mystical, but this is clear.18 The Reinachian philosopher is a phenomenologist insofar as she is guided by the intuition of essences, and this is probably her last remaining link to Husserl’s

14 Adolf Reinach, “Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes,” in Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 1, 145. The term “a priori theory of object” comes from the Third Investigation (Logische Untersuchungen, Hua XIX/1, 228 [A222]; Engl. trans., 3). 15 Einl., 394. See Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, Book I, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Hua III/1 (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1976), 27–8 [23]; English translation by Fred Kersten, Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Book I: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1983), 22: “[In my Third Investigation] I did not venture to take over the expression ‘ontology’ which was objectionable on historical grounds; rather I designated this investigation … as part of an ‘a priori theory of objects,’ a phrase contracted by Alexius von Meinong to make the word ‘object-theory.’ Now that times have changed, however, I consider it more correct to rehabilitate the old expression, ‘ontology.’” 16 TnU, 114; Engl. trans., 338. 17 Einl., 440. 18 Einl., 448.

On Reinach’s realism 11 Investigations. By the way, this link is rather tenuous, since, in the first edition of the Investigations, it is not the phenomenologist but the logician that performs ideation. To sum up: Reinach is a metaphysical realist inasmuch as he endorses semantic objectivism and interprets semantic objectivism as a realism of states of affairs. His metaphysical realism is phenomenological insofar as it is based on the intuition of essences. These two aspects are closely linked. Reinach’s notion of intuition of essences differs not only from Husserl’s but also from that used by the other members of the Munich-Göttingen Circle.19 To intuit essences, in his view, amounts to “knowing” a priori states of affairs (Wesensverhalte). That is why Reinach, when talking about eidetic intuition, prefers to use the verbs erschauen and erkennen that he usually reserves for states of affairs—as opposed to schauen and anschauen that he uses to denote Husserl’s ideation construed as an object intuition. This latter point enables us to better understand what the phenomenologist’s task is according to Reinach. Taking up Meinong’s construal of existence as a first-order property, Reinach describes existential judgments in terms of existential states of affairs (Existenzialsachverhalte).20 If existence is an extrinsic first-order property, then states of affairs of the form /x exists/ or /x does not exist/ are no more problematic than states of affairs of the form /x is yellow/ and /x is not yellow/. Existential states of affairs are dyadic states of affairs that correspond to existential judgments with a predicative form (for Reinach, existential judgments, unlike impersonal judgments such as “It is raining,” are predicative). This must apply to all types of objects and hence to judgments of the form “x is fictional,” “x is an ideal object,” “x is an ens rationis,” and the like. Accordingly, the phenomenologist’s task is to clarify real existence, fictional and ideal being, and so on, conceived as first-order properties, and to elucidate, on the basis of the intuition of essences, in what a priori relations existential states of affairs stand to one another. As Reinach claims on the opening pages of his 1914 lecture “On Phenomenology,” the natural attitude already confronts us with existing and non-existing objects (seienden oder nicht seienden Objekten). The phenomenologist’s task is to go a step further and subject these existing and non-existing objects to the method of Wesenserschauung (cf. ÜP, 531–41). This is, in a nutshell, the philosophical agenda underlying Reinach’s entire ontology—an agenda that is very similar to that of Ingarden and Conrad-Martius.

2.2 Epistemological realism Leaving metaphysical realism, I now pass to Reinach’s epistemological realism. This topic is treated in less detail in Reinach’s published work, probably because it plays only a peripheral role in his thought as a whole. The main passages relevant to this issue are found in the course “On the Essence of Motion” of 1913/14,21 and at the end of the “Introduction to Philosophy” of 1913, in a chapter devoted to logic and the theory of knowledge. Importantly, the passage of the “Introduction to

19 Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, Vol. 1 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965), 199–201. 20 The term appears at least once in Reinach: Einl., 437. 21 Adolf Reinach, “Über das Wesen der Bewegung,” in Sämtliche Werke, Vol. 1, 551–4.

12 Denis Seron Philosophy” is in part a reworking of an earlier course devoted to empiricism, of which only incomplete notes by Winthrop Bell have been preserved. For this reason, these pages are primarily concerned with classical empiricism, especially Locke’s indirect realism and Berkeley’s esse est percipi. In these texts, Reinach defends a form of robust realism to the effect that the philosopher should assume the existence of mind-independent entities until shown otherwise. In opposition to the modern idealism originated by Descartes, his claim is that the burden of proof is not upon the realist that believes in mind-independent reality, but upon the idealist who calls this belief into doubt and thinks it necessary to justify it.22 Roughly, his argument runs as follows: His first attack is upon Berkeley’s view that it makes no sense to talk of a reality that is not perceived, and that there must therefore exist a God that ensures the permanence of things outside the human mind. Expectedly, Reinach rejects the premise. It is false, he argues, that “things exist only in the acts apprehending them and that all things must therefore be apprehended (erfaßt).”23 An interesting point here is that, in spite of his realism, Reinach does not thereby abandon what he calls the “principle of exhibition” (Grundsatz der Aufweisbarkeit), namely the assumption that all existence can be apprehended by a consciousness (cf. Einl., 483). This leads him to defend two distinct theses: first, it is a priori possible that there exists a reality independent of any consciousness. In other words, the concept of an existence that is not apprehended is not self-contradictory. Second, all existence can be apprehended. This second thesis corresponds to Husserl’s critique of the Kantian thing in itself and to his “principle of all principles.” It may seem surprising that Reinach maintains the “principle of all principles.” This suggests at least that his realism is somewhat weaker than the realism endorsed by Roman Ingarden in the 1920s. In Ingarden’s view, this principle is definitive of Husserl’s transcendental idealism and should be rejected for the sake of realism.24 The “principle of all principles” was also challenged by Alexander Pfänder, although for different reasons. In his Logic of 1921 and already in an unpublished course from 1905/1906, he regards it as a variant of Hermann Lotze’s relational construal of existential judgments—a construal he strongly rejects saying that “x exists” and “x is perceivable” do not have the same meaning and thus must correspond to two distinct states of affairs.25 From this, he concludes that it is a priori possible for a non-perceivable object to exist. The upshot thus far is that the existence of a mind-independent reality involves no contradiction and is a priori possible. This does not entail realism, since this does

22 See the similar critique of Husserl in Barry Smith, “Husserl, language, and the ontology of the act,” in Speculative Grammar, Universal Grammar, and Philosophical Analysis of Language, ed. Dino Buzzetti and Maurizio Ferriani (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1987), 205–27. 23 Einl., 483. 24 The most famous formulation of the “principle of all principles” is found in §24 of the Ideas I, Hua III/ 1, 51 [43], Engl. trans., 44: “Every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition.” For an extensive discussion of Ingarden’s critique, see Denis Seron, “Intentionnalité, idéalité, idéalisme,” Philosophie 105 (2010), 28–51. In this paper, I defend the view that the “principle of exhibition” attacked by Ingarden is just a variant of the “principle of all principles.” 25 Alexander Pfänder, “Logik,” 192–194, and Logik und Erkenntnistheorie 1905/1906, Pfänderiana BI-3.

On Reinach’s realism 13 not rule out the possibility that there exists no independent reality. However, another significant thesis in the “Introduction to Philosophy” is this: “Real existence (reale Existenz) is not something that one can establish a priori, and experience alone can be of help in this respect.”26 This thesis is explicitly directed against ontological proofs and the proof of the immortality of soul in the Phaedo. It is a concession to empiricism, although Reinach criticizes empiricists for overlooking types of objects that are accessible through other forms of “apprehension” than sensory experience. The general idea is that one must distinguish between the question whether mindindependent existence is a priori possible and the question concerning its empirical “attestations” (Ausweise) or “indications” (Existenzialhinweise). The same idea is present in Pfänder’s 1905/1906 course quoted earlier. In that text, Pfänder argues not only that esse does not have the same meaning as percipi and that the two therefore correspond to different states of affairs but also that Berkeley’s esse est percipi derives from a more general confusion between the “question of right” (Rechtsfrage) and the “question of meaning” (Bedeutungsfrage). The former question is about the justification of existential judgments. Thus, one can ask whether perceivability provides a reliable ontological criterion. Even supposing that it does, however, this criterion says nothing yet about the nature of existence itself.27 If you ask what existence means and search for metaphysical rather than epistemological conditions, then the equivalence between existence and perceivability is obviously false. Like Conrad-Martius in §9 of her Realontologie, Pfänder declares that existence may well be a necessary condition for perceivability, but that perceivability can in no way be a necessary condition for existence. This suggests an interpretation of Husserl’s “principle of all principles” that is more nuanced and accurate than the metaphysical interpretation proposed by Ingarden. Indeed, there is good reason to think that Pfänder’s distinction is already in both Husserl and Reinach, and that the two philosophers agree on this point. As I have suggested elsewhere,28 it is plausible to say that Husserl, through his idea of an equivalence between existence and perceivability, sought to enunciate an epistemological norm rather than a metaphysical thesis claiming that all existence is relative to a constituting consciousness. Husserl’s actual claim in §24 of Ideas I has no implications for what existence means; it relates to the “question of right” rather than to the “question of meaning.” In other words, it is merely a normative claim about existential positions: perceptual experience is the sole “legitimizing

26 Einl., 437. 27 Alexander Pfänder, Logik und Erkenntnistheorie 1905/1906, Pfänderiana, BI-3, 89: « a) Esse = percipi (Berkeley) being perceived. Difference in meaning. Existence endures when S does not…. Not a condition for existence. Existence is a condition for perception…. Confusion of the question of right with the question of meaning…. b) To exist = to be capable of being perceived, to be perceivable. Difference in meaning. S exists without being perceivable…. Existence is a condition for perceivability … S is perceivable because it exists. And not: it does not exist because it is not perceivable. Perceivability is a consequence of existence. Perceivability functions as a sign (Zeichen) for existence, it is not existence itself.” See also, in the same sense, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, “Realontologie. I. Buch,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 6 (1923), 165–6. 28 Denis Seron, “Un empirisme de style husserlien,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 114/1 (2016), 49–71. This reading corresponds—although not exactly—to what Andrea Marchesi (“On Husserl’s Exhibition Principle,” Husserl Studies 35 (2019), 97–116) calls the “transcendental” (as opposed to “metaphysical”) reading of Husserl’s exhibition principle.

14 Denis Seron source” (Rechtsquelle) of existential positions. This point is more apparent in §136 of the Ideas I, where the “principle of all principles” is expressed in terms of rational motivation and “legitimizing ground” (Rechtsgrund). In any case, such an interpretation has at least two important consequences. First, the equivalence between existence and perceivability is thereby rescued from Ingarden’s objections. Second, this reading suggests that Ingarden was wrong to hold that the equivalence between existence and perceivability had something to do with the relativity of the noema. This understanding of perception as a source of rational beliefs is very close to what Reinach proposes within a realist framework. Although the non-existence of the external world is a priori possible, Reinach argues, outer perception provides us with “fulcrums” (Anhaltspunkte) or “indications” (Hinweise) in virtue of which “we have the right to believe in the external world.”29 Reinach’s idea is in some ways close to Husserl’s idea of a proto-doxa. It is that we primarily have perceptions that justify the belief in the external world, and that doubting the external world is possible only at a secondary stage, when new perceptions occur or we lose our trust in such-and-such external perceptions: It is a priori possible that [the belief in the external world] be overcome—, but this is possible only in perceptions, namely in [new] perceptions that we trust more than we trust the previous ones. How could a hallucination be recognized as such without a perception that is different from it? … In perception, a fulcrum is there. If we have a perception, then I can no more say [whether the object is there or not]. Non-existence is still possible. But here confirmation (Bestätigung) can intervene until doubt, even though not meaningless, is unjustified (unberechtigt).30 In short, our belief in the external world is made legitimate by external perception. By contrast, the Cartesian doubt requires being justified (berechtigt). This is not metaphysical realism, since the belief in the external world, although legitimate, may be false. This is a form of epistemological realism—which Reinach expectedly opposes to the Descartes-inspired idealism promoted, among others, by the neo-Kantians.31 Most importantly, this epistemological realism overlaps only in part with Husserl’s position in Ideas I. There is a big difference between saying that perception can legitimate existential positions, as Reinach does, and saying, like Husserl, that perception alone can legitimate an existential position, whatever it might be. Husserl’s “principle of all principles” states that perception is a necessary and sufficient condition for rational belief.32 By contrast, Reinach’s claim is that perception is a sufficient but not necessary condition for legitimate belief: every perceived object is such

29 30 31 32

Einl., 484. Einl., 484. Cf. Einl., 484. See Hua III/1, 315–316 [283], Engl. trans., 327 (my emphasis): “But the posited characteristic has as its own a specific rational character, as a distinguishing mark accruing to it essentially, if and only if (dann und nur dann … wenn) it is a position on the basis of a fulfilled, originarily presentive sense and not merely on the basis of just any sense.”

On Reinach’s realism 15 that you are entitled to posit it as existent. But it does not follow from this that every object you are entitled to posit as existent is perceivable.

2.3 Conclusion: realism and phenomenology In conclusion, Reinach is a realist in at least two distinct respects. First, he defends a logical realism that conceives of logic, or at least the core part of it, in terms of a realist ontology of states of affairs, and he seeks to build a Meinong-style theory of object, based on a realist and non-Husserlian understanding of the intuition of essences. Second, he defends an epistemological realism according to which it is not the realist’s belief in the external world that needs justification, but the idealist’s doubting of it. Although Reinach explicitly takes up the act/content/object distinction, the issue of intentional content is very seldom discussed in his surviving work. His discussions of propositions, for example, are always peripheral, which is not to say superfluous. Reinach is a realist in the sense that he is concerned primarily with “objectivities” construed—unlike Husserl’s noemata—as being mind-independent.33 The difference between Reinach’s realist phenomenology and Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology boils down to the fundamental difference between a theory of objects and a theory of intentional content. In this respect (and although the two views are not necessarily incompatible), it is right to oppose Reinach’s claim that states of affairs are subjectindependent to Husserl’s thesis of the relativity of the noema. Given this, it is not surprising that Husserl expressed severe reservations about Reinach’s ontologism, which he viewed as antithetic to his own “phenomenology of consciousness.”34 This helps shed light on Husserl’s relationships with his realist pupils. It is undeniable that these latter were more sympathetic to the Logical Investigations than to the theory of phenomenological reduction in the Ideas I. However, it is somewhat misleading to oppose Husserl’s transcendental idealism to a realism allegedly shared by the Husserl of the Investigations (first edition) and the Munich-Göttingen phenomenologists. The notions of (material) ontology and phenomenological intuition of essences that are so characteristic of Reinach’s realism appear only after the Investigations. They find their first systematic formulation in section 1 of the Ideas I—which can be read, for this reason, as a major concession to the realist phenomenologists in view of their responses to the first edition of the Investigations. This remains true even though Husserl interprets the two notions in a way that is alien to Reinach’s thinking.35 Finally, the overall picture that emerges from our

33 See Hua III/1, 205 [184]; Engl. trans., 216, where Husserl opposes “the tree simpliciter, the physical thing belonging to Nature” to the “perceived tree as perceived which, as perceptual sense, inseparably (unabtrennbar) belongs to the perception.” 34 Karl Schuhmann, “Husserl und Reinach,” in Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, ed. Kevin Mulligan (Cham: Springer, 1987), 249–50, who, however, significantly qualifies this antagonism. 35 The principal difference is that phenomenology is defined in Ideas I as a theory of immanent essences (Hua III/1, §§60 and 75). This naturally leads us to ask what Reinach’s Platonic-Meinongian ontology has to do with “phenomenology.” See Herbert Spiegelberg’s conclusions in The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, Vol. 1, 201. Reinach’s view that his realism is “phenomenological” insofar as it is based on ideation is far from straightforward. For example, it is unclear why, as Reinach claims in his lecture “On Phenomenology,” this should not apply to geometry as well.

16 Denis Seron discussion is that Reinach’s realism is as remote from the idealism of the Ideas I as from the psychologizing, Brentano-inspired approach favored in the Investigations, and that this realism may have deeply influenced Husserl after the “transcendental turn,” especially with respect to ontology and phenomenological ideation.

References Chisholm, Roderick, “Events and propositions,” Noûs 4/1 (Feb. 1970), 15–24. Chisholm, Roderick, “States of affairs again,” Noûs 5/2 (May 1971), 179–189. Chisholm, Roderick, “Events without times: An essay on ontology,” Noûs 24/3 (June 1990), 413–427. Conrad-Martius, Hedwig, “Realontologie. I. Buch,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 6 (1923), 159–334. Conrad-Martius, Hedwig, Das Sein (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1957). DuBois, James, Judgment and Sachverhalt: An Introduction to Adolf Reinach’s Phenomenological Realism (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1995). Husserl, Edmund, Logische Untersuchungen, edited by Elmar Holenstein, Ursula Panzer, and Ullrich Melle, Husserliana XVIII–XX. English translation by J.N. Findlay: Logical Investigations, Vol. 2 (New York London: Routledge, 2001). Husserl, Edmund, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, 1. Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, edited by Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana III (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976). English translation by Fred Kersten: Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Book I: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1983). Kusch, Martin, Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge (New York London: Routledge, 1995). Marchesi, Andrea, “On Husserl’s Exhibition Principle,” Husserl Studies 35 (2019), 97–116. Mohanty, Jitendra N., Husserl and Frege (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). Mulligan, Kevin, & Smith, Barry, “Adolf Reinach, An intellectual biography,” in Kevin Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Cham: Springer, 1987), 3–27. Pfänder, Alexander, “Logik,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 4 (1921), 139–494. Reinach, Adolf, “Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes,” in Karl Schuhmann & Barry Smith (ed.), Sämtliche Werke: Textkritische Ausgabe (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), Vol. 1, 141–278. Reinach, Adolf, “Einleitung in die Philosophie,” Sämtliche Werke 1, 369–513. Reinach, Adolf, “Über das Wesen der Bewegung,” Sämtliche Werke 1, 551–588. Reinach, Adolf, “Über Phänomenologie,” Sämtliche Werke 1, 531–550. Engl. trans. by Dallas Willard: “Concerning Phenomenology,” The Personalist 50/2 (1969), 194–221. Reinach, Adolf, “Wesen und Systematik des Urteils,” Sämtliche Werke 1, 339–345. Reinach, Adolf, “Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils,” Sämtliche Werke 1, 95–140. Engl. trans. by Barry Smith: “On the theory of the negative judgment,” in Barry Smith (ed.), Parts and moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (Munich: Philosophia, 1982), 289–314. Schuhmann, Karl, “Husserl und Reinach,” in Kevin Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Cham: Springer, 1987), 239–256. Seron, Denis, “Intentionnalité, idéalité, idéalisme,” Philosophie 105 (2010), 28–51. Seron, Denis, “Phénoménologie et objectivisme sémantique dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl,” in Bruno Leclercq & Bernard Collette-Ducic (eds.), L’idée de l’idée: Éléments de l’histoire d’un concept (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 245–267.

On Reinach’s realism 17 Seron, Denis, “Objectivité et subjectivité dans la critique husserlienne du relativisme,” in Maria Gyemant (ed.), Psychologie et psychologisme (Paris: Vrin, 2015), 177–201. Seron, Denis, “Un empirisme de style husserlien,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 114/1 (2016), 49–71. Smith, Barry, “Husserl, language, and the ontology of the act,” in Dino Buzzetti & Maurizio Ferriani (eds.), Speculative Grammar, Universal Grammar, and Philosophical Analysis of Language (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1987), 205–227. Smith, Barry, “Logic and the Sachverhalt,” The Monist 72/1 (1989), 52–69. Spiegelberg, Herbert, The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction, vol. 1, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965).

3

Reinach on one-membered states of affairs Guillaume Fréchette

Abstract: Like many Austro-German philosophers, Adolf Reinach believed that one should admit a further category of entity other than objects—namely, states of affairs—in order to account, for instance, for the relation of ground and consequence, probabilities and positivity or negativity. He argued further that such entities enjoy the mode of being of subsistence and should not be confused with propositions or meanings, which are exclusively ideal entities, because some states of affairs are real. Some states of affairs, for example the object of the judgement expressed by ‘it rains’, are also said to contain one single member; if this is the case, it is hard to see how they are distinct from the objects or processes they contain and how such one-membered states of affairs may fulfil the roles they were meant to. Prima facie, it seems difficult to reconcile all these features. In this chapter, I argue that the central intuitions underlying Reinach’s account may be captured by a modest account of states of affairs based on his conception of onemembered states of affairs, which is compatible with his view that there are timeless ideal states of affairs, but which does not commit to them. Keywords: Reinach; state of affairs; event; process; verbal aspect; impersonal sentences 3.1 States of affairs, their roles and nature Reinach is often noted in the history of phenomenology for his systematic treatment of two key ideas. The first idea is that many so-called mental acts are in fact not mental at all: they have an intrinsically complex structure involving other agents and institutions and different kinds of entities. He called these acts social acts, long before Searle discussed speech acts. The second idea is that a judgement such as the one I am now communicating in the phrase ‘the rose is red’1 has an objectual correlate of its

1 Here and in the following, I use curly quotation marks (‘,’) to introduce the expression of a judgement, that is, an assertion or sentence, or to introduce the expression of a presentation. I use angle brackets () to introduce mental episodes, for example, judgements or presentations. Finally, I use square brackets ([,]) to introduce abstract semantic entities such as propositions. States of affairs being an objectual category in the view discussed here, they are not introduced but simply identified by the use of the hyphen in the gerundival form. Thus, the assertion ‘the rose is red’ expresses a judgement, namely , which refers to the being-red of the rose, that is, to a state of affairs. I will occasionally use forms such as “‘A is b’ refers to the being-b of A” as shortcuts for “‘A is b’ expresses which refers to the being-b of A”.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-4

Reinach on one-membered states of affairs

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own, which is the following state of affairs: the being-red of the rose. This state of affairs is neither a semantic entity (e.g. a proposition) nor a mental or linguistic entity; it is an entity in its own right. What one believes, knows, hopes or fears are states of affairs—in this case, what is referred to by ‘the being-red of the rose’. In this paper I will deal essentially with this second idea, although the reconstruction of Reinach’s view on states of affairs proposed here suggests that the first idea depends on the second idea. Why does one need states of affairs? Philosophers in general and Austro-German philosophers in particular—the tradition to which Reinach belonged—defending the concept of states of affairs often argue for this view by stressing that these entities play a crucial role in accounting for different phenomena, such as the truth of sentences, the probability of an event occurring and the relation of causality. In this respect, Reinach conforms with the Austro-German tradition. For him, states of affairs are 1

that which is believed and affirmed, which stands in the relation of ground and consequent, which possess modalities and which stands in the relation of contradictory positivity and negativity.2

Like Meinong, and in a tradition which can be traced back to Wodeham,3 Reinach believed that states of affairs are what is believed and affirmed;4 like Brentano, Stumpf and Meinong, he believed that bearers of probabilities are states of affairs.5 Somewhat prefiguring Armstrong’s definition of a truth-maker—namely that in virtue of which something is true6—Reinach suggested that a proposition is true because its correlated state of affairs subsists.7 Like Meinong,8 Reinach considered that states of affairs, not propositions or objects, are the proper relata of grounding relations.9 Both believed that grounding relations such as that expressed in ‘On the Zugspitze, the thermometer is higher in July than in January because the temperature on the Zugspitze is higher in July than in January’ are

2 Adolf Reinach, Sämtliche Werke. Textkritische Ausgabe in 2 Bänden, ed. by B. Smith and K. Schuhmann, Munich, Philosophia Verlag, 1989, 117. English translation of this particular chapter: ‘On the Theory of the Negative Judgement,’ trans. Barry Smith, in Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, B. Smith (ed.), Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1982, 341 3 See Hubert Élie, Le complexe significabile, Paris, Vrin, 1936 on the connection between Meinong and Russell and Wodeham’s significabile per complexum. 4 However, he disagreed with Meinong on the identification of propositions with states of affairs. This will be discussed in greater detail further. 5 See Franz Brentano, Logik-Vorlesung (EL72). Franz Brentano Archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Carl Stumpf, ‘Über den Begriff der mathematischen Wahrscheinlichkeit’, in Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich, 1892, pp. 37–120; Alexius Meinong, Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit, Leipzig, Barth, 1915. 6 David Armstrong, ‘C.B. Martin, Counterfactuals, Causality, and Conditionals’, in J. Heil (ed.), Cause, Mind and Reality: Essay Honoring C.B. Martin. Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1989, 88. 7 See Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 138; English translation: ‘On the Theory of the Negative Judgement’, 376. 8 See Alexius Meinong, Ueber Annahmen, Leipzig: J. A. Barth. Erg.-Bd. [Suppl. Vol.] II of Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, 1902, 195. 9 See Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 117.

20 Guillaume Fréchette relations which hold between states of affairs, and not between judgements or propositions.10 Like Brentano, Reinach rejected the thesis that positivity and negativity arise from the ascription of a property to a subject (in a positive judgement) or from the exclusion of a property from a subject (in a negative judgement). While Brentano suggested that positivity and negativity come from the attitudes of acknowledging or rejecting the object of the judgement, Reinach argued that they come from the object of the judgement itself, namely the state of affairs. Like the act of acknowledging, the act of rejecting is not negative because of the quality of the judging attitude but because of the object of the judgement, namely the negative state of affairs referred to by ‘Paris is not the capital of Austria’. Only states of affairs, says Reinach, and not judgements, stand in contradiction.11 While it is clear that Reinach stands here in the Austro-German tradition which draws attention to states of affairs (Sachverhalte), content of judgements (Urteilsinhalte) and objectives (Objektive), he was rather cautious about the significance of the list sketched earlier in (1): he did not think that (1) provides a definition of the concept of state of affairs.12 In fact, it is not even clear whether a Reinachian state of affairs always fulfils all of the mentioned roles.13 Furthermore, by consistently arguing for one-membered states of affairs—such as the object of the judgement expressed by ‘it rains’—Reinach seems in fact to have departed from the natural intuition suggested by most of the roles mentioned earlier, if not by the term of Sachverhalt itself: namely that such an entity, by nature, possesses a degree of complexity that one-membered entities are not able to satisfy. Whether one refers to states of affairs by that-clauses (Stumpf) or thinks of states of affairs as instantiations of universals (Armstrong) or as complexes of tropes (Simons), it seems to be a widely held view among the proponents of states of affairs that their structure is at least minimally complex and involves more than one element. At a minimum, it seems to involve at least a particular and a relation, a property or a trope, and eventually a non-relational tie, at least for some of those seeking to avoid Bradley’s regress. Prima facie at least, one-membered (eingliedrige) states of affairs do not seem to be able to fulfil the general roles identified by Reinach in (1). In this paper, I argue for three theses: (i) Reinach’s ontology has the means to accommodate one-membered states of affairs (in other words, there are good reasons,

10 Unlike Meinong however, Reinach (Sämtliche Werke, 115) suggested en passant in his 1911 ‘On the Theory of Negative Judgement’ that causal relations do not hold between states of affairs but rather between physical events, states or processes (dingliche Geschehen, Vorgänge, Zustände). More on this in the third section of this paper. 11 See Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 116: ‘The relation of logically contradictory positivity and negativity which interests us obtains only in the sphere of states of affairs’ (‘Das uns interessierende Verhältnis logisch-kontradiktorischer Positivität und Negativität gibt es allein der Sphäre der Sachverhalte’). This is discussed in greater detail in Section 3.2. For a more detailed discussion of Reinach’s critique of socalled logical dualism, see Mark Textor, ‘Thereby we have broken with the old logical dualism – Reinach on Negative Judgement and Negation’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 21, 570–590. 12 See Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 341. 13 Compare Kevin Mulligan, ‘Wie die Sachen sich zueinander verhalten inside and outside the Tractatus’, in Teoria, vol. 5, 145–174 as well on this point. This is discussed in greater detail below.

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from within Reinach’s ontology, to acknowledge one-membered states of affairs); (ii) independently of Reinach’s ontology, there is at least one good reason to acknowledge one-membered states of affairs in general; and (iii) some of Reinach’s reflections on one-membered states of affairs already give us this reason. Therefore, I conclude that not only is Reinach’s intuition about one-membered states of affairs not an aberration within his general conception of states of affairs, but even if one rejects the strong realism of ideal objects that seems to come with it, such an intuition may be useful for an account of events as the most basic states of affairs. In order to support (i), I propose a brief exposition of Reinach’s ontology in Section 2 and expound on the reasons which motivated Reinach to adopt the onemembered state of affairs in Section 3. I argue for (ii) and (iii) in Section 4, where I also propose a modest account of one-membered states of affairs in line with (iii).

3.2 A first look at Reinach’s ontology Reinach seemed to distinguish between two main modes of being: the mode of being of objects, which are said to exist or not, and the mode of being of states of affairs, which are said to subsist or not.14 A quick remark in passing suggests that he would in fact even accept the Meinongian thesis that there are non-subsisting states of affairs along subsisting ones in a similar sense as there are non-existing objects along existing ones.15 The talk of non-existence and non-subsistence, along with states of affairs being more or less what Meinong called an objective (Objektiv), as Reinach himself acknowledged, suggests that his position is akin to Meinong’s ontology. Similar to Meinong’s objectives, states of affairs subsist (bestehen) and are said to be ontologically independent: ‘they obtain indifferently of what consciousness apprehends them, and of whether they are apprehended by any consciousness at all’.16 In contrast with Meinong’s objectives, however, only states of affairs are said to subsist in Reinach’s ontology: tables and chairs enjoy only real existence, while numbers, forms and propositions enjoy only ideal existence (ideelle Existenz), which suggests that he also rejected Meinong’s view that existence implies subsistence.17 This disagreement with Meinong might seem unimportant, as Reinach obviously granted the difference between two modes of being anyway.

14 In his 1911 essay ‘On the Theory of Negative Judgement’ (See especially Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 118) at least, Reinach distinguished clearly between existence and subsistence (bestehen), explicitly connecting his terminology with Meinong’s Bestehen, although his concept of subsistence differed from Meinong’s. 15 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 116–7. Although for reasons that will be clarified below, Reinachian nonexisting objects, such as the non-existing golden mountain, are not said to subsist. 16 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 544 f.; English translation of this particular chapter: Adolf Reinach, ‘Concerning Phenomenology’, trans. Dallas Willard, The Personalist, vol. 50, 213. 17 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 427. For Meinong, if a given object exists, say this specific chair in my office in May 2020, then it must also subsist (in this case, the chair without its temporal and spatial determinations; see Alexius Meinong, Über Annahmen, 2nd ed., Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1910, 74. The idea seems to be that ‘x exists’ implies ‘x is possible’, although Meinong warned against understanding subsistence purely in terms of possible existence (see Meinong, Über Möglichkeit, 63). On ideal existence and on propositions as ideal individuals, see Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 351; on ideal existence in Munich phenomenology, see Guillaume Fréchette, ‘Essential Laws’, in B. Leclercq, D. Seron, and S. Richard (eds.), Objects and Pseudo-Objects. Ontological Deserts and Jungles from Brentano to Carnap, Berlin, De Gruyter, 143–166.

22 Guillaume Fréchette However, it implies a specificity in Reinach’s account which, if taken seriously, poses an interesting challenge: for Meinong, what merely subsists (besteht), like the objective expressed by ‘A’s being b’, is also something ideal and extra-temporal (zeitlos),18 while for Reinach, a subsisting state of affairs may be temporal or extra-temporal.19 In short, Reinach’s subsistence differs from Meinong’s in that only states of affairs are subsistent, and that some cases of subsistence are temporal. As Reinach understood ideality in terms of extra-temporality,20 it seems reasonable to attribute to him the thesis that not all states of affairs are ideal, or extra-temporal. On the basis of this first look at his ontology, and if we take on the challenge posed by his views, his table of categories could be reconstructed as follows:

Existence Subsistence

Real

Ideal

Spatiotemporal objects States of affairs containing spatiotemporal objects, e.g., Nadal’s being-left-handed

Numbers, propositions, meanings States of affairs containing numbers or propositions, e.g., 3 being-greaterthan 2

The challenge with regard to states of affairs is obvious: what unites the so-called real and ideal states of affairs in the general category of states of affairs? Reinach did not address this issue. Answering here that they simply subsist is not an option, as subsistence was used in (1) as part of the definiens (or part of the clarification) of the concept of state of affairs. Smith rejected the challenge, suggesting that one simply forgets about temporal states of affairs: all cases of subsistence, he holds, are ideal for Reinach.21 In the next two sections, we will see how the modest account of onemembered states of affairs provides a response to the challenge.

3.3 One-membered states of affairs? Reinach’s theses Reinach’s account of states of affairs is contained for the most part in his 1911 essay ‘On the Theory of Negative Judgement’.22 Interestingly, he discussed one-membered states of affairs most of the time only en passant, but what he said in this article and elsewhere in his posthumous publications—as well as what one finds in the reports about his lost habilitation thesis—seems for the most part consistent, as we can see from the theses and arguments he offered in favour of one-membered states of affairs. Let us have a look first at the main theses concerning states of affairs in general.

18 See again Meinong, Über Annahme, 2nd ed., 74–5, a passage which referred to on this very point (Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 116). 19 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 351. 20 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 111 and 421. 21 Barry Smith “On the Cognition of States of Affairs”, in K. Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt, Den Haag, Kluwer, 189–225. Smith attributed to Reinach the thesis that all states of affairs are extratemporal, putting aside cases where Reinach showed a ‘more modest approach to Sachverhalte’ as ‘certainly reflecting the influence of Reinach’s other mentor, Johannes Daubert’ (ibid, 201). While the second proposition may very well be true, it does not imply that Reinach defended two conflicting accounts of states of affairs in the same paper, as Smith held. 22 Reinach unfortunately never proposed a systematic account of states of affairs. His 1908 habilitation entitled Urteil und Sachverhalt most likely contained such an account, but this document has been lost.

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3.3.1 States of affairs are not relations First, Reinach suggested that one-membered states of affairs are necessary in order to draw a distinction between relations and states of affairs.23 In other words, if states of affairs differ from Meinongian complexes (relations with their relata), then one should admit onemembered states of affairs. What was Reinach’s point here? The idea seems to be the following: following traditional logic, Reinach suggested, we tend to believe that judgements pose relations (Relationen setzen) between objects (Gegenstandsbeziehungen).24 If this is the case, then it is reasonable to believe that ‘A is b’, which expresses a judgement, does not refer to objects but rather to relations.25 The gist of the idea is this: holding that all judgements pose relations between objects blurs the distinction between judgements such as and . According to Reinach, the first judgement does not pose a relation, but the second does. Furthermore, if all judgements pose relations, what about negative judgements such as ? Obviously, such judgements cannot pose a relation between A and b. If this intuition is correct and traditional logic is wrong, then judgements such as the one expressed as ‘the rose is red’ as well as ‘the rose is not red’ refer neither to objects nor to relations, but to something in between, namely to states of affairs—in the first case to the being-red of the rose, in the second case to the being-non-red of the rose.26 At least some judgements, therefore, do not refer to relations, but to states of affairs. However, if states of affairs are supposed to be the objects of all kinds of judgements, and if the confusion between states of affairs and relations should be avoided, then one should show that judgements, such as or , which on the face of it seem to refer to the relation of inherence (of red to the rose) or similarity (between A and B), actually refer to a state of affairs. Here, Reinach introduced one-membered states of affairs to stress his point: what ‘A is similar to B’ expresses can be understood as referring, among other things, to the relation of similarity, but it can also be understood as referring, among other things, to the state of affairs being-similar. How are these to be distinguished? Reinach’s exposition is here difficult to follow, but the idea seems to be the following: ‘similarity is not being-similar’27—that is, beingsimilar can be negated and can also be the bearer of modalities, but similarity cannot be negated, nor can it be the bearer of modalities.28 Therefore, when one says that ‘A is similar to B’ can be negated (by saying ‘A is not similar to B’) or that it can be expressed

23 ‘If one demands of states of affairs that they be two-membered, then this is to confuse states of affairs with relations’ (Reinach, Ana 379 B II 4, 250, quoted in Barry Smith and Karl Schuhmann, ‘Adolf Reinach. An Intellectual Biography’, in K. Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt, Den Haag, Kluwer, 1987, 14. 24 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 112. 25 Ibid. 26 See Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 122. On states of affairs being neither objects nor relations, see 353. 27 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 121. 28 It should be noted here that Reinach mentioned only these two roles, thus avoiding saying that beingsimilar could be known or believed, as he should have said if being-similar were a state of affairs and if (1) gave the necessary conditions for states of affairs. To say that being-similar could be the object of attitudes such as knowing or believing makes as much sense as to say that similarity could be the objects of such attitudes. Obviously, the difference is more salient in cases of modality and negation, and this seems enough for Reinach to make his point, but it also speaks for the idea that the list of roles Reinach attributed to states of affairs in quote (1) are not necessary conditions. We will see later that they are not sufficient conditions either.

24 Guillaume Fréchette with modality (by saying ‘A is possibly similar to B’), we are not describing the features of a relation but of a state of affairs. Therefore, the judgement refers to the relation of similarity between A and B only to the extent (i) that the similarity between A and B is contained in the relational state of affairs of the being-similar of A and B, and (ii) that the similarity between A and B is dependent upon the one-membered state of affairs of being-similar. Such a one-membered state of affairs is ‘saturable’ (ergänzungsbedürftig) according to Reinach. In a relational state of affairs, it becomes saturated thanks to the relata of the relation. In Reinach’s ontology, thus, it seems that ‘relation’ designates either a relational state of affairs, such as A’s being-similar to B, or a constitutive part of a state of affairs.29 In the second sense, the expression rather ‘means that through which the ‘being’ in the state of affairs […] [e.g. the being in being-similar of A and B] gets determined to a being-similar or being-inherent, thus the ‘similar’ or ‘inherent’. It is in this sense that we say that A has similarity with B’.30 3.3.2 Impersonal judgements are about one-membered states of affairs The second thesis states that one-membered states of affairs stand to impersonal judgements as two-membered states of affairs stand to categorical judgements, and as three-or more-membered states of affairs stand to relational judgements.31 In other words, one needs one-membered states of affairs if one accepts that expressions such as ‘it rains’, ‘it is cold’, etc. express a kind of judgement (namely an impersonal judgement). Before going further into Reinach’s thesis, it might be useful to say a few words about impersonal judgements, an issue that was quite polarising in the logical and psychological discussions of the late nineteenth century in Germany and Austria. The problem might seem antiquated from today’s perspective, or from the standpoint of Fregean semantics: because the expression ‘it rains’ cannot be regimented in a quantified function-argument schema such as ∃x(rains(x)) if no object can be subsumed under the concept, ‘it rains’ is simply not a sentence. For philosophers such as Bolzano, Steinthal, Brentano, Marty, Wundt, Sigwart and Reinach, however, it was either a pressing problem or welcomed support for their views about judgement. In opposition to Hume’s view that judgements are distinct from presentations only by a degree of intensity, they defended two basic views: the first, advocated by Bolzano, Steinthal, and Sigwart, asserted that (i) judgements are a standalone category, (ii) which differ from presentations in that they attribute a property to an object. The second view, defended by Brentano, Marty and Reinach, also stated that (i) judgements are a standalone category, but (ii∗) they differ from presentations in that they are characterised by a genuinely different attitude, often described as affirming, acknowledging and so forth. For philosophers defending the first view, it was therefore

29 Reinach observed that ‘there are relations in two senses: according to the first sense, they are always states of affairs, and according to the second, they never are’ (Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 121). 30 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 122. 31 States of affairs are divided into ‘one-membered, in impersonalia, two-membered, in normal categorical judgements, and three- or more-membered, in relational judgements’ (Reinach, Ana 379 B II 4, 292, quoted in Smith and Schuhmann, ‘Biography’, 14). See also Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 122).

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crucial to show that so-called impersonal judgements do in fact involve attribution (normalising a borderline case); for philosophers defending the second view, impersonal judgements were rather seen as a confirmation, or a paradigmatic case, of the view that attitude, not attribution, is essential to judgement. At first glance, Reinach’s thesis might be understood as a concession to Brentano. Indeed, Reinach sided with Brentano on the interpretation of impersonal sentences such as ‘it rains’ in terms of subjectless statements and rejected Sigwart’s interpretation of such sentences in terms of denomination judgements (Benennungsurteile), such as the one expressed in ‘this is raining’. For Sigwart, the true form of the sentence ‘it rains’ is a deictic statement—grammatically speaking, the subject seems to be lacking, but in thought, or psychologically, it is there, masked by the deictic expression ‘this’: ‘the predicate gives a name to that intuition [expressed by this], and refers with its ending to an actual and present event’.32 Reinach did agree with Brentano on the fact that ‘it rains’ is the expression of a judgement on its own and that there is no hidden subject there. As we have already seen in Section 1, however, he disagreed with regard to both the qualification of the attitude involved here (as in any other judgements, as a matter of fact) and on the object of that attitude. For Brentano, ‘it rains’ expresses the acknowledgement of rain. Reinach’s opposition to Brentano on this point can be explained as follows: (i) acknowledgement (Anerkennung) is something one does to judgements, not to objects—it is what happens, for instance, when you hear ‘A is b’ and you say or think for yourself ‘yes, A is b’;33 (ii) the positionality, the ‘yes’ of acknowledgement is not characteristic of the act of judging, strictly speaking, but of the state (Zustand) of conviction (Überzeugung) on which the judging is based, strictly speaking; (iii) the positionality of judgement is not the ‘yes!’ of acknowledgement but the positionality of the assertion (Behauptung); and (iv) what one does in an assertion, and what grounds an assertion, is the meaning (Meinen) of something (namely a state of affairs) linguistically in an assertive way.34 Therefore, what ‘it rains’ expresses could not be explained for Reinach merely in terms of the subjective state of conviction—you might well be convinced that it rains when you assert ‘it rains’, but your conviction does not point at some part of the world, but rather at some part of your inner life, that is, . In other words, in a way which recalls Bühler’s critique of Anton Marty a few years before the publication of Reinach’s ‘On the Theory of Negative Judgement’: when asserting something, more than the manifestation (Kundgebung) of your inner life is involved. Although it may happen coincidently with the manifestation, the representative function (Darstellungsfunktion) is independent of the function of the manifestation of assertions. For Reinach, meaning something (Meinen) or for Bühler, representing something (Darstellen) are linguistic functions thanks to which a speaker points to an objective part of the world, be it a state of affairs (Reinach) or a Tatbestand (Bühler).35

32 Christoph Sigwart, Die Impersonalien. Eine logische Untersuchung, Tübingen, Mohr, 1888, 37. On Sigwart, see Lia Formigari, ‘Sentence and its Parts. A Psycholinguistic Theory of Syntactic Value’, in Histoire, Épistémologie, Langage, vol. 37/1, 2015, 21. The English translation is hers. 33 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 96. 34 Ibid., 97 and 107. 35 See in particular Karl Bühler ‘Besprechung zu A. Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie’, in Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, vol. 171, 1909, 964ff.

26 Guillaume Fréchette 3.3.3 A state of affairs as ‘being determinated in some way’ With the two first theses and the reconstruction of the arguments provided to support them, we may grant to Reinach that states of affairs are neither objects nor relations; nor are they complexes in the Meinongian sense, although some states of affairs are relational. Thus, if some states of affairs are non-relational, one-membered states of affairs would seem to be good candidates for such cases. Furthermore, if some states of affairs are non-relational, then it makes good sense to reject the attributive view of judgement; therefore, not only are impersonal judgements judgements in the full sense of the term, they also have one-membered states of affairs as objectual correlates. The first two of these theses give us reason to accept one-membered states of affairs. But what is a one-membered state of affairs? This is Reinach’s third thesis: A one-membered state of affairs is a ‘being determinated in some way’. Unfortunately, this characterisation is found only in his habilitation thesis, which has been lost. It was presented in the context of a distinction between states of affairs and judgemental states of affairs. In his personal notes on the thesis, Reinach’s colleague and friend Daubert gave the following account of Reinach’s distinction: ‘state of affairs in general: any being determinated in some way (jedes irgendwie bestimmte Sein). Not all one-membered states of affairs are judgemental states of affairs’.36 Here, the idea seems to be that one-membered states of affairs are not merely correlate of onemembered (impersonal) judgements; there are one-membered states of affairs which are not asserted or believed.37 According to Daubert, Reinach provided the following examples: being-similar and being-one. Such one-membered states of affairs, Daubert reported, ‘have a determining member that can’t be a factual material (Tatbestand)’,38 while one-membered states of affairs of which the determining member can be factual material can also be judgemental states of affairs. This third thesis clearly echoes the point made in the first thesis, according to which being-similar is a saturable (ergänzungsbedürftig) one-membered state of affairs. Nevertheless, the thesis requires some unpacking. First: what is factual material, a Tatbestand? What assertions such as ‘the red rose exists’, ‘the rose is red’, ‘a specific instance of red inheres in this rose’ and ‘the rose is not white’ have in common, following Reinach, is that they all describe the same Tatbestand—that is, the same factual unitary complex (dinglicher Einheitskomplex) on which the different states of affairs believed in these different assertions are based: the existence of the red rose,

36 See Johannes Daubert A I 12 130, ‘Zur Kritik von Reinachs Arbeit’. In Johannes Daubert A I 12: Johannes Daubert’s Posthume papers preserved at the Bavarian State Library in Munich: Mappe 12: Psychologie. Reinach used Urteilssachverhalt otherwise only in his 1912 lectures (see Reinach 1989, 460). The distinction between Sachverhalt and Urteilssachverhalt is mentioned in Husserl’s Gutachten of Reinach’s habilitation thesis. The technical use of Urteilssachverhalt in the works in legal theory by Husserl’s son Gerhardt likely came from Reinach, whom Gerhardt greatly admired. See Gerhardt Husserl, Rechtskraft und Rechtsgeltung: Eine Rechtsdogmatische Untersuchung, Berlin, Springer, 1925. 37 Here again, this distinction holds only if one considers Reinach’s list in quote (1) as non-necessary conditions. Otherwise, one-membered states of affairs that are not believed would be a contradiction in terms. 38 Daubert, op.cit.

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the being-red of the rose, the being-non-white of the rose and so forth. This Tatbestand, or factual material, exists, while the states of affairs based on it subsist.39 The choice of the expression Tatbestand might seem sub-optimal, as it includes Bestand in it, although a Tatbestand does not subsist. Reinach’s choice was most likely motivated by the use of Tatbestand in German criminal law to designate the totality of elements which are determinant for a concrete action to count as a crime. For John’s taking Mary’s car to count as a crime (theft), the concrete action must meet the elements of the definition of theft, that is, the Tatbestandsmerkmale of theft: taking a movable property belonging to another away from another with the intention of unlawfully appropriating it for oneself or a third party.40 In this sense, a single Tatbestand can give rise to different criminal acts or states of affairs: John stealing Mary’s car; John stealing Mary’s purse; Tom stealing John’s car for Mary and so an are all different criminal states of affairs based on one single criminal Tatbestand, that is, the features which constitute what a crime of theft is (Tatbestandsmerkmale).41 Now if we come back to one-membered states of affairs, meteorological impersonal assertions such as ‘it rains’ would have as an objectual correlate a judgemental state of affairs—that is, a state of affairs whose member can be a Tatbestand: in this case, the Tatbestand would be the existing event of raining. Being-similar, however, unlike raining, is a saturable one-membered state of affairs. If one assumes, as it seems reasonable to do, that saturable entities cannot be said to exist, then being-similar is indeed an instance of the most basic category of onemembered states of affairs in general, the ‘being determined in some way’ (jedes irgendwie bestimmte Sein). 3.3.4 State of affairs vs state, process and event If the reconstruction in the preceding three sections is correct, it seems that the talk of one-membered states of affairs is not a mere aberration in Reinach’s works. Not only is it not an aberration, but also one-membered states of affairs appear to be the most primitive cases of states of affairs. They should not be considered borderline cases, but instead may be paradigmatic instances of states of affairs. In Section 4, I will explore one way of treating them as paradigmatic cases without necessarily accepting Reinach’s whole ontology, but before that, let me address two problems emerging from the exposition in Sections 1 and 2 and from the reconstruction in Sections 3.1–3.3. The first is the distinction between the category of a state of affairs and other categories such as states, processes or events. At different places, Reinach seems to believe that states of affairs are not states (Zustände), processes (Vorgänge) or events (Ereignisse).42 If some states of affairs are temporal, as suggested earlier,

39 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 116. 40 See §242 sect. 1 of the German Criminal Code. 41 For this reason as well, the relation between the factual material (Tatbestand) and a state of affairs would suggest a reading of Reinachian states of affairs in line with Meinong’s higher-order objects as founded on (or dependent on) real objects (see Alexius Meinong, ‘Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung’, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane XXI, 1899, 182–272). 42 See, for instance, Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 352, 427 and 522.

28 Guillaume Fréchette then these four categories have something in common: They all involve time in some sense. Reinach distinguished between two meanings of time: being in time and unfolding in time. Real states of affairs, like things, are temporal entities in the first meaning; they are in time, said Reinach, ‘because they are provided with temporal predications’.43 Obviously, what is meant here is that one can say of a state of affairs like the being-president of France of Emmanuel Macron that it stands later in time than the being-president of France of Jacques Chirac. Processes are temporal entities in the second meaning of ‘time’: they unfold in time, but they do not have duration. They ‘can constitute a being [i.e. they can determinate a state of affairs], but they can never constitute themselves in [further] processes’.44 Thundering and melting, for instance, are such Reinachian processes. Finally, states such as the liquid state of water in the glass, or a sudden silence, can have duration—they can exist with some duration (eine Zeitlang), but they do not have to. Furthermore, unlike processes, they do not unfold in time: they come ‘fertig in die Welt’.45 Reinach’s distinction between existing with some duration and existing without duration and its interplay with the distinction between being in time and unfolding in time is not particularly clear. It might be useful to use Johnson’s (1924) classical distinction between continuants and occurrents as a starting point and to adapt it to Reinach: we could say that at least some real states of affairs—things but also states—are continuants (Reinach’s first meaning of ‘time’) in this sense because they continue to exist in their entirety from the moment they come into being until they stop existing (e.g. they subsist in their entirety as long as they are saturated or saturable). This is not the case with processes (Reinach’s second meaning of ‘time’) which, as they unfold in time, do not exist in their entirety at every temporal point and for this reason count as occurents. What about events? Reinach did not discuss events (Ereignisse, Geschehen) in a systematic way, but he did suggest that one can comprehend (auffassen) two events as one, and that some events can happen many times.46 As processes ‘can constitute a being but can never constitute themselves in [further] processes’47, it seems plausible to understand Reinachian processes as constituting events, in line with some more recent accounts.48 If processes constitute events, would it be plausible to characterise them too as occurrents? They too unfold in time, that is, they are not wholly present at a temporal point. Unlike processes, however, Reinachian events are able to constitute themselves in further events. One singular football game, taken together with other football games, may constitute a larger event, for example, a championship. Now that these categories have been distinguished, are state of affairs, and in particular one-membered real states of affairs, such as the one which ‘it rains’ refers to, really

43 44 45 46

Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 352. Ibid., 580. Ibid., 396 and 580. Reinach also added that states are perceivable. See Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 522. As in the case of states, Reinach seemed to believe that events are perceivable as well and that they can be the object of intellectual and affective attitudes, such as enjoying an event (Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 495). 47 Ibid, 580. 48 For instance Alexander Mourelatos, ‘Events, processes, and states’, in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 2, 1978, 415–434; Helen Steward, ‘Processes, Continuants and Individuals’, in Mind, 122, 2013, 781–812.(1978) and Steward (2013), but also others (see below).

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distinct from the three other categories? Let us have a look at Reinach’s arguments: he characterised thundering, but sometimes also raining, as a process (Vorgang). I can enjoy the thunder (enjoying a process is a Freude an), but I can also enjoy that it thunders: in this case, I enjoy a state of affairs.49 On a particularly hot and dry day outside, I can ‘physically’ enjoy the rain (Freude am Regen) and its refreshing effect; in a similar, but distinct way, I can ‘intellectually’ enjoy the rain, or the fact that it rains (Freude über den Regen) when I am told, for instance, that it rained over our garden earlier today.50 If these two different attitudes have something in common despite the fact that we enjoy a process in the first case and a state of affairs in the second, then it seems reasonable to say, from Reinach’s perspective, that they have the same Tatbestand, or factual material. Therefore, the process of thunder and the state of affairs such as the one which ‘it thunders’ refers to are composed by the same existing factual material. Plausibly, the process of raining is nothing but the factual material itself that constitutes the state of affairs to which ‘it rains’ refers. Furthermore, Vorgänge, like things, are that which stand in a relation of causality,51 but not in a relation of grounding, contrary to states of affairs. Finally, we could add that processes are usually referred to by mass nouns (‘there was, some rain, a lot of rain, etc.’), while states of affairs are usually referred to by count nouns (‘it rained three times today’).52 As explained earlier, neither states (Zustände) nor processes (Vorgänge) are states of affairs. States of affairs stand in contradiction, but processes or states do not. Therefore, if there are impersonal judgements and if these have some object, this object cannot be a process (as suggested by Maier [1908]), but it can only be a onemembered state of affairs.53 A possible Maierian objection to this conclusion, raised by Reinach, goes as follows: ‘if I am convinced of the warmth, my judgement then refers to this state which we call warmth, and it is not clear why we would still need the concept of a state of affairs’.54 Here, answered Reinach, we must distinguish between two meanings of warmth. When I enjoy the warmth physically, I enjoy a state (Zustand) of the world. Only when I enjoy it intellectually, in which case I enjoy a state of affairs. This is in line with Reinach’s claim that sensory qualities such as warmth are perceived by our senses, while states of affairs are not. The latter are known (erkannt), but not sensorily perceived.55 We often express impersonal

49 50 51 52

Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 522. See for instance Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 349. Reinach, Sätmliche Werke, 427. Ibid., 522. Or more precisely: ‘that it rained, occurred three times today’. Reinach himself did not speak of the mass noun/count noun distinction, but his intuition on addition and multiplication of events and processes in Reinach 1989, 521ff. suggests such a distinction: ‘Nur dem Sachverhalt kommt das 1x, 2x, 3x etc. zu. Die Maligkeit geht auf Realisierung von Sachverhalten statt auf Realisierung des Vorgangs’. This intuition, and the idea that processes are the factual material (or stuff) of events, has often been defended in recent times. See, for instance, Mourelatos, ‘Events, processes and states’, but in line with him Helen Steward, The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes, and States, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997; Tim Crowther, ‘The Matter of Events’, in Review of Metaphysics, vol. 65, 2011, 3–39 and Jennifer Hornsby, ‘Actions and Activity’, in Philosophical Issues, vol. 22, 2010, 233–245. 53 Reinach (Sämtliche Werke, 348) did not give an exact reference to the thesis he attributed to Maier, but it seems to be Heinrich Maier, Psychologie des emotionalen Denkens, Tübingen, Mohr, 1908, 148ff. 54 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 348. 55 Ibid., 347.

30 Guillaume Fréchette judgements such as ‘it is warm’ on the basis of sensory perception, but what is known in such a judgement is not the perceived warmth (say the warmth felt on your cheeks while going outside on a summer day), but the state of affairs of warmth, which is, as Reinach puts it, an unconnected being-so. In such a case, ‘we know and are convinced of a certain determined being, of a being-so, but it is in no way the being-so of any object (or the air, etc.). Rather, it is simple, unconnected being-so’.56 In sum, a onemembered state of affairs is an unconnected being-so, a subjectless and objectless being-so. Notwithstanding this analysis, it is hard to see how warmth as a onemembered state of affairs and as a process are not merely distinguished by the kind of attitude one takes towards them—and not by their ontological structure—as the case of thunder, discussed earlier, suggests. What is more, the case of events complicates the picture: physically enjoying the rain then becomes the enjoyment of a process, while intellectually enjoying the rain is the enjoyment of a state of affairs. Processes, however, constitute events, as Reinach seems to hold. It seems here that events should be understood, after all, as a kind of states of affairs. If this is correct, then not all states of affairs are continuants: some, like the state of affairs to which ‘it rains’ refers, would be occurrent entities. Reinach’s reflection on warmth (but also rain and thunder) might need some supplementation in order to make a convincing case for the thesis that there are one-membered real states of affairs.57 This is what I propose in Section 4. 3.3.5 What is real subsistence? We saw in Section 2 that some states of affairs are real, while some others are ideal. The case of ideal subsisting states of affairs is relatively unproblematic: The being-equiangular of the triangle, the being-numerically-equal of 4 and 2∗2, if they are states of affairs, must certainly be ideal, because numbers and geometrical forms are themselves ideal according to Reinach. But what does it mean to say that raining, or even the being-red of the rose, have real subsistence? Let me try here a Reinachian defence of real subsistence in order to address the challenge presented in Section 2. As I assumed in that section, a state of affairs is real if at least one of its members is real. Raining, as an event, happens in time and is therefore real. The rose in the state of affairs of the being-red of the rose is real and exists, so the state of affairs subsists in time: it is a case of real subsistence. We could make the case for real subsistence with the help of two more examples: first, consider one-membered states of affairs such as being-similar, which are, as Reinach puts it,

56 Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, 348: ‘Wir erkennen und sind überzeugt von einem bestimmt determinierten Sein, von einem So-Sein, aber es ist dies keineswegs das So-Sein irgendeines Gegenstandes (der Luft oder dgl.), sondern es ist ein schlichtes, unverknüpftes So-Sein’. 57 To my knowledge, Conrad-Martius (Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Das Sein, Munich, Kösel, 1957, 23ff), whose position obviously is based on Reinach posthumously published manuscripts—since she uses the very same example of the warmth of the oven as Reinach did to make the same point—is the only one of Reinach’s students to make an effort to support his claim. Smith, ‘On the Cognition of States of Affairs’ proposed a systematic reconstruction which took into account one-membered states of affairs, although it differed from the one proposed here. According to Smith, Mulligan proposed at some point to consider verbal aspect as a ‘feature truly characteristic of state of affairs’. The modest account presented here partly echoes this proposal.

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saturable. As we said earlier, it makes good sense to deny the existence of saturable entities: being-similar is contained in the being-similar of Apple1 and Apple2, in the being-similar of Orange1 and Orange2, and so on. If there are onemembered saturable states of affairs, and if states of affairs are subsistents, then as soon as they are saturated with real entities, they must be real subsistents. A second example is the one of negative states of affairs, like the being-non-white of the rose. As we saw earlier, one of the consequences of Reinach’s critique of Brentano’s notion of acknowledgement (Anerkennung) is that a judgement cannot be characterised by its polar attitude of acknowledging/rejecting (as Brentano argued): in Reinach’s view, what Brentano described as acknowledgement is the state of conviction, which has no opposite. Therefore, for Reinach, negation had to be in the content of the judgement, and not in the attitude. This is why for him states of affairs are bearers of positivity and negativity: is correct because of the being-non-b of A. It is enough for this state of affairs to be real if A is real. But non-b—say, a non-circle—can hardly be said to be something existent. In this context too, real subsistence seems to be a plausible option.58 The shortcoming of these reasons to admit real subsistence is obvious: they are all internal to Reinach’s theory, but they are not necessarily convincing as reasons to admit real subsistence in general. I will come back to this issue in the next section.

3.4 A modest account of one-membered states of affairs The reconstruction of Reinach’s theses and arguments for one-membered states of affairs developed in the last section suggests that Reinach tried to harmonise two different and potentially independent concerns: the need for a categorical distinction between objects and states of affairs on the one hand and the need for a phenomenologically plausible account of the irreducibility of impersonal judgements on the other. Reinach seemed to harmonise these two concerns by marginalising propositions (Sätze an sich) in his ontology. For those who believe that judgements (or ‘assertions’, to stick with Reinach’s terminology) express propositions, judgements, such as , if they express any proposition, must express a proposition of the same form as the one expressed by a judgement such as ‘Romeo loves Julia’, if one takes the unity of the proposition seriously. For propositionalists such as Bolzano, for instance, a judgement such as expresses the proposition [the notion [snowfall occurring now] has objectuality], which complies with the general form of the proposition [A has b].59 As we saw earlier, Reinach was not constrained by the structure of the proposition in explaining what impersonal judgements are and what they relate to. In fact, his position or his strategy was quite in line with the idea that we have different kinds of acts, among others such as questions, orders or promises,

58 I take this first example as ontologically less expensive and more plausible than the second, which could be elegantly explained away without loss, as Roman Ingarden, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, vol. II/1, Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1964/65.299 f. showed: One could simply see negative states of affairs as supervening on positive state of affairs, without having to recognise them as full-fledged entities (for Ingarden’s critique of Reinach, see Arkadiusz Chrudzimski, ‘Negative States of Affairs. Reinach versus Ingarden’, in Symposium, vol. 16, no. 2, 2012, 106–127. 59 Bernard Bolzano, Wissenschaftslehre. In four volumes, Sulzbach, Seidel’sche Buchhandung, 1837, II:215.

32 Guillaume Fréchette which are simply not reducible to the propositional form [A is b]. Similarly, from Reinach’s perspective one could say that when I tell you ‘it is warm’, I am not making a second-order assertion about the objectuality of the concept of a warmth happening right now; rather, I am making a first-order assertion about some being-so—some occurrence of warmth. However, the case of pure one-membered states of affairs (i.e. of those of which the determining member cannot be a Tatbestand and is saturable, such as being-one and being-similar) seems less convincing in this respect. The claim that beingsimilar is a state of affairs and not an unsaturated proposition (or a relational predicate) such as […is similar to_] is not convincing if the only argument provided is that we believe being-similar, or that we believe the unconnected being-so of warmth, but that we do not believe something like […is similar to_]. We certainly do not believe the form […is similar to_], but this can hardly speak for the thesis that we believe being-similar. There is perhaps a way to avoid this difficulty. We opened this paper with a list of roles and properties attributed to states of affairs. Philosophers advocating for states of affairs nowadays will generally argue for them as the best possible candidates to fulfil one or more of the central roles mentioned earlier. However, instead of looking merely at what a given entity can do, we can also look at what we do with the expressions purportedly referring to such an entity. This alternative approach seems, in fact, quite compatible with Reinach’s way of introducing states of affairs and dealing with them. His systematic preference for the gerundival form (or verb-nominalisation) when naming states of affairs and his almost systematic avoidance of that-clauses might not have been a mistake after all,60 but rather a way of focusing on what we do with the expressions purportedly referring to states of affairs. This alternative approach is at the heart of what I call here the modest account—namely, the idea that states of affairs are the different ways in which we may carve the world when using verbs, either in isolation (e.g. in their infinitive form, as in the case of unsaturated one-membered states of affairs) or within complete expressions (as in many-membered states of affairs). Expressions such as ‘it rains’ and ‘Paris is beautiful’ carve the world in a different way than nouns such as ‘Paris’, which point to a well-defined geographical and existing portion of the world. ‘Paris is beautiful’, Reinach would probably have admitted, carves out a real but subsisting part of the world, namely the being-beautiful of Paris. What the case of meteorological expressions such as ‘it rains’ illustrates is that this different way of carving works even with subjectless statements. This suggests that the different way of carving of such expressions has something to do with a property or some properties of the verb itself, not only of meteorological verbs, but of verbs in general. In his investigations on the internal accusatives of verbs (to dance – the dance, to think – the thought), Twardowski had a similar intuition at about the same time as Reinach: verbs, such as to run, to dance, to believe and to think, on the one hand designate a function but on the other have an objectual correlate

60 Against Wolfgang Künne, ‘The intentionality of thinking: the difference between State of Affairs and Propositional Matter’, in Kevin Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the foundations of realist phenomenology, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987, 175–187.

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which is the product (Gebilde) of this function and which is designated by its nominalisation (its internal accusative).61 Therefore, following the modest account, one-membered states of affairs could be understood fundamentally as the specific objectual correlates of what verbs express when taken in isolation (or in their basic infinitive form): not only activities (playing), actions (laughing), actions with a goal (counting money), states (lying, remaining, staying), processes (melting) and events (raining), but also their aspects (perfective, imperfective), tenses (present, past, future), modes (indicative, imperative) and various Aktionsarten.62 Applied to one-membered states of affairs, the basic idea behind the modest account is this: we carve the world in a specific way when we use verbs, which is different in kind from the way we carve the world when using nouns. This is compatible with Reinach’s view that states of affairs comprehend (auffassen) some factual material (Tatbestand). It is a modest account because, contrary to Reinach, the account does not take a stance on whether states of affairs are independent of our comprehension. In other words, the account does not suggest that the way we use verbs necessarily carves the world at its joints. Following the modest account, states of affairs in general (not only one-membered ones) are the different ways in which we carve the world when using verbs in isolation (e.g. in their infinitive form) or in complete expressions. In the most basic cases (onemembered states of affairs), we often carve the world by the specific way we use verbs in their grammatical categories: their aspects, modes, tense and so forth. In more complex cases, such as ‘Paris is beautiful’ or ‘Brutus killed Caesar’, it seems that the valency of the verb comes to play a more important role: ‘killing’ being a transitive verb, it brings us to carve in its use a portion of the world occupied, for example, by the killing of Caesar by Brutus, which is a relational state of affairs.63 One could also adapt Reinach’s case of one-membered unsaturated states of affairs to this account: one could say that, taken in isolation or in its infinitive form, ‘killing’ or ‘to kill’, much as Reinach’s ‘being similar’, ‘to resemble’ or ‘resembling’, carves an incomplete or unsaturated portion of the world. The modest account seems to be compatible with some of the central intuitions in Reinach’s view of states of affairs; it also suggests an affinity between these intuitions and his strategy in The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law (1913), where he starts from different language uses in order to exhibit the ontological structures (verbal categories) associated with these uses. Both these intuitions and this strategy are akin to Vendler’s attempt at an ontology of verbs, which he called the ‘time schemata’ (and sometimes ‘verb species’)—that is, the particular ways in which a

61 Like Reinach, Twardowski too associated his Gebilde with Meinong’s objectives. See Kasimir Twardowski, ‘Funktionen und Gebilde’, in Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 29 (75) (1996[1911]), 157–189. 62 There is an important ongoing debate in linguistics on whether aspect is a purely grammatical category (found only in some languages, particularly Slavic ones) or whether it is more of a cognitive category, in which case the phenomenon of aspect would be expressed differently in different languages. Although my modest account fits better with the latter view, I will leave this issue aside here. 63 I do not deny that valency may play a role in the case of one-membered states of affairs, but as impersonal sentences such as ‘it rains’ are avalent (have no valency), it seems that such real onemembered states of affairs are at least carved by other means than valency.

34 Guillaume Fréchette verb ‘presupposes and involves the notion of time’ suggested by the use of a verb.64 In fact, Reinach’s distinction between two aspects of ‘enjoying’ (sich freuen an/sich freuen über) prefigured in a sense a point made by Vendler. Take, for instance, Vendler’s pair: John was writing a letter John wrote a letter The difference between the two statements, as Vendler stressed, is the difference between the perfective and imperfective forms. In English, this difference is stressed by the verb category of tense; in Slavic languages, it is stressed by the verb category of aspect. Applied to Reinach’s example of two aspects of ‘enjoying the rain’, we could say that sich an etwas (dem Regen) freuen requires something occurring now, while sich über etwas (den Regen) freuen does not require it: it is, however, the same verb which relates to the same factual material (Tatbestand), namely the rain and the enjoyment, but we comprehend thisTatbestand in different ways (we carve the world in different ways) by using different features (in this specific case, different rections) of the verb. To contrast this account with Davidson’s view of events, we could say that for Reinach, ‘buttering the toast’, ‘buttering the toast slowly’ and ‘buttering the toast slowly with a knife’ are not different descriptions of one and the same event (as Davidson meant) but are different ways of carving the world (different states of affairs) based on the same Tatbestand, or factual material. One might object to my reconstruction of Reinach’s account along the lines of a modest account, which suggests that states of affairs are just ways of carving the world—that they are only some schemata superimposed on the factual material, and that they therefore are no authentic part of the world, contrary to what Reinach obviously believed. Therefore, it is questionable, following this objection, whether the modest account is substantial enough to be a Reinachian account at all. It seems that the answer to this objection depends on whether we understand Reinach’s Tatbestand, the factual material, as something that composes a state of affairs or as some set of elements which, in the realm of existing things, correspond to the subsisting state of affairs. The objection seems more powerful in the second understanding: in this case, Reinach would not need the category of real states of affairs at all, because one-membered and relational states of affairs would all be cases of ideal states of affairs. Even Paris’ being-beautiful or the raining which my judgement is about would be ideal states of affairs. Indeed, if we accept this understanding, the modest account has not much to do with the Reinachian states of affairs thus understood. On this second understanding of the objection, however, we must still explain what this correspondence relation between elements of the realm of existing things and ideal states of affairs consists of, which might be a difficult task in the case of negative states of affairs. Furthermore, the second understanding of the distinction implies a difference between the ideal state of affairs of raining and the real event of raining

64 See Zeno Vendler, ‘Verbs and Times’, in The Philosophical Review, vol. 66, no. 2, 1957, 143.

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which, on the face of it, does not seem to be very intuitive if, as Reinach assumed, events are countable and repeatable entities. The answer to the first understanding of the objection is presented in an earlier section: the modest account simply does not address whether states of affairs carve the world, or the factual material, at its joints or not. This is compatible with the strong realist view that we carve the world at its joints precisely because states of affairs are authentic parts of the world, although it does not imply it. One might further object to the modest account that it breaks with Reinach’s fundamental intuition that states of affairs (and only them) subsist. After all, perhaps one should not put too much emphasis on the talk of ‘real states of affairs’, as Smith suggested:65 following this, what one means (meinen) by ‘John loves Mary’ is not the real John, the real Mary, and the relation of loving at some time t, but some independent entity which subsists extra-temporally and independently of John and Mary. However, such an understanding of subsistence seems implausible for onemembered states of affairs such as the one referred to by ‘it rains’. What is more, accepting this objection means that we must also accept the account of real subsistence sketched in Section 3.5., together with its shortcomings. In line with the modest account, I would simply suggest that what seems to be cases of real subsistence (of real states of affairs) are simply cases of occurrent entities. What Reinach called ‘empirical’ states of affairs, or what I called ‘real’ states of affairs, are simply occurrent entities—they are events.66 As we have shown, nothing prevents us from understanding such real one-membered state of affairs as events along the lines of Reinach’s own understanding of events. This understanding of events underlying the modest account is compatible with the understanding that such states of affairs enjoy a different mode of being than ordinary objects which are said to exist: namely, events ‘occur’ or ‘obtain’, or are occurrent entities, while ordinary objects ‘exist’, or are continuant entities. Some states of affairs might be continuant entities—namely those which are cases of so-called ideal subsistence, like the being equal 4 of 2 × 2, but as the modest account does not commit to cases of ideal entities, it leaves it open whether ‘being equal 4 of 2 × 2’ refers to such a state of affairs.

3.5 Final remarks What the modest account suggests is that states of affairs are, in their most simple form, the objectual correlates of verbs. Taken in isolation or in their infinitive form, verbs with empty argument places such as to kill (…kills_) or to resemble (…resembles_) have unsaturated one-membered states of affairs; verbs without empty argument places, also taken in the same sense, have real one-membered states of affairs as objectual correlates. Finally, verbs with their filled argument places have many-membered states of affairs as objectual correlates: Categorical

65 Smith, ‘On the Cognition of States of Affairs’. 66 The modest account might well be compatible with Conrad-Martius idea that the states of affairs corresponding to impersonal judgements are the ‘being of a process or a situation’ (Sein eines Vorgangs, einer Situation) (Das Sein, 25). Events, in our reconstruction, are constituted among other things by processes, so they can be characterised as the being of a process. For more on ConradMartius’s conception of states of affairs, see Irmgard Habbel, Die Sachverhaltsproblematik in der Phänomenologie und bei Thomas von Aquin, Habbel, Regensburg, 1959, 38ff.

36 Guillaume Fréchette judgements such as have two-membered states of affairs as objectual correlates and relational judgements have many-membered states of affairs (more than two members) as objectual correlates (e.g. or ). Furthermore, the account is compatible with Reinach’s description of states of affairs as formulated in (1), with the addition that states of affairs are not only what is believed or affirmed, but more generally are the objectual correlates of verbs in general. This addition complies with the distinction supposedly developed in the habilitation thesis between judgemental states of affairs and states of affairs tout court. Finally, the modest account is compatible with the stronger view that at least some states of affairs are independent timeless entities, although it does not imply this view. For the modest account, as we said, whether we thereby carve the world at its joints in our uses of verbs is a different question. I opened this paper with the remark that Reinach’s two fundamental ideas are closely connected, such that the idea that there are social acts depends on the idea that states of affairs are entities in their own right. On the basis of my reconstruction, and more particularly on the basis of the modest account itself, this connection should now be clear: in order to open up the sphere of mental acts to social acts, we need to detach ourselves from the intuition that all and only mental acts have objects. One way to do so, as suggested by the modest account, is to look at the objectual correlates of verbs in general, not only of verbs of mental attitudes. This is, I claim, what the basic intuition behind one-membered states of affairs suggests.67

References Armstrong, D. (1989), “C.B. Martin, Counterfactuals, Causality, and Conditionals”, in J. Heil (ed.), Cause, Mind and Reality: Essay Honoring C.B. Martin. Dordrecht, Kluwer. Brentano, F. (1874), Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, Leizpig, Humblot. Bolzano, B. (1837), Wissenschaftslehre. In four volumes, Sulzbach, Seidel’sche Buchhandung. Bühler, K. (1909), “Besprechung zu A. Marty, Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie”, in Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, vol. 171, pp. 947–979. Chrudzimski, A. (2012), “Negative States of Affairs. Reinach versus Ingarden”, in Symposium, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 106–127. 2012 Conrad-Martius, H. (1957), Das Sein, Munich, Kösel. Crowther, T. (2011), “The Matter of Events”, in Review of Metaphysics, vol. 65, pp. 3–39. Élie, H. (1936), Le complexe significabile, Paris, Vrin. Fréchette, G. (2015), “Essential Laws”, in B. Leclercq, D. Seron, and S. Richard (eds.), Objects

67 Many thanks to Kevin Mulligan and the other participants of the December 2017 Munich conference on Reinach for their stimulating comments on the talk, from which some ideas of this paper originate. For their comments on the penultimate draft of the present paper, I thank Johannes L. Brandl, Romain Büchi, Laurent Cesalli, Christopher Erhard, Paolo Natali and Basil Vassilicos. The research for this paper was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through the SNF project n° 100012_182858 on Réalismes: Universaux, relations et états de choses dans les traditions austroallemande et médiévale, directed by Laurent Cesalli.

Reinach on one-membered states of affairs

37

and Pseudo-Objects. Ontological Deserts and Jungles from Brentano to Carnap, Berlin, De Gruyter, pp. 143–166. Formigari, L. (2015), “Sentence and its Parts. A Psycholinguistic Theory of Syntactic Value”, in Histoire, Épistémologie Langage, vol. 37/1, pp. 9–25. Frobes, G. (1989), Languages of Possibility, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Habbel, I. (1959), Die Sachverhaltsproblematik in der Phänomenologie und bei Thomas von Aquin, Habbel, Regensburg. Hornsby, J. (2012), “Actions and Activity”, in Philosophical Issues, vol. 22, pp. 233–245. Husserl, G. (1925), Rechtskraft und Rechtsgeltung: Eine Rechtsdogmatische Untersuchung, Berlin, Springer. Ingarden, R. (1964/65), Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt, vol. II/1, Tubingen, Niemeyer, 1964/65. Künne W. (1987), “The intentionality of thinking: the difference between State of Affairs and Propositional Matter”, in Kevin Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the foundations of realist phenomenology, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, pp. 175–187. Maier, H. (1908), Psychologie des emotionalen Denkens, Tübingen, Mohr. Marty, A. (1908), Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie, Halle, Niemeyer. Meinong, A. (1902), Ueber Annahmen, Leipzig: J. A. Barth. Erg.-Bd. [Suppl. Vol.] II of Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane Meinong, A. (1899), “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung”, Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, vol. XXI, pp. 182–272. Meinong, A. (1910), Über Annahmen, 2nd ed., Leipzig: J. A. Barth. 2nd, revised ed. of Meinong 1902. Meinong, A. (1915), Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit, Leipzig, Barth. Mourelatos, A. (1978), “Events, processes, and states”, in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 2, pp. 415–434. Mulligan, K. (1985), “Wie die Sachen sich zueinander verhalten inside and outside the Tractatus”, in Teoria, vol. 5, pp. 145–174. Reinach, A. (1982), “On the Theory of the Negative Judgement,” Barry Smith (trans.), in Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, B. Smith (ed.), Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1982, pp. 315–377. Reinach, A. (1989), Sämtliche Werke. Textkritische Ausgabe in 2 Bänden, ed. By B. Smith and K. Schuhmann, Munich, Philosophia Verlag. Reinach, A. (1911a), “Kants Auffassung des Humeschen Problem”, in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol. 141, 276–309. Edited in Reinach (1989), pp. 67–93. Reinach, A. (1969), “Concerning Phenomenology”, The Personalist, vol. 50, pp. 194–221. Sigwart, C. (1888), Die Impersonalien. Eine logische Untersuchung, Tübingen, Mohr. Smith, B. (1987), “On the Cognition of States of Affairs”, in K. Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt, Den Haag, Kluwer, pp. 189–225. Smith, B. and K. Schuhmann (1987), “Adolf Reinach. An Intellectual Biography”, in K. Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt, Den Haag, Kluwer, pp. 1–27. Stout, R. (2016), “The Category of Occurrent Continuants”, Mind, vol. 125, pp. 41–60. Steward, H. (1997), The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes, and States, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Steward, H. (2013), “Processes, Continuants and Individuals”, in Mind, vol. 122, pp. 781–812. Stumpf, C. (1892), “Über den Begriff der mathematischen Wahrscheinlichkeit”, in Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich, pp. 37–120.

38 Guillaume Fréchette Textor, M. (2013), “Thereby we have broken with the old logical dualism“ – Reinach on Negative Judgement and Negation”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 21, pp. 570–590. Twardowski (1911/1996), “Funktionen und Gebilde”, in Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie, vol. 29, no. 75, pp. 157–189. Wittgenstein, L. (1921), “Tractatus logico-philosophicus”, in Annalen der Naturphilosophie, vol. 14, pp. 185–262. Vendler, Z. (1957), “Verbs and Times”, in The Philosophical Review, vol. 66, no. 2, pp. 143–160.

Archive material Reinach, Ana 379 Reinach’s Posthume papers preserved at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. B II 4: 5 Nachschriften voon Winthrop Bell. Brentano, Franz 1875: Logik-Vorlesung (EL72). Franz Brentano Archives, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Daubert A I 12: Johannes Daubert’s Posthume papers preserved at the Bavarian State Library in Munic: Mappe 12: Psychologie. Stumpf, K. (1903), Erkenntnislehre. Nachschrift von der Vorlesung des Sommersemesters 1903, preserved at the Library of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

4

Legal objects: essence and existence Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo

Abstract: This chapter focuses on the category of legal objects. Legal objects (e.g. claims and obligations) were discovered by the young phenomenologist Adolf Reinach in 1911. The first part of the chapter focuses on the reconstruction of the characteristics that distinguish them from other sorts of objects (physical, psychical and ideal). The second part of the chapter focuses on the structural peculiarities of claim and obligations: they are thetic objects, they have content, and they are fulfillable. Finally, the chapter distinguishes three different kinds of truths that hold good of legal objects: eidological truths, ideological truths and nomological truths. Keywords: Reinach; phenomenology of law; legal objects; obligation; claim Why is the object of the sense singular, and the object of the intellect universal? Thomas Aquinas1

4.1 The dramatic discovery of legal objects “Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem,” the law of parsimony or Occam’s razor, typically quoted by critics of fine-grained ontological and phenomenological investigations, invites the philosopher to simplicity. However, in philosophy, oversimplification is often as dangerous as overcomplication. The complexity of the world goes far beyond bare material reality. Without admitting the existence of different kinds of non-material objects, we would not be able to explain large parts of our everyday experience. Indeed, not every object is necessarily a material entity. The investigation on non-material objects is particularly important in the social and legal sciences, where, for example, the formulas for the chemical-physical composition of the paper and of the ink, which are traditionally the material substratum of a document, do not help to understand what a contract of sale is and how it works. One acknowledgement of this insight can be seen in the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, particularly in his investigation on the ontology of values. Influenced by the phenomenological method and, in particular, by Max Scheler, he endorsed the thesis of the existence of different kinds of non-material objects as a methodological presupposition necessary to prove the possibility of an objective ethic experience. In his

1 Thomas Aquinas, De sensu respectu singularium, et intellectu respectu universalium (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1886), 507.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-5

40 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo view, the discovery of non-material entities represents an evolution in the history of philosophy. Indeed, Ortega y Gasset underlines that “primitive philosophers” neglected the investigation of non-material objects. According to Ortega y Gasset, For the Ionian primitive thinkers, there were no objects other than bodily or physical ones. No other class of objects had yet entered their field of intellection. Consequently, there was no distinction between being and physical or bodily being for them. They only knew the latter and so, in their vocabulary, “body” and “being” are synonymous. Being is defined by corporeity, and its philosophy is physiology.2 In 1899, Alexius Meinong, in his book Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung, distinguished two categories of objects: real objects (e.g. a house or a book) and ideal objects (e.g. numbers, concepts etc.). This distinction appears also in Husserl’s Logische Untersuchungen (1900). However, according to Ortega y Gasset, the discovery of ideal objects is an achievement of Pythagoras of Samos. Indeed, thanks to Pythagoras the dogma of the corporeity of being was broken: “wandering through Italy, Pythagoras makes the dramatic discovery of objects that are incorporeal and, yet, offer our intellect the same resistance that bodily objects offer our hands: numbers and geometric relationships.”3 Pythagoras investigated the foundation of geometry through the analysis of non-material geometrical entities. Positing the existence of different kinds of real objects is important not only to investigate the philosophical foundations of mathematics but also to investigate the phenomenology of social and legal reality. More than 2400 years after Pythagoras’ finding, the young philosopher Adolf Reinach focused his reflections on the a priori foundations of civil law and made a “dramatic discovery.” He discovered a new type of objects [Gegenstände] that cannot be reduced to the two categories of objects distinguished by Meinong4 and Husserl:5 “legal objects” (Reinach calls them “rechtliche Gebilde”). He mentions this new kind of object, for the first time, during a lecture in 1911,6 and he investigates them two years later in his book Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes. These objects are neither physical objects (like trees and houses), nor ideal ones (like propositions and numbers).

2 José Ortega y Gasset, “¿Qué son los valores? Iniciación en la Estimativa” (1923), Revista de Occidente 4 (1923), 317–337. Rev. Ed. in Introducción a una estimativa ¿Qué son los valores? (Madrid: Encuentro, 2004), 13–14. Henceforth cited as ¿Qué son los valores? 3 Ortega y Gasset, ¿Qué son los valores?, 14. 4 On ideal objects in Reinach and Meinong, see Alessandro Salice, Urteile und Sachverhalte. Ein Vergleich zwischen Alexius Meinong und Adolf Reinach (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2009), 274–285. 5 See Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Bd I, Elemente einer phänomenologischen Aufklärung der Erkenntnis (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984). English edition: Logical Investigations, trans. John Niemeyer Findlay, Vol. 1 (London and New York: Routledge, 1982), §8. According to Husserl, ideal objects are general objects, concepts or species [Spezies]. 6 The critical edition of the text of this lecture appears in Adolf Reinach, “Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte (1911),” in Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Ausgabe und Kommentar, eds. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith (Munich: Philosophia Verlag 1989), 355–360. Henceforth cited as Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte. The essay was reconstructed on the basis of the notes of the lessons held by Reinach in the Wintersemester of 1911/1912 in Göttingen. In particular, the text it is taken from the notes of Winthrop Bell and Margarete Ortmann.

Legal objects: essence and existence 41 The discovery of legal objects comes from Reinach’s reflection on the promise and on its effects. Through the act of promising something new enters the world. A claim [Anspruch] arises in the one-party and an obligation [Verbindlichkeit] in the other. What are these curious entities [Gebilde]? They are surely not a “nothing” [Nichts]. How could one eliminate a “nothing” by waiving [Verzicht] or by retracting [Widerruf] or by fulfilling [Erfüllung]?7 Once we have made a promise, we are faced with “something new,” since after the perception of the promise, a claim [Anspruch] arises in the promisee and an obligation [Verbindlichkeit] in the promisor. According to Reinach, these two entities cannot be considered a “nothing” [Nichts].8 Claim and obligation have their own objectivity [Gegenständlichkeit]. According to Reinach, these entities exist just as numbers, trees and houses exist: “The entities which one has generally called specifically legal have a being of their own just as much as numbers, trees, or houses.”9 Phenomenology is a philosophical form of research on the objects as they are given to the subject, and upon the acts of consciousness in which they are given. In this sense, Reinach’s book Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes is an extremely significant example of phenomenological investigation. In this book, Reinach argues that the discovery of legal objects is fundamental to ontology as an a priori theory of the object as such [apriorische Gegenstandslehre]. Indeed, it is with the discovery of this new kind of object (neither truly real objects nor truly ideal objects) that the way is paved for a new kind of philosophical enquiry. According to Reinach, Insofar as philosophy is ontology [Ontologie] or the a priori theory of objects [apriorische Gegenstandslehre], it has to do with the analysis of all possible kinds of objects as such. We shall see that philosophy here comes across objects of quite a new kind [neue Art von Gegenständen], objects which do not belong to nature in the proper sense, which are neither physical nor psychical and which are at the same time different from all ideal objects in virtue of their temporality [Zeitlichkeit].10 However, “if there are legal entities and structures which in this way exist in themselves [an sich seiende rechtliche Gebilde], then a new realm opens up here for philosophy.”11 The centrality of the concept of “legal object” in Reinach’s phenomenology is already emphasized by one of his early interpreters: the Polish philosopher of law

7 Adolf Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913), rev. ed. Zur Phänomenologie des Rechts (München: Kösel, 1953). English translation: “The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law,” trans. John Crosby, Aletheia 3 (1983), 9. Henceforth cited as Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes with German and English page references, respectively. 8 The particular nature of “legal entities” [rechtliche Dinge] has been investigated by the son of Edmund Husserl, the philosopher of law Gerhart Husserl, in his work Recht und Zeit. Fünf rechtsphilosophische Essays (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1933). 9 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 14 (Eng. tr. 4). 10 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 17 (Eng. tr. 6). 11 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 17 (Eng. tr. 6).

42 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo Czesław Znamierowski, who as early as 1924 describes the Reinachian philosophical project in his book Podstawowe pojęcia teorji prawa. I. Układ prawny i norma prawna (“Basic concepts of theory of law. Part I: legal norm and legal system”) as follows: “Reinach suggests the creation of an a priori science of law, which consists of the total sum of a priori truths that relate to legal objects.”12 We now propose to investigate this new category of objects (legal objects), starting from Reinach’s analysis of obligation and claim arising from a promise.

4.2 A phenomenology of two legal objects: obligation and claim As we have seen, according to Reinach, claim and obligation exhibit an objectivity [Gegenständlichkeit] of their own: these entities exist just as there are numbers, trees and houses. These two entities exist independently of human recognition, “this being [Sein] is independent of its being grasped by men.”13 We could say, quoting the words of José Ortega y Gasset, that claim and obligation “are incorporeal objects and, nevertheless, they oppose the same resistance to our intellect that the corporal objects oppose to our hands.”14 Furthermore, according to Reinach, the being [Sein] of legal entities “is, in particular, independent [unabhängig] of all positive law.”15 Legal entities are not products of positive law and do not require the existence of positive law to exist. However, although they share the same objectivity as trees, houses and numbers do (i.e. the same objectivity that characterizes objects that are physical, psychical or ideal), claim and obligation cannot be reduced to these three categories of objects. 4.2.1 Obligations and claims are not physical objects First, claim and obligation are not physical objects. The fact that they are not physical is, according to Reinach, more than obvious: claim and obligation are certainly not bodily entities (in Latin: res corporales). Claim and obligation (unlike physical objects) are indeed not directly perceptible through the senses. According to Reinach, in order to perceive claims (just as for perceiving the property of having the right to an object), it is necessary to perceive the (social) act that produced this entity. Reinach calls this act the “source (Quelle)” of the claim: “A claim is not a directly observable entity. On the contrary, in order to identify a claim, one needs to go back to the source from which that claim originated.”16

12 Czesław Znamierowski, Podstawowe pojęcia teorji prawa. I. Układ prawny i norma prawna (Poznań: Fiszer i Majewski, 1924), 145. Another interpreter of Reinach, the French philosopher Jean-Louis Gardies, dedicated the essay Entités théoriques et entités pratiques to the investigation of “legal entities.” See Jean-Louis Gardies, “Entités théoriques et entités pratiques,” in La querelle des normes, ed. Jean-Luc Petit (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 1995), 163–174. 13 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 14 (Eng. tr. 4). 14 Ortega y Gasset, ¿Qué son los valores?, 14. 15 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 14 (Eng. tr. 4). 16 Reinach, Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte, 358–359.

Legal objects: essence and existence 43 Reinach points out the difference between a sensory experience and a “legal experience” by attesting that If I want to convince myself of the existence of the movement, I have only to open my eyes. But with claims and obligations there is no way to avoid always going back to their “ground” [Grund]. Only by once again establishing the existence of an act of promising can I establish the existence of that which follows from it.17 Despite that, according to Hume, there is not such a thing as a legal experience,18 he seems to have an inkling of some peculiarities of legal objects, when he investigates the perception of the property. More specifically, in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume wondered how one can distinguish entities that are owned by a person from objects that a person does not own: “What is a man’s property? Any thing, which it is lawful for him, and for him alone, to use. But what rule have we, by which we can distinguish these objects?”19 According to Hume, there is neither a “sense,” nor an “instinct” that allows us to distinguish one of my objects from someone else’s object. The only way to perceive property is to perceive the act that produced it: “That relation is found to resolve itself into any possession acquired by occupation, by industry, by prescription, by inheritance, by contract, etc.”20 Moreover, according to Reinach, claim and obligation also distinguish themselves from physical objects in another respect: the perceptibility of attributes. For physical entities, there is a sensory perception of accidental attributes inherent to the ídion (namely, the object in its own individuality). We call this kind of predication “idiographic predication.” For example, we are able to perceive the fact that the following idiographic predication befits a tree: “to be in bloom.” For claim and obligation, insofar as both are incorporeal objects, this type of possibility is not afforded. Reinach cites the example of houses and trees: To these latter we can ascribe all kinds of things which we can find in the world outside of us through acts of sense perception and observation: a tree is grasped as blooming, a house is painted white. These predications [Prädikationen] are not grounded in the character [Beschaffenheit] of tree and house as such. Trees do not have to bloom, houses can have other colors – what we grasp in those perceptions are not necessary states of affairs [notwendige Sachverhalte], nor even general states of affairs [allgemeine Sachverhalte], insofar as the predicates are referred only to this individual tree or this individual house. We do not have the right to extend them to everything which is tree or house.21

17 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 34 (Eng. tr. 15–16). 18 On Hume, cf. e.g. Stephen Darwall, Morality, Authority, and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 16–17. 19 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (2nd ed. 1777) (IndianapolisCambridge: Hackett 1983), 30. 20 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 33. 21 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 15 (Eng. tr. 4).

44 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo According to Reinach, “it is quite different with the propositions that hold for those legal entities [rechtliche Gebilde]”: “Here we do not just stand before a world in which we can observe all kinds of states of affairs; here a different and deeper possibility is available to us.”22 For individual legal entities, it is only possible to predicate attributes that belong to them as objects of a specific kind, and not in their own individuality: Even when I predicate something of a particular legal entity [rechtliches Gebilde] which exists as real at some time, the predication does not refer to the entity as an individual but rather as an entity of this kind. But this means that the predication is valid for absolutely everything which is of this kind, and that it necessarily belongs to every such thing, and that it could not fail, not even once, to hold for any particular case.23 These sorts of predication are based on the eîdos, that is, the essence [Wesen], of their object. We call this second type of predication “eidographic predication.”24 With “idiographic predication” and “eidographic predication” we are referring to two of the terms in the triadic paradigm: idiographic vs. nomothetical vs. eidographic, proposed by Amedeo Giovanni Conte.25 Conte achieves this paradigm by introducing a tertium quid (the “eidographic”) into Wilhelm Windelband’s famous diadic paradigm: idiographisch vs. nomothetisch. For example, the following eidographic predication is appropriate for a claim: “can be dissolved by fulfillment [Erfüllung].” 4.2.2 Obligation and claim are not psychical objects Secondly, claim and obligation are not psychical objects: claim and obligation are neither physical phenomena, nor psychical phenomena. The knowledge of an obligation and the feeling of an obligation are psychical phenomena. However, the knowledge and the feeling of an obligation do not coincide with claim and obligation.26 If it seems evident that claim and obligation are not something physical, the theory of the non-psychical nature of claim and obligation is less obvious. According to Reinach, someone might qualify these two entities as something psychical. But Reinach also claims that this view is erroneous: to exist, a claim does not require the persistence of a particular state of consciousness, of a specific psychical state. Through an obviously rhetorical question, Reinach observes that while claim and obligation may remain unchanged for many years, this does not seem possible for psychical experiences [Erlebnisse]. Reinach asks himself: “But cannot a claim or an obligation last for years without any change? Are there any such experiences?

22 23 24 25

Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 15 (Eng. tr. 4). Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 15 (Eng. tr. 4). See Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1894). Amedeo Giovanni Conte, “Fenomeni di fenomeni,” in Interpretazione ed epistemologia, ed. Giuseppe Galli (Turin: Marietti, 1986), 167–198. 26 Reinach, Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte, 358.

Legal objects: essence and existence 45 Furthermore, are not claims and obligations there even when the subject does not have or need not have any experiences, as in sleep or in the loss of consciousness?”27 Psychological theories had a considerable impact on phenomenology and, in particular, on Reinach’s phenomenological conception of social reality. Before his commitment to Husserl’s (early) phenomenology, Reinach was a student of Theodor Lipps, who identified promises with the expression of a mental state of affair and considered claims and obligation precisely as mental entities.28 Indeed, Reinach was a member of the Munich “Akademische Verein für Psychologie.” However, he emancipated his philosophical investigation from the methodology adopted by his first mentor. In a sharp criticism to Lipps’ psychological conception of social reality, Reinach stated that “claims and obligations quite often exist without making themselves felt in corresponding experiences; and that there are, on the other hand, deceptions in which one feels obliged or entitled without really being so.”29 A similar consideration is found in Czesław Znamierowski concerning a third type of legal entity: subjective right. Znamierowski notably conducts an investigation into what type of entity the right of property to a book might be. According to Znamierowski, the right to property to a book coincides (i) neither with anything physical: the book, (ii) nor with something psychical: someone’s thought of the book.30 4.2.3 Obligations and claims are not ideal objects Thirdly, claim and obligation are not ideal objects [ideelle Gegenstände]. Ideal objects exist alongside psychical and physical objects. Indeed, according to Reinach, the antithesis of the psychical—conceived as non-spatial entities generated or had by the “I”—and the physical—such as spatial-temporal objects, located outside the I—does not exhaust the list of the different kind of objects. Ideal objects like generalities, sets of objects, essences and concepts as well as physical and psychical objects are also part of reality.31 However, from the fact that claim and obligation are neither physical nor psychical objects, it does not follow that they are ideal objects. Reinach thus denies that claim and obligation are ideal objects insofar as they, unlike ideal objects (e.g. numbers [Zahlen], concepts [Begriffe], propositions [Sätze]), are not extra-temporal [außerzeitlich] objects. They are temporal objects [zeitliche

27 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 22 (Eng. tr. 9). 28 Theodor Lipps, Die ethischen Grundfragen. Zehn Vortrage, 2nd ed. (Hamburg und Leipzig: L. Voss, 1905). 29 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 76 (Eng. tr. 41). 30 Znamierowski writes: “My property right to a book that is before me coincides neither with the book itself nor with a thought (my own or someone else’s thought) on this book.” Czesław Znamierowski, “O przedmiocie i fakcie społecznym,” Przegląd Filozoficzny 24 (1921), 1–33, here 20. Henceforth cited as O przedmiocie i fakcie społecznym. 31 Reinach (Platons Philosophie, [Vorlesung SS 1910] Paris: Fonds Koyré, EHESS, Manuscript, 1910. Rev. ed. “Platons Philosophie,” in Josef Seifert, Ritornare a Platone, ed. Giuseppe Girgenti, Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2000, pp. 181–230, here 212) writes: “The contradiction between the psychical—as non-spatial, produced by the “I”—and the physical—as spatially-temporally determined, as something foreign to the I—does not exhaust the objectivity. [These are] real, [but there are also ideal] objects (generalities, overall objects, beings, concepts).”

46 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo Gegenstände], objects that have a duration; they “come into being, exist for a certain time, and finally expire.” Reinach writes: Recently one has begun to recognize again, in addition to the physical and the psychical, the distinct character of ideal objects. But the essential mark of these objects, such as numbers, concepts, propositions, is their timelessness [Auβerzeitlichkeit]. Claims and obligations, by contrast, arise, last a definite length of time, and then disappear again. Thus they seem to be temporal objects of a special kind of which one has not yet taken notice.32 Moreover, claim and obligation differ from ideal objects in terms of a second aspect: in order to exist, claim and obligation (unlike ideal entities) need a bearer [Träger] and a partner [Gegner].33 To highlight this structural peculiarity of claims and obligations, Znamierowski defines them as “intersubjective objects.”34

4.3 Three structural peculiarities of obligation and claim Obligations and claims also have three other philosophically peculiar features of interest from the point of view of Gegenstandslehre: i they are thetic objects; ii they are objects that have content; iii they are fulfillable objects. 4.3.1 Obligation and claim are thetic objects Claims and obligations are also distinguished from physical objects, psychical objects and ideal objects by another ontological peculiarity: they are thetic objects. Thetic objects are objects produced through a particular act of poíesis. In other words, claims and obligations must be produced by acts such as, for instance, promises [Versprechen] or enactments [Bestimmungen]. These acts are in Znamierowski’s lexicon “thetic acts,” that is acts (made possible by constitutive rules) that produce new states of affairs. As Reinach points out with regard to social acts, in addition to the well-known sphere of natural objects [Naturgegenstände], that is, of the physical and the mental, there is a world of its own consisting of entities and structures which are in time [zeitliche Gegenständlichkeiten], though they do not belong to nature in the usual sense, and which derive from the social acts.35 Let us analyze the case of Bestimmung, that is, the case of “legal enactment” or “enactment.” Claims and obligations can be produced through an act of Bestimmung. An example here is Article 53 of the Italian Constitution: “Every person

32 33 34 35

Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 22 (Eng. tr. 9). Reinach, Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte, 358. See Znamierowski, O przedmiocie i fakcie społecznym, 21. Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 177 (Eng. tr. 109).

Legal objects: essence and existence 47 shall contribute to public expenditure in accordance with their capability.” This Bestimmung, this enactment, creates a new reality: the duty of every citizen to contribute to public expenditure based on their ability to contribute. However, while it is possible to create a legal object such as the duty to contribute to public expenditure with a Bestimmung (corresponding to Article 53 of the Italian Constitution), it is obviously not possible to use a Bestimmung to create a physical, psychical or ideal object. On the subject of Bestimmungen, Reinach writes: “Whereas enactments [Bestimmungen] intervene in the world of legal phenomena in such a way as to generate and to abolish existence, facts of nature [Tatsachen der Natur] are sovereignly independent of them.”36 More explicitly, Reinach writes that “it is always the case that there is just as little sense in wanting to create natural facts [natürliche Tatsachen] through enactments [Bestimmungen].”37 In addition, Reinach denies the effectiveness of enactments in the realm of mathematical entities: “The contents of enactment can never meaningfully be something which is a priori necessary or a priori impossible. This makes it readily understandable why an enactment that 2 × 2 ought to be 4 is just as meaningless as the enactment that it ought to be 5.”38 We find a similar observation in John Searle, who writes the following in How Performatives Work (1989): I can’t fix the roof by saying, “I fix the roof,” and I can’t fry an egg by saying, “I fry an egg,” but I can promise to come and see you just by saying, “I promise to come and see you,” and I can order you to leave the room just by saying, “I order you to leave the room.” Now why the one and not the other?39 Moreover, as Norberto Bobbio points out, the thetic objectuality of entities within the legal domain differs from the ideal objectuality of entities in the domain of mathematics. As Bobbio writes in his 1934 book L’indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica (The Phenomenological Turn in Social and Legal Philosophy), “mathematical relations” differ from “legal relations” precisely because whereas the impact of a priori legal relations on social reality can be “thetically” altered by enactments [Bestimmungen], they cannot modify the impact of mathematical relations. According to Bobbio, what distinguishes the sphere of mathematical relations from the sphere of relations that Bobbio calls “ethical” is this: while essential laws of mathematics have universal validity (in other words they “apply in all circumstances”), “ethical” essential laws are valid under the assumption that there are no enactments to the contrary.40 Bobbio writes: Reinach initially recognized the possibility of establishing a pure theory of legal propositions, as if they were mathematical propositions: but the essential

36 37 38 39 40

Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 207 (Engl. tr. 128). Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 207 (Engl. tr. 128). Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 175 (Eng. tr. 108). John R. Searle, “How Performatives Work,” Linguistics and Philosophy 12 (1989), 535. In this quotation, Bobbio’s use of the adjectiv “ethical” could be misleading. In fact, he actually uses “ethical essential laws” to refer the essential laws of the legal sphere.

48 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo difference between mathematical propositions and legal propositions lies in the fact that while the former find rigorous application in nature, the latter are continually denied by history. For this reason, Reinach was forced to resort to the device of distinguishing two types of essential relations, almost as though there were two typical spheres: the sphere of mathematical relations, which are valid in all circumstances, and the sphere of relations, which are, might we say, ethical, which are valid under the assumption that no enactments to the contrary occur.41 The effectiveness of the enactments for the sphere of mathematical objectuality is denied by Reinach.42 To conclude: Bestimmungen work only in the thetic world. 4.3.2 Obligations and claims are objects having content A second structural peculiarity that is specific to claims and obligations is the requirement to have a content: claim and obligation need a content [Inhalt]. This is one of the essential laws Wesensgesetz of obligation and claim (one of the a priori synthetic truths of law) highlighted by Reinach.43 The content [Inhalt] is an essential element of claim and obligation. Just like thinking is necessarily “thinking of…,” obligation is necessarily “obligation to…” and claim is necessarily a “claim to…,” “claim on….” Claims and obligations are therefore legal entities with a content. In his essay “Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte,” Reinach thus writes: “They [claim and obligation] necessarily have a content (they cannot lack a content).”44 Moreover, as Reinach points out, between obligation and the correlative claim (between the obligation and the claim arising from the same promise), there is an identity of content.45 A similar theory of the nature of the obligation can be found in John Searle’s social ontology. In his book Rationality in Action, Searle asserts that, though the obligation is not a linguistic entity, it is an entity that has propositional content and direction of fit: “Needs, obligations, requirements, and duties are […] not in any strict sense linguistic entities, but they also have propositional contents and direction of fit.”46 However, the two theories are not equivalent: Reinach talks about “content” [Inhalt] of obligation, while Searle talks explicitly about “propositional content” of obligation.

41 Norberto Bobbio, L’indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica (1934) (Turin: Giappichelli, 2018), 79. Henceforth cited as L’indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica. 42 Bobbio, L’indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica, 79. 43 On this subject see Paolo Di Lucia, L’universale della promessa (Milano: Giuffrè, 1997). See also, Francesca De Vecchi, “A priori of the Law and Values in the Social Ontology of Wilhelm Schapp and Adolf Reinach,” in The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality, eds. Alessandro Salice and Hans Bernhard Schmid (Cham: Springer, 2016), 279–316. 44 Reinach, Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte, 358. 45 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 17 (Eng. tr. 11). 46 John R. Searle, Rationality in Action (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), 39. Henceforth cited as Rationality in Action.

Legal objects: essence and existence 49 As Searle writes, the conditions for fulfilling an obligation are determined by its propositional content. The obligation is fulfilled if the world corresponds to the propositional content of the obligation. “If for example I am under an obligation to pay some money, then my obligation will be discharged (satisfied) if and only if I pay the money. Thus, the obligation is satisfied if and only if the world changes to match the content of the obligation.”47 In addition, needs, obligations, demands and duties have the same direction of fit as desires, intentions, orders and promises.48 Searle also offers a further theory of the nature of obligations: obligations are “propositionally structured entities” (i.e. entities with a propositional structure) that are neither facts nor intentional states.49 The thesis that certain entities have the form of a proposition differs deeply from the thesis that these entities are propositions: the fact that certain entities have a propositional form does not mean that they also have a propositional nature (i.e. that they are genuine propositions). For example, the states of things that verify a proposition have a propositional form (since they correspond to the proposition that they verify) without however having a propositional nature. Indeed, unlike propositions, they are not “linguistic entities.”50 Searle offers the terms “factitives” and “factive entities” for entities that have a propositional structure. Factitives are entities that have a “structure specified by a that-clause.” So, according to Searle, obligations are factitives: “Such factitive entities include not only facts in the world such as the fact that it is raining, but also beliefs, desires, needs, obligations, commitments and a host of other factitive entities.”51 4.3.3 Obligation and claim are fulfillable objects The third structural feature of claim and obligation is fulfillability: claims and obligations are legal entities that are fulfillable. Fulfilment is described by Reinach as a way to extinguish obligations and claims. Symmetrically, according to Reinach, the possibility to fulfil these legal objects proves their existence. More specifically, it proves that they are not nothing. In fact, how could one eliminate a nothing by fulfilling it? In this respect, however, not every legal object can be fulfilled. Thus, Reinach distinguishes a claim from another legal entity: the right of ownership.52 A claim can be fulfilled [erfüllt]: “The claim is in need of fulfilment [Erfüllung].”53 On the contrary, as Reinach points out, a property right cannot be fulfilled [erfüllt]. Reinach writes: “The absolute right over one’s own action is not even capable of fulfilment [Erfüllung] at all.”54 A property right is subject to exercise [Ausübung], but

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

Searle, Rationality in Action, 40. Searle, Rationality in Action, 39–40. Searle, Rationality in Action, 103. On proposition as “a kind of ‘linguistic entity,’” see, for instance, Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903). Searle, Rationality in Action, 104. Cf. Neil Duxbury, “The Legal Philosophy of Adolf Reinach,” Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 77 (1991), 314–347. Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 99 (Engl. tr. 58). Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 99 (Engl. tr. 58).

50 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo not to fulfilment [Erfüllung]. A similar theory appears in Jean-Paul Sartre with regard to the “relation of appropriation” [rapport d’appropriation]. In his book L’être et le néant. Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique, Sartre claims that the relation of appropriation can never be fully realised: “It is impossible to realise the relation symbolised by appropriation.”55 According to Sartre: “No particular act of utilisation really realises the enjoyment of full possession.”56 Sartre analyses the case of owning a bicycle: “Handing over a banknote was enough to make the bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realise this possession.”57

4.4 Three different kinds of truths about legal objects: eidological truths vs. idiological truths vs. nomological truths In conclusion, a possible perspective on legal objects concerns the nature of the propositions that refer to these objects. Starting from Reinach’s phenomenological investigation of legal objects, it is possible to distinguish between three different kinds of truth that can be predicated of legal objects: i eidological truths, ii idiological truths, and iii nomological truths. 4.4.1 Eidological truths First, for legal objects, there are eidological truths, that is, propositions that are necessarily true in relation to an eîdos, to an essence. We could say that the essential laws discovered by Reinach are eidological truths. It is, for example, an eidological truth (of the promise) that: “If there is a promise, then there is an obligation of the promiser and a claim of the promisee.” 4.4.2 Idiological truths Second, for legal entities, there are idiological truths, that is, propositions that are true not necessarily, but accidentally, since such truths are not inherent to the eîdos. These propositions are true not in relation to an eîdos, but to an ídion, that is, a single phenomenon conceived in its singularity and individuality. For example, it is true that Giuseppe Lorini’s commitment to lend Olimpia Loddo Russell’s book The Principles of Mathematics came into effect at 4:35 PM on July the 19th, 2020, at the moment GL promised her he would lend her the book. This proposition, is, of course, not necessarily true: GL could have made no promise at all, or not promise on that particular day, or not promise that particular person, or not promise to do that particular thing. Moreover, this predication is not universally true: it is not true of any obligation, but only for that particular obligation that came into

55 Jean-Paul Sartre, L’être et le néant. Essai d’ontologie phénomenologique (1943) (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), 683. Henceforth cited as L’être et le néant. 56 Sartre, L’être et le néant, 682. 57 Sartre, L’être et le néant, 682–683.

Legal objects: essence and existence 51 effect on July the 19th, 2020, of which GL is the bearer, and OL is the partner and the content of which is to lend a specific book. In this sense, as Reinach writes, “differences in content determine the different kinds of claims and obligations.”58 4.4.3 Nomological truths Third, there are nomological truths for legal entities, that is, truths that are grounded on a nómos. These truths are such for (pour and par) the law in force (as they are based on legal provisions), but are not idiological truths (relating to a single phenomenon conceived in its singularity and individuality), and also not eidological truths, since they may be legal truths that do not have universal validity (in time and space). Nomological truths are often deviations from laws of essence. An example, in this sense, is the law expressed by the proposition “Credit can be transferred to third parties by the creditor without the borrower knowing it,” a proposition that, according to Reinach, does not describe an essential law of credit, but rather is the exact opposite of an essential law. However, the proposition “Credit can be transferred to third parties by the creditor without the borrower knowing it” can be true in the case in which, within a specific legal system, a rule constitutes this general legal state of affairs. By their very nature, nomological truths must not be confused with idiological truths. Indeed, nomological truths, unlike idiological truths, are not accidental truths. They are not true by mere accident, because their truth depends on the validity of the enactment that verifies them. The fact that a Bestimmung exists is a happenstance. Nevertheless, given a nómos, the nomological truth relative to it is not an accidental truth. Alongside nomological truths that deviate from essential laws, there are also nomological truths that do not deviate from any essential law but fill a “legal vacuum” [rechtsleerer Raum]. It is the case of the provision that requires the holographic will to be signed; in other words, a signature is a necessary condition for the validity of a holographic will.59 This provision does not deviate from the essential laws of the testament.

4.5 Relations of ideas vs. matters of facts vs. matters of law Following Hume’s famous paradigm: relations of ideas vs. matters of fact, we can also observe that the proposition “The holographic will must be signed” is also philosophically interesting from another perspective: it is not a relationship of ideas, but that does not make it a matter of fact.60 In his work An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume distinguishes “relations of ideas” from “matters of fact”: “All the objects of human reason or

58 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 17 (Eng. tr. 11). 59 This is article 602 of the Italian Civil Code. 60 A holographic will (or holographic testament) is a will entirely handwritten by the testator.

52 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, relations of ideas, and matters of fact.”61 Hume attests that relations of ideas are all facts that are “intuitively” and “demonstrably” certain. For example, the fact that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two catheti and the fact that three times five is equal to half the thirty are relations of ideas. Hume writes: The first kind include geometry, algebra, and arithmetic, and indeed every statement that is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides expresses a relation between those figures. That three times five equals half of thirty expresses a relation between those numbers. Propositions of this kind can be discovered purely by thinking. There is no need to attend to anything that exists anywhere in the universe. The truths that Euclid demonstrated would still be certain and selfevident even if there never were a circle or triangle in nature. On the contrary, matters of fact are all facts that cannot be ascertained through demonstration or intuition alone: “Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not established in the same way; and we cannot have such strong grounds for thinking them true.” According to Hume, the difference between relations of ideas and matters of fact is that while the opposite of a matter of fact is always possible, the opposite of a relationship of ideas is never possible. In Hume’s words: “The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible because it does not imply a contradiction and is conceived by the mind as easily and clearly as if it conformed perfectly to reality.”62 For example, the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow is a matter of fact. According to Hume, the denial of this matter of fact, that is, the fact that the sun will not rise tomorrow, does not imply a contradiction, nor is it less intelligible than its opposite: “That the sun will not rise tomorrow is just as intelligible as—and no more contradictory than—the proposition that the sun will rise tomorrow.” However, some facts are neither relations of ideas nor matters of fact. For example, the fact that the holographic will must be signed by the testator (or that the unsigned holographic will is invalid) is neither a relationship of ideas nor a matter of fact. A proposition such as “A holographic will must be signed” is not, in Hume’s words, a relationship of ideas. The necessity of signature is not inherent to the eîdos of the will. Moreover, its opposite does not imply a contradiction. It is possible to think of a legal reality in which the following rule does not apply: “A holographic will must be signed.” However, that reality is not even a matter of fact. The fact that an unsigned holographic will is invalid is not empirically evident: observing a testament tells us nothing about the requirement to sign it, nor does it say anything about the will’s

61 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (ed. 1772–1777) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 18. Henceforth cited as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. See Frederick Henry Heinemann, “Are There Only Two Kinds of Truth?,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16 (1956), 367–379. 62 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 18.

Legal objects: essence and existence 53 validity. One cannot verify whether the will is valid, or if a signature is the will’s necessary condition just by looking at a testament document on the same way you can see from a mere glimpse that the sun has risen today. By observing a testamentary document, we cannot immediately perceive its validity, nor verify the truth of the statement “a holographic will must be signed.” The relation between the signature and validity of a will is neither a relation of ideas nor a matter of fact, but a matter of law.

References Aquinas, Thomas. De sensu respectu singularium, et intellectu respectu universalium. Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1886. Bobbio, Norberto. L’indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica (1934). Ed.Paolo Di Lucia, Torino: Giappichelli, 2018. Conte, Amedeo Giovanni. “Fenomeni di fenomeni.” In Interpretazione ed epistemologia, ed. Giuseppe Galli, Torino: Marietti, 1986, pp. 167–198. Darwall, Stephen. Morality, Authority, and Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. De Vecchi, Francesca, “A priori of the Law and Values in the Social Ontology of Wilhelm Schapp and Adolf Reinach.” In The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality, eds. Alessandro Salice and Hans Bernhard Schmid, Cham: Springer, 2016, pp. 279–316. Di Lucia, Paolo. L’universale della promessa. Milano: Giuffrè, 1997. Duxbury, Neil. “The Legal Philosophy of Adolf Reinach.” Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 77 (1991): pp. 314–347. Gardies, Jean-Louis. “Entités théoriques et entités pratiques.” In La querelle des normes, ed. Jean-Luc Petit, Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 1995, pp. 163–174. Heinemann, Frederick Henry. “Are There Only Two Kinds of Truth?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16 (1956): 367–379. Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (ed. 1777). IndianapolisCambridge: Hackett, 1983. Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (ed. 1772–1777). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Husserl, Edmund. Logische Untersuchungen. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1900–1901, 1922. English edition: Logical Investigations, trans. John Niemeyer Findlay, London and New York: Routledge, 1982. Husserl, Gerhart. Recht und Zeit. Fünf rechtsphilosophische Essays. Berlin: Julius Springer, 1933. Lipps, Theodor. Die ethischen Grundfragen. Zehn Vortrage. 2nd. Rev. Ed. Hamburg und Leipzig: Voss, 1905. Meinong, Alexius. “Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung.” Zeitschrift für Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane 21 (1899): 181–271. Ortega y Gasset, José. “¿Qué son los valores? Iniciación en la Estimativa.” Revista de Occidente 4 (1923): 317–337. Rev. ed. Introducción a una estimativa ¿Qué son los valores? Madrid: Encuentro, 2004. Reinach, Adolf. Platons Philosophie [Vorlesung SS 1910], Fonds Koyré, Paris: EHESS, Manuscript. Rev. Ed. “Platons Philosophie.” In Josef Seifert, Ritornare a Platone, ed. Giuseppe Girgenti, Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2000, pp. 181–230. Reinach, Adolf. “Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte (1911).” In Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Ausgabe und Kommentar, eds. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989, pp. 355–360.

54 Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia Giuliana Loddo Reinach, Adolf. Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913). Rev. ed. Zur Phänomenologie des Rechts. München: Kösel, 1953; English translation: “The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law.” Trans. John Crosby, Aletheia 3 (1983): 1–142. Russell, Bertrand. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903. Salice, Alessandro. Urteile und Sachverhalte. Ein Vergleich zwischen Alexius Meinong und Adolf Reinach. Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2009. Sartre, Jean-Paul. L’être et le néant. Essai d’ontologie phénomenologique (1943). Paris: Gaillard, 1957. Searle, John R. “How Performatives Work.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12 (1989): 535–558. Searle, John R. Rationality in Action. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, 2001. Smith, Barry. “On the cognition of states of affairs.” In Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, ed. Kevin Mulligan. Dordrecht: Springer, 1987, pp. 189–225. Windelband, Wilhelm. Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft. Straßburg: Heitz, 1894. Znamierowski, Czesław. “O przedmiocie i fakcie społecznym.” Przegląd filozoficzny 24 (1921): 1–33. Znamierowski, Czesław. Podstawowe pojęcia teorji prawa. I. Układ prawny i norma prawna. Poznań: Fiszer i Majewski, 1924.

5

Social acts as wholes: dynamic eidetics and qualitative modifications Francesca De Vecchi

Abstract: I argue that Reinach provides a qualitative ontology of social acts. I focus on his idea of “essential connections”, which can be specified both as whole-parts constituency connections and as existential dependency connections between wholes and other entities, and show that both constituency and existential dependence connections are subject to various degrees of constraint: they can be also possible, and not only necessary connections. I point out that social acts are subject to modifications both of their parts and of the entities upon which they existentially depend. Their modifiable ontological structure involves a dynamic eidetics: they are wholes that can be expanded and subject to integrations in time. Keywords: Social acts; parts and wholes; essential connections; dynamic eidetics; qualitative social ontology; Adolf Reinach; Edith Stein

5.1 Introduction In my chapter, I inquire into the ontological structure of social acts from a qualitative perspective, and I do this by focusing on the eidetic analysis of social acts provided by the phenomenologist Adolf Reinach.1 Social acts are communicative, linguistic acts, under which fall promising, commanding, informing, praising, blaming, promulgating a law: they are a very specific kind of intentional acts, irreducible to mere mental acts that are also constituted by a linguistic moment such as thinking and meaning (e.g. beliefs and judgements). Indeed, unlike linguistic mental acts, social acts need to be turned towards, expressed to and taken up by an addressee in order to be performed, and are therefore complex acts laden with social relevance.2

1 See, Adolf Reinach (1913), Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, in A. Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, 2 vols. (München: Philosophia Verlag), 141–278, 1989. English. Translation: The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law, trans. John Crosby, in The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law. Along with the lecture “Concerning Phenomenology”, ed. J. Crosby with an introduction by A. McIntyre (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 1–142. Henceforth cited as DAG. 2 On the distinction between acts of thinking and meaning as linguistic internal acts, on the one hand, and communicative, external acts, on the other hand, see Husserl’s First and Sixth Logical Investigation (1901) where he deals with the distinction between linguistic objectifying and linguistic non-objectifying acts, such as acts of judging on the one hand and acts of asking or commanding on the other (Edmund Husserl, 1900–1901, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-6

56 Francesca De Vecchi Even though the concept of “social acts” has about the same extension as that of “speech acts”, provided by J.L. Austin fifty years after Reinach,3 nevertheless, in my chapter, I consider only Reinach’s analysis of social acts, since, unlike Austin’s account of speech acts, it provides an ontology of social acts, and more precisely what I call a qualitative ontology. Indeed, Reinach’s account is an application of Edmund Husserl’s eidetics and theory of wholes and parts to social acts: it describes social acts in terms of wholes constituted by parts and characterized by various kinds of “essential connections” (Wesenszusammenhänge), such as the relations of constituency and the relations of existential dependence. I claim that this eidetic perspective is intrinsically qualitative and allows us to focus on the qualitative ontology of social acts. As wholes, social acts can be varied with respect to their parts and with respect to the entities they depend upon, within the limits prescribed by their eidetic type, so that the concept of “possible co-variations” involves per se ontologically qualitative issues: the degrees of existence of social acts depending on the way any social act exemplifies – more or less – its eidetic paradigm; the possibility, and not just the necessity, of the essential connections of constituency and dependency that characterize social acts; the modification of both the contents and the types of the parts of social acts; the ontologically dynamic structure of social acts and their diversely qualitative moments, such as their performance and fulfilment, their being expanded in time, their effectiveness under certain conditions, and the like.4

(footnote continued) und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XIX, Bd. 2 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984); English Translation: Logical Investigation. Second part. Investigations concerning phenomenology and the theory of knowledge, trans. J.N. Findlay (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). Henceforth cites as LU). Reinach points out that communicative, external acts are not reducible to linguistic non-objectifying acts but are rather a new kind of act: “social acts” (Reinach, DAG, §3). See on this point: Barry Smith, “Towards a History of Speech Acts”, ed. Armin Burkhardt, Speech Acts, Meanings and Intentions. Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 29–61; Pedro Alves, “On Communication: Revisiting Reinach and the Early Husserl”, paper presented to the Conference “The Philosophy of Adolf Reinach”, December 2017, Universities of Lugano and Milan; Francesca De Vecchi, “Per una preistoria degli atti sociali: gli atti di significare di Edmund Husserl”, Rivista internazionale di Filosofia del diritto, 87 (2010), 365–396; Francesca De Vecchi, “Proxy social acts. A particular case of plural agency”, Language and Communication, 71 (2020), special issue on “Group Speech Acts”, ed. Leo Townsend and Hans-Bernhard Schmid, 149–158; Francesca, De Vecchi, “The Intentionality and Positionality of Spontaneous Acts – Adolf Reinach’s Account of Agency”, in Handbook on Phenomenology of Agency, ed. Christopher Erhard and Thomas Keiling (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 53–66.

3 See John Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962). See also: John Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); Kevin Mulligan, “Promisings and other Social Acts: Their Constituents and Structure”, in Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundation of Realist Phenomenology, ed. K. Mulligan (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1987), 29–90; Kevin, Mulligan, “Persons and acts – Collective and Social. From Ontology to Politics”, in The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. History, Concepts, Problems, ed. Hans-Bernhard Schmid and Alessandro Salice (Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag, 2016), 17–45. 4 I developed the ideas of “qualitative ontology” and “qualitative social ontology” as phenomenologically embedded in the following papers: Francesca De Vecchi, “The Existential Quality Issue in Social Ontology: Eidetics and Modifications of Essential Connections”, Humana.Mente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 31 (2016): 187–204; Francesca De Vecchi, “Eidetics of law-making acts: parts, wholes and degrees of existence”, Phenomenology and Mind, 13 (2017), ed. Paolo Di Lucia e Lorenzo Passerini Glazel, “Norm: What Is It? Ontological and Pragmatical Perspectives”, 86–95; Francesca De Vecchi, “Common-surrounding world and qualitative social ontology – phenomenological insights for the environment and its crisis”, Rivista di Estetica, 75 (2020), 33–51.

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I inquire into the qualitative ontology of social acts by focusing on the idea of “essential connections” that can be specified both in terms of connections of constituency between wholes and their parts and in terms of connections of existential dependency between wholes and other entities. In dealing with these kinds of essential connections, I make two points: i

ii

Both whole-parts constituency and existential dependence connections are subject to various degrees of constraint. Not all of these connections are necessary ones; on the contrary, some of them are also merely possible connections. Social acts are subject to modifications both of the type of their parts and of the type of the entities upon which social acts existentially depend: this modifiable ontological structure of social acts involves a dynamic eidetics, that is, social acts are not static but dynamic wholes that can be expanded and are subject to integrations in time.

5.2 Whole-parts connections and connections of existential dependency As I have just mentioned, Reinach applies Husserl’s eidetics to his analysis of social acts. Indeed, Reinach’s idea of “essential connection” refers to the notion of “foundation” introduced by Husserl in the frame of his theory of wholes and parts, in the Third Logical Investigation (1901). This notion indicates the relationship occurring between a founding element and a founded one, and points out that the founded element cannot exist unless the founding element also exists; this can mean that the founded element “requires supplementation by” the founding one and also that it is “non-independent” with respect to the founding element.5 Similarly, Reinach points out that there are two different kinds of essential connections that characterize the ontology of social acts: the essential connections of constituency and the essential connections of existential dependency. Therefore, social acts are both i ii

wholes that are constituted by parts, and wholes that existentially depend on other entities.

5.2.1 Whole-parts connections The whole-parts essential connections of constituency are not just necessary, but also merely possible connections, with the result that there are both “essentially necessary parts” and “essentially possible parts”. We can begin by dealing with this ontologically qualitative distinction from a more general perspective, namely the one developed by Husserl in his Third

5 See Husserl LU, Third Logical Investigation, §14 The concept of foundation and some relevant theorems; on the notion of “foundation” see also §21 Exact Pinning down of the pregnant notion of whole and part, and of their essential species, by means of the notion of foundation. On Reinach’s use of Husserl’s theory of wholes and parts, see Mulligan, Promising and other social acts, §4 Mental acts and the theory of constituency and dependence.

58 Francesca De Vecchi Logical Investigation and previously presented in his Philosophy of Arithmetic.6 According to Husserl, essences are the bonds that define the possible co-variation of the parts constituting any entity as a whole. The fundamental idea is that such bonds can be more or less binding and that any type of entity is specifically defined by the degrees to which its parts are bound-constrained: some of its parts can be varied to the point of being suppressed, while others cannot be varied because otherwise the entity would cease to exist.7 In other words, the idea is that there are necessary parts that are characterized by the maximum degree of constraint and that must be necessarily bound together with other parts in order for a certain type of entity to exist: think, for instance, of the necessary bond between colour and extension, such that colour and extension are mutually existential dependent parts which are both necessary parts of any material object as whole. But there are also parts of certain types of entities that are characterized by lower degrees of constraint: they are merely possible parts, which can be varied or even suppressed in their occurrence, as, for instance, in the case of wholes of higher order such as a flock of birds or a heap of stones, respectively. In these cases, the bonds on possible co-variation of the parts – birds and stones – are very loose and are subject to many possibilities of variation: for instance, the number of the birds or stones can be varied, and the degree of constraint that they must satisfy merely concerns certain forms that a flock of birds or a heap of stones as wholes must take. And these forms can be realized in several ways: all the possible form a flock of birds and a heap of stones can take in order to exist – where, of course, the flock of birds must satisfy a higher degree of constraint than the heap of stones. 5.2.2 Necessary and possible parts of social acts as wholes Let’s get back to social acts and see how Reinach applies the idea of essential connections of various degrees of constraint. I propose to make the essential connection of necessity between a whole and its parts explicit as follows: b is an essentially necessary part of a if and only if a is founded on b and b is a part of a. Example: the will to do x is an essentially necessary part of promising to do x if and only if promising to do x is founded on the will to do x and willing to do x is a part of promising to do x.

6 See Husserl LU, Third Logical Investigation and Edmund Husserl (1890–1901), and Edmund Husserl, Philosophie der Arithmetik, ed. Eley Lothar (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), Hua XII; English Translation: Philosophy or Arithmetic, trans. D. Willard (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002), in particular §7 on “Figural Moments”. On the evolution of Husserl’s theory on wholes and parts, from the Philosophy of Arithmetic to the Logical Investigation, see Barry Smith and Kevin Mulligan, “Pieces of a Theory”, in Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, ed. Barry Smith (Munich-Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1982): 15–110. 7 On the idea of bonds and degrees of constraint that bind the parts of a whole together, see Husserl, LU, Third Logical Investigation, in particular §5 The objective determination of the concept of inseparability, and §21 Exact pinning down of the pregnant notion of whole and part, and of their essential species, by means of the notion of foundation.

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The will, as a mental act, or as an “internal experience” (inneres Erlebnis) as Reinach puts it (Reinach, DAG, §3), is a necessary part of the social act of promising as a whole: promising to do x is grounded in the corresponding will to do x. In general, Reinach points out that every social act is necessarily founded on an internal experience, and, in the case of promising, the proper internal experience is the will – in the case of requesting, it is the wish, in that of asking, it is uncertainty, in that of commanding, the will, and so on. Moreover, according to Reinach’s account of social acts, besides the internal experience, social acts as wholes are also necessarily constituted by other parts such as the following: • •

The expression (language and gestures) of the act – Reinach speaks here of Kundgabefunktion, The uptake of the act by its addressee – Reinach calls the necessity of the act to be taken up its Vernehmungsbedürftigkeit (see Reinach, DAG, §3).

Furthermore, certain social acts such as promising, commanding, promulgating a law, but not others, such as informing and answering, produce normative effects, that is, obligations and claims. This entails that they also have as their necessary part: •

the normative efficacy of the act.

The normative efficacy is an intrinsically qualitative part of those social acts: it is a value-quality that essentially characterizes their being and permeates them as wholes. Indeed, value-qualities are constitutive parts of any entity as a whole and contribute to identify it as the type of entity it is. For instance, in the famous example of the “brave warrior” mentioned by Husserl in his Prolegomena, bravery is a value-quality that belongs essentially to the being of the warrior and it is the part that individualizes the warrior as such, in pervading it globally.8 The fact that all these are necessary parts of social acts means that in order for a social act to exist, they must be necessarily bound together in the unity of the social act as a whole, and they are parts whose connection is characterized by the maximum degree of constraint. I suggest describing the essential connection of possibility between a whole and its parts in this way: b is an essentially possible part of a if and only if a is founded on b as an essential possibility of a, and b is a possible part of a.

8 See Edmund Husserl, 1900–1901, Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik. Text der 1. und 2. Auflage, ed. Elmar Holenstein, Husserliana XVIII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975); English Translation: Logical Investigation. Volume 1, trans. J.N. Findlay (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), §14. The fact that value-qualities are parts of any entity as a whole and play a crucial role for its individuation is one of the main theses of a phenomenologically embedded qualitative (social) ontology, as I argued for in De Vecchi, The Existential Quality Issue in Social Ontology and De Vecchi, Common-surrounding World and Qualitative social Ontology.

60 Francesca De Vecchi Example: the action that fulfils the content of the social act of promising, and of its corresponding obligation and claim, is an essentially possible part of promising – “a promise essentially tends to be realized” (Reinach, DAG, §3: 172–3). Therefore, the parts of social acts that are merely possible are those parts that may, but need not, be there, and that participate in the reticulated parts constituting a social act as a whole. However, the possibility that characterizes possible parts is an essential, not merely a contingent possibility: it is a possibility that belongs to the very being of social acts, that is, it is a part whose realization is expected by it. 5.2.3 Existential dependence connections Social acts as wholes are also entities that existentially depend on other entities both in a necessary and possible degree of constraint. The existential dependence connection of necessity can be described like this: a is necessarily dependent on b if and only if a is necessarily founded on b and b is not part of a. Example: the social act of promising is necessarily dependent on its agent, the promisor, if and only if it is necessarily founded on its agent and its agent is not a part of the act of promising; and correlatively, the social act of promising is necessarily dependent on its addressee, the promisee, if and only if it is necessarily founded on its addressee and its addressee is not a part of the act of promising. By the way, it is worth noticing that the agent and the addressee upon which the social act necessarily depends are also mutually dependent on one another: the one is the counterpart of the other. Therefore, in order for a social act to exist, it must be necessarily connected to two individuals (at least) who play the roles of its agent and addressee. On the other hand, I suggest formulating the existential dependence connection of possibility in this way: a is possibly dependent on b if and only if a is possibly founded on b and b is not part of a. Example: the social act of promising is possibly dependent on the individual who fulfils its content (i.e. the promisor), if and only if it is possibly founded on that individual and that individual is not a part of the act of promising. These examples of the existential dependence connections of possibility and necessity show that performing a social act of promising (but also of commanding, requesting, promulgating a law, and others) is different from carrying out its content. This is because the agent of the act is per se just the performer of the act, and not also the person who realizes its content: performing and fulfilling a social act are two different things, and the fulfilment of the social act is only a possible part of the social act as a whole that may be realized by a person upon which the social act possibly depends. 5.2.4 Necessarily essential parts and necessarily existential dependence relations Both the necessary parts of the social act as a whole and the individuals upon which the social act as a whole necessarily depends are distinguished by a degree of necessity

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that implies that we cannot eliminate either one of those parts of the whole or one of those individuals upon which the whole existentially depends, otherwise the social act would cease to exist. Indeed, if we eliminated the agent or the addressee of the social act upon which the social act necessarily depends (essential connection of existential foundation), or if we removed the expression or the uptake of the act as necessary parts of the social act (essential connection of constituency), then the social act would cease to exist, since it is a whole necessarily constituted by these parts and it is an entity that necessarily depends on those individuals. However, we can vary the specific content of these necessary parts of the social acts (otherwise, we would always perform the same identical token of the same type of social act), even though such variations need to be made within certain limits, namely those that define the essential being of the social act. This is the case of the possible co-variations within the possibilities that exemplify the content of a certain type of social act, and this is also the case of what phenomenologists, from Husserl onwards, call eidetic variations. For instance, this promise I am making, here and now, has a specific propositional content, a specific way of being expressed, and so on that is different from the other promise I made yesterday, or the one you will make tomorrow: therefore, the propositional content or the expression of the promise are parts of the promise that, even though they are necessary parts, can nevertheless be varied. Analogously, the individuals upon which social acts necessarily depend can also be varied with respect to the content of the types “agent” and “addressee” of social acts that they embody. Beatrix and Francis, or John and Nick, and so on can all be the agent or the addressee of social acts, and can embody the type “agent” and “addressee” of social acts, even though within certain limits. For example, they can all be the agent and the addressee of social acts, provided they are all human beings, and not non-human animals: indeed, social acts are essentially acts performed by persons, and non-human animals are not entitled to perform social acts (see Reinach, DAG, §3) – even though emperor Caligula conferred the title of Senator on his horse!

5.3 Modifications and dynamic eidetics of social acts Moreover, there can also be “modifications of social acts”: these consist in modifications both of the type of the necessary parts of the social acts and of the type of the individuals upon which the social acts necessarily depend. Reinach points out four types of modifications of social acts (see Reinach DAG, §3). i The internal experience, on which the social act is grounded and which is a necessary part of the social act as a whole, can be modified in its type so that it is no longer the specific and proper internal experience of a certain type of social act but, on the contrary, its opposite. In these cases, there is still an internal experience as a necessary part upon which the social act as a whole is grounded, but not the appropriate and the right one. This is the modification case of a merely apparent or pseudo-fulfilment of the social act: indeed, Reinach speaks here of a Scheinvollzug of the act. Therefore, social acts are in these cases vacuously and not fully performed, as the insincere act of promising exemplifies

62 Francesca De Vecchi very well: indeed, it is grounded not on the will, but on the non-will, to fulfil the promise.9 ii The normative efficacy, which is a necessary part of certain types of social acts as wholes, can be modified in its typical structure and made dependent on a certain event happening, so that social acts become conditioned social acts.10 iii The type of the role of the agent and addressee of the social acts, upon which social acts as wholes necessarily depend, can be modified in collective agents or collective addressees: this is the case of collective social acts, in which the agent or addressee of the act are no longer singular, but several individuals. iv The type of the agent of the social acts, upon which social acts as wholes necessarily depend, can even be modified in the sense that the agent of the social act can perform it in the name of another person, so that the social act is performed by a proxy, and is not performed in the standard way by its own author. This is the case of representing or proxy social acts (see Reinach, DAG, §3).11 Reinach’s insights into the possibility of modifications of the types of the necessary parts of social acts and of the types of the individuals upon which social acts necessarily depend is emblematic of the qualitative ontology implied by the eidetics of social acts. Indeed, it contributes to our understanding of the dynamicity characterizing the eidetics of social acts: such dynamicity is one of the main features of the qualitative ontology of social acts. Social acts are not static but dynamic wholes: in virtue of their necessary and possible parts, on the one hand, and of the individuals they necessarily and possibly depend upon, on the other, social acts reveal themselves to be wholes that can be integrated and expanded in time. I can address this point of social acts as dynamic wholes in considering the following: i Reinach’s distinction between simple and complex social acts: as I have shown, the action of realizing the content of the social act is a possible part of the social act; I claim that this possible part grounds the passage from the social act, as performed, to the social act as fulfilled; the crucial point I make here is that the passage from performance to fulfilment of a social act involves an integration and expansion of the social act as a whole. ii Edith Stein’s account of law-making acts (an innovative derivation, so to speak, from Reinach’s account of the social act of promulgating law) and her distinction between law-making acts as performed acts and as fulfilled acts: this is also a case of social acts as wholes that can be qualitatively integrated and temporally expanded.12

9 See the corresponding infelicity case of speech acts, identified by Austin in the violation of the felicity condition “C1: the speaker must have appropriate feelings, thoughts and intentions” (Austin, How to Do Things with Words). 10 More precisely, the modification in this case can concern either the conditionality of the act – conditioned social act – or the conditionality of the content of the act. In my chapter, I consider only the first possibility, since it is very interesting for illustrating the dynamic eidetics of social acts (see infra §3.3). 11 I worked on the modification case of “proxy social acts” in De Vecchi, Proxy social acts. 12 Edith Stein (1925), “Eine Untersuchung über den Staat”, Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 7: 1–123. In Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe, VII, ed. Ilona RiedelSpangenberger (Freiburg: Herder, 2006); English Translation: An Investigation Concerning the State, trans. M. Sawicki (Washington: ICS Publications, 2006).

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iii The modification of conditioned social acts, in which the efficacy of social acts as a necessary part of the social act is suspended in time: the wholes of conditioned social acts are temporally dilated and qualitatively modifiable in their efficacy. 5.3.1 Simple and complex wholes Let us begin by addressing the point of social acts as dynamic wholes by focusing on Reinach’s distinction between simple and complex social acts. The key claim here is that this distinction corresponds to the eidetic distinction between simple and complex, that is, integrated and expanded, wholes, I can thereby suggest that complex social acts are wholes that, besides essentially necessary parts, also contain essentially possible parts, and that possible parts are the ones that ground the passage from social acts as performed acts to social acts as fulfilled acts. This entails that we have to distinguish between social acts as performed acts, on the one hand, and social acts as fulfilled acts, on the other. On this basis, I argue that taken together social acts constitute a single complex, expanded, and integrated whole that presents different parts at different times. Let’s have a look at Reinach’s distinction between simple and complex social acts. i

Simple social acts

In the case of “simple social acts”, the necessary parts of social acts as wholes are the only parts constituting the acts as performed acts, so that in these cases, the performance of the social acts does not imply any other parts. An example of a simple social act is the act of informing: It belongs to its essence to address another and to announce to him its content. […] it has to be externally expressed in order to enable the addressee to become aware of its content. With this becoming aware the goal of the informing is reached. The circuit which is opened with the sending out of the social acts is here closed. (Reinach DAG, §3: 161; En. tr.: 21) Reinach identifies the necessary parts of the social act of informing: its being turned toward an addressee, the expression and the uptake of the act; and he claims that with the moment of the uptake of the act by its addressee, the act is performed. The main point Reinach makes here is that, in the case of simple social acts such as informing, the performance of the act involves in itself also the conclusion of the act: once the act of informing is performed, the act is also concluded. The performance of the act coincides with its conclusion: no fulfilment is possible here. The point I wish to highlight, therefore, is that the social act of informing is constituted only by necessary parts and not also by possible parts, so that the simplicity of the social act of informing as a whole coincides with its being merely grounded on necessary parts and on its excluding possible parts from its eidetic structure. ii

Complex social acts

On the contrary, complex social acts involve not only their performance but also their fulfilment, and involve it as an essential possibility, as an essential part of the acts. Indeed, once these acts are performed, they can then also be fulfilled: the fulfilment is

64 Francesca De Vecchi here an essential possibility that belongs to the very essence of the act, and this possibility is constituted by essentially possible parts of the act. Examples of complex social acts are the acts of requesting and commanding: We have here social acts which, by contrast to informing, aim by their nature (ihrem Wesen nach) at corresponding, or better, at responding activities, whether these activities really come to pass or not. Every command and every request aim at an action on the part of the addressee which is prescribed by the act. Only the performance of this action definitively closes the circuit opened by these social acts. (Reinach DAG, §3: 161; En. tr.: 21) My claim is that in the case of complex social acts, the whole constituting the social act is much more complex than the whole constituting simple social acts. Complex social acts as complex wholes are wholes that entail parts that are also possible, and not only necessary. Social acts of requesting and commanding have as their possible part the activity (action, act) that fulfils the content of the act (request or command). Only the performance of this activity closes the act. But the conclusion of the act is only an essential possibility and not an essential necessity of the act. The mere uptake of the act and therefore the mere performance of the act are not sufficient for the act to be concluded. Translated into eidetic terms: the whole of a complex social act is constituted by necessary parts but also entails possible parts whose realization the act as a whole essentially tends towards. In this perspective, complex social acts are expanded wholes that present different parts in different times: • •

When the social act is only performed, there are de facto, in the present time, just the necessary parts of the act – the possible parts are just a possibility! When the social act is also fulfilled, there are de facto, in the present time, possible parts that are now realized – and the necessary parts are already past.

This flexible eidetic structure of complex social acts suggests the idea of a dynamic eidetics dilated in time. 5.3.2 Eidetics of law-making acts I shall now focus on law-making acts as a specific type of social acts, and in so doing, I will refer to Stein’s account of law-making acts that is based on Reinach’s concept of “legal provisions” [Bestimmungen].13 Our focus is on the relation between essentially possible parts and essentially necessary parts of law-making acts as wholes, and on the role played by essentially possible parts in order for the law to be in force, and in order that the law does not simply exist but is also valid. I claim that law-making acts

13 See Stein, Eine Untersuchung über den Staat, and Reinach, DAG, §8. I worked on law-making acts as a specific type of social acts in De Vecchi, Eidetics of Law-making Acts, and in Francesca De Vecchi, “Edith Stein’s Social Ontology of the State, the Law and Social Acts. An Eidetic Approach”, Studia Phaenomenologica, 15 (2015), “Early Phenomenology”, ed. Dermot Moran and Rodney Parker, 303–33.

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as performed acts are wholes constituted by necessary parts, such as the expression and the uptake of the acts, while law-making acts as fulfilled acts are the same wholes but implemented by possible parts, such as the activity that realizes the content of the act. Therefore, one can speak of two temporally and qualitatively different wholes that together constitute a flexible, dynamic whole. Indeed, in analysing the relation between the “first whole” and the “second whole”, it is manifest that law-making acts as performed acts, on the one hand, and law-making acts as fulfilled acts, on the other, constitute one single whole at different times; what establishes the difference between the “first” and the “second” whole is the realizing action that enforces the content of the law-making acts. In other words, fulfilled law-making acts are performed law-making acts whose fulfilment as their possible part is realized. Put in eidetic terms, I claim that the uptake of law-making acts is a necessary part of the whole of law-making acts as performed acts, and the performance of lawmaking acts is, in its turn, a necessary part of the whole of law-making acts as fulfilled acts; both these parts are necessary parts of law-making acts as wholes, and cannot be varied or eliminated. Otherwise, the law-making acts would cease to exist. In contrast, the fulfilment of law-making acts is just a possible part of lawmaking acts as wholes, and the existence of law-making acts as performed acts is not grounded on it. Nevertheless, this possible part is not just one contingent possibility amongst others; rather, it is an essential possibility to which law-making acts as wholes essentially tend: according to their eidetic structure, law-making acts tend to be fulfilled. The fundamental and original idea of Stein’s approach to law-making acts is that in order for positive law to be law in force, law-making acts must be performed by the legislator as organ of the state and must be taken up and enforced by the citizens to whom they are addressed. Therefore, I also suggest that the fulfilment of law-making acts, that is, the fulfilment of the essential tendency of law-making acts to be realized in their content, is itself a necessary part of the law as law in force, that is, of the validity of the law.14 5.3.3 Conditioned social acts: temporally scattered wholes Reinach identifies two possibilities of conditional social acts: one concerning a conditionality of the act – conditioned social act – and the other concerning a conditionality of the content of the act. As previously stated, I will focus on the first possibility: conditioned social acts. We can distinguish first of all between a social act being conditional (bedingt) and being unconditional. There is a simple commanding and requesting, and there is a commanding and requesting “in the event that”. Of course, not all social acts are subject to this modification; an act of informing “in the event that” is not in the same sense possible. This becomes understandable only when we consider that an efficacy proceeds from certain of the social acts.

14 This does not mean that acting against a law renders it invalid. Indeed, acting against a law is still an acting with reference to or in light of a law: it is an acting that implies the validity of the law unless fulfilling it. This is the phenomenon of nomotropism elucidated by Amedeo G. Conte, “Nomotropismo: agire in funzione di regole”, Sociologia del diritto, 27 (2000), 1–17.

66 Francesca De Vecchi If a command is given or a request is made, something is thereby changed in the world. A certain action now stands there as commanded or requested, and under certain conditions which by their nature can be clearly identified, such as when the addressee of a command has performed the social act of submitting to the person who gives the command, there arise obligations of a definite kind. Since informing does not have any such efficacy, it is not susceptible of being conditioned. But with the conditional commands and requests, the efficacy is made dependent on a future event (Reinach 1913, §3: 163; En. tr. 1983: 23). The conditionality of the act affects the normative efficacy of the act, that is, affects the fact that the performance of complex social acts such as commanding and promising – and not of simple social acts such as informing – implies the creation of something new in the world: obligations and claims. Indeed, complex social acts are poiesis, so to speak, while simple social acts are just praxeis. Now, in the case of conditioned social acts, the efficacy of the act is suspended and made dependent on a condition: the happening of a future event. For instance, in the case that I will finish my job, I promise I will spend a few days of my holiday with you. As Reinach points out: Conditional social acts are indeed performed, but in their performance their efficacy is tied to something which may occur later (Reinach DAG, §3: 163; En. Tr: 23) Conditioned social acts are performed acts, but their performance is separated by their efficacy – while in normal, not conditioned social acts, the efficacy of the act coincides with the performance of the act. Indeed, in conditioned social acts, the efficacy of the act is realized only with the occurring of a specific event. Moreover, as Reinach highlights, it is essentially required that the event on which the efficacy of the act is made to depend upon must be a possibility, and not a necessity. Translated in eidetic terms, I propose to outline the ontological structure of the conditioned social acts as wholes in the following way: The first whole of the conditioned social act is constituted by: + performance of the social act (performance = necessary part of the whole) − efficacy of the social act (efficacy = possible part of the whole) = − happening of a certain event. The second whole of the conditioned social act is constituted by: + performance of the social act (performance = necessary part of the whole) + happening of a certain event = + efficacy of the social act (efficacy = possible part of the whole). Therefore, conditioned social acts are temporally dilated and qualitatively modifiable wholes: wholes that are suspended and expanded in time, because their efficacy depends on the happening of a future event – and we do not know whether and when such event will occur.

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5.4 Conclusion In this chapter, I have been claiming that the eidetic analysis of social acts provided by Reinach is an ontologically qualitative account that allows us to understand, by means of the eidetic terms of the essential connections of constituency and existential dependence, the “quality of existence” of social acts: their being subject to variations and modifications with respect to the contents and the types of their parts and of the individuals they depend on, their being just performed or even fulfilled acts and their being effective or not effective, according to their being simple or complex wholes, and even their being effective under certain conditions. This is a fruitful and crucial perspective for accounting for the impact and role that social acts have in our life-world, which is increasingly social and institutional. This perspective, indeed, focuses on the nuances and degrees of existence of the social acts we experience in our everyday life, as agents, addressees, and also individuals involved in the targets and contents of social acts.

References Alves, Pedro, “On Communication: Revisiting Reinach and the Early Husserl”, paper presented to the Conference “The Philosophy of Adolf Reinach”, Universities of Lugano and Milan, 1917. Austin, John, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962). Conte, Amedeo G., “Nomotropismo: agire in funzione di regole”, Sociologia del diritto, 27 (2000), 1–17. De Vecchi, Francesca, “Per una preistoria degli atti sociali: gli atti di significare di Edmund Husserl”, Rivista internazionale di Filosofia del diritto, 87 (2010), 365–396. De Vecchi, Francesca, “Edith Stein’s Social Ontology of the State, the Law and Social Acts. An Eidetic Approach”, Studia Phaenomenologica, 15 (2015), “Early Phenomenology”, ed. Dermot Moran and Rodney Parker, 303–330. De Vecchi, Francesca, “The Existential Quality Issue in Social Ontology: Eidetics and Modifications of Essential Connections”, Humana.Mente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 31 (2016), 187–204. De Vecchi, Francesca, “Eidetics of law-making acts: parts, wholes and degrees of existence”, Phenomenology and Mind, 13 (2017), ed. Paolo Di Lucia and Lorenzo Passerini Glazel, “Norm: What Is It? Ontological and Pragmatical Perspectves”, 86–95. De Vecchi, Francesca, “Proxy social acts. A particular case of plural agency”, Language and Communication, 71 (2020), special issue on “Group Speech Acts”, ed. Leo Townsend and Hans-Bernhard Schmid, 149–158. De Vecchi, Francesca, “The Intentionality and Positionality of Spontaneous Acts – Adolf Reinach’s Account of Agency”, ed. Christopher Erhard and Thomas Keiling, Handbook on Phenomenology of Agency (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), 53–66. De Vecchi, Francesca, “Common-surrounding world and qualitative social ontology – phenomenological insights for the environment and its crisis”, Rivista di Estetica, 75 (2020), 33–51. Husserl, Edmund, Philosophie der Arithmetik, 1891, ed. Lothar Eley, Husserliana XII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970); English Translation: Philosophy or Arithmetic, trans. D. Willard (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003). Husserl, Edmund, Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik. Text der 1. und 2. Auflage, 1900–1901, ed. Elmar Holenstein, Husserliana XVIII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975); English Translation: Logical Investigation. Volume 1, trans. J.N. Findlay (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).

68 Francesca De Vecchi Husserl, Edmund, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, 1900–1901, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XIX, Bd. 2 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984); English Translation: Logical Investigation. Second part. Investigations concerning phenomenology and the theory of knowledge, trans. J.N. Findlay (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). Mulligan, Kevin, “Promisings and other Social Acts: Their Constituents and Structure”, ed. Kevin Mulligan, Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundation of Realist Phenomenology (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1987), 29–90. Mulligan, Kevin, “Persons and Acts – Collective and Social. From Ontology to Politics”, ed. Hans-Bernhard Schmid and Alessandro Salice, The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. History, Concepts, Problems (Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag, 2016), 17–45. Reinach, Adolf (1913), Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, in A. Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, ed.Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith (München: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 141–278. English Translation The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law, trans. John Crosby, ed. J. Crosby with an introduction by A. McIntyre, The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law. Along with the lecture “Concerning Phenomenology” (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 1–142. Searle, John, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969). Smith, Barry, “Towards a History of Speech Acts”, ed. Armin Burkhardt, Speech Acts, Meanings and Intentions. Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle (Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1990), 29–61. Smith, Barry and Mulligan, Kevin, “Pieces of a Theory”, ed.Barry Smith, Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (Munich-Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1982): 15–110. Stein, Edith, “Eine Untersuchung über den Staat”, Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 7 (1925), 1–123. Edith Stein Gesamtausgabe, VII, ed. Ilona Riedel-Spangenberger (Freiburg: Herder, 2006). English Translation: An Investigation Concerning the State, trans. M. Sawicki (Washington: ICS Publications, 2006).

6

To-you-ness: a phenomenological theme from Reinach Genki Uemura

Abstract: The present paper has two aims. The first is to reconstruct Reinach’s discussion of social acts as phenomenology of those acts. Focusing on his method of contrast, we will show how he draws our attention to a peculiar feature of social acts qua experiences, which we call to-you-ness (in his own words, the turning to others). The second aim is to defend Primitivism about to-you-ness. Examining two rival accounts of this feature, we will argue that to-you-ness is best understood as a non-definable, primitive feature of social acts. Keywords: Reinach; social acts; phenomenological method; others; spontaneity; activity 6.1 Introduction Calling something social seems to make sense only if it has to do with two or more subjects in a certain way. This truism lies behind Reinach’s discussion of social acts such as promising or commanding in his Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law published in 1913.1 According to him, “The turning to another subject and the need of being heard [by that subject] is absolutely essential for every social act.”2 Here, one might understand Reinach as using the two different expressions—turning to (sich wenden an) and the need of being heard (Vernehmungsbedürftigkeit)—for one and the same characteristic of social acts. As we will argue further, however, the turning to others should be distinguished from the need of being heard by them. There are two reasons for this. First, they have different functions. Second, only the turning to others can be attributed to social acts qua experiences without causing problems. What is, then, this experiential feature of social acts? In other words, what does it mean that my experience of, say, promising is turned to you? The present paper aims to reconstruct Reinach’s answer to this question by gathering related ideas of his, which are scattered in his published and posthumous writings. In doing so, we will see how Reinach

1 Adolf Reinach, Die apriorische Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, in Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, 2 vols. (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 141–278. English translation: The Apriori Foundation of the Civil Law, trans. John F. Crosby, (Frankfurt/Paris/Lancaster/New Brunswick: Ontos Verlag, 2012), 1–142. Henceforth cited as Apriori Foundations with German and English references, respectively. We follow the translation unless otherwise noted. 2 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160–161/20, our emphasis.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-7

70 Genki Uemura develops a phenomenology of social acts. In this way, our discussion will provide a supplement to previous works on Reinach, which have put more emphasis on the ontological aspect of his social philosophy.3 The present paper is structured as follows. The first section briefly outlines Reinach’s view of the phenomenological method. Drawing on his lecture, “Concerning Phenomenology,” we argue that Reinach’s phenomenology makes use of what we call the method of contrast in order to clarify the structural features of its targets. The second reconstructs how Reinach introduces the notion of social acts in the Apriori Foundations. Here, our focus is particularly on the method of contrast, on which he relies heavily in differentiating social acts from other experiences. The third section sets out the problem for us. Among the main features of social acts, Reinach describes the turning to others, which we shall call to-you-ness, only negatively. Is there also a positive characterization of to-you-ness? Answering this question is the aim of the fourth section. Examining two rival accounts of to-you-ness, we defend an interpretation we call Primitivism: to-youness is a non-definable, primitive experiential feature of social acts. Accordingly, our answer to the aforementioned question will be negative. To be more precise, there is no positive characterization of to-you-ness if we adopt a certain conception of negative characterization: a characterization of an experiential feature is negative if it resorts to the difference—namely, non-identity—between that and some other features.

6.2 Reinach on the method of phenomenology Reinach conceives of phenomenology as a method. According to the lecture, “Concerning Phenomenology,” which he gave in Marburg one year after the publication of the Apriori Foundations, phenomenology is a way of intuiting (Schauen/ Erschauen) rather than a system of philosophical propositions.4 This does not mean that he takes phenomenology to be an easy task of looking at things. Quite the contrary, he says, “We all know how laborious a task it is to learn to really intuit.”5 Why is phenomenology so difficult? According to Reinach, that is because of the complexity of things it attempts to bring to the light. Taking our experiential life as an example, he claims: This “experiencing [Erleben]” is just as remote and difficult to grasp in its qualitative structure or nature as it is certain for us in its existence. What the

3 For a more ontology-oriented reconstruction of Reinach’s discussion of social acts and related topics, see, for instance, Kevin Mulligan, “Promising and Other Social Acts,” in Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, ed. K. Mulligan (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1989), 29–90. To avoid potential misunderstandings, note that we do not mean to take phenomenology and ontology as mutually exclusive to each other. At least in the case of Reinach, they are so closely interconnected that we cannot deal with one in total separation from the other. What we attempt to do in this paper is just to shed more light on the phenomenological aspect of Reinach’s phenomenological-cum-ontological account of social acts. 4 See Adolf Reinach, “Über Phänomenologie,” in his Sämtliche Werke, 531–550, here 531. English translation: “Concerning Phenomenology” in his The Apriori Foundation of the Civil Law, 143–165, here 143. Henceforth cited as “Concerning Phenomenology” with German and English references, respectively. We follow the translation unless otherwise noted. The original German terms for intuiting, Schauen/Erschauen are put as seeing in the English translation. 5 Reinach, “Concerning Phenomenology,” 531/144, translation modified.

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ordinary person intuits [erschauen] of it—in fact, what he even merely notices of it—is little enough. Joy and pain, love and hatred, yearning, homesickness, etc., certainly present themselves to him [sic]. But these are in the end only crudely cut sections out of an infinitely nuanced domain. Even the poorest conscious life is yet much too rich to be fully grasped by its bearer. Also here we can learn to intuit [schauen]; also here it is art which teaches the normal person to comprehend for the first time what he [sic] had hitherto overlooked.6 Three remarks are needed here. First, by “experiencing,” Reinach means the socalled stream of consciousness in which we find varieties of particular experiences such as joy, pain, and so on. Second, he distinguishes the intuition of experiencing from the mere possession of it. The experiencing is always just there for us (as long as we are awake). He holds, however, that we can intuit it only when we pin down its “qualitative structure or nature”, namely a feature which he soon rephrases as “essence [Wesen],” “whatness [Was],” or “being-such-and-such [Sosein].”7 Third, he holds that the intuition of essence is prompted by art or technique [Kunst]. It is such art that he tries to tell his audience about in Marburg. In other words, his aim is to show them instructions for the phenomenological way of seeing by practicing it. Even though he is not explicit about it, Reinach’s practice of phenomenology includes a method of contrast as its important component. To draw our attention to an essence (i.e., structural feature) of a target phenomenon of his, he contrasts two or more examples that exhibit similarity or difference with regard to that essence. In “Concerning Phenomenology,” he adopts this method to analyze the nature of some judgments.8 Contrasting two judgments, “five trees are green” and “four houses suffice to draw the coach,” he points out that the types of predication are different in them. In the first judgment, green is predicated to each of the trees; in the second, suffice to draw the coach is not predicated to each of the horses. Drawing on such a difference between distributive and non-distributive predications, he concludes that numbers are not predicable to anything. It is not our concern to examine this view of Reinach’s, which is disputable.9 What is more important for us is that in arguing for his view, he highlights the two different structural features of judgments by contrasting the two examples of them. Since for Reinach, judgments are a sort of

6 Reinach, “Concerning Phenomenology,” 531–532/144, translation modified. 7 Cf. Reinach, “Concerning Phenomenology,” 532/144. As it should be clear now, in Reinach’s terminology, “the essence of X” does not necessarily mean the essence of X in a more commonly accepted sense: a property or a set of properties on which the identity or nature of X depends. His use of the term essence should first and foremost be understood as a structural feature of something. It should also be noted that Reinach himself is sometimes said be a “Platonist” about essences. In this paper, however, we remain neutral with regard to this issue. Our reconstruction is compatible with the claim that essences are universals which exist autonomously, but it does not presuppose such an extremely realist position. For Reinach’s (alleged) Platonism, see James M. Dubois, Judgment and Sachverhalt. An Introduction to Adolf Reinach’s Phenomenological Realism (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994), 103–104. 8 Cf. Reinach, “Concerning Phenomenology,” 540/153. 9 For more on Reinach’s account of numbers, including his claim that there are no such things as ordinal numbers, see Dubois, Judgment and Sachverhalt, 123–128.

72 Genki Uemura experience, what we have just seen is an example of how he conducts a phenomenological analysis of our experiential life via the method of contrast.10

6.3 Demarcating social acts phenomenologically According to Reinach, social acts are spontaneous intentional experiences which are turned to others and thus in need of being heard by them. He proposes this idea in §3 of the Apriori Foundations, which bears the title “Social Acts.” Focusing particularly on the phenomenological aspect of his discussion, we will reconstruct how Reinach introduces the term social acts. The conclusion we are aiming at here is that Reinach’s attempt to demarcate social acts in the Apriori Foundations is almost entirely phenomenological (we will explain more fully why we should say “almost entirely” in the next section). The key to our conclusion is the method of contrast. In what follows, we will show how heavily Reinach relies on this method when he characterizes social acts. To do this, we will deal with the first few pages of §3 of the Apriori Foundations in a running-commentary style. This is not without reason. Reinach’s art in phenomenology, of which the method of contrast is part, can be compared to art in filmmaking. If one were to explain how a particular sort of filmmaking technique is used in a film, it would be desirable to show the audience some shots from that film in which that technique is at work. Likewise, if we are to explain how the method of contrast is used in Reinach’s Apriori Foundations, it is desirable to show our readers some passages from the book in which that method is at work. Unlike shots from a film, we can show our readers passages from a book simply by quoting them in words. Let us start reading §3 of the Apriori Foundations. In its opening passage, Reinach introduces the notion of spontaneity as a feature of a certain class of experiences (Erlebnisse). [1] Out of the infinite sphere of possible kinds of experiences, let us select out a certain kind: the experiences which not only belong to an I [das Ich] but in which the I shows itself as active [tätig]. [2] We turn our attention to a thing, or we make a resolution: [3] these are experiences which are not only opposed to the ones in which something like a sound or a pain imposes itself on us, but also to the ones where we cannot speak of a real passivity of the self, as when we are happy or sad, enthusiastic or indignant, or when we have some wish or resolution. [4] We want to call the experiences in question

10 One might object that what Reinach is doing here is not a phenomenological analysis but a linguistic analysis. For, the objection continues, he focuses only on the linguistic expressions of the judgments rather than the experiences as such. This objection, however, seems to rest on a questionable assumption. Are phenomenological and linguistic analyses really exclusive to each other? Even though we cannot deal with this issue in further detail, it seems obvious that Reinach offers the analysis of linguistic expressions as at least an important clue for phenomenological analysis. See his positive comment on Husserl’s discussion of linguistic expressions and their meaning in the First Logical Investigation (cf. Reinach, “Concerning Phenomenology,” 542/155). It is also remarkable in this context that according to Reinach, in (most of) the cases of social acts, “the experience is impossible without utterance [Äußerung]” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160/20, translation modified). For one of few exceptions, see note 32.

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spontaneous acts; this spontaneity refers to the inner doing [das innere Tun] of the subject.11 [1] Reinach first picks out a certain type of experience by contrasting it with all other experiences. As he argues in his lecture from 1913, all experiences have “belongingness to an ego [Ichzugehörigkeit]” insofar as they are unified in the stream of consciousness by the ego, which is also directly given in those experiences.12 More important for us is his idea that there are some experiences in which the ego figures in a distinctive way. To point to those experiences, he tentatively describes them as ones in which the ego “shows itself as active [tätig].”13 [2] In order to elucidate this general description, he offers two examples: turning attention toward (Zuwenden) and making a resolution. [3] To make clear how those two experiences satisfy the description, he contrasts them with two different groups of experiences. First, while turning attention toward and making a resolution involve an active (tätig) ego, having sensations, such as sounds and pains, does not. This contrast, which is meant to help readers of Reinach to make sense of his idea, might be misleading. It is not activity as opposed to passivity that Reinach wants to denote by the expression active (tätig). That is why the second contrast is needed. The active (tätig) ego, which presents itself in turning attention toward or making a resolution, is absent not only in passive experiences but also in more or less non-passive ones such as happiness, sadness, enthusiasm, indignity, wish, and resolution.14 Those latter experiences are said to be non-passive, probably because we cannot be indifferent to them or their intentional correlates.15 [4] Having characterized his target phenomenon as an experience that involves an active (tätig) ego, he introduces the term spontaneous act to name this kind of experience. Here, Reinach takes spontaneity to be an experiential

11 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 158/18, translation modified, our numberings and emphases. 12 Adolf Reinach, “Einleitung in die Philosophie,” in his Sämtliche Werke, 369–513, here 382. It is not our present aim to examine this claim. For Reinach’s conception of ego and consciousness and its context in the early phenomenological tradition, see Guillaume Fréchette, “Searching for the Self: Early Phenomenological Accounts of Self-Consciousness from Lotze to Scheler,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21:5 (2013), 654–679, esp. 664–666. 13 It should be noted that Reinach uses the term “active [tätig]” in a specific sense. It is true that Tätigkeit has to do with activity in a certain sense. As we will see soon, however, Reinach explicitly claims that being tätig is different from being aktiv. Considering this, we will add the original German term tätig when it is translated as active. Otherwise, active is always a translation of aktiv. 14 “Resolution” here designates what Reinach calls holding of a resolution. We will soon explain why he distinguishes holding a resolution from making a resolution. 15 Indeed, there is a sense in which we cannot be indifferent to sensations such as sounds or pains. However, we should understand such a circumstance in terms of a practical impossibility of a certain sort. As a matter of fact, we are, perhaps very often, unable to become indifferent to pains we have, but occasionally we manage to do that, for instance, when I peel freshly boiled potatoes with my bare hands. Importantly, pain remains present even in such a case; I do not concern myself with my pain, which I certainly do feel in my fingers. The same holds for sounds. When I concentrate on reading a book in a noisy place, I am indifferent to tonal sensations, which I certainly feel around my ears; that is why in situations like this, my concentration can sometimes be disturbed by sudden silence. Things are different, however, when it comes to what Reinach counts as non-passive experiences in the aforementioned context. It is in principle impossible for us to be indifferent with respect to the object of, say, sadness while remaining sad. If I try to become indifferent to be, say, sad news and I manage to do that, my sadness would disappear (at least as far as sadness an occurrent phenomenal state of is concerned; sadness as a disposition may remain in this case). I thank an anonymous reviewer of this paper for raising this point.

74 Genki Uemura feature. An experience is spontaneous, he holds, if and only if it is an inner acting of its subject, that is, an experience that figures as my action. To clarify this notion of spontaneity, Reinach gives three further examples of nonspontaneous experiences with which spontaneous acts are, again, contrasted. First, pointing to the fact that emotions of a particular sort do not exhibit spontaneity but intentionality, he warns us that these two experiential features are not to be confused: It would be quite a mistake to want to find the distinguishing mark of these experiences in their intentionality. The regret which rises up in me, or the hatred which asserts itself in me, are also intentional in that both refer to some object. Spontaneous acts have in addition to their intentionality also their spontaneity, which lies in this, that in them the ego shows itself to be the phenomenal originator of the act.16 The regret and hatred under discussion are emotions that hit me. They are out of my control in a certain sense. Following Geiger, we may call such experiences “alien to the ego (ichfremd)” even though they are mine insofar as they belong to my individual consciousness.17 Since those emotions are also about something, intentionality cannot be identified with spontaneity as a distinctive feature of experiences like turning attention toward and making a decision. In this way, Reinach shows that spontaneity is a peculiar feature of those experiences which are under the control of their subjects.18 That is why Reinach calls the subject of a spontaneous act the “phenomenal originator (phänomenaler Urheber).” We will come back to this idea later. With the second and third examples, Reinach’s discussion returns to the relationship between spontaneity and activity: [1] Spontaneity also has to be definitely distinguished from activity in its many possible meanings. [2] Thus, I can call indignation active since it issues from me and forms a contrast to the sadness which comes over me, perhaps suddenly. [3] Or I call the holding of a resolution active in that I am the one who takes on the resolution. [4] But we distinguish the holding of a resolution, whether actually or inactually, from the making of the resolution, we distinguish what exists in us as a state from the punctual experience, which precedes or at least can precede it; and only here in the making of a resolution do we have an example of what we mean: a doing of the self and thereby a spontaneous act.19 [1] Pointing out that activity comes in varieties, [2] Reinach gives a pair of experiences—indignation and sadness—as his second example that elucidates activity of a certain sort. There is a sense in which indignation comes out from me, whereas

16 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 158/18, translation modified. 17 Moritz Geiger, “Beiträge zur Phänomenologie des ästhetischen Genusses,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 1 (1913), 567–684, here 611–612. 18 As it should be clear already, Reinach’s expression “spontaneous acts” can be rephrased as neither “involuntary acts” nor “unplanned acts.” 19 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 158/18, translation modified, our numberings.

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20

sadness comes over me. To capture this difference, we can say that only the former experience is active (activ). Indignation as an active experience in this sense, however, is not spontaneous. It is or can be an emotion over which I have no control.21 [3] To clarify yet another sense of activity, Reinach resorts to the experience of having a resolution as his third example. This experience can also be called active because I, as the one who “takes on [trägt]” the resolution, commit myself to what I have decided. [4] Even though the experience of having a resolution is active in this sense, it cannot be spontaneous. For, according to Reinach, spontaneity is found in the punctual experience or “act” of making a resolution, which should be distinguished from the state of holding the resolution. To make better sense of Reinach’s idea that making a resolution is a punctual experience, we have to take into consideration the discussion in his “On the Theory of Negative Judgment” from 1911.22 In this short piece, Reinach attempts to disambiguate the term judgment by distinguishing conviction (Überzeugung) and assertion (Behauptung).23 There are several important differences between the two types of experience, but what matters for us is the following one: Both conviction and assertion are realized within time; one can determine the point of time in which they come into being. But while we can speak of convictions of any arbitrary temporal extent, assertion essentially excludes any talk of a temporal extendedness; it does not take a course [verläuft] in time, but rather exists as though it were something punctual [punktuell].24 In this way, Reinach emphasizes that while conviction admits of duration, assertion takes place only at a point of time.25 In order to capture this contrast he calls the former a state

20 In order to describe an experiential contrast that is essentially the same as the present one, Alexander Pfänder distinguishes centrifugal and centripetal. For a relevant discussion of Pfänder, see Genki Uemura, “Alexander Pfänder’s Phenomenology of Motivation,” in The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency, ed. C. Erhard and T. Keiling (London: Routledge, 2020), 29–40. 21 Here we have an important implication of Reinach’s discussion. According to him, control is not necessary for activity but only for spontaneity. I owe this point to an anonymous reviewer of this paper. 22 Adolf Reinach, “Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils,” in his Sämtliche Werke, 95–140. English translation: “On the Theory of Negative Judgment,” trans. Barry Smith, in Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, ed. Barry Smith (München/Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 315–377. Henceforth cited as “Negative Judgment” with German and English references, respectively. We follow the translation unless otherwise noted. 23 Cf. Reinach, “Negative Judgment,” 95–101/315–321. 24 Reinach, “Negative Judgment,” 101–102/320, translation modified. 25 We can rephrase Reinach’s idea by saying that assertion and other acts of expression are achievements in Ryle’s sense. For this point, see Genki Uemura “Husserl on the Unity of Expressing,” in Ontology and Phenomenology, ed. M. Okada (Tokyo: Keio University Open Research Centre for Logic and Formal Ontology, 2009), 111–120, here 115. One might object that the very idea of punctual experiences is phenomenologically implausible. How can a point-like experience figure in our conscious life? To this objection, we can reply that even though Reinach does not say anything further on this issue, the punctuality or non-duration at stake here may not be taken at face value. To put it in a contemporary terminology, Reinach’s point is only that the experience of, say, assertion can have no proper temporal part that is also an assertion. In this respect, assertion is different from, say, perception. A perceptual experience can have a proper temporal part that is also perception. Construed in this way, the notion of punctual experiences does not exclude the possibility that such an experience, despite its temporal-mereological simplicity, is temporary extended. As Ingarden maintains, punctual

76 Genki Uemura and the latter an act.26 The same holds for our present example. I can hold a resolution for, say, one week, but I can make a resolution only at a certain point of time. With the help of this clarification, we can interpret Reinach’s conception of spontaneity in the Apriori Foundations also in terms of agent causation.27 As we have already seen, Reinach holds that the subject of a spontaneous act figures as the phenomenal originator of that act. The best way to understand this claim is to regard it as akin to the following one from Chisholm: “I shall say that when an agent, as distinguished from an event, causes an event or state of affairs, then we have an instance of immanent causation [i.e., agent causation].”28 In other words, we suggest that a spontaneous act is an experience in which the subject figures as the cause of the act. Accepting this idea, we could accommodate Reinach’s claim that a spontaneous act is punctual and that it has no duration. For it is compatible with, and even fitting to, the suggested interpretation to say that I experience myself as the cause of the spontaneous act at the moment of its occurrence. Note further that our interpretation also takes seriously the fact that at stake here is the phenomenal originator. Agent causation as involved in spontaneous acts is experiential; it is primarily about how a subject or ego figures (or experiences itself) in such an experience.29 Now, by offering further examples of spontaneous acts, Reinach makes yet another contrast:

(footnote continued) experiences, which fall under what he calls events (Ereignisse), could better be understood as “temporal quanta [Zeitquanta],” which do not have duration in so far as each of them does not exceed a single concrete now, but which nevertheless may be temporary extended. See Roman Ingarden, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt I (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1964), 193–198, esp. 194. English translation: Controversy over the Existence of the World I, trans. Arthur Szylewicz (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2013), 229–235, esp. 230–231. Further on Ingarden’s account of events, see Gregor Haefliger and Guido Küng, “Substance, States, Processes, Events. Ingarden and the Analytic Theory of Objects,” in Existence, Culture, and Persons. the Ontology of Roman Ingarden, ed. Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2005), 9–37, esp. 30–33. I thank an anonymous reviewer of this paper for raising the objection.

26 Another potential reason for calling the punctual experience “act [Akt]” is that it is necessarily actual [aktuell], that is, occurent. This makes the act different from a state, which may be inactual, that is, dispositional. 27 The notion of agent causation can be useful in understanding discussions of volition or agency from other early phenomenologists. For its application to Pfänder’s conception of deciding as a free act, see Uemura, “Alexander Pfänder’s Phenomenology of Motivation.” For Hans Reiner’s notion of egocentrality as a mark of volitional experience, see Christopher Erhard, “Unifying Agency. Reconsidering Hans Reiner’s Phenomenology of Activity,” in Husserl Studies 35/1 (2019), 1–25, esp. 18n39. 28 Roderick Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self.” The Lindley Lecture, the Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, 1964, 7. (Available online: https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/ 1808/12380; last accessed on 20 January 2020). 29 Note that the suggested interpretation remains neutral whether we should accept agent causation as a metaphysical notion. Indeed, Reinach might agree that human actions, which have non-phenomenal, physical features, are caused by their subjects or agents. The acceptance of this idea, however, is not necessary for our interpretation to hold. For, that a subject figures or presents itself as the cause of an experience does not imply that the subject really causes the experience. For this point, see Terence Horgan, John Tienson, and George J. Graham, “The Phenomenology of First-Person Agency,” Physicalism and Mental Causation: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action, ed. S. Walter and H.-D. Heckmann (Charlottesville [VA]: Imprint Academic, 2003), 329. See also Uemura, “Alexander Pfänder’s Phenomenology of Motivation.” I thank an anonymous reviewer of this paper for helping me with clarifying this point.

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We right away think of all kinds of examples of such acts: deciding, preferring, forgiving, praising, blaming, asserting, questioning, commanding, etc. In looking more closely at these cases, we right away notice an essential difference, and this is the difference which is important for us here.30 What is the difference between these kinds of spontaneous acts? His answer follows immediately: The act of deciding is an internal act. It can be performed without being announced or needing to be announced. Of course, the decision can express itself in facial expressions and gestures; I can express it, communicate it to others if I want. But this is not necessary for the act as such. It can unfold purely internally, and it can rest in itself and not receive an expression in any sense. One sees right away that it is otherwise with certain other spontaneous acts. Commanding or requesting, for instance, clearly cannot be performed purely internally.31 We have to bear in mind that Reinach is talking about types of experience in this passage. Some types of spontaneous acts, such as decisions, may have instances or tokens that involve their facial, behavioral, or verbal expressions. No such expressions, however, are necessary for the act “as such [als solchen].” In other words, those types of act can (and do) have instances or tokens that are neither expressed facially nor behaviorally or verbally. This idea, which may already be obvious, is further supported by the fact that I can and sometimes do decide something without expressing my decision at all. The situation is different, however, when it comes to certain other types of spontaneous acts. Any instance of commanding or requesting, for example, cannot be performed without expression. To have those acts, you must express them to someone.32 Having fixed the contrast among types of spontaneous acts, Reinach tries to pin down what lies behind it: Let us look more closely at one of these remarkable acts. Commanding is undoubtedly a spontaneous act in that it presents itself as the doing of a subject. But in distinction to other spontaneous acts such as turning one’s attention or making a resolution it presupposes in addition to the performing subject a second subject to whom the act of the first subject is related in a very definite way.33 Any particular act of commanding needs expression because such an act necessarily has to do with other subjects. This does not hold for turning attention toward and

30 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 158/18, our emphases. 31 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 158–159/18, translation modified. 32 To be more precise, this holds only for social acts turned to human subjects. According to Reinach, a social act turned to God, such as praying, needs no expression. See Reinach, Apriori Foundation, 161/20–21. In the present paper, we confine ourselves to social acts among humans. 33 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/18–19.

78 Genki Uemura deciding because they are not necessarily related to others. For Reinach, however, this is just a first approximation of the answer he wants to establish. For the relation between the two subjects remains unclear. It is at this point that Reinach’s phenomenology of social acts reaches its peak. He continues: There are experiences in which the performing subject and the subject to whom the act is related can be identical; there is a self-respect, a self-hatred, a self-love, etc. But for other experiences it is essential that the subject to whom they are directed be another person; we will call them other-personal experiences. I can for instance not envy myself, cannot forgive myself. It is clear that the act of commanding is to be characterized as other-personal. But this does not exhaust its distinctive character. We immediately notice that it differs in a crucial point from such other-directed acts as forgiving. It is not only related to another subject, it is also turned to the other.34 There are two different ways in which an experience necessarily has to do with others. Experiences of certain sorts, such as envy and forgiving, are necessarily related to others because they, unlike others such as respect, hatred, and love, cannot be self-reflexive. These experiences, all of which have other subjects as their object, are called other-personal (fremdpersonal). As we will see in the next section, Reinach conceives of this feature as a sort of intentionality. Now, it seems almost indisputable that commanding is also other-personal.35 It necessarily has a content of the form “S, do such and such thing” where S is not the commander. However, this experience is related to another subject in a different sense as well. To clarify this, Reinach resorts to a contrast again. If we compare commanding to forgiving, he holds, we find that only the former is turned to (sich wenden an) the other subject in a certain way. I can have an experience of forgiveness that is not turned to the one whom I forgive. For example, I may forgive friends of mine even if they are absent (for instance, even if I know that they have all passed away). In contrast, whenever I perform an act of commanding, it is turned to another subject. It is this feature that he calls elsewhere “turning [Wendung].”36 One may well wonder whether Reinach’s discussion so far is conclusive. He might have succeeded in pointing to the feature which is found in commanding but not in forgiving. However, the expressions he associates with this feature—“to be turned to [sich wenden an]” and “turning”—are too ambiguous to put an end to the discussion. Even Reinach himself uses their cognate Zuwendung (turning one’s attention) to talk about experiences that are certainly not turned to others in the relevant sense (see above). So, what exactly does it mean that commanding is turned to others in a way in which forgiving is not?

34 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/19. 35 One might object that I can command myself to do something when, for example, I stand in front of a mirror and say “You, do it!” This objection, however, would be plausible only if the objector explained why we should not understand this case as one of deciding instead of commanding. 36 See, for instance, the first quote in the Introduction and the next quote in this section.

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Reinach is not unaware of this problem. Applying the method of contrast once again, he attempts to clarify the relevant sense of turning: [1] Like making a resolution, the act of forgiving which is directed to another can unfold purely internally and can lack any manifestation to others. By contrast, commanding, in its turning to the other, is manifested, [2] it gets into the other, and has by its very nature a tendency to be heard by the other. We never give a command if we know for sure that the subject to whom we turn in commanding is incapable of becoming aware of it. [3] The command is according to its essence in need of being heard. [4] It can of course happen that commands are given without being heard. Then they fail to fulfill their purpose. They are like thrown spears that fall to the ground without hitting their target.37 [1] Commanding is different from forgiveness in that it necessarily involves an expression to another. This distinctive feature consists “in its turning to the other [in seiner Wendung an den Anderen].” In other words, the act of commanding necessarily involves an expression insofar as it is turned to the other. [2] The turning to the other, which Reinach thus identifies as a more fundamental feature of commanding, is connected with another feature of that act, namely the tendency to be heard.38 [3] This tendency, renamed as the need of being heard, also grounds the fact that commanding is necessarily expressed. [4] To avoid a potential misunderstanding, Reinach makes sure that his claim is not that commands are always heard by others in any possible situation. Sometimes a command fails to be heard, and yet this failure presupposes that the act has the property of being in need of being heard. Now, generalizing from the analysis of commanding, Reinach introduces the term which has been announced in the section title: We call the spontaneous acts that are in need of being heard social acts. We have already seen in the example of forgiving that not all other-personal acts are in need of being heard. We will later see that not all acts in need of being heard are other-directed. Our concept of social acts centers only on the need of being heard.39 What makes social acts social, he claims, is their need of being heard by others. It must be noted immediately that this feature of social acts is different from

37 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/19, translation modified, our numberings and emphases. It is noteworthy that Reinach does not use the method of contrast, on which he has heavily relied so far, when he characterizes the need of being heard. This makes a room for the claim that Reinach is here talking about a non-experiential feature of social acts. We will deal with this issue in the next section. 38 In the passage under discussion, Reinach also claims that commanding gets into the other. It is not clear whether the feature Reinach is talking about is conceived as peculiar only to commanding or as common to (all the) other social acts. Be that as it may, it does not seem to help much to focus on this issue. For, to the best of our knowledge, Reinach does not use the expression “to get into [eindringen in]” to characterize commanding or other social acts in any other of his writings. 39 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/19, translation modified.

80 Genki Uemura what he calls other-personality. They are mutually independent. The example of forgiving shows one-sided independence; forgiving is other-personal and yet not in need of being heard. As for the opposite independence, he claims that waiving a claim, which is in need of being heard by the other who holds the corresponding obligation, does not have this nor any other subject as its object; it is directed at the claim.40 In this way, Reinach identifies the need of being heard as a distinctive feature of social acts. Having followed Reinach’s argument closely, we are now in a better position to evaluate its phenomenological nature. In determining how social acts are characterized, he relies heavily on the method of contrasting experiences, which we have specified as a part of Reinach’s art in phenomenology. To show what spontaneity is, for instance, he asks us to compare the experience of making a resolution with those of regret, hatred, indignation, sadness, and so on. Only if we have become acquainted with those experiences can we see what Reinach wants to distinguish. In other words, if we have never regretted anything, for instance, his discussion of this experience would lose its plausibilty for us, to say the least.41 In the same vein, we can also confirm that Reinach adopts a phenomenological point of view when he distinguishes other-personality from turning to others. Commanding and waiving a claim share the same feature which we can roughly call “being related to others.” But we cannot conflate this feature with the one which is common to envy and forgiveness once we notice the difference between the two. This difference, however, becomes accessible to us only through considering how the examples he mentions—commanding, waiving a claim, envy, and forgiveness—are manifest in our experiential life. Those who have never envied anyone could not confirm Reinach’s claim that envy relates to others in a different way than commanding.

6.4 To-you-ness—the experiential mark of social acts Our reconstruction still leaves open whether the need of being heard, which Reinach takes to be the essence of social acts, is also an experiential feature. It is true that the turning to others is an experiential feature of social acts. It is also true that this feature is co-extensional with the need of being heard; if something

40 See Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 173/32. See also 173/33, where he makes essentially the same point about the retraction or revoking (Widerruf) of a promise. We will come back to this passage in the next section. 41 In light of this and our immediately preceding claim, one might have the impression that we are ignoring the role of imagination in Reinach’s discussion of phenomenology as a way of intuiting essence. In “Concerning Phenomenology,” he claims that “no perception is required in order to grasp essence” and that “pure imagination suffices” for such grasping (Reinach, “Concerning Phenomenology,” 543/157). According to him, in order to see how to intuit essences (or Washeiten) of red, yellow, and orange, to take his own examples here, we do not have to find out and see things that exemplify those colors, respectively; we can do it anytime and anywhere, just by imagining such things. Therefore, he would say that we can make sense of his phenomenological analyses of the aforementioned experiences only by imagining them. Such an idea of Reinach’s, however, does not seem to contradict the (very plausible) claim that we can imagine ourselves regretting, for instance, only if we have already regretted something. If so, even in interpreting Reinach, we can and have to say that the (non-imaginal) acquaintance with an experience is a precondition for intuiting the essence of that experience.

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has the former, it also has the latter and vice versa. From these established claims, however, we cannot conclude that they are one and the same experiential feature of social acts. Co-extentionality does not assure identity. In fact, we should accept that the need of being heard and the turning to others are not identical. For there is a function which we find only in the former. This feature makes it possible to explain what distinguishes successful cases of social acts from unsuccessful ones. For instance, an act of commanding which is heard by the relevant other(s) is successful, because it is in need of being heard by the other(s) and this need is satisfied. In other words, if the need is not satisfied, the act of commanding would be unsuccessful because of that. The turning to others, which does not admit of being fulfilled or unfulfilled in the first place, cannot have such a normative function. Now we have room for the claim that while the turning to others is an experiential feature of social acts, the need of being heard is not. We can argue for this claim in the following way. If a social act has actually been heard by the relevant other(s), its need of being heard has also been satisfied and thus disarmed, as it were. There is a sense in which it no longer needs to be heard. In this respect, successful social acts must be different from unsuccessful ones. Only the latter remain in need of being heard in a genuine, full-fledged sense. Such a difference, however, may not be noticed by the subjects of the social acts. According to Reinach, my experience of, say, promising some friends to visit them next month would remain the same whether or not my promise is heard by them.42 Therefore, the difference with regard to the need of being heard does not contribute to how the social acts present themselves in our experiential life. This implies that it is not an experiential feature in the first place. It is difficult, however, to find exegetically adequate grounds which allow us to say that Reinach considers the need of being heard to be a non-experiential feature of social acts. As far as we could see, there is no decisive textual evidence for or against such an interpretation. The argument we have just given, granted its plausibility, would not be of much help. Even if we have shown that Reinach should have regarded the need of being heard as a non-experiential feature of social acts, this is compatible with the exegetical claim that he actually thinks otherwise. It might be the case that Reinach had a wrong idea here. Setting this issue aside, we shall focus on another crucial feature of social acts, namely the turning to others. This feature, which Reinach obviously considers

42 For more on this issue, see Alessandro Salice and Genki Uemura, “Social Acts and Communities. Walther between Husserl and Reinach,” in Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion, ed. A. Calcagno (Cham: Springer, 2018), 27–46, esp. 31–32. One might object here that the need as such could still be an experiential feature—and it seems that it could be such a feature. Even though the fulfillment of the need is determined by external factors, does it not exclude the claim that the existence of such a need is phenomenally rooted? Here is our reply to this objection. It is likely that when I undergo an experience of promising, I feel a certain need for my promise to be fulfilled. Such a felt need, however, does not seem identical with what Reinach calls the need of being heard. According to him, a social act of promising, if it is heard by its addressee(s), that is, if its need of being heard is fulfilled, would generate a peculiar object which is temporal but neither physical nor mental: a contract (see Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 137–148/8–9, 169/28). It seems implausible that such a function of the social act is associated with the felt need, which must have its ratio essendi solely within the mind of the promisor. I thank an anonymous reviewer of this paper for the objection.

82 Genki Uemura experiential, would remain the same whether or not the relevant social act is heard. If my experience of promising, to continue with the above example, is heard by the friends of mine, this does not make any difference compared to unsuccessful acts of promising with regard to the way in which those social acts are turned to others. Thus, Reinach claims: If we put ourselves in the position of the promisor, we see that a genuine promise can be performed and expressed, yet without reaching [treffen] the subject to whom it is oriented.43 According to him, a social act that failed to be heard would remain a genuine social act as long as it is “oriented to [gerichtet auf]”, namely turned to its partner. Therefore, it seems plausible to say that the turning to others, rather than the need of being heard, is the mark of social acts on the experiential level.44 However, Reinach’s discussion so far has only offered a negative characterization: the turning to the other is not to be confused with other-personality. Is there any positive characterization for that feature? In the next section, we will argue that there is no such characterization. The turning to others is an undefinable, primitive experiential feature of social acts that can be elucidated only with reference to its difference from, namely its non-identity with, otherpersonality. Before closing this section, let us make a terminological stipulation: in what follows, we shall call, if necessary, the turning to others to-you-ness. This is primarily for ease of reference, but there is also a good reason to put it this way. To-you-ness is suitable for the feature in question of social acts because another subject to whom a social act is turned is also called a Gegenüber, namely a partner or a vis-à-vis.45

6.5 To-you-ness as a primitive experiential feature of social acts There is some textual evidence from Reinach which suggests that to-you-ness is best understood as an undefinable, irreducible, primitive feature of social acts. First, in the Apriori Foundations, he uses phrases such as “turning to [Wendung an]” or “to be turned to [sich wenden an]” to describe social acts, but he does not explain any further what they are exactly supposed to mean. To get a better grip on to-you-ness, therefore, we can only look closer at his examples and try to see in them what he is pointing to with those phrases.

43 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 169/28, translation modified, our emphases. 44 Note that our argument so far, if it is successful, has shown that the difference between the need of being heard and the turning to others could not be shown. For, if the former is not an experiential feature of social acts, its difference from the latter cannot be experiential. To put it differently, if Reinach attempts to distinguish the two features on the phenomenal or experiential level, we would have to say that he does it in vain. I thank an anonymous reviewer of this paper for raising a question concerning this point. 45 See Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 161/21. Our terminological stipulation is supported further by the fact that Reinach more often uses the term addressees to denote partners of social acts.

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Second, in a manuscript from 1911, he rejects a proposal many people might come up with when asked to give an account of to-you-ness: [Social acts have] a social moment, orientation toward [an]other subject. This orientation is not intentionality with regard to [the] subject. [By] this, [those acts] are distinguished from hate, jealousy, and so on.46 Even though it can be called “orientation toward [Richtung auf]” others, to-you-ness is not a sort of intentionality. Reinach thus rejects most probably the best and most obvious candidate for explaining to-you-ness. Therefore, it seems that Reinach conceives to-you-ness as irreducible to anything else. Third, if we take into consideration the above passage from 1911, the following one in his 1913 masterpiece would also allow the same line of interpretation: Revoking [of a promise] is a social act, but one which, like waiving [of a claim], lacks the moment of other-personality. Its intentional correlate is the promise, its addressee is the promisee.47 The social act of revoking the promise has two different directions: the one toward the promise to be revoked; the other toward the addressee, namely the one with whom the subject has made a promise and to whom the act of revoking is now turned. Of those two directions, Reinach uses “intentional correlate” only in talking about the former. This seems to imply that the direction to the addressee, which we call to-you-ness, is something other than intentionality. However, those pieces of textual evidence, which jointly support our interpretation to some extent, are not conclusive. The first one is compatible with, if not well adapted to, the idea that to-you-ness is definable for Reinach; it might be the case he just does not define it explicitly for some reason. As for the second one, we might have to question its importance because it stems from a manuscript of Reinach’s written in 1911, which might well contain immature ideas harbored prior to his publishing of the Apriori Foundations. The third one is not strong enough, because it

46 Reinach, “Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte,” in his Sämtliche Werke, 356, our emphases. It remains a mystery why Reinach denies that the orientation at stake here, namely to-you-ness, is a sort of intentionality. Possibly, his main reason is that to-you-ness does not admit of the content/mode/object distinction, which Husserl had already made (in a different terminology) for any intentional experience in the Logical Investigations when Reinach writes the manuscript in question. If this is true, Reinach would agree with our argument against the Double Intentionality View in Section 5.2. Such an interpretation is attractive, but, unfortunately, we do not seem to have enough textual evidence for it. What is remarkable at this juncture is that Reinach leaves no detailed account of intentionality in the texts collected in his Sämtliche Werke. Given the widely spread view that intentionality is a central problem of phenomenology, it might be tempting to question to what extent Reinach is a phenomenologist. At the same time, however, our discussion in Section 3, we hope, suggests thinking otherwise. Since Reinach makes fine phenomenological distinctions among experiences without saying much on intentionality, why should not we take this as a challenge to the assumption that every phenomenologist should deal with intentionality in detail? I thank anonymous reviewers of this paper for their relevant comments. 47 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 174/33, translation modified.

84 Genki Uemura is also compatible with, if not well adapted to, the claim that the social act has the promisee as its addressee by virtue of a certain sort of intentionality. In order to provide more support for our interpretation of to-you-ness, we will now argue against two rival accounts, both of which explain to-you-ness in terms of intentionality. If it turns out that they are not plausible, we will have further supported our claim of the irreducibility of to-you-ness. In this way, we could base our interpretation—let us call it Primitivism—more safely on the above-mentioned textual evidence. 6.5.1 Against the Second-Order Intention View According to the first rival account, to-you-ness is explained in terms of secondorder intentions involved in social acts. This interpretation, which we call the Second-Order Intention View, is suggested by Mulligan in passing: “To say that an act is addressed [i.e., turned] must, I think, mean that it involves a second order intention. I want my promise or enacting to be grasped.”48 The idea is that to-youness, namely a social act’s being turned to another, is grounded in the act’s involving a certain second-order intention. Since an intention (in the sense of Absicht) is about something intended, the Second-Order Intention View takes to-you-ness to be a certain sort of intentionality: a social act intentionally refers to its partner because it involves the second-order intention to let the social act be grasped or heard by that partner. To assess the Second-Order Intention View, we have to disambiguate what it means for a social act to involve a second-order intention. On one reading, such involvement means that the social act has the second-order intention as one of its constituents. There is another, weaker reading of the involvement in question. Accordingly, the social act has the second-order intention as something it entails, but the latter need not be a constituent of the former. Now, the Second-Order Intention View would be implausible if it rested on the claim that social acts involve a second-order intention in the first sense. For, at least if we follow Reinach, an intention could not be a constituent of a social act. As we have seen in the first section, he conceives social acts as punctual. They always take place at certain moments of time. By contrast, he would say, intentions are certain states which necessarily have duration. They always occur during certain periods of time. But how can something essential durational be a constituent of something punctual? One might object that second-order intentions conceived as constituents of social acts are extremely shortlived states that occupy only momentary periods of time. This objection, however, does not work. No matter how short-lived they are, they must have a certain duration. This means that they cannot be punctual, which contradicts the highly plausible assumption that any constituent of a punctual act must also be punctual.49

48 Mulligan, “Promising and Other Social Acts,” 43. 49 One might object that the constituents of a social act include the formation of the relevant second-order intention, which is punctual because it takes place at a certain moment of time. It seems difficult, however, to give phenomenological support to this claim. Is there any good reason to say that we more or less consciously form such an intention whenever we perform a social act? Unless an answer is given to this question, we can safely ignore the suggested option.

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What if the Second-Order Intention View holds that social acts involve secondorder intentions in the second sense? In this case, we could certainly avoid the consequence we have just talked about. It would suffice to say that a social act entails a certain second-order intention that has been formed when the subject performs the social act. This seems plausible enough. We have nothing to say against it. In the present context, however, it would cause another problem. According to this view, the second-order intention, which is in a way directed to the other, is not a constituent of the social act. If so, why does the second-order intention ascertain that the social act is intentionally directed to its partner? Without answering this question, the Second-Order Intention View stops short of its aim. Being experiential, to-youness must be an occurrent feature of the social act. This means that to-you-ness could be explained away only in terms of something which is included in the social act. Therefore, to-you-ness could not be fully explained in terms of the intentional reference of the second-order intention, which is not a constituent of the social act. To deal with this problem, proponents of the Second-Order Intention View could resort to the idea that the social act inherits the intentionality of the second-order intention. This would make this view a variant of the second rival account, which we examine in the next section. 6.5.2 Against the Double Intentionality View The second rival account takes it that social acts are intentionally directed to two different objects. We call this account the Double Intentionality View, following De Vecchi who is its main proponent: Social intentionality is a double-directed intentionality towards both other subjects and a common targeted object. Social intentionality is addressed [i.e., turned] to other subjects for a common object. The intentionality of the agent’s act is directed both towards another subject, the addressee of the act, and towards the object of the act. The intentionality directed towards the addressee is a medium of the intentionality directed towards the object: I command you to do x; you are the medium through whom x is done, and x is the aim of the act. Through the other subject—you, the addressee of the act—, social intentionality aims at the commanded (requested, promised, etc.) thing.50 Put in our terminology, the idea is that the to-you-ness of social acts is an intentional reference to the others as media, through which the subjects of those acts attempt to realize the relevant aims. Including a special sort of intentionality within social acts, the Double Intentionality View avoids the difficulty which the first version of SecondOrder Intention View faces. An important consequence of the Double Intentionality View is that it must introduce the distinction between content and mode for the intentional reference

50 Francesca De Vecchi, “Three Types of Heterotropic Intentionality. A Taxonomy in Social Ontology,” in Institutions, Emotions, and Group Agents, A. Konzelmann Ziv & H.B. Schmid eds. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), 117–137, here 126–127, our emphases.

86 Genki Uemura to the partners of social acts. According to Reinach, to-you-ness is different from other-personality. Social acts are not related to their partners in the same way in which envy or forgiveness are related to others. To accommodate this idea, it is not sufficient to hold that to-you-ness is an intentional reference to others as media (through which the subject achieves some aim). This is because such an intentional reference can also be found in an experience of, say, thinking about or disliking others as media, which certainly lacks to-you-ness. This shows that there is more than one kind of intentional experience with the content of the form x-asmedium/media.51 To explain to-you-ness in terms of intentionality, the Double Intentionality View has to claim that social acts involve intentional references with a peculiar mode and that this mode—let’s call it the to-you mode—is different from that of any other intentional experience with the content of the form x-as-medium/media. However, there are two important objections against the Double-Intentionality View. First, admitting that to-you-ness is an intentional reference with a certain content faces difficulties. It makes it challenging to accommodate the following Reinachian claim which sounds highly plausible: By essential laws, every social act has a foundation in a certain sort of inner experience, whose intentional content is identical with that of the social act or is at least somehow related to it.52 To borrow some of his own examples, a social act of communicating that p presupposes the belief or conviction (Überzeugung) that p; likewise, a social act of questioning whether p presupposes the uncertainty (Ungewißheit) that p, and so on. If one performs a social act without such an underlying experience, that would be a “mock-performance” (Scheinvollzug) of the social act.53 In other words, every genuine performance of a social act is founded upon an intentional experience with a content that is identical or somehow related to that of the social act. Can’t this principle be applied to the to-you mode of intentional reference involved in social acts? If so, how? To deal with this problem, proponents of the Double-Intentionality View could borrow the idea which we have suggested for the Second-Order Intention View: the to-you-ness of a social act is the intentional reference inherited from the relevant second-order intention. In this way, their view would at least be consistent with the aforementioned principle. Accordingly, the genuine performance of a social act would entail two experiences, one of which has a content that is identical or somehow related to that of the intentional reference to the object of the social act, and the other of which has a content that is identical or somehow related to that of the intentional reference to the partner(s) of the social act. In the present paper, we

51 At this point we simply assume that there are non-propositional or nominal forms of intentionality. For this idea, see, for instance, Alex Grzankowski, “Non-Propositional Attitudes,” Philosophy Compass 8/12 (2013), 1123–1137. 52 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 162/22, translation modified. 53 For more on this, see also Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 162/22.

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shall not deal with this option any further since, as we will show in a moment, any attempt to identify to-you-ness with a sort of intentional reference would face another difficulty. To raise the second objection against the Double-Intentionality View, we have to start with a clarification of how we can justify the introduction of the to-you mode of intentionality on a phenomenological basis. To do this, it helps to reconsider briefly Husserl’s distinction between contents and modes of intentionality in §20 of the Fifth Logical Investigation,54 which he calls act-matters and act-qualities, respectively. On the one hand, he claims, asserting that 2 ∗ 2 = 4 and asserting that Ibsen is the principal founder of modern dramatic realism have something in common, by virtue of which both are acts of asserting. It is this moment of experiences that he calls act-quality. On the other hand, he points out that experiences can also have something else in common, as shown in the following: asserting that there are intelligent beings on Mars; asking whether there are intelligent beings on Mars; wishing that there are intelligent beings on Mars. This second common moment of these experiences, which makes those experiences intentionally directed towards the same state of affairs (in different ways, indeed), is called act-matter. In this way, Husserl’s distinction between content and mode, to put it in contemporary terminology, is supported by examples which illustrate that distinction. Otherwise, his claim would not be grounded in our conscious lives. Similarly, the introduction of a new mode of intentionality would also need illustrating examples. It seems difficult, however, to give an illustrating example for the to-you mode. Compare the following pair of experiences: My act of communicating to my neighbors that I will leave for vacation next week. My act of communicating to my colleagues that I will leave for vacation next week. According to the Double-Intentionality View, these two social acts must be different in their contents, because they are turned to different groups of people. Is this claim clarified by the example? It does not seem so. In performing these social acts, I convey the same information (namely, the same content) to the different groups of people. Or compare the following pair: My act of communicating to my colleagues that I will leave for vacation next week. My act of thinking about my colleagues as media (through which I make something happen in the world). Proponents of the Double-Intentionality View would have to claim that a certain part

54 See Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. U. Panzer, Husserliana XIX/1 (The Hague/Boston/ Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), 425–426; English translation: Logical Investigations, vol. 2, new edition, tr. J. N. Findley, ed. D. Moran (London/New York: Routledge, 2001), 119–120.

88 Genki Uemura or moment of the former act shares one and the same content with the latter one and yet that they are different with regard to their modes. Is such an idea grounded in the example? It does not seem so. Therefore, and in sharp contrast to Husserl’s distinction, it seems fair to say that the Double-Intentionality View does not stand on firm phenomenological grounds.

6.6 Conclusion As we have shown in the last section, the two rival accounts of to-you-ness are not as convincing as they appeared to be at first sight. Thus, we are now able to follow the suggestion from Reinach’s texts and hold Primitivism to be the correct view: toyou-ness is a primitive feature of social acts. This is the best available option at least as far as exegetical issues are concerned. The ideas to which the two rivals lead are both too far from what Reinach explicitly holds. We should not ascribe them to him. Systematically considered, Primitivism is probably the best available option as well. We hope to have shown that the two rival accounts are difficult to defend because they have problematic consequences. It may indeed seem premature to take something like an experiential feature as primitive from the outset of one’s analysis. However, given the critical discussions in the last section, however, we are now in a better position to uphold such a view. Of course, this is not the true end of the story. One may argue against Primitivism in favor of (one of) the two rivals or yet another alternative. Until such an objection is raised, however, it seems reasonable to believe that our position is correct. In closing, let us briefly recap our discussions. In the present paper, we have argued in support of the following claims: In the Apriori Foundations, Reinach provides a detailed phenomenological analysis of social acts, which makes heavy use of the method of contrast (Sections 1–3). Such an analysis shows that social acts have a feature that we call to-you-ness as its experiential mark (Section 4). To-you-ness is best understood as a primitive experiential feature of social acts (Section 5).55

References Adolf Reinach, “Zur Theorie des negativen Urteils”, in his Sämtliche Werke, 95–140. English translation: “On the Theory of Negative Judgment”, trans. Barry Smith, in Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology, ed. Barry Smith (München/Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 315–377. Adolf Reinach, Die apriorische Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, in his Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, 2 vols. (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 141–278. English translation: The Apriori Foundation of the Civil Law, trans. John F. Crosby, (Frankfurt/Paris/Lancaster/New Brunswick: Ontos Verlag, 2012), 1–142.

55 Earlier versions of this paper were present at Munich and Hiroshima under the title “What Does It Mean that Social Acts are Adressed to Others?” I’m grateful for the feedback from from those in attendance, in particular: Francesca De Vecchi, Richard Diez, Simon Høffding, Walter Hopp, Kengo Miyazono, Kevin Mulligan, Søren Overgaard, Alessandro Salice, and Mark Textor. I also thank two anonymous reviewers of this article and the guest editors of this issue—Basil Vassilicos and Christopher Erhard—for their comments and suggestions. The author’s research is supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI, Project No. 18K12186 & 20H01177).

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Adolf Reinach, “Über Phänomenologie,” in his Sämtliche Werke, 531–550. English translation: “Concerning Phenomenology” in his The Apriori Foundation of the Civil Law, 143–165. Adolf Reinach, “Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte,” in his Sämtliche Werke, 355–363. Alessandro Salice and Genki Uemura, “Social Acts and Communities. Walther between Husserl and Reinach”, in Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion, ed. A. Calcagno (Cham: Springer, 2018), 27–46. Alex Grzankowski, “Non-Propositional Attitudes”, Philosophy Compass 8/12 (2013), 1123–1137. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. U. Panzer, Husserliana XIX/1 (The Hague/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), 425–426. English translation: Logical Investigations, vol. 2, new edition, tr. J. N. Findley, ed. D. Moran (London/New York: Routledge, 2001), 119–120 Francesca De Vecchi, “Three Types of Heterotropic Intentionality. A Taxonomy in Social Ontology”, in Institutions, Emotions, and Group Agents, A. Konzelmann Ziv & H.B. Schmid, eds. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), 117–137. Genki Uemura, “Alexander Pfänder on the Phenomenology of Motivation” Genki Uemura “Alexander Pfänder’s Phenomenology of Motivation,” in The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Agency, ed. C. Erhard and T. Keiling (London: Routledge, 2020), 29–40. Genki Uemura, “Husserl on the Unity of Expressing,” in Ontology and Phenomenology, ed. M. Okada (Tokyo: Keio University Open Research Centre for Logic and Formal Ontology, 2009), 111–120. Gregor Haefliger and Guido Küng, “Substance, States, Processes, Events. Ingarden and the Analytic Theory of Objects”, in Existence, Culture, and Persons. the Ontology of Roman Ingarden, ed. Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2005), 9–37. Guillaume Fréchette, “Searching for the Self: Early Phenomenological Accounts of SelfConsciousness from Lotze to Scheler,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21:5 (2013), 654–679. James M. Dubois, Judgment and Sachverhalt. An Introduction to Adolf Reinach’s Phenomenological Realism (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994). Kevin Mulligan, “Promising and Other Social Acts,” in Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, ed.K. Mulligan (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1989), 29–90 Moritz Geiger, “Beiträge zur Phänomenologie des ästhetischen Genusses”, Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung 1 (1913), 567–684. Roderick Chisholm, “Human Freedom and the Self.” The Lindley Lecture, the Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, 1964, 7. (Available online: https://kuscholarworks.ku. edu/handle/1808/12380; last accessed on 20 January 2020). Roman Ingarden, Der Streit um die Existenz der Welt I (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1964). English translation: Controversy over the Existence of the World I, trans. Arthur Szylewicz (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2013). Terence Horgan, John Tienson, & George J. Graham, “The Phenomenology of First-Person Agency,” Physicalism and Mental Causation: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action, ed. S. Walter and H.-D. Heckmann (Charlottesville [VA]: Imprint Academic, 2003), 323–340.

7

On the essence and sources of obligation: a critique of Reinach’s and Gilbert’s accounts of promises Karl Mertens

Abstract: Promising seems to be a particularly appropriate paradigm in the philosophical discussion of the essence and sources of obligations and claims. This can be seen as the leading idea of Adolf Reinach’s analysis of promises in The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law published in 1913. However, though Reinach develops important insights into the structure of commitment in his analysis of the promise, the strong ontological presuppositions of his account are problematic. An alternative analysis of promising can be found in Margaret Gilbert, who seeks the source of obligations and claims connected with promises in the joint commitment of promisor and promisee. Nevertheless, also her attempt to highlight the source of obligations and claims by going back to the interpersonal act between promisor and promisee fails due to an insufficient concept of the social background of obligation. The chapter concludes with a brief outline of an alternative concept that makes understandable how promises can be understood as paradigmatic cases of obligations and claims. Keywords: Reinach; Gilbert; promise; social act; obligation; claim; joint commitment; social background Since ancient times, promises have been the subject of philosophical investigations, even though they have hardly become an exclusive subject of major philosophical works. Their special appeal lies in their exemplary significance. Promises remarkably exemplify the nature of social, legal, or moral commitments.1 Moreover, promises are also exemplary for obligations in general: promising displays the essence of obligation and commitment in a remarkable way insofar as it represents a paradigm of how obligation arises. Therefore, if we are to understand the power of interpersonal duty and liability, we should study promises. This can be seen as the leading idea of both Adolf Reinach’s analysis of promises in The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law published in 1913 and Margaret Gilbert’s reflections on promises published some 100 years later. In different respects, both authors offer important insights into the structure of commitment in their analysis of the promise. Nevertheless, if we are interested in understanding the emergence of the obligational meaning of promises, both Reinach’s and Gilbert’s investigations turn out to be incomplete, albeit in different respects. What both authors have in common, however, is that they underestimate the importance of the shared background of social

1 Cf. Allen Habib, ”Promises,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/promises/, introd.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-8

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practices that cannot be restricted to the interaction between promisor and promisee. Only by including this social presupposition, it is possible to understand the normative dimension of promises. Against this background, I would like to sketch an alternative approach that makes understandable how promises can be understood as paradigmatic cases of obligations. I will present my considerations in three sections. Section 1 assesses the main points of Reinach’s analysis of promises as a – or even the – source of obligations and claims. As an alternative to possible problems of Reinach’s strong ontological presuppositions, section 2 turns to the different methodological account of Gilbert, who seeks the source of obligations connected with promises in the joint commitment of promisor and promisee. Finally, section 3 critically discusses Gilbert’s enterprise arguing that her attempt to highlight the source of obligations and claims by going back to the interpersonal act between promisor and promisee fails due to an insufficient concept of the social background of obligation. After the critical discussion of what I consider to be the problems in Reinach’s and Gilbert’s analyses of promising, I will conclude with a brief outline of an alternative concept.

7.1 Reinach’s analysis of promises in “The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law” Some forty years before John L. Austin developed his famous theory of performative utterances, Reinach analyzes the essential characteristics of promises in his theory of social acts. Notably, in §§ 3 and 4 of his book The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law, Reinach examines promises with regard to their exemplary meaning for the general structure of obligatory commitments. Reinach’s core idea is that promises are social acts from which obligation and claim are generated.2 As Reinach states: “we have found in promising an act all its own [einen Akt eigener Art], and we claim that it lies in the essence of this act to bring forth claims and obligations.”3 In order to understand this claim, we first have to sketch the essential structures of promises according to Reinach’s analysis, which entail behavioral, specifically intentional, and obligatory aspects.4 In a strong formulation, we can understand these aspects as necessary and irreducible conditions of promises as social acts. These three conditions are: a b

Promises include behavior manifested in the public sphere. Promises are connected with the individual agents’ specific intentions.

2 Cf. Sophie Loidolt, Einführung in die Rechtsphänomenologie. Eine historisch-systematische Darstellung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 81. 3 Adolf Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913), in Adolf Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, vol. 1 (München/Hamden/Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 141–278, 166 f.; Engl. Translation: The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law. Along with the lecture, “Concerning Phenomenology” (Realistische Phänomenologie/Realist Phenomenology VIII), ed. John F. Crosby. With a Foreword by Alasdair MacIntyre (Frankfurt/Paris/Lancaster/New Brunswick: ontos verlag, 2012), 26. Henceforth cited as Reinach, Apriori Foundations with German and English page references, respectively. 4 A more thorough and detailed analysis of the essential features of promises can be found in Kevin Mulligan, “Promisings and other Social Acts: Their Constituents and Structure,” in Kevin Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Dordrecht/ Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 29–90, 35ff.

92 Karl Mertens c

Promises create an obligation including rules determining social expectations and claims.

a. Social acts needneed a public manifestation because they should be perceived by others. A promise, for instance, that is not publicly uttered cannot reach its aim. Therefore, a social act requires overt and public behavior.5 b. However, the public manifestation is more than a mere behavioral condition guaranteeing the possibility of social perceptibility. What must be added is the aspect of inner experience of both the promisor and the promisee. This becomes clear, insofar as, according to Reinach, promises have to be understood as utterances [Äußerungen] which “can be expressed in mien, gestures, words.”6 In addition, from the point of view of the addressee, social acts are “in need of being heard [vernehmungsbedürftig].”7 Characterizing the social act of promising as an utterance and by the need of being heard [Vernehmungsbedürftigkeit] is essentially related to the inner experience of the promisor and the promisee. However, this experience cannot be a pure inner act; rather, this experience essentially shows itself in behavior.8 More precisely, it requires that the involved persons grasp the meaning of the social act. This condition must be understood in a twofold way. On the one hand, it means that the socially acting person performs a social act as “an independent spontaneous act which in turning without, expresses itself” and which is based on “an act of intending.”9 This means that the act is intentional in a narrow sense, it is voluntary and in many cases even deliberately executed. It is neither a mere involuntary expression of an inner feeling which appears in bodily behavior like blushing for shame;10 nor is it an involuntary behavior responding to environmental or situational affordances. Therefore, a condition of a social act like a promise is that the person who gives the promise knows what it means to promise something to someone.11 On the other hand, social acts, which essentially are intended to be understood by others, imply that the addressees grasp their

5 “The function of the social acts whereby they make themselves known could not fulfil itself among us men if the acts were not in some way expressed externally. The social acts, like any acts of other persons, can only be grasped through some physical medium; they need an external side if they are to be heard. Experiences which need not turn without, can unfold without being in any way externally expressed” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160/20). 6 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160/20. 7 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/19. Reinach emphatically underlines the central importance of this aspect for every social act by saying: “The turning to another subject and the need of being heard is absolutely essential for every social act” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160 f./20). 8 Cf. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160/20: “the inner experience here is not possible without the utterance. And the utterance for its part is not some optional thing which is added from without, but is in the service of the social act, and is necessary if the act is to address the other.” 9 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 166/26. 10 Cf. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160/20. 11 As Reinach states: “As a matter of apriori necessity every social act presupposes as its foundation some internally complete experience whose intentional object coincides with the intentional object of the social act or is at least somehow related to it.” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 162/22) “Like all social acts, promising presupposes an inner experience which has the content of the promise as its intentional object. … Every promising to do this or that, presupposes that one’s will is directed to this action” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 166/25 f.).

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meaning as spontaneous and voluntary acts of others, too. For instance, merely hearing a promise does not work; rather, the promise must be understood as a promise. As Reinach points out: It is … not enough that the promisee perceive[s] the external signs, for instance hear[s] the words, without understanding them. He must grasp through them that which is expressed in them, he must take cognizance of the act of promising itself, he must, as we would put it somewhat more exactly, consciously take in the promising [des Versprechens innewerden].12 In usual cases, this understanding corresponds to the understanding of the spontaneous intentions of the person who gives the promise. To summarize a first result: According to Reinach, social acts as acts which are “in need of being heard [vernehmungsbedürftig]” presuppose an interrelation between the outer and the inner condition of an act that must be essentially uttered and addressed to someone.13 Therefore, the behavioral and the specific intentional aspects are inseparably entangled in the social act of promising (and in social acts in general). Or, as Reinach states: “the social acts have an inner and an outer side, as it were a soul and a body.”14 As a consequence, every isolation of the inner and the outer aspect is misleading. Nevertheless, for analytical purposes, we can abstractly distinguish the behavioral and the specific intentional aspects of social acts. c. This mutual interplay between overt behavior and specific intentions is the presupposition for the emergence of the obligatory power of a promise. To be more precise, the previous discussion leads to the insight that obligations and claims

12 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 169/28. 13 Obviously, Reinach’s understanding of a social act is more specific than Max Weber’s famous definition of social actions in the beginning of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economy and Society). Here Weber gives the following definition: “‘Social’ acting… is to be called such acting, which in the sense meant by the agent or the agents is related to the behavior of others and is oriented towards it in its course. / ‘Soziales’ Handeln… soll ein solches Handeln heißen, welches in seinem von dem oder den Handelnden gemeinten Sinn nach auf das Verhalten anderer bezogen wird und daran in seinem Ablauf orientiert ist.” (Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie, 5., rev. Aufl., besorgt v. Johannes Winckelmann (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1972), 1 (my transl.). While, according to Weber, social acts must not necessarily include the need of being heard, Reinach understands social acts as social acts essentially as utterances. Therefore, in the view of Weber a person who unnoticedly tracks another person acts socially while in Reinach’s view this person does not perform a social act. Therefore, Reinach explicitly distinguishes between “other-directed [fremdpersonalen] acts” and “acts in need of being heard [vernehmungsbedüprftigen]” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/19); both distinctions don’t include one another. “We have already seen in the example of forgiving that not all other-directed acts are in need of being heard. We will later see that not all acts in need of being heard are other-directed. Our concept of social acts centers only on the need of being heard.” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 159/19) In the context of Reinach’s considerations the separation of social acts from the characteristic of other-directedness is in regard to the juridical concept of enactments [Bestimmungen] in the positive law which counts as a social act which is not other-directed (cf. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 238ff./102ff.). However, as Loidolt proposes, this distinction is owed to a very narrow concept of other-directedness and could be replaced by a broader concept of intersubjectivity. If this happens, every social act, including particular juridical concepts like enactments, is intersubjectively in a broad sense (Loidolt, Einführung, 85 f.). 14 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 160/20.

94 Karl Mertens are exclusively rooted in this interplay. Reinach states: “With the apprehending of the promise there arise—strictly simultaneously—claim and obligation.”15 This “obligatory relationship [obligatorische Beziehung],”16 that is to say, the structure of relational obligations and claims between the person who utters the promise and the person who hears and understands this utterance, emerges only by virtue of the promising act. This is the reason why Reinach’s analysis of promise does not pursue the goal of merely illustrating how social acts gain obligatory power; on the contrary, promises are in itself the—or at least an important—birthplace of claims and obligations.17 There is no need to go back to a background of obligations that originate from outside the social act of promising itself justifying the obligatory relationship of a promise. If A has promised B to do x and B understands the promise of A, then, exclusively from this social act, A, the promisor, is obliged to do x and entitles B, the promisee, to expect that the promised action will happen.18 If not, B is justified in sanctioning A who has not fulfilled the promise. How does this obligatory relationship come about? Reinach argues from an ontological point of view. The overall aim of his 1913 investigation is to show that the structures [Gebilde] which one has generally called specifically legal [spezifisch rechtlich] have a being of their own just as much as numbers, trees, or houses, that this being is independent of its being grasped by men, that it is in particular independent of all positive law.19 According to Reinach, these structures are strictly a priori. And this a priori is primary over all questions of its givenness and knowability.20 Against the background of this general program, this means for the analysis of the promise that the implications of obligations and claims in promising are to be understood as grounded in the ontological structure of promises. The obligation and the claim connected with a promise arise by merely uttering and understanding the promise. It is solely this interplay of behavioral and internal aspects in the act of promising which creates the obligatory nature of a promise. No more is required. Therefore, every characterization of promises can be derived from the sketched ontological structure of a promise as, for instance, “that certain immediately intelligible laws hold for them” like “a claim to have something done dissolves as soon as the thing is done.”21 “Through the act of promising something new enters the world.”22

15 16 17 18 19 20

Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 172/31. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 172/32. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 166 f./26, cited above. Cf. Loidolt, Einführung, 81; cf. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 172 f./31 f. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 143/4. Cf. Adolf Reinach, Über Phänomenologie (1914), in Adolf Reinach. Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, vol. 1 (München/Hamden/Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 531–550, here 545. 21 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 148/9. More precisely, Reinach discusses different ways of the promise’s “inherent tendency towards meeting an end and a dissolution” by performing, waiving or even revoking (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 147 f./8). 22 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 148/8 f.

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This is the reason why performing a promise does not need more than the act of promising and the understanding of a promisee. This becomes particularly evident if we take into account a further peculiarity of promises Reinach points out: in order to be valid, a promise does not require an additional interaction between promisor and promisee. Particularly, the obligatory meaning of a promise does not depend on the promisee’s acceptance [Annahme]; it is not decisive for a promise’s efficacy. In the result, the acceptance is only a confirmation of the promise.23 Of course, an addressee may refute the promise by explicitly saying that she or he does not want that the other gives that promise. But in this case, we have a specific social act of refutation which makes clear that usually promises work even without an explicit acceptance. Obviously, there is an asymmetry between promising and refuting the promised content. The fact that we have explicitly to declare the refutation or—as Reinach discusses—waiving [Verzicht]24 just confirms the efficacy of the given promise.

7.2 A look at Margaret Gilbert’s analysis of promises How do obligations and claims arise from a promise? Reinach’s answer is as straightforward as unsatisfactory. On his ontological account, the obligatory power of promises is introduced as something beyond which it is not possible to go, but which, in turn, must be understood as the basis of the justification of every legal claim. Therefore, the recourse to a priori structures means a clear cut for further questioning. Only the promisor’s linguistic utterance, understandable for an addressee, is the source from which obligations and claims arise. In contrast, the social dynamic of a particular interaction between promisor and promisee is not constitutive for the emergence of the obligatory relationship between the persons involved in a promise.25 In order to spell out an alternative account, we should consider two connected heuristic strategies. First, we should try to analyze different layers in the relationship between the persons who become involved in a promise. By doing this, we avoid considering obligation—that is, the requirement that promises must be kept and if they are not, a justification is needed—merely as part of the determination of a promise, be it for conceptual or ontological reasons. In this case, the obligations and claims deriving from a promise would be merely assumed. In contrast, it seems fruitful to draw a difference between pre-obligatory levels on which the validity of the promise is based but which are not already obligating and seeking out levels in the interaction that are decisive for the obligatory meaning of a promise. In this way, one focuses on the question of the emergence of the obligation to keep a

23 Cf. Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 169ff./28ff. 24 Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 173ff./32ff. 25 Cf. Loidolt who defends a reading of Reinach which does not share the ontological framework of his account stating that Reinach’s “a priori rigorism … is not absolutely necessary for a fruitful reading of his text” (Loidolt, Einführung, 83, my transl.). Thus, even with an interest that deviates from Reinach᾿s ontological attitude, many aspects of his analysis of the structure of promising like, for instance, the interdependence between inner and outer conditions, is likely to remain valid. In what follows, however, an attempt will be made to focus on the social conditions of the promise in a different way than Reinach.

96 Karl Mertens promise. Second, particularly if we take a phenomenological standpoint, we should critically reflect a certain one-sidedness of the usual delineation of a promise which can also be observed in Reinach’s considerations. What is meant is the understanding of the obligatory meaning of a promise merely developed from the promisor’s point of view, that is, from his or her utterance. The corresponding role of the addressee is derived from it, particularly the promisee’s claim. In contrast, focusing on the role of the promisee means considering on the often-neglected reciprocity in the interpersonal relation of a promise. It might be expected that analyzing the relationship between promisor and promisee in both directions could shed light on the sources of the obligatory power effective in acts of promising: promisors oblige themselves in front of promisees to do something that they are in the condition to do; and promisees, if they don’t reject the promise, engage in the promise, too. In doing this, promisees are entitled to require that promisors keep the promise. If this doesn’t happen, promisees are justified to sanction the promisor by complaining, showing disappointment and disapproval, cutting further cooperation, and so on. However, promises also produce obligations for addressees, binding their future actions.26 They have to expect the fulfillment of the promise— and if not, they should react, first perhaps by reminding the promisors, then possibly by insistently requiring that the promise is kept and, if this is not successful, by sanctioning the promisors or rethinking the social relation to them. Furthermore, addressees should do their part in order for the promise to be kept. If a friend of mine promised me to help with a move and we agreed on where and when to meet up, then I should be at that place on the agreed time. Otherwise, the promisor would have good reasons to be angry and reproach me. In this respect, Reinach’s analysis is not convincing since he explicitly rejects that a promise establishes an obligation for the addressee.27 A promise can have obligatory meanings in both, the promisor’s and the promisee’s, directions. An interactive account of how promises generate claims and obligations can be found in Gilbert’s work. Gilbert’s core idea is that the source of obligation is the joint commitment of promisor and promisee.28 We can understand Gilbert’s analysis as an attempt to consider both strategies sketched earlier. On the one hand, Gilbert is going back to a level of interpersonal action, within which first of all the obligations and claims of a promise arise. This means that in the dynamics of interpersonal action, there is a point in time when there is no common obligation and a point in time when the agents are obliged to do something together. The conditions that change mere interaction into an interaction that obliges the participants are unfolded in Gilbert’s theory of joint commitment. On the other hand, Gilbert

26 Cf. Markus Heuft, Sagen und Meinen. Das Sprechen als sprachphilosophisches Problem (Phänomenologische Untersuchungen 19) (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004), 390, fn. 163; Margaret Gilbert, “Three Dogmas of Promising,” in Hannoch Sheinman, Promises and Agreements. Philosophical Essays (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 296–323, here 318; cf. also Michela Summa in her contribution in this volume, fn. 14. 27 “But it is self-evident that an obligation, though it can spring from a promise, can never spring from the simple acceptance of a promise or even less from merely consciously taking it in” (Reinach, Apriori Foundations, 173 f./33). 28 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” esp. 310ff.; Margaret Gilbert, “Is an Agreement an Exchange of Promises?,” The Journal of Philosophy, 90(12) (1993), 627–649.

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takes into account how in the particular interaction between the promisor and the promisee obligations and claims arise. Gilbert analyzes promising as a particular kind of cooperation between promisors and promisees. If the cooperation required for promising comes about, then this cooperation is sufficient for the emergence of the obligations and claims between promisors and promisees. What characterizes promises is that they produce joint commitments. A joint commitment is not a mere addition or summation of several personal commitments but creates a common doing of something “as a body,”29 that is, as a “plural subject” or a common “we.”30 This does not imply that the participating individuals are “committed … personally to do X.” Rather, “the aim of this joint commitment is to create a certain situation at the collective as opposed to the individual level.”31 In this sense, two agents walking together, to take Gilbert’s famous example, as well as two persons who reach an agreement, are part of a cooperation that binds them in a certain way to such a collective body. If Sue and Jack are walking together voluntarily, they bind together their individual wills and “constitute a single, ‘plural will’ dedicated to a particular goal.”32 Therefore, “they are to act as members of a single body, the body comprising the two of them.”33 The decisive point in Gilbert’s analysis is that forming a plural subject creates joint commitments connected with obligations and corresponding rights. If Jack and Sue are walking together, for instance, they are obliged to show consideration for each other, to adapt the pace of the walk to each other, to wait for each other if necessary, and so on. Conversely, they each have the right to demand that these obligations be respected.34 We can easily transfer these considerations for agreements. If you and I have an agreement that I do x and you do y, then we join our individual wills to a common will. In the consequence, each of us is committed to do her or his part; if not, the other can claim to perform the corresponding action as her or his.35 However, is the structure of joint commitments, which is based on a strictly mutual relationship, really analogous to commitments in promises? If we follow Reinach’s analysis of promising, we should reject this idea because the obligatory relationship of a promise arises merely by virtue of the promise given by the promisor. However, this is not in line with Gilbert’s considerations. According to Gilbert, promisor and promisee are shaping the promise together. Promises go back to a joint decision; “both (persons) are active in the process of constructing the promise.”36 If we accept the earlier reflections on the role of promisees, we can complete Gilbert’s proposal, because “something of an acceptance” is often less evident in the “process of constructing the promise,”37 that is, through its explicit formulation and acceptance, than in the

29 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 311. 30 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 320 f.; Margaret Gilbert, On Social Facts (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University, 1992), 167ff., esp. 199 f. 31 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 311. 32 Margaret Gilbert, “Walking Together: A Paradigmatic Social Phenomenon,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 15(1) (1990), 1–14, here 7. 33 Gilbert, “Walking Together,” 8. 34 Cf. Gilbert, “Walking Together,” 3. 35 Cf. Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 314ff. 36 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 318. 37 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 318.

98 Karl Mertens performance of actions by promisors and particularly promisees in the ongoing process of the fulfilment of a promise. In the end, promisors and promisees form a common will which is the basis of their joint commitment connected with obligations and corresponding rights, because “those who are parties to a given joint commitment owe each other actions that conform to the commitment.”38 Unlike the example of walking together, the joint commitment in promising implies different requirements for promisors and the promisees. If someone has promised someone else to do something, then the promisor has a “relational or directed obligation,”39 she owes the promisee doing something, that is, the promised content. Vice versa, the promisee also assumes directed obligations for the promisor. On the one hand, he “must do something of an accepting rather than a rejecting nature.”40 On the other hand, he has to do what is necessary for the promisor to fulfill his promise.41 To put it more generally: as long as there is a joint commitment, there are corresponding directed obligations. … It is to say that when a joint commitment comes to be these obligations come with it and remain irrespective of their content and changes in the circumstances of the parties—unless and until the joint commitment is rescinded or fulfilled.42 If we look back at Reinach’s and Gilbert’s analysis of promises respectively, it becomes clear that both authors distinguish the emergence of an obligation in a promise from a non-obligatory interaction. In the case of waving a promise, for instance, neither of the two parties is entitled to make further claims. Regarding this point, Reinach and Gilbert agree. Naturally, the promisee cannot demand the promisor to fulfill the given promise anymore; but there is no claim of the promisor to demand the acceptance of the promise, too. To put it in a Gilbertian way: rejecting a promise is not different from rejecting the offer of a joint activity. If, for example, Philip asks Philippa whether she would like to accompany him to the movies, Philippa may deny Philip’s offer. In this case, Philippa naturally cannot expect to be accompanied by Philip. Vice versa, Philip perhaps may be disappointed with her answer, but this does not entitle him to any further demands. However, and this will become a decisive point in my following analysis, even in these cases, there is a minimal cooperation, since the persons involved cooperate with each other on the level of the question-answer relationship, even if the promise or the joint

38 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 312. According to Gilbert the discussion of promises is prepared by a particular account to agreements which has the following form: “For two or more people to enter an agreement is for them jointly to commit themselves, by an appropriate, explicit process, to endorse as a body a certain decision with respect to what is to be done by one or more of the parties.” This presentation allows the following account to promises, called “joint decision account of promises: for one person to make a promise to another is for them jointly to commit themselves, by an appropriate, explicit process, to the decision that one of them (‚the promisor‘) is to perform one or more specified actions” (Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 317). 39 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 305. 40 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 318. 41 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 318: “Another point in favor of the joint decision account of promises is that the promisee appears to take on some obligations, though not performance obligations. That is, these obligations are not specified in the promise. They, like the performance obligations of the promisor, are directed obligations. In this case they are directed to the promisor.” 42 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 313.

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43

action that was addressed and inquired about is rejected. But this minimal cooperation, naturally, does not include the commitment at stake; if there are no other rules requiring to accept the offer of a social interaction, no one can be required to continue in the intended and initiated way of acting. Therefore, we can say: cooperation takes place even if a promise is not accepted. If we follow Gilbert’s line of thought and establish the obligatory relationship of promisor and promisee on their mutual commitment to a special kind of interaction, then we can distinguish between promises as interactions binding the agents to follow certain obligations and mere interpersonal cooperations in which a promise is linguistically uttered and understood but does not require the observance of obligations and claims between the involved agents. This becomes clear when we consider the possibility of strange promises, that is, of promises that are not rejected but are part of an interaction that does not work in the usual way. We can find this kind of promises in the following situations. Someone tries to comfort a desperate person and promises her that in the future everything will be better again, though the realization of this promise is not in the power of the promisor, at least in essential respects. This is not a promise in the proper sense, because it violates a necessary condition of promising: promisors must hold themselves to be able to realize what they promise. Another situation is when someone promises something that she or he is in principle able to do and inwardly absolutely willing to keep; but without explicitly rejecting the promise, the promisee knows that the promisor’s promise can only be fulfilled with very great difficulties or against well-known features of the promisor’s character.44 Such “promises” are possible in principle. However, in the ongoing interaction, usually they are not taken as promises in the proper sense binding the involved persons to the obligations and claims connected with the promised contents. And even more, in the mentioned cases, very often a correction of the promise with regard to the principal or very probable unfulfillability or an explicit renunciation of the promise can be omitted. Sometimes such a correction or renunciation would even be an insult. Rather, promisees take what is promised as an expression of a feeling, as something that does not create obligations and claims, but which, in a particular situation, enables a certain form of affective interpersonal interaction, often connected with a particular look at the (common) future. And normally, promisors and promisees understand the promise just in this sense—even without explicitly talking about it. For example, if Paul promises Paula in her despair that everything will turn into better, Paula knows that Paul cannot promise her a better future but that he wants to comfort her and take care of her in her despair. It is not necessary to explicitly talk about this. But would Paula, perhaps rather unlikely, answer that Paul cannot promise such a thing as a matter of principle, then Paul could say: “Yes, I know. However, you are in such a despair that I wanted to raise your hopes and I am convinced that …” In such a case, the promise is not valid as a promise, even if it is not explicitly rejected or corrected; rather, what at first glance seems to claim being a promise turns out to be an expression of hope or conviction in the relational acting. Similarly, a personally exaggerated promise may be modified into an expression of a strong desire. This can be paradigmatically

43 The possibility of ignoring a promise or an interaction offer will be addressed below in section 3. 44 There is a broad field of possibilities how promises can be modified and even rescinded. Cf., f.e., David Owens, “Duress, Deception, and the Validity of a Promise,” Mind 116 (No. 462) (2007), 293–315, who discusses why duress and deception invalidate promises.

100 Karl Mertens found in hierarchic personal interactions like parent–child interactions. If a child makes an exaggerated promise, his/her parents usually will reinterpret the promise as a serious wanting or desire to act in the promised way. Therefore, they will expect that the child makes some efforts to act in the promised way, but it would be strange if they would seriously claim that the promise is kept. Perhaps this can be expressed by a remark like: “I would be very glad, if you would make an effort …” The decisive point in such cases can be expressed with the means of Gilbert’s conception. Whether a promise in its obligatory power arises does not merely depend of the social act performed by the promisor; it is essentially brought about by the interaction between promisors and promisees creating their joint commitment. In addition, strange promises draw our attention to the fact that, even in a working promise, the cooperative level between promisors and promisees is a moment that can be distinguished, at least abstractedly, from the obligatory dimension of the promise. In other words, a promise as a social act implies a cooperation level without which the interaction between promisors and promisees would not come about at all. However, this cooperation does not generate the obligatory relationship of promising even if a promise has been audibly uttered by the promisor and is not explicitly rejected by the promisee. Following Gilbert, we can say that the obligatory power of a promise only arises by a particular mutual interaction between promisors and promises, which makes a difference between a pre-obligatory interaction and an interaction that creates a joint commitment. Moreover, Gilbert makes clear that the obligation of a promise is not to be understood as a moral obligation as asserted from the so-called “Moral Requirement Dogma.”45 In contrast, promises are independent of the moral quality of the content; their obligatory power only depends on their structure as promises.46 Therefore, one is entitled to complain about a promise that has not been kept, even if the content of the promise was immoral. Gilbert explains this insight by referring to Prichard.47 “Prichard’s Point” is objected against the so-called “Immoral Promises Dogma” stating that, as a consequence of the Moral Requirement Dogma, immoral promises are not obliging.48 In addition, Gilbert brings into play a second point that was already mentioned earlier: Promises are exclusively directed to persons involved in the commitment.49 This point is not compatible with the Moral Requirement Dogma either, because the obligatory power is not stemming from a

45 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 299. Such a position, for instance, can be found in Thomas M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 315: “When promises give rise to clear obligations, these can be accounted for on the basis of general moral principles.” This includes that the moral principle or principles in question have a broader range of application than merely to cases of a promise (cf. Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 299). 46 In the wording of Gilbert: “if someone has promised to do something, then he is obligated to do it, by virtue of his promise” (Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 303). 47 Cf. Harold A. Prichard, Moral Obligation. Essays and Lectures (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), chap. 7, pp. 169ff.; Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 303ff. Besides a weak reading of Prichard which is compatible with the Moral Requirement Dogma Gilbert proposes a strong reading stating that “a promise obligates irrespective of its content” (Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 304). Gilbert does not present this reading as an exegesis of Prichard but as a systematic point (Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 305). 48 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 301 f. 49 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 305ff.

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universal moral norm encompassing indefinite cases and making no differences between the respected persons. Rather, promises are related to particular interpersonal situations between the concrete individuals involved. Therefore, A’s promise to B justifies the obligations of A and claims of B but not claims of, for instance, C or D. These considerations can be expanded because the obligation of a promise does not refer to other normative backgrounds either. For instance, the obligation of a promise is not referring to a conventional norm or a mere custom which both could also be alternatively defined.50 Such an interpretation would misunderstand the strong character of the promise obligation: a promise must be kept, or one must justify oneself if, for some reasons, one is unable to keep it; an alternative rule regarding situations of promising is neither available nor thinkable. Furthermore, there are no legal norms forbidding the break of a promise. On the one hand, positive laws are also to be understood against the background of alternative legal norms which do not exist in the case of promises. On the other hand, the sanction of persons who do not keep their words cannot refer to legal institutions but only on an available social practice. In this respect, the obligation not to break a promise resembles a social norm. However, while social norms (like those of greeting) differ from society to society, the obligation to keep a promise has a universal character that transcends different societies. This is precisely the reason why the requirement to keep promises is being discussed as a candidate for a moral norm51—but this is not correct, as Gilbert rightly states: promises do not bind us morally.

7.3 An alternative proposal According to Gilbert, we have to look for the general strength of the directed obligations and claims of a promise exclusively in the joint commitment. However, are her considerations regarding the sources of the obligations and claims in promising really convincing? In the following section, I want to discuss two problems in Gilbert’s proposal: her interpretation of the concept of directed commitments (1) and her criticism of Hume’s “No Willing Dogma” (2). In response to this critical assessment, I will conclude with an alternative proposal (3).

50 Conventions as understood by David Lewis consist in solving problems of cooperation. Cf. David Lewis, Convention: A Philosophical Study (Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002). To take a typical example for a convention (Lewis, Convention, 5, 11 f., 43 f.): In a society there may be a convention regulating behavior in cases of an interrupted phone call, f.e., determining that the caller also has to do the recall. It is characteristic for such norms that they could be thought otherwise. In contrast to this understanding of conventions, a custom does not essentially regulate coordination problems. For instance, the customs regulating on which occasions in a society celebrations are appropriate (e.g., one’s own birthday, Christmas, etc.) and how they are celebrated does not solve coordination problems. 51 The differences between moral, legal, social, conventional norms and customs I have commented more detailed in Karl Mertens, “On the Identification and Analysis of Social Norms and the Heuristic Relevance of Deviant Behaviour,” in The Normative Animal? On the Anthropological Significance of Social, Moral, and Linguistic Norms, ed. Neil Roughley and Kurt Bayertz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 101–120.

102 Karl Mertens 1. Gilbert’s interpretation of promises as directed commitments: As noticed above, Gilbert considers directedness as a crucial feature of promises.52 This means that the obligatory relationship between promisor and promisee must be a concrete individual relationship, which is not transferable to other personal relationships. Due to the personal directedness of a promise, obligations can be distinguished from moral requirements, which prescind from every personal difference. A moral norm is a moral norm precisely because mere individual diversities make no relevant difference. In this sense, moral norms are universal.53 One could object that the obligation to keep promises is also a universal requirement and that, accordingly, we should consider such obligation as a moral duty. However, the crucial difference is that, in this case, there wouldn’t be any abstract obligation if there was no concrete individual relationship. When I promise something to someone, the duty to keep the promise is essentially concretized in this particular relationship. There is no abstract obligation in this case. In this sense, promisor and promisee owe each other actions that are necessary in order to perform the promised content. As sketched earlier, in elucidating of the structure of owing, Gilbert tries to carve out the particular meaning of the interaction between promisor and promisee as establishing a common body, a common “we” joining the involved persons into a collective agent. According to this interpretation, the promisor owes the promisee to do the promised action as hers or his;54 therefore, “an action that is one person’s to perform (can) be another’s.”55 The critical issue here is how the possibility can be explained that promising creates a directed “position to demand.” Gilbert’s answer goes as follows: “I am in a position to demand a certain action of someone if and only if that action is mine—in the sense at issue in the case of owing.”56 However, is this a convincing explanation of the owing implied in promising? If we take a closer look at Gilbert’s presentation of the directed obligation in promising, we may distinguish three moments: i The promised act is addressed to a particular person. ii This person has the right to demand the promised action. (In the light of the previously sketched considerations, we can add that there are also corresponding claims of the promisor regarding the doing of the promisee.) iii The promisee (respective, the promisor) claims the promised act as hers or his. The problematic point concerns (iii): that the promised action is of the promisee’s. For instance, if you promise to help me move, then you owe me the fulfillment of that promise as something that belongs to me, so I can claim it from you. (To make

52 In comparison with “Prichard’s Point” Gilbert takes the feature of directedness as even “to be the firmer of the two” (Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 305). 53 John Lesley Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London/New York/Victoria/Toronto/ Auckland/Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990), chap. 4, pp. 83ff. 54 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 305ff, 312. 55 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 306. 56 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 307.

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it shorter, I will omit here the discussion of the inverse relation from the promisor’s view.) In my reading of Gilbert, the decisive reason for her using the phrase that the promisor owes his act the promisee as hers or his leads back to a particular understanding of commitment implied in a person’s own doing. For, according to Gilbert, a personal decision to do something already “creates … a personal commitment.”57 This means that the model of obligation and commitment sketched by Gilbert follows the concept of a commitment which characterizes a person as a rational agent. This becomes clear if we consider Gilbert’s explication given in the interpretation of the sketched structure of owing from aforementioned text: I note that the directedness of promissory rules out an approach that construes such obligation as engendered by no more than a personal decision to act in a certain way. / One might be led to this approach by virtue of an important aspect of personal decisions … One who decides to do something has, by virtue of his decision, sufficient reason to do that thing. By this I mean that rationality requires him to do it, all else being equal, where rationality is a matter of appropriately responding to relevant considerations. All else being equal, then, he ought to do it, in an appropriately broad sense of “ought”.58 Obviously, the recourse to personal commitment seems to be the intuitive prior commitment. Therefore, an explication of owing that takes recourse to cases of personal commitment sheds light to the commitment of a joint action. The character of a personal commitment lies in the binding power of the rationality of an agent who is obliged to follow her or his own goals and plans over time. The model of commitment is the requirement of consistency of an agent who can understand herself or himself as a unitary self. However, is this a convincing account of the obligations guiding human action? At least if we try to understand personal commitment as a pre-social obligation a personal agent owes to herself or himself, it is not clear in which sense the meaning of obligation can be clarified. Perhaps we can consider the relation between means and ends. Regarding the means-ends-relation, rational agency consists in the fact that the choice of means contributes to the realization of the intended goals. Acting rationally then means being attentive to the means-ends-relation. However, in this case, a mere orientation to the criterion of success is sufficient. If someone chooses means that do not fit to the intended goals, she or he will not be successful—and therefore we can call her or his choice irrational. In a comparable sense one cannot be indifferent to one’s own decisions, at risk of falling into irrationality. If agents decide to do x, they cannot do something which is not compatible with doing x unless there is a reason to abandon the old decision in favor of doing something else, y, for instance. But this rationality must be distinguished from actual demands like “act rationally!” or “act in such a way that your means contribute to the realization of the self-chosen ends!” While the

57 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 310. 58 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 309; Margaret Gilbert, Joint Commitment. How We Make the Social World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), chap. 2, pp. 37ff.

104 Karl Mertens characterization of the irrationality of a person’s doing only takes recourse to the internal structure of an action, emphasizing the fact that the non-observance of certain means-end-relations lead to an unsuccessful or failing action, the lastmentioned requirements obligating a person’s agency presuppose that the acting person is confronted with an ought regarding possible deviations. The sources of such demands are not stemming from the internal structure of agency itself. Rather, an agent is confronted with a requirement coming from a point of view external to the structure of acting. Therefore, it seems to be much more plausible to understand personal commitment as a special case deriving from our experiences of commitments to others.59 For obligations, demands, rules, and norms become necessary in the first place when human behavior does not coincide with an expectation. Deviations from expectations, however, are primarily found in the behavior of others. If another person’s behavior deviates from my expectations and if I am not willing to correct my expectations, then I will require from the other to do the expected act.60 Therefore, requiring is primarily a response to a social experience. If we analyze our own decisions according to the model of commitments, then we understand our own doing in analogy to the doing of someone else who can and must be obliged by rules and norms to do something. In this case, I do not understand my doing as just doing this or that anymore, but rather as an action that is in danger of deviating, not being carried out, and so on—like actions of another. Only then my own action can also become an object of meaningful demands. As a result, the sense of promising is just that promisors act as someone else, that is, they act in a way that cannot be replaced by promisees—physically or personally (if you promise me to clean up the kitchen, then this does not mean that I am not able to clean up, but I am not able to do your cleaning up). Therefore, the common “we” in a cooperation or collective acting is neither mine nor yours; it is essentially ours. This means that my doing and your doing are connected. However, these different doings are not made to disappear in the common “we.” As a consequence, if something goes wrong, then the group’s internal criticism is addressed to the person who made the mistake—even if all involved persons must say that “we” didn’t reach “our” aim and criticism from outside affects the whole group. To summarize: the problem of Gilbert’s analysis of owing is a misunderstanding of the essentially social dimension of the concept of obligation. 2. Gilbert’s criticism of Hume’s “No Willing Dogma”: A variation of the previous problem can be found in a second consideration of Gilbert. The Moral Requirement Dogma implies the “No Willing Dogma”, that is, Hume’s critical remark that obligations and claims connected with promises cannot arise from our mere will.61 Therefore, if we give up the concept that the obligatory relationship of promises is based on a moral commitment, we are not forced to share Hume’s critical account.62 Against this

59 In his famous Essay Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Saul A. Kripke has pointed out that even counting and calculating is a praxis that is connected with obligations embedded in a social context. 60 Cf. Niklas Luhmann, Die Moral der Gesellschaft, ed. Detlef Horster (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2008), chap. 2, pp. 25ff. 61 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton, Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 331ff.; cf. Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 300. 62 Cf. Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 300 f.

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background, Gilbert tries to show how joint commitments can arise in a mere willing as a joint willing between promisors and promises.63 Arguing for this thesis, Gilbert sketches, as outlined earlier, how in the cooperative interaction between promisors and promisees joint commitments arise establishing a “plural subject,” a common “we.” Again, on this account, the leading idea follows the concept of a personal willing, which is transferred to a joint willing of a “plural subject.” However, this interpretation does not take into account the social framework interpersonal actions are embedded in.64 In contrast, I will argue for the necessity to take into account the social sources of every obligation and claim. 3. An alternative account: In the end, we can agree with Gilbert on one aspect: Undoubtedly, once a promise has been made, both promisors and promisees are entitled to intervene against the unilateral termination of the cooperation in question and demand its continuation. Where does this obligation come from? Does it come solely from the joint activity of acting together? In order to answer this question, I would like to address cases in which cooperation or joint activity are unilaterally terminated. Thereby, I want to draw attention to obligations and commitments, which we can point out in both joint activity and cooperation. Against this background, I will discuss the character of obligations and claims connected with promises and ask where these obligations come from. Before discussing the obligation of promising let us consider other forms of cooperative and joint actions like communication with each other, disputing, having a common coffee break, or walking together. After a period of engagement in the common performance, all these activities can be terminated without entitling further demands. In this way, cooperation and joint activity, of course, can be concluded thanks to mutual agreement. Furthermore, and this to me seems the decisive point, cooperation and joint actions can also be terminated by only one side of the interaction partners without the termination generating justified claims of the other interaction partner. If, as Gilbert emphasizes in her analyses of joint actions, a corresponding obligation would result solely from the particular cooperation in question, such cancellations of common acting would not be possible, at least in the cases of joint actions. At this point, it is interesting to take a closer look at such unilateral terminations of cooperation and joint actions. A few examples:

63 Gilbert, “Three Dogmas,” 321. 64 An anonymous reviewer of this text has pointed out that the following argument for the necessary reference to a social framework resembles or even corresponds to the idea Gilbert develops in the context of her theory of collective belief. Indeed, there are striking parallels here, provided that Gilbert’s argument, as developed in “Collective Epistemology” (Gilbert, Joint Commitment, 163–180), for example, is understood in a heuristic—rather than a constitutive—sense. Seen in this way, the commitments associated with a collective belief would not be the result of a communal formation of a social body by the involved agents. Rather, the idea that “the parties are jointly committed to X [f.e., to believe] as a body” (Gilbert, Joint Commitment, 175) would characterize the presupposed social framework of a collective belief, which is merely revealed in the possibility of rebuke for deviation. This reading can also be confirmed by Gilbert’s explicit reference to Durkheim’s “social facts” (Gilbert, Joint Commitment, 177). However, in light of the parallels between Gilbert’s concept of collective belief and her reflections on joint actions such as walking together or promising, I am not sure that Gilbert is not also pursuing here a concept that is interested in the constitution of collective commitments starting from the agents involved in a joint action.

106 Karl Mertens i While I am standing in a queue at the ticket counter to buy a ticket, I get into conversation with another customer. I enjoy the conversation, but after some time the other customer no longer takes part in the communication, and simply lets the conversation run out. It seems to me that, in this case, I cannot legitimately protest against the unilateral termination of the conversation and demand its continuation.65 From Gilbert’s point of view, this case represents no problem because of the lack of a plural subject, that is, a plural “we” carrying out a joint action. The situation changes if persons who have arranged to meet to discuss a matter of interest to them join into a conversation. Does this mean that in such cases unilateral terminations of the joint activity become impossible? ii Joint actions like walking together, discussing together, and so on can also be unilaterally terminated without being a case of violation of obligations and claims generated in the common action if the respective persons take socially accepted forms of adequate termination into account. For example, someone may point out a conflicting obligation that limits the time frame for the continuation of a joint action, or in a joint discussion, a person may even bring into play the obvious unproductiveness of continuing the dispute that has been started. Usually, and if carried out in a socially accepted manner, such explanations of the termination of a joint action, very often offered as an excuse,66 do not give rise to demands for a continuation of the interaction that has been started. To take Gilbert’s example: Jack could, for example, conclude the joint walk with Sue by referring to an urgent appointment he had almost forgotten about, without Sue being able to legitimately insist on the joint walk in this case. iii It might be helpful to consider unilateral terminations of cooperative and joint activities that are not based on such socially acceptable explanations. If, to take up the previous example, Philippa denies Philip’s invitation to commonly visit the movies, she at least cooperates with Philip by her answering his question. The situation would be different, however, if Philippa were to hear Philip’s question, obviously, but simply ignores it. In this case, Philip could rightly go into the matter by saying—and demanding: “I asked you something and you still owe me the answer.” From a structural point of view, the obligation arising in an elementary interaction (like talking with one another) is comparable with the obligation in joint actions like walking together. In both cases, the unilateral termination of the initiated common action that are not accompanied by explanations, excuses, apologizes, requests, or other linguistic or gestural acting making understandable why the common performance is terminated would be an object of reproach. However, the emergence of such commitments does not owe to a common we, a common body characteristic for joint actions in the Gilbertian sense. What is the difference between the performance of, for instance, walking together, promising or a joint agreement and examples like asking and answering, talking together, and so on? If we follow Gilbert’s analysis of promising, agreeing or walking together, there is a point at

65 However, as I will make clear below, there are forms of particularly crude terminations of the conversation that could justifiably be subject of an approval. 66 Regarding the social function of accounts, apologies, or requests in deviations from a norm cf. Erving Goffman, Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers, 2010), 108ff.

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which the social interaction that has already begun turns into a joint action: the explicit or implicit understanding of the joint doing. An agreement or a promise presuppose such understanding, which usually is performed in a linguistic way. In the case of walking together, this understanding is crucial, too. According to Gilbert, there must be an “exchange” between Jack and Sue in order to bring about their walking together. For instance, Jack may ask Sue whether “she (would) mind if he joins her” and Sue agrees in it.67 Against this background, we can distinguish between elementary interaction commitments and obligations that arise in a joint action in Gilbert’s sense. Perhaps we can point out this difference as a difference between first order and higher order commitments. On the one hand, there are obligations arising simply because persons are involved in cooperative contexts, on the other hand, there are obligations which presuppose elementary cooperation in order to bring about particular common aims on which the interacting persons have agreed together. However, the violation of both obligations is based on requirements that make interpersonal action possible. Such actions would not come about at all if the conditions of possible cooperation in general or the conditions of possible cooperation that has come about by an interpersonal understanding of the involved agents in particular would be disregarded. iv Following this line, we can now consider promises on two levels—the interaction level and the level of a joint action. On the one hand, we have to consider promises which are ignored by the addressee. Here, it also makes a difference whether this ignoring is ostensively expressed to the promisor or whether it is hidden as in cases of a mere mental reservation of the addressee. In the first case, the ignoring works like a refutation, admittedly a quite rude form of rejecting. And this form of refutation could be the cause of a legitimate complaint of the person who has given the “promise,” which is comparable to the above-mentioned rude ignoring of a question asked. However, even if obligatory demands on the first level of cooperation are violated, the corresponding behavior leads to the fact that the obligatory relationship of the promise on the second level does not come about. The second case is more difficult because here the promisor might not have reasons which are accessible for her or him to be informed about the missing cooperation constituting a valid or invalid promise at all. In such cases, the question of not cooperating in a promise gets a normative meaning regarding the promise itself.68 However, although both cases may lead to different consequences on the second

67 Gilbert, “Walking Together,” 6 f. 68 This could be a topic of an interesting discussion comparable to the discussion of sham promises. Like in sham promises, in these cases which can be understood as a kind of inverted sham promises, something goes wrong with the cooperation required by a promise. At least from a social point of view, in both cases it seems reasonable to decide the question whether a promise works or not by taking into account the follow-up actions.—I use the term ‚follow-up action‘ [Anschlusshandlung] in the meaning of Ulrich Baltzer, Gemeinschaftshandeln. Ontologische Grundlagen einer Ethik sozialen Handelns (Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber, 1999).—Following this line, a sham promise is to be understood as a promise. And a silently ignored promise without obvious manifested reservation comes about as a promise in its obligatory meaning, too. However, in order to distinguish such cases from cases of promises not noticed from the promisee, a promisor has to assure her- or himself that the promisee gets into the promise. If he has good reasons to hold this belief than it seems reasonable to assume that the promise works. Concerning a detailed discussion of sham promises see Michela Summa’s contribution to this volume.

108 Karl Mertens level, regarding the obligatory relationship between the two persons, on the first level, they are violations of an obligation concerning the required style of every cooperation. This style demands that every person who is involved in a cooperation and even in a minimal interaction must be acknowledged as a possible agent in a cooperation. This is the reason why, for instance, executions and explanations are so essential for the termination of a cooperation. On the other hand, we have to consider a valid promise which has come about by a joint activity. On this level, a promise is connected with particular obligations and claims regarding the performance of the promised content. Regarding these obligations and claims, at first glance, there seems to be no possibility of a socially acceptable explanation for a unilateral termination. Promises are unconditionally obligating the persons involved. However, despite the obligations and claims regarding every promise, there are, admittedly quite limited, possibilities to break the obligatory relationship of a promise in regard of a higher-order obligation, particularly a moral obligation, demanding not to do a person’s part of a promise. In this case, the obligation produced by the promise does not disappear, but it is evaluated in the context of a hierarchy of normative requirements. Therefore, demanding the fulfillment of the promised content remains justified even if there are conflicting obligations leading to not fulfill the promised content. In particular, the possibility of socially accepted explicit refutations or terminations of cooperation or joint activity, but also the question of the social acceptance of implicit refutations, makes clear that our cooperation and common activities are embedded in social contexts that regulate which demands are appropriate in the context of cooperative and joint actions and which are not. Instead of claiming that these obligations arise solely by a dual interaction between agents who jointly or cooperatively act, it seems more fruitful to anchor the obligational character of every experience of obligation in the dimension of a social community. Regarding this point, let me refer to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s well-known argument. The reference to obligations and claims implies an evaluation of an action in the light of a norm or rule. According to Wittgenstein and his scholars like Peter Winch, relying on a rule or a norm is a public affair. As a matter of principle, we never decide about such rules on our own. This is the core idea of Wittgenstein’s famous dictum: “That’s why ‘following a rule’ is a practice. And to think one is following a rule is not to follow a rule. And that’s why it’s not possible to follow a rule ‘privately’; otherwise, thinking one was following a rule would be the same thing as following it.”69 It is important to add that Wittgenstein’s sense of rule following cannot be established in a mere dual interaction. This becomes clear if we pay attention to the logical connection between following a rule, violating a rule, and being corrected in rule-following. Particularly, the meaning of a violation or a correction cannot be grasped in the context of a mere interpersonal acting between two persons because mere resistance against an action by another person caused by individual motives must be distinguished from the characterization as a violation or a correction referring to obligations and norms

69 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen. Philosophical Investigations, transl. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, rev. 4th ed. by P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (Malden/Oxford/West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2009), § 202.

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anchored in the general social background. Therefore, the relation to society cannot be displayed by only one partner of interaction. This becomes clear in Winch’s following clarification: “What Wittgenstein insists on, however, is, first, that it must be in principle possible for other people to grasp that rule and judge when it is being correctly followed; secondly, that it makes no sense to suppose anyone capable of establishing a purely personal standard of behaviour if he had never had any experience of human society with its socially established rules.”70 Deciding whether a person’s behavior is appropriate to a rule or not is a public matter; it presupposes considering individual behavior in the social context and evaluating a person’s behavior especially in relation to confirmations, corrections, or rejections in the indefinite group of others. Thus, the anonymous community is the bearer of the norm in question.71 As a result, if we follow this argumentation, then it is not plausible to rely the obligation on a mere dual relationship between cooperating agents as Gilbert does.72 Obligations and claims are founded on the background of a social context, which is essentially more than the mere response of a partner of interaction. What kind of normativity is at stake in obligations like keeping promises, keeping agreements, not one-sidedly ignoring cooperation, etc.? All these obligations are neither changing from society to society like customs, conventions, legal or social norms, nor they are moral norms valid for everyone in the same way and prescinding from individual differences. This means that the obligations in the mentioned cases are universal in the sense that they are not dependent from specific social or cultural structures. Manifestations of respect to one another in human interaction, keeping words, not covertly ignoring cooperation, etc. are obligations that, in every human encounter, justify corresponding demands if violated. However, the claims and obligations concerning the field of human interaction are not obligations, which prescind from individual differences. Rather, they are directed commitments referring to particular situations of interaction and to exactly the persons who are involved in the corresponding interaction. Regarding this characterization, we can call them interpersonal obligations and claims. Considering the phenomenal difference between these obligations and moral obligations, we should distinguish them from moral questions as Gilbert convincingly has argued for. Regarding their particularity, I propose to treat them as a

70 Peter Winch, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), 31. 71 This seems also the leading idea of Anscombe’s remark about the process of learning ‘musts’ and ‘can’ts’ as “the most basic expression of such-and-such’s being a rule”; “they aren’t, in Hume’s phrase, ‚naturally intelligible‘”; instead they require being “trained in the practices of reason” (Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, “Rules, Rights and Promises,” in G.E.M. Anscombe, Ethics, Religion and Politics: Collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, vol. III (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 97–103, here 103)—and this is essentially a social task. 72 Cf. Seumas Miller, “Social Norms,” in Ghita Holmström-Hintikka/Raimo Tuomela (eds.), Contemporary Action Theory, vol. 2: Social Action (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1997), 211–227, 214 f., who discusses Margaret Gilbert’s famous example of “walking together” as a paradigmatic case of a joint action. In contrast to Gilbert, Miller considers several interpretations for the source of the normative force, eventually stating that they all fail to prove that the normative meaning in question results from commitments based only on the joint action.

110 Karl Mertens specific kind of obligations—as universal obligations regulating concrete personal relationships arising in cooperative and joint situations.73 To come to an end: The preceding considerations have been an attempt to take up and continue reflections that Reinach and Gilbert have made regarding the source of the obligatory nature of promises. According to Reinach, a promise as a social act presupposes the conditions for social acts: as outlined earlier, a promise as a social act must be both perceivable and understandable. Following Gilbert, promises require a joint activity. This means that the efficacy of a promise also depends on a moment of response by the promisee, be it an explicit acceptance or adoption, be it a mere implicit acceptance of the promise by a certain continuation in the following acting. Gilbert highlights this reciprocal interaction as a condition of joint action, with which a joint commitment emerges. However, Gilbert’s recourse to the interaction between the promisor and the promisee alone cannot explain the obligatory dimension of the promise. The decisive factor is rather the social embedding of the act of promising. Against this background, however, it turns out that even minimal forms of social cooperation, in which no joint commitments in the Gilbertian sense arise, are connected with certain obligations. To turn it in general terms: every social act requires from the involved individuals the readiness to cooperate with others in a broad sense, that is, a social initiative must be taken up in a way that can be understood as a response to the respective initiative. This readiness to cooperation finds its expression in a particular style of follow up actions.74 This is an elementary condition for every cooperation, independently of whether the social action in question is a joint action or not. These follow up actions are connected with obligations and claims. Even if certain forms of cooperation or joint actions intended from a person do not come about the involved persons have to respect general requirements of cooperation in order to finish or refute certain social actions. These requirements are also at work on higher obligatory levels demanding that joint activities like walking together or promising cannot be unilaterally terminated. The sketched considerations can be taken as an analysis of the promise in its exemplary meaning. As Reinach and Gilbert and many others have seen, promising is not the only phenomenon, but it is a particularly instructive one for understanding the sources of obligations and claims. However, this does not require a strict limitation to the concrete social act of promising but rather demands an analysis including the social background without which promises cannot be understood. Therefore, only the inclusion of these background covers the promise in its exemplary meaning, that is, in its obligatory meaning going beyond the concrete social act of a promisor addressed to a promisee.75

73 Concerning this proposal I have to correct a former article (Mertens, “Social Norms”) where I have treated interpersonal obligations in an ambivalent way, i.e., partly as social norms, partly as moral norms. I think that the distinction between social, moral and interpersonal norms may be fruitful for a more detailed discussion of kinds of normativity. 74 In order to be successfully performed, for instance, even a command requires a particular response of the addressee based on a—perhaps minimal—readiness to cooperate in the requested way. 75 This article is part of a project “Shaping Intention and Habitualization: Transitions between Behavior and Action. Phenomenological Analyses” funded by the Thyssen Stiftung. I am grateful for many critical remarks of my first reader, Michela Summa to whom I also owe the idea of redesigning the overall composition of an earlier version of this article. In addition, I thank two anonymous reviewers who have prompted significant changes of the article. Probably there remain many problems; but I hope I could improve my first account thanks to their help.

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References Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret, “Rules, Rights and Promises,” in G.E.M. Anscombe, Ethics, Religion and Politics: Collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, vol. III (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981), 97–103. Baltzer, Ulrich, Gemeinschaftshandeln. Ontologische Grundlagen einer Ethik sozialen Handelns (Freiburg/München: Verlag Karl Alber, 1999). Gilbert, Margaret, “Walking Together: A Paradigmatic Social Phenomenon,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 15(1) (1990), 1–14. Gilbert, Margaret, On Social Facts (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University, 1992). Gilbert, Margaret, “Is an Agreement an Exchange of Promises?” The Journal of Philosophy, 90(12) (1993), 627–649. Gilbert, Margaret, “Three Dogmas of Promising,” in Hannoch Sheinman, Promises and Agreements. Philosophical Essays (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 296–323. Gilbert, Margaret, Joint Commitment. How We Make the Social World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Goffman, Erving, Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (New Brunswick/ London: Transaction Publishers, 2010). Habib, Allen, “Promises,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/ entries/promises/. Heuft, Markus, Sagen und Meinen. Das Sprechen als sprachphilosophisches Problem (Phänomenologische Untersuchungen 19) (München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004). Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. David Fate Norton, Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Kripke, Saul A., Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982). Lewis, David, Convention: A Philosophical Study (Oxford/Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002). Loidolt, Sophie, Einführung in die Rechtsphänomenologie. Eine historisch-systematische Darstellung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). Luhmann, Niklas, Die Moral der Gesellschaft, ed. Detlef Horster (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2008). Mackie, John Lesley, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London/New York/Victoria/ Toronto/Auckland/Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1990). Mertens, Karl, “On the Identification and Analysis of Social Norms and the Heuristic Relevance of Deviant Behaviour,” in Neil Roughley and Kurt Bayertz ed., The Normative Animal? On the Anthropological Significance of Social, Moral, and Linguistic Norms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 101–120. Miller, Seumas, “Social Norms,” in Ghita Holmström-Hintikka, Raimo Tuomela (eds.), Contemporary Action Theory, vol. 2: Social Action (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1997), 211–227. Mulligan, Kevin, “Promisings and other Social Acts: Their Constituents and Structure,” in Kevin Mulligan (ed.), Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 29–90. Owens, David, “Duress, Deception, and the Validity of a Promise,” Mind 116 (No. 462) (2007), 293–315. Prichard, Harold A., Moral Obligation. Essays and Lectures (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949). Reinach, Adolf, Über Phänomenologie (1914), in Adolf Reinach. Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, vol. 1 (München/Hamden/Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 531–550.

112 Karl Mertens Reinach, Adolf, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes (1913), in Adolf Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, vol. 1 (München/Hamden/ Wien: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 141–278; Engl. Translation: The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law. Along with the lecture, “Concerning Phenomenology” (Realistische Phänomenologie/Realist Phenomenology VIII), ed. John F. Crosby. With a Foreword by Alasdair MacIntyre (Frankfurt/Paris/Lancaster/New Brunswick: ontos verlag, 2012). Scanlon, Thomas M., What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000). Sheinman, Hannoch, Promises and Agreements. Philosophical Essays (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Weber, Max, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie, 5., rev. Aufl., besorgt v. Johannes Winckelmann (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1972). Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (London/New York: Routledge, 2008). Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophische Untersuchungen. Philosophical Investigations, transl. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, rev. 4th ed. by P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (Malden/Oxford/West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2009).

8

Insincere promises: what do they tell us about the nature of social acts? Michela Summa

Abstract: What does it mean for a promise to be insincere? In this article, this question is understood both in a narrow sense, as referring to the conditions that allow us to define a promise as insincere, and in a broad sense, as referring to the implications of the potential insincerity of promises, notably concerning the structure of social acts, as well as our relationship to ourselves and others in a social context. The article defends two main claims. First, the analysis of insincere promises should lead us to a reassessment of first-personal authority terms of responsive engagement. Second, considering the implications of the potential insincerity of promises should lead us to recognize that social understanding is primarily to be conceived in terms of communication of information, expectations, and prediction, but rather in terms of acknowledgement and relations of trust and distrust. Keywords: Promises; sincerity; speech acts; social acts; trust What does it mean for a promise to be insincere? Apparently, the answer to this question is straightforward: it means that the words one utters do not express what one really intends to do when one utters them. Yet, this is only a narrow understanding of the question. In a broader sense, the question can be considered to be asking what the fact that promises can in principle be insincere means for the definition of the act of promising as a social act; what the potential insincerity of promises tells us about our relation to ourselves as speaking and acting beings and about our relationships to other persons; and finally, what the insincerity of a promise means for the social relationships that are instituted in and through the promise itself. In this article, I wish to tackle the question of what it means for a promise to be insincere in both the narrower and the broader sense. This analysis will allow me to argue for the following two claims. First, considering the sincerity or insincerity of promises requires us to critically reassess the idea of a primacy of first-personal experience, particularly when it comes to actions and to the role of intentions in shaping actions.1 A discussion of sincerity exclusively based on first-personal authority risks missing the crucial import of this phenomenon—in relation to our self-experience, to our experience of others, and to

1 In this respect, the present discussion of insincere promises expands on a previous inquiry concerning the shaping of actions. Cf. Michela Summa and Karl Mertens, “On the Role of Attention and Ascription in the Formation of Intentions within Behavior,” in Phänomenologische Forschungen (2018), 177–196.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-9

114 Michela Summa the sociality of our actions. However, limiting the extent to which sincerity—and the sincerity of promises in particular—can be accounted for in terms of first-personal authority does not mean to simply rule out the first-person perspective, if with “firstperson perspective” we understand the uniqueness of first-personal engagement in what we do. The first claim I wish to make, thus, is that discussing the problem of sincerity, and particularly the problem of the sincerity or insincerity of promises, requires us to substitute the idea of first-personal authority as the knowledge of one’s own states of mind with the idea of first-personal responsive engagement in what one says. Second, the crucial problem related to the sincerity or insincerity of promises is not only that of determining whether the uttered speech act is valid or not. Rather, this problem should be more broadly considered in relation to how the possibility for a promise to be insincere impinges on our social dispositions, on how we understand each other and rely on each other in social contexts. Against this background, the second claim I wish to defend is that, if we consider promises as social acts, social understanding should not be primarily conceived in terms of communication of information, expectations, and prediction, but rather in terms of trust and distrust, where such trust and distrust are strictly tied to the obligations produced by a promise. In what follows, I will try to develop these suggestions. The point of departure in section 1 is a discussion of Adolf Reinach’s and J.-L. Austin’s accounts of promises and insincere promises. Thereby, I first wish to argue that, on the basis of both Reinach’s and Austin’s views,2 we should not consider promises as merely informing about what one is going to do in a way that others can predict one’s actions. Rather, promises institute obligations and reliance, thus transferring to others some authority over one’s future actions in a way that gives them the right to demand that one does what one promised. Although both Reinach and Austin mention insincere promises, several crucial questions concerning the social relevance of the fact that promises can be insincere remain somehow marginalized in their accounts. These questions are related to the importance and value that is attributed to sincerity and to the sincerity of promising, on which I will focus in Section 2. Inspired by the work on sincerity by Bernard Williams and Richard Moran, I aim to show why the importance and value of sincerity are tied to the value of trustworthiness. Additionally, in this section, I consider how sincerity qualifies specific kinds of expression, namely those expressions one first-personally and explicitly engages in, or expressions that one “owns up to.” Acts of promising are among these expressions, and questions about the sincerity

2 Since Reinach and Austin operate with different concepts, a conceptual clarification may be needed here. According to Reinach, promises are social acts, while according to Austin they are performative speech acts. Although both acts meet some of the same requirements, I do not intend to argue that they are just the same. In particular, while I would argue that all performative speech acts are social acts in Reinach’s sense, one may discuss whether there also are social acts that are not performative speech acts. A discussion of this question would require a closer consideration of the different approaches to speech acts Austin develops in his lectures—and particularly a comparison between the special speech-act theory, based on the distinction between constative and performative utterances, and the general speech-act theory, based on the distinction between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts (cf. John Langshaw Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962, 147–163). This is something that reaches beyond the scope of the present article.

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or insincerity of promises require a more thorough investigation of what such firstpersonal engagement consists in. In my conclusion, I return to insincere promises on the basis of this account of the value of sincerity. I thereby reassess the relation between the sincerity of promises and trust in relation to what Stanley Cavell calls a “tragic” moment in our relation to language.

8.1 Promises and insincere promises Reinach describes promises as a paradigmatic kind of social acts, through which a specific bond between two (or more) persons is instituted. In and through such institution, which amounts to bringing something new into the world, promises transform the social situation. If you promise me something, I am entitled to demand that you do what you promised to do and conversely, you commit to do what you promised me to do.3 In other words, what promises produce or institute are obligations and the entitlement to formulate claims or demands concerning what has been promised. Accordingly, promises do not simply provide information about a future action one intends to do; by instituting obligations, they rather shape a normative context in which one is not the sole authority over one’s own action. With regard to such normative implications, David Owens argues that the interest in promises coincides with the promisee’s interest in taking up some authority over others’ actions and, conversely, in the promisor’s interest in transferring to other persons some authority over one’s own actions.4 Promisors’ future actions are bound to what their promise anticipates. And, accepting the promise, promisees do not simply expect or predict the action to be done; they rather require it to be done according to the promise. Against this background, Owens compares the “information-interest” approach— which has been traditionally dominant in the philosophical accounts of promises— with the “authority-interest” approach and argues that the latter is superior to the former, since it allows us to distinguish acts of promising from predictions concerning future actions. Consistent with Reinach on this point, Owens shows that the specificity of promising does not consist in the way this speech act transmits information, but rather in its normative structure. However, if we look closer, Reinach’s view is more demanding. For Owens, promises are subordinated to the authority interest, which seems to imply that, first, those interests exist independently of the act of promising and that, second, there might be other ways to satisfy those interests. For Reinach, instead, there is a specific and newly instituted kind of normativity in the obligation produced by the promise. This certainly implies a transfer of authority with respect to one’s future action. But Reinach does not aim to show how this transfer is subordinated to independent interests—which may also be satisfied otherwise. Rather, Reinach aims to show how the very act of promising—including the authority transfer—produces a social and

3 Adolf Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts in Sämtliche Werke. I, ed. Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith (München: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), 147 f.; Adolf Reinach, The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law, trans. John F. Crosby (Frankfurt: Ontos, 2012), 8 f. Henceforth cited as Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts followed by the pagination of the German and English edition. 4 Cf. David Owens, “A Simple Theory of Promising,” in Philosophical Review 115, no. 1 (2006), 51–77; David Owens, Shaping the Normative Landscape (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

116 Michela Summa normative bond between two persons that was not there before the promise and that any interest related to the promise arises from this social and normative bond. Excuses or justifications for a promise that has not been kept can only be understood against such a normative background: promising is not just communicating the intention to do something, and thus does not simply involve producing expectations concerning future action. Promising is instead committing to do (or not to do) something, in such a way that, if the promise is not kept, the promisors would in some sense wrong the promisees, and therefore be required to excuse or justify themselves. For Reinach, this normative aspect is what makes promises paradigmatic of social acts. Social acts in general, and promises in particular, are accomplished in a context of mutual understanding, entailing more or less implicit assumptions about both the context itself and the participants in such a context, who are involved in the social act. Also, they entail the awareness of the normativity of the social act. Promises, in this sense, are not and should not be made if one already knows that, except when something not yet predictable occurs, one will not actually be in an adequate condition to keep the promise. This requirement is to be understood in a rather trivial way, as it is enrooted in our common sense: you would not accept my promise to run the half marathon with you tomorrow if I am in jail and I am not expected to be released before tomorrow or if I have just broken my leg. Besides, promises should be made with the awareness of the claims and obligations they generate: the promisor as well as the promisee should know that promises are not just giving information about what is going to happen, but rather that they entitle one to make demands on another’s behaviour and action. In this sense, agents in a social context are aware of at least some of the normative implications of a social act and of the fact that, by instituting a new social bond and new normative standards, acts of promising change the context itself. A short remark on what it means for promises—and for speech acts in general—to be “normative” is required here. As Stanley Cavell emphasizes, saying that speech acts are normative does not mean that they are prescriptions. On the contrary, the normativity of promises is entailed in their very definition, which Cavell equates to a rule-description. Such rule-description is the condition of possibility for formulating concrete prescriptions. I can formulate concrete prescriptions about how you should or should not promise, or what you should do after you promised, only because there is a rule-description (what Cavell calls a “categorial declarative” in allusion to Kant’s categorical imperative)5 defining how promises are made, and what their very definition entails. Obligations derive from promise not because there are some explicit prescriptions in the promise, but because “if someone is tempted not to fulfil a promise, you may say ‘Promises are kept’, or ‘We keep our promises (that is the sort of thing a promise is)’, thus employing a ruledescription…a categorial declarative.”6

5 Stanley Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 23. 6 Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say?, 28. This is not to exclude that there might be prescriptions connected with these rule-descriptions. Yet, while the rule-descriptions remain general and in this sense anonymous, whenever we formulate prescriptions both in the form ‘you must keep your promise’ and in the form ‘you ought to keep your promise’, we already presuppose a rule-description and the connected non-prescriptive normativity. Also, formulations of commands with modal imperatives require both the recognition of authority of the speaker and the recognition of the addressee as a person (‘you must/ought to keep your promise’). See Cavell, Must We Mean What We Say?, 28–29.

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These general observations also hold for Reinach’s theory of promises as social acts. Yet, importantly, Reinach’s understanding of social acts also presupposes his classification of experiences.7 What is crucial for the sake of this investigation is that social acts are intentional experiences (thus distinguished from both nonintentional experiences and intentional states), which are spontaneous, directed to others as a counterpart in a social relationship, and which are responsible for some kind of institutionalization occurring in and through linguistic expressions. As such, social acts have different constitutive components, which Kevin Mulligan, following Reinach, classifies as follows:8 Linguistic component (or the “body of social acts”): social acts are linguistically expressed, and their expression generally entails specific grammatical structures or specific lexical choices, such as the first-person pronoun, present-tense verbs, adverbs (like “herewith,” “hereby”),9 the use of present tense or of imperative for commands, etc. This, however, does not mean that one can fix once and for all the grammar of social acts, or that one can establish a list of adverbs that should be part of social acts. That precise grammatical structures or lexical components cannot be used to define what social acts are is a conclusion that can also be drawn from Austin’s unsuccessful attempts to find out univocal criteria allowing us once and for all to discriminate between constative utterances (i.e., utterances that describe something and can be said to be true or false) and performative utterances (i.e., utterances that do something, and are not subject to verification or falsification).10 As it is well known, due to the impossibility to univocally fix criteria which would allow us to define social acts, Austin revises the somewhat dichotomous distinction between constative utterances and performative utterances and rather suggests that each utterance should be considered as having a locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary force. Yet, the latter distinction also relies on contextual structures and can only be made by taking into account the situation in which the social act or the speech act are uttered.11 Force and Experience: although they are never reducible to states of mind or inner experiences, social acts presuppose specific inner and first-personal experiences. More precisely, Reinach considers such inner experiences (acts or states of mind) of the agent performing a social act as the foundation of the respective social act itself.12 Specifically, a promise presupposes the will and the intention to do what one promises to do. Uptake: social acts are “in need of uptake” (vernehmungsbedürftig),13 whereby “uptake” means: (i) that the addressees hear the utterance or perceive the gestures

7 For a schematic overview of this classification, see Karl Schuhmann, “The Development of Speech-Act Theory in Munich Phenomenology,” in The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 2 (2002), 73–92. 8 Kevin Mulligan, “Promisings and Other Social Acts: Their Constituents and Structure,” in Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, ed. Kevin Mulligan (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 29–90. 9 Adolf Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, 169 f./28 f. 10 John Langshaw Austin, How to Do Things with Words. 94 f. 11 See below for a closer discussion of this implication. 12 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, 162/21–22. Cf. Schuhmann, “The Development of Speech-Act Theory in Munich Phenomenology.” 13 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, 159/19.

118 Michela Summa through which the social act is performed; (ii) that they understand the content of the utterance or social act; (iii) that they understand the type of the act which is being performed.14 In the case of promising, this means that the addressees should hear the utterance, understand its meaning and recognize that it is a promise. A promise that one did not hear, understand, or recognize as a promise does not count as a promise, that is, it has not occurred as a social act.15 Confederate successor states: social acts produce new social bonds and new states of mind. A promise produces expectations as well as a claim and an obligation, and it shapes a situation in which, notably, promisers should respect their obligation—or apologize if they could not do so—and promisees are entitled to claim this respect. If one of the constitutive components of social acts is missing, the social act is invalidated, and actually it cannot be said to have occurred. Yet, besides these evident cases of invalidation, towards the end of paragraph 3 in The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law, Reinach argues that, like other social acts, promises can also be corrupted in other ways, particularly mentioning the case of insincere promises: Like all the social acts promising is susceptible of that shadowy and inauthentic mode of being behind which there is no sincere intention of doing the thing promised. The pseudo-promise (Scheinversprechen) also turns to another person, as does the authentic promise; and it is intrinsic to it to express itself just like the authentic promise does. Whoever makes a pseudo-promise, pretends to be promising authentically. One can wonder whether claim and obligation proceed from this pseudo-promise just as from an authentic one.16 An insincere promise can in principle look precisely like a sincere promise. Also, we cannot say that any of the aforementioned components is properly missing: even the inner experience, which is the corrupted component, is still there. Persons who utter an insincere promise do have intentions, but the intention they have does not converge with the ones they express; thus, they are only pretending to give a real promise. For these reasons, the question arises as to whether insincere promises are in fact

14 Cf. Alessandro Salice and Genki Uemura, “Social Acts and Communities: Walther between Husserl and Reinach,” in Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion, ed. Antonio Calcagno (Cham: Springer, 2018), 27–46. 29. Mulligan, “Promisings and Other Social Acts: Their constituents and structure.” 15 According to Margaret Gilbert the moment of uptake is actually more demanding and also entails the acceptance of the promise. Accordingly, she interprets the moment of uptake as signifying that promises result from joint commitment and joint decision. In this sense, both promisor and the promisee “are active in the process of constructing the promise” Margaret Gilbert, Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 318. This implies that—in specific senses—the promise also binds the promisee with some obligations, even if these are not made explicit in the promise. If I promised you that I would help you with the move and come at your place at 3 p.m. and you accept the promise, you also commit to making my action realizable, for instance by being at home at the time we agreed to meet, by have planned and organized your move etc. As Markus Heuft observes, that promising implicitly entails obligations also for the promisee mostly becomes clear if we consider post-fact behaviour. Thus, if you are not at home at 3 p.m., and in such a way prevent me from keeping my promise, you will excuse of justify yourself for your absence. Cf. Markus Heuft, Sagen und Meinen. Das Sprechen als sprachphilosophisches Problem (München: Fink, 2004), 390, footnote. 16 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, 169/28.

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promises and as to whether they can and should also be considered as sources of claims and obligations, similar to genuine promises. If we consider the performance of an insincere promise along the four components singled out earlier, we can say the following. The linguistic component is indistinguishable from that of a genuine promise. The force and inner experience are different, since, in the case of a sincere promise, one’s genuine will and intention would correspond to the ones expressed, whereas, in the case of an insincere promise, the expressed will and intention do not converge with the experienced will and intention. Yet, while being corrupted, the component is not simply missing. The moment of uptake remains unchanged: precisely because they pretend to be genuine, insincere promises also require uptake. The confederate successor states—notably, the obligation and the entitlement to raise claims regarding the promise—should apparently also remain the same. Suppose that you promised me insincerely that you would help me with the move. Since I cannot distinguish a sincere from an insincere promise, on the day of the move, I would expect you to come and help, and I would ask for explanations if you do not show up. Of course, you can still behave insincerely in your justification or in your excuse, either by lying (“I could not come as promised, because I had an unexpected meeting at work,” but there was no meeting in fact) or by using something that really happened as an excuse, even if you know that, if you wanted, you could have kept the promise (“my job is so demanding that I hadn’t time and energy to come,” and it is true that your job is very demanding). But, first, this does not change the fact that you do apologize or justify yourself, and second, you would not just tell me: “You shouldn’t have expected me to come, and you are not entitled to ask me for a justification, since when I promised I was insincere and I didn’t really mean that I would come.” Asking for justifications in these cases is appropriate and the fact that people do not justify their behaviour by simply saying that the original promise was insincere already shows that there are obligations and that insincere promisors are aware of the obligation their insincere promise has produced. However, in this respect, Reinach’s answer is not so straightforward. Making a distinction between positive law and its a priori foundation, he argues that, from the perspective of an a priori (i.e., extra-juridical) foundation, it remains impossible to decide with certainty whether insincere promises should produce claims and obligations as sincere promises do.17 And this even though, in positive law, insincere promises are not different from sincere promises and therefore that persons making them cannot appeal to insincere utterances to invalidate their promise. While suggesting that the answer may not be certain, Reinach assumes that, from the perspective of its a priori foundation as a social act, an insincere promise is not a promise and therefore does not properly bring about claims or obligations. This even though one might not have access to the real intentions of the promisors and even though, in positive law and in concrete social situations, the uttered (insincere) promise precisely entitles one person to claims and imposes obligations on another. How should we understand this suggestion? Certainly, one should first observe that Reinach is primarily interested in giving a structural account of the normative bond produced by promises as social

17 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, 169/28.

120 Michela Summa acts. Accordingly, one can say that insincere promises simply fall outside the scope of the investigation, and that their nature can only be understood provided that the successful case has been properly analysed. However, one may also contend that precisely considering more closely aberrational cases or cases that do not correspond to the structural definition, even if they appear to do so, may highlight some further specific aspects of Reinach’s approach to social acts and speech acts. Insincere promises are classified as social acts that are not properly accomplished, but only apparently. Reinach speaks in this respect of an illusory execution (Scheinvollzug). What is characteristic of these acts is, as we can draw from the previous schematic presentation, the lack or the corruption of one component of genuine social acts, more precisely, the lack or the corruption of the moment of inner experience. Thus, an illusory communication (Scheinmitteilung) presupposes no genuine conviction, an illusory question no genuine uncertainty, an illusory plea or order no genuine willing or wishing, and an illusory (or insincere) promise no genuine willing and intention. As Reinach writes: The acts are performed, but it is only a pseudo-performance (Scheinvollzug); the performing subject tries to present it as genuine. Social acts which occur with this modification do not presuppose the inner experiences just discussed; in fact, the very nature of a pseudo-act excludes them. A genuine conviction cannot underlie a pseudo-act of informing, genuine uncertainty cannot underlie a pseudoquestion, a genuine wish and a genuine will cannot underlie a pseudo-request and a pseudo-command. Only in the first of these cases does one speak of a lie. By extending this concept (lying) one can designate the whole group of these cases as the sphere of social dishonesty or hypocrisy, inasmuch as the person falsely presents himself in them as “really” commanding, requesting, etc.18 These remarks clearly connect insincere promises to phenomena we can label as social imposture—including lies and dissimulations as well as insincere promises and other kinds of insincere behaviour. These phenomena represent a crux for the theory of social acts, as well as for the approach to performative utterances developed by Austin. For Austin too, indeed, sincerity counts as a condition for the felicity of performative utterances. Notoriously, it is the third condition for the felicity of performative utterances which states: (G.1) Where, as often, the procedure is designed for use by persons having certain thoughts or feelings for the inauguration of certain consequential conduct on the part of any participant, then a person participating in and so invoking the procedure must in fact have those thoughts or feelings, and the participants must intend so to conduct themselves and further, (G.2) must actually so conduct themselves subsequently.19

18 Reinach, Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts, 161–62/22. 19 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 14–15.

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While Reinach, in the aforementioned passages, explicitly refers to some (genuine) “inner experiencing” (Innenerleben) as presupposed by and required for the success of social acts, Austin is more careful with this assumption. On the one hand, he clearly wants to avoid the sincerity condition being interpreted as simply meaning that the speech act is “the outward and visible sign…of an inward and spiritual act.”20 Assuming this, in fact, we would easily fall prey to what he classifies as a “descriptive fallacy,” for we would reduce performative utterances to constative utterances, or endorse the claim that the “outward utterance is a description, true or false, of the occurrence of the inward performance.”21 On the other hand, however, Austin does admit that not only the circumstances in which the words are uttered should be appropriate (as the two other felicity conditions make clear), but that “it is very commonly necessary that the speaker himself or other persons should also perform certain other actions, whether ‘physical’ or ‘mental’ actions or even acts of uttering further words.”22 Thus, Austin eventually admits that the having of those thoughts and feelings he mentions in the sincerity condition amounts to some kind of mental experience or mental act, required for the success of the speech act, which however not are merely expressed by the speech act. Austin does not properly discuss how we should understand this reference to inner or mental experience. Yet, what he does explicitly claim is that an insincere promise is a case of abuse: he would thus agree with positive law, arguing that even if insincere, a promise is a promise and as such produces obligations; but he would still contend that the performative act eventually failed, precisely because the procedure with the normative moment of sincerity has been abused. These short remarks on insincere promises leave us with some sort of dissatisfaction concerning both Reinach’s appeal to an inner experience and Austin’s sincerity condition.23 This first of all because, even if we follow Austin in saying that the promise has occurred, we do not seem to be able to say much more about what actually happens to the social bond if the promise is insincere. For instance, on the basis of this sole remark, we do not seem to be able to address questions such as the following: how will promisors doing what they have promised to do? Is there an appropriate justification at all, or the justification will also be necessarily insincere? In what sense can one rely on the word given, and on the institution of promise, given the possibility of insincerity? Yet, these are not the only problems. Additionally, the discontent concerns the rather cursory discussion of what “sincerity” means, for social acts in general and for promises in particular. More precisely, one could ask whether and on which basis one can establish whether an utterance is sincere or not, and whether a

20 21 22 23

Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 9. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 9. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 8–9. Austin’s paper “Pretending” can be seen as an attempt to more directly address the problem of sincerity. Yet, on his own admission, he does not succeed in this aim. John Langshaw Austin, “Pretending,” in The Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XXXII (1958). See Cavell A Pitch of Philosophy. Autobiographical Exercises (Cambridge MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1994), 91 f; Stanley Cavell, Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida (Oxford/ Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1995), 57 f.

122 Michela Summa sincere utterance is simply meant to reflect some already given inner experiences, which speakers or agents would supposedly already know in advance. Also, one could wonder what kind of reliance we can still have on language and interpersonal communication, assuming that utterances, and particularly promises, can be insincere. These questions—which one could address to both Reinach and Austin—converge in that they all touch on the relation between inner experiencing and the performative or social act. How should we understand this relation, if we are to avoid the descriptive fallacy pointed out by Austin—namely, if we do not want to reduce the performative utterance or the social act to the mere description of an inner experience, which would supposedly be independent from and prior to the social act? In order to understand the import of this question for social acts and particularly for promises, we should first reassess the problem of sincerity.

8.2 Sincerity and acknowledgement In order to address the implications of the fact that promises can be insincere, I wish now to consider Bernhard Williams’ and Richard Moran’s approaches to sincerity.24 Both authors generally focus on assertion, although Williams also makes some explicit comparisons with promising. Without equating promising with asserting, I assume that the arguments I discuss here are valid for both. In Truth and Truthfulness, Williams particularly emphasizes the tie between the value we attribute to sincerity and the value of social trust and trustworthiness. Specifically, with regard to promising, he writes: [I]f I say to a friend or a colleague or a well-disposed neighbour that I am going to do a certain thing, and I know that he or she will rely on this in some significant respect, and he or she knows that I know this, there is room for recriminations and a retreat from these relations if I do not do the thing and also do not try, if possible, to avert the effects on this person.25 Williams would thus agree with what I said earlier regarding the implicit awareness of the social context in which a promise is made and of the obligations that follow from this speech act. Also, he argues here that promises presuppose a relation to a social world in which we rely on the word given. At least, we rely on the word given by persons we trust (a friend, a colleague, a well-disposed neighbour, etc.), which also implies that we may not be disposed to accept promises from everyone, but that we are disposed to accept them from the persons we trust. This brings to the fore a certain tension in the relation between trust and promises. For, on the one hand, the function of promises can be said to be that of providing a “protective hedge” against the changes of desires and related intentions—thus they can be said to be socially relevant precisely because human

24 Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Richard Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105, no. 1 (2005), 325–345. 25 Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 112.

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26

beings, due to the structure of their desires, are deeply unreliable. On the other hand, however, we accept promises only when we trust the promisors, at least to the extent that we believe they are persons who keep their word. In this sense, the “authority interest” of the promisees presupposes that there is a basic trust with respect to the promisors; trust which will be compromised if the promise is broken without justification.27 While Williams’s remark is general—and can be taken to refer to cases in which I “do not do the thing” for reasons that may not be related to insincerity28—we can say that the ambiguous tie between sincerity and trustworthiness is particularly important and complex when the sincerity of a promise is at stake. As we have seen, one can attempt to justify or excuse oneself for an insincere promise by either uttering another insincere speech act, or by admitting the initial insincerity: in the former case, the deceit would be continued, whereas in the latter case, the justification or excuse would not be accepted as valid or appropriate. A kind of (deceptive and probably provisional) trust in the sincerity of the person may be thus be re-established in the former case and it would be damaged or lost in the latter case. While this tension between trust and distrust in interpersonal relationships is insightfully emphasized by Williams, the connection between sincerity and expression needs some closer considerations. In this regard, Moran invites us to keep in mind the diversity of expressions when addressing problems of sincerity. Interested in clarifying the “value” of sincerity, Moran aims at contrasting one traditional view concerning the function of sincerity, namely that “[w]e value sincerity in speech, and in expression generally, because it is the closest we can come to unmediated access to the genuine state of mind of the person with whom we are communicating.”29 This view is based on the assumption of the ideal of

26 “Promising, even in its less formally contractual forms, does have one particularly important function, that it is supposed to protect the promise against the possibility that the agent fails to deliver simply because he has changed his mind. Intentions may always vary with the change of desire, and desires do very readily change. Indeed, an agent can change his intentions capriciously, at will. Promises are meant to provide a protective hedge against such changes.” Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 80. 27 According to Owens, “trust” and “trustworthiness” are not to be considered as values in themselves. Rather, trust is something that realizes the distinctive value of the object of trust. In such a way, Owens proposes first an account of trust based on the object to be trusted in, rather than on the trusting subject. Second, he specifically considers trust in promises as particularly related to the normative aspect of obligation. In this sense, we trust that someone will keep his/her promises if (i) we rely on them to perform, because they are obliged to perform and (ii) we rely on them in part due to the noninstrumental value of the obligation. According to Owens, such a normative interest in obligation grounds our trust in promises in creating relationships in which we are vulnerable to be wronged. See David Owens, “Trusting a Promise and Other Things,” in The Philosophy of Trust, ed. Paul Faulkner and Thomas Simpson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 214–229. While I think this approach is suitable to qualify our trust in promises (like our trust in courage, assertions, etc.), I also think that Williams is here addressing the concept of trust in a broader sense, particularly in relation to the trustworthiness of persons, and of the different utterances of one person. 28 In particular, this can be connected to the problem of conflict of obligations, notably concerning ethical kinds of obligations that go beyond promises. As it has been argued, despite several divergences in the approach Reinach’s and Williams’ actually converge on questions related to conflicts of obligation. Notably, they both emphasize that such conflicts are based on a radical ontological difference between the social realities of obligation—that is to say, between “what binds us and what goes beyond (or underlies) binding.” B. Vassilicos, “Le devoir m’appelle? Reinach et Williams sur le conflit (éthique) d’obligations,” Philosophie, no. 128 (janvier 2016), 50–63. 63. 29 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 326.

124 Michela Summa “transparency” of the mind to itself and to others, which is expressed in the quotation from Plotinus Moran begins with. According to this view, souls free of the body would not need to employ any words for communicating, since they would know already the content that is to be communicated.30 Therefore, speaking—or employing words as a means to communicate—is not necessary for purely intellectual beings, for whom everything in the intellectual domain would be accessible without any mediation.31 Conversely, the picture of language we obtain is that of a necessary mediation between souls, whose thoughts remain concealed and are not transparently accessible because souls occupy a body. Taking up this issue, Moran suggests that this neo-Platonic view is not only of historical interest; it also sheds light on some implicit assumptions regarding a still nowadays widespread understanding of linguistic expression and communication. Since the mind de facto is not transparently accessible (at least not for human, embodied beings), we need language in order to communicate. Accordingly, the sincerity of expression should be considered as a virtue, because it defines the form of communication that comes close to the ideal of pure immediacy and transparency. Yet, as Moran observes, if we follow this view, sincerity would “belong to the virtues that seek to make themselves unnecessary,”32 because—ideally speaking—we would aim at reaching a state in which immediate communication is possible and the distinction between sincerity and insincerity would no longer be relevant. This, however, would happen “at the cost of treating speech itself as a lamentable expedient for purposes of real communication.”33 Moran criticizes this assumption and the connected idea that sincerity matters because it provides us an access to the inner state of mind of the speaker, and to their beliefs, desires, or intentions. Although he does not specifically focus on promises, Moran critically discusses the distinction Williams makes between sincere and insincere assertions in a way that can also shed light on insincere promises. According to Williams, sincerity is based on the form of implicit and somehow natural trust in at least certain social relationships; insincerity, conversely, distorts such natural trust and therefore brings to the fore what is normally implicitly assumed. For Williams, “sincere assertions do not necessarily have the aim of informing the hearer; but insincere assertions do have the aim of misinforming the hearer.”34 Agreeing with the first part of Williams’ claim—that the aim of sincere assertions is not necessarily to elicit belief on the part of the hearers, and that the achievement of this aim presupposes that the hearers just

30 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 325. 31 In this respect, one can draw a parallel to Thomas Aquinas’s discussion of angels. Following these accounts—which are not only of historical interest but are at least implicitly influential also in contemporary debates—not only would the role of speech in shaping both the social world and our selfrelatedness be marginalized. Eventually such ideas are incompatible with the social character of action in general. In this respect, cf. Karl Mertens, “What Is It Like to Be an Angel? The Importance of Corporeally-Situated Experience for Our Concept of Action” in Analytic and Continental Philosophy: Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, ed. Harald Wiltsche and Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 247–259. 32 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 326. 33 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 326. 34 Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 73–74.

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implicitly assume the speakers to actually believe what they say—Moran at least partly disagrees with the second part. More generally, he emphasizes that only one class of assertions can be considered to be informative or misinformative about facts or beliefs of the speakers; within this class, some assertions achieve their aim through something like reminding or demonstrating (thus not involving the reference to the speakers’ beliefs) and some others have the aim that the speakers himself be believed. Only for the latter does the sincerity condition matter. This also amounts to saying that, different from what Williams suggests,35 sincerity is not to be taken as the most natural and obvious way of expressing oneself. And, while the argument is specifically developed with regard to assertions, I would contend that this holds not only for assertions, but for all speech acts. Indeed, in order to understand the relation between the problems of sincerity and speech acts as social acts, we should make a distinction between two meanings of the concept of “expressing oneself”: (i) as a “manifestation of some attitude or state of mind,” and (ii) as “the intentional act of one person directed to another.”36 The former meaning of “expressing oneself” corresponds to what we can call “primary expression,” like the blushing for shame, or a cry for pain. Primary expressions are, one could say, ‘natural’ ways of expressing oneself, because they are spontaneous and not reflected upon. They simply occur to us, like experience of joy or pain occur to us. As such, primary expression shows the co-belonging and inseparability of the “inner” and the “outer”—or of what are taken to be the “mental” and the “bodily” moments of experience.37 As nonindependent parts of our experiences, as spontaneous, unreflected, and uncontrolled occurrences, these expressions cannot be said to be either sincere or insincere. Problems of sincerity arise instead when it comes to what we can call “secondary expressions,” or when the expression of belief involves “the speaker asserting or explicitly giving his word on something.”38 While recognizing the crucial role of primary (or, as he says, “impersonal”) expressions for social understanding, Moran emphasizes how—particularly in certain cases, like apologies or expressions of gratitude and, as I will argue, promising—we are not satisfied with these primary expressions. Uttering a word of gratitude signifies something more than some kind of behaviour that may already implicitly indicate gratitude (and that “something more” is crucially important). The same holds true for words of apology, but also for anger, disappointment, and the like. And this “because the words provide something more than an indication of the speaker’s state of mind. For one thing, there is the difference between remorse or gratitude expressing itself in a person’s face or action, and the person giving expression to his remorse or gratitude.”39 The reason why the explicit expression of gratitude, regret, esteem, anger, and other social emotions particularly matters, and the reason why there are also social and normative requirements for these words to be uttered in front of others—think

35 Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 75, 78, 80–81. 36 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 335. 37 Cf. Michela Summa, “Pretence and the Inner. Reflections on Expressiveness and the Experience of self and Other,” in Analytical and Continental Philosophy: Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, ed. Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl and Harald Wiltsche (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 309–322. 38 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 334. 39 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 335.

126 Michela Summa about how important it is for children to learn to apologize or express gratitude in the proper way and how they are often requested to do so by parents and educators—is that they imply what Cavell calls “acknowledging” from the speaker’s side. As Moran further observes: When the person expresses himself…he doesn’t simply provide a window on to his state of mind, but also “owns up” to the attitude in question, acknowledges it, and assumes a certain kind of responsibility for it, and for my knowledge of it. None of this is part of the story when his remorse or gratitude simply manifest themselves, clear as day, in how he looks or what he does…And the idea of an assumption of responsibility when the person expresses his remorse or gratitude is part of a further difference, which lies in the fact that only when the person as such is involved can we speak of the expression of remorse or gratitude being directed or addressed to some particular other person.40 If we follow this view, the value of sincerity is certainly not primarily that of providing an adequate description of an inner state, but still has to do with how we relate to ourselves and others in social contexts. Also, even if this is certainly an important part of the story, the value of sincerity is not even restricted to the establishing and maintaining of social trustworthiness. What is crucially important when we consider sincerity is that we expect persons to be sincere in their acknowledging of what they experience in the presence of or in the interaction with someone else, whom they also acknowledge as a social partner who deserves sincerity. For this reason, one can recognize what Moran calls a directive aspect in the intimation to “tell the truth”: this directive moment presupposes that we assume the persons to be engaged in a strong sense in the act of giving expression to what they think or feel, or to “own up to” what they think or feel. In and through the expression of engagement and personal owing up, persons also assume responsibility, and can if not should be considered as accountable for what they say.41 This view on sincerity is at once less and more demanding than other views based on the assumption that sincere utterances are those that most faithfully reflect one’s inner state of mind. It is less demanding because an utterance is sincere if it expresses what the speakers acknowledge in what they are experiencing on a specific occasion—independently of whether such acknowledging is capable of rendering the complexity of one’s inner experience. In other words, according to this view, sincerity does not rule out self-deception and the possibility that even a self-deceptive utterance may be sincere: “[o]ne can fail to speak sincerely while nonetheless giving expression to one’s actual beliefs, just as one can speak sincerely in a way that reflects a very imperfect grasp of one’s actual attitudes.”42 Yet, it is also more demanding because it

40 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 336. 41 “The ‘directive’ aspect of telling, attesting to a specific proposition, is thus related to the speaker’s presentation of himself as accountable for the hearer’s believing what he says. Simply gaining awareness of what someone believes provides nothing of this relationship between speaker and hearer.” Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 339. 42 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 345.

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implies interpersonal commitment, accountability, and responsibility—which are not entailed in cases of mere reporting: Sincerity matters epistemically to the hearer not because it provides him with a window onto the speaker’s beliefs but because it tells him what the person as such is assuming responsibility for, as this relates to the hearer’s own belief. The difference doesn’t simply lie in the fact that he now has someone to blame should he turn out to be misled, but also in the more epistemically relevant fact that, rather than having simply come upon someone’s belief to make of what he will, the hearer can assume that the belief in question has survived the speaker’s reflection on it and is being presented to him with the speaker’s epistemic backing and answerability for its justification and general (including contextual) significance. As with any assumption of responsibility, this can be something shallow, confused, or deluded, but the speaker’s explicit presentation of what he says as belief-worthy, and the joint responsibility for belief expressed by this, nonetheless provides the hearer with something of an epistemic import different from the private or telepathic discovery of someone’s beliefs.43 Moran’s view on sincerity admits that there is a subjective experience—and a subjective way of relating to what one experiences—at stake when we perform social acts. However, this admission does not fall prey of the descriptive fallacy Austin warns us of, namely the fallacy of reducing all utterances expressing beliefs, desires, emotions, intentions, and so on to description of inner states of mind. Acknowledging, after all, is still performative.

8.3 Concluding remarks: back to promises As I mentioned in introduction, the discussion of the problems related to the sincerity of promises has several implications. Let me conclude by highlighting those which are more strictly tied to the claims I formulated in the introduction. The first suggestion I made concerned the primacy of first-personal experience and knowledge of one’s own intentions for the definition of actions. In the first section, I discussed how, although they converge in several aspects in their analyses of social acts and speech acts, Reinach and Austin have a partially differing take on insincere promises. Reinach makes a distinction between insincere promises in positive law and the a priori foundation of promises as social acts: in the former case, insincere promises are treated just as sincere promises, whereas in the latter case one should assume that insincere promises are not promises. This view is not only based on the primacy of intention with respect to overt behaviour but also on the assumption that speakers know their intentions. Austin also considers insincere promises as abuses. Yet, this does not imply that insincere promisors are less bound than sincere promisors to the word they give. On the contrary, insincere promisors would be considered to be accountable for their promise, even when that promise was insincere. The discussion of the meaning and value of sincerity in general and of the sincerity of promises in particular has allowed me to show why saying—as Austin does—that

43 Moran, “Problems of Sincerity,” 335.

128 Michela Summa our word binds us even if it is insincere does not rule out the consideration of the importance of first-personal engagement in promising, and in speech acts in general. Such first-personal engagement, however, should not be primarily understood as a kind of knowledge of one’s inner states of minds, about which one would inform others by means of descriptions. Rather, it should be understood as the acknowledging of thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, and the like. And acknowledging thereby also means “owning up to” those states and thus taking responsibility before others for what one says and for the consequences the utterance implies. This can be further specified in relation to the distinction of the modes of personal engagement in expression. Probably even more than words of gratitude, promises need first-personal engagement; the intention to do or not do something needs be explicitly acknowledged and owned up to, and the promisers herewith take responsibility for what they say. Certainly, paraphrasing and expanding one of Williams’ remarks, we can say that it would be inappropriate to consider as promises only utterances that have the form: “I promise you to x.” Maybe someone behaves in a way that implies a quasipromise, even if this promise has not been uttered—so that one can say that often “promises can be made without the formalities of promising.”44 Interpersonal expectations, included the ones produced by a promise, are often based on implicit, silent forms of mutual understanding. Yet, besides missing what Williams considers to be the crucial point—that is to say, that the fact that we rely on something may come up only after we say it, when “you discover that the other person is counting on some (reasonably understood) implication of what you said, and you feel you must do something about it”45—these observations also underestimate the crucial social difference made by the act of acknowledging. Non-reflective, spontaneous behaviour or an implicit expression that simply alludes to a promise may certainly generate justified expectations, but they do not entail the same kind of commitment and engagement that a promise entails. If you just behave (maybe unconsciously) in a way that betrays your interest in visiting or helping a person, this does not mean that you commit yourself to doing anything, and it does not entitle the other person to issue claims about your future actions. This is the reason why, in case of ambiguity, the hearer’s question—“was this a promise?”—would be legitimate, since it precisely aims to ascertain whether or not the promisor owns up to the expression of an intention in a way that implies taking responsibility for future actions. This is why the acknowledgement of the intention, expressed by the utterance of a promise, should be something both parties can subsequently appeal to, and something that does not belong exclusively to either. Accordingly, we can also say that first-personal, explicit and committed engagement in the act of acknowledging is something we cannot exclude from our account of promising. Such committed engagement is in fact a condition for the accomplishing of the speech act. Nor can we exclude the inner experience Reinach is referring to, once we take this inner experience precisely as shaped by the act of acknowledging, and not as something that is already there and known, only awaiting to be expressed by the act of promising.46

44 Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 112. 45 Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, 112. 46 See Michela Summa, “Expression and the Performative. A Reassessment,” in Phenomenology as Performative Exercise, ed. Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch (Leiden: Brill, 2020).

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The second suggestion I made earlier concerned the implications of the possibility of insincere promises for the relation between promising and sociality. Connected with the previous remarks, the importance we attribute to the sincerity or insincerity of promises reveals that social understanding and interactions are not primarily concerned with the problem of knowing what is going on in the other’s mind. Rather, they are concerned with processes through which we commit with others in several ways and assume responsibility for what we commit to; processes through which we grant to others some authority with respect to our own actions; and processes that in this way contribute to the shaping of our self-understanding, and even of our more basic self-experiencing, in and through the relation we establish with others. This also underlies the re-shaping of our self-understanding thanks to the way we engage in actions and speech acts addressed to others, to the way we participate in social contexts, and to the way we commit to something and are then considered as accountable in such contexts. Moreover, as I have been suggesting throughout this paper, promising also shows how trust and distrust are entwined in social experience. This hints at what Cavell calls a tragic moment characterizing our demands for sincerity,47 and particularly for the sincerity of a promise. Cavell introduces this tragic moment by discussing Euripides’ Hippolytus—the tragedy from which Austin quotes a verse in his lectures.48 The verse Austin quotes—“My tongue swore to, but my heart did not”—expresses Hippolytus’s acknowledgement of the insincerity of his promise not to reveal what he has heard from the nurse (namely that his stepmother, Phaedra, is secretly in love with him). Austin notoriously refers to this verse primarily in critical terms, in order to refute the claim that the promise (performed by the tongue) is the descriptive expression of an inner act (performed by the heart, or by someone behind the public scene). Yet, Austin also takes this verse to express the fact that “our word is our bond.”49 Hippolytus’s promise binds him even beyond and possibly in conflict with the sincerity of his acknowledgement. Expanding on Cavell’s remarks, we should emphasize that Hippolytus’s utterance in the quote is a confession (that is to say, also an expression of acknowledgement) concerning his previous insincere acknowledgement of his intentions (concerning how he performed the act of promising, namely, insincerely). Yet, this does not mean that he feels authorized to break the promise; on the contrary, after Phaedra’s death, he remains normatively bound to the word given. Hippolytus does not use his insincerity admission as an excuse for not keeping the promise, and he does keep his promise until the end.50

47 Cavell, A Pitch of Philosophy. Autobiographical Exercises; Cavell, Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida, 42 f. 48 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 9–10. 49 Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 9–10; Cavell, A Pitch of Philosophy. Autobiographical Exercises, 101. 50 According to Cavell, Austin should have drawn deeper consequences from this passage. In fact, for Hippolytus that verse is not an excuse. As Cavell observes: “…the fact is that he does not use them so (as excuses, M.S.)—does not use them in that speech act, if saying so helps—that, on the contrary, he is incapable of breaking his promise not to reveal his knowledge of his step-mother Phaedra’s ungovernable passion for him. It is exactly the consequence of this fact (is it a character flaw?) that the ensuing tragedy triples, or say generalizes, drawing Hippolytus and his father, Theseus, to their deaths after Phaedra’s. So that in drawing, on the basis of the Hippolytus, the moral that our word is our bond, Austin rather fails to appreciate the case in which that motto is more a curse than a sensible maxim.” Cavell, A Pitch of Philosophy. Autobiographical Exercises, 101.

130 Michela Summa The tragic aspect, thus, is not merely related to the fact that circumstances can change in such a way as to make the keeping of a promise impossible, or even as to make one realize that keeping a promise may produce bad results for oneself or for the other person. More importantly, the tragic refers to the double-bind of trust and distrust implied in promising—which may be extended to a double-bind of trust and distrust concerning language as the ground for interpersonal communication and for all social relationships. After all, even if we take sincerity not as a qualification of the genuine expression of a state of mind we supposedly know, but as a form of acknowledgement, we can never be certain about the seriousness of this acknowledgement. Persons may still dissimulate their acknowledgement or avoid in bad faith the act of explicitly expressing a promise while their behaviour alludes to a promise, for instance, for manipulative aims. In Euripides’s tragedy, no one is entitled to say anything with certainty about the sincerity of either of Hippolytus’s acknowledgements (the one he made while uttering the promise, and the subsequent one concerning the insincerity of that act of promising), and thus one can only trust his words. This tragic aspect is ultimately related to the fact that our words both connect and separate us, and that there is a constant tension between the fragility of our trust and reliance on others’ words and the fact that words are what institute reciprocal commitment.

References Austin, John Langshaw. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Austin, John Langshaw. “Pretending” in The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume XXXII (1958): 261–278. Cavell, Stanley. Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Cavell, Stanley. Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, Derrida. Oxford/ Cambridge MA: Blackwell, 1995. Cavell, Stanley. A Pitch of Philosophy. Autobiographical Exercises. Cambridge MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1994. Gilbert, Margaret. Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Heuft, Markus. Sagen und Meinen. Das Sprechen als sprachphilosophisches Problem. München, Fink, 2004. Karl Schuhmann, “The Development of Speech-Act Theory in Munich Phenomenology”. In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 2 (2002): 73–92. Mertens, Karl. “What Is It Like to Be an Angel? The Importance of Corporeally-Situated Experience for Our Concept of Action.” In Analytic and Continental Philosophy: Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, edited by Harald Wiltsche and Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl, 247–258. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Moran, Richard. “Problems of Sincerity” in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105, no. 1 (2005): 325–345. Mulligan, Kevin. “Promising and Other Social Acts: Their Constituents and Structure” in Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology, edited by Kevin Mulligan, 29–90. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987. Owens, David. Shaping the Normative Landscape. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Owens, David. “A Simple Theory of Promising” Philosophical Review 115, no. 1 (2006): 51–77.

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Owens, David. “Trusting a Promise and Other Things”, in The Philosophy of Trust, ed. Paul Faulkner and Thomas Simpson, 214–229. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Reinach, Adolf. The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law. Translated byJohn F. Crosby. Frankfurt: Ontos, 2012. Reinach, Adolf. Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts. In Sämtliche Werke. I, edited by Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith. München: Philosophia Verlag, 1989. Salice, Alessandro and Uemura, Genki. “Social Acts and Communities: Walther between Husserl and Reinach” in Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion, edited by Antonio Calcagno, 27–46. Cham: Springer, 2018. Summa, Michela. “Expression and the Performative. A Reassessment.” In Phenomenology as Performative Exercise, edited by Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch, 99–119. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Summa, Michela. “Pretence and the Inner. Reflections on Expressiveness and the Experience of self and Other.” In Analytical and Continental Philosophy: Methods and Perspectives. Proceedings of the 37th International Wittgenstein Symposium, edited by Sonja RinofnerKreidl and Harald Wiltsche, 309–322. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Summa, Michela, and Karl Mertens. “On the Role of Attention and Ascription in the Formation of Intentions within Behavior.” Phänomenologische Forschungen (2018): 177–196. Williams, Bernard. Truth and Truthfulness. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

9

Wilhelm Schapp and the standard theory of exchanges Alessandro Salice

Abstract: This paper mines, contextualizes, and assesses Wilhelm Schapp’s neglected account of contracts of sale. This account is evaluated against the background of what Emma Tieffenbach and Olivier Massin label as the “Standard Theory of Exchanges [STE]” and the “Action Theory of Exchanges [ATE]” in their recent paper “The Metaphysics of Economic Exchanges” (Journal of Social Ontology, 2017). The first section of the present article introduces STE, its shortcomings, and ATE as a theory of exchanges, which is superior to STE. The second section systematically reconstructs Schapp’s own position. It does so by highlighting the credit Schapp’s position especially owes to Adolf Reinach’s phenomenology. Finally, the third section claims that Schapp’s theory remains largely untouched by the shortcomings that affect STE and that it can be considered as a precursor of ATE, since it shares important insights with that account. Keywords: Wilhelm Schapp; Adolf Reinach; exchanges; promises; preferences 9.1 Introduction Contracts—and especially, contracts of sale—are ubiquitous in our social life. For instance, they help us achieve our needs and desires. If you need or desire something that somebody else owns and if you own something the other needs or desires, a contract offers each party the possibility for fulfilling those needs or desires. That is also why we usually take contracts very seriously by often engaging in careful deliberation before entering into them: typically, the parties evaluate the good they intend to transfer to the other against the good they aim at receiving from the other. Depending on the values of the goods at stake, on the parties’ preferences, and on many other factors, this deliberation may protract itself for a long period of time. Furthermore, contracts not only are sustained by deliberation, they also sustain deliberation: if you know that you will receive a given amount of money because you entered a contract with somebody, this can help you make decisions about your spending in the future. If you know that you have to meet a certain deadline for transferring money to somebody (because you have entered a contract with her), you will factor that deadline in when planning your future spending. Because of their fundamental role in our social reality, it should come as no surprise that humans have devoted an entire branch of jurisprudence to contracts: large parts of civil law norm, regulate, and catalogue various forms of contracts and, in particular, contracts of sale. However, despite their fundamental role for our social DOI: 10.4324/b23065-10

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reality, philosophy has invested comparably limited resources to understand the nature of contracts and, especially, contracts of sale. A notable exception to this general observation is represented by the important contribution recently published by Emma Tieffenbach and Olivier Massin (2017).1 Their The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange is a significant paper for at least two orders of reasons. First, the authors excavate, reconstruct, and present what they dub as “the Standard Theory of Exchanges” (hereafter: STE). Albeit this theory has been “virtually never explicitly spelled out in the economics literature” (Tieffenbach and Massin, Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 173), it is convincingly claimed to capture the “economists’ implicit, pre-theoretical conception of exchanges” (Tieffenbach and Massin, Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 178). Second, the authors systematically evaluate this theory: after identifying some important limitations of the STE, they develop their own alternative view about exchanges, which they call the “Action Theory of Exchanges” (hereafter: ATE).2 ATE is claimed by the authors to fill STE’s explanatory gaps and to solve the main problems that plague that theory. Interestingly, the authors develop ATE by tapping into some conceptual resources that have been secured by Adolf Reinach in the theory of promises he laid out in his masterwork, The Apriori Foundations of Civil Law of 1913.3 Although closely related, the argumentative trajectory of the present paper diverges from the one pursued by Tieffenbach and Massin. While Section 1 summarizes the virtues and vices of the STE by closely following the exposition made by the authors, Sections 2 and 3 go their own route. In Section 2, I introduce a theory of contracts of sale, which has been inspired by Reinach in an equally profound way, although it has thus far remained at the periphery of scholarly research (including research on early phenomenology): this is Wilhelm Schapp’s neglected account of contracts of sale.4 Schapp was a member of that glorious tradition of phenomenology, which goes under the various labels of “early phenomenology,” “Münich and Göttingen circles of phenomenology,” or “realist phenomenology.”5 Even though he received

1 Massin, O., Tieffenbach, E., 2017, The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, Journal of Social Ontology 3(2), 167–205. 2 In their paper, Tieffenbach and Massin focus on the concept of economic exchange rather than on that of contract of sale, but it should become evident in the first and, especially, in the second section that these two concepts, although different, have a certain degree of overlap: some economic exchanges are contracts of sale. It should also be noted that “contract” is used here to indicate the legal notion of a contract (the class of necessary and sufficient conditions that qualify a given event in the world as a contract), not the conventional or institutional notion of a contract (i.e., what a given society considers or accepts to be a contract). On this difference, see Smith, B., 1990, Towards a History of Speech Act Theory, in A. Burkhardt (ed), Speech Acts, Meaning and Intentions. Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle (Berlin: de Gruyter), 29–61. 3 Reinach, A., 2012 [1913], The a priori Foundations of the Civil Law. Along with the lecture “Concerning Phenomenology” trans. by J. Crosby, with an introduction by A. McIntyre, (Berlin: De Gruyter). 4 For a recent contribution on Schapp’s phenomenology, see De Vecchi, F., 2016, A priori of the Law and Values in the Social Ontology of Wilhelm Schapp and Adolf Reinach, In: A. Salice, H. B. Schmid (eds) The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. History, Concepts, Problems (Dordrecht: Springer), 279-316. 5 See Salice, A., 2020, The Phenomenology of the Munich and Göttingen Circles. In: Ed Zalta (ed) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ win2015/entries/phenomenology-mg/, and Schapp, W., 1976, Erinnerungen an Edmund Husserl: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Phänomenologie (Wiesbaden: Heymann).

134 Alessandro Salice a PhD degree in philosophy under the supervision of Edmund Husserl by defending a remarkable dissertation on the philosophy of perception,6 Schapp did not pursue a career as an academic philosopher. He rather opted to become a notary and jurist. However, his interest in philosophy accompanied him for his entire life and materialised in a series of publications, which includes the two volumes on The New Science of Law (Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht) published in the early 1930 s (1930, 1932).7 The first volume of this book lies at the very core of the present paper: there, Schapp also advances some of Reinach’s insights (and especially, those related to the nature of deliberation, values, and promises), which he employs for (among other purposes) developing a theory of contracts of sale.8 After introducing Schapp’s theory in Section 2, Section 3 evaluates the account in the light of the STE and ATE. On the one hand, I show that, although Schapp’s account of contracts can be considered as a variant of the STE, it is free of the shortcomings that affect that theory. On the other, I claim that Schapp’s account can be considered as a precursor of Tieffenbach and Massin’s ATE: in fact, the arguments that make Schapp’s theory invulnerable to the STE’s shortcomings are in line with ATE. They either systematically resonate with the ATE or have in Reinach their common inspirator (while retaining ideas from the STE). Against this background, it can be claimed that Schapp’s theory has not only relevance to those interested in advancing historical scholarship in phenomenology. It is also philosophically relevant insofar as it entails insights that are of profound significance for the ontology of social and institutional entities.

9.2 The standard theory of exchanges and its shortcomings Let us start with an example (see Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 2–3). Imagine a scenario in which person A collects Swiss clocks and owns two clocks (a, b) of the

6 Schapp, W., 2013, Beiträge zur Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann). 7 Schapp, W., 1930, Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht. Band 1: Der Vertrag als Vorgegebenheit (Berlin: Rothschild) and Schapp, W., 1932, Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht. Band 2: Wert, Werk und Eigentum (Berlin: Rothschild). After the Second World War, Schapp will address topics new to his previous philosophical oeuvre by articulating an important theory of narrativity (including a narrative account of personal identity, see Schapp, W., 2012, In Geschichten verstrickt. Zum Sein von Ding und Mensch (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann)). In many ways, Schapp’s theory resonates with contemporary approaches (for instance, see Goldie, P., 2012, The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind (Oxford: OUP)). 8 Schapp is not the only phenomenologist who, in the first decades of the past century, promoted a phenomenological approach to law inspired by Reinach: Czeslaw Znamierowski and Cesare Goretti should be mentioned, among others (on Znamierowski, see his 1924, Podstawowe pojęcia teorji prawa. Część pierwsza: Układ prawny i norma prawna. Poznań: Fiszer i Majewski; on Znamierowski and Reinach, see Lorini, G., Żełaniec, W., 2016, Czesław Znamierowski’s Social Ontology and Its Phenomenological Roots, in A. Salice, H. B. Schmid (eds.) The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality: History, Concepts, Problems (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 75–89; on Goretti, see his 1930, I fondamenti del diritto (Milano: Libreria Editrice Lombarda); and on Goretti and Reinach, see Lorini, G., 2012, Due A priori del Diritto: L’a priori del giuridico in Cesare Goretti vs. l’a priori giuridico in Adolf Reinach, in F. De Vecchi (ed.) Eidetica del Diritto e Ontologia Sociale. Il Realismo di Adolf Reinach (Milano: Mimesis), 151–170.)

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same kind. In addition, person O runs a clock shop, which currently sells a clock (c) that is missing in A’s collection. A and O ponder the possibility of exchanging a and c. If they decide to act, then the exchange comes to completion when A has transferred a to O and O has transferred c to A. This particular event qualifies as a case of barter (“direct exchange”), but clearly not all exchanges are of this direct form: the vast majority of our economic transactions are not direct because they involve money (and, therefore, are “indirect exchanges”). Since one could conceive of money as a factor whose introduction would complicate the exchange without fundamentally altering its nature, this paper will focus exclusively on direct exchanges. Suppose now that a transaction between A and O does indeed occur; how could one describe this event more precisely? By reviewing a large body of literature in (the philosophy of) economics, Tieffenbach and Massin reconstruct what they call the “Standard Theory of Exchange.” This theory, which they indicate has never been spelled out in explicit terms, seems to be the default position on which economists and social scientists alike rely. The bulk of the theory is this: for A and O to exchange their goods a and c, they should perform actions of a specific kind that are motivated by mental attitudes of a specific kind. More precisely, A should prefer c to a and O should prefer a to c. In addition, A’s preference should motivate A to voluntarily transfer a to O and O’s preference should motivate O to voluntarily transfer c to A. In sum, the STE holds that, if A and O exchange their goods a and c, then the following takes place: 1

“Inverse preferences: • •

2

Mutual transfers: • •

3

(1.1.) A prefers c to a (1.2.) O prefers a to c

(2.1.) A voluntarily transfers a to O (2.2.) O voluntarily transfers c to A

(2.1.) partly because of (1.1); (2.2) partly because of (1.2).” (Tieffenbach and Massin, Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 170, adapted)

The authors formulate three comments on the STE (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 170–172). The first is that the notion of a good (or “commodity”), which the STE operates with, encompasses tangible goods (clocks, e.g.), but also intangible goods (including services, i.e., actions). So, for instance, A can sell piano lessons to O, where piano lessons do not belong to the kind of entities that can be touched (and, thus, are not “tangible”). Despite this metaphysical difference, goods and services, on the STE, belong to the same ontological category, which is that of objects (in contrast to, say, that of states of affairs). This immediately leads to the second comment: the fact that goods are considered to be objects has consequences for the understanding of the preferences that motivate the exchange. Since these attitudes are about (or range over) goods by comparing them against each other, these attitudes are objectual (not propositional). So, in

136 Alessandro Salice •

Prefer (x, y)

the semantic values of x and y are objects. Finally, the third comment is this: because x and y are compared by the two parties against each other, this comparison, if it is to motivate an exchange, must give rise to inverse preferences. To put this differently, A and O exchange their goods because A prefers c > a, while O prefers a > c. Interestingly, the “because” at stake here is the “subjective” because9: the subjective because indicates subjective reasons (the mental state that motivates another state or an action). It does not indicate the objective reasons that render, say, subjects’ preferences correct: for instance, on this second understanding of “because,” O prefers a over c because a is more valuable than c.10 After formulating these three comments, the authors move on to identify the limitations of the STE. On the one hand, they pinpoint three issues that are left unexplained by the theory (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 178–179). On the other, they advance two important critiques of the STE. The first shortcoming of the theory relates to the question as to why preferences are supposed to be conducive to exchanges to begin with. If A prefers c to a, why is this supposed to motivate A to transfer c to O? As the authors put it: “Systematically transferring what we own […] to those who own what we prefer is in general a very ineffective method to get us what we want” (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 178). Secondly, the STE does not accommodate an important feature of economic exchanges, which is their quid pro quo aspect: A transfers a to O against c. To express this in their words: “What is missing in the STE is an understanding of the explanatory connection between the two transfers” (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 179). Thirdly, the STE is blind to the normative structure that regulates the exchange. Suppose A transfers a to O, but then O free-rides without transferring c to A. Something has obviously gone wrong in this scenario. For one, A is now in a position to legitimately rebuke O. A’s protest is legitimate, it appears, because O disrespected the claim A had towards O (to receive c) and, thereby, also disrespected O’s own obligation towards A to transfer c. Such claims and obligations seem to be part and parcel of the transaction, but they remain unexplained by the STE:11 “The STE per se does not explain the arising and vanishing of such transitory claims and obligations” (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange,179).

9 See Mulligan, K., 2022, “Logic, Logical Norms and (normative) Grounding.” In: O. S. Schnieder, (ed.) Bolzano on Grounding (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 10 According to this view, preference is an internal mental state of the agent which has motivational force insofar as it can inform the actions of this agent. Yet, this view about preferences is highly controversial within the discipline of economics (for a discussion, see Guala, F., 2019, Preferences: neither behavioural nor mental. Economics & Philosophy 35–3, 383–401; this also raises the question of how standard the Standard Theory of Exchange actually is). However, this is not the place to critically assess this general understanding of preference, because Tieffenbach and Massin (and, importantly, Schapp too) endorse that general view about preferences, even though they amend it in some specific aspects, as we will also see. 11 If claims and obligations are part and parcel of any economic exchange (as Tieffenbach and Massin in their own theory of exchange claim, see Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 191), then this notion can be considered to be cognate (although not coextensive) with the notion of a contract of sale, according to ATE. I will come back to this issue in the next section, where the claim of an equivalence between the two notions is further qualified.

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Having pinpointed the explanatory gaps of the STE, it is now time to turn the attention to the two critiques advanced against this account. The first critique is that not all exchanges include transfers of goods. For instance, services cannot be transferred, although they obviously can be exchanged (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 181). Why can services not be transferred? The authors offer an argument that relies on the metaphysics of goods and services. The argument has two premises. The first premise is that the only entities that can be transferred are endurants. Endurants are entities that persist over time without having temporal parts: clocks, houses, cars, and so on. The second premise is that services, being actions, do not persist over time or, if they persist over time, have temporal parts. Services, therefore, are not endurants. It follows from these two premises that services cannot be transferred, although they can be exchanged (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 181). The second objection raised by Tieffenbach and Massin is that not all exchanges involve inverse preferences. Importantly, exchanges of services do not involve inverse preferences, according to the authors (I ignore here the possibility that the very action of exchanging goods is pleasurable to both parties, Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 184–185). Here is one example, which illustrates their point: Suppose “Suppose Julie explains modal logic to Paul in exchange for Paul’s playing the violin to her. Should we say, as entailed by the STE, that Julie values Paul’s playing the violin to her more than she values explaining modal logic to him? And that, on the other hand, Paul prefers Julie’s explaining modal logic to him to playing the violin to Julie? That sounds very weird.” (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 185). The authors propose that, when it comes to exchange of services, the preferences of the parties are convergent, not inverse. Because of the STE’s shortcomings, the authors articulate an alternative theory of exchanges, the ATE. This theory contains a number of valuable insights, which this paper cannot do justice to, but its main gist is this (see Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 186–187): (i) for all exchanges, what one exchanges are services (i.e., actions, incl. the actions of transferring a good), but not goods (objects); (ii) exchanges of services presuppose that the preferences of the two parties converge and that preferences about services are propositional (not objectual); (iii) when the exchange of services concerns a transfer of goods, the preferences of the two parties about the goods to be transferred are inverse (while the preferences about the very actions of transferring those goods remain convergent); and (iv) exchanges are normatively structured. This normative structure is cashed out in Reinachian terms by means of promissory commitments and claims that are generated by the two parties’ reciprocal promises (one party’s offer and the other party’s acceptance). It exceeds the purposes of this paper to scrutinize the ATE. Rather, the attention will turn to Schapp’s theory of contracts of sale. The next two sections argue that this theory (a) fills the explanatory gaps of STE identified earlier, (b) is not affected by the shortcomings highlighted by Massin and Tieffenbach, and (c) anticipates some of the insights further elaborated by the ATE (while retaining some ideas from STE).

9.3 Reinach’s legacy: Schapp’s theory of contracts As mentioned in the introduction, Schapp’s account of contracts has been developed against the background of early phenomenology and is indebted, especially, to

138 Alessandro Salice Reinach. Reinach was well aware of the significance of his ideas especially about social acts and promises for a general theory of contracts,12 but he never developed such a general theory. In the following section, I will introduce Schapp’s account by emphasizing the elements that, most saliently, relate to Reinach’s philosophy. This is relevant not only for an historical assessment of Schapp’s theory but also to unveil how Schapp’s theory relates especially to the ATE. Schapp starts his analysis by distinguishing what he calls the substructure (Unterbau) and the super-structure (Oberbau) of a contract of sale (Kaufvertrag). In the first subsection, I will start by discussing the substructure of contracts and then move on to their super-structure. Now, what is the substructure of a contract of sale? The substructure, Schapp maintains, consists in the reflection (Überlegung, also: “consideration” or “deliberation”) that the two parties undergo before entering the contract. These considerations motivate the parties to act in such a way as to enter into a contract, where the actions of entering into the contract is the super-structure of the contract (which is the topic of the second subsection). The presence of a substructure, i.e., of a deliberating activity, is what makes a contract rational—in contrast to irrational. Note that the contract does retain its rationality even when it is foolish (töricht, see Schapp neue Wissenschaft, 2), that is, even when the deliberative activity carried out by the subject is faulty or mistaken. 9.3.1 The substructure of the contract of sale Schapp’s analysis of the substructure can be argued to heavily draw on Reinach and especially on his investigation into what he calls “volitional reflection.”13 Whereas intellectual reflection is the epistemic activity a subject engages in, when she is interested in finding out the solution of a theoretical problem or the truth-value of a given proposition (and, therefore, the existence of a given fact), volitional reflection is the deliberative process that is supposed to lead the subject to a decision or intention (Vorsatz) on whether to perform (or to omit) a certain action.14 Let us go back to the example: A collects Swiss clocks and owns two clocks (a, b) of the same kind, while O’s clock shop currently sells a clock (c) that A’s collection

12 See Reinach, A priori Foundations, 50. 13 Reinach, A, 2017 [1912–13], Reflection: Its Ethical and Legal Significance. In: J. Smith, M. Lebech (eds.) Three Texts on Ethics (Munich: Philosophia Verlag), 45–164. 14 See Salice, A., 2018, “Practical Intentionality. From Brentano to the Phenomenology of the Munich and Göttingen Circles.” In: D. Zahavi (ed) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 604–622. Interestingly, Reinach claims that one essential element of volitional reflection is the subject “feeling” the values that characterise the goals or projects she is pondering (Reinach, Reflection, 109–110). So, for instance, when pondering whether bringing about goal G or goal G1, the subject will aim at feeling the values of G resp. G1 (for early phenomenologists’ notion of “feeling,” see Mulligan, K., 2010, Husserls Herz. In M. Frank, N. Weidtmann (eds.), Husserl und die Philosophie des Geistes (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp), 209–238). Schapp endorses Reinach’s axiological realism, but he adopts a different terminology to denote the experiences that make one acquainted with values: values can be either “enjoyed [genossen]” or “tasted” [kostet] (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 7–8). Whereas the first experience is affectively colored, the second is not. For instance, I can enjoy my cup of coffee, but the professional coffee taster aims at “tasting” (not enjoying) his or her cup of coffee. As De Vecchi in her A Priori of the Law remarks, Schapp (at least terminologically) does not seem to distinguish value-properties from the objects that instantiate those properties (“goods”).

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misses. What does the substructure of the exchange between A and O look like? According to Schapp, A will begin by estimating (werten) the value of a and the value of c (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 3), where “estimating” can be presumed to be an attitude closely related to the enjoyment or taste of values mentioned in footnote 14 (Schapp remains silent on this point). In a subsequent step, A will make two interrelated comparisons (Wertgleichungen): A’s comparisons • •

c’s value > a’s value the value of owning c > the value of owning a

These considerations give rise to two interrelated preferences,15 which—as a first approximation—can be formulated as follows (these formulations will be revised further): A’s preferences • •

A prefers the state of affairs {c, value} to the state of affairs {a, value} A prefers the state of affairs {owning c, value} to the state of affairs {owning a, value}

On their end, O will proceed analogously by first making the following comparisons: O’s comparisons • •

a’s value > c’s value the value of owning a > the value of owning c

Because of these two comparisons, O shall form these two preferences: O’s preferences • •

O prefers the state of affairs {a, value} to the state of affairs {c, value} O prefers the state of affairs {owning a, value} to the state of affairs {owning c, value}

Four comments are in order. The first comment is that Schapp, as so many of his fellow phenomenologists, endorses axiological realism. Therefore, the expressions “a’s value” or “the value of owning a” refer to a proper or intrinsic value-property (Eigenwert) of a or of owning a. Values are understood by Schapp as a particular kind of properties instantiated by objects: “The value is something which is

15 Schapp only hints at the presence of preferences, which mediate between the comparison of values, on the one hand, and the decision to make an offer to the other party, on the other. He speaks of the subject “choosing” the most valuable item over the other without further elaboration (wählen, see Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 5). The reconstruction of preferences and of their correlates offered in this paper is, therefore, almost entirely systematic, although consistent with Schapp’s (and Reinach’s) pertinent claims.

140 Alessandro Salice inherent […] in the object […]. The value is as objective—and in the same sense objective—as the object” (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 8–9). Interestingly, Schapp (as, among others, Reinach and von Hildebrand16) maintains that not all values of an object are intrinsic. In addition to intrinsic values, objects can also have extrinsic or instrumental values (Zusammenhang- or Mittelwert, Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 3, 26). These are values that an object acquires because of its relations with a subject or with other objects, in respect of their intrinsic values. For instance, clock a has instrumental value (Mittelwert) for O because it can be sold at a higher price than c (a would not have had that value if O were not interested in the profit, which O is planning to use for, say, extending his business, saving for his retirement, etc.).17 For the sake of simplicity, I will exclusively focus on intrinsic values in comparisons and preferences. The second comment concerns the fact that the value of owning x differs from the value of x and that these values can diverge.18 To illustrate this point, Schapp takes the following example (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 19–20): the value of a Rembrandt painting is very high. However, the value of owning a Rembrandt might not be equally high. In fact, it may be much lower than the value of the painting—for instance, it can be assumed that owning a Rembrandt goes together with important collateral costs that not every owner can afford. Or maybe the owner doesn’t have a place where he can put his Rembrandt. So, the subject, to be motivated to enter a contract of sale, must not only have a preference for the good but also have a preference for owning that good. Note that this marks an important distinction between the notion of exchange and that of a contract of sale: sales require inverse preferences about the ownership of the exchanged good. By contrast, the parties only need to have inverse preferences about the goods—regardless of their preferences about owning those goods—for an exchange to happen (children, e.g., gain pleasure from merely exchanging marbles regardless of the question about ownership).19 Accordingly, exchanges and contracts of sale are cognate notions, but not identical or coextensive. The third comment is that the preferences of A and O do not range over objects, but over states of affairs, in contrast to what STE holds. So, the idea is that preferences are propositional (not objectual) attitudes and that their form is

16 See Reinach, Reflection, and von Hildebrand, D., 1916, Die Idee der sittlichen Handlung, Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung, 3, 126–252. 17 Two observations are relevant in this context. First, since extrinsic values presuppose intrinsic value, the idea of a world which contains only extrinsic values is absurd (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 22). Second, just as one can be mistaken about the proper value of an object, so one can also be mistaken about its instrumental or extrinsic value (Reinach, Reflection, 119). 18 Reinach distinguishes between ownership (Eigentum, sometimes also translated as “property”) and possession (Besitz): ownership grounds property rights about an object, whereas possession is the power to use that object (see Reinach, A priori Foundations, 53ff, Massin, O., 2015, “Qu’est-ce que la propriété? Une approche reinachienne.” Philosophie 1, 74–91). For instance, renting a flat is possessing the flat, but not owning it. In his account, Schapp exclusively focuses on the possibility for ownership to be transferred. Often, transferring ownerships includes transferring possession, but this should not prevent us from thinking that, sometimes, possession alone can be made the object of a contract of sale. (I am thankful to Emma Tieffenbach for pushing me on this point.) 19 I am thankful to Emma Tieffenbach for raising this point.

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Prefer (p, q)

where p and q range over states of affairs (not objects). To be sure, Schapp is not explicit about this point, but his premises—combined with some ideas of Reinach’s about formal ontology—systematically support this view about preferences, or so I will now argue. To sustain this view, I first distinguish between coarse-grained and fine-grained preferences and I then elaborate on the intentional correlate of finegrained preferences. Let us start with the first point. When one claims to prefer a over c, one usually reports a preference of a over c—all things considered. One prefers one entity over the other in relation to all the values or disvalues exemplified by that entity (the very same idea applies to the ownership of a and c, but I will discuss ownership later). This suggests that coarse-grained preferences directed towards objects rely on fine-grained preferences which consider a and c in relation to a single value-property v. It is because a is preferred to c in relation to the value-properties v, v’, v’’ (even though perhaps not in relation to the value-property y) that one forms the coarse-grained preference for a over c. Fine-grained preferences are not directed towards a and c, sic et simpliciter. Their intentional correlate is more complex. On the one hand, they are directed towards a and c insofar as they are (or have) v—let’s express this point by saying that the preference is directed towards “a^v” and “c^v,” where “^v” points to the “moment”20 or “trope”21—that is, to the individualized value-property had by a. Let us call the entity referred to by “a^v” (i.e., the object including one of its moments) a “factual material” (sachlicher Tatbestand), to follow Reinach’s terminology.22 On the other hand, these preferences are directed towards the existence of a^v over the existence of c^v. That is, the existence of one factual material is preferred over the existence of the other, where the existence of a factual material is a state of affairs—not an object.23 For instance, if I form the preference for a just world over a free world (or of an elegant clock over a functional clock), what I actually prefer is the existence of a just world over the existence of a free world (or the existence for an elegant clock over the existence a functional clock). To put this differently, preferences are conative attitudes which have a world-to-mind direction of fit: the point of entertaining these attitudes is a concern for how the world should or should not be, and more precisely, for what should or should not exist—where, to reinforce this, the existence of an object is a state of affairs, not an object. The point about preferences being propositional is slightly more complex in the case of preferences about ownership, although the very same considerations apply. The point is more complex because ownership is a relation which the owner enters into with an object24—since relations are states of affairs25 and since ownership is a

20 See Husserl, E., 2001, Logical Investigations, 2 vols. (London: Routledge) 21 See Williams, D. C., 1953, “On the Elements of Being: I,” Review of Metaphysics 7(1), 3–18 22 Reinach, A, 1982 [1911], On the Theory of the Negative Judgment. In: B. Smith (ed.) Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (Munich: Philosophia Verlag), 340 f, Smith, B., 1987, On the Cognition of States of Affairs, in K. Mulligan (ed.) Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff), 189–225. 23 Reinach, Theory of the Negative Judgment, 338. 24 Ownership “is itself no right over a thing, but rather a relation (Verhältnis) to the thing, a relation in which all rights over it are grounded.” (Reinach, A priori Foundations, 56) 25 Reinach, Theory of the Negative Judgment, 345–346.

142 Alessandro Salice relation, so does ownership qualify as a state of affairs. Here, again, the preference could be coarse-grained or fine-grained: one could prefer owning a over owning c, all things considered, which again presupposes the fine-grained preference of owning a over owning c with respect to a specific value v. It can be therefore argued that the intentional correlate of fine-grained preferences partly consists in, on the one hand, the state of affairs (say, owning a) together with the individualized value-property w. On the other, its full intentional content is about the subsistence of that very state of affairs (which is a state of affairs of a higher order26). So, the preference of owning a over owning c is the preference of the state of affairs that the (with respect to value w) valuable ownership of a subsists over the state of affairs that the (with respect to the same value w) valuable ownership of c subsists (where the attribute “valuable” counts as a placeholder for any property w in respect to which one relation of ownership is preferred over the other). The fourth comment is that, as in the STE, Schapp maintains that the evaluative comparisons of A and O are inverse. Why do these evaluations have to be inverse for the contract to be a contract of sale (Kaufvertrag)? Schapp develops the following consideration: if the evaluations were convergent, the contract would qualify as a contract of gift (Schenkungsvertrag, neue Wissenschaft, 5, 50–51). To put this differently, if A and O share the following evaluations: A’s and O’s preferences: • •

the state of affairs that {a^v exists} < the state of affairs that {c^v exists} the state of affairs that {the (with respect to w) valuable ownership of a subsists} < the state of affairs that {the (with respect to w) valuable ownerships of c subsists}

and if, therefore, O—based on those preferences—transfers c to A, then O is presenting A with c and, thus, O is not selling c to A. Let us take stock. We have seen that the substructure of a contract of sale includes several components: (1) it has experiences that make a subject acquainted with the value of an object (and its ownership); (2) there is comparison of two objects (and of ownerships thereof) in relation to a certain value v; (3) this comparison gives raise to inverse fine-grained preferences about the two objects (and of ownerships thereof), which are propositional; (4) importantly, the fine-grained preferences about the two objects (and of the related ownerships) must be inverse for these preferences to lead to a contract of sale. This list, however, does not yet enumerate all the elements of the substructure. To see why, consider this thought: individual preferences, as we suggested, are conative attitudes. For conative attitudes to lead to intentional action, they must be combined with doxastic attitudes.27 For an agent to act intentionally, this agent not only must be driven by some conation but also must have information about the world. What is the doxastic element that, combined with A’s preference, leads him or her to act? This is the idea Schapp offers (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 31):

26 Reinach, Theory of the Negative Judgment, 338. 27 See Salice, Practical Intentionality.

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If A prefers • •

the state of affairs that {c^v exists} over the state of affairs that {a^v exists} the state of affairs that {the (with respect to w) valuable ownership of c subsists} over the state of affairs that {the (with respect to w) valuable ownership of a subsists}

and if A expects O to have inverse preferences, that is, if A expects O to prefer • •

the state of affairs that {a^v exists} over the state of affairs that {c^v exists} the state of affairs that {the (with respect to w) valuable ownership of a subsists} over the state of affairs that {the (with respect to w) valuable ownership of c subsists}

then A will decide to act in the way described in the next subsection. This expectation-desire pair supports the “super-structure” of the contract by motivating the subject to form the decision (Entschluß) to act—more precisely, the subject will form the decision to formulate an offer (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 62). Before moving to the super-structure of the contract, it is important to highlight that the subject’s expectation must be confirmed by the other party for the contract of sale to acquire a super-structure (for, recall, if the other party has convergent preferences, then the contract has the form of a gift). As we will see, the search for this confirmation is visible in the way in which the first party formulates the offer, which is one element of the contract’s superstructure. 9.3.2 The super-structure of a contract of sale The super-structure of a contract of sale consists in a combination of two elements: the offer (Angebot) and the acceptance (Annahme). Crucially, offer and acceptance are promises and, as such, they are social acts. Schapp here is operating with Reinach’s notion of promises (as he clearly acknowledges, see Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 56), whereby promises are acts that are in need of being heard and, therefore, are happy or successful if their addressees hear or understand the act (in various senses of the terms “hearing” and “understanding”28). In addition, Reinach claims that successful promises, by necessity, generate: • •

pro tanto commitments on the promisor; pro tanto claims on the promisee.29

28 See Salice, A., 2015, Love and Other Social Stances in Early Phenomenology. In: D. Moran, T. Szanto (eds.) The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the We (London: Routledge), 234–247. 29 These commitments (and claims) are pro tanto in the sense that their deontic force can be superseded by the force of other commitments (or claims). An immoral promise (that is, a promise with an immoral content) is the classical example of a promise where the promisor is subject to the pro tanto promissory commitment of realising the promise’s content (and the pro tanto moral obligation of honouring the promise), but where the pro toto commitment may be not to act upon it (depending on how severe the immorality of the promissory content is), see Reinach, A priori Foundations, 14.

144 Alessandro Salice These commitments and claims are triadic relations,30 which bind together the promisor, the promisee, and a content. The content of a promissory commitment is identical with the content of the corresponding claim: this is the action of the promisor (or the result of an action performed by the promisor), which is precisely what the promisor has promised (the content of the promise). To illustrate all this by means of an example, if I promise to invite you to dinner, then my promise is happy if you have understood my promise. If the promise is happy, then I have now a commitment towards you and you have a claim towards me. My commitment and your claim have the same content: me inviting you for dinner, which is the action of mine I have promised to you. Not only does Schapp adopt this conceptual framework for thinking about promises. He also makes use of Reinach’s idea that social acts can undergo some typical modifications. Reinach describes four modifications,31 but one in particular is relevant in this context. This is the idea that a social act like a promise can be conditional or unconditional or can have a conditional or unconditional content. Consider the following example: I promise you that, if I win the lottery, I will invite you for dinner. This is a case of an unconditional promise with conditional content: •

Promise (I win the lottery → I invite you for dinner)

This promise generates a commitment and a corresponding claim in the moment in which it has been uttered and understood. Now contrast this promise with the following conditional promise with unconditional content: if I win the lottery, I promise you that I will invite you for dinner. •

I win the lottery → promise (I invite you for dinner).

This promise is conditional in the sense that the promise is performed (and its deontic consequences are brought about) only if a certain condition is fulfilled. The promisor, that is, is not committed unless (and until) the condition has occurred. To see how all this is relevant to contracts of sale, let us now turn to Schapp’s theory. Schapp argues that, when one party of the contract makes an offer (because of all the conditions we have discussed in the previous subsection), this offer qualifies as a promise. Interestingly, the offer can be formulated in various forms and Schapp identifies three such formulations (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 30, note that we are not told whether there are other forms in which an offer can be formulated): • •

I commit myself to transfer a to you under the condition that you, the buyer, commit yourself to provide me with the property of c. I promise to transfer a to you. However, this promise generates a commitment for me only if you, the buyer, promise to transfer c to me.

30 Note that these entities are deontic, but they are not moral. It is one of Reinach’s greatest achievements to have sharply distinguished between promissory commitments and promissory claims, on the one hand, and moral obligations and moral rights, on the other (see Reinach, A priori Foundations, 8–10). 31 On these modifications, see Reinach, A priori Foundations, 22–24.

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I promise to transfer a to you, but I retain the right to revoke my promise if you, the buyer, do not immediately declare to transfer c to me.

Interestingly, the first and the second promises are different formulations of an unconditional promise with a conditional content: the promise immediately puts the promisor under commitment to realise the content of the promise, if a certain condition is met (and, in the case at stake, the condition is that the promisee promises something to the promisor). As soon as the promisee performs the relevant promise to the promisor, the promisor is committed to realise the content of his or her initial promise. By contrast, the third promise is an unconditional promise with an unconditional content, which—however—is coupled with the promisor’s unilateral right of revoking the promise, should a condition not be met: if the promisee does not perform the required promise, the original promise is void. The combination of an unconditional promise and the unilateral right to revoke that promise is not a trivial matter: in cases other than the contract of sale, the promisor does not have the unilateral right of revoking the promise. This right can be bestowed on the promisor only by the promisee.32 Invoking this right when performing the promise is therefore peculiar and is what qualifies the promise in this particular context as an “offer.” Let us now turn the attention to the acceptance. Two points are in order. First, just like the offer, so too can the acceptance be formulated in different ways, such as “yes” or “I accept.” However, it should be noted that, even though the second party might frame his or her act as an act of “acceptance,” thereby avoiding explicit use of the verb “I promise,” the underlying act does qualify as a promise. On the one hand, it is a promise, which is required of the buyer in order to fulfil the condition which makes the realisation of the other party’s promise obligatory. On the other, the deontic consequences that are generated by the alleged act of acceptance coincide with the consequences of a promise (in accepting the offer, the party is committed to transfer the good to the other and the other is entitled to that). Therefore, even though the acceptance may not disclose itself linguistically as an act of promising, the act performed nevertheless does qualify as a promise.33 Second, the subject, by making using of the term “to buy” and its cognate (“buyer,” etc.) in the formulation of the offer, is seeking confirmation that the other party has the inverse preferences required for the contract of sale to take place. When the other party accepts the offer, common knowledge is thereby established that the kind of activity the two subjects are engaged in is one of sale. When common knowledge is established, the seller now knows (and does not merely expect) that the buyer has inverse preferences, and so does the other party: everybody now is informed of the kind of activity they are engaging in (see Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 29). To recap, the upshot of this second subsection is this: whenever an offer has been accepted in the sense at stake, the contract of sale has been sealed and the two parties are now bound by reciprocal claims and obligations.

32 Reinach, A priori Foundations, 33. 33 On promises and, in particular, conditional promises that disguise themselves as forms of acceptance, see Reinach, A priori Foundations, 28–29.

146 Alessandro Salice

9.4 Schapp: amending the limitations of the standard theory of exchanges In this section, I come back to the STE’s limitations, as these have been flagged by Tieffenbach and Massin, to see how Schapp’s theory scores in their respect. In doing so, I will also flag how Schapp’s account relates to the ATE. Let us start with the three explanatory gaps identified in STE. First, the STE leaves unexplained why preferences are conducive to exchanges. To put this differently, why, if A prefers c to a, is this supposed to motivate A to transfer c to O? Schapp’s theory can explain this by invoking practical rationality. According to standard theory on practical rationality, if a subject entertains a relevant belief-desire pair, she will be motivated to form an intention to act.34 For instance, if I desire to have a beer and I believe there is beer in the fridge, I will form the decision to open the fridge and look for the beer, which then will trigger my action. Similar principles apply to exchanges: if A prefers c’s value to a’s value (etc.) and if A expects that O prefers a’s value to c’s value (etc.), A will decide to make an offer to O and will eventually make the offer. This idea neatly aligns with Tieffenbach and Massin’s idea (see their Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 188.) Second, the STE leaves unexplained the quid pro quo aspect of exchanges. More precisely, STE leaves unexplained the fact that A transfers a to O against c: “what is missing in the STE is an understanding of the explanatory connection between the two transfers…” (Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 179). Schapp’s theory has the conceptual resources to explain that fact. The dynamics of offers and acceptance explains precisely that: A conditionally promises to transfer a in order to get c, and O likewise promises to transfer c in order to get a. This, too, is an insight that is endorsed by the ATE (see Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, 191). Third, the STE is argued to leave unexplained the fact that claims and obligations are part and parcel of the transaction. Something has gone wrong if A transferred a to O, but O had no motive for not free riding without transferring c to A. These motives are accommodated in Schapp’s account thanks to the anchorage of this theory in Reinach’s phenomenology of promises (which is a trait Schapp’s account has in common with the ATE, as we have seen in section 1): precisely because O promised to transfer c to A, O is under the commitment to transfer c to A (and A has a claim concerning c to be transferred to him). The commitment is a sufficient reason for O to act accordingly (and for A to rebuke O, had O not acted on the commitment). Further, Tieffenbach and Massin identify two limitations of the theories. The first limitation has to do with the fact that not all exchanges include transfer of goods—services cannot be transferred because they are actions, not objects. Second, not all exchanges involve inverse preferences: according to the ATE, exchanges of services presuppose converging, not inverse preferences. To assess Schapp’s theory in the light of these two points, one should bear in mind that he is not offering a theory of what it is to transfer goods, but a theory of

34 See Bratman, M., 1999, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Stanford: CLSI Publications) and Salice, Practical Intentionality, for practical rationality in early phenomenology.

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contracts of sale. That is why his theory has the explanatory power for modelling the exchange of services—given that services, too, can be sold and, thus, can become the subject matter of contracts of sale (Schapp, neue Wissenschaft, 28). The question that then remains is the following: how does this theory accommodate exchange of services? Remember that, at least based on the systematic reconstruction offered in the previous section, preferences are propositional attitudes that are directed at states of affairs. In the example discussed about the preference for one clock over another one, the state of affairs at stake is the existence of an object together with an individualised value-property (over the existence of the other object considered in relation to the same property). Now, obviously, value-properties can be exemplified by actions, too. Certain actions are more (or less) valuable than others: for example, some are more costly in terms of efforts (and, therefore, less desirable) than others, some are morally more valuable than others, and some are more enjoyable than others. This suggests that preferences can be directed at actions and not only at objects. For instance, with respect to the epistemic value v, I prefer reading a paper on realist phenomenology to reading a paper on Derrida. Or, what we can consider as its equivalent: I prefer the fact that my valuable (with respect to epistemic value v) reading of a paper on realist phenomenology subsists over the fact that my valuable (with respect to v) reading of a paper on Derrida subsists. If that is the case, then different actions can (i) be compared against each other with respect to some value v, (ii) be preferred over other actions, (iii) be made the matter of a contract of sale. Imagine the following scenario: 1

2

3 4 5 6

A prefers the state of affairs that {the (with respect to value v) valuable O’s playing violin to him subsists} over the state of affairs that {the (with respect to value v) valuable A’s explaining modal logic to O subsists} O prefers the state of affairs that {the (with respect to value v) valuable A’s explaining modal logic to O subsists} over the state of affairs that {the (with respect to value v) valuable O’s playing violin to him subsists} A expects (2) O expects (1) Given (1) and (3), A makes an offer: “I promise to teach modal logic to you, if you promise to play violin for me” Given (2) and (4), O accepts the offer: “I accept”

This appears to depict an exchange of services. A compares two state of affairs against each other: O’s playing violin to A (φ) and A explaining modal logic to O (ψ). A concludes that, all things considered, he prefers (φ) over (ψ). A makes an offer to O because A expects that O has the inverse preference: A expects O to prefer the state of affairs ψ over φ. Since O does indeed have the inverse preference, O accepts the offer.35 Since preferring φ over ψ (and vice versa) is preferring the subsistence of

35 One implicit presupposition of this account is that, metaphysically, actions qualify as states of affairs. Since it exceeds the scope of this paper to support this claim, the considerations that rely on this claim are conditional (but see Goldman, A., 1970, A Theory of Human Action (Princeton: Princeton University Press), for a defense of this view).

148 Alessandro Salice φ over the subsistence of ψ (and vice versa) and since an agential state of affairs subsists when the corresponding action has been performed, once A and O have exchanged promises, A will perform ψ in order to benefit from φ and O will perform φ in order to benefit from ψ. While Schapp’s theory aligns with the ATE insofar as it accommodates the exchange of services by being true to their metaphysical status, it diverges from the ATE (and sides with the STE) insofar as it holds that exchanges of services can be explained by the parties’ inverse preferences. Yet, if the systematic reconstruction of Schapp’s theory of preferences offered in the previous section is correct, then this flags another convergence between the two theories: for Schapp as for the ATE, preferences are propositional and range over states of affairs.

9.5 Conclusion Schapp’s The New Science of Law is a neglected chapter in the history of metaphysics of exchanges, but also in the story of early phenomenology. Schapp develops a novel and original theory of contracts of sale by activating philosophical insights that had been originally secured by Reinach. More specifically, Schapp operates with Reinach’s ideas about deliberations, values, social acts (esp. promises) to argue that contracts are legal formations (Gebilde) of a specific kind: they are supported by a specific process of deliberation (which includes the estimation of the values of goods or services) and they consist in the exchange of reciprocal promises. However, Schapp’s contribution is not merely relevant from a historical point of view. Schapp’s theory bears systematic significance in that it offers conceptual instruments, which are able to meet some of the main problems affecting the STE. Specifically, this theory closes three explanatory gaps by clarifying (i) the motives that lead to an exchange (ii) the quid pro quo aspect of exchanges and (iii) the social normativity that accompanies exchanges. Furthermore, his theory can explain the economic exchange of services by preserving the idea that all exchanges are motivated by the two parties’ inverse preferences. Importantly, some of these results either anticipate ideas presented by Tieffenbach and Massin in their ATE or share Reinach as common denominator with the ATE. This is why Schapp’s theory can be considered as a precursor of the ATE.36

Acknowledgements This paper has been presented at the workshop “The Ontology of Economics. Capital, Exchanges and Preferences” (Neuchâtel, May 8th, 2019). I am very thankful to the audience and, especially, to Olivier Massin for the substantial feedback I received in that occasion. My gratitude also extends to Emma Tieffenbach, who has

36 As one reviewer pointed out, this conclusion leaves the task open of assessing ATE against Schapp’s (or the Schapp-inspired) theory of exchange reconstructed in this paper. However, this can only be the project for another article as embarking in that systematic treatment would require developing arguments the scope of which would exceed the purposes of the present paper.

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read and commented on a previous draft of this paper . Finally, I wish to thank two anonymous referees for their insightful reports.

References Bratman, M., 1999, Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Stanford: CLSI Publications). De Vecchi, F., 2016, A priori of the Law and Values in the Social Ontology of Wilhelm Schapp and Adolf Reinach, In: A. Salice, H. B. Schmid (eds) The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality. History, Concepts, Problems (Dordrecht: Springer), 279–316. Goldie, P., 2012, The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind (Oxford: OUP). Goldman, A., 1970, A Theory of Human Action (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Goretti, C., 1930, I fondamenti del diritto (Milano: Libreria Editrice Lombarda). Guala, F., 2019, Preferences: neither behavioural nor mental. Economics & Philosophy 35–3, 383–401. Husserl, E., 2001, Logical Investigations, 2 vols. (London: Routledge). Lorini, G., 2012, Due A priori del Diritto: L’a priori del giuridico in Cesare Goretti vs. l’a priori giuridico in Adolf Reinach, in F. De Vecchi (ed.) Eidetica del Diritto e Ontologia Sociale. Il Realismo di Adolf Reinach (Milano: Mimesis), 151–170. Lorini, G., Żełaniec, W., 2016, Czesław Znamierowski’s Social Ontology and Its Phenomenological Roots, in A. Salice, H. B. Schmid (eds.) The Phenomenological Approach to Social Reality: History, Concepts, Problems (Cham: Springer International Publishing), 75–89. Massin, O., 2015, Qu’est-ce que la propriété? Une approche reinachienne. Philosophie 1, 74–91. Massin, O., Tieffenbach, E., 2017, The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange, Journal of Social Ontology 3(2), 167–205. Mulligan, K., 2010, Husserls Herz. In M. Frank, N. Weidtmann (eds.), Husserl und die Philosophie des Geistes (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp), 209–238. Mulligan, K., 2022, Logic, Logical Norms and (normative) Grounding. In: S. Roski, O. S. Schnieder, (eds.) Bolzano’s Philosophy of Grounding. Translations and Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 244–275. Reinach, A, 1982 [1911], On the Theory of the Negative Judgment. In: B. Smith (ed.) Parts and Moments. Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology (Munich: Philosophia Verlag), 315–346, 351–377. Reinach, A, 2017 [1912–13], Reflection: Its Ethical and Legal Significance. In: J. Smith, M. Lebech (eds.) Three Texts on Ethics (Munich: Philosophia Verlag), 45–164. Reinach, A, 2012 [1913], The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law. Along with the lecture “Concerning Phenomenology” trans. by J. Crosby, with an introduction by A. McIntyre, (Berlin: De Gruyter). Salice, A., 2015, Love and Other Social Stances in Early Phenomenology. In: D. Moran, T. Szanto (eds) The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the We (London: Routledge), 234–247. Salice, A., 2018, Practical Intentionality. From Brentano to the Phenomenology of the Munich and Göttingen Circles. In: D. Zahavi (ed) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 604–622. Salice, A., 2020, The Phenomenology of the Munich and Göttingen Circles. In: Ed Zalta (ed) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/win2015/entries/phenomenology-mg/ Schapp, W., 1930, Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht. Band 1: Der Vertrag als Vorgegebenheit (Berlin: Rothschild).

150 Alessandro Salice Schapp, W., 1932, Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht. Band 2: Wert, Werk und Eigentum (Berlin: Rothschild). Schapp, W., 1976, Erinnerungen an Edmund Husserl: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Phänomenologie (Wiesbaden: Heymann). Schapp, W., 2012, In Geschichten verstrickt. Zum Sein von Ding und Mensch (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann). Schapp, W., 2013, Beiträge zur Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann). Smith, B., 1987, On the Cognition of States of Affairs, in K. Mulligan (ed.) Speech Act and Sachverhalt. Reinach and the Foundations of Realist Phenomenology (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff), 189–225. Smith, B., Towards a History of Speech Act Theory, in A. Burkhardt (ed), Speech Acts, Meaning and Intentions. Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle (Berlin: de Gruyter), 29–61. von Hildebrand, D., 1916, Die Idee der sittlichen Handlung, Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung, 3, 126–252. Williams, D. C., 1953, On the Elements of Being: I, Review of Metaphysics 7(1), 3–18. Znamierowski, C., 1924, Podstawowe pojęcia teorji prawa. Część pierwsza: Układ prawny i norma prawna. Poznań: Fiszer i Majewski.

10 Value-feeling and emotional response: origins and strengths of the alternative to the perceptual model Íngrid Vendrell Ferran

Abstract: This paper examines the model of the emotions put forward by Reinach and Scheler at the beginning of the 20th century and presents it as a plausible alternative to the contemporary “perceptual model.” According to the Reinach-Scheler view, emotions are not perceptions of value, but possible responses to values given to us in value-feelings. The paper is divided into two parts. The first is an historical investigation of the origins of the model in Reinach’s and Scheler’s works within the broader context of early phenomenology. The second part presents systematic arguments for the distinction between value-feeling and emotional response. Keywords: Value-feeling; emotion; emotional intentionality; perceptual model; Reinach; Scheler; mental activities; mental states 10.1 Introduction During the course of the last century, the idea that emotions are intentional states became the hallmark of emotion research, yet not all theories explained the intentionality of the emotions in the same way. Theories developed between 1950 and 2000 tended to explain the intentionality of emotions in terms of belief and, in so doing, they denied the existence of a genuine emotive intentionality. During this period, it was considered that emotions inherit their intentionality from beliefs. Some authors even explained the intentionality of the emotions in terms of the intentionality of judgments, or the combination of beliefs and desires.1 At the turn of the century, these narrow cognitivist accounts began to show their first signs of exhaustion and a different view of the intentionality of emotions started to emerge. This “new” view maintains that there is a sui generis emotive intentionality, which cannot be explained in terms of belief, judgment or desire.2 A popular interpretation of this idea – which has become the hegemonic model of the emotions – is

1 Representative of the first group are Anthony Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 195, and Gabrielle Taylor, Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-assessment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 3, while Robert Solomon, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 126, and Joel Marks, “A Theory of Emotion,” Philosophical Studies, 42 (1982), 227–242 represent the second and third groups respectively. 2 The origins of the idea of a genuine emotive intentionality can be traced back to Brentano: Franz Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (London: Routledge, 2015).

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-11

152 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran known today as the “perceptual model.” The perceptual model explains the emotions by emphasizing an analogy with perception. Two popular versions of this view are Goldie’s understanding of the emotions as a “feeling towards” and Tappolet’s thesis that emotions are “perceptions of value.”3 Despite the differences between various proponents of the perceptual model, the idea at the core of their theories is the same: emotions have the capacity to acquaint us with values (evaluative or axiological properties). In this paper, I will focus on an alternative to this thesis which I call the “value-feeling model.” The value-feeling model remains within the frames of the “new” perspective on affectivity insofar as it claims that there is a genuine emotive intentionality. However, unlike the perceptual model, it distinguishes between value-feelings, which make us acquainted with values, and emotional responses. I will explore this alternative view by focusing on the first two proponents of the model, namely Reinach and Scheler, and situating this model within two broader contexts, the historical moment in which it emerged and the context of contemporary emotion research. I will then provide a series of arguments in favor of this model. The paper is structured around two main parts, each of which pursues a distinct goal. The first part has an historical character and is intended as a reconstruction of Reinach’s and Scheler’s views and their impact on other early phenomenologists. There are two reasons for this focus. First, while it has been common to interpret Scheler as a proponent of the perceptual model, he never endorsed the perceptual account. Second, though Reinach’s views have received scant attention, he offers insightful arguments which, when put together with Scheler’s work, offer a unified defense of the value-feeling model. The second part of the paper is systematic. Its goal is to offer arguments in favor of the value-feeling model and to show its conceptual plausibility, explanatory force, and descriptive precision. In particular, I will show that value-feelings and emotional responses are two distinct kinds of mental phenomena: value-feelings are mental activities, while emotions are mental states.

10.2 The origins of the “value-feeling” account 10.2.1 Reinach on values, feelings of value, and emotions Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) was one of the first authors who, in the context of his ethical investigations into value, distinguished between the feeling of value (or value-feeling) and the emotions. Like many other early phenomenologists, Reinach

3 Both accounts appeared in the same year: Peter Goldie, The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 6, and Christine Tappolet, Émotions et Valeurs (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000), 8–9. I employ the term “perceptual model” in a liberal sense and consider as proponents of the perceptual model all authors who attribute to the emotions the cognitive capacity of making evaluative properties available to us. Cf. for a different classification of contemporary theories, John Deigh, “Concepts of Emotions in Modern Philosophy and Psychology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, ed. Peter Goldie (Oxford: Routledge, 2013), 17–40. Deigh considers as proponents of the perceptual model Martha Nussbaum, The Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Robert C. Roberts, Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Value-feeling and emotional response 153 endorsed value realism. However, his ethics is not entirely about values since he also acknowledges the significance of moral rightness and moral goods. In what follows, I will examine three works in which Reinach develops the distinction and extract his arguments in defense of the value-feeling model.4 The distinction first appears in “Grundbegriffe der Ethik” (Basic Concepts of Ethics) (1906). Reinach’s main concern in this talk given at the University of Göttingen was to distinguish between moral values and moral rightness. In his view, values – which can be moral or non-moral – are objective predicates given as a properties of objects (such as qualities of the person, emotions, actions, etc.) and grasped in experience. Courage and vitality are valuable while envy is disvaluable. In contrast, moral rightness has to do with judging states of affairs. For Reinach, a state of affairs cannot be morally valuable, though it can be right (i.e., it ought to be) or wrong. As he puts it: “That the immoral one is happy is not of disvalue, but it is not right.”5 Unlike values, states of affairs are not felt. Despite being different ethical concepts, moral values and moral rightness are related to each other in the following respects:6 (1) The existence of a moral value is always morally right. This means that it ought to be the case that a morally valuable object exists (and that one has an obligation to realize it); (2) the existence of a moral disvalue is always morally wrong; (3) the non-existence or absence of a moral value is always morally wrong; (4) the non-existence or absence of a moral disvalue is always morally right. The second text in which the distinction between value-feeling and the emotions appears is “Die Überlegung: ihre ethische und rechtliche Bedeutung” (“Reflection: Its Ethical and Legal Significance”) (1912). In his discussion of the volitional reflection, Reinach addresses the question of how we know about the value or disvalue of a project. His claim here is that values are neither given to us in a perception nor in a thought, but in a feeling of value. Regarding this feeling of value, Reinach accurately distinguishes it from the perception of the bearer of value. As he writes: It must be clear to everyone that a landscape itself is grasped in a different way than its beauty. The landscape is apprehended, the beauty felt (one should not, of course, reinterpret this feeling of beauty as an “emotion of beauty”). But moral value-characters too, the goodness and nobility of an action or its baseness, its badness and maliciousness – all well-distinguished value-characters – come to appearance in a feeling.7

4 In this paper, I will use the recent bilingual edition: Adolf Reinach, Three Texts on Ethics, trans. James Smith and Mette Lebech (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2017) (henceforth: Three Texts). Cf. for an introduction to Reinach’s thought: James Smith, Wert, Rechtheit und Gut: Adolf Reinach’s Contribution to Early Phenomenological Ethics (Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2017), and “General Introduction: Historical and Philosophical Context of Reinach’s Ethics,” in Reinach, Three Texts, 17–28 (henceforth: General Introduction); Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith, “Vorwort der Herausgeber,” Adolf Reinach, Sämtliche Werke, Textkritische Ausgabe in 2 Bänden (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), XIV–XVIII. 5 Reinach, Three Texts, 37. 6 Reinach, Three Texts, 43. Here I adopt the formulation of the four principles from James Smith, “General Introduction,” 25. 7 Reinach, Three Texts, 109.

154 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran According to Reinach, the feeling of values has a sui generis intentional structure, which is not reducible to the intentional structure of perception. The capacity to feel values cannot be assimilated to the perception of a value’s bearer: to perceive a landscape is different from feeling its beauty (which, in turn, is different from having an emotion). Perception and value-feeling are both forms of grasping objective aspects of reality, but one cannot be conflated with the other. The objects grasped in perception are of a different kind than the objects grasped in value-feelings. As we will see below, Scheler endorses a stronger account according to which value-feeling is not only different from perceiving, but also logically prior to it. The distinction between the feeling of value [Fühlen von Werten] and the emotions [Gefühle] is clearly stated in the following quotation: We touch on the question of the manner in which value- and disvalue-characters are actually grasped by the subject. Values are not sensorily apprehended like things, not seen and heard like colours and sounds, not thought like numbers; rather, they are felt. This feeling should not be confused with emotions, that is, with specific states of the I, like joy or sadness. Such an emotion is self-contained: it may have an intentional relation to something objective (it may be, for example, that joy relates to the value of a thing), but it is self-evidently not the grasping of the value itself, the feeling of the value. The difference between the feeling which is a grasping of value and the feelings that are conditions or states becomes clearest if we presentify how the “emotion” of joy or enthusiasm could either be grounded in the “feeling” of a value or not.8 According to Reinach, there are substantial differences between value-feelings and emotions. First of all, emotions are, as he puts it, “conditions” of the self, that is, states that have a temporal duration. In contrast, the feeling of value is characterized in terms close to certain mental activities such as perceiving and thinking. Second, value-feelings fulfill a cognitive function, while emotions do not. He presents the emotions as possible responses to values, and as such, as being “intentionally” directed at them. The term “intentionality” means here merely that they are “directed toward” an object (values as formal objects), but not that they “apprehend” the object toward which they are directed. Hence, emotions are directed toward values but they do not grasp them. For Reinach, only the value-feeling is intentional in the full sense of the word, that is, as being directed toward the value and grasping it. Thus, unlike the emotions, which are noncognitive, value-feelings are able to disclose value properties. Third, Reinach establishes an order of foundation, according to which the feeling of value is logically prior to pro- and contra-attitudes toward the values. A value is given to us in a feeling and on the basis of this value-feeling, an emotion might arise. To explain how this happens, Reinach introduces the concepts of love, indifference, and hatred. As he puts it: There is an inner devotion, a love of the felt value; there is an inner indifference towards it; there is a closing of the self to it; also possible is an inner turning away from it, a “hating” of the value. In all of these the personality naturally finds

8 Reinach, Three Texts, 109.

Value-feeling and emotional response 155 characteristic expression: its pure devotion to the world of values, its ethical indifference, the evil or even diabolicalness of its nature.9 Accordingly, when we feel a value, we can have a pro-attitude (to which he refers via the concept of love), an indifferent attitude or a contra-attitude (hate) toward it. Love, indifference, and hate are employed here to refer to a wide spectrum of attitudes toward the felt values. Reinach is not explicit in respect of the relation between these attitudes and the emotional responses. Two interpretations are possible. According to the first, love, indifference, and hate are not emotions themselves, but rather refer to a spectrum of attitudes toward the felt value from which specific emotional phenomena might then arise. According to the second interpretation, love, indifference, and hate are the generic terms that encompass all instances of emotional responses. The crucial issue here is that, for Reinach, there is an order of foundation, which can be summarized as follows: the feeling of value makes values accessible to us, while the emotions are possible responses “motivated” by this feeling of value. Thus, the full experience of a value implies for Reinach an acknowledgment that a value exists and this value has a motivational force. If we do not experience the motivational force of a value, then our knowledge of the value is somehow incomplete.10 Having stated some differences between the feeling of value and the emotions, let’s focus now on the nature of value-feelings. Reinach explains value-feelings in terms that are similar to cognitive phenomena such as perceiving and thinking. First, like perceptions and thoughts, feelings present us with something objective: values. They have the ability to make us acquainted with an objective aspect of reality, and they are no more subjective than cognitive acts. Second, like other forms of cognition, the feeling of value can be more or less clear and distinct in presenting us with its objects. Reinach writes: “The grasping by feeling permits, moreover, like other grasping acts, manifold gradations of clarity and distinctness up to absolute, indubitable self-givenness.”11 Third, as is the case for other forms of cognition, the objects of feelings have their own form of evidence which cannot be reduced to the evidence of perception or thought. Imagine that in the middle of an episode of envy, you are able to grasp the disvalue of this envy, and this disvalue – as Reinach claims – is given to you with “evidence” just as the objects of your perception and thought are evidently given to you.12 Despite these analogies, value-feelings are substantially different from other forms of cognition. First, they have specific objects. Indeed, values can be grasped only in feelings, but not in perception or thought. Second, value-feelings come to express the character of the person in a way in which perceptions and thoughts cannot. As he puts it: Apprehension and thinking are peripheral experiences; they belong neither to the character-structure of the experiencing personality, nor do they stand in any kind of relation to this structure. With feeling, it appears to be different. Individual

9 Reinach, Three Texts, 113. 10 This relationship between “motivation” and the felt value and the emotion is made clear in Three Texts, 251. 11 Reinach, Three Texts, 111. 12 Ibid.

156 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran feeling-experiences certainly do not make up the structure of the character of the person either, but they stand in a unique connection with it: in them, the person manifests itself, the personality comes to expression.13 Perception and thought are not representative of the person we are in the same manner as the feeling of values. The feeling of value is revelatory of what we feel to be important: if you are blind to unfairness or extremely sensitive to it, this reveals what you care about and which values are important and which are insignificant to you. According to a moderate interpretation of Reinach’s claim, there are differences between how perception and thought, on the one hand, and value-feeling, on the other, reveal our personality. More specifically, while perception and thought might reveal skills and capacities, value-feelings are revelatory of our sensitivities (which values matter to us and which values are more important to us than others).14 Reinach states that each one of us has a different sensitivity or receptivity to values which reflect the character of a person.15 The third text in which the concept of value-feeling appears is “Grundzüge der Ethik” (Basic Features of Ethics) (1913) where Reinach introduces the notion of moral good. Goods are those things that can be possessed or taken away from a person, such as life, property, and happiness. Some goods may be bearers of values. They may be tangible or intangible possessions and properties. While values are grasped in value-feelings and moral rightness is something we judge, some goods may be experienced but not felt. The question of whether there is an objective knowledge of value is presented in this text as the most important question in the world.16 Arguing against Kant, Reinach claims that “non-formal” is not the same as “empirical” and “a priori” is not the same as “formal.” Values are a priori, non-formal, objective, and independent of our experiences of them. For Reinach, to grasp a value objectively it is necessary that we adopt “the objective attitude.” This attitude is distinguished from egoism, that is, the attitude that ignores objective truths and prefers only what is important for the subject independent of whether it is good in itself, and from altruism, that is, the attitude in which we prefer what is good for others. Neither in egoism nor in altruism are we concerned with moral truths; it is only the “objective attitude” that is directed toward objective facts rather than subjective concerns. In his discussion of the egoistic attitude Reinach mentions envy, resentment and ressentiment. The latter in particular was a topic of great interest among early phenomenologists. Ressentiment sheds light on the connection between the emotional attitude of the subject and the grasping of values. For Reinach, what is essential in ressentiment is not the repression of negative attitudes (a view that he

13 Ibid. 14 As Reinach observes, emotions are also an expression of our character. Two different people may feel the same value, but they may have very different emotional reactions. These differences are an expression of different underlying characters. 15 As far as moral values are concerned, sensitivity to a moral value is considered by Reinach as morally valuable in itself. The lack of such sensitivity is a moral disvalue. Reflecting on an action before we perform it increases our awareness of its moral value or disvalue. 16 Reinach, Three Texts, 255.

Value-feeling and emotional response 157 attributes to Scheler), but what he calls “the dislocation of the I”:17 a promotion of one’s own value that takes place as a result of feeling diminished in worth after acknowledging the other’s values. This attitude is clearly distinct from that of the egoist, in which the promotion of one’s own value takes place just because it is one’s own value and not because one feels diminished in worth in comparison to the value of others. In this text, Reinach presents more arguments for the distinction between valuefeelings and emotions: A correlate of the feeling of value is moral value; [it] is grasped [for example], in [a] sentiment. [This] experience [is] apprehended internally. [A] value, [on the other hand, is] never experienced internally; at most, [it] is grasped (felt) at the internally experienced, at the experience. [The] value of beauty [is] also given in [such] feeling acts. The feeling of value, [insofar as it] concerns [the] values, is not to be confused with emotions (as states of the I) in the psychological sense. [These], on the other hand, are never acts of value-feeling. All kinds of different emotions can build themselves on [the] feeling of value. [Even] opposite emotions can arise from the same value (viewing the work of one’s enemy!). Moral values [are thus] grasped, felt, by us in valuable objects; [for example], moral value is founded in goodness as such.18 According to this quotation, a first argument for the distinction between the feeling of values and the emotions is that the former is properly described as a mental “act,” while the latter is to be characterized in terms of a “state of the I.” This idea is analogous to the previous description of value-feelings in terms of perceiving, thinking, and of the emotions in terms of conditions of the self. A second argument is derived from the differences in how the feeling of value and the emotions relate to values. For Reinach, once we feel a value, there are different emotions that can be motivated as a response to this value. Furthermore, it is possible that opposing emotions might arise in response to a particular value. Thus, for Reinach, there is no one-to-one correspondence between values and emotions (given that one value might elicit different and even opposing emotional responses). Reinach was undoubtedly one of the first proponents of the value-feeling model. He may even have been the first to propose it. It can be assumed that Reinach’s value-feeling model (despite the fact that it was rarely published in his lifetime) exercised a strong influence among other phenomenologists. This was, after all, an important topic discussed at his talks, lectures, and seminars. In spite of this, the model has been widely associated with Scheler. And though it is certainly true that the model is one of the cornerstones of Scheler’s thought, we should also be aware that the idea was already circulating within early phenomenological circles. 10.2.2 Scheler on functions, act-experiences, and emotional responses The notion of “feeling of value” is one of the threads running through Max Scheler’s (1874–1928) philosophy of emotion and ethics. In what follows, attention will be

17 Reinach, Three Texts, 203. 18 Reinach, Three Texts, 211.

158 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran paid to three main texts in which the distinction between value-feeling and emotional response is clearly stated.19 The first text is Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values) (1913/1916). In this work, Scheler defends the idea that values are a priori but non-formal. The four axioms for all non-formal ethics are formulated as follows: (1) The existence of a positive value is itself a positive value; (2) the non-existence of a positive value is itself a negative value; (3) the existence of a negative value is itself a negative value; and (4) the non-existence of a negative value is itself a positive value.20 These axioms resemble those of Reinach presented earlier. However, there are intriguing differences between the two. First, while Reinach’s formulations connect values with rights, Scheler formulates the axioms exclusively in terms of value. Second, unlike Reinach, Scheler considers goods as bearers of values. Like Reinach, Scheler acknowledges that feeling a value exhibits a sui generis intentional structure, which cannot be explained in terms of the perception of the value’s bearer. As he writes: “A man can be distressing and repugnant, agreeable, or sympathetic to us without our being able to indicate how this comes about […]. Clearly, neither the experience of values nor the degree of the adequation and the evidence […] depends in any way on the experience of the bearer of the values.”21 We can grasp a value with evidence and at the same time lack clarity about the bearer of value. In Scheler’s example, a person can be repugnant or agreeable without it being clear to us what these value-qualities are based on (put otherwise, on which basic properties of the person the value-quality of being repugnant or agreeable is founded). Though this thesis resembles Reinach’s thesis, Scheler endorses a much stronger claim according to which the feeling of values is prior to the givenness of a value’s bearer. I call Scheler’s thesis the “logical priority thesis.” In brief, the thesis claims the following: “A value precedes its object: it is the first ‘messenger’ of its particular nature.”22 There are different formulations of this view. Using the paired concepts of perception [Wahrnehmung] and value-ception [Wertnehmung] (two terms also used by Husserl) Scheler claims that “all primordial comportment towards the world […] although not precisely a ‘representational’ one of perceiving (Wahrnehmung), is nevertheless […] a primordial emotional comportment of value-ception (Wertnehmung).”23 Again: “Value-ception […] precedes all representational acts according to an essential law of its origins.”24 The priority thesis has to be understood in logical, not temporal, terms. The distinction between the feeling of values and the emotions is stated in the section “Feeling and Feeling-States” (the German original uses the terms Fühlen, a substantive for the verb “to feel,” and “Gefühle,” which is a polysemic term referring to a wide range of phenomena: sensory pleasures and pains, states of tiredness and vitality,

19 I will not discuss Wesen und Formen der Sympathie (1913/1923) (The Nature of Sympathy) here, since in that book Scheler is mainly concerned with examining cases of co-feeling. 20 Max Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, trans. Manfred Frings and Roger L. Funk (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 26 (henceforth, Formalism). 21 Scheler, Formalism, 17. 22 Scheler, Formalism, 18. 23 Scheler, Formalism, 197. 24 Scheler, Formalism, 201.

Value-feeling and emotional response 159 emotions such as shame and disgust, as well as spiritual emotions such as bliss). Taking up Pascal’s idea of an ordre du coeur or logique du coeur, Scheler distinguishes between mere feeling-states and intentional feelings, that is, the feeling of something. Feeling-states, for Scheler, belong to the contents of our mind, while intentional feelings are described in terms of functions. Cases of feeling-states are sensations (e.g., pain), which can be felt in different ways or modes (enjoyed, endured, tolerated, etc.), but Scheler also mentions moods and examples of what today we would call emotions, such as “fright.” Scheler’s distinction between “states” and “functions” echoes the difference already found in Reinach between emotions as mental “states” or “conditions” and value-feelings as “acts.” In this regard, both authors distinguish between two types of mental phenomena: “conditions” or “states” such as emotions, and “acts” or “functions” such as feelings. Intentional feelings can be of different kinds and Scheler distinguishes three main forms: (a) the feeling of a feeling-state (e.g., we might tolerate our pain, but – I would say – we might also enjoy our cheerfulness); (b) the feeling of objective emotional characteristics of the atmosphere or what we would today call the feeling of expressive properties (e.g., we feel the sadness of the landscape); and (c) the feeling of values (e.g., we feel the beauty of the landscape). Only in this last case does the intentional feeling have a “cognitive function,” as Scheler puts it.25 He writes: “There is here an original relatedness, a directedness of feeling toward something objective, namely, values.”26 Scheler calls this class of feeling “intentional functions of feeling.”27 This is the only kind of feeling, which is able to grasp values and, exploiting the power of the metaphor, Scheler describes it as “organ for comprehending values.”28 Note that the feeling of value (or value-feeling) is described not in terms of a mental state or condition, but in terms of an intention that may or may not be fulfilled and where something is presented to our mind. Value-feelings present value-qualities. When we feel a value, this value demands that we respond to it with an emotion, but the feeling of values is itself not a response; rather, it is a mode of gaining access to the value. The term “response” suggests that we have previously gained access to the value-quality in question (and this happens for Scheler via a value-feeling). The idea of a “demand” is here close to Reinach’s idea that the felt value “motivates” emotional responses. Moreover, Scheler claims: “in the execution of feeling, we are not objectively conscious of feeling itself.”29 Accordingly, the feeling of value has the function of grasping values, but we need not be aware of either the felt values when we feel them or of our own feeling of value.30

25 26 27 28 29 30

Scheler, Formalism, 257. Scheler, Formalism, 257. Scheler, Formalism, 259. Scheler, Formalism, 255. Ibid. Scheler did not endorse the view that the feeling of value is a personal conscious awareness of the value. Cf.for the problems associated with this hypothetical view: Jonathan Mitchell, “Pre-Emotional Awareness and the Content-Priority View,” Philosophical Quarterly 69, no. 277 (2019), 771–794 (henceforth “Awareness”). In Scheler, the feeling of value “registers” values but it is not necessarily conscious. For a description of the feeling of value as “lived experience of reality,” cf. Roberta di Monticelli, “Sensibility, Values and Selfhood for a Phenomenology of the Emotional Life,” in New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. Rodney Parker and Ignacio Quepons (London: Routledge, 2018), 195–211.

160 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran Distinct from the functions of feeling are the “emotional act-experiences,” which Scheler divides into two categories: (1) Preferring and placing after are responsible for the apprehension of the rank in which values are organized. Preferring occurs on the basis of the felt value-material; (2) Love and hate, the highest levels of affective life, are not responses to felt values, that is, they are not emotions, but spontaneous acts: “In love and hate our spirit does much more than “respond” to already felt and perhaps preferred values. Love and hate are acts in which the value-realm accessible to the feeling of a being […] is either extended or narrowed.”31 These higher emotional acts are responsible for the discovery of values: they designate an attitude of openness (in love) or closedness (in hatred). While for Reinach, love is an attitude toward a felt value, for Scheler, it is an attitude that makes the value-feeling possible. Among these elements of the affective life, there is an order of foundation. Love makes us open to values, which are then felt according to an order of preference and, once felt, can be responded to emotionally. For Scheler, love is the most basic of all these different phenomena, the existence of which enables the feeling of values itself. For Reinach, in contrast, we feel a value, love makes us open to the felt value, and then an emotion might be motivated in response. Only the intentional feelings of value and feeling-acts are intentional and cognitive in the strong senses of these words, that is, as responsible for disclosing values and their hierarchy and for discovering them. The emotions are for Scheler (as for Reinach) only intentional in the sense of being directed toward an object (the value), but they do not grasp values. Emotions are responses to felt values and they are articulated (according to the rank of the apprehended values) in a stratified model of vital, psychological, and spiritual feelings, according to Scheler.32 In a dense passage, Scheler speaks of two different emotional experiences.33 First, he speaks of “affects,” the paradigmatic example of which is anger: these are connected with their objects via a perception, an imagination or a thought and they presuppose that we have previously grasped a value in a feeling. Affects are blind since they are not able to grasp the value, but instead are responses to previous logically felt values. For instance, we first grasp a disvalue and then react with anger. Second, Scheler mentions experiences such as rejoicing in something, or being happy, sad or enthusiastic about something. The connection between these experiences and the feeling of value is immediate, since in them, we respond instantly to a value or disvalue of a certain object. In these cases, the feeling of value, the perception of the bearer and the emotional response seem to happen at the same time (in the case of anger these different elements were temporally separable from each other). Both types of emotional experience described by Scheler, that is, affects and rejoicing in something, belong to the class that we today call

31 Scheler, Formalism, 261. Some early phenomenologists refer to love and hatred as sentiments and distinguish them from the emotions. See: Else Voigtländer, Vom Selbstgefühl (Leipzig: Voigtländer Verlag, 1910), 111 (henceforth Vom Selbstgefühl), and Alexander Pfänder, “Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen,” in Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung I, 325–404 and III, 1–125 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1913/1916). 32 Scheler, Formalism, 330. 33 Scheler, Formalism, 258.

Value-feeling and emotional response 161 “emotions” and can be characterized as emotional responses. In the case of affects, we can clearly distinguish the cognitive states providing us with the material object of the emotion, the feeling of value and the emotional response. In contrast, with the second kind of case, everything seems to happen simultaneously, but the elements involved in such emotional responses are still conceptually distinct from each other. If my reading of Scheler is right, he never endorsed a “perceptual model” of the emotions. He endorsed a model according to which there is an original emotive intentionality. This original emotive intentionality is, however, a value-feeling, not an emotion.34 The second text that is important for understanding the value-feeling model is “Ordo amoris” (1914/1916). In this text, Scheler expands on these topics and labels the order of value given to individuals and collectives as “ordo amoris.”35 Despite the fact that values and their hierarchy are objective, they are not grasped by all of us in the same way because we all have our own “logic of the heart,” which is responsible for grasping and preferring some values over others. This logic of the heart is constantly at work in our lives, organizing our perception, thought, will and action. In this text, the epistemological and ontological implications of the “logical priority thesis” become clear. Here Scheler argues for the primacy of love over cognition and will: “Man, before he is an ens cogitans or an ens volens, is an ens amans.”36 As we saw earlier, Scheler understands love as a movement of the heart toward higher values which shape and structure our interests, and our cognitive and conative attitudes toward the world and others. Note that, for Scheler, being open to values is a precondition for feeling them. However, this feeling of values is for him more basic than all other forms of consciousness. In his view, the feeling of value impregnates our perceptions, memories, imaginings, beliefs, and suppositions. Feeling is much more primitive than these other states: our cognitive and volitive states are already guided by it. This implies first that perception and thought are founded in feeling, that is, in order to take place, they logically require the existence of feeling. However, temporally speaking, feeling, perceiving and thinking might happen simultaneously. This is a thesis about the order of foundation of cognitive (and conative) states: they are founded on value-feeling. Epistemologically, it implies that our primary access to the environment is one enabled only by our valuefeeling and not by perception or thought. Ontologically, it presupposes that valuefeelings are much more basic to our mind than perceiving, thinking, willing, and so on. Second, it implies that emotions are also founded states. On the one hand, emotions are founded on cognitive states, and because cognitive states are founded on value-feelings, emotions are indirectly founded on value-feelings as well. For Scheler, emotions require cognitive states, which give them their objects (the bearers of the value, or, in today’s terminology, their material objects). In order to fear a dog, we must perceive, remember, imagine, suppose, and so on that there is a dog (the dog is the material object of the emotion). On the other hand, emotions also require that the

34 Cf. for a different interpretation: Peter Poellner, “Phenomenology and the Perceptual Model of Emotion,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, CXVI (2016), 1–28. 35 Max Scheler, “Ordo amoris,” in Selected Philosophical Essays, trans. David R. Lachterman (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, 1973), 116 (henceforth “Ordo amoris”). 36 Scheler, “Ordo amoris,” 110–111.

162 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran values have been given to us in a value-feeling. Again, these are logical, but not temporal requirements, since it can happen almost simultaneously. An interesting consequence of this view is that, if emotions are grounded on cognitions, they cannot be more basic than cognitions. This is not a problem for Scheler since, for him, the feeling of value is more primitive than the cognition and the emotions based on it, but it is problematic for those perceptual accounts of the emotions, which claim that the emotion is the most primary form of access to the world (if emotions are based on cognitions this is not possible, so these accounts must give up either the thesis of emotions as basic modes of access to the world or the thesis that emotions are based on cognitions). Finally, let me focus on Scheler’s Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (Ressentiment) (1912). For Scheler, ressentiment has its origins in the feeling of impotence or the inability to change an unpleasant and unbearable situation. Ressentiment is described mainly as a self-poisoning attitude, which arises as a result of a progression of hostile feelings – such as revenge, hatred, malice, envy, rancor and spite – that cannot be expressed.37 As a result, an inversion of values takes place: the person who experiences Ressentiment is the victim of a self-defeating turn of mind, which leads him to a change in the feeling of values and to replace these values with illusory, negative ones.38 As we have seen, for Reinach, this phenomenon is better described as the result of feeling one’s own value diminished in light of the values of the other (Reinach puts the emphasis on the diminution of the feeling of self-worth of the subject and her strategies to compensate for it, rather than on the process of formation).39 10.2.3 The value-feeling-model in early phenomenology: adaptations, refinements, and alternatives The idea that there is a genuine affective intentionality was put forward by Brentano, but he neither distinguished between emotion and feeling (for him, emotions belonged to the class that he calls “love and hatred” and which entails all affective pro- and contra-attitudes), nor endorsed value realism (though he did endorse value objectivism). The idea that values are grasped in value-feelings and that these valuefeelings are not themselves emotions seems to be original to Reinach and Scheler. Taking a bird’s-eye view, I will present the adaptations, developments, and refinements of this model among early phenomenologists to demonstrate the fruitful applications of the value-feeling model at that time.40

37 Max Scheler, Ressentiment, trans. W. W. Holdheim (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2010), 45–46. 38 Scheler, Ressentiment, 25 and 45–46. 39 Voigtländer provided also an account of Ressentiment. She explains ressentiment in terms of selfdeception: in comparison with others, we feel our value diminished and we try to elevate ourselves by diminishing the value of the other (unlike Scheler, for whom an inversion of values takes place, for Voigtländer the self-deceptive person is still able to see the value of the other). Voigtländer, Vom Selbstgefühl, 48. 40 For a detailed view of the value-feeling model within early phenomenology, cf. Kevin Mulligan, “On Being Struck by Value,” in Leben mit Gefühlen, ed. Barbara Merker (Paderborn: Mentis, 2009), 141–163 (henceforth “On Being”); Íngrid Vendrell Ferran, Die Emotionen. Gefühle in der ealistischen Phänomenologie (Berlin: Akademie, 2008), ch. 6 (henceforth Die Emotionen), and “The Emotions in Early Phenomenology,” Studia Phaenomenologica 15 (2015), 349–374.

Value-feeling and emotional response 163 Moritz Geiger, in his aesthetics, employed the distinction between feeling of value and emotion. He termed the feeling of the aesthetic values of a work “pleasure” or “liking” [Gefallen]. This kind of “pleasure” must be distinguished from “enjoyment” [Genuss], which he characterizes in terms of an emotional response, which cannot grasp values. As he put it: “pleasure has sight; enjoyment is blind.”41 Similarly, José Ortega y Gasset distinguished between blind and seeing pleasures. Blind pleasures are those in which our happiness is blind; they have a cause but not a motive. In seeing pleasures, we are happy about something and conscious of what motivates the happiness. Aesthetic pleasure is characterized in terms of a seeing pleasure. Ortega y Gasset adopted Scheler’s value-feeling model in “Qué son los valores?” (What are values?). He names the capacity to grasp values “estimating” [estimar], and sketches a science that explains how we grasp values.42 His view on love – which he claims to be “ratio essendi” and “ratio cognoscendi” of our existence – is also inspired by the ontological and epistemological implications of Scheler’s “priority thesis.” The distinction between value-feeling and emotional response was also endorsed by Alexander Pfänder, for instance, in his Ethik in kurzer Darstellung. However, unlike Scheler, Pfänder claims that the feeling of values is founded in the consciousness of the object. In contrast to Scheler’s priority thesis, Pfänder claims that the object which is the bearer of value is logically given to us prior to the consciousness of its value.43 Besides these applications, Scheler’s model received further elaborations. One of them was provided by Dieter von Hildebrand, who established a distinction between two forms of the intuitive apprehension of value [Werterfassen]: the seeing of value [Wertsehen], in which we grasp a value in a distant way, and the feeling of value [Wertfühlen], in which we are able to experience it.44 There were also alternatives to the value-feeling view. According to these alternatives – which were mainly put forward by Husserl and Stein – the distinction between value-feeling and emotion is sustainable at the conceptual level, but not at the experiential level. Thus, although they are unanimous in the idea that there is an original emotive intentionality responsible for apprehending values, these theories disagree on whether or not this form of intentional reference is itself an emotion. In his Einleitung in die Ethik, Husserl speaks of the act of grasping values as “value-ception” [Wertnehmen] to underscore its similarity to “perception”

41 Moritz Geiger, Beiträge zur Phänomenologie des ästhetischen Genusses (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1974), 582 and The Significance of Art, ed. Klaus Berger (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986), 63. 42 José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature, trans. Helene Weyl (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 23; Introducción a una estimativa: Qué son los valores? (Encuentro: Madrid, 2004); and Obras Completas, VI (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1966). 43 Alexander Pfänder, Ethik in kurzer Darstellung: Ethische Wertlehre und ethische Sollenslehre (München: Fink, 1973), 55 (henceforth Ethik). 44 Dietrich von Hildebrand, Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis. Eine Untersuchung über ethische Strukturprobleme. (Vallender-Schönstatt: Patris, 1982), 29.

164 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran [Wahrnehmen].45 Though both terms also appear in Scheler’s Formalism, we should note that for Husserl (but not for Scheler), the feeling of value or valueception is part of the emotional experience itself. Moreover, for Husserl valueception is grounded on cognitive states,46 while for Scheler, value-ception (i.e., value-feeling) was a more primitive form of accessing the world. For Stein, in the same sense that perceiving makes accessible the objects of the physical world such as colors and sounds, feeling makes values accessible to us.47 However, as becomes clear in the following passage, the value-feeling and the emotions are for her two sides of the same coin: People want to distinguish between “feeling” [Fühlen] and “the feeling” [Gefühl]. I do not believe that these two designations indicate different kinds of experiences, but only different “directions” of the same experience. Feeling is an experience when it gives us an object or else something about an object. The feeling is the same act when it appears to be originating out of the “I” or unveiling a level of the “I.”48 According to Stein’s argument, value-feeling and emotion are unified phenomena because, in feeling a value, we undergo an emotional experience. There is no primacy of value-feeling over perceiving, thinking, and willing. The perception of values is not prior to the perception of things. Both are simultaneously given, and it is only a question of our orientation as to whether we “see” values or “see” things. The claim that both appear to be unified brings Stein (as well as Husserl) close to contemporary positions that define emotions as perceptions of values. However, while current accounts do not conceptually distinguish between the two phenomena, Stein traces the conceptual distinction between these aspects. In fact, she needs the distinction to explain cases in which it is possible to feel a value without having the corresponding emotion. These are, for Stein, cases of “empty grasp”: we can grasp a value and remain “cold” about it (“I’m empty inside”).49 Those current theories that consider the emotions to be perceptions of values have trouble explaining such cases. Interestingly, Aurel Kolnai adopted a model closer to Meinong than to other phenomenologists50 and described the “emotive responses” as follows: something closely germane I think to Meinong’s emotionale Präsentation, meaning thereby acts or attitudes or conative states of consciousness which on

45 Edmund Husserl, Einleitung in die Ethik, ed. H. Peucker, Husserliana XXXVII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004), 75. 46 This view was also endorsed by Edith Stein, Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, trans. Mary Catharine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki (Washington: ICS Publications, 2000), 160 (henceforth Philosophy of Psychology). 47 Stein, Philosophy of Psychology, 158. 48 Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, trans. Waltraut Stein (Washington: ICS Publications, 1989), 98–99. 49 Stein, Philosophy of Psychology, 161. 50 Alexius von Meinong, On Emotional Presentation, transl. Marie-Luise Kalsi (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2020).

Value-feeling and emotional response 165 the one hand are clearly governed by an intentional object, and on the other hand express something like a passion aroused in the self, an impact exercised upon it down to its somatic sounding-board; in other words intention (Gegenständlichkeit) as linked essentially, though not in a uniform or unequivocal or causally necessary fashion, to condition (Zuständlichkeit).51 Kolnai’s view is unique among early phenomenologists because for him emotive responses entail not only emotions but also attitudes, and conative states (in this regard, the position is close to the Brentanian idea according to wich there is a class of mental acts – the class of love and hate – that entails all emotive and conative states, but, unlike Brentano, Kolnai is a value realist). In Kolnai’s view, emotive responses are intentionally directed toward values and their bearers, and their function is to grasp values. Emotive responses are characterized by him as a “mode” of consciousness, that is, an attitude of being directed toward a specific content by apprehending it in a certain way. This overview shows that the idea that values are grasped by feelings was widely discussed among early phenomenologists. The views presented differ on the question of how to interpret the value-feeling: for some it involves an emotion, for others it does not. However, the majority of these authors maintain that at least conceptually we should distinguish between value-feelings and emotional responses.

10.3 The strengths of the value-feeling account 10.3.1 Arguments for the distinction between value-feeling and emotional response The value-feeling model is not only interesting from an historical point of view, but also because – as Kevin Mulligan has shown – it presents an alternative to the now hegemonic perceptual model of the emotions. In the remainder of this chapter, and drawing on my previous work on the value-feeling model, I will present three main clusters of arguments for the distinction between value-feelings and emotional response. As will become clear, the perceptual model has trouble in explaining the relation between emotion and value and it reduces our ability to feel (the feeling of value) to a mental state (the emotions).52 10.3.1.1 Arguments derived from the lack of a one-to-one correspondence between emotion and value The first argument in favor of the separation of the feeling of value and the emotional response is that there is no one-to-one correspondence between

51 Aurel Kolnai, “The Standard Modes of Aversion,” in Aurel Kolnai on Disgust, ed. Barry Smith and Carolyn Korsmeyer (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), 94. 52 Here I expand on the arguments I have presented elsewhere. Cf. Die Emotionen, 200–212. For a recent defense of what I call “the value-feeling model,” but in line with von Hildebrand, see: Jean Moritz Müller, “Emotion as Position-Taking,” Philosophia 46, no. 3 (2018), 525–548.

166 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran values and emotions.53 If emotions were perceptions of value, then we could expect there to be as many kinds of emotion as kinds of value. However, while we are able to grasp a great variety of evaluative properties in our environment, the number of emotions that we are able to sense or experience is limited. Consider the discrepancy between the variety of evaluative adjectives that we possess to describe the world as funny, cheerful, dangerous, menacing, and so on, and the much more restricted range of categories that are available to describe our emotions. In the value-feeling model, we do not encounter this problem: the model claims that we grasp values thanks to our ability to feel and that on some occasions, we respond to these values with an emotion. This emotion may or may not fit the grasped value, but it is not responsible for disclosing it. According to the second argument, it is possible that different and sometimes even opposite emotions may arise in relation to a single value.54 Thus, a certain value-quality might produce envy in some people, admiration in others, and for others may feel irrelevant. The perceptual model cannot explain how it is possible to respond to a single value with different emotions, because the perceptualists consider that it is the emotion which in fact grasps the value. How is it possible to admire, to be envious of, to hate, and so on, a single value, such as the value of beauty, if it is supposed that this value is grasped by an emotion? A third argument is constituted by Stein’s cases of “empty grasp,” mentioned earlier. In such cases, we feel a value but we do not experience an emotion. We can see the unfairness of a situation and nevertheless do not feel indignation. While the perceptual model has problems in explaining such cases, the valuefeeling alternative not only acknowledges this possibility but also claims that this is what generally happens in our life. Although we are able to register manifold evaluative qualities, we do not respond to them all. Only those that are given to us as relevant (thanks to correct acts of preference) are able to motivate an emotional response. 10.3.1.2 Arguments derived from the distinction between mental activities and mental states A further series of arguments arises from the early phenomenological distinction between value-feeling as an activity of the mind (a mental “act” or “function”), on the one hand, and the emotions as mental “conditions” or “states,” on the other. Reinach’s concept of “act” and Scheler’s concept of “function” are difficult to translate into contemporary terms. For the purposes of my argument, I will interpret this distinction as one between mental activities, which occur punctually

53 The argument can be found in Reinach, Three Texts, as I demonstrated above. It has been formulated recently by Kevin Mulligan, “Husserl on the ‘Logic’ of Valuing, Values and Norms,” Fenomenologia della Ragion Practica. L’Etica di Edmund Husserl, ed. B. Centi and G. Gigliotti (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2004), 177–225 (henceforth Husserl); Kevin Mulligan, “Feelings, Preferences and Values,” unpublished talk, Neuchâtel, October 2005 (henceforth “Feelings”); and in Kevin Mulligan, “Emotions and Values,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, ed. Peter Goldie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 481 (henceforth “Emotions”). In this later text, he offers more arguments related to the lack of one-to-one correspondence between emotion and value. 54 Reinach initiated this argument. It has been formulated recently by Mulligan, “Feelings.”

Value-feeling and emotional response 167 (value-feeling) and conditions or states of the self which are episodes that stretch over time (emotions).55 The first argument for this distinction is derived from considerations about how each of these phenomena stands in relation to time. Value-feeling is something that happens or takes place but which has no duration beyond this moment. Valuefeeling is a mental activity, which occurs punctually, that is, it is a punctual occurrence, but it is not a condition or state of the self which stretches over time. By contrast, the emotions have a duration and a temporal course. They stretch over time: they begin, develop, and end. An example will help to clarify this: I can feel (or not) the unfairness of a situation. I can even feel the unfairness repeatedly. But this feeling of the unfairness (as a mode of being aware of the unfairness) is distinct from the emotion of indignation, which as a mental state has a temporal duration which can be shorter or longer and has a typical development with points of intensity and a characteristic course. The second argument for the distinction between value-feelings as activities and emotions as mental states is as follows. The way in which we relate to another person’s emotion differs from the way in which we relate to the other person’s value-feelings. On the one hand, emotions appear intimately associated with expressions. Though not all emotions are expressed, when we come across an emotional expression, we can link this expression with the corresponding emotion. Though we do not know what another’s emotion is about, we can know that the other is sad or happy on the basis of the expressions associated with the corresponding emotional states. By contrast, the feeling of values follows a different logic. Value-feelings resemble cognitive activities such as thinking or perceiving in this respect: they are private and do not have characteristic expressions. Though we can see how the other sees a situation and how she grasps a value (e.g., we see that the other grasps something as unfair without necessarily experiencing indignation), this form of interpersonal understanding does not necessarily imply the expression of an emotion. Third, there are more similarities between the feeling of value and certain cognitive activities. An analogy can be established between cognitive activities such as thinking and affective activities such as value-feelings. The result of thinking might be a mental state such as a thought. Similarly, the result of value-feeling might be a mental state such an emotion.56 Despite these similarities, feeling cannot be reduced to thinking. The feeling of value counts as belonging to our affective mind because it makes emotions possible: it enables the emotional experience by making axiological qualities accessible to us. According to the fourth argument, regarding felt values, emotions may be appropriate or inappropriate, but they cannot make us acquainted with values. For instance, indignation might be appropriate to the situation (if it is unfair) or

55 I call these conditions “states,” but here I use this term in a broad sense to encompass static conditions of the self as well as states that have a course of development and which as such are close to mental processes. 56 As already mentioned in the section on Reinach, there are other similarities. Like some forms of cognition, the feeling of value admits degrees of accuracy; it has its own form of evidence and its own world of objects (the values).

168 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran inappropriate (if it is not unfair), but the indignation per se does not make us aware of the unfairness of the situation.57 By contrast, it is never appropriate or inappropriate to feel a value, but rather this is something that simply may or may not happen. When it happens, the value-feeling is successful in grasping a value. If the previous arguments are correct, value-feeling is a punctual mental occurrence able to motivate emotions of different kinds. Value-feelings are never appropriate or inappropriate per se, but are experiences that may or may not take place. By contrast, emotions are mental states linked to specific expressions, and are either appropriate or inappropriate regarding the values to which they respond. 10.3.1.3 Arguments derived from the similarity between value-feeling and other forms of “emotional grasping” The structural similarities between the feeling of value and other forms of what I call “emotional grasping” also support the distinction between value-feeling and emotional response. Here I employ the expression “emotional grasping” to refer to cases in which we disclose, grasp, or apprehend an objective aspect of our environment and where this form of disclosure is related to our emotions. However, the relation with the emotion is different in each case of “emotional grasping” that I will describe further. The first case of emotional grasping that I want to analyze is the grasping of an expressive property in the field of aesthetics. This phenomenon is known today as “expressive perception,” but Scheler and other phenomenologists considered it as a case of feeling (Scheler’s second form of feeling mentioned above). We might grasp the melancholy of a landscape, the cheerfulness of a painting, and so on. In these cases, we grasp the expressive property but we are not ourselves melancholic or cheerful. If this is correct in the case of grasping expressive properties, why should it be different for cases where what we grasp is a value? It seems plausible to consider that cases of value-feeling might work in a similar way, since we can, for instance, grasp the unfairness of a situation without being in a state of indignation. Moreover, in cases of grasping expressive properties, it often happens that the grasped property and our own emotional state are in conflict. The contrast is clear when, for example, we look at a melancholic painting but are in a state of enjoyment, or when we are sad but nevertheless see the cheerful beauty of the flowers in a spring field. Opposing examples are also possible for value-feelings: we might be in a cheerful mood but are nevertheless able to grasp the unfairness of a situation. Consider another form of “emotional grasping”: the grasping of another’s emotions. This is a phenomenon, which we usually refer to as “empathy.” In such cases, we can grasp that the other is sad or angry or joyful without being in the same emotional state ourselves. This is what makes empathy so powerful – that the sadness of the other is given to us immediately when we perceive the face of the other. We are able to grasp the sadness in the other’s face without ourselves being sad.58 If we do

57 As Mulligan has argued, our indignation might be wrong, Ibid. and Mulligan, “Emotions,” 481. 58 This is Scheler’s concept of co-feeling as a function in which the emotional states of the other are given to usas states of the other. Max Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Peter Heath (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2008).

Value-feeling and emotional response 169 not need to have an emotion ourselves to grasp the emotions of others, why must we have an emotion in order to grasp the value of a situation? In this respect, examples of value-feeling do not function differently from feeling the other’s emotions. Both cases of “emotional grasping” – the grasping of expressive properties and the grasping of the emotions of others – are not examples of value-feelings, but we can suppose that these different forms of emotional grasping share the same structure: to grasp or to feel X is not the same as to have an emotion about X. No one would claim that expressive perception or empathy themselves are emotions. Put together, this series of arguments is sufficiently compelling to suggest that value-feeling is distinct from the emotional response. That being said, we should not conclude that emotions have no function in the feeling of value. We have good reason to think that feeling a value and responding emotionally to it is on some occasions more desirable than merely feeling a value. Why? First, feeling a value might motivate us to act, but if we also respond emotionally to the felt value, then the motivation might be stronger. Imagine the case in which we feel the unfairness of a situation. This might motivate us to take a particular action in order to change the situation. However, now imagine the case in which we not only feel the situation as unfair but also are indignant about it. The link between the emotion of indignation and the action to change the unfair situation might be much stronger than the link between the feeling of the unfairness and the action in question. However, this is not always advantageous: sometimes emotions might interfere in our deliberative process and lead us to the wrong kind of action. Second, the existence of an emotional response might add a dimension of concern to our feeling of value. While we are able to register many values, we respond emotionally only to those values which are relevant for us. Our emotions show us which values we care about and the order of relevance in which they are given to us. For instance, if you not only feel that a situation might be dangerous but also experience fear, then this fear is an indicator that the felt danger is significant for you (e.g., because it is experienced as a threat to your bodily integrity and your well-being).59 Moreover, and in relation to this last point, the fact that an emotional response takes place might motivate us to focus our attention on the felt value. Imagine that you experience indignation and therefore continue to see the situation as unfair; this is different from the case in which we merely register the unfairness but do not care about it and do not focus our attention on it. Hence, emotions might contribute to the direction of our value-feelings toward specific aspects and to maintaining the attention focused on these aspects. 10.3.2 On the conflation of value-feeling with emotion If the arguments for distinguishing between value-feeling and the emotional response are so compelling, why is this distinction not acknowledged in contemporary research? I will approach this question by presenting two hypotheses.

59 The idea that emotions arise against the background of certain concerns has been developed by Bennett Helm, Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 69.

170 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran First, the term emotion has now become a “technical term”: emotions are intentional states directed toward material and formal objects with a specific bodily involvement. The concept amalgamates three different dimensions: the phenomenal, the intentional, and the cognitive. Sentiments and moods are distinguished from the emotions, but current research lacks a fully developed vocabulary to describe the richness of the emotional mind. Affects, passions, and feelings (which were terms employed with changing meanings in past centuries) have disappeared from our vocabulary, though they could be reintroduced to describe aspects of our affective mind that are difficult to accommodate within the few contemporary categories we possess. What we call an emotion probably involves other elements which could be conceptually distinguished from it, even though they appear together in the emotional experience. One of these elements, which are today analyzed as part of the emotional experience but which, in my view, should be kept conceptually separate, is that of the value-feeling. Second, there is a tendency within the philosophy of mind and in particular within the philosophy of emotion to focus on mental states that stretch over time, rather than on mental activities. This focus becomes particularly clear when we hear some proponents of the perceptual account who, when arguing against the value-feeling model, complain that value-feelings are not to be found in folk psychology. For instance, in his defense of the Husserlian model of emotion, Yaegashi writes: “the existence of an act of value-feeling the Schelerian view postulates is doubtful, to say the least. We can hardly find something like a value-feeling in folk psychology.”60 Similarly, writing on value-feeling, Mitchell, another proponent of the perceptual model, claims: The relevant state may seem mysterious, and therefore theoretically problematic. We should, in general, avoid overpopulating our mental economies with theoryspecific mental states; that is mental states the positing of which seems principally required to support a particular theory, and don’t obviously serve any explanatory purpose in other contexts. We need reference to emotion, perception, and judgement in a range of personal level psychological explanations – and such states are (roughly) reflected in folk psychological categorizations.61 Both authors are certainly right in claiming that such a thing as a value-feeling cannot be found to “populate our mind”: it is not a mental state with a specific duration that we can easily identify via introspection. However, we would be too hasty to conclude from this correct observation that value-feelings do not exist. Why? An insightful observation provided by Scheler is helpful on this issue. In Ordo Amoris, Scheler writes: “The objects of psychology, however, lie in the direction of inner perception, which always involves a reference to the self. The only aspects of emotional being we can

60 Toru Yaegashi, “A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value,” in New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, ed. Nicolas de Warren and Shigeru Taguchi (Cham: Springer, 2019), 76. 61 Mitchell, “Awareness,” 16.

Value-feeling and emotional response 171 find in this way are the fixed, motionless states of the self. Nothing which is an act and function of feeling is ever there when observation takes this direction.”62 Accordingly, what we are more likely to find via introspection is the type of mental phenomenon that he and Reinach interpret as states or conditions of the self, but not what they call acts and functions and which I interpreted as activities (more specifically, as punctual mental occurrences). In a nutshell, my answer to the why-question is the following: introspective access to mental activities which occur punctually is difficult if not impossible because they do not stretch over time. According to this interpretation, value-feelings might exist, but they do not have a temporal duration beyond their immediate occurrence. Thus, although I agree that we should apply Ockham’s principle and not argue for entities that do not exist, Ockham’s razor should not lead us to overlook certain kinds of mental phenomena which despite taking place do not endure over time. Whatever value-feelings are, according to the arguments earlier, they must be distinguished from emotional responses. For sure, more investigation is needed to understand their nature, but we should for the moment avoid subsuming them into the notion of emotional response. Against what Mitchell seems to suggest, I think that we should be allowed to speak of things even if we cannot subsume them into categories already familiar to us. This would probably allow us to develop a more nuanced view of our affectivity and a detailed and realistic taxonomy of the emotional mind.63

References Brentano, Franz, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (London: Routledge, 2015). Deigh, John, “Concepts of Emotions in Modern Philosophy and Psychology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, ed. Peter Goldie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 17–40. Geiger, Moritz, Beiträge zur Phänomenologie des ästhetischen Genusses (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1974). Geiger, Moritz, The Significance of Art, ed. Klaus Berger (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986). Goldie, Peter, The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Helm, Bennett W., Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Husserl, Edmund, Einleitung in die Ethik, ed. H. Peucker, Husserliana XXXVII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004). Kenny, Anthony, Action, Emotion and Will (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963).

62 Scheler, “Ordo amoris,” 120. The quotation is extracted from a paragraph in which Scheler complains that “modern man” takes a person’s emotional life to be a series of events or states which we can manage to use for our own purposes and to avoid harm. As a consequence, he claims, the investigation of the emotions is “surrendered to psychology”. 63 I want to thank the editors of this volume for inviting me to the Reinach Centennial Conference (Munich, December 2017), Alessandro Salice for suggesting that I explore Reinach’s views on the emotions, Christoph Johanssen for having discussed with me the value-feeling model during the preparation of my first book, two anonymous referees for their insightful and constructive comments on a previous version of this article, and Simon Mussell for editing and proofreading it.

172 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran Kolnai, Aurel, “The Standard Modes of Aversion,” in Aurel Kolnai on Disgust, ed. Barry Smith and Carolyn Korsmeyer (Chicago: Open Court, 2004). Marks, Joel, “A Theory of Emotion,” Philosophical Studies 42, no. 1 (1982), 227–242. Meinong, Alexius von, On Emotional Presentation, transl. Marie-Luise Kalsi (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2020) Mitchell, Jonathan, “Pre-Emotional Awareness and the Content-Priority View,” Philosophical Quarterly 69, no. 277 (2019), 771–794. Monticelli, Roberta di, “Sensibility, Values and Selfhood: For a Phenomenology of the Emotional Life,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. Rodney Parker and Ignacio Quepons (London: Routledge, 2018), 195–211. Mueller, Jean Moritz, “Emotion as Position-Taking,” Philosophia 46, no. 3 (2018), 525–548. Mulligan, Kevin, “Husserl on the ‘Logic’ of Valuing, Values and Norms,” in Fenomenologia della Ragion Practica. L’Etica di Edmund Husserl, ed. B. Centi and G. Gigliotti (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2004), 177–225. Mulligan, Kevin, “Feelings, Preferences and Values,” unpublished talk, Neuchâtel, October 2005. Mulligan, Kevin, “On Being Struck by Value,” in Leben mit Gefühlen, ed. Barbara Merker (Paderborn: Mentis, 2009), 141–163. Mulligan, Kevin, “Emotions and Values,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, ed. Peter Goldie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 475–500. Nussbaum, Martha, The Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Ortega y Gasset, José, Obras Completas, VI (Madrid: Revista de Occicente, 1966). Ortega y Gasset, José, The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature, trans. Helene Weyl (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019). Ortega y Gasset, José, Introducción a una estimativa: Qué son los valores? (Encuentro: Madrid, 2004). Pfänder, Alexander, “Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen,” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung I, and III, 1–125 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1913/1916), 325–404. Pfänder, Alexander, Ethik in kurzer Darstellung: Ethische Wertlehre und ethische Sollenslehre (München: Fink, 1973). Poellner, Peter, “Phenomenology and the Perceptual Model of Emotion,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, CXVI (2016), 1–28. Reinach, Adolf, Sämtliche Werke. Textkritische Ausgabe in 2 Bänden, ed.Karl Schuhmann and Barry Smith (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989). Reinach, Adolf, Three Texts on Ethics, trans. James Smith and Mette Lebech (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2017). Roberts, Robert C., Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Scheler, Max, Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values, trans. Manfred Frings and Roger L. Funk (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, 1973). Scheler, Max, “Ordo amoris,” in Selected Philosophical Essays, trans. David R. Lachterman (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, 1973). Scheler, Max, The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Peter Heath (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2008). Scheler, Max, Ressentiment, trans. W. W. Holdheim (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2010). Schuhmann, Karl and Smith, Barry, “Vorwort der Herausgeber,” in Sämtliche Werke, Textkritische Ausgabe in 2 Bänden (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), XIV–XVIII.

Value-feeling and emotional response 173 Smith, James, Wert, Rechtheit und Gut: Adolf Reinach’s Contribution to Early Phenomenological Ethics (Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2017). Smith, James “General Introduction: Historical and Philosophical Context of Reinach’s Ethics,” in Adolf Reinach, Three Texts on Ethics (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2017), 17–28. Solomon, Robert C., The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). Stein, Edith, On the Problem of Empathy: The Collected Works of Edith Stein, trans. Waltraut Stein (Washington: ICS Publications, 1989). Stein, Edith, Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, trans. Mary Catharine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki (Washington: ICS Publications, 2000). Tappolet, Cristine, Emotions et Valeurs (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000). Taylor, Gabrielle, Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-assessment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). Vendrell Ferran, Íngrid, Die Emotionen. Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2000). Vendrell Ferran, Íngrid, “The Emotions in Early Phenomenology,” Studia Phaenomenologica 15 (2015), 349–374. Voigtländer, Else, Vom Selbstgefühl (Leipzig: Voigtländer Verlag, 1910). Von Hildebrand, Dietrich, Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis. Eine Untersuchung über ethische Strukturprobleme. (Patris: Vallender-Schönstatt, 1982), 29. Yaegashi, Toru, “A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value,” in New Phenomenological Studies in Japan, ed. Nicolas de Warren and Shigeru Taguchi (Cham: Springer, 2019), 69–82.

Part II

Varia

11 On the distinction between Husserl’s notions of essence and of idea in the Kantian sense Emanuela Carta

Abstract: This chapter examines Edmund Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense with the aim of clarifying the distinction between ideas and essences. In particular, the chapter focuses on the occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I, identifies its core features, and explains why the notion of idea should not to be conflated with the phenomenologically relevant notion of essence. The chapter then points to doubts about the givenness of ideas in the Kantian sense and argues that, once the notions of essence and of idea are disentangled, those doubts have no bearing on whether essences merit a place within phenomenology. Keywords: Edmund Husserl; phenomenology; eidetic phenomenology; idea in the Kantian sense; essence; ideality 11.1 Introduction Edmund Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology has attracted many criticisms, even from within the phenomenological tradition. In addition to skepticism about the possibility of grasping pure essences (or eide), internal criticisms display doubts about the legitimacy of admitting essences within phenomenology. According to some phenomenologists, indeed, the apprehension of essences involves a deviation from or a betrayal of the phenomenological commitment to the original givenness of phenomena.1 The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the debate about the place of essences within phenomenology. Specifically, this chapter contributes to this debate by clarifying the distinction between Husserl’s notions of essence and of idea in the Kantian sense – a notion that Husserl begins to elaborate during 1908–1909,2

1 For some illustrative instances of this concern, see Stefano Bancalari, Intersoggettività e mondo della vita: Husserl e il problema della fenomenologia (Pisa: Cedam, 2003), 115–116; Jean-Luc Marion, Réduction et Donation (Paris: PUF, 2004), 8; Dominque Pradelle, L’archéologie du monde – Constitution de l’espace, idéalisme intuitionnisme chez Husserl (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000), 119. 2 The phrase “idea in the Kantian sense” appears in a manuscript dated 1909–1910, which is presumably an elaboration of a manuscript Husserl wrote in October 1908. See Edmund Husserl, Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. Teilband I. Verstand und Gegenstand. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1909–1927), eds. Ullrich Melle and Thomas Vongehr, Husserliana XLIII/1 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2020), 385. Another early occurrence of the phrase is in the Appendix V of the lectures on Bedeutungslehre dated December 1909. See Edmund Husserl, Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre. Sommersemester 1908, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XXVI (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 151. Henceforth cited as “Hua XXVI”.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-13

178 Emanuela Carta that he introduces as a technical term in Ideas I, and that he continues to employ since then.3 The reason for this clarification is that these two notions are often more or less explicitly conflated with each other and their confusion issues worrisome conclusions. More precisely, if features of ideas in the Kantian sense are mistakenly attributed to essences, essences may be confused with the ideal of perfection of sensible objects. And, this may, in turn, lead to unjustified objections leveled against the place of essences within phenomenology. Additionally, the clarification of the distinction between the notions of essence and of idea in the Kantian sense has intrinsic value for Husserl scholarship. Possible confusions between these two notions do not depend on individual oversight, but arise from their intertwined origin and some ambiguous expressive choices on Husserl’s part.4 As such, it is extremely important to disentangle these notions once and for all. The overall plan of the chapter is as follows. In Section 2, I clarify Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense on the basis of the examination of its occurrences in Ideas I. In Section 3, I explain why the class of essences relevant for phenomenological analyses (i.e., general morphological essences) differs in all of its facets from the notion of idea in the Kantian sense; and so why it should not be considered as akin to it. Lastly, I argue in Section 4 that doubts about the phenomenological standing of the givenness of ideas in the Kantian sense should have no bearing on whether essences merit a place within phenomenology.

11.2 Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense Given that the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is original to Husserl, and that he does not provide any precise definition of it, I will proceed with its examination very carefully. Specifically, I will examine it on the basis of its main occurrences in Ideas I. These occurrences will be the Leitfaden for the understanding of the meaning of the phrase “idea in the Kantian sense” in Husserl’s philosophy. After the examination of the occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I, I will show that there is, indeed, a unitary meaning behind the different contexts in which the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is operational. Ideas I is a ripe terrain for the investigation of the similarities and differences between the notion of essence and the notion of idea in the Kantian sense, for not only it is the first text in which the notion of idea of Kantian sense is systematically operational, but also because, by the time of Ideas I, Husserl has already developed a precise account of essences. 11.2.1 The occurrences of the notion in Ideas I In Ideas I, Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense is operational in three distinct thematic domains. These three domains are: (1) the characterization of ideal (or exact) essences; (2) the apprehension of the stream of consciousness as a unity; and

3 In later works, Husserl often uses the term “idea” instead of the phrase ‘idea in the Kantian sense’ to refer to the notion of idea in the Kantian sense, but, generally, the contexts in which he does so leave no doubts that the notion Husserl refers to is the notion of idea in the Kantian sense. 4 For a short history of the two terms, see Subsection 3.2.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 179 (3) the perception of transcendent objects.5 Let us briefly examine each of these occurrences, one at a time. The first occurrence of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is in Section 74 of Ideas I. In this section, Husserl uses this notion to characterize what he calls ideal (or exact) essences. The relevant passage is as follows: Geometric concepts are “ideal” concepts; they express something that one cannot “see”. Their “origin” (and thus also their content [Inhalt]) is essentially different from that of the descriptive concepts as concepts that immediately express essences taken from straightforward intuition; they express no “ideals”. Exact concepts have their correlates in essences that have the character of “ideas” in the Kantian sense [“Ideen” im Kantischen Sinne]. As correlates of descriptive concepts, morphological essences stand over against these ideas or ideal essences. The very process of focusing on an idea, as a process that yields ideal essences as ideal “limits” [ideale “Grenzen”], is in principle not to be found in any sensory intuition, while morphological essences respectively “approximate” those ideal limits more or less, without ever attaining them. This ideation is, in a fundamentally essential way, different from the apprehension of essences through simple “abstraction”, in which an “inherent aspect” is singled out and elevated into the region of essences as something vague in principle, as something typical.6 In the quoted passage, Husserl distinguishes ideal (or exact) essences from morphological (or inexact) essences on the basis of the ways in which they are apprehended. Specifically, he explains that every morphological essence can be grasped on the basis of sensible intuition, whereas no ideal essence can be grasped in this way. The reason as to why this is the case lies in the distinct nature of morphological essences and of ideal essences. Ideal essences (e.g., the essence triangle or the essence straight line) radically differ from morphological essences (e.g., the essence color or the essence perception). Each

5 Note that there is a fourth occurrence of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Section 92 of Ideas I. See Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführungen in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana III/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977); English Translation: Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2014], 112. Henceforth cited as “Hua III/1”. I will not examine this occurrence in detail because it is analogous to the occurrences of the notion in thematic contexts (2) and (3) and because the explicit reference to the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is only made in an annotation to Copy A of Ideas I, which reads: “Naturally, we have constructed here a limit-case (a Kantian idea), within the limits of evidence”. See Edmund Husserl Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, Ergänzende Texte, (1912–1929), ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana III/2 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1988), 508 [my translation]. Likewise, I will not consider a footnote in Section 79 of Ideas I, where this notion is at play but not explicitly mentioned. Hua III/1, 175. 6 Hua III/1, 155/133. For a similar occurrence, see also the second edition of the Third Logical Investigation, which Husserl writes at the time of Ideas I. Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XIX/1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984), 245. Henceforth cited as “Hua XIX/1”. For a lengthy discussion of the distinction between exact and inexact essences and the act that gives them see also Edmund Husserl, Zur Lehre vom Wesen und zur Methode der eidetischen Variation. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1891–1935), ed. Dirk Fonfara, Husserliana XLI (New York: Springer, 2012), Text 4 and Appendixes VII–VIII, 76–82. Henceforth cited as “Hua XLI”.

180 Emanuela Carta and every morphological essence is adequately instantiated by sensible objects; but no sensible object instantiates any ideal essence. The property of being colored belongs to every colored object, so that each colored object is the perfect adequate instance of color; whereas the property being triangular does not exactly belong to any sensible object. This is so because there are no pure or perfect triangles in the sensible world, but only triangular shapes, or triangular-shaped objects that can at best approximate pure triangularity. Ideal essences such as the essence triangle represent, then, the “ideal limit” [ideale Grenze] for all the sensible objects that belong to a certain kind – a limit that sensible objects can (to a greater or lesser extent) merely approximate. Therefore, in Husserl’s words, ideal essences “have the character of ideas”. Since ideal essences radically differ from morphological essences, the former also differ from the latter in the way in which they are apprehended. Given that each morphological essence is adequately instantiated by sensible objects, each morphological essence can be grasped through what Husserl calls ideation or ideative abstraction [ideierende Abstraktion]7; that is, on the basis of one’s sensible intuition of the objects that instantiate it. This does not hold true of ideal essences. Given that no ideal essence is adequately instantiated by sensible objects, no ideal essence can be apprehended through an ideative act that has its basis in sensible intuition. Each ideal essence is instead apprehended through what Husserl describes in the relevant passage as a distinctive kind of ideation.8 The second occurrence of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I is in Section 83, in relation to (2), the discussion of the apprehension of the stream of consciousness as a unity. Husserl states that the stream of consciousness is apprehended in its unity as an idea in the Kantian sense. Specifically, he writes as follows: In the continuous progression from apprehension to apprehension [Erfassung], we also apprehend in a certain way the stream of experience as a unity. We apprehend it not as a singular lived-experience [singulars Erlebnis] but in the manner of an idea in the Kantian sense. The stream of lived-experience is nothing arbitrarily posited and maintained but instead an absolutely indubitable given-in a correspondingly wide sense of the word “givenness”. This indubitableness, although it is also grounded on Intuition [Intuition], has a source completely different from the one that obtains for the being of experiences, i.e., those that come to be purely given in immanent perception. It is precisely the distinctive character of the idea-forming process [Ideation] of discerning a Kantian idea that does not somehow forfeit a patent discernibility, on account of the fact that determining its content adequately (here, the stream of experience) is unattainable.9

7 Ideative abstraction is the act that gives us morphological essences. It should not be confused with the method of eidetic variation, which is the method that allows us to grasp pure morphological essences (or eide). 8 Hua III/1, 155/133, Hua XIX/1, 245/15 and Hua XLI, 65. 9 Hua III/1, 186/160. Similar occurrences of the notion are in Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs und Forschungsmanuskripten 1918–1926, ed. Margot Fleischer, Husserliana XI (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), 204–205. English translation: Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. Lectures on Transcendental Logic, trans. A. J. Steinbock (Doderecht: Kleuwer, 2001). Henceforth cited as “Hua XI”; and Edmund Husserl, Erste Philosophie (1923/4). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, ed. Rudolf Boehm, Husserliana VIII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959), 154–156. Henceforth cited as “Hua VIII”.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 181 In the quoted passage, Husserl states that the stream of lived-experiences (i.e., the stream of consciousness) cannot be given in its unity in the manner of each singular lived-experience; that is, adequately and in immanent perception. Yet the unity of the stream of consciousness can nevertheless be intuitively apprehended in the manner of an idea in the Kantian sense, and, as such, it is “an absolutely indubitable given”. The reason as to why Husserl states that the unity of the stream of consciousness is only given with the character of an idea in the Kantian sense appears to lie in the specific nature of the stream of consciousness. Indeed, one’s stream of consciousness is constantly flowing forward and, thereby, continuously enriched of new lived-experiences, in what Husserl describes as an “incessant process of becoming”.10 As such, Husserl suggests that, as soon as we attempt to apprehend it, the stream of consciousness becomes richer, and, thus, we cannot but fail to adequately apprehend it. The third and last occurrence of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I is arguably the best known and the most discussed of the three occurrences. This occurrence is in Section 143. It appears in (3), the thematic domain of the perception of transcendent objects. In this domain, Husserl associates the notion of idea in the Kantian sense to the complete or perfect givenness of an object of perceptual experience. It is worth quoting at length the relevant passage. There are objects – and all transcendent objects […] – that cannot be given in any isolated consciousness with complete determinacy [vollständiger Bestimmtheit] and with an intuitiveness that is just as complete. But the perfect givenness [volkommene Gegebenheit] is nonetheless prefigured as an “idea” (in the Kantian sense) – as a system absolutely determined in terms of its type of essence, a system of endless processes of continuous appearing [Erscheinens] or, better, as a field of these processes, an a priori determined continuum of appearances [Kontinuum von Erscheinungen] with diverse but determinate dimensions, dominated by a fixed, essential legitimacy. More specifically, this continuum is determined as a continuum that is infinite on every side and that consists, in all its phases, of appearances of the same determinable X. […] An isolated unity of the progression (i.e., a finite, merely transient act) is not conceivable, thanks to the infinity of the continuum on all sides (since it would yield an absurd finite infinity). Nonetheless, the idea of this continuum and the idea of the perfect givenness exemplified by it are patently discernible [einsichtig] just as an “idea” can be, designating by its essence a type of insight distinctively its own. The idea of an essentially motivated infinity is not itself an infinity; the insight that this infinity cannot in principle be given does not exclude, but instead far more demands the patently discernible givenness of the idea of this infinity.11

10 Hua XI, 218/270. 11 Hua III/1, 331/283–284. For a thematically similar occurrence of the notion, see also Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Ergänzungsband. Erster Teil. Entwürfe zur Umarbeitung der VI. Untersuchung und zur Vorrede für die Neuauflage der Logischen Untersuchungen (Sommer 1913), ed. Ulrich Melle, Husserliana XX/1 (The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), 197.

182 Emanuela Carta In this passage, Husserl states that we cannot perceive any transcendent object in its complete givenness. But the object in its complete givenness can nevertheless be prefigured or predesignated [vorgezeichnet] as an idea in the Kantian sense. The reason as to why this is the case appears to be analogous to the reason as to why Husserl considers the stream of consciousness to be given as an idea in the Kantian sense. Indeed, just as the stream of consciousness cannot be apprehended in its unity because of its constantly streaming nature, so no transcendent object can be adequately perceived in its completeness because of the nature of perception.12 Specifically, the perspectival nature of perception does not allow us to adequately apprehend some of the profiles of the object we perceive without others of its profiles being at the same time concealed to us; and our apprehension of some object through perception can always be enriched by the exploration of its other profiles. Thus, the idea that Husserl conveys in the quoted passage is that, although some profiles and some determinations of the object can be adequately given at each time in perception, the object in its completeness can only be given as an idea in the Kantian sense. Interestingly, this thematic domain reveals a crucial aspect of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense that we have not so far explicitly thematized: as a Kantian idea, the idea of the complete givenness of some object of perceptual experience guides the process of perception as its ideal telos. As such, this idea serves as a rule for the course of our perceptual experience. Or, as Husserl also writes, it is a regulative idea.13 11.2.2 The meaning of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense The analysis of the occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I shows that Husserl resorts to it in highly different thematic domains, and in connection with heterogenous objects: ideal essences, the stream of consciousness in its unity, and transcendent objects in their complete givenness.14 In particular, it appears that there is a crucial distinction between the domain of ideal essences (i.e., domain (1)) and the other two domains (i.e., domains (2) and (3)). Indeed, in (1), the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is connected to an essence; whereas, in (2) and (3), the notion of idea is connected to some sensible object. In addition, there appears to be different relations between each of these objects and the notion of idea in the Kantian sense. While Husserl states that ideal essences have the character of ideas in the Kantian sense, he does not claim that the stream of consciousness and transcendent objects themselves have the character of ideas, but

12 The occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in thematic contexts (2) and (3) are very close as in both cases the notion refers to a transcendent object. Indeed, the stream of consciousness in its unity is “the first transcendence” as Husserl writes in the Passive Synthesis. See Hua XI, 204/256. 13 For a study of the teleology of perception see Rudolf Bernet, “Perception as a Teleological Process of Cognition”, Analecta Husserliana 9 (1979), 119–132. For a detailed discussion of perceptual optimality, see Maxime Doyon, “Husserl on Perceptual Optimality”, Husserl Studies 34/2 (2018), 171–189. 14 Given that, as Husserl claims, the stream of consciousness in its unity can be taken as “the first transcendence”, we can group these into two larger categories: ideal essences and transcendent objects in their complete givenness. See Hua XI, 204/256. Husserl himself states that he discusses ideas in the Kantian sense in two different contexts: the sphere of species (in relation to ideal essences apprehended as Kantian ideas) and the sphere of reality or transcendence. See Hua XLI, 81.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 183 rather, he states that they can be given as ideas in the Kantian sense in their unity and in their complete givenness, respectively. These differences are crucial to understand why attempts to identify the features of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense that are common to each of the thematic domains in which Husserl resorts to this notion face intrinsic difficulties. Yet identifying the features of the notion is essential to clarifying its meaning. In this subsection, I attempt to identify these features, despite these difficulties. The first discernible feature of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is that every idea represents an ideal: either an ideal of perfection (or exactness) or an ideal of completeness. Specifically, as an idea in the Kantian sense, every ideal essence represents an ideal of perfection or exactness; whereas, each of the idea of the stream of consciousness in its unity and the idea of some transcendent object in its complete givenness represents an ideal of completeness. The ideal essence triangle is the ideal of which triangular shapes or triangular-shaped objects are imperfect approximations; the idea of the stream of consciousness in its unity stands for the ideal of the adequate apprehension of all the streaming lived-experiences of the stream of consciousness as a whole; and the idea of some transcendent object in its complete givenness stands for the ideal of the adequate apprehension of all the profiles and determinations of the relevant object. Despite the structural analogy, the ideal nature of one of these three objects differ conspicuously from the others. Specifically, the difference among these lies in the possibility of their apprehension. The idea of the unity of the stream of consciousness and the idea of the complete givenness of the transcendent object represent ideals that we cannot possibly attain via sensible experience, since no infinite manifold can be synthetized and brought to unity so that we can apprehend it.15 But, on the contrary, ideal essences can be grasped: we can grasp, for example, the essence triangle. So, even if it is given as an idea, the unity or complete givenness of some object remains a mere ideal. The idea of the unity or complete givenness of some object is thus the surrogate of the unity of an infinite manifold that is unattainable via sensible experience. Further, and inseparably from the previous feature, each of the occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense refers to a distinctive kind of unity, namely the “unity of an open multiplicity”.16 As we have seen, every idea represents an ideal. This is the ideal unity of an infinite and possibly indeterminate manifold. The phrase “open multiplicity” indicates the infinite and (possibly) indeterminate character of such manifold. This is clearly evident in (2), when Husserl resorts to the notion of idea in the Kantian sense to refer to the stream of consciousness in its unity. Indeed, in this case, the notion of idea in the Kantian sense indicates the unity of all the infinitely many streaming lived-experiences that the stream of consciousness as a whole comprises. In (3), the notion of idea in the Kantian sense refers to the transcendent object in its complete givenness. This is the unity of all the infinitely many indeterminate profiles and determinations of some transcendent object. In this sense, the idea of the transcendent object in its complete givenness also refers to the unity of an open multiplicity. And it is precisely the idea of such unity that Husserl characterizes as an idea in the Kantian sense.

15 For a detailed clarification of the notions of constitution and of manifold, see Claudio Majolino, “Multiplicity, Manifolds and Varieties of Constitution: A Manifesto”, The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 12 (2012), 155–183. 16 Hua XLI, 79.

184 Emanuela Carta It might seem more difficult to square this feature of ideas in the Kantian sense with (1). After all, the constitution of no ideal essence (such as the essence triangle) requires the synthesis of all of its infinitely many approximations (all the possible triangular shapes or all the triangular-shaped objects). But, actually, it is not so difficult to see how every ideal essence relates to the unity of an open multiplicity. To understand this point, it is crucial to stress that an ideal essence is not itself the unity of an open multiplicity, but, rather, an ideal essence is the idea of the unity of an open multiplicity. So every ideal essence refers to the unity of an open multiplicity, namely the ideal unity of all the infinitely many approximations of the relevant essence.17 We may also say that what is given as an idea in the Kantian sense exceeds the limits of sensible experience. This does not imply that no sensible object corresponds to any idea in the Kantian sense.18 But it simply means that, when an idea in the Kantian sense corresponds to some object of experience, this object is not given in its completeness in perception. Ideal essences exceed the limits of sensible experience, since no ideal essence is adequately instantiated by any sensible object. The stream of consciousness in its unity exceeds sensible experience, too, and, specifically, inner perception. This is so, as we have seen, for the stream of consciousness is a continuously streaming object.19 Transcendent objects can be given in perception, but not in their complete givenness. Again, this is because of the nature of perception. And, crucially, Husserl’s use of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense refers in this case precisely to the idea of the transcendent object in its complete givenness. We may identify, then, a third feature common to all occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense: inasmuch as it exceeds the limits of sensible experience, any object that Husserl indicates with the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is the correlate of a distinctive act of intuition. In relation to (1), Husserl introduces a distinctive kind of ideation to allow for the apprehension of ideal essences; a kind of ideative act that differs from the ideative act that lets us grasp morphological essences.20 According to Husserl, the distinctive ideative act

17 Note that this does not imply that these approximations (triangular shapes and triangular-shaped objects) insatiate the relevant ideal essence (the essence triangle). No sensible triangular shapes and triangular-shaped objects belong to the extension of the essence triangle. As such they are not instances of the essence triangle. 18 As both Pradelle and Tengelyi have remarked, when Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense appears in the thematic domain of perception, the object that the notion refers to is the experienced object itself. See Dominque Pradelle, “On the Notion of Sense in Phenomenology: Noematic Sense and Ideal Meaning”, Research in Phenomenology 46 (2016), 184–204, here 204; László Tengely, “Experience and Infinity in Kant and Husserl”, Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 67/3 (2005), 479–500, here 491. Therefore, similarly to Kant, Husserl holds that ideas “surpass the possibility of experience”. (Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A320–B377) But differently from Kant, Husserl states that there are objects of perceptual experience to which they refer. This is one of the reasons as to why, despite its name, Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense is not really “Kantian”. 19 See Hua XI, 21/58. 20 In a text contemporary with Ideas I, Husserl likens it to Kant’s pure intuition. See Hua XLI, 64 and Hua XLI, 74. Then, in other works, he simply describes it as a process of idealization [Idealisierung] or infinitization [Verunendlichung]. See Edmund Husserl, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, ed. Walter Biemel, Husserliana VI (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1954); English translation: The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. David Carr (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University, 1970), 375/365.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 185 that allows for the apprehension of any ideal essence consist in a “passage to the limit”,21 a leap from a manifold of inexact approximations to the exactness of the relevant essence. Things are different when it comes to the stream of consciousness as a whole and the transcendent object in its complete givenness. Since these are transcendent objects and thereby not idealities, and since every kind of object has its specific way of being given, the stream of consciousness in its unity and the transcendent object in its completeness are not given via an ideative act. Yet, since they cannot be adequately given in perception, they are given in the manner of ideas.22 This implies that, on Husserl’s view, those ideas are somehow given. As ideas they cannot be grasped via sensible intuition, but they should be given via some sort of ideative act. Indeed, Husserl explicitly states this with respect to the stream of consciousness, for he writes that the idea of its unity is given through an ideation whose character is, unfortunately, left unspecified.23 Husserl does not state anything as precise when it comes to the apprehension of the transcendent object in its complete givenness. Indeed, in the passage from Section 143 of Ideas I quoted in Subsection 2.1, Husserl does not mention ideation as the intuitive act that gives the idea of the transcendent object in its complete givenness. However, because of how close the idea of the complete givenness of the transcendent object comes to the idea of the stream of consciousness in its unity, there are good reasons to think that the idea of the complete givenness of the transcendent object is given via some sort of ideative act in this case, too.24 Assuming that these ideas are given via ideation, the question remains whether the kind of ideative act that allows for the apprehension of the stream of consciousness in its unity and of the transcendent object in its complete givenness is qualitatively equal to the kind of ideative act that allows for the apprehension of ideal essences. In other words, is the ideative act that gives us the former analogous to the ideative act with which we leap from inexact approximations to the exactness of the relevant ideal essence? This is a controversial issue. Husserl himself seems to oscillate between competing answers to this question.25 However, I am inclined to think that the givenness of the ideas of the unity of the stream of consciousness and of the complete givenness of

21 Hua XLI, 69. 22 The fact that Husserl thinks that every idea is somehow given is clear, for example, in the last portion of the last passage from Ideas I quoted in Subsection 2.1: “The idea of an infinity motivated in conformity with its essence is not itself an infinity; seeing intellectually that this infinity of necessity cannot be given does not exclude, but rather requires, the intellectually seen givenness [die einsichtige Gegebenheit] of the idea of this infinity”. Hua III/1, 331/284. 23 But, arguably, in the 1920s, Husserl describes this kind of intuitive act as a sort of “comprehensive view” [Überschau]. Hua VIII, 155–156. 24 A reason for rejecting this thesis might be one’s willingness to preserve a strong commonality between Husserl’s notion of the idea in the Kantian sense and Kant’s view on regulative ideas. By definition, according to Kant’s view, ideas go beyond the possibility of experience. So, if we say that Husserl’s ideas in the Kantian sense can be intuitively grasped, then we should also admit that Husserl’s notion seriously betrays Kant’s view on this issue. This is a reasonable concern, but Husserl’s view flies in the face of Kant’s on other crucial points too: when Husserl states that ideal essences are ideas in the Kantian sense and then states that some ideas can be given via ideation; or when he says that the stream of consciousness can be given in its unity as an idea in the Kantian sense via some sort of ideative act. 25 In Hua XLI, 81, Husserl remarks that the idea of the complete givenness of an object is “kein Limes”. This claim seems to scale down the analogy between ideas in the domain of perception and in the domain of mathematical objects.

186 Emanuela Carta the transcendent object are not qualitatively identical to the givenness of ideal essences. Specifically, it seems to me that the former ideas are given with a certain indeterminacy, while it is clear that every ideal essence is given in a determinate way. In my view, this difference arises from the manifest differences among the kinds objects that are given as ideas.26 In summary, we may say that every idea is somehow given to the subject. And we may also say that every idea cannot but be given via some sort of act of ideation; even though the only point about which we can be certain is that this ideative act does not have the same character as the abstractive ideation that allows us to grasp morphological essences. Lastly, but not less importantly, we should add to this characterization of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense that every idea is a regulative idea. This is a feature that explicitly appears with reference to (3) the thematic domain of perceptual experience. In (3), Husserl claims indeed that the idea of an object in its complete givenness serves as a guide for perceptual experience.27 Although Husserl does not explicitly attribute this feature to the occurrences of the notion in (1) and (2), nothing prevents us from thinking of ideas in the Kantian sense as regulative ideas in all three domains. In fact, there are strong reasons to do so. First, we may think of ideal essences as rules for construction:28 the essence triangle may be thought of as a rule for constructing triangles and triangular shapes. Second, Husserl explicitly attributes a regulative function to the idea of the complete givenness of the stream of consciousness in his lectures on passive synthesis.29 Third, and most relevantly, he also discusses ideas in the Kantian sense as regulative ideas in many other texts following Ideas I and, crucially, this feature is sometimes the only feature of ideas that Husserl mentions when he employs this notion.30 The differences among ideal essences, the idea of the stream of consciousness in its unity, and the idea of the transcendent object in its complete givenness that I have previously discussed are also reflected in the way in which these are regulative ideas. In

26 One may say that at least sometimes Husserl seems to think that the intuitive act that gives the transcendent object in its complete givenness as an idea in the Kantian sense is – much like the intuitive act that allows for the apprehension of ideal essences – a passage to the limit. For a hint to this view, see Rudolf Bernet, Conscience et existence: Perspectives phénoménologiques (Paris: PUF, 2004), 158. See also Pradelle, “On the Notion of Sense in Phenomenology”, 203–204. 27 Uemura argues against what he describes as “the common interpretation” of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense, according to which Husserl’s Kantian ideas are regulative ideas. See, Genki Uemura, “Remarks on the ‘Idea in the Kantian sense’ in Husserl’s Phenomenology”, CARLS Series of Advanced Study of Logic and Sensibility 4 (2011), 407–413. The core of Uemura’s argumentative strategy consists in underlying those aspects of Kant’s notion of regulative idea that are unacceptable given Husserl’s views, and those aspects of Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense that are irreconcilable with Kant’s philosophy. In my view, this argumentative strategy is not sufficient to reject the common interpretation. It does not follow from the incompatibility of some of Husserl’s views with Kant’s that Husserl’s ideas in the Kantian sense lack a regulative function. 28 Husserl seems to allude to something along these lines in Hua XLI, 79. 29 Hua XI, 208/260. This aspect is also underlined in Michela Summa, Spatio-temporal Intertwining. Husserl’s Transcendental Aesthetic, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), 237. 30 See Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ed. S. Strasser, Husserliana I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), 49–50. See also Husserl’s Letter to Joël 11.3.1914 in Edmund Husserl, Briefwechsel, Band VI: Philosophenbriefe, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana Dokumente III/6 (The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 206. Husserl’s stress on the regulative function of Kantian ideas may be a sign of the influence of Neo-Kantianism on his thought.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 187 domains (2) and (3), the idea of the stream of consciousness in its unity and the idea of the transcendent object in its complete givenness are the telos towards which the objects of perceptual experience strive. This does not hold true of ideal essences: no characterization of ideal essences appears compatible with the thesis that ideas are teleological goals. Therefore, we may say that being regulative ideas is a feature of ideas in the Kantian sense that is eminently present in relation to the idea of the stream of consciousness in its unity and the idea of the transcendent object, but less prominent in the case of ideal essences. In conclusion, it emerges from this examination that the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is a notion that possesses the following four defining features: first, it is an ideal; second, it is the idea of the unity of an open multiplicity; third, it is the correlate of a distinctive kind of ideation; and fourth, it is a regulative idea. For these reasons, it also appears that the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is original to Husserl, and an example of his creative redefinition of philosophical concepts.31

11.3 Essences versus ideas in the Kantian sense Now that we have clarified the notion of idea in the Kantian sense and explained why it is reasonably applied to highly different thematic domains and heterogeneous objects, we can finally address the reasons as to why we should distinguish this notion from the notion of essence. At first glance, one might underestimate the importance of examining the distinction between these two notions. In his introduction to Ideas I, Husserl himself is indeed very clear that the two notions are distinct and, thereby, should not be conflated. “The need to keep the supremely important Kantian concept of idea separated from the general [allgemeine] concept of (either formal or material) essence”, is a reason – Husserl writes – “to make a terminological change”, and, more specifically, to begin to use the terms “Wesen” and “Eidos” to refer to essences, and to reserve the term “idea” for ideas in the Kantian sense.32 Yet, as I have noted in Section 1, the notions of idea in the Kantian sense and of essence are, nevertheless, often conflated. And they are not conflated by chance, but in virtue of the intertwined origin of the two notions. Husserl himself contributes to fuel such misunderstanding: as we have seen, not only he characterizes a particular kind of essence as an idea in the Kantian sense, but, saliently, he also continues to employ the terms “idea” and “essence” as synonymous.33 Moreover, Husserl calls “ideation” the act of consciousness that allows us to grasp ideas as well as the act

31 Clearly, there appears to be some similarities between Husserl’s and Kant’s notions of idea. Two above all: both are regulative ideas and both refer to objects which our experience of cannot be adequate. However, Husserl’s notion is obviously unorthodox. Not only because, differently from Kant, Husserl does not confine ideas to the domain of reason, but also because he decides to connect ideas to what, as we have seen, he on occasion likens to Kant’s pure intuition – a philosophical move that would be absurd from Kant’s perspective. 32 Hua III/1, 8 /6. 33 An illustrative example of Husserl’s ambiguous terminology is Husserl’s reference to the regional essence thing with the expression “idea of the thing” [Idee des Dinges]. See, for instance, Section 149 of Ideas I.

188 Emanuela Carta that allows us to grasp essences. Because of this, it is necessary to make explicit the reasons as to why we should distinguish the two notions. As I have explained in the previous section, Husserl’s notion of idea in the Kantian sense possesses four defining features: it is an ideal; it is the idea of the unity of an open multiplicity; it is the correlate of a distinctive kind of ideation; and it is a regulative idea. This is at least a preliminary reason to distinguish it from Husserl’s notion of essence. Indeed, we may provisionally take Husserl’s notion of essence to indicate those ideal objects of different degrees of generality that constitute the set of properties that all of the individuals of a certain kind have in common.34 In this section, I will examine more closely the reasons as to why we should distinguish these two notions. For convenience, I will divide my examination of this distinction in two parts: first, I will distinguish phenomenological essences from ideal essences; and, second, I will distinguish phenomenological essences from ideas in the Kantian sense taken to refer to the complete givenness of transcendent objects and to the unity of the stream of consciousness. 11.3.1 Morphological essences versus ideal essences as ideas in the Kantian sense Among the occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense examined in Subsection 2.1, the first is apparently the most puzzling with respect to the distinction between this notion and the notion of essence. Indeed, the fact that Husserl uses the notion of idea to characterize ideal essences makes it undeniable that at least some essences can be regarded as ideas in the Kantian sense. This does not imply, however, that the distinction between the notions of essence and of idea in the Kantian sense collapses. In fact, on reflection, ideal essences are ideas in the Kantian sense not because they are essences but because they represent a particular class of essences grasped by means of a distinctive intuitive act., Indeed, as explained in Section 2, unlike morphological essences, ideal essences are not grasped by means of an act of abstract ideation, but rather without the mediation of sensibility, since no sensible object instantiates any of them. The juxtaposition of ideal essences and ideas in the Kantian sense is therefore motivated by their distinctive status within the realm of idealities.35 At the same time, ideal essences and morphological essences are fundamentally different. Relevantly, the kind of purity of ideal essences (i.e., the pure triangle) is quite different from the kind of purity that is at stake in the case of morphological pure essences (or eide). Both kinds of purity imply a fracture from our world. But the sense of perfection as the ideal limit – or as the ideal of exactness – that characterizes ideal essences is absent from Husserl’s characterization of morphological pure essences. Consider the following two examples: the morphological eidos color and the ideal essence triangle. The eidos color has nothing to do with the perfect instantiation of color or the best color to be found in sensible individuals, as if all colors were to be

34 For an insight into Husserl’s mature account of essences, see Hua III/1, 12–13. See also Claudio Majolino, “Individuum and Region of Being: On the Unifying Principle of Husserl’s ‘Headless’ Ontology”, in Commentary on Husserl’s “Ideas I”, ed. Andrea Staiti (Berlin and Boston: 2015) 33–50. 35 Hua XLI, 55–56.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 189 understood as approximations of it. Indeed, all particular individuals having the essential property of being colored necessarily exemplify the eidos color. On the other hand, the essence of the pure triangle is not instantiated in any triangular shape or triangular-shaped object present in our world, and, instead, each triangular shape or triangular-shaped object merely approximates pure triangularity. In general, the purity of every eidos indicates unrestricted generality; that is, every eidos holds in principle not only for the instances that are given in the actual world but also for those instances that can be given in possible worlds different from ours.36 In addition, however, the purity at stake in the apprehension of ideal essences refers to an ideal of exactness, which is absent from the purity of morphological eide. In light of this, we should not interpret too rigidly what Husserl writes in the introduction to Ideas I. As we have seen, in those pages, he claims that the notion of idea in the Kantian sense has nothing to do with the notion of essence. However, the most plausible interpretation of this claim is that ideas have nothing to do with morphological essences, but ideas nevertheless relate to ideal essences. Probably, in the introduction to Ideas I, Husserl did not specify that he meant to talk about morphological essences because either he thought it was obvious that his claim referred to morphological essences only, or because he was more focused on avoiding misunderstandings and ambiguities concerning the notion of essence and the domain of perceptual sense, to which the third occurrence of idea in the Kantian sense belongs. The fact that Husserl writes that the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is in this domain “supremely important” seems to be evidence that Husserl is restricting the notion to the sense it has in relation to the perception of transcendent objects. Indeed, the notion of idea in the Kantian sense is arguably most important from the point of view of phenomenology when understood as the ideal idea of the complete givenness of some transcendent object of perceptual experience. 11.3.2 Morphological essences versus ideas of particular realities In the previous subsection, I have argued that Husserl’s characterization of ideal essences as ideas in the Kantian sense does not jeopardize Husserl’s distinction between ideas and essences. This is due to the fact that ideal essences and morphological essences are fundamentally different. In this subsection, I will provide further reasons to distinguish morphological essences from ideas in the Kantian sense. Let us begin to compare Husserl’s notion of essence with the third occurrence of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I; that is, with its appearance in (3), the thematic domain of the perception of transcendent objects. The idea of the complete givenness of an object of perception must be distinguished from the essence of the perceived object. Surely, both the notion of essence and the notion of idea in the Kantian sense indicate some kind of ideality: they are both ideal objects. However, while essences are general [allgemeine] ideal objects, when the

36 See Edmund Husserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925, ed. Walter Biemel, Husserliana IX (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), 74; and Edmund Husserl, Experience and Judgment. Investigations in a Genealogy of Logic, Trans. Churchill and K. Ameriks (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 423–424. Henceforth, “EU”.

190 Emanuela Carta notion of idea in the Kantian sense indicates the idea of the complete givenness of objects of perception, ideas in the Kantian sense are not general objects. It is easy to understand why, when we remember that the notion of generality [Allgemeinheit] is to be unpacked in terms of the notion of extension [Umfang]. More precisely, each general object has an extension; and the extension of a general object is to be understood as the set [Gesamtheit] of objects that can be subsumed under its general representation. Essences are general objects, since, for each essence, there is a set of other objects that is subsumed under it. This, in turn, means that the properties of each essence (i.e., its intension) hold for every object that belongs to its extension. Any level of generality has a different extension: the extension of general essences can include other essences, for example, whereas the extension of objects that have the lowest level of generality (i.e., eidetic singularities) includes only particular individuals.37 Granted this, objects of perception as ideas in the Kantian sense are not general objects, since they do not possess any extension. As Rudolf Bernet has rightly remarked, the idea in the Kantian sense is “the idea of a particular reality”.38 As such, rather than holding indistinctly for every object of the same kind, the idea in the Kantian sense represents the ideal unity of multiple appearances of a particular individual located in some determinate space and time. The ideality at stake in the case of the idea of a particular reality is then not the same as the ideality of general objects. If we can still talk of the idea of a particular reality as a kind of ideality, this is because of the following two reasons: first, it is the identical pole to which all the appearances and the determinations of a particular individual converge; and, second, it is the telos which we aim at in the constitution of sensible objects, and which we can never reach fully. This interpretation is supported by the historical evolution of Husserl’s use of the term “idea” in the years between the Logical Investigations and Ideas I. Husserl’s recognition that not all ideal objects are general begins with the disjunction of the conceptual couple “idea” and “species” in the years immediately after the Logical Investigations. Before this terminological change, Husserl had indeed used the term “idea” to refer quite generally to an ideal object that constitutes the ideal unity of a manifold of individual objects, and he had considered it as synonymous with the term “species”. However, as Husserl himself explains in his personal notes and letters, in the years following the publication of the Logical Investigations, he gradually came to realize that the notion of ideality he employs in his earlier writings can be understood in two distinct senses, and, as such, that this notion should be disambiguated.39 More precisely, Husserl states that the notion of ideality should not be identified with the notion of species: indeed, ideality can also indicate an ideal object that is not general; that is, an ideal object that is not instantiated in any particular individual. For example, despite the temptation to think of meaning as a generality instantiated in distinct acts of meaning,

37 Hua III/1, 30. 38 Rudolf Bernet, “Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism Revisited”, The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 4 (2004), pp. 1–20, here 15. 39 For Husserl’s own comments regarding his previous identification of meaning and species, see Husserl’s letters to Ingarden of November 21, 1930 and of April 5, 1918. Edmund Husserl, Briefwechsel, Band III: Die Göttinger Schule, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana Dokumente III/3 (The Hague: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994) 181–182 and 269. See also EU, §64d, Hua XLI, 79, and Edmund Husserl, Formale and transzendentale Logik. Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft, ed. Paul Janssen, Husserliana XVII (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 163.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 191 Husserl realized that meaning as the ideal unity of individual acts of meaning is not universal in the way in which species are, for meaning understood as the ideal unity of acts of meaning is not a general object: it is not instantiated in any of the many acts of meaning that we produce. At the same time, it is an ideal object, because the ideal unity of acts of meaning constitutes the ideal unity of a manifold of individual objects; or, in Husserl’s words, meaning as an ideal object is the ideal-identical (Das Ideal-Identische) present in all individual acts of meaning, but not instantiated by any of such acts.40 Then, by the time of Ideas I, Husserl distinguishes between two senses of ideality: ideality understood as generality and ideality in the sense of ideal unity, exactly as the ideality of the ideal unity of all acts of meaning. Crucially, when the phrase “idea in the Kantian sense” refers to the ideal unity of some transcendent object, the notion that it expresses is akin to ideality in the sense of ideal unity. So this notion cannot be taken to refer to ideal generality. Therefore, it should not be conflated with the notion of essence. Importantly, the argument presented in this section holds, mutatis mutandis, for the idea of the unity of the stream of consciousness. As such, the unity of the stream of consciousness given as an idea in the Kantian sense should also not be confused with the essence of the stream of consciousness. Accordingly, the ideative act that gives the stream of consciousness in the manner of an idea is not an eidetic grasping in the sense relevant for eidetic phenomenology.

11.4 Concluding remarks: Ideas, essences, and their phenomenological status In Section 2, I have examined the occurrences of the notion of idea in the Kantian sense in Ideas I. The examination of these occurrences shows that Husserl resorts to the notion of idea in highly different thematic domains and to characterize heterogeneous objects; namely, ideal essences, the stream of consciousness in its unity, and transcendent objects in their complete givenness. This is possible, as I have explained, for every idea in the Kantian sense possesses the following four features: first, it is an ideal; second, it is the idea of the unity of an open multiplicity; third, it is the correlate of a distinctive kind of ideation; and fourth, it is a regulative idea. At this point, it is noteworthy that these features afford an exceptional status within phenomenology to the notion of idea in the Kantian sense.41 We can understand what this means by considering the case of the idea of the transcendent object in its complete givenness. This case clearly illustrates that the idea of the object in its complete givenness functions as the intuitive representative of something that it is impossible to adequately apprehend, that is, the complete givenness of the object itself. Thus, the idea has the exceptional role of ensuring the intuitive apprehension of something that essentially escapes intuition.

40 See Hua XXVI, Appendixes V and XIX; and EU, 262. 41 See Jacques Derrida, Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl (Paris: PUF 1990). English Translation, The problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy, trans. M. Hobson (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 99–100/196. See also Jacques Derrida, Introduction à “L’origine de la géométrie” de E. Husserl (Paris: PUF, 1962). English Translation, Edmund Husserl’s “Origins of Geometry”: An Introduction, trans. J. P. Leavey (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989) 151–152/138–139.

192 Emanuela Carta There may be a further reason to afford an exceptional status to the notion of idea in the Kantian sense. In the case at hand, we see that, as Husserl states, the idea of the complete givenness of some transcendent object can surely be given, but we may suspect that this idea is only given as indeterminate or presumptive. In fact, we may think that it is not possible to fully bring into intuition the infinite manifold of profiles and determinations of any object of perceptual experience in any manner other than as an indeterminate idea.42 Now, the fact that the idea in the Kantian sense has an exceptional status within phenomenological analyses can be interpreted in a positive light, but it can also raise some doubts. One may wonder, indeed, whether being given with an indeterminate character is a legitimate way for something to be given; or whether saying that something is given with an indeterminate character amounts, instead, to postulating the givenness of something that can never be given. In addition, one may also wonder about the legitimacy of admitting ideas in the Kantian sense within phenomenology on the basis of concerns that derive from the so-called principle of all principles of phenomenology.43 This principle states, roughly that everything that is offered to us in intuition should be accepted as it is presented to be and only within the limits in which it is presented.44 In this spirit, one may take ideas in the Kantian sense as violating this principle, since they exceed the limits of what is given to us in intuition. The fact that the ideative act that let us grasp ideas in the Kantian sense requires to operate a passage to the limit (at least as far as ideal essences are concerned) might corroborate one’s suspicion that the apprehension of ideas involves a deviation from or a betrayal of the phenomenological commitment to the original givenness of phenomena. I do not intent to take a stance on this issue; especially given that to lean one way or the other would require having a clear grip on the principle of all principles. And the examination of this principle deserves much closer attention than I can afford to it in the present context. It is clear, however, that these doubts about the givenness of ideas in the Kantian sense must be taken seriously, and that they constitute an issue that ought to be addressed even beyond Husserl’s view. Nevertheless, and importantly, the upshot is that the distinction between the notions of morphological essence and of idea in the Kantian sense that I have discussed in Section 3 dispenses us from formulating analogous doubts about essences and the their givenness. In other words, even if the criticisms to the phenomenological status of ideas in the Kantian sense were correct, we should not consider such criticisms to bear on whether we should admit morphological essences within phenomenology. After all, there is no sufficient similarity between general morphological essences and ideas in the Kantian sense. In addition to the clarification of the distinction between the notions of essence and of idea in the Kantian sense, we have thereby taken a first step toward defending the view

42 As Derrida puts this in Le problème de la genèse, 170/98: “[the] totality [of the idea in the Kantian sense] remains formal and the intuition that claims to aim at it cannot be ‘fulfilled’ by an originary presence”. See also Derrida, L’origine de la géométrie, 151/139. 43 Hua III/1, 51/43. 44 More precisely, in the translation of Ideas I the principle of all principles states: “that each intuition affording [something] in an originary way is a legitimate source of knowledge, that whatever presents itself to us in “Intuition” in an originary way (so to speak, in its actuality in person) is to be taken simply as what it affords itself as, but only within the limitations in which it affords itself there”. Hua III/1, 51/43.

Essence and idea in the Kantian sense 193 according to which the givenness of essences is not puzzling from the point of view of phenomenology: our attempts to adequately grasp essences is not an attempt to apprehend something whose givenness might be phenomenologically dubious. Of course, such clarification does not resolve all of the doubts phenomenologists may have with respect to the place of essences within phenomenology. As I have specified in Section 1, there are indeed many issues to clarify and other concerns to address. However, we have thus contributed to clear the suspicion that attempts to apprehend essences blatantly betray the phenomenological commitment to the original givenness of phenomena.45

References Bancalari, S., Intersoggettività e mondo della vita: Husserl e il problema della fenomenologia, Cedam, Pisa 2003. Bernet, R., ‘Perception as a Teleological Process of Cognition’, in Analecta Husserliana 9, 1979, pp. 119–132. Bernet, R., Conscience et existence: Perspectives phenoménologiques, PUF, Paris 2004a. Bernet, R., ‘Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism Revisited’, in The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 4, 2004b, 1–20. Derrida, J., Introduction à “L’origine de la géométrie” de E. Husserl, PUF, Paris 1962. [Edmund Husserl’s “Origins of Geometry”: An Introduction, J. P. Leavey (trans.), University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 1989.] Derrida, J., Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl, PUF, Paris 1990. [The problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy, M. Hobson (trans.), The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2003.] Doyon, M., ‘Husserl on Perceptual Optimality’, in Husserl Studies 34(2), 2018, pp. 171–189. Husserl, E.,Erste Philosophie (1923/4). Zweiter Teil: Theorie der phänomenologischen Reduktion, Rudolf Boehm (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1959. Husserl, E., Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs-und Forschungsmanuskripten, 1918–1926, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1966. Husserl, E., Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925, Husserliana Bd. IX, W. Biemel (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1968. Husserl, E., Experience and Judgment. Investigations in a Genealogy of Logic, J. S. Churchill and K. Ameriks (trans.), Northwestern University Press, Evanston 1973. Husserl, E., Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, Husserliana Bd., I. S. Strasser (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1973. Husserl, E., Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, Husserliana Bd. VI, W. Biemel (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1976. Husserl, E., Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesungen 1906–07, Husserliana Bd. XXIV, U. Melle (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1984. Husserl, E., Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre. Sommersemester 1908, Husserliana Bd. XXVI, U. Panzer (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1987. Husserl, E., Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und einer Phänomenologischen Philosophie, Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einfü hrung in die reine Phänomenologie, Husserliana III/1, K. Schuhmann (ed.), 1976, 1988. [Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, D. O. Dahlstrom (trans.), Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis 2014.]

45 I would like to thank Michela Summa for her valuable feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.

194 Emanuela Carta Husserl, E., Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, 2. Halbband: Ergänzende Texte (1912–1929), Husserliana Bd. III/2, K. Schuhmann (ed.), Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague 1988. Husserl, E., Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Dokumente 3-III, K. Schuhmann (ed.), Kluwer Academic Publishers, The Hague 1994. Husserl, E., Logical Investigations. Second Volume. Investigations III, IV, V, VI, J. N. Findlay (trans.), Routledge, London and New York 2001. Husserl, E., Zur Lehre vom Wesen und zur Methode der eidetischen Variation. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1891–1935), Husserliana Bd. XLI, D. Fonfara (ed.), Springer, Dordrecht, 2012. Husserl, E., Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. Teilband I. Verstand und Gegenstand. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1909–1927), Husserliana Bd. XLIII/1, U. Melle and T. Vongehr (eds.), Springer, Dordrecht 2020. Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason, W. S. Pluhar (trans.), Hackett Publishing Company, Indianoplis 1996. Majolino, C., ‘Multiplicity, Manifolds and Varieties of Constitution: A Manifesto’, in The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 12, 2012, pp. 155–183. Majolino, C., ‘Individuum and Region of Being: On the Unifying Principle of Husserl’s “Headless” Ontology’, in Commentary on Husserl’s “Ideas I”, A. Staiti (ed.), de Gruyter, Berlin and Boston 2015, 33–50. Pradelle, D., ‘De Husserl à Heidegger: intentionnalité, monde et sens’, Discipline Filosofiche XXV(2), 2015, pp. 35–68. Pradelle, D., ‘On the Notion of Sense in Phenomenology: Noematic Sense and Ideal Meaning’, Research in Phenomenology 46, 2016, pp. 184–204. Staiti, A., ‘A grasp from afar: Überschau and the givenness of life in Husserlian Phenomenology’, Continental Philosophy Review 46(1), 2013, pp. 21–36. Summa, M., Spatio-temporal Intertwining. Husserl’s Transcendental Aesthetic, Phaenomenologica 213, Springer, Dordrecht 2014. Tengelyi, L., ‘Experience and Infinity in Kant and Husserl’, in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 67(3), 2005, pp. 479–500. Uemura, G., ‘Remarks on the ‘Idea in the Kantian sense’ in Husserl’s Phenomenology’, CARLS Series of Advanced Study of Logic and Sensibility 4, 2011, pp. 407–413.

12 Primitive Dasein: on signs and fetishism in Heidegger’s phenomenology Fabio Tommy Pellizzer

Abstract: This chapter explores a specific yet almost completely overlooked concept in Being and Time: namely, that of “primitive Dasein,” which Heidegger interprets as a particular phenomenal context called “fetishism and magic,” characterized by an immediate use of signs. The chapter has three aims: (1) to provide an interpretation of Heidegger’s concept of “primitive Dasein” as based on a “teleological” and dogmatic interpretation of fetishism; (2) to shed light on Heidegger’s interpretation of the sign as a “concretion of indications,” a structure that entails a complex intertwining of meaningfulness and handiness; and (3) to sketch out some lines of investigation concerning fetishism through a positive dialogue between phenomenology and anthropology, centered upon the concept of concretion of indications. Keywords: Heidegger; Husserl; Phenomenology; Anthropology; Fetishism; Verweisung; Concretion I don’t know how you, exhausted, resist in this lake of indifference that is your heart; perhaps an amulet saves you which you keep near your lipstick, your powder puff, your nail file, a white mouse of ivory: and thus you exist! (Eugenio Montale, Dora Markus I)1

1 “Non so come stremata tu resisti/ in questo lago d’indifferenza ch’è il/ tuo cuore; forse/ ti salva un amuleto che tu tieni/ vicino alla matita delle labbra,/ al piumino, alla lima:/ un topo bianco, d’avorio;/ e così esisti!”; English translation by Roberta L. Payne: Selection of Modern Italian Poetry in Translation, ed. Roberta L. Payne (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press), 131.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-14

196 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer

12.1 Introduction 2 In what follows, I will explore a very specific and almost completely overlooked concept in Being and Time,3 the concept of “primitive Dasein.” Heidegger’s remarks on “primitive Dasein” have seldom been discussed by scholars.4 Exceptions are Bass,5 Gordon,6 and Taminiaux,7 but none of these scholars have addressed the issue systematically. As a matter of fact, only a few remarks on the matter can be found in Heidegger’s works.8 What Heidegger has in view with the term “primitive” is a specific phenomenon, which in Being and Time (§17) he calls “fetishism and magic” and presents as a particular “use” of signs. In what follows, I hope I can show that if Heidegger’s brief remarks in §17 are critically discussed and interpreted within the framework of his analysis of meaningfulness and signs, the results may be quite interesting from a phenomenological point of view. The most significant occurrences of the expression “primitive Dasein” in Being and Time can be found in §11 (significantly entitled Die existenziale Analytik und die Interpretation des primitiven Daseins. Die Schwierigkeiten der Gewinnung eines ‘natürlichen Weltbegriffes’) and §17 (Verweisung und Zeichen). By following up on the “delimitation” [Abgrenzung] between the existential analytic and the positive sciences made in §10, in §11, Heidegger establishes a clear separation between the existential analytic and ethnology while recognizing the priority of the former over

2 I presented earlier versions of this chapter at seminars and conferences: at the Philosophy Department of the Mary Immaculate College of Limerick (June 2018, research seminar); at the department of Humanities of the University of Palermo (June 2019, seminar); in Bucharest (26th–28th of September 2019), during the conference “Shifting Roles. The Manifold Identities of Phenomenology,” organized by the Romanian Society for Phenomenology and the University of Bucharest. I am grateful to organizers and participants I have discussed with. In particular, I wish to thank Niall Keane and Basil Vassilicos (Mary Immaculate College), Andrea Le Moli and Alice Pugliese (University of Palermo). I am also very grateful to Elizabeth A. Behnke (Betsy), for having proofread the text and for her suggestions. 3 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1972); English translation: Being and Time, trans. Joan Stambaugh, rev. Dennis J. Schmidt (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), henceforth cited as SZ with German/English page numbers. I will also refer to his 1925 lecture course, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Zeitbegriffs, GA 20, ed. Petra Jaeger (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979); English translation: History of the Concept of Time: Prolegomena, trans. Theodore Kisiel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), henceforth cited as P with German/English page numbers. The translations have occasionally been modified without notice. 4 On the problem of primitive cultures in phenomenology (especially in relation to Husserl’s letter to LévyBruhl), see Robert Bernasconi, “Lévy-Bruhl among the Phenomenologists: Exoticisation and the Logic of ‘the Primitive,’” Social Identities 11 (2005), 229–245; Dermot Moran, “Edmund Husserl’s Letter to Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, 11 March 1935: Introduction,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 8 (2011), 325–347, henceforth cited as “Husserl’s Letter.” 5 Alan Bass, Fetishism, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy: The Iridescent Thing (New York: Routledge, 2018), henceforth cited as Fetishism. 6 Peter E. Gordon, “The Empire of Signs,” in Mark A.Wrathall, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger’s Being and Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 223–238, henceforth cited as “The Empire of Signs.” 7 Jacques Taminiaux, “The Husserlian Heritage in Heidegger’s Notion of the Self,” in Theodore Kisiel & John van Buren, ed., Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 269–292, henceforth cited as “Husserlian Heritage.” 8 SZ, §§11, 17, 49; P, §18; Einleitung in die Philosophie, GA 27, ed. Otto Saame e Ina Saame-Speidel (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1996), §15. Heidegger also speaks of “mythical Dasein,” likely under the influence of Cassirer.

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the latter. However, in this section Heidegger makes only general remarks about the possibility of an existential interpretation of primitive Dasein, suggesting that ontic discoveries in anthropology and ethnology should be repeated and purified in light of an existential analysis—a “Wiederholung und ontologisch durchsichtigere Reinigung des ontisch Entdeckten” (SZ, 51/50). Heidegger does acknowledge in §11 that ethnology and anthropology present us with a multiplicity of cultures. Indeed, he recognizes that the very idea of the primitive is something “with which we can become acquainted empirically through the medium [durch] of anthropology” (SZ, 50/49). He also remarks that “until now our information about primitive peoples has been provided by ethnology” (SZ, 51/50). Ontic discoveries in the field of anthropology or ethology are accordingly presented as a “wealth of knowledge of the most far-flung and manifold cultures and forms of existence [Kenntnissen der mannigfaltigsten und entlegensten Kulturen und Daseinsformen] available today” (SZ, 52/50). Thus, Heidegger does not deny the richness of this knowledge [überreiche Kenntnis] or the role that it plays in informing us about different forms of existence. However, he also claims that in order to make sense of such difference, we need to interpret it through ontological concepts. What is required is an “essential knowledge [Wesenserkenntnis]” and a “genuine principle of order [echte Prinzip der Ordnung]” that for Heidegger cannot be obtained through a “syncretistic comparison and classification [synkretistische Allesvergleichen und Typisieren]” (SZ, 52/51). Heidegger then returns to the problem of primitive Dasein once again in §17. He now refers to a specific problem, that is, fetishism and magic as “an already given phenomenal context [vorgegebenen phänomenalen Zusammenhang]” (SZ, 82/81) determined by a remarkable use of signs. The concept of primitiveness mentioned in §11 can therefore only be understood in light of §17, where Heidegger addresses the specific ontological structure or phenomenon in relation to which “primitive Dasein” is supposed to be “primitive.” Thus, §17 can also be seen as the actual attempt to make sense of anthropological and ethnological discoveries through ontological concepts, that is, as the acid test of Heidegger’s idea of an ontological repetition and purification of ontic concepts. The present chapter is divided into three parts according to the three steps we shall go through: 1

2

3

In part one (“Indications and Signs”), I deal with the concept of “indication”— understood as the basic structure of what Heidegger calls “meaningfulness” and “handiness”—by distinguishing it from the concept of “sign,” understood as a particular kind of meaningfulness and handiness. In part two (“Phenomenological Genesis and Handiness of Signs”), I turn my attention to the problem of the genesis of signs. In particular, I address the question of how signs are possible as concretions of indications and what kind of handiness and meaningfulness signs disclose. In part three (“The Sign of the Primitive”), I tackle Heidegger’s remarks on fetishism and magic. I reconstruct Heidegger’s interpretation of fetishism as a “remarkable coincidence” (SZ, 82/780) between sign and thing. “Conclusion: Making Sense of Fetishes” emphasizes some difficulties of Heidegger’s interpretation and suggests a different perspective on the problem of fetishism.

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12.2 Indications and signs The section we are going to focus on (§17) is perhaps one of the most difficult of the entire work.9 This analysis of the sign presents two closely related problems to the reader. The first concerns the interpretation of signs under the guideline of the concept of Verweisung, that is, the idea of the sign as a type of Verweisung; the second is whether and how this concept of the sign can be used in turn as a guide to interpret fetishism and magic. Another important aspect of this section has to do with Husserl’s reflections on Zeichen and Anzeichen in his First Logical Investigation.10 Indeed, while in Being and Time there is no explicit reference to Husserl, in §23c, β of the Prolegomena, Heidegger does mention his master, speaking of an “urgency [in phenomenology] of bringing that complex of phenomena which is usually summarized under the heading of ‘signs’ once and for all definitively out into the open” (P, 276/203). Then Heidegger suggests that so far, there have only been “approaches” [Ansätzen] to this issue, and observes that Husserl’s account of signs is one of those (P, 276/ 203). As a matter of fact, §17 of Being and Time can be seen as a further—or a different—approach to the problem of signs. As I said, Heidegger does not mention Husserl in Being and Time, but the parallelism is quite evident. Indeed, the fact that Heidegger makes use of Husserlian examples such as a knot in a handkerchief could easily be read as if Heidegger were inviting the reader to establish such a parallelism. In §23c, β of the Prolegomena, Heidegger says that in the First Logical Investigation, Husserl “deals with signs in connection with demarcation [Abgrenzung] of the phenomenon of verbal meaning [Wortbedeutung] from the universal phenomenon (as he says) of signs [Zeichen]” (P, 276/203). In the following, we shall see that Heidegger also operates with a sort of demarcation. But for him the very issue is one of distinguishing between “Verweisung” and “Zeichen,” as the title of §17 suggests. Indeed, in Heidegger’s perspective, the phenomenon of verbal meanings is a derived structure, possible only within (and as a sort of modification of) an already given structure of meaningfulness, which Heidegger thinks as constituted through “Verweisungen.” 12.2.1 The variety of indications Let us start by considering Heidegger’s concept of Verweisung. Due to obvious limits, here I cannot provide a detailed analysis of this important term in Heidegger’s

9 For Gordon, §17 is “surely among the most perplexing passages in Heidegger’s entire book” (“The Empire of Signs,” 228). However I do not think that “the confusion is due to the author’s failure to explain what argumentative purposes have prompted the discussion” (228). I also disagree with Gordon’s suggestion that “Heidegger’s discussion of signs in Being and Time fits into the book’s broader argument against idealism” (229). As we shall see, the purposes of Heidegger’s discussion are clear, and they are not concerned, or not at first, with making an argument against idealism. 10 Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, 1. Teil, ed. Ursula Panzer, Husserliana XIX/1 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984); English translation: Logical Investigations, 2 vols., trans. J. N. Findlay, ed. Dermot Moran (London: Routledge, 2001). Henceforth cited as Hua XIX/1 with German/English page numbers.

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vocabulary. However, I will try to highlight some key features of this concept, showing how it operates in his approach to meaningfulness and world. Very roughly, one might say that the concept of Verweisung (“indication” or “reference”) is Heidegger’s word for constitution: everything is constituted through and in terms of indications.11 For Heidegger, the experience of a thing is only possible within the world, but the world itself is basically a web, a totality, or a context [Ganzheit, Zusammenhang] of “relations,” which Heidegger calls Verweisungen. These indications are constitutive of what a thing is. Here we must recall that for Heidegger, the world is not meaningful because there are “meanings” (values, verbal meanings) and because those meanings are associated with entities. Rather, entities themselves are possible as meaningful, and meaningfulness itself is only possible as the result of a process of constitution that always takes place within contexts of indications.12 Heidegger thinks these contexts of indications [Verweisungsbezüge, Verweisungszusammenhang] as an enclosed totality [geschlossene Ganzheit], which allows experience to be more than a scattered multiplicity of sensations: instead, there is always a multiplicity of things [Dingmannigfaltigkeit, Mannigfaltigkeit von Umweltdingen]. These contexts make things relevant, meaningful. We must stress that contexts are not something by which we make sense of something already given, but they are what makes something possible in the first place. Thus, for Heidegger, everything is constituted through indications (e.g., tools, signs, certificates, and formal objects), but in very different ways. Heidegger makes use of the concept of indication that he presents in §23 of the Prolegomena as a technical term and as a formal indication of meaningfulness, precisely because he must address what we might call a variety of forms of constitution. Besides, by using this expression, Heidegger rejects the view that things as they are experienced in the world are merely given and then also have, as it were, a meaning or a value attached to them; on the contrary, connections and correlations of meaningfulness (which Heidegger interprets precisely as indications) are originally constitutive of what things are in the first place. In the Prolegomena, the term is explicitly used to indicate formally “a structure which finds its expression in various phenomena. A sign is a kind of indication, and so is a symbol, symptom, trace, document, testimony, expression, relic” (P, 275/202). Like every formally indicating concept, this concept should safeguard the richness and multidimensionality of what is characterized, each time and differently, in terms of “meaning” and “meaningfulness,” protecting us from the risk of reducing such variety to a single unique structure. Moreover, by using this concept, Heidegger also intends to take a critical distance from concepts like “relation,” “function,” “symbol,” “meaning,” or “sign,” since these concepts refer to particular forms of meaningfulness (particular contexts of indications) and therefore cannot be used as Leitfaden for understanding

11 The term “Verweisung” is translated in Being and Time as “reference.” For the sake of my argument, here I follow Donn Welton, The Other Husserl: The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), henceforth The Other Husserl, and translate the term with “indication.” 12 I have addressed Heidegger’s concept of meaning as the unity of a manifold and as a holistic context in my doctoral dissertation, The Unity and the Manifold: Heidegger’s Interpretation of the Synthesis between Husserl and Kant (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 2019).

200 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer what meaningfulness in general is—and most importantly, what it can be.13 Indeed, I think that the most interesting and promising aspect of Heidegger’s concept of meaningfulness lies in the idea, to put it very roughly, that what we call meaningfulness is always open to modifications, and this is because the possibilities of meaningfulness are essentially determined by realizations and contexts. In the interpretation that I am proposing here, the sign is an example of how a “new” form of meaningfulness is possible precisely as a concrete realization of the very structure of meaningfulness (indications). As is well known, in §15 of Being and Time, Heidegger’s analysis of meaningfulness takes the form of a preliminary investigation of the most immediate, pre-theoretical, and therefore primordial being-in-the-world, which he calls “dealings in [Umgang in] the world with innerworldly beings” (SZ, 66–67/66–67). This being is characterized in terms of “handiness” [Zuhandenheit], as something “ready to hand,” and in terms of “serviceability” [Dienlichkeit], as something that serves us. What Heidegger calls Zeug, translated as “useful thing,” is also presented in §15 with reference to the Greek expression πράγματα, and it accordingly comprehends everything that falls within the scope of “taking care.” Thus, the term refers to “stuff” in general. It is very important, I think, that we take these concepts (serviceability, handiness) as broadly as we can. This is possible precisely if we take seriously the idea that serviceability, handiness, and meaningfulness are always constituted through relations and contexts of indications, and not the other way around. In this perspective, the horizon of possible relations is not defined by what is meaningful or useful, but on the contrary, what being meaningful, being useful, or being “at hand” means is always to be determined in relation to concrete variations of the relational structure of meaningfulness. Heidegger characterizes such relations, which he calls “indications,” with the expressions “what-for” and “in-orderto” [Um-zu, Wozu]. But one must not restrict such expressions to a specific meaning, referring, for example, solely to tools like hammers. On the contrary, there are several forms of meaningfulness and handiness, precisely since this “being-for” is, as it were, a transcendental structure that can be accomplished and realized in different ways. While I do recognize that there is in Heidegger an overemphasis on tools at the expense of other kinds of experiences (e.g., imagination, playing, bodily sensations), I think there is no reason to limit his concepts of handiness to a sort of “basic” and “unique” kind of handiness (e.g., using things with one’s hands). 12.2.2 The concept of sign: multiplicity and unity In §17 of Being and Time, Heidegger motivates the analysis of signs in this way: We shall again take our point of departure [Ausgang] with the being of what is at hand [Zuhanden] with the intention of grasping the phenomenon of indication more precisely. For this purpose we shall attempt an ontological analysis of the kind of useful thing in terms of which “indications” can be found in a manifold

13 When Heidegger rejects these concepts, he is also addressing a criticism to Cassirer. This is true, for example, for the concept of symbol and for the concept of function (see, e.g., P 277/203). Heidegger does agree with Cassirer’s idea, to put it very roughly, that there is a primacy of synthetic functions (or relations) over substances. In a way, this is what Heidegger’s notion of meaningfulness and sense is actually about. What is problematic for him is the characterization of the structure of meaningfulness with reference to concrete or formal structures like symbol, relation, or function.

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sense. Such a “useful thing” can be found in signs [eines solchen Zeugs, daran sich in einem mehrfachen Sinne “Verweisungen” vorfinden lassen]. (SZ, 77/76) As the passage makes clear, the analysis of the thing-sign is meant to function as a way of better understanding the phenomenon of indication, and this seems to be related to the fact that in signs, indications can be find in manifold senses. Then Heidegger says that the word sign names many things and different kinds of sign. He also makes this important remark: “if the analysis is limited to an interpretation of the sign as distinct from the phenomenon of indication, even within this limitation, the full multiplicity of possible signs cannot be adequately investigated” (SZ, 77–78/77). That is to say, distinguishing between sign and indication, which is the main concern of this section, does not tell us how specific kinds of signs are possible, but only what kind of structure characterizes signs in general. Let us take a look at how Heidegger presents this multiplicity. First he draws a fundamental distinction between two groups, saying that signs are themselves initially useful things whose specific character as useful things consists of indicating [Zeichen sind aber zunächst selbst Zeuge, deren spezifischer Zeugcharakter im Zeigen besteht]. Such signs are signposts, boundary-stones, the mariner’s storm-buoy, signals, flags, signs of mourning, and the like [Wegmarken, Flursteine, der Sturmball für die Schiffahrt, Signale, Flagge, Trauerzeichen und dergleichen]. (SZ, 77/76). After a few lines, we read that “among signs there are clues, signs pointing backward as well as forward, marks, hallmarks [Anzeichen, Vor-Fahnen und Rückzeichen, Merkzeichen, Kennzeichen] whose way of indicating is always different” (SZ, 78/77). Thus for Heidegger, signs are first of all, or primarily [zunächst], things useful to indicate something (e.g., pointers, a car’s turn signal). Then Heidegger says that “we should differentiate [sind zu scheiden] these signs [i.e., signs that are primarily useful things] from the following: traces, residues, monuments, documents, certificates, symbols, expressions, appearances, significations [Spur, Überrest, Denkmal, Dokument, Zeugnis, Symbol, Ausdruck, Erscheinung, Bedeutung]” (SZ, 78/77). The question arises as to the nature of this distinction. That is, one might ask whether we are dealing with a distinction concerning different kinds of things (on the one hand, things useful to indicate; on the other hand, other kinds of things), or if we are dealing with a difference between different kinds of signs, in the sense that all those structures (from hallmarks to monuments) are somewhat related by something essential.14

14 We can observe that the phenomena listed in the second group are characterized, according §7(a) of Being and Time, by what Heidegger calls a “structure of appearance [Erscheinung]” (SZ, 29/28). Here Heidegger writes that “all clues, presentations [Indikationen, Darstellungen], symptoms, and symbols have this fundamental formal structure of appearing, although they do differ among themselves” (SZ, 29/28). What is distinctive about this structure—considered in a formal way, and therefore regardless of essential differences that Heidegger recognizes but does not address thematically—is the appearing of something as an indication toward something that does not show itself. Heidegger sees such structures as problematic, since they entail a reference to something that cannot be brought to manifestation; as we shall see, his concept of the sign as a concretion of indication might be seen as an attempt to bring such structures back to a phenomenological core.

202 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer And one might ask why exactly a Trauerzeichen would be closer to a pointer than to a monument or a symbol. In Heidegger’s analysis, we encounter four exemplary forms of signs: making a knot in one’s handkerchief [Knopf im Taschentuche] as a reminder; wind from the South as a sign of rain; the car’s turn signal; and fetishism. As we shall see, while the first two three phenomena are presented as signs in a proper sense (even though they entail a different kind of institution or foundation), fetishism is interpreted by Heidegger as a limit case, or as a strange way of using signs where signs are indeed used, but are not experienced as useful in a strict sense. The question we are going to address is precisely whether we can speak of signs here, and if so, how we could or should speak of signs in this case. In this sense, Heidegger’s remarks on fetishism might tell us something more about his general approach to the problem I just mentioned about the variety of possible forms of signs. We can now turn our attention to the first two paragraphs of Husserl’s First Logical Investigation, which Heidegger identifies as a first “approach” [Ansätz] to the problem of signs. As a matter of fact, we find here a first acknowledgment of the ambiguity affecting the concept of the sign. A very general remark is that what Heidegger calls Zeichen does not correspond to what Husserl also calls Zeichen, but rather to what Husserl calls Anzeichen, translated as signals, even though in the Prolegomena (P, 279/205) Heidegger uses the two terms as equivalent. The first paragraph of Husserl’s First Logical Investigation is entitled Ein Doppelsinn des Terminus Zeichen (Hua XIX/1, 30–31/1:183), and here Husserl suggests distinguishing between Anzeichen (e.g., Kennzeichen, Merkzeichen) and “expression” and “meaning” (this distinction is therefore similar to the one that Heidegger traces in §17, where he distinguishes between a sign as a useful thing and things like monuments, documents, symbols, and meanings). In order to characterize what he means by Anzeichen, Husserl uses examples of things like brands on slaves or flags of nations [das Stigma Zeichen für den Sklaven, die Flagge Zeichen der Nation]; Anzeichen are “marks” [Merkmale] in the most original sense of features “suited to help us in recognizing the objects to which they attach” (Hua XIX/1, 31/1:183). But Husserl also stresses that the concept of Anzeichen is broader than the concept of Merkmale, and he cites these other examples: Martian canals as “signs of the existence of intelligent beings on Mars”; “fossil vertebrae as signs of the existence of antediluvian animals”; and “signs to aid memory [Erinnerungszeichen], such as the much-used knot in a handkerchief, memorials [Denkmäler]” (Hua XIX/1, 31/1:184). One may wonder to what extent fossils, Martian canals, and the Knopf im Taschentuche (an example that Heidegger is also going to use) are signs or signals in the same sense. Once again we find the question concerning the variety of possible kinds of signs, an issue that concerns the “spectrum” of variations in serviceability and handiness that characterizes the structure of the sign. In this context, Husserl also makes the important distinction between signs and signals. He says that “if suitable things [geeignete Dinge], events, or their properties are deliberately produced [erzeugt] to serve as such indications [um als Anzeichen zu fungieren], one calls them ‘signs’ [Zeichen] whether they exercise this function or not”; the “standing for” of the sign accordingly characterizes only “indications deliberately and artificially brought about” (Hua XIX/1, 31/1:184). Of course, not every “signal” must be produced. That is, every sign is a signal, but not every signal is a sign. Martian canals are Anzeichen, that is, they are things used and taken as

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indications of the presence of intelligent beings, but they were not produced with that purpose in view. Those canals might have been made by Martians for different purposes—for example, in order to connect Martian cities or for irrigating fields. When we take those canals as signs of the presence of intelligent life, we are assuming that those things are products, things shaped with a function in view, made for a reason, and therefore are products of intelligent beings. This is what motivates the fact that we can take those canals as signals (and not as signs). As I suggested, Heidegger does not distinguish terminologically between signs and signals, but he recognizes that “establishing signs does not necessarily have to come about in such a way that a useful thing at hand which was not yet present at all is produced [hergestellt wird]” (SZ, 80/79). Crucially, Heidegger refers to two different forms of “institution of signs” [Zeichenstiftung], respectively epitomized by the examples of the car’s turn signal (or the Knopf im Taschentuche) and by the south wind as a sign of rain. In other words, Husserl’s distinction between signs and signals is interpreted by Heidegger as a distinction concerning different forms of Zeichenstiftung: namely, (1) taking something as a sign and (2) producing a sign-thing.15 What is important to stress now is that for both Husserl and Heidegger, the variety of possible forms of signs does not prevent the unity of the concept of sign. Husserl says that “these distinctions and others like them do not deprive the concept of indication of its essential unity” (Hua XIX/1, 31/1:184). For Husserl, properly speaking [im eigentlichen Sinn], we can call something an “indication” only “if and where it in fact serves [dient] to indicate something to some thinking being” (Hua XIX/1, 31/1:184). In a similar way, for Heidegger, signs are first of all [zunächst] “things whose specific character as useful things consists of indicating” (SZ, 77/76). While this idea of things useful to indicate seems to orient the phenomenological approach to the variety of signs, the actual problem lies in defining the basic structure that characterizes every sign as such—and perhaps also those things that are indeed signs, or have something in common with signs, even though they are not “at first,” or “immediately,” or properly speaking, useful things (e.g., in the sense of pointers). This last remark is crucial for our question, as we shall see. Husserl speaks of a lebendigen Funktion that we must consider in all its concrete cases:

15 In the Prolegomena (281/206), Heidegger recognizes that a “twofold distinction must be noted: 1) merely taking something as a sign and 2) producing a sign-thing.” However, one might ask to what extent this distinction is helpful to understand the specificity, and the various implications, of the human production of signs. The handkerchief’s knot and the south wind are both familiar to us as useful things; we deal with such things in a very immediate way, according to the indications of usefulness and handiness that are disclosed in a given context. I understand the knot as a reminder; I perceive the wind as a sign of rain. However, and all the similarities notwithstanding, there seems to be an essential difference between seeing something as indicative of something else and seeing something as produced in order to indicate something else. We do not draw lines in the same way we produce tools; we do not deal with human-made signs in the same way in which we deal with the “signs” we find in nature. Arguably, our capacity to produce signs (i.e. things meant to show something, or concrete indications) affects our relationship with the indicative structure of experience (Anzeichen, Verweisungen). I try to address these issues in an article on which In currently working, and where I make the case for rethinking (and radicalizing) the difference between 1) taking something as a sign and 2) producing a sign-thing.

204 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer In these we discover […] the fact that certain objects or state of affairs of whose reality someone has actual knowledge indicate to him the reality of certain other objects or state of affairs, in the sense that his belief in the reality of the one is experienced (though not at all evidently) as motivating a belief or surmise in the reality of the other. This relation of “motivation” represents a descriptive unity among our acts of judgment in which indicating and indicated state of affairs become constituted for the thinker. This descriptive unity is not to be conceived as a mere form-quality founded upon our acts of judgment, for it is in their unity that the essence of indication lies. (Hua XIX/1, 32/1:184) The character of the unity of the sign is lived [erlebt] as a motivation, and more precisely, as a motivation that is not evident [ein nichteinsichtiges Motiv]. The “since” [weil] that connects the two states of affairs or objects (e.g., Martian canals and intelligent beings) gives expression to an intrinsic connection [sachlichen Zusammenhanges] (see Hua XIX/1, 32/1:184). Thus, what Husserl sees as the essence of the Anzeichen is a Motivierungseinheit, the unity of a non-evident relation of motivation that connects two objects or states of affairs. Now Heidegger’s analysis seems to start precisely from here. Recall that for him, Husserl’s First Logical Investigation is a “first approach” to the problem of the sign.16 The text we are studying (§17) can therefore be read as a possible elaboration of this approach. We shall see that for Heidegger, the sign is a unity constituted through relations of meaningfulness (indications). Such unity is pre-theoretical and precedes any kind of objectification or identification between distinct terms. It is in this context that Heidegger refers to fetishism and magic insofar as a use of signs presents an intrinsic unity—a “remarkable coincidence” (SZ, 82/80), a unity that is not even motivated by pre-theoretical relations of serviceability and usefulness.

12.3 Phenomenological genesis and handiness of signs The most important concern in §17 of Being and Time is to distinguish between Verweisung and Zeigen. Here Heidegger operates with a clear separation between the structure that characterizes every useful thing—and therefore also signs (because signs are first of all useful things)—and the ontic character or feature that makes signs useful (showing, pointing, indicating). Basically, Heidegger wants to avoid the risk of confusing “indication,” as the universal and ontological structure of handiness and serviceability, with some sort of semiotic relation. For example, one cannot mistake the “being something for something” of certain signs with the “being something for” that characterizes every useful thing, and therefore also, but not exclusively, signs. This concern explains why Heidegger claims more than once that the sign is not an “indication” [Verweisung] because it shows or points to something, but because it is a useful thing and as such it is constituted by indications [durch Verweisung

16 A comparison between Husserl and Heidegger on the issue of signs, which I cannot address here, would require considering whether and how Heidegger’s concept of the sign [Zeichen] as a concretion of indication [Verweisung] is indeed an elaboration of Husserl’s concept of Anzeichen as a connection of motivation and as a relation of Hinweisung that has its roots in association (as Husserl suggests in §4 of the First Logical Investigation).

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konstituiert]: “it has the character of in-order-to, its specific serviceability; it is there in order to indicate” (SZ, 78/77)—the sign’s Dienlichkeit, what the sign has to offer, is zum Zeigen. Thus, Heidegger says that showing or pointing [zeigen] is not the ontological structure [ontologische Struktur] of the sign as useful thing; rather, the indication in the specific sense of showing is founded [gründet] on the ontological structure [Seinsstruktur] of the useful thing, that is, in a serviceability-for [Dienlichkeit zu] (SZ, 78/77). The difficult question we shall address is precisely about the particular relation of foundation between indication as the ontological structure of serviceability, handiness, and meaningfulness in general, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the indicating of the sign as what signs are for, as what signs are made “in-order-to” do—the reason why signs are useful. 12.3.1 Signs as concretions It might seem that when Heidegger claims that signs are indications because they are useful things, he is also implying that signs are tools just like hammers. But Heidegger observes that even though the hammer is constituted through serviceability [durch eine Dienlichkeit konstituiert], it is not a sign (see SZ, 78/77). Thus, Heidegger does recognize this difference. (As I said earlier, one must not reduce Heidegger’s concept of handiness and serviceability to some sort of basic experience of handling tools). We might say that what makes a sign a sign, or a hammer a hammer, is not just being constituted through indications (something that can be said for every kind of useful thing); instead, we must inquire how in each case, there is a specific constitution, a specific “experience” of indications. The question, then, is what kind of constitution is at the basis of signs. How is “indication,” as a structure of handiness and serviceability, constitutive of what we call “signs”? What does it mean for a sign to be an indication? I am going to argue that a sign is possible precisely as a thing for which “being an indication” is constitutive in an eminent sense. In a nutshell, signs entail a sort of ontic (or empirical) experience of the ontological (or transcendental) structure of indication. To put it differently, they are possible through a process of “reification” of the ontological structure of handiness and meaningfulness (indications). In a very interesting passage at the end of §17, Heidegger suggests that a sign is something ontic, a particular ready-to-hand, that also “indicates” the ontological structure of handiness, of the totality of indications, and of the world [“Zeichen ist ein ontisch Zuhandenes, das als dieses bestimmte Zeug zugleich als etwas fungiert, was die ontologische Struktur der Zuhandenheit, Verweisungsganzheit und Weltlichkeit anzeigt”] (SZ, 80/78). I think that this chiasm between ontic and ontological is indeed the most interesting aspect of Heidegger’s approach to the phenomenon of the sign. I am referring, in particular, to Heidegger’s definition of the sign as a “concretion of the what-for [Konkretion des Wozu]” (SZ, 78/77). I do recognize, however, that the interpretation that I am proposing is not without problems. For example, it seems to conflict with what Heidegger says in §18. Here Heidegger speaks of “the ‘indicating’ [Zeigen] of signs, the ‘hammering’ of the hammer’” (SZ, 83/82), suggesting an equivalence between these two structures. My concern about this passage is very simple: to what extent can we equate the showing of the sign and the hammering of the hammer? For one might say that while the hammering of the hammer is a concrete possibility of a particular kind of

206 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer useful thing (a tool), the showing of the sign is a realization that entails an entirely different kind of handiness. There is indeed a real difficulty at the core of Heidegger’s account of signs as long as signs are interpreted as things that are useful in exactly the same way as hammers are, that is, as things that serve to “do” something, while the kind of serviceability disclosed by signs is indeed essentially different from the serviceability of tools. Both signs and tools like hammers are “at hand” and “useful,” but in different ways. Here it might be helpful to work with two concepts of “handiness,” distinguishing on the one hand a general and broader concept of “handiness” that Heidegger calls Zuhandenheit and that refers to everything encountered as constituted through “indications,” and on the other hand a narrower concept that refers to a more literal sense of “handiness”—one that we might call, following Heidegger, Handlichkeit, as when he speaks in §15 of “die spezifische ‘Handlichkeit’ des Hammers” (SZ, 69/69). Let us turn our attention to the definition of the sign as a “concretion” of indication. Very roughly, the term gives expression to something “concrete,” that is, to a realization of possibilities; for example, in §27, Heidegger says that Dasein “hat selbst wieder verschiedene Möglichkeiten seiner Daseinsmäßigen Konkretion” (SZ, 129/125). Heidegger could find the term “concretion” in the eidetic vocabulary of Husserl’s Ideas I.17 For example, Husserl speaks of highest concretions (Hua III/1, 38/32), of fullness of concretion (Hua III/1, 70/68, 156–157/168), and of noematic concretion (Hua III/1, 297/309). Thus, in §135, Husserl says that everything is eidetically predelineated [wesenmässig vorgezeichnet], from universalities down to the lowest concretions (see Hua III/1, 311/ 323). In §50 of Being and Time, we find precisely the distinction between Vorzeichnung and Konkretion, and Heidegger also speaks of “nächsten Konkretion des Dasein” (SZ, 252/242). In §17 and §18, Heidegger uses the term “concretion” in a similar sense and always in tandem with “predelineations.” Let us notice in passing that the term is also present in Husserl’s lectures on passive synthesis (Hua XI, 127/172,138-140/185-187)18 as well as, most importantly, in Cassirer’s analysis of mythical consciousness (Mythical Thinking, 55, 63, 65, 90).19 What is important for us is that the term “concretion” is used by Heidegger in order to

17 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführing in die reine Phänomenologie, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana III/1 (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976); English translation: Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Phenomenological Philosophy, trans. Fred Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982). Henceforth cited as Hua III/1 with German/ English page numbers. A comparison of Heidegger’s notion of concretion with Husserl’s mereological distinction between the “concrete” and the “abstract” is a problem that must be left to another occasion. 18 See Edmund Husserl, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis: Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten 1918-1926, ed. Margot Fleischer, Husserliana XI (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966); English translation: Analyses concerning passive and active synthesis: Lectures on transcendental logic, transl. Anthony Steinbock (Dordrecht: Springer, 2001). Henceforth cited as Hua XI, with German/English page numbers. 19 Ernst Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, vol. 2, Das mythische Denken (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1925); English translation: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, vol. 2, Mythical Thinking, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), henceforth cited as Mythical Thinking, with English page numbers.

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indicate the actual realization of predelineated possibilities, the realization of indications of serviceability (what-for, in-order-to)—indications that prescribe or predelineate how a certain object “must” be in order to be “useful.” For example, a certain thing is individuated as something-for (e.g., as something for hammering), as what I need in order to do something; a certain object, this very hammer, is just what I was looking for.20 Thus, what we call “ready to hand” is always an ontic concretion that realizes indications and possibilities, and the concretion is always “anticipated” or “predelineated” by indications of serviceability. Heidegger accordingly says in §18 that “the what-for of serviceability and the wherefore of usability prefigure the possible concretion of indication [das Wozu einer Dienlichkeit und das Wofür einer Verwendbarkeit zeichnen je die mögliche Konkretion der Verweisung vor]” (SZ, 83/82). Now this use of the concept of concretion as a realization of indications is very important for understanding how Heidegger interprets the structure of the sign. Crucially, Heidegger’s interpretation of signs as “concretions of indications” can be interpreted in two different ways. 1

2

First of all, signs are concretions in the sense that they are individual realizations of possibilities of serviceability. In this perspective, signs are those particular things that we need in order to indicate something; therefore they are possible as concretions that realize indications and anticipated possibilities of serviceability. Second, a sign is a concretion of indication in a more fundamental sense, that is, as a particular kind of thing that concretely presents indications, a thing for which being a concretion of indications is essential. In this sense, “concretions of indications” are not only concrete realizations of predelineated indications and possibilities, but also (and primarily) realizations that concretely present indications, and therefore, disclose new possibilities of handiness (possibilities different from a basic sense of handiness [Handlichkeit]). It is this second concept of concretion that I will refer to in the following discussion about fetishism.

As I said, I do recognize this point as controversial. In fact, the aim of Heidegger’s argument is to avoid any confusion between Zeigen (as the ontic function of signs) and Verweisen (as the ontological structure of handiness in general). Thus, it might seem that signs and hammers are concretions in the same sense, and that the showing of the sign is nothing but an ontic feature that belongs to a concretion of serviceability. As noted, in §18, Heidegger speaks of “the ‘indicating’ [Zeigen] of the signs, the ‘hammering’ of the hammer’” (see SZ, 83/82). In §17 we read: “the fact that the what-for of serviceability gets its concretion in indicating is accidental to the constitution of the useful thing as such” (SZ, 78/77). That a sign is useful because it indicates, that a sign “realizes” some possibilities by indicating, appears to be completely irrelevant. However, this holds true only as long as we presuppose the ontic function of showing through which signs, as possible concretions of serviceability, do actually concretize the potential of serviceability, or as long as we take for granted

20 The term “concretion” is also used by Heidegger in §12, where he says that the ontological features [Seinscharaktere] of Dasein, already sketched out in the previous paragraph, will obtain a “structural concretion” (SZ, 52–53/53) throughout the investigation.

208 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer that the function of showing, as a concrete feature of signs, is always the result of a concretion of serviceability. To put it differently: a sign is a concretion of indications of serviceability because it is something useful for indicating; but that a sign is something that indicates is possible only because the sign is a concretion of indication, because it presents, ontically, a character of indication. And are we sure that this ontic-indicating is always given as the realization of expected and predelineated possibilities of serviceability?21 We can now consider what is the most difficult passage of §17. Heidegger says that “indication as useful thing and indication as the indicating of the sign [Verweisung als Dienlichkeit und Verweisung als Zeigen] […] coincide so little that in their unity the concretion of a specific kind of useful thing is first made possible [Beide fallen so wenig zusammen, daß sie in ihrer Einheit die Konkretion einer bestimmten Zeugart erst ermöglichen]” (SZ, 78–79/77–78). Let me stress that this difference between a unity that makes concretion possible and a “coinciding” is essential for our question, since—like Heidegger—we are going to define fetishism in terms of such a coincidence—namely, as a “merkwürdige Zusammenfallen des Zeichens mit dem Gezeigten” (SZ, 82/80). We shall see that the problem lies precisely in defining the kind of unity that characterizes signs as concretions, and therefore the kind of unity “still” lacking in fetishism. In this passage, Heidegger refers (a) to indication as a structure of every useful thing and (b) to indication as the showing [Zeigen] of signs. Heidegger says that the difference between Verweisung als Dienlichkeit und Verweisung als Zeigen (for brevity, indicating and showing) is so essential that there can be no coincidence between them. As a matter of fact, a particular concretion of a particular useful thing is possible precisely when we have the unity of the two. Recall that in this section Heidegger wants to establish a distinction between the ontic indicating of the sign, which is what makes the sign a particular useful thing, and the ontological structure of every useful thing in general. Here he makes the point that the two levels are so different that ontic showing is just a concretion (a realization) of an ontological what-for of usefulness. But we can look at this question from a different angle and note that a sign is indeed possible when something ontic is itself something that indicates, something that presents indications. As a matter of fact, the text seems to suggest that the useful thing called sign is possible when indications of serviceability are concretely realized in a thing that presents the character of showing, just as the hammer presents a certain shape. But as I have argued, a fundamental difficulty arises with this interpretation, for it describes a situation in which we are already given things that indicate (henceforth: signs) and that we can use as things useful to indicate (henceforth: tool-signs). Or else it suggests that the fact that signs are things that present indications depends from the beginning on a realization of indications of serviceability, while it might be that signs are

21 Donn Welton claims that for Heidegger, “signs themselves function like tools” (Welton, The Other Husserl, 363); referring to “the red arrows that functioned as turn signals on early automobiles, Heidegger shows that the arrow serves as a signal because it is grounded in that very same ‘in order to’ structure constitutive of the presence of tools” (Welton, The Other Husserl, 362). This claim is true from a descriptive point of view. I am nevertheless going to argue that signs are indeed grounded on those structures, but not as tools; signs are therefore useful just as tools are only as long as their being grounded in the structure of handiness is different. This also shows to what extent the concept of handiness is not to be taken in too narrow a sense (as I have argued in 1.1).

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realizations of serviceability only because they factually present indications, before and beyond their being “tools” that serve to indicate. Heidegger does not explicitly address the question of the sign in these terms, but as we shall see, this difference is somewhat presupposed in his interpretation of fetishism as a use of signs as things that are not useful in a strict sense. 12.3.2 The strange handiness of signs In order to highlight the peculiarity of signs and the sense in which they are concretions of indications, we can consider this phenomenon in its difference from such tools as hammers. However, one must not think this difference in a rigid way, since we do not have such a clear distinction in our experience. For example, we always manage tools by following indications and looking for instructions. Or just think of how we decorate or personalize tools, or how humans have always decorated useful things (e.g., vases, jars) with geometrical shapes. What is important for us is that the difference between tools and signs is not a difference between entities, but rather between structures that are always co-implicated in our experience. I refer to this distinction only to stress the particular kind of handiness that characterizes the phenomenon of signs as “concretion of indications.” Roughly speaking, one might say that signs are not understandable in terms of indications primarily because they are “for something” (as a hammer is); rather, they are “for something” (and therefore constituted through indications) because they “are” indications, because they present indications. The turn signal, to take Heidegger’s example, is used by the driver in order to point to the direction the car will take, and it is also used by other drivers as something that shows the direction. The thing-sign is not something for … (e.g., something for hammering), it is something for “being something for something.” The character of being-for, which characterizes meaningfulness and handiness in general, is here explicit: it comes into the foreground and it is “factually” or “ontically” given as something that is, so to speak, itself at hand. Here the character of concretion of indications has a different meaning; it is not just a realization of anticipated indications, but a realization that presents indications. This is why in a passage I quoted earlier (SZ, 80/78), Heidegger says that a sign is at the same time “something ontically at hand” and something that indicates [anzeigt] the ontological structure of handiness and meaningfulness itself. The “being something” of the sign does not lie, first of all, in its being that particular something that makes it suitable for, but in its being something suitable for being-for per se, that is, in its capacity of establishing relations and connections. A what-for is always constitutive of both a sign and a hammer, but differently in each case. The what-for of the hammer, that is, what the hammer is for, is indeed realized or fulfilled as long as the hammer presents some qualities (a certain weight, for example). The what-for is constitutive of signs on another level: the what-for of the sign is realized (it becomes a concretion) when a thing is itself a concretion or a realization of indications, not just as constituted through indications, but as showing indications themselves concretely, exhibiting the character of being-for. We might say that signs are not just constituted by indications, but are also made of indications and therefore

210 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer they are useful in order to “handle” or to “reorganize” handiness itself, for they are made, as it were, of the same stuff of meaningfulness.22 Heidegger recognizes that signs have a prominent role in our being-in-the-world, precisely as things for which indications are constitutive in a different sense. “Signs indicate what is actually ‘going on.’ Signs always indicate primarily ‘wherein’ we live” (SZ, 80/79). Signs are, in a manner of speaking, markers of variations of meaningfulness and handiness. But this is possible because such things exhibit and enjoy the transcendental structure of meaningfulness (indication) as an empirical possibility. In this sense, the concept of a sign sheds a different light on the intertwining between handiness and meaningfulness, on the role that a given ontic concretion plays in projecting a basic sense of handiness (Handlichkeit) beyond itself. I think that the concept of the sign shows why the concept of handiness is not merely metaphorical, and yet is not literal either: what we call handiness (Zuhandenheit) is indeed more than a basic sense of handiness (Handlichkeit), but this “more” also—if not essentially—seems to be possible because indications can be “inscribed” in concrete things, allowing for relations of meaningfulness to be “handled” (precisely as long as they are at hand in a strict and basic sense). 12.3.3 A knot in a texture: the institution of signs Let us take a step further by considering Heidegger’s interpretation of Zeichenstiftung. With the term Zeichenstiftung, Heidegger tackles the difficult problem of how signs, as concretions of indications, are first possible (a question we have already touched upon in Section 3.2). Heidegger claims that the peculiar character of the usefulness of the sign [der eigenartige Zeugcharakter der Zeichen] becomes more understandable [deutlich] precisely in terms of Zeichenstiftung (SZ, 80/79). With this concept Heidegger aims at a pre-theoretical and pre-objective account of the institution of signs. Here it is important to recall a distinction that Heidegger makes in both the Prolegomena and (less explicitly) in Being and Time, a distinction concerning two different kinds of “institution”: “a twofold distinction must be noted: 1) merely taking something as a sign [das bloße ZumZeichen-nehmen] and 2) producing a sign-thing [das Herstellen eines Zeichendinges]” (P, 281/206). Thus, signs are founded even though they are not produced (the distinction, as I already noted, corresponds to Husserl’s difference between, respectively, Anzeichen and Zeichen). In §23c of the Prolegomena, as well as in §17 of Being and Time, Heidegger uses the example of a farmer who takes the wind from the south as a sign of rain. He also notes that in this case, signs reveal “a still more original meaning” (SZ, 80/75). The case

22 Borrowing for Alva Noë, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (New York: Hill and Wang, 2015), we could think signs as “strange tools.” For Noë there are two basic levels, which might correspond to the distinction, within the concept of handiness [Zuhandenheit], between Handlichkeit (basic handiness, as in the case of tools like a hammer) and signs as projections of handiness: “Level 1 is the level of the organized activity or the technology. Level 2 is the level where the nature of the organization at the lower level gets put on display and investigated.” “Art is interested in removing tools (in my extended sense) from their settings and thus in making them strange and, in making them strange, bringing out the ways and textures of the embedding that had been taken for granted. A work of art is a strange tool, an alien implement. We make strange tools to investigate ourselves” (27). We shall see that Heidegger’s interpretation of the institution of signs has some aspects in common with this concept of a strange tool.

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is more original because it shows that we live surrounded by signs that are already accessible to us; it shows that using signs is always a matter of accepting already instituted concretions of indications, and accepting them as things whose character of indication is established pre-theoretically and prior to any objectification. The wind from the south, we read, “is never initially something objectively present” (SZ, 80/79); it is not something that is first merely given and then taken as a sign that indicates another object. As we shall see, Heidegger brings out the question of fetishism precisely in relation to this problem, which seems to present another kind of institution of signs—one that Heidegger finds, as it were, too immediate and too pre-theoretical. While the distinction Heidegger traces out is indeed essential, the most difficult question concerns the fact that in a manner of speaking, signs cannot be “already given,” but require a kind of modification in how we use something already given. Heidegger recognizes that something must certainly be given in advance, but the question is what is actually given, whether a bloße Dinglichkeit, a sheer thing used as a thing to refer to something else, or perhaps, as Heidegger argues, an uncomprehended kind of useful thing, a thing at hand which one did not know “what to do with” up to now […].23 What is already given cannot be a mere thing, a thing that just happens to be there and is then taken as indication of something else; the pre-givenness of signs is rather that of something that has “just now” been discovered in a sense that had not been understood before. In this way, for Heidegger, the thing taken (or produced) as a sign is indeed already given, but only as something whose character and potential of indication had not yet been “found” or “instituted.” Thus, Heidegger links the institution of signs to a context of usefulness, and this in two senses: on the one hand, the thing that is taken as a sign was already given as something already at hand; on the other hand, the sign entails a new kind of usefulness, one that was not immediately present in the first context of usefulness, but was obtained, in a way, “indirectly.” Quite interestingly, Heidegger characterizes the institution of signs using the concept of “conspicuousness” (a concept he also adopts in his analysis of the broken tool). More precisely, the institution of signs is described as a contrast that takes place within a particular context of usefulness, as the coming into the foreground of an element of conspicuousness against a background of inconspicuousness. A sign is given when a thing captures our attention by interrupting a given context of indications. We could look at the sign as a sort of ripple within the texture of meaningfulness. Heidegger orients his analysis toward a specific example, the Knopf im Taschentuch (I follow here Bass’s recommendation to translate this phrase with “handkerchief’s knot”). Within our world of inconspicuous things, the handkerchief is modified so as to become conspicuous; it is indeed the operation of making a knot that produces such salience, which could be interpreted as a kind of counter-productive moment within the structure of the object. By this process the object does indeed become useless, but what is essential is that it becomes useful in another sense, as something useful to indicate. We must stress that the conspicuousness of the knot has nothing to do with the conspicuousness of a broken tool. The salience of the sign is not indicative of something useless; rather, it is

23 Gewiß, es muß überhaupt schon in irgendeiner Weise vorfindlich sein. Die Frage bleibt nur, wie in diesem vorgängigen Begegnen das Seiende entdeckt ist, ob als pures vorkommendes Ding und nicht vielmehr als unverstandenes Zeug, als Zuhandenes, mit dem man bislang “nichts anzufangen” wußte, was sich demnach der Umsicht noch verhüllte [SZ, 81/79–80].

212 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer itself something useful, something that we use in order to indicate. In other terms, the handkerchief’s knot is not a broken tool (as a ripped handkerchief might be). In this specific case, the knot is shaped in a way that reveals an intention, which makes the handkerchief useless only in order to make it useful in another sense. The knot reveals an “intentionality” behind the interruption.24 Heidegger does not address the problem of what kinds of conditions makes possible the conspicuousness of the sign in the first place, or the problem of how such a process can be accomplished in different ways. What conditions do play a role in either making possible or preventing the character of salience, and thus the potential for the serviceability of the conspicuousness of something? Heidegger says only that the conspicuousness which belongs to signs and can be produced with varying intentions and in different ways not only document[s] the inconspicuousness constitutive for what is at hand nearest to us; the sign itself takes its conspicuousness from the inconspicuousness of the totality of useful things at hand. (SZ, 81/80) The conspicuousness can be “produced” in different ways [Absicht, Weise], but always as an effect of contrast with an background of inconspicuousness. As both Heidegger and Husserl recognize, not every sign requires the explicit intent of producing a thing to indicate something (cf. Husserl’s example of Martian canals and Heidegger’s example of the wind from the south). Arguably, then, the wind, Martian canals, and the handkerchief’s knot (and as we shall see, fetishes as well) are all concretions of indications, for they all entail a kind of salience and contrast, but in different ways. However, as I noted, Heidegger does not address this question. The question is again about the genesis of signs as things that realize anticipated and prefigured possibilities and indications of handiness, or as things that realize indications and relations of meaningfulness, and therefore also disclose new possibilities of handiness.

12.4 The sign of the primitive 12.4.1 The strange use of signs in fetishism and magic The question of fetishism comes upon the scene as an exemplary form of the pretheoretical and pre-objective institution of signs. Heidegger says that “one could be tempted [Man könnte versucht sein] to illustrate the distinctive role of signs in everyday heedfulness for the understanding of the world itself by citing the extensive use of ‘signs,’ such as fetishism and magic, in primitive Dasein” (SZ, 81/80). More specifically, the question concerns the fact that “the establishment of signs that underlies such use of signs does not come about with theoretical intent and by way of theoretical speculation. The use of signs remains completely within an ‘immediate’ being-in-the-world” (SZ, 81/80). Let us recall that for Heidegger, the example of wind from the south as a sign of rain

24 Here it might be interesting to consider the phenomenon of Kiphus, knotted strings used as a recordkeeping system by the Incas. See Gary Urton, “From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus,” Ethnohistory 45 (1998), 409–438.

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reveals “a still more original meaning” (SZ, 80/80) than the handkerchief’s knot, precisely because it is a more immediate use of signs. Following this line of thought, one might believe that fetishism reveals a still more original, because pre-theoretical, experience of signs. But Heidegger explicitly rejects this hypothesis. Heidegger says that “when one looks more closely, it becomes clear that the interpretation of fetishism and magic under the guideline of the idea of signs is not sufficient at all to comprehend the kind [Art] of ‘handiness’ of beings encountered in the primitive world” (SZ, 81–82/80). Here Heidegger recognizes in fetishism and magic not just a “kind of handiness,” but a very strange one: indeed, he puts the term “handiness” in quotation marks, and he acknowledges that this phenomenon cannot be understood in the light of the concept of the sign elaborated in this context. Yet he does go so far as to claim that “perhaps this ontological guideline (handiness and useful things) […] can provide nothing for an interpretation of the primitive world, and certainly for an ontology of thingliness (Dinglichkeit)” (SZ, 82/81). What distinguishes these two phenomena (signs as useful things and fetishism) is whether signs have the character of something useful in the sense of things like hammers or pointers. This means that the guideline that Heidegger is rejecting is that of signs as concretions of serviceability, in the narrow sense of realizations of predelineated possibilities of usefulness (sign-tools), and not the broader idea of signs as things that concretely present indications (signs). Heidegger also remarks that “ultimately what is ‘at hand’ in the world does not have the kind of being of useful things at all” (SZ, 82/81). As we can see, the unhandiness, or the improper handiness, of fetishism invites us to question even the idea that things are in general encountered as “at hand.” Let me stress that Heidegger introduces a shift from a particular phenomenal context, which he calls “fetishism and magic,” to what he calls the “primitive world.” That is, Heidegger implicitly takes a particular context of experience (“fetishism,” “magic”) as the entire spectrum of this kind of possibility of being-in-the-world. I will argue that this generalization of the primitive world into one kind of possibility is closely connected with the idea of a primitive use of signs, since this idea does not allow us to see that signs can be used differently and that differences in the use of signs entail differences in contexts and possibilities of being-in-the-world (e.g., rituals, everydayness). As I noted, Heidegger operates with a narrow concept of handiness and sign, while it is possible, and even necessary, to admit that a certain handiness of signs is also present in fetishism. Heidegger cannot avoid recognizing that signs are indeed used in fetishism and magic. But he also notes that such use is a strange or an improper one. As we shall see, such a use of signs is not, so to speak, aware of the possibilities of signs; it is not fully aware of the potential of handiness that concretions of indications disclose. In fetishism, the use of signs is somewhat “captured” by the power of signs, but is nevertheless unable to “control” such power or have this power “at its disposal.” Here Heidegger catches something crucial about how signs are used by looking into how they are not used. The question is whether this “not” is all that can be said about fetishism. Heidegger’s rejection accordingly has an ambiguous meaning. On the one hand, it allows us to appreciate what is peculiar to fetishism, for it strongly claims that signs are not used as sign-tools; on the other hand, it suggests that what is relevant about fetishism is whether or not signs are used as sign-tools. Thus, the concept of the sign as a useful thing (e.g., the handkerchief’s knot) is not assumed as a guide, but nevertheless works as a kind of term of comparison for the handiness of signs in general. Heidegger not only says that fetishes are not things used and useful to indicate (sign-tools), but also seems to

214 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer think that what fetishes are has to do with their not-being useful to indicate. This gives his interpretation a teleological orientation that has already been noted by Bass (see Fetishism) and Taminieux (see “Husserlian Heritage”). If we consider the argumentative context of §17, fetishism can be interpreted as something diametrically opposed to the objectivistic interpretation of the sign, which Heidegger strongly rejects by showing that signs are used immediately, pre-theoretically, and prior to any objectification or identification. Quite surprisingly, fetishism does not seem to make a good argument for the pre-theoretical nature of signs. In this context, signs are certainly not experienced through an act of identification or objectification; quite on the contrary, they are experienced immediately. However, to put it very roughly, the problem is that signs are experienced too immediately. Thus, in Heidegger’s perspective, fetishism cannot be used as an argument against objectivism. A better argument is found by Heidegger in taking the wind from the south as a sign of rain. Let us see precisely in what the immediacy of the primitive consists. We have seen the importance of the idea of unity for the constitution of signs. The unity of a concretion, as we have seen (see 2.1), is not a mere Zusammenfallen, a coincidence. Very significantly, Heidegger now describes the use of signs in fetishism as a “merkwürdige Zusammenfallen des Zeichens mit dem Gezeigten” (SZ, 82/80), suggesting that the sign is not experienced as such, that is, as a concretion of indication, as a concrete “realization” of indications. However, as we have noted, we can think signs as concretions of specific indications of usefulness (tool-signs: things useful to indicate) or as ontic concretions of handiness in general, that is, in relation to the fact that we are given things that indicate, things in which indications can be found. When he claims that there is no use of signs in fetishism, Heidegger is referring to the first concept of concretion, that is, to the sign as a particular kind of thing useful (and used) to indicate. This does not imply that there is no experience of signs at all; on the contrary, concretions of indications and relations of meaningfulness are indeed given, as Heidegger also recognizes. In light of this hypothesis, we can now try to determine in what sense Heidegger speaks of a “remarkable coincidence.” The characterization of the sign as a coincidence depends on the fact that the concretion is not experienced as something itself useful in order to indicate something, that is, as the realization of the unity of indications of serviceability and ontic showing. The sign is a coincidence in the sense that the indicating of the sign on the one hand and indication as a universal structure of serviceability on the other are not distinguished in the same way as they are in every concretion of serviceability, where the individual thing is what it is precisely in “functioning” in terms of the indications and relations of meaningfulness that have already been anticipated and predelineated. The sign is not discovered as something concrete that can “realize” possibilities of serviceability (what-for). The coincidence is interpreted by Heidegger as ein Noch-nicht-freiwerden des Zeichens vom Bezeichneten, a not-yet-being free of the sign from the designated: “This kind of use of signs is still completely absorbed in the being of what is indicated so that a sign as such cannot be detached at all [Solcher Zeichengebrauch geht noch völlig im Sein zum Gezeigten auf, so daß sich ein Zeichen als solches überhaupt noch nicht ablösen kann]” (SZ, 82/80). This means that the thing-sign is indeed given—and we might say, also recognized—as something that indicates, but not as something whose character of reference is free, and therefore free to be used to indicate anything whatsoever. The use of the sign is absorbed in and “captured” by the Gezeigten; what is shown is given, but it is experienced as shown through (or indicated by) a thing-sign. In other words, here there is

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no distance between the thing-sign and its reference. “The sign itself can represent what it indicates, not only in the sense of replacing it [im Sinne des Ersetzens], but in such a way that the sign itself always is what is indicated” (SZ, 82/80).25 We can now see why there is an essential difference between the farmer-argument and the shaman-argument. For the farmer, the “rain” is not the “wind,” but is what the wind announces. The farmer sees the rain coming before it actually comes, as what is anticipated by the wind. We can say that in the primitive world, as Merleau-Ponty says in his Phenomenology of Perception, “everywhere there are warnings with no one who issues them [il’y a partout des avertissimements sans personne qui avertisse].”26 Heidegger calls this coincidence of the fetishism “remarkable,” something extraordinary. The reason for this, as we read, is that “the ‘coincidence] [of thing and designated] is not an identification [Identifizierung] of hitherto isolated things, but rather the sign has not yet become free from what for which it is a sign” (SZ, 82/80). Such a coincidence is not the result of a theoretical approach to the structure of the sign in which the relation is extrapolated by its most immediate context of serviceability and is therefore interpreted as an identification or a formal relation between terms. On the contrary, the coincidence is remarkable because the sign is experienced, so to speak, too immediately. It is remarkable, and worthy of being explored, because it still belongs to a dimension of meaningfulness, one that is extraordinary (perhaps not only to us, but also to the primitive, since fetishes are used in rituals). This use of signs trespasses beyond the boundary of serviceability, but does so precisely because it is strongly rooted in a different kind of meaningfulness and handiness. In other words, fetishism seems to decentralize the use of signs, but only to show that its center might lie elsewhere, before or beyond those possibilities of serviceability and handiness that Heidegger considers. In §23c of the Prolegomena, Heidegger seems more interested in the positive meaning of fetishism. He speaks of a “materialization [Materialisierung] of the sign” in fetishism (P, 285/208), but he promptly notes that this materialization “has however nothing to do with any sort of materialism or materialistic point of view, as if the indicating and the sense of the sign were tied to ‘matter’”; on the contrary, “‘matter’ here really does not have a material function but a specifically ‘spiritual’ one,” and Heidegger specifies this spiritual function of materialized signs as “die allgemein ständige Zugänglichkeit zu

25 Heidegger’s position concerning this very specific problem is worthy of being investigated in relation to Cassirer’s Mythical Thinking. Heidegger wrote a review of Cassirer’s book; see Martin Heidegger, Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, GA 3, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), 255–270; English translation: Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, trans. Richard Taft (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 180–190. He also explicitly mentions it in a footnote to §11 of Being and Time (SZ 51/401 n.10). Heidegger’s interpretation presents interesting affinities as well as differences with Cassirer. Let me just note that Cassirer already speaks of the mythical use of signs as a context in which “thing and signification […] merge […] in an immediate unity” (Cassirer, Mythical Thinking, p. 24). For the sake of space, we have to postpone to another occasion the comparative examination of Heidegger’s and Cassirer’s interpretation of fetishism and magic in the light of concepts such as “concretion,” “coincidence” and “immediacy.” 26 See Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1948); English translation: Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald A. Landes (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), cited here with English page numbers. In this context Merleau-Ponty, who also refers to Cassirer’s Mythical Thinking, makes very interesting remarks concerning mythical consciousness (“mythical space”) and primitive animism.

216 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer gewährleisten” (P, 285/208). The spiritual function of fetishes—their “spiritual whatfor,” one might say—lies precisely in enabling a stable and universal accessibility of what is shown. Thus, Heidegger concludes that from an extended use of signs in primitive thinking, it still cannot be concluded that this thinking has in a way not yet actually apprehended the “spiritual,” the “meaningful”; on the contrary, the presence of the sign and what is indicated is itself the most elementary proof [darf man daher noch nicht darauf schließen, dieses Denken hätte gewissermaßen das “Geistige,” das “Sinnmäßige” noch nicht eigentlich erfaßt, im Gegenteil, sofern Zeichen und Gezeigtes da sind, ist das der elementarste Beweis]. (P, 285/208) In both of the texts we have considered, Heidegger recognizes that in fetishism, we have both a sign and something indicated. However, while in the Prolegomena this is the basic proof of the fact that we are in the presence of a positive experience of something meaningful, of something spiritual—and he also says that we are not allowed to characterize this meaningfulness as something “noch nicht eigentlich erfaßt”—in Being and Time, he seems more interested in stressing what this meaningfulness and this use of signs are not yet. It is also very interesting that Heidegger uses a terminology here (spiritual, materialization) that is so alien to his usual vocabulary. In the Prolegomena, Heidegger is very clear: sofern Zeichen und Gezeigtes da sind, as long as a sign and something shown are given, something spiritual or meaningful is also present, regardless of how the relation between the sign and what is indicated is experienced. Perhaps the immediacy of fetishism depends on the kind of accessibility that this materialization constitutes, as something so stable and universal [die allgemein ständige Zugänglichkeit] (P, 285/208), as something that does not allow any “distance” or “interruption” between the thing and what it indicates. As we read in Being and Time, “this kind of use of signs is still completely absorbed in the being of what is indicated” (SZ, 82/76). But let me stress once again that this can only affect the potential of the serviceability of signs, and not the fact that they are experienced as things that concretely present indications. As a matter of fact, the power of signs lies precisely in materializing indications and relations of meaningfulness, enabling the presence of a context of meaningfulness that captures our attention. Thus, if the primitive is captured by signs and cannot use signs as useful things, this is because signs are indeed used as concretions of indications, as things that concretely realize indications of meaningfulness before being used as realizations of serviceability.

12.5 Conclusion: making sense of fetishes In light of what we have seen, we can say that what is essential to signs is a character of concretion that precedes, and is not to be equated with, the narrow concept of sign as a concretion of indications of serviceability. This does not mean that we must not ask what a certain kind of sign is for, whether and why someone made it in order to indicate, but only that we must first consider that these notions of “for” and “in-order-to” might have a broader sense, a sense that is not just that of a serviceability exemplified by tools and that has its center in Dasein. Considering our case, one should not only ask how they are used, assuming a narrow concept of usefulness, but also consider what kind of “whatfor” they realize, and we should ask as well what “subject” (Dasein, a tradition, a

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community) lies behind their institution, and therefore whether it makes sense to speak of handiness, that is, whether concretions of meaningfulness (what Heidegger calls materialization of something spiritual and meaningful) are always concretions of usefulness and handiness. However, in Heidegger, the phenomenon of fetishism remains somewhat unreachable for us, something we cannot make sense of, establishing a gap between modern and primitive Dasein. This is clear if one considers a remark that Heidegger makes toward the end of §17: But if an understanding of being is constitutive for primitive Dasein and the primitive world in general, it is all the more urgent to develop the “formal” idea of worldliness; namely, of a phenomenon which can be modified in such a way that all ontological statements which assert that in a given phenomenal context something is not yet or no longer such and such may acquire a positive phenomenal meaning in terms of what it is not. (SZ, 82/81) In this difficult passage, Heidegger refers to a formal idea of world, an idea that one can arguably modify so to make sense of such expressions as solcher Zeichengebrauch geht noch völlig im Sein zum Gezeigten or ein Noch-nicht-freiwerden (SZ, 82/80). If my reading is correct, this means that a positive sense can be found, for example, by modifying the idea of world through a variation in how signs are used. That is, we should imagine a world in which the use of signs is not yet such and such—we should think what it would be like to live in a world where signs are not used as useful things. Accordingly, the so-called primitive Dasein could make sense of our world as a world where signs have lost their power of materializing spirituality, their ability to allow a constant and universal meaningfulness, the possibility of an immediate coincidence between the sign and the designated. This perspective might reveal interesting aspects. However, I have some concerns about it. In general, Heidegger assumes that the phenomenon of fetishism is completely alien to our existence. This, in turn, entails (a) that our use of signs is always and everywhere characterized by serviceability, presenting no analogies with the primitive, and (b) that the primitive use of signs is really something primitive. As to the first point, Heidegger does seem to overemphasize a certain kind of use of signs (just as he overemphasizes the experience of tools in general). But we could find many examples of how we make use of concretions of indications in a way that is close (or at least somewhat related) to fetishism. We find such examples in art, monuments, or mourning signs (examples that Heidegger uses), but also in several types of objects in which we allegedly “modern” Dasein find a particular value—for example, as amulets. In this sense, we could follow Gombrich’s27 invitation to try “to be honest with ourselves and see whether we, too, do not retain something of the ‘primitive’ in us,” for example recognizing how we find it difficult to hurt images of persons we care about (History of Art, 20). According to Gombrich “somewhere there remains the absurd feeling that what one does to the picture is done to the person it represents” (20). Gombrich also makes this beautiful example: “Perhaps we should return to ourselves and the experiments that we can all perform. Let us take a

27 Ernst H. Gombrich, History of Art (London: Phaidon Press, 1950), henceforth cited as History of Art.

218 Fabio Tommy Pellizzer piece of paper or ink-blotter and scrawl on it any doodle of a face. Just a circle for the head, a stroke for the nose, another for the mouth. Then look at the eyeless doodle. Does it not look unbearably sad? The poor creature cannot see. We feel we must ‘give it eyes’” (History of Art, 25). Here fetishism represents something ancestral and original, and therefore also primitive, according to a concept of primitiveness that we might find in different contexts—in phenomenology (e.g., in Paci28), in literature and of course in art. In §49 of his lecture course of 1929–1930,29 Heidegger seems to go in a similar direction, establishing an interesting parallelism between art and myth (recall that in his lectures, Heidegger uses the expression “mythical” as equivalent to “primitive,” just as Cassirer does). Here Heidegger is considering the possibility of transposing ourselves into animals and other Dasein. In this context, he also asks whether we can transpose ourselves into objects. He says: “We ask […] whether the stone as a stone offers us […] any possibility of transposing ourselves into it at all. […] No, we reply, we cannot transpose ourselves into a stone”(GA 29/30, 300/204). However, there seems to be an exception, or better, two. “There are two fundamental ways in which this [transposing ourselves into a stone] can happen: first when human Dasein is determined in its existence by myth, and second in the case of art” (GA 29/30, 300/204). Art might provide a different key for understanding fetishes, not only in the sense that this could be considered a more primitive form of art, but also in the sense that art itself could be considered as a “primitive” use of signs.30 However, and this leads us to the second point, the real challenge is to understand that there is nothing really primitive in what we call “primitive.” It is not enough to recognize, as Gombrich does, that we are still primitive (e.g., when we use signs and images in a certain way); instead, we need to recognize that what is described as a “primitive” is—especially if phenomenologically interpreted—the result of complex operations. We are not primitive because we believe that the image is the thing; we are complex beings because of this, that is, we are complex because we are able “not to see” the difference between the image and the thing, so to say. Going back to our problem, the question is whether what Heidegger characterizes as a “remarkable coincidence” is actually something original, or if it is instead more a matter of the result of an articulated and positive way of dealing with signs. Bass makes this important remark: “Whether ethnologically or clinically, apparently non-abstract and closed self-referential structures always co-exist

28 Consider, for example, Enzo Paci’s idea, to which Moran refers, of primitive “as a layer of experience that still inhabits our world” (Moran, “Husserl’s Letter,”21). As Moran shows, “for Paci, Husserl’s attempt to understand contemporary civilization through relating it to the primitive is a kind of genetic phenomenology which is also a kind of anthropology” (22). 29 Martin Heidegger, Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt, Endlichkeit, Einsamkeit, GA 29/30, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1983); English translation: The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans. William Mc Neill and Nicholas Walker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), henceforth cited as GA 29/30 with German/English page numbers. 30 Here we could consider the perspective adopted by Carlo Severi in, for example, L’objet-personne: une anthropologie de la croyance visuelle (Paris: Éd. Rue d’Ulm/Musée du Quai-Branly, 2017); English translation: Capturing Imagination. A Proposal for an Anthropology of Thought, trans. Catherine V. Howard, Matthew Carey, Eric Bye, Ramon Fonkoue, and Joyce Suechun Chung (Chicago: Hau Books, 2018), henceforth cited as Capturing Imagination. The author discusses interesting aspects of the relation between art, primitive aesthetics, and anthropology.

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with apparently abstract and open symbolic structures. One cannot simply say that the fetish is foreign to symbolism.”31 The problem is how to interpret the ambivalence of the primitive use of signs as a use of signs whose character of coincidence and identity does not exclude, but on the contrary entails a complex structure. And in this perspective, terms like “coincidence” should not be taken literally, but as indicative of particular kinds of relations enabled by concretions of indications.32 In which sense can we actually say, for example, that the fetish is what it represents? What is the sense of this “is”? How many forms of “identities” should we distinguish here? What kind of relation between meaningfulness and motivation is constitutive of what is used as an immediate coincidence? What does it mean that the sign “cannot be” detached as such? Is it not possible that such impossibility is itself the result of a certain awareness of the fact that signs realize predelineations that we might also interpret as rules or prescriptions of handiness? It is indeed a fact that in every culture, we find different uses and kinds of signs, different forms of concretions of indications, since what is called “symbolic behavior” is something very variegated. But how is such variety possible without a basic awareness of signs as concretions of indications? Let us recall that in a passage of §17 I have quoted earlier, Heidegger says that “signs indicate what is actually ‘going on.’ Signs always indicate primarily ‘wherein’ we live” (SZ, 80/79). Indeed, signs do tell us how we should handle things. For example, a fetish should not be used as something for hammering. Heidegger himself says in §11 that primitive Dasein presents both an “everyday” and “non-everyday” way of being (SZ, 50–51/49). He even says that primitive Dasein itself also has its own exceptional, not ordinary (unalltäglichen) possibility, and that it has the possibility of being ungewöhnlichen; thus, primitive Dasein has its own genuineness and originality [eine eigene Echtheit und Ursprünglichkeit] (see GA 27, 60). However, distinctions like these arguably do require a certain ability to discern signs and to discern different ways of using them, and thus to recognize them as things that show us in which world we live.

31 Bass, Fetishism, 58. Cf. Giovanni Piana (La notte dei lampi II. L’immaginazione sacra. Saggio su Ernst Cassirer) (Milano: Guerini e Associati, 1988) (http://www.filosofia.unimi.it/piana/index.php/filosofiadellimmaginazione/60-la-notte-dei-lampi-2), who devotes interesting considerations to myth, criticizing what he calls “implicit symbolism” and arguing for the essential “ambiguity” of the structure of symbolic relations, since they entail both immediacy and a basic awareness (absence of positionality). Thus Piana observes that the idea of an implicit symbolism must not be “taken literally.” In other words, we can characterize fetishism and magic with terms like “implicitness,” “unawareness,” or “immediacy,” but only as a manner of speaking, and not as determinations that belong to that phenomenon. 32 From this point of view, it might be interesting to consider Carlo Severi’s investigations (see Capturing Imagination). In light of his work, ritual objects and images can be interpreted, to put it very roughly, as centers of relations, as things that present relations, as objects that “speak to us” and enable interpersonal relations, the formation of identity, and collective memory.

13 The logic of Being in Heidegger’s Being and Time Maciej Czerkawski

Abstract: McDaniel argues that Heidegger’s accounts of the kinds of being in Being and Time (such as Dasein, the ready-to-hand, and the present-at-hand) might be understood as spelling out meanings of different restricted existential quantifiers whose domains do not overlap. This paper develops three objections to this proposal and, ultimately, a different view of the logical form of Heidegger’s kinds of being as disjuncts of the reality-predicate described by Fine applicable to any of the objects in the domain of the unrestricted existential quantifier some facts about which “ground” all facts about the remaining objects in this domain (the membership in which is denied the ontological significance invested in it by Quine and, following him, many other analytic philosophers including McDaniel). Keywords: Fundamental ontology; being; existence; existential quantifier; existence predicate; reality; grounding In Being and Time (hereafter BT), Heidegger attempts to “work out” the question of Being.1 This question asks about that which determines beings as beings, that on the basis of which beings are already understood, however we may discuss them in detail.2 One of the most striking results of this project is that there is – or so Heidegger argues – more than just one “determination” that answers the above description. Crucially, there is Dasein’s Being or “Existenz,” pertaining to whoever is capable of pursuing Heidegger’s own inquiry into Being3 (crucially, for all that Heidegger has published of BT is devoted to the project of “existential analytic,”4 and that is to say, to an analysis of the Being of this kind of entity). There is, then, “readiness-of-hand” (Zuhandenheit) pertaining to beings that are a part of

1 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2006); English translation: Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 1. Henceforth cited as SZ with reference to the pagination in the German edition (that the English edition also keeps track of) and to the section number in square brackets. Translations are frequently lightly retouched by me. 2 SZ, 6 [2]. 3 SZ, 7 [2]. 4 SZ, 13 [4].

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-15

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5

Dasein’s practical projects (paradigmatically – but not exclusively – tools ) and “presence-at-hand” (Vorhandenheit), which, in the first instance, characterises beings that are not – or indeed no longer6 – ready-to-hand, and which, in the second instance, is invoked by Heidegger to describe how some prominent Western philosophers conceive of the world around them.7 Finally, although BT discusses only these three “kinds of being” (Seinsarten) in any detail, Heidegger never claims that there are no more kinds of being than that. For example, he indicates that “life,”8 too, might be tantamount to a distinct kind of being, and he speaks of beings which are “neither ready-to-hand nor present-at-hand but just ‘subsist’ (‘besteh[en]’).”9 Since, in this way, “kinds of being” effectively tell us what Heidegger’s research question in BT – and so, the entire book – is about – Heidegger calls this “das Gefragte” of his inquiry10 – no serious interpretation of BT could afford to do without some exegesis of this notion. Still, as far as I know, it took Kris McDaniel’s relatively recent and rightly celebrated essay – “Ways of Being” – to pose this interesting query to Heidegger’s text: might Heidegger’s talk of the kinds of being be understood as marking any logical distinctions, and, if so, logical distinctions of what sort? McDaniel’s answer is affirmative. On his reading, Heidegger’s accounts of kinds of being in BT spell out meanings of different existential quantifiers, whose domains do not overlap. Metaphysicians ought to reason about the world using these local quantifiers rather than a single global one (whose domain contains their domains), and this privilege arguably enjoyed by the Heideggerian quantifiers is one we are invited to understand along the lines of Theodore Sider’s notion of “jointcarvingness.”11 (McDaniel sometimes speaks here of the “naturalness” of the meanings of the Heideggerian quantifiers rather than of their joint-carvingness, but David Lewis – from whom he adapts this usage – did not employ this notion in relation to quantifier-meanings.12) I agree with McDaniel that Heidegger’s elaboration of the question of Being in BT leaves us enough clues to work out for ourselves the logical form of the kinds of being he talks about in that book. But I think that McDaniel’s reconstruction of this

5 For some non-paradigmatic cases of readiness-to-hand, see, for example, SZ, 71 [15]. 6 Cf. SZ, 72–76 [16]. 7 Most notably, Heidegger charges Descartes with “prescrib[ing] for the world its ‘real’ Being, as it were, on the basis of an idea of Being whose source has not been unveiled and which has not been demonstrated in its own right – an idea in which Being is equated with constant presence-at-hand.” SZ, 96 [21]. 8 SZ, 50 [10]. 9 SZ, 333 [66]. 10 SZ, 5 [2]. 11 Kris McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” in Metametaphysics, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 290–319. Cf. Theodore Sider, “Ontological Realism,” in Metametaphysics, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 384–423; Theodore Sider, Writing the Book of the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 12 See, for example, David Lewis, “New Work for a Theory of Universals,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, no. 4 (1983): 343–377.

222 Maciej Czerkawski Heideggerian logic of Being, as it were, faces serious exegetical difficulties. My aim in this paper is to spell them out and to offer a different reconstruction. In a rather wonderful essay called “The Question of Ontology,” Kit Fine argues that the ontological weight of objects should be represented formally, not by including them in the domain of the quantifiers (as McDaniel, following Quine, would have it), but rather through the predicate “real” applicable to all and to only those objects some facts about which “ground” all facts about the remaining objects in this domain.13 Thus, any philosopher who thinks that numbers do not exist, for example, is kindly asked not to obstruct the mathematician’s work by pushing the objects her propositions are about out of the domain the quantifiers range over, and to rest content with pointing out that they are not real in this sense, but, say, grounded in our mental states. (Quine’s puckish advice would be to push.) I shall argue that Heidegger would find Fine’s critique of Quine’s “metaontology”14 congenial, although, for him, a single existence predicate will not do. Rather, a whole family of existence predicates is needed to reflect the diversity among the kinds of being. Thus, with due respect to McDaniel, Heidegger is happy for metaphysicians to continue to employ a single global existential quantifier (or rather ordinary expressions corresponding to it15) as is their wont. But he wants them to appreciate that, whereas the contribution of things such as chairs and tin-openers to the world as it is at the fundamental level consists in their readiness-to-hand, the contribution of things such as sticks and stones consists in their presence-at-hand. Most importantly, he wants them to recognise that their own contribution consists in Existenz rather than in any of the remaining kinds of being. Section 1 of this paper examines McDaniel’s case for his multiple-quantifiers interpretation of the kinds of being, to which, then, Sections 2–4 develop the following three objections. First, Heidegger does not seem to betray much interest in quantificational questions (questions which ask: is there an x that is F?).16 So, it is hard to believe that the main output of the book is, as McDaniel maintains, a philosophical doctrine about quantification. Second, Heidegger clearly countenances the possibility of a single object falling under more than one kind of being. Third, Heidegger’s kinds of being are always expressed either through a verb or an adjective fronted by a copula in the position of the predicate or through nouns variously derivative of such a predicative employment in the position of a subject or an object (rather than ever through a quantifier type of expression). Section 5 develops my own account of the logic of Being in BT and Sections 6 and 7 answer two objections to this account. The first objection argues that predicational accounts of the logic of Being assimilate the kinds of being with properties (and Heidegger would never consent to this). The second objection questions whether there is a substantive difference between my and McDaniel’s accounts of the logic of Being in BT (in the light of McDaniel’s later work).

13 Cf. Kit Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” in Metametaphysics, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 157–177. 14 In van Inwagen’s sense. Cf. Peter van Inwagen, “Meta-Ontology,” Erkenntnis 48, no. 2/3 (1998): 233–250. 15 I am not aware of any discussion in Heidegger’s work addressing existential quantification as such. 16 Cf. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 157–158.

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13.1 Martin Heidegger meets Theodore Sider McDaniel’s case for representing Heidegger’s kinds of being by restricted-domain existential quantifiers is premised on the alleged unsuitability for the job of two other means of representation available in logic. First, suppose that we represent the kinds of being by constant symbols by introducing a having predicate – “H” – and a constant symbol to stand for existenz, “e.” […] And so forth for the various ways of being countenanced by Heidegger.17 “We could then say, for example, that some things have existenz”: “∃x (Hxe).”18 However, representing Heidegger’s kinds of being in this way contradicts “ontological difference”19 – Heidegger’s claim that “[t]he Being (Sein) of beings ‘is’ not itself a being (ein Seiendes)”:20 In standard first-order logic, constant symbols […] are employed to refer to entities within the domain of the quantifier. Since the constant symbols can be replaced by first-order variables, we can derive from the claim that Dasein has existenz the claim that there is an entity such that Dasein has it. However, Heidegger […] warns us that being is not a being, and that the various ways of existing are not themselves entities.21 So, Heidegger’s kinds of being cannot be captured by constant symbols. Second, suppose that we do what this paper argues we should do: “introduce special predicates that mark the… distinctions that Heidegger wants to make.”22 For example, suppose that, in order to affirm Dasein’s existence, we say that there is something that existz (“E”): ∃x (Ex). Here, McDaniel objects that this procedure assimilates attributing a way of being to a thing to predicating a property of that thing. Being is not a kind of super property, exemplified by everything. Nor is being a determinable property of which the various kinds of being, such as existenz, are determinates in the way that being red is a determinate of being colored. Ways of being are not merely special properties that some entities have and that other entities lack, and so are not most perspicuously represented by predicates.23

17 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 301. 18 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 301. 19 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Gesamtausgabe 24 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), 22–23 [4]; English translation: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), 17–18 [4]. Henceforth cited as GA 24 with references to the pagination in the German edition, followed by a corresponding reference to the English edition, followed by the section number in square brackets. 20 SZ, 6 [2]. 21 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 301–302. 22 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 302. 23 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 302.

224 Maciej Czerkawski (Section 6 of this paper will make some proposals about what exactly might be wrong with the thesis that Heidegger’s kinds of being are properties – as, unfortunately, that is all that McDaniel says on the subject in “Ways of Being” – and argue that either McDaniel’s objection rests on a confusion of two possible interpretations of the term ’property’ or is one I have two very good replies to. For now, however, let us grant the legitimacy of this worry and move on.) Thus, granted that “the generic sense of ‘being’” (applicable to anything) “is represented formally by the ‘∃’ of mathematical logic,” “a natural thought,” for McDaniel, “is that the specific senses of ‘being’ also are best represented by quantifiers” – only such “that range[] over only some proper subset of that which the unrestricted quantifier ranges.”24 For example, consider the existenzial quantifier, which in virtue of its meaning ranges over all and only those entities that have existenz as their kind of being, and a subsistential quantifier, which in virtue of its meaning ranges over all and only those entities that have subsistence as their kind of being. We can represent these quantifiers with the following notation: “∃existenz” for the existenzial quantifier, and “∃subsistence” for the subsistential quantifier.25 Since McDaniel holds that, for Heidegger, each being belongs in exactly one kind of being, “none of these domains [of the Heideggerian quantifiers] overlap.”26 But what might one need these local existential quantifiers for? Consider that McDaniel’s local existential quantifiers and the global one we normally use are interdefinable. McDaniel has just defined two of the Heideggerian quantifiers by appropriately restricting the domain of the global existential quantifier. It is, hopefully, also easy to see that the global existential quantifier could be “defined up” from the local existential quantifiers, as long as we enjoy some kind of understanding of them all and decide to take them as primitive instead. So, anything that can be said with the help of Heidegger’s existential quantifiers could also be said with the help of the global existential quantifier. But, if so, are they not – as Peter van Inwagen will in fact argue in “Modes of Being and Quantification” – merely notational variants of each other?27 It is in anticipation of this challenge that McDaniel calls Sider to the rescue. The first of Sider’s theses relevant to McDaniel’s project states that “[t]he world has a distinguished structure”28 and a degree of “joint-carvingness” of a concept tells us how well – or indeed how badly – the concept in question matches that structure. McDaniel himself illustrates “joint-carvingness” with this – now outdated – example (so I’ll update it for our purposes): Consider the property of having a charge of −1 and the property of either being [formerly] loved by Angelina Jolie or having a charge of −1. Eddie the electron

24 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 302. 25 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 303. 26 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 312. Cf. Kris McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics of Material Beings,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 2 (2013): 332–57. 27 Cf. Peter van Inwagen, “Modes of Being and Quantification,” Disputatio 6, no. 38 (2014): 1–24. 28 Sider, Writing the Book, vii.

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exemplifies both features. 1 charge is a real respect of similarity between electrons, but it is bizarre to think that Brad Pitt and Eddie are similar in virtue of both being either green, being [formerly] loved by Angelina Jolie, or having a charge of −1. We recognize a metaphysical distinction between these two features: the former property carves nature at the joints, while the latter is a mere disjunction.29 The second relevant thesis propounded by Sider states that [f]or a representation to be fully successful, truth is not enough; the representation must also use the right concepts, so that its conceptual structure matches reality’s structure.30 Heidegger, McDaniel claims, accepts both these theses: Call a language ideal just in case every primitive expression in that language has a perfectly [joint-carving] meaning … According to the position explicated here, a language in which the generic quantifier is semantically primitive is not an ideal language. A language is better, at least with respect to its apparatus of quantification, if its generic quantifier is “defined up” out of those semantically primitive restricted quantifiers that do correspond to the logical joints.31 Indeed, McDaniel reads BT precisely as Heidegger’s attempt to develop such an “ideal” language: Arguably, this is in fact what Heidegger does: abandon ordinary language, and move to a technical language in which new primitive terms are introduced along with accompanying remarks to aid the reader in grasping these terms. The accompanying remarks constitute a minimal use of the terms, but one that is sufficient for these terms to latch on to any ontological joints that might be in the neighborhood.32 So, granted that the “position explicated” in “Ways of Being” is internally coherent and interesting, is it actually Heidegger’s? It appeared to at least this reader of McDaniel’s paper that, unless there is some information that he chooses to withhold for the benefit of a reader not deeply invested in Heidegger, his entire case for representing Heidegger’s kinds of being by existential quantifiers hangs on a single thread of the intuitiveness of Quine’s dictum

29 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 305. 30 Sider, Writing the Book, vii. It is important to distinguish between these two theses, because, as Sider’s critics like to remind us, there is an inferential gap between a descriptive claim that the world has “a distinguished structure” and a (more controversial) normative claim that our representations of the world should somehow track this structure. Cf. Eli Hirsch, “The Metaphysically Best Language,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 3 (2013): 709–716, here 709; Cian Dorr, “Reading Writing the Book of the World,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 3 (2013): 717–724, here 717; Shamik Dasgupta, “Realism and the Absence of Value,” Philosophical Review 127, no. 3 (2018): 279–322. 31 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 309. Second italics added. 32 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 311–312.

226 Maciej Czerkawski that “[t]o be assumed as an entity is, purely and simply, to be reckoned as the value of a variable” (within the scope of the existential quantifier).33 For consider that, even setting aside my doubts about his objection to predicative interpretations of the kinds of being – to be spelled out in Section 6 – McDaniel’s rejection of constant symbols and predicates could demonstrate the efficacy of his preferred means of representation only on the condition that the vocabulary of logic was exhausted by these three expressions. But, manifestly, it is not. In principle, we can always extend the vocabulary of logic in ever new ways, corresponding to ways in which we reason about things. The history of logic is, in a large part, a history of such extensions, not least one of which was the introduction of the quantificational apparatus itself by Frege.34 So, the argument by elimination does not work here at all. For, any such an argument will invariably open itself to the following line of doubt: what if the kinds of being are neither constant symbols, nor special predicates, nor quantifier-meanings, nor what-have-you? What if their proper logical form is one we have yet to work out from scratch? So, intuitive though Quine’s dictum might be to McDaniel, it is very much in order to ask if Heidegger found it as intuitive as he.

13.2 Kinds of being and quantificational questions I propose that, if Heidegger accepted Quine’s dictum, two (overlapping) classes of sentences would be in evidence in BT. First, we would find sentences that disavow his existential commitment to something – and that do so without supporting the predicative interpretation of the kinds of being McDaniel rejects (and I accept). That they might do just that is a genuine worry, for consider the following sentence from Division 1 of BT: S: What is ready-to-hand in the environment is certainly not present-at-hand for an external observer exempt from Dasein [...].35 Take “R” as short for “ready-to-hand in the environment” and “P” as short for “present-at-hand for an external observer exempt from Dasein.” Now, owing to the interdefinability of existential and universal quantification, it does not matter, logically speaking, whether we interpret S as S1:

∀x (Rx ⊃ ¬Px) [‘For all x, if x is R, then it is not P.’]

or as: S2:

¬∃x (Rx & Px) [‘There is no x such that it is both R and P.’].

33 Willard Van Orman Quine, “On What There Is,” in From a Logical Point of View (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 1–19, here 13. Cf. McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 302. 34 Other examples conspicuous here are Sider’s structure operator and Fine’s reality operator. Cf. Sider, Writing the Book, 91–94; Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 171–172. 35 SZ, 106 [23].

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For, S1 and S2 share their truth conditions. Still, even if S2 is as plausible an interpretation of S as S1 – making S a desired instance of a negative existential assertion – S cannot be cited in support of the thesis that Heidegger follows Quine’s dictum. For, either way, S deploys kinds of being in predicative positions. Thus, a reading of S in terms of S2 meets my first challenge (I will motivate it in a moment) only by supporting my own interpretation of the logic of Being at the expense of McDaniel’s. Hence, we want Heidegger to say something like the following. “There areE no sticks and stones” – where the expression “There isE/areE” is equivalent to an existential quantifier that ranges over all and over only those beings whose kind of being is Existenz (i.e. Daseins). Or: “There areZ no human beings” – where the expression “There isZ/ areZ” is equivalent to an existential quantifier that ranges over all and over only those beings whose kind of being is Zuhandenheit (i.e. paradigmatically tools) and so on. Of course, Heidegger never employs a turn of phrase exactly like these (with the superscript). They are just a placeholder for any possible expression of quantification of a local scope. But even sentences that employ the global existential quantifier rather than any of the Heideggerian ones would do. For example: “Nothing is both red and not red at the same time.” Or: “There is no such a thing as too much food after a healthy exercise.” Second, we would find sentences that either disavow or affirm Heidegger’s existential commitment to something, and that do so by mentioning any of the kinds of being otherwise than as an object of such a commitment. (Again, sentences such as “There are ready-to-hand beings” support the predicative interpretation of the kinds of being insofar as readiness-to-hand takes place of the predicate rather than of a quantifier type of expression.) For example, “There are chairs, but we should say that chairs are zuhanden.” Or: “There are human beings, but we should say that human beings exist (in the sense of exhibiting Dasein’s Being).” Although the kind of being in each of these sentences takes place not of the quantifier type of expression but of the predicate, it is clearly in some kind of competition with the standard apparatus of existential quantification. Considering just how difficult it is to heed McDaniel’s Heidegger’s advice to reason with local, rather than global, quantifiers outside of the realm of the logic-speak, it would be ungenerous not to count such sentences as evidence of the type of sentence in question. My twofold proposal stems from the following considerations. First, Heidegger clearly holds that the question of Being is non-trivial – otherwise there would be no point in reviving it – and if he does, indeed, accept Quine’s dictum, then he would no doubt regard the question of what can be quantified over as likewise nontrivial. So, it is incumbent on the proponent of the interpretation of the kinds of being in terms of existential quantification to show that it is not the case that, for Heidegger, just about anything can be quantified over (taking this to be the mark of triviality in quantificational questions). For, that is the only way, consistent with that interpretation, to block the following modus tollens: since, as far as we know, for Heidegger, anything can be quantified over, either he does not accept Quine’s dictum or he holds that the question of Being is trivial. The proponent of the quantificational interpretation needs to block this inference, because from its conclusion, one can argue as follows. Heidegger does not that hold the question of Being is trivial. Therefore, he does not accept Quine’s dictum. Hence, it is vital for McDaniel’s quantificational reading of BT that we find sentences of the first type: that disavow Heidegger’s existential commitment to something (without placing kinds of being in predicative positions, as in S2, for reasons already discussed). Second, even if Heidegger thought that the question of what can be quantified over is non-trivial, it does not follow that he held that his investigation of different kinds of

228 Maciej Czerkawski being in BT would help us address this, as opposed to some other, question. So, it is equally important that we find sentences that either disavow or affirm his existential commitment to something and that do so by mentioning any of the kinds of being (again, without deploying them in predicative positions). My first objection to McDaniel’s quantificational interpretation of the kinds of being is that sentences belonging to either class are nowhere to be found. On the one hand, there is, as far as I know, no sentence in Heidegger’s body of work that denies that there is something without supporting the predicative interpretation of the kinds of being (as in the case of S2). On the other hand, there is, as far as I know, no sentence in Heidegger’s body of work that mentions any of the kinds of being and univocally affirms or disavows his existential commitment to something. Regarding the (right) candidate sentences of disavowal, that is because – or so I have just claimed – there are none. Regarding candidate sentences of affirmation, I claim that every such a sentence could just as well – or indeed more plausibly – be interpreted as affirming a “universal commitment” to something, similar in its logical form to S1. The basic formula here is “∀x(Fx ⊃ Bx),” where “F” stands for a feature of objects that serves to separate some objects in the domain of discourse from others and “B” for its appropriate kind of being. For example, “For all x, if x is a chair, then it is ready-to-hand.” Of course, the absence of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absence. But, with his quantificational interpretation of the kinds of being, McDaniel claims to capture the hard core of Heidegger’s project in BT. It would be incredible if he was right about the logical import of Heidegger’s project and if sentences of either type did not turn up somewhere. Since it is impossible to produce evidence of Heidegger’s failing to say something (respectively, to disavow an existential commitment to something consistently with McDaniel’s interpretation and either to disavow it or to affirm it by mentioning any of the kinds of being), my argument here amounts to no more than a challenge to the reader sympathetic to McDaniel’s interpretation. I have now raised it and I am eagerly awaiting a reply. Still, partly in order for the reader to get her money’s worth, and partly to explain what kind of reply will definitely not satisfy me, I would like to (merely) illustrate each of my claims. Thus, to start with my first claim, whether or not there is God is, without doubt, a substantial metaphysical issue, and at that one about which even many nonmetaphysicians have a view. Since Heidegger – a one-time seminarian – does dedicate a lot of attention to the concept of God (though not really in BT), we might expect that at one point or another, he would entertain the thought that there is no God (and perhaps argue that there is). But, to the best of my knowledge – and with all due respect to Béatrice Han-Pile who asserts that “Heidegger does not believe in the existence of God”36 – Heidegger never entertains such a thought.37

36 Béatrice Han-Pile, “Early Heidegger’s Appropriation of Kant,” in A Companion to Heidegger, ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 80–101, here 93. 37 There is a widely circulated quote from Heidegger’s introduction to a never-written book on Aristotle dating from 1922 that “philosophy is in principle atheistic.” Martin Heidegger, Supplements, ed. John van Buren (New York: State University of New York Press, 2002), 121.However, commentators generally agree that Heidegger does not deploy the word “atheistic” here in its usual sense. Cf. Herman Philipse, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Being (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 94; John van Buren, “The Earliest Heidegger: A New Field of Research,” in A Companion to Heidegger, ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 19–31, here 25.

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The most thorough discussion of God’s existence in Heidegger’s work can be found in a lecture course he offers in Winter Semester 1920–1921 entitled “The Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion” and devoted to the task of the phenomenological reconstruction of the “religious life” as it manifests itself in selected letters of Paul. In his commentary to the First Letter to Thessalonians, in particular, Heidegger attempts to make sense of the way in which, after converting to Christianity, Thessalonians now stand in community with Paul characterised as “Gewordensein” (“having-become” – that’s Heidegger’s translation of “γενέσθαι”). He analyses “Gewordensein” as follows: The having-become is understood such that with the acceptance, the one who accepts treads upon an effective connection with God. [...] The main passage which clarifies the connection is 1:9–10. It is about an absolute turning-around, more precisely about a turning-toward God and a turning-away from idolimages. [...] The acceptance consists in entering oneself into the anguish of life. A joy is bound therewith, one which comes from the Holy Spirit and is incomprehensible to life. παραλαμβάνειν does not mean a belonging; rather it means an acceptance with the winning of a living effective connection with God. The being-present of God has a basic relationship to the transformation of life [...]. The acceptance is in itself a transformation before God.38 It is evident that, throughout this short passage, Heidegger is prepared to take the evidence of Paul’s religious life, as it presents itself in the letters, at face value – at least as far as quantificational questions are concerned. Indeed, as we learn shortly thereafter, the success of the attempted phenomenological exercise depends on our ability to “to determine the sense of the objecthood” – “Gegenständlichkeit” (literally the “standing over against”) – “of God”39 (with whom “the one who accepts” above “treads upon an effective connection [Wirkungszusammenhang]”). Heidegger proposes that this “can be realized only if one carries out the explication of the conceptual connections” to other concepts that emerged in the preliminary analysis of the religious life as it manifests itself in Paul’s letters. He complains that “[t]his… has never been attempted, because Greek philosophy penetrated into Christianity.” (“Only Luther made an advance in this direction and from this his hatred of Aristotle can be explained.”40) This approach to God’s “objecthood” – as something that needs to be elucidated rather than questioned with respect to whether it ought to be affirmed or denied – does not change significantly even for the so-called late Heidegger, the special place in whose heart has long been vacated by Luther and medieval Christian mystics41 and

38 Martin Heidegger, Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens, ed. Matthias Jung, Thomas Regehly, and Claudius Strube, Gesamtausgabe 60 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995), 94–95; English translation: Phenomenology of Religious Life, trans. Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna GosettiFerencei (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010), 66. Henceforth cited as GA 60 with German and English page references, respectively. 39 GA 60, 97/67. 40 GA 60, 97/67. 41 They were the topic of the first lecture course Heidegger was to offer at the University of Freiburg in 1919 but that never took place. For his (embryonic but suggestive) lecture notes, see GA 60.

230 Maciej Czerkawski repopulated by prominent critics of Christianity such as Nietzsche and Marx.42 Both “the death of God”43 and the notion that “God and the gods withhold their presence”44 – frequently invoked during this period – presuppose the “being-present of God” of which speaks the young Heidegger above. God can only die only on the condition that, before, there was God. God and the gods can be said to “withhold their presence” only on the condition that they can be quantified over, since they are both the subject and (indirectly) the object of this mysterious activity. Thus, shortly after the Second World War, Heidegger instructs his French readers in a famous pastoral letter of his own – better known as the “Letter on ‘Humanism’” – that “it is not only rash but also an error in procedure to maintain that the interpretation of the essence of man from the relation of his essence to the truth of Being is atheism” just as it is to hold that “such a philosophy does not decide either for or against the existence of God.”45 What I take this to show, absent any evidence to the contrary, is that, for Heidegger, anything46 anyone47 ever48 says there is, truly is (in the sense of being quantifiable over) – excepting objects ruled out by his considerations of the nature of various kinds of being (as in S2) and perhaps inconsistent objects, as every commentator seems to agree that the “early” Heidegger, at least, accepted the principle of non-contradiction49 and I am not aware of any consideration against this consensus. Still, in each case, the question remains in what way. And, as every reader of BT knows, this question remains whether or not we are considering entities like God, whose existence many find dubious, entities like sticks and stones, whose existence only philosophers could find dubious, or even entities like ourselves, whose existence not even philosophers have earnestly attempted to put in question. The second illustration. One might think that Heidegger’s discussion of Kant on the question of “whether the external world can be proved” in the last chapter of Division 1 of BT is a straightforward example of Heidegger’s engaging with a quantificational question. Namely, is there a world of objects external to the mind? But if so, I surely cannot deny that called upon to resolve this question is precisely Heidegger’s – at this point in the book reasonably developed – conceptual apparatus of the kinds of being. Here is a rough sketch of the exchange between Kant and Heidegger. Kant complains in the Preface to the second edition of the first Critique that

42 Cf. Martin Heidegger, Wegmarken, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Gesamtausgabe 9 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976), 339–340; English translation: Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 258–259. Henceforth cited as GA 9 with German and English page references, respectively. 43 GA 9, 347/264. 44 GA 9, 338/258. 45 GA 9, 351/267. 46 God. 47 Paul (or whoever claims to be him). 48 Decades after the believed death of Jesus Christ. 49 Filippo Casati argues that Heidegger came to embrace paraconsistent logic later, in his Contributions to Philosophy. Cf. Filippo Casati, “Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being: A Dialetheic Interpretation of the Late Heidegger,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27, no. 5 (2019): 1002–1024.

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it […] remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general that the existence [Dasein] of things outside us (from which we derive the whole material of knowledge, even for our inner sense) must be accepted merely on faith, and that if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof.50 And, in the newly added “Refutation of Idealism,” he develops a novel argument to the conclusion that “things outside us” do, indeed, exist.51 Heidegger argues that Kant’s argument in the “Refutation” falls short of this conclusion52 (it need not bother us here why). But Kant’s even more serious mistake, in Heidegger’s eyes, was that he had attempted to prove the existence of the external world in the first place: “[t]he ‘scandal of philosophy’ is not that [the] proof [of the existence of the external world] has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again.”53 For, Heidegger claims that it is in fact essential for Dasein that it preoccupies itself with “things” that populate the “world” in the relevant sense. So, if we can assume that “we” exist, then so does the external world: If Dasein is understood correctly, it defies such proofs, because, in its Being, it already is what subsequent proofs deem necessary to demonstrate for it.54 So, there is a quantificational question that preoccupies Heidegger: the question of whether or not there is an external world. And, whatever the details of his case against Kant are, he does address this question by referring what purports to be the global notion of existence at work in Kant (incidentally, Kant expresses this notion by the term “Dasein”) – but which, Heidegger claims, only encapsulates the local “presence-at-hand”55 – to the local notion of Dasein’s Being (now in Heidegger’s sense). However, a more careful reading will show that it is not the case that Heidegger understands Kant’s problem of the external world as a quantificational question. Rather, he understands it as an instance of Fine’s question of a universal commitment: namely, are (all) objects that are experienced as external to us – and that do not fail tests of their ‘reality’ internal to our representations (taking the apparently bent stick out of water and the like) – “real”? For, it is in terms of this predicate, rather than in terms of existential quantification, that Heidegger himself

50 Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2016), Bxl; English translation: Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 34. Henceforth cited as KRV with German and English page references, respectively. 51 KRV, B274–79/244–247. 52 “Kant … is incorrect from the standpoint of the tendency of his proof.” SZ, 204 [43 A]. Cf. SZ, 203–205 [43 A]. 53 SZ, 205 [43 A]. 54 SZ, 205 [43 A]. The first italics are mine and the second Heidegger’s. 55 “We must in the first instance note explicitly that Kant uses the term ‘Dasein’ to designate that kind of being which in the present investigation we have called ‘presence-at-hand’. ‘Consciousness of my Dasein’ means for Kant a consciousness of my Being-present-at-hand in the sense of Descartes. When Kant uses the term ‘Dasein’ he has in mind the Being-present-at-hand of consciousness just as much as the Being-present-at-hand of Things.” SZ, 203 [43 A].

232 Maciej Czerkawski analyses Kant’s “Refutation” to whose problem he refers as “[t]he question of the ‘reality’ (“Realität”) of the ‘external world’”:56 To have faith in the reality of the “external world,” whether rightly or wrongly; to “prove” this reality for it, whether adequately or inadequately; to presuppose it, whether explicitly or not – attempts such as these which have not mastered their own basis with full transparency, presuppose a subject which is proximally worldless or unsure of its world, and which must, at bottom, first assure itself of a world.57 I will now argue that, in fact, Heidegger speaks here of “reality” in more or less the same sense in which Fine does (to be fleshed out in Section 5 – but my remarks from the start of this paper will be entirely sufficient). Shortly after his discussion of Kant on the external world, Heidegger distinguishes between two ways in which he employs terms such as the “real” and “reality” in BT. First, “as an ontological term” of his own, he employs them as referring, respectively, to the totality of “beings within-the-world (innerweltliches Seiendes)” (i.e., as I understand this never defined term,58 beings insofar as they are intelligible to Dasein who, insofar as it enacts this understanding, is “in-” rather than “within-“ the world) and their character as such.59 Second, he sometimes employs these terms in their “traditional signification” as well, according to which “reality” “stand[s] for Being in the sense of the pure presence-athand of things (pure[] Dingvorhandenheit),”60 which, as a result of a process constituent of Dasein’s Being Heidegger calls “falling” (Verfallen), overshadows other kinds of being and comes to be understood equivalently with “Being in general.”61 Since restricting the notion of reality to objects that enjoy the pure presence-athand of things implies, at least for Heidegger, that there are objects that are not real and that still in some sense are, the only way in which I can make sense of a process in which “‘Being in general’ is said to acquire the meaning of ‘reality’”62 is as a process

56 SZ, 203 [43 A]. 57 SZ, 206 [43 A]. 58 But consider this passage from the Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (a lecture course delivered months after the publication of the first edition of BT): “When we say about a being that it is innerworldly (innerweltlich) – like nature, for example – this being still does not have the mode of being which comports itself toward a world; it does not have the mode of being of beingin-the-world. It has the mode of being of extantness (Vorhandenseins), to which additionally the determination of innerworldliness can accrue when a Dasein exists which lets that being be encountered as innerworldly in Dasein’s being-in-the-world.” Martin Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. Ingtraud Görland, Gesamtausgabe 25 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995), 19 [2]; English translation: Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997), 14 [2]. Henceforth cited as GA 25 with German and English page references, respectively, followed by the section number in square brackets. 59 SZ, 211 [43 C]. 60 SZ, 211 [43 C]. 61 SZ, 201 [43]. Cf. SZ, 175–180 [38]. 62 SZ, 201 [43].

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whereby philosophers come to use the predicate “real” to single out objects in the domain of discourse that are supposed to carry the ontological burden of the entire domain (in defiance of Quine, for whom all objects in the domain of discourse come ontologically loaded). And this is essentially the use of this predicate that Fine has in mind in “The Question of Ontology.” Noting that both senses of “reality” invoked by Heidegger in BT are inconsistent with the quantificational interpretation of Heidegger’s engagement with Kant’s problem of the external world – for, in each case, the term has a counterextension in the same domain of discourse (respectively, beings characterised by Being-in-theworld and beings that are not real in Fine’s sense) – it is clear that Heidegger’s discussion of Kant employs this term in the second sense. The entire Section 43 of BT, of which Heidegger’s discussion of Kant on the external world in 43 A is the first instalment, is dedicated to what he calls the “problem of reality”63 and to how this problem connects with his own question of Being. Heidegger’s main polemical theses are that, although the term “reality” makes frequent appearances in modern philosophy, it has never been sufficiently clarified, and that Kant – and perhaps ultimately Descartes – is to be blamed for this state of affairs: Of […] questions about reality, the one which comes first in order is the ontological question of what “reality” signifies in general. But as long as a pure ontological problematic and methodology was lacking, this question (if it was explicitly formulated at all) was necessarily confounded with a discussion of the “problem of the external world”; for the analysis of reality is possible only on the basis of our having appropriate access to the real. But it has long been held that the way to grasp the real is by that kind of knowing which is characterized by beholding. Such knowing “is” as a way in which the soul – or consciousness – behaves. In so far as reality has the character of something independent and “in itself,” the question of the meaning of “reality” becomes linked with that of whether the real can be independent “of consciousness” or whether there can be a transcendence of consciousness into the ‘sphere’ of the real.64 It makes no sense to think that Heidegger accuses historical figures like Descartes and Kant – and modern philosophers arguably indebted to them like Dilthey and Scheler65 – of failing to clarify his own technical term (whose counterextension are objects that are-in-the-world). So, he must be talking about “reality” in its “traditional signification.” Therefore, Kant’s problem, as Heidegger understands it, is not whether the objects outside of mind belong in the domain of discourse. It is whether the objects in the domain of discourse to which the predicate ‘outside of mind’ applies, are also “real,” where the questioned “reality” of the said objects answers to some philosophically exacting standard of being the case (if Heidegger is right, the relevant

63 SZ, 201 [43]. 64 SZ, 202 [43 A]. 65 Cf. SZ, 209–211 [43B].

234 Maciej Czerkawski manner of being the case consists in the “pure presence-at-hand of things”). Heidegger’s Kant asks: is it, ceteris paribus, true of all objects of a certain kind (outside of mind), that they meet this standard? And Heidegger replies: we should reckon here with more than one such a standard; and, our meeting our own – and that is to say, Dasein’s – standard implies that the objects in question do, indeed, meet Kant’s standard as well. So, Heidegger’s discussion of Kant on the external world fails to make a connection between the kinds of being and the existential quantification of the sort required by McDaniel’s quantificational interpretation of Heidegger’s kinds of being; and I cannot help but suspect that any other apparent evidence of such a connection in Heidegger’s body of work will be an artefact of our own meta-ontological presuppositions in much the same way.

13.3 Beings of many kinds My second objection to McDaniel’s quantificational interpretation of the kinds of being is that Heidegger allows for a single being’s being in more than one way. Although McDaniel could easily incorporate this feature of Heidegger’s thinking into his quantificational framework if only he allowed, in turn, that the domains of the Heideggerian quantifiers may overlap, after all, the obvious thing to say – given the first objection above – is that, for Heidegger, there is nothing wrong with fitting all beings in a single domain of discourse. Here is a well-known passage, in which Heidegger endorses the view that beings can fall under more than one kind of being, whose topic is a special case of deficiency of ready-to-hand beings – “conspicuousness”: When we concern ourselves with something, the beings which are most closely ready-to-hand may be met as something unusable, not properly adapted for the use we have decided upon. The tool turns out to be damaged, or the material unsuitable. In each of these cases, equipment is here, ready-to-hand. We discover its unusability, however, not by looking at it and establishing its properties, but rather by the circumspection of the dealings in which we use it. When its unusability is thus discovered, equipment becomes conspicuous. This conspicuousness presents the ready-to-hand equipment as in a certain unreadiness-to-hand. But this implies that what cannot be used just lies there; it shows itself as an equipmental thing which looks so and so, and which, in its readiness-to-hand as looking that way, has constantly been present-athand too.66 The passage could not state more clearly – in its last sentence – that a single being can belong in more than one kind of being. The same piece of equipment that has been fully ready-to-hand up to now reveals itself as present-to-hand, too, and indeed all along. So, not only is it the case that one and the same thing can be in one way at one time and in another way at another: it can be in both ways at one and the same time.

66 SZ, 73 [16].

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But if so, McDaniel’s decision to represent Heidegger’s kinds of being by existential quantifiers with non-overlapping domains just cannot be right. However, in another thought-provoking paper titled “Heidegger’s Metaphysics of Material Beings,” McDaniel acknowledges, if not the well-known passage above,67 then at least that the “one domain” view (as he calls it) which I have just ascribed to Heidegger on the basis of this passage is in fact ascribed to Heidegger by a vast majority of Heidegger scholars.68 McDaniel develops three arguments against this broad consensus, each of which needs a reply. McDaniel’s first argument appeals to Leibniz’s Law: Leibniz’s Law states that x is numerically identical with y if and only if x and y have the same properties. Heidegger ascribes incompatible properties to the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand. So either Heidegger’s view is inconsistent, or the properties are ascribed to distinct entities. (Or Leibniz’s Law is false or for some reason inapplicable; I set these purported options aside.)69 Since everyone agrees that Heidegger disapproved of logical inconsistency in BT, we should therefore give up on the one domain view. McDaniel elaborates on three cases of relevant incompatible properties: modal, temporal, and axiological. As for modal properties, McDaniel understands Heidegger as holding, first, that, whereas present-at-hand beings can be whether or not Dasein exists, ready-to-hand beings can only be if Dasein exists,70 and, second, that they have incompatible identity conditions: Traditionally, present-at-hand entities were thought to be individuated by their spatiotemporal location; if two present-to-hand entities are located at the same spacetime region, then they aren’t really two: “they” are identical. Ready-to-hand entities are not individuated in this way: they are individuated by their node in a network of equipmental relations: the hammer is for hammering nails, the nails are for joining the boards of the shed, the shed is for storing the hammer and the nails, etc.71 So, counting beings according to each of these identity-conditions, we will arrive at a different number of things that there are. As for temporal properties, McDaniel asserts, following Dahlstrom72 that: Heidegger distinguishes three different kinds of time-series: dimensional time, world time, and timeliness, and this distinction corresponds to “Heidegger’s

67 Unless we count his discussion of remarks made by other commentators in relation to this passage as a sufficient acknowledgement. Cf. McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 337 (Blattner); McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 344–347 (Dreyfus). 68 For an overview, see McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 334–335. 69 McDaniel “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 338. 70 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 338–339. 71 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 339–340. 72 Cf. Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Heidegger’s Concept of Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 380–381.

236 Maciej Czerkawski ontological division into being-on-hand, being-handy, and being-here.” In other words, each of the three different kinds of Being Heidegger focuses on in Being and Time corresponds to a distinct kind of time. Neither a present-athand object nor a ready-to-hand object enjoys Dasein’s specific kind of temporality. More to the point here, they do not enjoy each other’s specific form of temporality.73 Finally, regarding axiological properties, he asserts that “the ready-to-hand are essentially bearers of value, whereas no present-at-hand object is.”74 Unfortunately, I do not see how different kinds of properties Heidegger assigns to present-at-hand and ready-to-hand beings, though incompatible, engender a contradiction even if Heidegger supported the one domain view, as the following two analogies will show. It is true of all pebbles that they may exist whether I possess them or not. And it is true of all my possessions that they are my possessions only on the condition that I possess them. But this does not entail that I have just pocketed two things from the ground: one that is a pebble and another that is (now) a possession of mine. There need not be a genuine contradiction in saying – should I so desire – that it is both necessary and contingent for the thing I picked from the ground that I possess it. For this might be just an elliptical way of saying that the thing I picked remains my possession only as long as I possess it and that it remains a pebble even if I no longer possess it. Now suppose that I picked several pebbles from the ground, some grayish, and some not. Unless I am a really terrible counter, counting pebbles that I took and counting grayish things that I took will yield a different number. But this does not entail that pebbles and greyish things do not belong in a single domain of discourse. Manifestly, they do. I have just delivered a perfectly intelligible (I hope) short speech about both. I do not see how any of McDaniel’s cases of incompatible properties above differ in any significant respect from my first analogy and that his case of individuation of different kinds of being differs in any significant respect from the second one. But in that case, Heidegger can get away with things McDaniel quotes him as saying even if he supported the one domain view. And, indeed, a closer scrutiny of the passages cited by McDaniel reveals that Heidegger does not assign the properties in question directly to objects, as it were. Rather, he assigns them to objects insofar as they have other properties (more precisely, insofar as they fall under different kinds of being), which is just a way of illuminating the latter by means of the former. Take, for example, these two passages from The Basic Problems of Phenomenology cited by McDaniel in support of the incompatibility of modal properties of the presentat-hand with those of the ready-to-hand. What Heidegger says about present-at-hand beings (that are a part of the natural world) is this: Intrawordliness [i.e. being intelligible in one’s Being to Dasein] belongs to the being of the extant (Vorhandene), of nature, not as a determination of its being,

73 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 340. 74 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 340.

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but as a possible determination, and one that is necessary for the possibility of the uncoverability of nature.75 And here is what he says about the cultural artefacts: There are beings, however, to whose being intraworldliness belongs in a certain way. Such beings are all those we call historical entities … all the things that the human being… creates, shapes, and cultivates: all his culture and his works. Beings of this kind are only, or, more exactly, arise only and come into being only as intraworldly. Culture is not in the way that nature is.76 Heidegger could not be clearer in asserting that “Innerweltlichkeit” characterises nature contingently insofar as it is “vorhanden” rather than insofar as it is a collection of objects regardless of their kind of being. At any rate, he explicitly talks about necessary and merely possible determinations of “its being” (i.e. of nature qua “vorhanden”). Similarly with the necessary “Innerweltlichkeit” of the “historical entities” (including, but perhaps not limited to, ready-to-hand objects77). Notice, again, how carefully Heidegger limits the property-ascription to only a division of beings in general: “Beings of this kind are only, or, more exactly, arise only and come into being only as intraworldly.” The inconsistency McDaniel claims to find here (for the one domain Heidegger whom he rejects) would only arise if Heidegger attributed both incompatible modal properties to beings of a single kind or to beings regardless of their kind. However, Heidegger does neither of these things. He attributes each to a different kind of being. McDaniel’s second argument against the one domain view appeals to Heidegger’s method in BT – “phenomenology”78 – which he understands as involving “the study of the given as it is given” (in experience). The argument is that the results of any inquiry into Being that employs this method threaten to be consistent with – perhaps even to support – traditional idealism believed in by Berkeley: The idealist could in principle grant Heidegger that we are essentially in a world filled with other people, hammers, cars, etc. This fact doesn’t necessarily show that a robust version of idealism is false. It may be the case that I exist only if tools exist. But this doesn’t tell us what these tools are made of. Only a hasty philosopher would conclude that, since I exist only if there are tools, it follows that tools are made out of continuous masses of matter, strings, or quarks, or whatnot. From the fact that I exist only if there are Fs, nothing immediately

75 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 338; GA 24, 240/169 [15]. 76 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 338–339; GA 25, 241/169 [15]. 77 Artworks, too, are something “the human being… creates,” and, in the 1930s, Heidegger will go on to analyse their kind of being very differently to readiness-to-hand. Cf. Martin Heidegger, “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes,” in Holzwege, ed. Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Gesamtausgabe 5 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), 1–74; English translation: “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Off the Beaten Track, trans. and ed. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1–56. 78 Cf. SZ, 27–39 [7].

238 Maciej Czerkawski follows about what the Fs are composed of or the necessary conditions under which Fs exist.79 Although Heidegger explicitly rejects traditional idealism (recall his claim of Dasein’s dependence on the external world), McDaniel argues that nothing could justify Heidegger in claiming that the Berkeleyian ontology is false if (1) the method of ontology is phenomenology, the study of the given as it is given and (2) when it comes to material objects, the whole content of what is given to us consists merely in entities that typically appear to us as tools.80 “Fortunately” for Heidegger, though, “more is given”: I claim that Heidegger follows Husserl in believing that essential features are given. So if in some situations, some entities are given to us along with their essential features in such a way as to make it clear that those entities are metaphysically independent of us, Heidegger has phenomenological grounds for rejecting Berkeleyian idealism (as well as some versions of Cartesian skepticism).81 McDaniel spends a half of the space he dedicates to his second argument on defending this view from its critics – especially Dreyfus – according to whom Heidegger’s phenomenology reveals objects but never essential features of objects.82 Unfortunately, from my own perspective, this dialectical emphasis is misplaced, because – unlike Dreyfus – I am happy to concede that, throughout BT, Heidegger talks about what he perceives as essential features of different kinds of objects. What I am not happy to concede is that these essential features of objects could be understood in terms of existential quantification, let alone existential quantification over non-overlapping domains. The closest McDaniel comes to pressing me to change my mind IS in the passage below: Heidegger holds that certain objects are given to us, and moreover are given in a certain way. If the one domain view is correct, the distinction between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand amounts to a distinction between how one and the same set of things are given. The ready-to-hand way of giving objects enjoys a kind of priority in that typically and for the most part things are given in that way. But on the one domain view, this fact isn’t interesting from a metaphysical perspective (as opposed to an epistemological or “phenomenological” perspective), since we are still dealing with one and the same set of entities.83

79 80 81 82 83

McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 342. McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 342–343. McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 343. Cf. McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 344–349. McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 341–342.

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Perhaps, if, on the one domain view, it was necessarily true that all present-at-hand objects are ready-to-hand and all ready-to-hand objects are present-at-hand, we would have some grounds for registering the difference between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand by allocating each to a different domain of discourse. For we would otherwise struggle to explain what the supposed metaphysical (as opposed to merely subjective) distinction between them might consist in. (But note that this still does not justify the thesis that such diverse domains of discourse may not overlap – what is needed is just that they do not coincide.) However, even if the one-domainer might perhaps be persuaded that all ready-to-hand objects are present-at-hand – even (let us be generous) necessarily so – it is easy enough for her to deny that all present-at-hand objects are ready-to-hand, in which case she will, of course, also deny that, on her view, this is true as a matter of necessity. Take, for example, a rock stuck deep in the ocean’s floor that has never been a part of any human project. Or, for a more Heideggerian example, take another case of equipment’s deficiency, “obtrusiveness” (incidentally, a further example in BT of a being falling under more than one kind of being): In our concernful dealings [...] we also find things which are missing – which not only are not “handy” (“handlich”) but are not “to hand” (“Zur Hand”) at all. Again, to miss something in this way amounts to coming across something unready-to-hand. When we notice what is un-ready-to-hand, that which is ready-tohand enters the mode of obtrusiveness. The more urgently we need what is missing, and the more authentically it is encountered in its un-readiness-to-hand, all the more obtrusive does that which is ready-to-hand become – so much so, indeed, that it seems to lose its character of readiness-to-hand. It reveals itself as something just present-at-hand and no more, which cannot be budged without the thing that is missing.84 Hence, McDaniel’s second argument, too, commands little convincing power – even over those who share his understanding of Heidegger’s method in BT. Heidegger’s metaphysical distinctions can be incorporated into the one-domain framework – and without much difficulty. McDaniel’s third – “hermeneutical” – argument is, dialectically speaking, the weakest of the lot. Here, McDaniel revisits a number of well-known (if not always well-understood) passages from Heidegger’s work from the period of BT. He shows how the proposed rejection of the one domain view “reveal[s] [their] previously unnoticed depth and texture.” This is not irrelevant to the issue of contention, because it is a mark of “[a] good interpretation” that it “can shed new light on old and problematic texts.”85 I agree with McDaniel about the features of a “good interpretation,” and I even agree that, without more context, his is an attractive reading of many passages at which he invites us to look again in the light of his quantificational framework. However, I also think that the context of these passages – the cases of equipmental breakdown in Section 16 of BT – renders this reading untenable and that neither of

84 SZ, 73 [16]. Italics in the last sentence added. 85 McDaniel, “Heidegger’s Metaphysics,” 349–350.

240 Maciej Czerkawski McDaniel’s two main arguments for this reading is persuasive. And tenable and persuasive are two other qualities we want to see in a good interpretation. I conclude that there is no real case against thinking that beings in BT can belong in more than one kind of being, in which case my second objection against McDaniel’s quantificational interpretation stands.

13.4 The grammar of Being in Being and Time My third – and final – objection to McDaniel’s quantificational interpretation is that Heidegger’s kinds of being are, in fact, always expressed either through a verb or an adjective fronted by a copula in the position of the predicate or through nouns variously derivative of such a predicative employment in the position of a subject or an object (rather than ever through a quantifier type of expression equivalent to “There is/are,” “a/an,” or “some”). So, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, this linguistic practice found in a philosopher known for paying considerable attention to issues of philosophical expression suggests, precisely, the interpretation of the kinds of being as marking (among other things) distinctions between special predicates in logic rather than between existential quantifiers. The following passage from Chapter 3 of Division 1 of BT is exemplary of Heidegger’s German in most relevant respects: The [1.] ready-to-hand (“[d]as Zuhandene”) is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself the sort of thing that circumspection takes proximally as circumspective theme. The peculiarity of what is proximally [2.] ready-to-hand (“des … Zuhandenen”) is that, in its [3.] readiness-to-hand (“Zuhandenheit”), it must, as it were, withdraw in order to be [4.] ready-to-hand (“zuhanden”) quite authentically.86 Occurrences 1 and 2 of readiness-to-hand are concrete nouns referring to the totality of objects to which the predicate “… is ready-to-hand” applies. Occurrence 3 is the abstract noun referring to the “quality” expressed in the adjectival part of this predicate. Finally, Occurrence 4 is that adjective itself. There is also a verb that goes with readiness-to-hand in BT: “to refer” (“verweisen”). “Reference,” which, as Heidegger argues, “constitutes readiness-tohand,”87 designates the process by which one ready-to-hand item “refers” – or better, “assigns” (as “verweisen” might also be translated) – Dasein to other ready-to-hand items that orient its ongoing practical projects. Thus, Heidegger might say, “[h] ammer, tongs, and needle, refer in themselves to steel, iron, metal, mineral, wood, in that they consist of these.”88 Or he might say, [t]he work produced refers not only to the “towards-which” of its usability and the “whereof” of which it consists: under simple craft conditions it also has an assignment (“Verweisung”) to the person who is to use it or wear it.”89

86 87 88 89

SZ, SZ, SZ, SZ,

69 [15]. Italics added. 83 [17]. My italics. 70 [15]. 70–71 [15].

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Of course, the grammar and the logic of Being are not the same thing, so, in principle, the reader sympathetic to McDaniel’s interpretation might object that the grammar of Heidegger’s German is not the best guide to its underlying logic. But we saw earlier that this is not, in fact, an objection McDaniel himself would make. For, he claims that, in BT, “Heidegger … abandon[s] ordinary language, and move[s] to a technical language” of his own.90 And I believe that he claims rightly. In the closing pages of the Introduction to BT, Heidegger justifies taking such liberties as follows: With regard to the awkwardness and “inelegance” of expression in the analyses to come, we may remark that it is one thing to give a report in which we tell about beings, but another to grasp beings in their Being. For the latter task we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the “grammar.”91 Still, these calculated “awkwardness and ‘inelegance’” (from the point of view of a language whose grammar is at odds with the logic of Being as Heidegger sees it) do not consist in his adopting technical quantifier type of expressions like my “There isZ/areZ” in place of the quantifier type of expressions native to German. Heidegger expresses Being by predicates (i.e. either by adjectives or verbs or by nouns variously derivative of them), leaving the grammar of quantification native to German untouched. This completes my case against McDaniel’s quantificational interpretation of the kinds of being in BT and in favour of some kind of predicative reading.

13.5 Martin Heidegger meets Kit Fine The main consideration in deciding between different kinds of predicative readings of the logic of Being in BT concerns the special status Heidegger would plausibly want to assign to his existence predicates. One way for us to go would be to mimic McDaniel’s appeal to joint-carvingness, asserting some kind of normatively-binding superiority of the employment of Heidegger’s existence predicates over other ways of predicating existence.92 Heidegger’s accounts of the kinds of being in BT could then be relied on to contest the use of a single universal existence predicate such as the one he appears to employ himself in stating ontological difference: “[t]he Being of beings ‘is’ not itself a being.”93 They could also be relied on to contest alternative non-universal existence predicates such as those found in ordinary English (as Friederike Moltmann has recently argued): to exist, to occur, to happen, to take place, to obtain, to hold, and to be valid.94 (In fact, Moltmann observes that “natural languages generally do not display a single existence predicate, it seems, but different existence predicates for

90 McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 311–312. 91 SZ, 38–39 [7 C]. 92 Something like this approach seems to find favour with Howard Kelly. Cf. Howard D. Kelly, “Heidegger the Metaphysician: Modes-of-Being and Grundbegriffe,” European Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 3 (2014): 670–693, here 672, 678. 93 SZ, 6 [2]. Italics added. 94 Cf. Friederike Moltmann, “Existence predicates,” Synthese 197, no. 1 (2020): 311–335, here 317–320.

242 Maciej Czerkawski different types of entities.”95) This isn’t bad, considering that shaking us out of our complacency about our understanding of the meaning of the words we use simply in virtue of being competent speakers of the relevant natural language is certainly on Heidegger’s agenda in BT.96 However, if such was indeed the logic of Being in BT, most contemporary metaphysicians would react to Heidegger’s assertions about the kinds of being with a shrug of shoulders, as, following Quine, they regard cases of contested predication as void of ontological interest, all of which they invest in the existential quantifier.97 I suggest, then, that a philosophically more fruitful clue for how to proceed can be found in Heidegger’s consideration of the reality of the external world discussed in Section 2 of this paper and the affinity between the notion of reality at work there and the predicate “real” introduced by Fine in “The Question of Ontology” as challenging that very investment. (That there seems to be no parallel discussion in Heidegger’s body of work of any ideas in the vicinity of joint-carvingness is, of course, another consideration in favour of this approach.) According to Fine, most analytic philosophers following Quine succumb to a confused view of what ontology – and that is to say, an inquiry concerned with whether things of various kinds exist (as Quine, Fine, and indeed most analytic philosophers use this term98) – is all about. Their view is that ontological questions are quantificational questions. For example, the ontological question about numbers is whether there are numbers. The ontological question about God is whether there is God. And so on. However, Fine raises two challenges to this view. Fine’s first challenge concerns explaining the non-triviality of ontological questions as well as their distinctly philosophical character. As for the first explanandum, that there are numbers follows from such an innocuous proposition as “There are prime numbers between 7 and 17.” That there is God follows from the proposition that “Christians believe in God.” And so forth. Yet, those who doubt the existence of such entities are not satisfied as easily as they should be if ontological questions were quantificational questions.99 As for the second explanandum, it is commonly thought that it takes a distinctly philosophical

95 Moltmann, “Existence predicates,” 317. Italics added. 96 Consider Heidegger’s discussion of the third prejudice against the “repetition” of the ancient inquiry into Being (SZ, 4 [1]) or, indeed, his decision to open BT with this quotation from Plato’s Sophist: “For manifestly you have long been aware of what you mean when you use the expression “being.” We, however, who used to think we understood it, have now become perplexed.” SZ, 1. 97 This stance is exemplified by van Inwagen, who argues that “what is valuable in [Heidegger’s investigations of Dasein] will better reveal its value if his philosophical vocabulary is ‘de-ontologized’, if they are rewritten in such a way that all occurrences of words related to Sein (and Existenz) are replaced with ‘non-ontological’ words.” Peter van Inwagen, “Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment,” in Metametaphysics, ed. David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 472–506, here 475. (The reasoning behind this advice to Heidegger – and Heideggerians – is just van Inwagen’s old argument for the Quinean understanding of ontology from his “Meta-ontology.”) 98 In Heidegger’s work, “ontology” typically refers to the study of the Being of beings. For example, Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology” from BT is concerned with Being in general, whereas “regional ontologies” are concerned with particular kinds of being. Cf. SZ, 11 [3], 13 [4]; GA 25, 35–39/ 24–27 [2]. 99 Cf. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 158.

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reflection to answer most ontological questions. But neither of the above inferences involved philosophical reflection. The first involved mathematical reflection and the second non-philosophical reflection about people.100 Fine’s challenge consists in a series of objections to different ways in which proponents of the quantificational interpretation of ontology might respond to this twofold puzzle.101 Fine’s second challenge, then, is this: Consider a realist about integers; he is ontologically committed to the integers and is able to express his commitment in familiar fashion with the words “integers exists.” Contrast him now with a realist about natural numbers, who is ontologically committed to the natural numbers and is likewise able to express his commitment in the words “natural numbers exist.” Now, intuitively, the realist about integers holds the stronger position. After all, he makes an ontological commitment to the integers, not just to the natural numbers, while the realist about natural numbers only commits himself to the natural numbers, leaving open whether he might also be committed to the negative integers. The realist about integers – at least on the most natural construal of his position – has a thorough-going commitment to the whole domain of integers, while the natural number realist only has a partial commitment to the domain.102 However, Fine continues, on the quantificational construal of these claims, it is the realist about integers who holds the weaker position. For the realist about integers is merely claiming that there is at least one integer (which may or may not be a natural number) whereas the realist about natural numbers is claiming that there is at least one natural number, i.e. an integer that is also nonnegative. Thus the quantificational account gets the basic logic of ontological commitment wrong. The commitment to F’s (the integers) should in general be weaker than the commitment to F&G’s (the nonnegative integers), whereas the claim that there are F’s is in general weaker than the claim that there are F & G’s.103 Both challenges persuade Fine “that we [should] give up on the account of ontological claims in terms of existential quantification”: The commitment to integers is not an existential but a universal commitment; it is a commitment to each of the integers not to some integer or other. And in expressing this commitment in the words “integers exist,” we are not thereby claiming that there is an integer but that every integer exists. Thus the proper logical form of our claim is not ∃xIx, where I is the predicate for being an integer, but ∀x(Ix ⊃ Ex), where E is the predicate for existence.104

100 101 102 103 104

Cf. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 158. Cf. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 159–165. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 165. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 165–166. Fine, “The Question of Ontology,” 167.

244 Maciej Czerkawski But what might this predicate mean, if not being quantifiable over? Fine’s proposal is that “E” conveys the idea that something is “a genuine constituent of the world.”105 And, in order to minimise association with quantification the word “exists” has for most analytic philosophers, he proposes to speak of its “reality” (“R”) instead.106 Fine claims that the relevant concept of the world-constituting “reality” is one his readers will easily recognise. He also claims that any progress in fleshing out the nature of an ontological inquiry can only be achieved by bringing this concept to a greater clarity.107 Interestingly, though, Fine does not conceive of this project as one of defining this concept in terms of other – perhaps more readily intelligible – concepts: “I myself do not see any way to define the concept of reality in essentially different terms.”108 All he sees room for is an investigation of different applications of this concept and working out the rules governing these applications. Thus, according to Fine, besides the predicative employment of our concept of reality above, there is a cognate operator on sentences that might be expressed by such phrases as “in reality” or “it is constitutive of reality that” (and that might be symbolized by “R[…],” where “…” stands in for a sentence). Thus a realist about numbers might allow that in reality there are infinitely many primes, while the anti-realist would not allow this even though he might be perfectly prepared to concede that there are in fact infinitely many primes.109 Hence, if we find the sentential operator any more intelligible than the predicate, we could then define an object to be real if, for some way the object might be, it is constitutive of reality that it is that way (in symbols, Rx =df ∃φR[φx]) […] We here have a progression in ideas – from quantifier, as in the original Quinean account, to predicate, to operator; and ontology finds its home, so to speak, in a conception of reality as given by the operator.110 Still, it is important for Fine to recognise that we are moving here in a single “metaphysical circle of ideas.”111 As for the rules governing the applications of our concept of reality, Fine defends the view that something can [...] be said to be constitutive of reality if it would be part of the complement “…” in any true claim of the form the “world consists of nothing more than….”112

105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine,

“The “The “The “The “The “The “The “The

Question Question Question Question Question Question Question Question

of of of of of of of of

Ontology,” Ontology,” Ontology,” Ontology,” Ontology,” Ontology,” Ontology,” Ontology,”

168. 168. 171. 175. 171–172. 172. 175. 175.

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To use a technical term from his “Question of Realism,” the predicate “real” will apply to any of the objects some facts about which jointly ground all facts about the remaining objects that there are. A fact – or a proposition (“grounding” can take both these items as its relata113) – grounds another just in case it can be substituted for T or U in a true instantiation of the following formula: Its being the case that S consists in nothing more than its being the case that T, U,…114 (“[W]e say that the propositions on the right (collectively) ground the proposition on the left and that each of them partly grounds that proposition.”115) My contention is that Heidegger’s commitment to the kinds of being is not a commitment to using multiple operators of existential quantification, but a commitment to the idea that there is more than one way in which objects in a single domain of discourse are “in reality.” In other words, Heidegger agrees with Fine that existential quantification should not be understood as by itself stating anything about how the world is constituted. It should be understood as merely stating what populates the world, leaving the question of how the world – and whatever populates it – is constituted open. He also agrees with Fine that the burden of the world-constituting should be expressed by predicative means and analysed in terms of grounding, as Fine defines it above. As far as I can see, there are two main things that Heidegger and Fine do not, in fact, agree on as far as the logic of Being goes. First – and most strikingly – whereas for Fine the achievement of being worldconstituting can be expressed by a single predicate R, according to Heidegger, we need more predicates just like it, each standing for a different way in which a being might be world-constituting.116 Second – and (for me) more interestingly – Fine does not see much possibility for progress in meta-ontology beyond a strictly grammatical investigation of our concept of reality such as the one he offers in “The Question of Realism”: of its applications both as a predicate and as a sentence operator and of the rules governing these applications as arguably best expressed with the notion of grounding. By contrast, where, for Fine, the work of the meta-ontologist ends, for Heidegger, it begins. We saw in Section 4 of this paper that Heidegger’s ambition in BT is actually to improve on the ordinary language, so that it better accords with the Being of various kinds of entities.117 For Heidegger, the

113 In fact, Fine holds that neither the ideology of propositions nor of facts is necessary for talking about grounding. “For we might express statements of ground in the form ‘S because T, U,…’ [besides the canonical form (below)], as long as the ‘because’ is taken in a suitably strong sense, and thereby avoid all reference to propositions or facts or to the concept of truth. […] The questions of ground, upon which realist questions turn, need not be seen as engaging either with the concept of truth or with the ontology of facts.” Kit Fine, “The Question of Realism,” in Individuals, Essence, and Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics, ed. Andrea Bottani, Massimiliano Carrara, and Pierdaniele Giaretta (Dordrecht: Springer, 2002), 3–48, here 25. 114 Fine, “The Question of Realism,” 23. 115 Fine, “The Question of Realism,” 24. 116 In fact, Fine argues elsewhere that, if time proved to be real, reality would be heterogenous in a similar way to that in which (I hold) Heidegger claims Being is. However, he stops short of calling time real. Cf. Kit Fine, “The Reality of Tense,” Synthese 150, no. 3 (2006): 399–414. 117 Cf. SZ, 38–39 [7 C].

246 Maciej Czerkawski kind of understanding of any important philosophical concept that is enjoyed by a competent speaker of a natural language solely in virtue of her linguistic competence is – though genuinely a species of understanding118 – superficial and unfit to satisfy a philosopher. Such an “average kind of intelligibility only makes evident the [deeper] unintelligibility [of the concept in question].”119 Thus, for Heidegger, the bedrock of metaontological investigations lies deeper than Fine, and with him, I suspect most analytic philosophers would allow. Descending to that deeper bedrock, Heidegger does what Fine claims he does not know how to do. He defines our concept of reality in essentially different terms as the “pure presence-at-hand of things.” (How satisfactory is this definition of our concept of reality – and even how we are to conceive of this purported bedrock for meta-ontology – are difficult questions I cannot begin to address here.120) It is my hope that, in spite of these differences, the reader will find my HeideggerFine analogy useful. In the first instance, the analogy illuminates some of the salient features of Heidegger’s thinking about the subject we have encountered in Sections 2–4. Recall how Heidegger does not seem to show much interest in quantificational questions. This is puzzling in a philosopher who dedicates his major work (and many other writings besides) to the so-called question of Being and who in fact recognises the connection between the usual expression of existential quantification in German – “Es gibt…” – and the subject-matter of his question of Being, even though, unlike its English counterpart “There is…,” “Es gibt…” (literally “it gives…”) makes no mention of being.121 The present account explains this otherwise puzzling indifference. While facts expressible with the help of the existential quantifier are relevant to Heidegger’s inquiry into Being – not least in that they include facts that his talk of the kinds of being has an ambition of “grounding” – we can now understand Heidegger as sharing Fine’s view of quantificational questions as generally trivial and non-philosophical. If, following their conversion to Christianity, Thessalonians are said to stand in “an effective connection” to God, then, Heidegger might now be understood to reason, there is something in the domain of discourse that bears the designation “God.” What more evidence for God’s “existence” (in the quantificational sense) is needed? Certainly – he might now be understood to reason – the evidence one would want to see here won’t be of a philosophical sort (recall the young Heidegger’s Lutheran indignation at how “Greek philosophy penetrated into Christianity”122). Rather, the question of whether there is God ought to be settled by testimonies of religious experience (or the absence thereof). Where the philosophical reflection fits in, on the present account of Heidegger’s meta-ontology, is in trying to understand whether God makes any contribution to the entirety of facts that, in reality,

118 E.g., “this vague average understanding of Being is still a fact.” SZ, 5 [2]. 119 SZ, 4 [1]. 120 Of course, Heidegger explicitly chooses “phenomenology” for his method in BT (as we noted earlier) – but his specification of what this method does and does not involve in Section 7 of BT is notoriously hard to understand. 121 “Everything we talk about, everything we have in view, everything towards which we comport ourselves in any way, is being; what we are is being and so is how we are. Being lies in the fact that something is, and in its Being as it is; in reality; in presence-at-hand; in subsistence; in validity; in Dasein; in the ‘es gibt.’” SZ, 6–7 [2]. 122 GA 60, 97/67.

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make up the world around us (are facts about God grounded in facts abouts some other entities?), and, if it does, what is the nature of this contribution. But that is just the task the young Heidegger sets before his students – “to determine the sense of the objecthood of God”123 – and that he himself takes up in BT and elsewhere with respect to other types of entities. In the second instance, the analogy explains why contemporary metaphysicians cannot dismiss Heidegger out of hand, even if we understand his kinds of being as marking differences between special predicates in logic. On the present reconstruction of the logic of Being in BT, Heidegger does not overlook the locus of ontological significance in logic: the existential quantifier. He, with Fine, finds it elsewhere. And it is now he who might be unimpressed by analytic metaphysicians’ often unquestioned fixation with existential quantification.

13.6 Of predicates and properties Still, McDaniel worried that predicational accounts of the logic of Being in BT such as the one just described assimilate the kinds of being with properties; and Heidegger would never agree that the kinds of being are properties.124 It is time we replied to this objection. The reply will be as follows. I will argue that McDaniel’s assumption that the claim that the kinds of being can be expressed by predicates in logic entails interpreting them as properties only holds true on a certain interpretation of the term “property.” I will then argue that, if McDaniel’s other assumption – that Heidegger would never agree that the kinds of being are properties – is understood in terms of the relevant interpretation of the term “property,” then only one of the five considerations supporting that premise (as listed by Joshua Tepley in his excellent paper on the subject) can legitimately be made. I will then outline two responses to the remaining problem, one courtesy of Tepley and the other my own. It is common in analytic philosophy to distinguish between two conceptions of properties: abundant and sparse. On the first, abundant, conception, a property is just the set of objects that can be said to instantiate it. For example, the property of being a monkey is just the set of all monkeys.125 However, properties conceived in this way seem useless for most theoretical purposes. “The abundant properties,” writes David Lewis, “may be as extrinsic, as gruesomely gerrymandered, as miscellaneously disjunctive, as you please.”126 Thus, “[s]haring of them has nothing to do with similarity,”127 for example, as McDaniel’s property of being (formerly) loved by Angelina Jolie or having a charge of -1 demonstrates rather nicely. For this reason, many philosophers, including Lewis, found it useful to talk of properties in a narrower sense also, to pick out those properties in the abundant sense that are fit for whatever theoretical purposes they might have in mind. The usual term for properties narrowed down in this way is “sparse” properties. For example, Lewis’s natural properties – grandparents to Sider’s structure – are an instance of sparse properties, as are properties in the sense in which Tepley has recently argued (not

123 124 125 126 127

GA 60, 97/67. Cf. McDaniel, “Ways of Being,” 302. Cf. David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), 50. Lewis, Plurality of Worlds, 59. Lewis, Plurality of Worlds, 59.

248 Maciej Czerkawski irrelevantly to McDaniel’s objection) they actually apply to Heidegger’s kinds of being. Tepley’s properties (1) “account for similarities between things,” (2) “are what predicates express,” and (3) “are what abstract nouns refer to.”128 Now, it is clear that McDaniel’s assumption that conceiving of something through a logical predicate implies that there is a property associated with that predicate is true for abundant, but not for sparse properties. Given the usual set-theoretic semantics for quantificational logic, conceiving of something through a logical predicate does entail that there is a set of objects corresponding to that predicate (without entailing that this set of objects fully captures whatever this predicate talks about). But, on no account of sparse properties – each of which will impose some further conditions on abundant properties – does it entail that that the set of objects in question meets any of these further conditions (save for Tepley’s (2) that applies to abundant properties as well and that, as such, isn’t really a further condition). Take McDaniel’s own example of being (formerly) loved by Angelina Jolie or having a charge of -1. I hope that McDaniel will agree that being (formerly) loved by Angelina Jolie or having a charge of -1 is (or at least can be readily understood as) a predicate. But my conceiving of whatever this predicate refers to by a predicate does not make it a property in Tepley’s sense. For, as McDaniel himself proposes, whatever this predicate refers to fails to satisfy Tepley’s (1): it is not the case that Brad Pitt and Eddie the Electron are similar in virtue of sharing this (abundant) property. Tepley lists seven problems that might be thought to undermine the thesis that Heidegger’s kinds of being are properties in his sense, which is more, I believe, that any opponent of this thesis has done.129 Since properties in Tepley’s sense are a species of abundant properties, whatever he has to say in response to these problems, if effective, also serves to exonerate my predicational account of Heidegger’s kinds of being as entailing that they are (among other things) properties in the abundant sense. However, considering that McDaniel’s premise that conceiving of something through a logical predicate assimilates that thing with a property is true for abundant, but not for sparse properties, the natural question to ask for us is, rather, whether McDaniel’s other premise – that Heidegger would never agree that the kinds of being involve properties – could be sustained if properties are understood in the abundant sense. I will now show that, indeed, most problems from Tepley’s list that could serve to motivate McDaniel’s other premise130 do not arise for my account. Thus, first, Tepley acknowledges that “[t]here are a few places where Heidegger apparently denies that being is a property.”131 Surely, in none of those places can

128 Joshua Tepley, “Properties of Being in Heidegger’s Being and Time,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22, no. 3 (2014): 461–81, here 467. For a corresponding – and much longer – list of roles Lewis’s own natural properties are supposed to play see Cian Dorr and John Hawthorne, “Naturalness,” Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 8 (2013): 3–77, here 10–37. 129 For a list of notable opponents, see Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 469. 130 This excludes two objections tackled by Tepley: that he has not shown that Heidegger’s kinds of being are not properties of properties rather than of individuals (McDaniel holds that kinds of being are not properties of any kind) and that he has only shown that Heidegger was committed to the view that the kinds of being are properties but not that Heidegger explicitly endorsed this commitment. Surely, even if the claim that Heidegger’s kinds of being are equivalent to special predicates in logic entails the claim that Heidegger’s kinds of being are properties, it does not entail that Heidegger explicitly endorsed this claim. So, the fact that he doesn’t explicitly endorse it cannot be held against me. Cf. Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 474–475 (the first problem); 476–477 (the second problem). 131 Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 471.

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Heidegger be plausibly interpreted as denying that there is a set of objects the term “being” refers to. This is equivalent to affirming that nothing is a being and this cannot be Heidegger’s view. (In principle, Heidegger could be interpreted as denying that the set of objects the term “being” refers to is all there is to Being – but recall that this is not what my predicational interpretation entails.) Second, “there are also some places where Heidegger seems to deny that structures of being (in particular, the structures of Dasein’s being) are properties.”132 Again, Heidegger cannot mean to say that expressions introduced for different essential characteristics of Dasein are, in fact, non-referring. For this would entail, absurdly for Heidegger, that there is no such a thing as Dasein, since nothing would then instantiate all of this entity’s essential characteristics. So, Heidegger accepts that both Being and the “structures” of Being instantiate properties in the abundant sense. Third, Heidegger’s associates “properties” (Eigenschaften) with presence-athand,133 and, if only present-at-hand beings have properties, “it stands to reason that no kind of being is a property.”134 Tepley challenges the assumption that the association between presence-at-hand and properties is of such a type that only present-at-hand beings have properties.135 But even if the association Heidegger has in mind proved to be of exactly this type, it would no doubt be between presenceat-hand and properties in some sparse sense. For, as we have seen, Heidegger accepts that both Being and the structures of Being involve properties in the abundant sense. For, this is just to say that something instantiates Being and the structures of Being. And this contradicts the claim that only present-at-hand beings have properties in this sense. Fourth – and finally – one might worry that the project of predicating properties of things is characteristic of metaphysics. “But Heidegger is not doing metaphysics in Being and Time, for he is trying to ‘overcome’ metaphysics in that work.”136 Surely, whatever Heidegger rejects from metaphysics (as he understands it) does not include predicating properties – at least of an abundant sort – of things. Moreover, it is unclear what such a rejection could amount to: refusing to utter declarative sentences whose structure generally involves a subject and a predicate? Clearly, most sentences in BT – and in the remainder of Heidegger’s work – are declarative. So, Heidegger does not overcome metaphysics in any sense that could conflict with my interpretation of the kinds of being. There is a single challenge that arises with equal strength for Tepley and for me alike, which is that all instantiated properties – sparse or not – are beings in the sense that they can be quantified over, and this seems to contradict the ontological difference: Heidegger’s thesis that Being is not itself a being. Tepley’s reply is that the challenge is double-edged. If the kinds of beings are properties (as he argues) and if we have reasons to believe in the ontological difference, then we also have reasons to deny that all instantiated properties are beings,

132 133 134 135 136

Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 471. Cf. SZ, 73 [16]. Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 472. Cf. Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 472–474. Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 475.

250 Maciej Czerkawski undercutting the challenge.137 This is a great reply. But the proponent of my account of the logic of Being is entitled to an even better one: if, as I have argued, Heidegger shares Fine’s view that the existential quantifier is ontologically idle, then the fact that the kinds of being can be quantified over does not, in fact, contradict ontological difference. So, the proponent of my account of the logic of Being in BT can hold on to the assumption that all instantiated properties are beings, if she so desires. Hence, McDaniel’s claim that predicational accounts of the logic of Being in BT would assimilate the kinds of being with properties, while true on the “abundant” interpretation of properties, does not imperil the present account of the logic of Being.

13.7 Of fundamental terms and fundamental truths The last worry I want to address is that, in a revised version of “Ways of Being,” published as the first chapter of The Fragmentation of Being, McDaniel suggests that it does not really matter whether the metaphysical privilege of the local quantifiers over the global one is understood in terms of joint-carvingness or in terms of Fine’s reality operator: Consider a meta-ontology that recognizes two modes of being that correspond to the semantically primitive quantifiers “∃1” and “∃2.” Suppose further that this meta-ontology denies that the unrestricted existential quantifier is perfectly natural. How can these facts be expressed in Fine’s system? Since “R” [the sentential operator] applies only to whole sentences, we can’t simply preface these quantifiers with “R” to get the desired result. But we can get a desirable result in the following way: state that, for all Φ, it’s false that R(∃x Φ), but there is a Φ and there is a Ψ such that it is true that R(∃1x Φ) and it is true that R(∃2x Ψ). “∃1”and “∃2” figure in statements that are true in reality, whereas “∃” does not. Perhaps other, more sophisticated metaontologies could be treated in a similar fashion.138 But if so, do I not express in different words what McDaniel has already expressed in “Ways of Being”? However, McDaniel’s above is an illegitimate employment of Fine’s sentential operator for at least two reasons. First, as we have seen, the relation of grounding implied by R does not connect meanings of subsentential expressions such as those of different concepts of existential quantification but facts or entire propositions. In other words, there are some goings-on on the right-hand side (e.g., “its being the case that Britain and Germany were at war in 1940”139), some goings-on on the left-hand side (e.g., “a compendious description of the warring activity of various individuals”), and the statement of ground asserts that the goings-on on the right-hand side are “nothing over above” the goings-on on the left-hand side. There is no suggestion that the

137 Cf. Tepley, “Properties of Being,” 469–471. 138 Kris McDaniel, The Fragmentation of Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 45–46. 139 I take this example from Fine, “The Question of Realism,” 24.

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meaning of some subsentential expression is “prior” to the meaning of another. Whoever claims that the fact that Britain and Germany were at war in 1940 consist in nothing more than the warring activities of different individuals, does not claim that the expression “the state of war between Britain and Germany in 1940” should be “defined up” from “a compendious description of the warring activity of various individuals.” That would be a tedious definition, indeed! So, it is doubtful that Sider’s and “Fine’s system[s]” really deal with the same kind of facts. Second, we saw that Fine holds that the predicate R and the sentential operator R are both a part of the “same metaphysical circle of ideas.” But this entails that any sentence that employs R can be recast as a sentence that employs R and vice versa. For example, from the fact that the various individuals who engaged in warring activities in 1940 were real it would follow that, in reality, the individuals in question engaged in warring activities in 1940, and from the fact that, in reality, various individuals engaged in warring activities in 1940, it would follow that the individuals in question were real. Thus, we should be able to infer from McDaniel’s claim “it is true that R(∃1x Φ) and it is true that R(∃2x Ψ)” that there are two beings that R, where it is R, rather than “there are,” that carries their ontological load. But this contradicts at least two of McDaniel’s Heidegger’s claims. First, it contradicts the claim that it is the local existential quantifiers rather than selected predicates that are ontologically charged, and second, it contradicts the claim that there are kinds of being: for R expresses – and univocally so – being of both entities that are found in the domains of different local existential quantifiers. Of course, someone might wish to accept Fine’s account of reality from “The Question of Realism” but not his account of existence from “The Question of Ontology,” which exploits that account. But I’m afraid that this would be a wish that just won’t come true. The way I see it, there is an important connection between the two accounts. Putting a sentence of a language under R only adds anything to the perfectly redundant “It is true that…” on the assumption that some objects in the domain of this language do not R. When we say how things, in reality, are, we are implicitly making a comparison between two different sorts of objects. And we mean to say that the entire ontological weight of both sorts of objects is carried by the sort that Rs. If it was the existential quantifier that carried the load, what else might the distinction come down to? Because I cannot see, I conclude that Fine’s views on reality and existence are interdependent. Finally, it bears mentioning that neither Fine nor Sider would be all too pleased with McDaniel’s suggestion that their approaches to fundamentality – respectively in terms of reality and in terms of joint-carvingness – are interchangeable, though each for rather different reasons. Fine explicitly worries if the sentential notion of a “fundamental truth” that his truth “in reality” aims to capture can, as Sider claims in Writing the Book of the World, be reconstructed from the subsentential notion of a “fundamental term” that Sider’s “structure” aims to capture:140

140 “[A] fundamental truth is a truth involving only fundamental [i.e. joint-carving] terms.” Sider, Writing the Book, 116.

252 Maciej Czerkawski Sider claims to be writing the book of the world. But he should decide whether he is writing a book or merely providing us with a lexicon.141 Sider, by contrast, worries if we can justify the application of the notion of a fundamental truth to anything without “saying what the distinguished structure of the world is, which,” he argues, “requires more than giving grounds.”142 A very interesting question of whether Sider’s case against Fine convinces – and if it does, how this might impact Heidegger’s project in BT – will have to wait until another occasion. For now, I simply wish to note that I am not alone in my commitment to thinking that there is a genuine disagreement between McDaniel’s interpretation of Heidegger’s kinds of being and mine. Hence, although new and fantastically strange vocabulary abounds in BT, Heidegger’s enterprise in his masterwork was certainly not one of providing us with a lexicon. It was, rather, to state what he regards as fundamental truths by whatever means it takes for us to see them.143

References Casati, Filippo. “Heidegger and the Contradiction of Being: A Dialetheic Interpretation of the Late Heidegger.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27, no. 5 (2019): pp. 1002–1024. Dahlstrom, Daniel O. Heidegger’s Concept of Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Dasgupta, Shamik. “Realism and the Absence of Value.” Philosophical Review 127, no. 3 (2018): 279–322. Dorr, Cian. “Reading Writing the Book of the World.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 3 (2013): pp. 717–724. Dorr, Cian, and John Hawthorne. “Naturalness.” In Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 8 (2013): pp. 3–77. Fine, Kit. “The Question of Realism.” In Individuals, Essence, and Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics, edited byAndrea Bottani, Massimiliano Carrara, and Pierdaniele Giaretta, pp. 3–48. Dordrecht: Springer, 2002. Fine, Kit. “The Reality of Tense.” Synthese 150, no. 3 (2006): 399–414. Fine, Kit. “The Question of Ontology.” In Metametaphysics, edited by David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, pp. 157–177. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Fine, Kit. “Fundamental Truth and Fundamental Terms.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no 3 (2013): pp. 725–732. Han-Pile, Béatrice. “Early Heidegger’s Appropriation of Kant.” In A Companion to Heidegger, edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall, 80–101. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

141 Kit Fine, “Fundamental Truth and Fundamental Terms,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no 3 (2013): 725–732, here 732. 142 Theodore Sider, “Replies to Dorr, Fine, and Hirsch,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 3 (2013): 733–754, here 742. 143 I extend my thanks to Dominik Kobos for many fruitful discussions of this material, to the anonymous reviewer for very helpful suggestions for improvement, and, last but not least, to the editors of NYPPP for their willingness to proceed with the manuscript in spite of its length and for the work they put in seeing it published.

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Heidegger, Martin. Wegmarken. Edited by Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann. Gesamtausgabe 9. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1976. Heidegger, Martin. “Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes.” In Holzwege, edited by FriedrichWilhelm von Herrmann, 1–74. Gesamtausgabe 5. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977. Heidegger, Martin. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988. Heidegger, Martin. Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Edited by FriedrichWilhelm von Herrmann. Gesamtausgabe 24. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989. Heidegger, Martin. Phänomenologie des religiösen Lebens. Edited by Matthias Jung, Thomas Regehly, and Claudius Strube. Gesamtausgabe 60. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995. Heidegger, Martin. Phänomenologische Interpretation von Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edited by Ingtraud Görland. Gesamtausgabe 25. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1995. Heidegger, Martin. Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997. Heidegger, Martin. Pathmarks. Edited by William McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Heidegger, Martin. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” In Off the Beaten Track, translated and edited by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes, 1–56. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Heidegger, Martin. Supplements. Edited by John van Buren. New York: State University of New York Press, 2002. Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2006. Heidegger, Martin. Phenomenology of Religious Life. Translated by Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010. Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2012. Hirsch, Eli. “The Metaphysically Best Language.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 3 (2013): pp. 709–716. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Kant, Immanuel. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2016. Kelly, Howard D. “Heidegger the Metaphysician: Modes-of-Being and Grundbegriffe.” European Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 3 (2014): pp. 670–693. Lewis, David. “New Work for a Theory of Universals.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, no. 4 (1983): pp. 343–377. Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986. McDaniel, Kris. “Ways of Being.” In Metametaphysics, edited by David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, 290–319. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. McDaniel, Kris. “Heidegger’s Metaphysics of Material Beings.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 2 (2013): pp. 332–357. McDaniel, Kris. The Fragmentation of Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Moltmann, Friederike. “Existence predicates.” Synthese 197, no. 1 (2020): pp. 311–335. Philipse, Herman. Heidegger’s Philosophy of Being. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Quine, Willard Van Orman. “On What There Is.” In From a Logical Point of View, 1–19. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

254 Maciej Czerkawski Sider, Theodore. “Ontological Realism.” In Metametaphysics, edited by David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, pp. 384–423. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Sider, Theodore. Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Sider, Theodore. “Replies to Dorr, Fine, and Hirsch.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87, no. 3 (2013): pp. 733–754. Tepley, Joshua. “Properties of Being in Heidegger’s Being and Time.” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22, no. 3 (2014): pp. 461–481. van Buren, John. “The Earliest Heidegger: A New Field of Research.” In A Companion to Heidegger, edited by Hubert L. Dreyfus and Mark A. Wrathall, pp. 19–31. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. van Inwagen, Peter. “Meta-Ontology.” Erkenntnis 48, no. 2/3 (1998): pp. 233–250. van Inwagen, Peter. “Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment.” In Metametaphysics, edited by David J. Chalmers, David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, 472–506. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. van Inwagen, Peter. “Modes of Being and Quantification.” Disputatio 6, no. 38 (2014): pp. 1–24.

14 Towards a phenomenology of narrative imagination: Sartre on the Why? and the What? of literature Aurélien Djian

Abstract: In spite of appearances, Sartre’s What Is Literature (WL)? is not the mere occasional pamphlet of a polemicist. Quite on the contrary, there are reasons to read it rather as a spin-off of Being and Nothingness (BN). In fact, WL ticks all the boxes that define the key features of Sartre’s 1943 philosophical magnus opus: ontological, metaphysical, and phenomenological. More precisely, in WL, as in BN, the phenomenological description of attitudes is supposed to provide us with the means to address metaphysical questions—namely: “why write?”, and ontological one—what is writing? And this is where imagination comes in. For it is within the framework of his account of prose that Sartre asks these questions. And what distinguishes this narrative attitude of prose is precisely its imaginary character. Hence, our attempt to spell out this Sartrean phenomenology of narrative imagination is conceived as the only tool to elucidate ontological and metaphysical questions about literature Keywords: Sartre; phenomenology; imagination; literature In spite of appearances1, Sartre’s What Is Literature?2—especially its first two sections—is not the mere occasional pamphlet of a polemicist and Marxist activist. Quite on the contrary, there are good reasons to read it rather as a non-independent part of that complex whole called Being and Nothingness.3 In fact, on a closer look, WL ticks all the boxes that define the key features of Sartre’s 1943 philosophical magnus opus. Firstly, there is the ontological framework. In WL, Sartre employs a wide array of concepts, coming from his previous philosophical projects—whether it be his phenomenological psychology of magic, emotion and imagination, or the analyses of language as an ontological structure of the for-itself, analogous to

1 See Elkaïm-Sartre’s and Ungar’s introduction to (respectively) the French and English edition of What is Literature? 2 Jean-Paul Sartre, Qu’est-ce que la littérature? (Paris: Gallimard, 2008); English translation: What is Literature? and Other Essays, trans. S. Ungar (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). Henceforth cited as WL with French and English page references, respectively. 3 Jean-Paul Sartre, L’Être et le Néant. Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique (Paris: Gallimard, 2009); English translation: Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, trans. H. E. Barnes (New-York: Pocket Books, 1978). Henceforth cited as BN with French and English page references, respectively.

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-16

256 Aurélien Djian the body (BN, 412–414/372–374)—and brings them together under a single ontological heading: the quest of the “for-itself” for the much desired “for-itselfin-itself”. Indeed, as Sartre puts it in the first lines of part two, called “Why Write?”: Each has his reasons [to write]: for one, art is a flight; for another a means of conquering. But one can flee into a hermitage, into madness, into death. One can conquer by arms. Why does it have to be writings, why does one have to manage one’s escapes and conquests by writing? Because, behind the various aims of authors, there is a deeper and more immediate choice which is common to all of us. (WL, 45/48) This choice, Sartre continues, has to do with the ontological structure that defines the “for-itself”, that is, the fact that he/she is the fundament of his/her own nothingness, but not of his/her being (or of the being of the world): Each of our perceptions is accompanied by the consciousness that human reality is a “revealer”, that is, it is through human reality that “there is” being, or, to put it differently, that man is the means by which things are manifested. It is our presence in the world which multiplies relations. It is we who set up a relationship between this tree and that bit of sky. Thanks to us, that star which has been dead for millennia, that quarter moon, and that dark river are disclosed in the unity of a landscape (…). But, if we know that we are directors of being, we also know that we are not its producers. If we turn away from this landscape, it will sink back into its dark permanence. At least, it will sink back; there is no one mad enough to think that it is going to be annihilated (…). Thus, to our inner certainty of being “revealers” is added that of being inessential in relation to the thing revealed. (WL, 45–48) Hence, Sartre concludes, “one of the chief motives of artistic creation is certainly the need of feeling that we are essential in relationship to the world” (WL, 46/48–9), and this happens by resorting “to the consciousness of others in order to make one’s self be recognized as essential to the totality of being; it is to wish to live this essentiality by means of interposed persons” (WL, 67/65). In other words, the relation of the writer to the reader is nothing other than a new example of what Being and Nothingness calls the “concrete relation with others”; and, more precisely, of the primitive attempt to “identify” oneself (here: the writer) “with [the Other’s] freedom which is the foundation of [one’s] being-in-itself”, in order to “be to [one’s] own foundation” (BN, 403/363). Secondly, there is the recourse to the phenomenological method. Sartre states quite clearly that, apart from the exceptional case of the for-itself, the only way to answer the ontological question “what?”—here: “what is writing?”—is to trace it back to corresponding attitudes towards the world. Such claim has to be understood in the technical sense pointed out in the Introduction of BN: to question the Being of writing—not unlike any question concerning the Being of any being, be it the Being of that table or of that chair (BN, 15/xlix)—is to describe how its phenomenon of being is revealed through this pure phenomenon which is the self-revealed/revealing consciousness (BN, 29/lxii–iii). Hence, the distinction between poetry and prose in the

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first part of WL (“what is writing?”) is traced back to the difference between “poetic attitude (…), [which] considers words as things and not as signs” (WL, 19/29) and prose, which is “first of all an attitude of mind”, and occurs “when the word passes across our gaze as the glass across the sun” (WL, 26/35). Lastly, and this is probably one of Sartre’s most remarkable philosophical moves—though still not stressed enough—the phenomenological description of attitudes is also supposed to provide us with the means to address metaphysical questions—namely: “why write?”. Indeed, as Sartre emphasized in BN, metaphysics deals with “the contingency of being”, that is, raises “the question of the existence of the existent”, and “the question ‘why’ is essentially connected with these metaphysical existences”. On the contrary, ontology has to do with “the specification of the structures of being of the existent taken as a totality”. In this sense, the existence of writing, as the existence of Others, “is not a consequence that can be derived from the ontological structure of the for-itself”: “the answer to the ‘why?’ can only refer us to an original contingency” (BN, 336/297). In other words, Sartre says, “In view of the absolute contingency of the existent, we are convinced that any metaphysics must conclude with a ‘that is’—i.e., in a direct intuition of that contingency” (BN, 337/297). However, though the existence of the existent is not derived from its Being, Sartre maintains, in the conclusion of BN, that “ontology” can nonetheless tell us something “serving as the basis for metaphysics” (BN, 668/620), that is, helping to make sense of any contingent existence—like, for instance, writing. And indeed, in such case, it is precisely the ideal desire of the “for-itself”, considered as a mode of its being, to become causa sui, that motivates him/her to overcome his/her lack of essentiality in relationship to the world by writing. Now, if ontology (“what?)” provides metaphysics (“why?”) with a foundation, the next move is to explain how it is possible for the for-itself to fulfil his/her desire in the act of writing. Here again we are referred to phenomenology, that is, to a description of the attitudes (writing and reading) responsible for the possibility of such a fulfilment. In other words, Sartre’s move, which is a phenomenological one, lies in the claim that the answer to the question “how?”—how is the phenomenon of being revealed by consciousness?—is the ground on which any ultimate clarification that can be given to the question “what?” (what is writing?) and “why?” (why write?) is rooted. In the following, since the reading I am suggesting is far from being mainstream, I will try to substantiate my claims by tracing out what I take to be the phenomenological aim and structure of Sartre’s WL and draw some conclusions as for their overall relevance. This is where imagination comes in. For it is within the framework of his account of prose—in fact conceived by Sartre as narrative-fictional prose, in opposition to narrative-non fictional journalistic prose or non-narrative, non-fictional scientific prose4—that Sartre asks the question “why write?”. And what distinguishes this

4 To avoid misunderstandings, in the following, the word “prose” has to be understood as the shorthand of “narrative-fictional prose”. This holds also for the cluster “writing/reading”: when Sartre deals with the relation between the writer and the reader, in the chapter “Why Write?”, he has in mind only the narrative-fictional writing and reading.

258 Aurélien Djian narrative attitude of prose is precisely its imaginary character. More precisely, writing and reading, in this context of literary prose, have to be considered as two abstract nonindependent parts of a concrete whole (the concrete relation of writing and reading), which includes two different kinds of imaginary attitudes. In short, the cluster writing/ reading is structured as a relation among various interposed imaginations. Imagination is therefore an essential moment of Sartre’s phenomenological account of narrative fiction insofar as the description of the imaginary attitudes involved in the cluster writing/ reading serves as a guiding thread to finally address the ontological question “what is writing?” as well as the metaphysical question “why write?”.5 Hence, the plan of the present chapter. Part one is devoted to the concept of “attitude” in BN—a concept whose significance rests on Sartre’s rejection of Kant’s account of “phenomenon” (as opposed to “noumenon”), to be replaced by the correlation between the “phenomenon of Being” and the “trans-phenomenal Being of consciousness”. Part two spells out Sartre’s general conception of the “imaginary attitude”, as described in detail in the Imaginary (§2). Finally, part three shows how Sartre’s concept of “imaginary attitude” is literally diffracted in the second part of WL, as to account for a twofold difference: that between poetic and prose attitude, on the one hand, and that between the attitudes of writing and reading, on the other. This should ultimately put us in the right positon to see how, in Sartre’s account, ontology (“what is writing?”) and metaphysics (“why write?”) are connected to a phenomenology of narrative (“how writing?”, “how reading?”).

14.1 What is an attitude? If one follows Eugen Fink’s famous distinction between implicit, operative concepts, on the one hand, and explicit, constitutive ones, on the other, it is safe to say that Sartre’s concept of “attitude” is among those we should call “operative”. Because of that, in order to fully determine its meaning and scope, it will be useful to locate it with respect to the constitutive concepts defined in the Introduction to his “Essay on phenomenological ontology”. Sartre’s introductory strategy in BN follows four steps6. First step: Sartre begins with a “theory of the phenomenon” (BN, 13/xlvii) whose explicit aim is to convert all philosophical dualisms (inner/outer, being/appearing, act/ potency, appearance/essence) into a single one: that of the finite and the infinite. Hence, “phenomenon” names first and foremost the existent as the infinite series of its finite appearances (BN, 11–3/xlv): for instance, the house in front of me appears to me in distinct profiles or adumbrations (the back side, then the front; close, then from a distance, etc.). Such “Abschattungen” do not point to the hidden presence of a “noumenon” behind it—hence Sartre’s rejection of Kant’s “phenomenon vs. noumenon” dualism—but to the “reason of the series”, that is, to what brings the manifold profiles

5 For a more general take on the role of imagination in mutual understanding, see Jens Bonnemann, “Sartre and the Role of Imagination in Mutual Understanding”, in M. Summa, T. Fuchs and L. Vanzago, Imagination and Social Perspectives. Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology (New-York: Routledge. 2017), 155–166. 6 On a general overview of Sartre’s strategy in BN’s first pages, see Maurice Natanson, A Critique of JeanPaul Sartre’s Ontology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973).

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and adumbrations into a unity, what unifies the finite into something infinite (say, the house as such). Differently put, the reason why I perceive the front side, then the back side of that house as related profiles, is because I do not perceive such profiles in a mere succession. Using Sartre’s own terms, one should say that I rather transcend each of them towards what unifies them, that is, the house itself, of which there is a back side as well as a front side. As Sartre puts it, “In order to be grasped as an appearance-of-that-whichappears, it requires that it be surpassed toward infinity” (BN, 13/xlvii). Therefore, the “phenomenon” can also be called the “relative-absolute”: Relative the phenomenon remains, for “to appear” supposes in essence somebody to whom to appear. But it does not have the double relativity of Kant’s Erscheinung. It does not point over its shoulder to a true being which would be, for it, absolute. What it is, it is absolutely, for it reveals itself as it is. The phenomenon can be studied and described as such, for it is absolutely indicative of itself. (BN, 12/xlvi) This brings us to what Sartre calls “Being”. “Being” does not boil down to a certain quality of the existent. For the house is or exists throughout all of its qualities, each of which is the house itself: this “Abschattung” of the house, for instance its red façade, is the house itself, though the house does not amount to its façade; the “adumbration” is rather the “condition of revelation” (BN, 15/xlix) of something as being (a real house) and as being-such-and-such (a real house). Second step: if the phenomenon reveals itself as it is, then its Being “manifests itself to all in some way, since we can speak of it and since we have a certain comprehension of it” (BN, 14/xlviii). But, since Being itself can be considered as a phenomenon, that is, as revealed, it must refer to the Being of the phenomenon, that is, the ultimate term of the regression which, as unveiling (dévoilant), is no longer phenomenal, but, Sartre says, “trans-phenomenal”. In other words, the phenomenon of Being is somehow rooted in the trans-phenomenal being-for-itself of consciousness. Admittedly, the being-for-itself also appears in some sense; but it is no more a phenomenon as “relative-absolute” because, revealing itself in a pre-reflexive, non-positional way, it does not obey “the law of the dyad” (subject-object) (BN, 19/lii). The Being of consciousness, therefore, is not a revealed phenomenon that calls for an unveiling Being distinct from it. It is rather “the revealed-revelation of existents” (BN, 29/lxii). In short, subjectivity is “the immanence of self in self” (BN, 23/lvii): it is nothing worldly but, at the same time, it is nothing other than the revealer of the world as such. Third step: saying that the phenomenon of Being refers to the trans-phenomenal beingfor-itself as a condition of its manifestation does not imply that consciousness is sufficient to provide the fundament of the Being of appearance qua appearance (“l’être de la conscience suffit-il à fonder l’être de l’apparence en tant qu’apparence?”) (BN, 24/lvii). In other words, through its intentional/transcendent character, “consciousness is consciousness of something” (BN, 26/lxi), namely of a transcendent Being that the for-itself is not. A Being that is nothing immanent—not even immanent in the special sense of a “transcendence within immanence (transcendance dans l’immanence)” (BN, 27/lxi)7.

7 For that matter, as long as a literary book is not read, it is precisely a transcendence in immanence. For the writer alone, as we will see, can not turn it into objective existence by himself (WL, 47/49–50).

260 Aurélien Djian Thus, the “for-itself” is only as the negation of that transcendent Being that is “a non-conscious and trans-phenomenal being” (BN, 28/lxii). Now, as is well known, Sartre defines the latter by three features, making explicit its irreducibility to anything subjective: (i) Being is in itself (beyond activity and passivity); (ii) it is what it is (identity with itself); and (iii) Being-in-itself simply is (it is neither possible, nor necessary, but contingent). By contrast, the Being-for-itself (i) is not in itself; (ii) it is not what it is and is what it is not; and (iii) it is a pure possibility of itself. This duality in Being is thus what allows Sartre to deny at once a realistic and an idealistic conception of the relations between phenomenon and consciousness (BN, 30/lxiv). For, on the one hand, there is no causal link between being-in-itself and being-for-itself, since “being can generate only being” (BN, 59/24) and the for-itself is precisely defined by the fact that he/she “detaches” him/herself “from Being” (se désenglue de l’être)” (BN, 58/23). On the other hand, the for-itself admittedly reveals Being-initself, turning it into a phenomenon of Being, but he/she does not provide the ground for the existence of any particular being. This—we see now more precisely—was Sartre’s point, when insisting that the for-itself is the revealer of Being but is “inessential in relation to the thing revealed” (WL, 46/49). Fourth and final step: at this point, we come to one of the “metaphysical” moments of Sartre’s investigation. Indeed, it is true that Being-for-itself is “pure ‘appearance’ in the sense that it exists only to the degree to which it appears”. However, precisely because of its character of absolute—the for-itself “is total emptiness (since the entire world is outside it)” (BN, 23/lvi)—Being-in-itself as Being of the relative-absolute, that is, of the world, “does not exist only in so far as it appears” (BN, 29/lxii). In other words, the Being of the world, unlike the Being-for-itself, involves a break between the Being of the phenomenon and the phenomenon of Being, a break rooted in the nihilation of the in-itself by the for-itself. In fact, the for-itself is only insofar as he/she is consciousness of something that he/she is not, namely by nihilating Being-initself, or, more precisely, by nihilating the Being of the world on the basis of its own self-nihilation (BN, 58/23). As a result, he/she can only reveal a phenomenon of Being surrounded by nothingness, that is, a phenomenon that (a) on the one hand, refers to consciousness as the condition of its unveiling8 and (b), on the other, “indicates Being and requires it” (BN, 29/lxiii), but cannot but manifest it otherwise as it is, precisely because of (a). For instance, this house in front of me with its red façade seen from a distance appears to me as being-a-house because I transcended its finite appearances towards the reason of the series. Yet it also appears as being-a-house on the backdrop of many other appearances it is not (a lawn on the left, trees on the right, etc.). This perception, Sartre says, already implies a nihilation of the Being of the phenomenon, turning it from a Selbständigkeit to a Unselbständigkeit, that is, to the phenomenon of Being. A manifestation that ultimately depends on the situation of my body as a center of orientation (BN, 356/316): The object appears on the ground of the world and manifests itself in a relation of exteriority with other “thises” which have just appeared. Thus its revelation implies the complementary constitution of an undifferentiated ground which is

8 For “consciousness, like the phenomenon, constitutes only [abstract] moments” of a concrete “synthetic totality” (BN, 37/3).

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the total perceptive field or the world. The formal structure of this relation of the figure to the ground is therefore necessary […] But the material connection of a particular “this” to the ground is both chosen and given […]. It is necessary that the book appear to me on the right or on the left side of the table. But it is contingent that the book appears to me specifically on the left, and finally I am free to look at the book on the table or at the table supporting the book. (BN, 356/316–7) One should not be surprised, therefore, to see Sartre claim that “it is this contingency between the necessity and the freedom of my choice that we call sense (sens)” (ibid.). For he had already stated in the introduction that the for-itself is ontico-ontological insofar as he/she “can always pass beyond the existent, not toward its being, but toward the meaning (sens) of this being”; and that “the meaning (sens) of the being of the existent in so far as it reveals itself to consciousness is the phenomenon of being” (BN, 29/lxiii). Thus, realism and idealism are equally rejected in the favour of a “twoplaces ontology”: while the former conflates “being” with “being in itself”, and the latter “being” with “being for itself”, it must be claimed that the for-itself does not found but freely nihilates the in-itself, so that its manifestation depends on the the way in which consciousness nihilates it9. As Sartre puts it, It is not given to “human reality” to annihilate even provisionally the mass of being which it posits before itself. He can only modify man’s relation with this being. For man to put a particular existent out of circuit is to put himself out of circuit in relation to that existent. In this case he is not subject to it; he is out of reach; it cannot act on him, for he has retired beyond a nothingness. Descartes following the Stoics has given a name to this possibility which human reality has to secrete a nothingness which isolates it—it is freedom. (BN, 59/24–5) Now, this new conception of the relationship between Being-in-itself and Being-foritself leads us straight to Sartre’s technical notion of “attitude” (attitude) or “conduct” (conduite). Sartre’s attitudes are defined by three distinctive features. (Feature #1) An “attitude” refers necessarily to the relationship between consciousness and transcendent Being—and transcendent Being only. For the Being-initself alone can appear otherwise as it is, that is, in accordance with such-and-such mode of nihilation, while consciousness is nothing other than what it appears. Consequently, the pre-reflexive, non-positional self-consciousness is not a “conduct” that consciousness can have (or not) with respect to itself, but it is precisely what I am, it constitutes the Being-for-itself. In short, one can make the world (and any individual) appear otherwise as it is by changing one’s own relation to it; but one cannot change/choose his/her pre-reflexive relation to himself/herself. I may take an attitude toward myself, in Sartre’s technical sense of the term, only insofar as I turn

9 For an overview on Sartre’s concept of nihilation, and its relationship with Husserl’s “constitution”, see Nathanaël Masselot, “L’ontologie sartrienne est-elle une phénoménologie transcendantale? Imagination et constitution”, in Methodos 12 (2012).

262 Aurélien Djian myself into an object of the world. This is the case, for example, when I am scared (BN, 65/30). (Feature #2) Since I cannot modify the Being of the phenomenon in any conceivable way (for it is what it is), any switch of attitude is about my relation to it, that is, about the way in which I, as a consciousness, reveal the phenomenon of Being of the phenomenon. Here, then, intentionality plays a crucial role, since the manifestation of Being is correlative to the kind of intention carried out. As Sartre emphasizes, “To put a particular existent out of circuit is to put himself out of circuit in relation to that existent” (BN, 59/24). However, if the phenomenon of Being cannot but manifest the Being of the phenomenon otherwise as it is, it nonetheless does not appear at random. Quite on the contrary, it manifests itself in accordance with the rules governing each determinate attitude.10 Correlatively, the task of phenomenology is precisely to describe the different rule-governed conducts that consciousness can take with respect to the world. (Feature #3) Since an attitude is a fixed, rule-governed way to nihilate the Being-initself and to turn it into a certain kind of phenomenon of Being; and since nihilation is tantamount to freedom (BN, 59/24–5), I am free to choose my conduct towards the world. Hence, “conduct” turns out to be just the other name of “project” (BN, 51/17). Before turning to some examples, let us pause for a moment to measure the ground covered so far. If the aforementioned context is correct, we now hold all the elements to understand why Sartre’s concept of “attitude” lies right at the heart of philosophy itself. Having converted all philosophical dualisms, including Kant’s difference between phenomenon and noumenon, into a single one (finite vs. infinite); having traced this new concept of phenomenon back to the trans-phenomenal being-for-itself—Sartre has shown that ontology can only be carried out phenomenologically. In other words, the question of Being can only be addressed on the basis of its manifestation triggered by the for-itself. And this is precisely the reason why, in the hands of Sartre, the concept of “attitude” becomes a major philosophical concept. To question Being in general, and the Being of this or that being in particular, one has to trace it back to the corresponding attitudes towards the phenomenon of Being in general, and toward this or that phenomenon of Being in particular. Let us now illustrate Sartre’s insight by means of some examples. Even if the Being of the world is self-sufficient, even if I cannot modify it, annihilate it and so forth, it may, however, appear in a practical or in an emotional way, according to the “conducts” or “projects” of the for-itself.11 The practical and the emotional attitude are “attitudes” in the strict technical sense defined earlier, for they all display variations of the same features: a relation towards transcendent Being (#1); a rule-governed correlation between a mode of nihilation and a mode of manifestation of Being (#2); a freely-chosen project (#3).

10 For more details on this particular point see below the description of the practical-instrumental and emotional conducts. 11 On the following, see Claudio Majolino, “A Kind of Magic’. Emotion, Imagination, Language”, in Research in Phenomenology (forthcoming) as well as Andreas Elpidorou, “Horror, Fear, and the Sartrean Account of Emotions”, in The Southern Journal of Philosophy 54/2 (2016), 209–225.

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Since emotions are transformations of the world as it is “acted upon” (monde-agi; monde de l’action) within the practical-instrumental attitude, let us start with the latter. “Action”, Sartre states clearly, is a transcendent conduct towards the world (Feature #1). For “activity (…) constitutes a certain existential stratum in the world”12 (STE, 76/61). And this “pragmatic intuition of the determinism of the world” (STE, 77/62), as Sartre also calls it in the Sketch, is governed by rules according to which the world appears as being-instrumental (Feature #2). Three sets of “rules” or “traits” define action as an attitude: — Intuitive certainty. Action “constitutes a succession of certain objects in a probable world”. It should be noted that, already in the Sketch, Sartre takes as a case study the difference between writing and reading. Indeed, on the one hand, “when I read what another person is writing, by looking over his shoulder (…), my intuitive understanding of what my neighbor is writing is of the type of ‘probable evidence’”.13 On the other hand, “My intuitive grasp of the words I myself am writing delivers them to me as certainties (…) for it is not certain that the word ‘certitude’ which I am in the act of writing will appear (I may go crazy, change my mind, etc.), but it is certain that, if it does appear, it will appear as such” (STE, 74–5/60). In other words, when I act, I posit objects as given intuitively and as existing certainly. — Unavoidable difficulty. While “the words written by my neighbor make no demands on me; I contemplate them as they appear in succession as I might look at a table or a suit case”, “the words that I am writing (…) are exigent (…). They are potentialities that have to be realized”. And this is an exigence that “is directly present, weighty and felt” (STE, 75–6/60–1). In other words, when I act, the world appears as an infinite, overflowing means/ends structure, where means represent pre-determined paths one has to follow in order to fulfil certain tasks or reach certain ends. Thus, while writing my chapter on Sartre, I tacitly know that I might be able to achieve my goal only by writing certain words and sentences; I also feel that this is not going to be easy, for presenting WL as a “spin-off” of BN requires a lot of arguments, some being more effective than others; I have to refer to BN, and BN is a difficult book; and if I want to describe emotions as a conduct, I also have to refer to the Sketch and so forth. The bottom line is: this is going to be difficult but there is no way around it. Facing all these difficulties is in fact the only path I can follow, if I want to reach my goal. This is why, Sartre says, “this world is difficult”. For the practical-instrumental stratum of the world “appears to be all furrowed with strait and narrow paths leading to such and such determinate ends (…). Naturally, here and there, and to some extent everywhere, they are pitfalls and traps” (STE, 78/62). — Instrumental embodiment. If I start writing my chapter, I have a pre-reflexive consciousness of my hand which somehow appears in the midst of the world, “as the

12 Jean-Paul Sartre, Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions (Paris: Hermann, 1995); English translation: Sketch for a Theory of Emotions, trans. P. Mairet (London: Methuen & Co, 1962). Henceforth cited as STE with French and English page references, respectively. 13 “At the moment when, reading ‘indep…’, I intuitively seize upon the word ‘independent, this word ‘independent’ presents itself as a probable reality” (STE: 74–5/60).

264 Aurélien Djian instrument whereby the words realize themselves”, but is “at the same time present and lived” (STE, 76/61). This means that, as the body “belongs to the structures of the non-thetic self-consciousness” (BN, 369/330), I am not in relation to my hand in the same utilizing attitude as I am in relation to the pen; I am my hand […] the hand is at once the unknowable and non-utilizable term which the last instrument of the series indicates (‘book to be read-characters to be formed on the paper-pen’) and at the same time the orientation of the entire series (the printed book itself refers back to the hand). But I can apprehend it—at least in so far as it is acting—only as the perpetual, evanescent reference of the whole series. (BN, 363/323) Now, not unlike “action”, “emotion” too is an “attitude toward the world” (Feature #1): Emotion is not a physiological tempest; it is a reply adapted to the situation; it is a type of conduct, the meaning and form of which are the object of an intention of consciousness which aims at attaining a particular end by particular means. (BN, 489/445) And this transformation of the world is motivated by the fact that the world has become too difficult, “all ways are barred and nevertheless we must act” (STE, 70/63). In other words, emotions turn out to be a transformation of the instrumental stratum of the world into a magical-emotional one in response to the difficulty of the former. Correlatively, this process is triggered by the “selftransformation” (STE, 79/63) of consciousness (Feature #2). And here we find again three rules governing this new correlation, which are equivalent to though different from the rules of action. — Ineffectual action. To begin with, emotion is not effectual. Its aim is not really to act upon the object as it is, by the interpolation of particular means. Emotional behavior seeks by itself, and without modifying the structure of the object, to confer another quality upon it, a lesser existence or a lesser presence (or a greater existence, etc.). (STE, 81/65) Hence, if a ferocious beast comes towards me, I can act according to a pragmaticinstrumental attitude and try to modify the structure of the object: I can scare the beast (end) by shooting in the air (mean). But I can also take a magical-emotional attitude and faint, thus conferring to the beast straight away a lesser existence. In this case, I am “suppressing the danger by suppressing the consciousness of the danger. There is an intention of losing consciousness in order to do away with the formidable world in which consciousness is engaged and which comes into being through consciousness” (BN, 489/445). However, the aforementioned example must not be understood as if emotion were only directed towards a definite object of the real world, while the latter itself would remain emotionally untouched. As Sartre puts it, if action reveals a stratum of the real world as acted-upon, this also holds true for emotion:

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It is constitutive of emotion that it attributes to the objects something that infinitely transcends it. Indeed, there is a world of emotion. All emotions have this in common, that they evoke the appearance of the same world, cruel, terrible, bleak, joyful, etc. (…). We have to speak of a world of emotion as one speaks of a world of dreams or of worlds of madness. A world—that means individual synthesis in mutual relations and possessing qualities. (STE, 103–4/81–2) — A serious game. Secondly, emotion involves belief: “the qualities ‘willed’ upon the objects are taken to be real” on the basis of the “purely physiological phenomena” (STE, 96/76). In other words, an emotion is genuine insofar as I believe in the emotional quality conferred to the object (ferocious, scary). By its turn, this belief is lived by consciousness when “my legs give way under me, my heart beats more feebly, I turn pale, fall down and faint away” (STE: 83/66). Hence, the physiological phenomena “represent the genuineness of the emotion [représentent le sérieux de l’émotion]” (STE, 83/66). — Incantatory embodiment. This leads us to the final characteristic: emotion implies a modification of the body. Indeed, “during emotion, it is the body which, directed by the consciousness, changes its relationship with the world so that the world changes its qualities” (STE, 81–2/65). On the one hand, in the practical-instrumental conduct, my own body is the non-utilizable term that I am in a pre-reflective way. Each and every series of worldly means and ends (book to be read, characters to be formed on the paper, pen etc.) ultimately points to my body; and, conversely, my body determines the direction and the orientation of the series (the printed book itself refers back to the hand etc.). But on the other hand, in the emotional-magical conduct, the body is degraded to an “instrument of incantation” (STE, 93/73), something thanks to which genuine emotional qualities replace actual means/ends relations, enabling one to carry out non-effectual, straight magical “actions”. (Feature #3) Now, emotion and action could not be full-fledged attitudes if they were not “freely endorsed” projects. And this brings us to the last feature. Admittedly, genuine emotions involve beliefs and, therefore, the emotional conduct seems to be “captive”, not “free”. But Sartre hastens to add: By this it must not be understood that to be fettered by anything whatever outside itself. It is captive to itself in this sense—that it does not dominate the belief that it is doing its utmost to live, and this precisely because it is living that belief and is absorbed in living it. (STE, 101/80) In other words, emotion being a conduct towardS the world (Feature #1), it must be understood as a mode of its nihilation (Feature #2); and as a mode of nihilation, it is eo ipso free (Feature #3). There is always and necessarily the possibility to switch from the magical-emotional to the practical-instrumental attitude. In fact, as Sartre points out in BN, What will make me decide to choose the magical aspect or the technical aspect of the world? It cannot be the world itself, for this in order to be manifested waits to be discovered. Therefore, it is necessary that the for-itself in its project must choose being the one by whom the world is revealed as magical or rational […]. My fear is free and manifests my freedom; I have put all my freedom into my fear,

266 Aurélien Djian and I have chosen myself as fearful in this or that circumstance. Under other circumstances I shall exist as deliberate and courageous, and I shall have put all my freedom into my courage. In relation to freedom there is no privileged psychic phenomenon. All my “modes of being” manifest freedom equally since they are all ways of being my own nothingness. (BN, 489–90/445) So far, we have only dealt with conducts directed toward the world as a whole. As we have tried to show, “action” and “emotion” constitute, according to Sartre, the instrumental and the magical-emotional strata of the actual real world. The former attitude establishes/reveals practical paths of means and ends, the latter responds to the difficulty one is often confronted to when following some of these paths. But Sartre also points out the existence of attitudes that are directed towards something that is both particular and non-wordly. When I am involved in such conducts, I do not stop being-in-the-world; and yet, the world-I-am-in is now seen from the angle of something which I am turned towards but is not-in-the-world. This happens, for example, already in many—though not all—of our “concrete relations with the others”. Not all—because when I apprehend the Other as a transcendence/transcended (in indifference, desire, hate or sadism), the Other is just seen as part of the practical world, as an instrument of a special kind, a means for me to reach a certain end (BN, 332/292). But the Other can also appear as being-atranscendence/transcending (as in love, language or masochism). In this latter case, he/she is a “trans-mundane presence” (BN, 309/270) turning me into an object, a means for an end, in the middle of a practical-instrumental world. In this second attitude, then, the Other shows itself precisely as something towards which I am turned, but which is not-in-the-world (since he/she is literally that with respect to which there is a world). Yet according to Sartre, there is still another “attitude” towards something that is both particular and non-worldly. It is the attitude carried out when I imagine something or someone. Just as in the case of the trans-mundane presence of the Other, the imaginary givenness of my friend Pierre is literally nowhere to be found in the world; and yet, unlike the trans-mundane presence of the Other, Pierre is given as an absence.

14.2 What is an imaginary attitude? Sartre’s analyses of the imaginary are carried out in two different contexts—and one should carefully avoid conflating them. On the one hand, imagination is dealt with in the context of a phenomenological psychology—as in the Imaginary.14 On the other,

14 Jean-Paul Sartre, L’imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination (Paris: Gallimard, 2005); English translation: The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination, trans.J. Webber (London-New-York: Routledge, 2004). Henceforth cited as IMA with French and English page references, respectively. More details on the specific topic of imagination in Sartre’s phenomenological psychology are to be found for instance in Vincent De Coorebyter, “De Husserl à Sartre. La structure intentionnelle de l’image dans L’Imagination et L’Imaginaire” in Methodos 12 (2012) and Nicolas De Warren, “Eyes Wild Shut. Sartre’s Phenomenology of Dreaming” in Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology. Conceptual and Empirical Approaches, edited by D. O. Dahlstrom, A. Elpidorou and W. Hopp, 224–246. New-York: Routledge, 2016.

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it can also be analysed within a phenomenological-ontological context as a specific attitude of the for-itself toward the world—as in BN. In the first context, “imagination” refers both to a “constitutive structure” of “the essence ‘consciousness’” (IMA, 344/179), that is, transcendental freedom (IMA, 358/186);15 and to “a psychological and empirical function [which] is the necessary condition of the freedom of empirical humans in the midst of the world”, as any surpassing of the world must be a surpassing “towards something. The imaginary is in every case the concrete ‘something’ towards which the existent is surpassed” (IMA, 359/187). In the second context, however, transcendental imagination disappears as to leave its place to the ontological concept of “nihilation”. A concept that has nothing to do with “acts” (even if understood transcendentally) but rather defines the mode of existence of the Being-for-itself. Differently put, in the first case, imagination is an act, or an essential quality of certain acts, which can be intuitively given and scrutinized in “eidetic intuition” (IMA, 343/179). Hence the possibility to study it from the viewpoint of a phenomenological psychology. On the contrary, the for-itself is nihilation of the Being-in-itself, or, to put it another way, it is a mode of my being. Accordingly, imagination as a “conduct” or as an “attitude” must be understood ontologically: like any conduct, it refers to a specific mode of nihilation of a transcendent being initself through which the Being of a relative-absolute is manifested in a certain way, namely as an imaginary object. As far as we are concerned, in what follows, we will leave aside the phenomenological psychology to focus on the phenomenological ontology of imagination. However, this ontology is not carried out in detail in BN. Therefore, in the following, I will rephrase Sartre’s psychological analysis of the imagination into the more suitable terms of an ontological attitude. Since “imagination” is an attitude, Sartre will describe it according to the three defining features of all attitudes: as a relation towards transcendent Being (Feature #1), as a rule-governed correlation between a mode of nihilation and a mode of manifestation of Being (Feature #2) and as a freely-chosen project (Feature #3). (Feature #1) Sartre states quite clearly and unambiguously, already in the first lines of the Imaginary, that imagination is directed towards something transcendent. Indeed, while—according to the illusion of immanence—the image is understood as something being in consciousness and the object of the image in the image, a phenomenological take on imagination must admit “the radical heterogeneity of consciousness and the image” (IMA: 19/6). In fact, as Sartre puts it, When I perceive a chair, it would be absurd to say that the chair is in my perception. My perception is, in accordance with the terminology that we have adopted, a certain consciousness and the chair is the object of that consciousness. Now I close my eyes and I produce the image of the chair that I have just perceived. The chair, now being given as imaged, can no more enter into consciousness than previously. An image of a chair is not and cannot be a chair.

15 Indeed, consciousness is “able to escape from the world by its very nature”, “to stand back from the world by its own efforts” (IMA, 353/184).

268 Aurélien Djian Actually, whether I perceive or imagine this straw-bottomed chair on which I sit, it always remains outside of consciousness. In both cases it is there, in space, in that room, in front of the desk. Now—this is, above all, what reflection teaches us—whether I perceive or imagine that chair, the object of my perception and that of my image are identical: it is that straw-bottomed chair on which I sit. It is simply that consciousness is related to this same chair in two different ways. (IMA, 20–1/6–7) Hence, Sartre says, the image “is a certain way in which the object appears to consciousness, or, if one prefers, a certain way in which consciousness presents to itself an object” (IMA, 21/7). This account remains unchanged in BN: imaginary objects are indeed examples of absolute négatités, that is, négatités conceived as themes of “simple, radical negations [which] deny to a determined object any kind of presence in the depth of being (e.g. ‘Centaurs do not exist’—‘There is no reason for him to be late’—‘The ancient Greeks did not practice polygamy’)” (BN, 54–6/19–21). (Feature#2) Imagination is a specific rule-governed mode of nihilation of the Beingin-itself, which triggers the self-showing of something as being-imaginary. Here again—just as in the case of “actions” or “emotions”—“imagination” displays three, equivalent though different, rules of correlation. — Quasi-observed. Imagination’s first rule is better understood if contrasted with perception. When I see a book, for instance, my perception is based on a specific nihilation according to a figure/ground structure. Such structure points back to my own body as the point zero of orientation. As we have seen already, it is necessary that the book appears either on the right of the table or on its left, but the fact that it actually lies on its right or on its left is contingent. Now this figure/ground structure of perception also implies that every “thing” is ultimately perceived on the backdrop of the world: An object must always appear to me all at once—it is the cube, the inkwell, the cup which I see—but this appearance always takes place in a particular perspective which expresses its relations to the ground of the world and to other thises. It is always the note of the violin which I hear. But it is necessary that I hear it through a door or by the open window or in a concert hall. Otherwise the object would no longer be in the midst of the world and would no longer be manifested to an existent-rising-up-in-the-world. (BN, 356/317) Therefore, I can always direct my attention from what is actually given as a figure to some other phenomenon in the background—a phenomenon that, ontologically speaking, is already surpassed towards its phenomenon of Being (even if not attentively considered). This is what Sartre called, in IMA, the “phenomenon of observation”: In the world of perception, no ‘thing’ can appear without maintaining an infinity of relations to other things. Better, it is this infinity of relations—as well as the infinity of the relations that its elements support between them—it is this infinity of relations that constitutes the very essence of a thing. Hence a kind of overflowing in the world of “things”: there is, at every moment, always infinitely more than we can see; to exhaust the richness of my current perception would take an infinite time. (IMA, 25–6/9)

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We can therefore draw the following conclusions about the structure of perception: first, “one must learn objects”, and learning an object implies “the necessity of making a tour of objects, of waiting, as Bergson said, until the ‘sugar dissolves’” (IMA, 23–4/8); secondly, and consequently, the existence of any perceived thing (and of any of its properties) “remains doubtful” (IMA, 23–4/8), as it is always possible to make new discoveries. By contrast, then, while there is always and necessarily “a kind of overflowing in the world of ‘things’”, “there is a kind of essential poverty” (IMA, 26/9) in the image. And this fact, as Sartre hastens to add, is “of the utmost importance in distinguishing the image from perception” (IMA, 25–6/9). Admittedly, when I imagine my friend Pierre, he appears by profiles, just like in the perception. Therefore, he refers to my body as the point zero of orientation. But now I have nothing to learn from my bodily standpoint, for “I will never find anything there but what I put there” (IMA, 25/9). My imaginary friend Pierre also shows himself as oriented with respect to my own body—but only to my own imaginary body, to the body I am pre-reflexively conscious of, the body I can always (imaginatively) reflect on, and so on. In other words, imagination involves a phenomenon of quasi-observation: on the one hand, I quasiobserve my friend Pierre because he appears through profiles and adumbrations, as having certain properties, as oriented towards my imaginary-body and so on; on the other, I only quasi-observe him, because he is nothing other than what I imagine he is, appearing according to the situation of my quasi-body. Hence, if a thing is an individual insofar as he overflows, that is, refers to the world it is a part of, the imaginary object is not an individual. Contrarily to emotion and action, the imaginary object does not maintain any relation to any world whatsoever, which means that, apart from the relations I imagine, “it should not be said that the other relations exist in secret, that they wait until a beam of light moves on them. No: they do not exist at all” (IMA, 26/10). For this reason, also, I cannot be surprised by what I imagine, Sartre says.16 And, finally, while perception is structurally doubtful, that is, can always appear otherwise as it is, the imaginary object “is given immediately for what it is” (IMA, 24/9), hence as absolutely indubitable. — Absence. Second rule: while perception, memory and anticipation posit their objects as given intuitively and, respectively, as actually present, actually past and actually future, that is, as real or “being-in-the-middle-of-the-world” (IMA, 351/ 183), imagination posits its imaginary objects as given intuitively as absent, as nonactual, as irreal, that is, as objects “in the margin of the totality of the real” (IMA, 352/183). This leads us to the following two traits of imagination. Insofar as I posit the imaginary object as an irreality, I do not believe in its existence. And, for this reason, it manifests no “exigence”, it has no “claims” with respect to me. Here, there is no pre-delineated path to follow, for I am the one who posits such paths while imagining them. And such positing of something as givenabsent is a common feature to all modes of irrealization. For “the imaginary object can be posited as nonexistent [like Dumas’s D’Artagnan] or as absent [like a portrait of Louis XVI] or as existing elsewhere [like my friend Pierre] or not be posited as

16 “If you turn a cube-image in thought to amuse yourself, if you pretend that it presents its various faces to you, then you will not be more advanced at the end of the operation: you will not have learned anything” (IMA, 25/9).

270 Aurélien Djian existent [like in all cases of suspension or neutralization of the thesis of existence]” (IMA, 351/183). But such negation displays a trait of not only disbelief but also relativity. Indeed, as Sartre puts it, “One must imagine what one denies. In fact, the object of a negation cannot be a reality since this would then affirm what is being denied—but neither can it be a total nothing since, precisely, one denies something” (IMA, 360/188). Thus, all forms of imagination perform a double negation. Any positing of my friend Pierre as absent—that is, as a nothingness with regard to the world (“Pierre is not here”)—implies, first and foremost, the original negation of the world as a place where Pierre is nowhere to be found (“the world as a Pierre-nothingness”, so to speak) (IMA, 352–3/183–4). And this first negation is rooted in the transcendental freedom of consciousness. Thus, only a for-itself, who is a being-in-the-world, can imagine. And yet, as already pointed out, the imaginary attitude, unlike emotions or action, is directed towards a non-wordly exception with respect to which the world as a whole now appears as a nothingness. — Spontaneity. Third rule: while perception “appears to itself as passive”, an imaging consciousness gives itself to itself as an imaging consciousness, which is to say as a spontaneity that produces and conserves the object as imaged. It is a kind of indefinable counterpart to the fact that the object gives itself as a nothingness. (IMA, 35/14) In other words, on the one hand, a perceived thing, even if apprehended as having emotional qualities, is a pure form of transcendence (as opposed to the “transcendence in immanence”): “the mode of the percipi—Sartre says—is the passive (…). What is passivity? I am passive when I undergo a modification of which I am not the origin; that is, neither the source nor the creator” (BN, 24/lviii). In perception (or emotion), I reveal an existent in its being (real) and its being-such-and-such (being-achair, being-a-ferocious-beast, etc.), but I do not produce it: If we turn away from this landscape, it will sink back into its dark permanence. At least, it will sink back; there is no one mad enough to think that it is going to be annihilated. It is we who shall be annihilated, and the earth will remain in its lethargy until another consciousness comes along to awaken it. (WL, 46/48) By contrast, the imaginary object is indeed a case of transcendence in immanence: I am active, I am the creator of the object’s modifications. For my imaginatively given friend, Pierre is only insofar as and as long as I imagine it. As Sartre emphatically puts it, One can conceive of a creation on condition that the created being recover itself, tear itself away from the creator in order to close in on itself immediately and assume its being; it is in this sense that a book exists as distinct from its author. But if the act of creation is to be continued indefinitely, if the created being is to be supported even in its inmost parts, if it does not have its own independence, if it is in itself only nothingness-then the creature is in no way distinguished from its creator; it is absorbed in him; we are dealing with a false transcendence, and the creator cannot have even an illusion of getting out of his subjectivity. (BN, 25/lviii)

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(Feature #3). Imagination, as any conduct, is a freely-endorsed project. The situation here is analogous to action, which also implies a similar, though different, “double nihilation” (BN, 479/435): the worker “immersed in the historical situation […] does not even succeed in conceiving of the failures and lacks in a political organization or determined economy […] because he apprehends it in its plenitude of being and because he can not even imagine that he can exist in it otherwise”. He does not apprehend the real world as intolerable for he is still not able to give himself room, “imagine” the world otherwise (an ideal state of affairs as a nothingness with regard to the world), a possible world according to which the former appears, in turn, as lacking of something (the real world as a nothingness). Hence, it is only “after he has formed the project of changing the situation that it will appear intolerable to him” (BN, 479/434–5). Now, imagination, too, is a free project. For the imagining foritself gives himself room in relation to the real world by nihilating it, that is, making it appear as a nothingness with regard to an unworldly exception. The only difference lies in the fact that, in action, the ideal state of affairs appears as “a pure present nothingness” (BN, 479/435), namely as a really possible world, while an imaginary object is stricto sensu absent/irreal. Before we move forward to the last part of our study, let us go over the main points gathered so far: (Feature #1) The imaginary attitude is a relation between the for-itself and a transcendent being; (Feature #2) more precisely, it is a relation in which the transcendent being appears in accordance to a specific rule-governed mode of nihilation. And three rules govern the correlation within the imaginary attitude: 1 2

3

the phenomenon of quasi-observation: (poverty and certainty of the nonworldly imaginary object); the position of the object as given-absent (irreal: lack of belief; no exigence) on the basis of the transcendentally free negation of the world (an imaginary object is as being nothing of the world); spontaneity of imagination (transcendence in immanence).

(Feature #3) it is a project freely endorsed. It is time to see now, how the general scheme of the “imaginary attitude” is applied by Sartre, in WL, in order to account for the difference between: (a) the poetic and the prosaic attitudes, on the one hand; and (b) the attitudes of reading and writing on the other. This should finally justify our claim according to which Sartre’s phenomenology of narrative imagination is the basis from which it is possible to address ontological and metaphysical questions such as: “what is writing?” and “why write?”.

14.3 What is the attitude of narrative imagination? The first crucial point to be made, as already mentioned above in the introduction of this paper, is that, in WL, “imagination” is precisely what distinguishes poetry from prose.

272 Aurélien Djian More precisely, if we go along the same guiding thread followed so far, it will appear that poetry is to prose what perception is to imagination. Both poetry and prose deal with language, that is, with signs that somehow refer to something else that is exterior to the signs themselves (WL, 14/25). Accordingly, if emotion and action—though in different ways—equally engage the body within a freely endorsed project, poetry and prose—each in its own way—rather engage language. The way in which language operates in prose is analogous to the way in which the body operates as a pre-reflexive structure of the for-itself made for action,17 that is, as something that I am, the “prolongation of [my] senses, [my] pincers, [my] antennae, [my] spectacles” (WL, 19/30). Thus, the writer of prose “maneuvers”, as it were, words from within and transcends them towards the world. On the contrary, the poetic language derives from one of the ontological characters of the for-itself into “a structure of the external world” (WL, 19/30) and turns into a being-in-itself. As a result, while the writer of prose “feels the language from within”, as a non-worldly condition of the revelation of the world (just like my own body in perception, emotion and action18), “the poet is outside language” (WL, 20/30). Admittedly, in poetry, language does not lose its meaning, for “it is meaning alone which can give words their verbal unity. Without it they are frittered away into sounds and strokes of the pen” (WL, 19/29–30). Moreover, since they are signs, poetic words still refer like a mirror to something exterior to themselves, namely to other things in the world and, ultimately, to the poet himself (WL, 20–1/30–2). However, poetic words do not comply anymore to the centripetal structure of the for-itself, surpassing himself/herself towards the world, as panes of glass to be pierced at will, as to reach out the things signified. Poetic words are rather things in the midst of things, “natural things which sprout naturally upon the earth like grass and trees” (WL, 19/29). Therefore—qua things—words are perceived: they are observed (vs. the quasi-observation of imagination), the poet learns something about them, and they are overflowing (Feature #1): The poet is outside language. He sees the reverse side of words, as if he did not share the human condition and as if he were first meeting the word as a barrier as he comes towards men. Instead of first knowing things by their name, it seems that first he has a silent contact with them, since, turning towards that other species of thing which for him is the word, touching words, testing them, fingering them, he discovers in them a slight luminosity of their own and particular affinities with the earth, the sky, the water, and all created things. (WL, 20/30). Above all, there is always much more in each phrase, in each verse, as there is more than simple anguish in the yellow sky over Golgotha. The word, the phrase-

17 “By speaking, I reveal the situation by my very intention of changing it; I reveal it to myself and to others in order to change it. I strike at its very heart, I transfix it, and I display it in full view; at present I dispose of it; with every word I utter, I involve myself a little more in the world, and by the same token I emerge from it a little more, since I go beyond it towards the future. Thus, the prose-writer is a man who has chosen a certain method of secondary action which we may call action by disclosure” (WL, 28/37). 18 “The problem of language is exactly parallel to the problem of bodies, and the description which is valid in one case is valid in the other” (BN, 414/374).

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thing, inexhaustible as things, everywhere overflow the feeling which has produced them. (WL, 24/34) Since they are perceived as things, poetic words are also given-as-present (vs. given-asabsent). They are outside, in the world, like “all created things” (Feature #2). And this is also the reason why they involve some form of passivity (vs. spontaneity). The poet “encounters” them, “meets” them, but does not “create” them. Metaphorically speaking, he/she “turns towards” them, “touches” them, “tests” them and so on (Feature #3). However, if poetic words turn language into a specific kind of being-in-itself manifested in perception—and thus governed by rules that are analogous to the rules of perception—the writer of prose continues to transcend language and point signs towards the world—or, more precisely, toward imaginary objects. In fact, and this is a crucial point, in opposition to poetry, prose is an example of imagination. And here lies Sartre’s first diffraction of the concept of imagination. Now, if this is correct, one should expect to find Sartre describing the language of prose according to the same features governing every imaginary attitude. And this is exactly what happens in WL. — Quasi-observation. First rule: writing prose is explicitly described with the language used to describe the phenomenon of quasi-observation, that is, poverty and absolute certainty. Indeed, Sartre says, The operation of writing involves an implicit quasi-reading which makes real reading impossible. When the words form under his pen, the author doubtless sees them, but he does not see them as the reader does, since he knows them before writing them down. The function of his gaze is not to reveal, by brushing against them, the sleeping words which are waiting to be read, but to control the sketching of the signs. In short, it is a purely regulating mission, and the view before him reveals nothing except for slight slips of the pen. The writer neither foresees nor conjectures; he projects. It often happens that he awaits, as they say, the inspiration. But one does not wait for oneself the way one waits for others. If he hesitates, he knows that the future is not made, that he himself is going to make it, and if he still does not know what is going to happen to his hero, that simply means that he has not thought about it, that he has not decided upon anything. The future is then a blank page. (WL, 48–9/50–1). Quasi-reading is thus the special form taken by the phenomenon of quasi-observation when it comes to the writing of prose. Like in perception, each word (and each object that those words designate) is given to the writer by profiles and adumbrations; but it is not given as a thing in the world, that is, as overflowing, maintaining endless relations to other objects existing on the ground of the world (but not considered with attention yet). On the contrary, “I will never find anything there but what I put there” (IMA, 25/9). Therefore, there is no imaginary world of literature; I do not learn the objects I imagine and the words I write, I make them up in the course of writing. They cannot appear otherwise as they are, for they are “given immediately for what it is” (IMA, 24/9); and I cannot be surprised by what I quasi-read: “Proust never discovered the homosexuality of Charlus, since he had decided upon it even before starting on his book” (WL, 49/51).

274 Aurélien Djian — Absence. Second rule: If while writing a piece of prose I never find anything except what I put in it, then I posit the imaginary objects as being given “in the margin of the totality of the real” (IMA, 352/183), that is, as given-absent out of the world, as objects whose being I do not believe in (Dumas’ D’Artagnan is not in the world; and our real world is a D’Artagnan nothingness). Spontaneity. Third rule: More importantly, writing is a spontaneous act which involves objects as transcendences in immanence. As Sartre puts it, The writer meets everywhere only his knowledge, his will, his plans, in short, himself. He touches only his own subjectivity; the object he creates is out of reach; he does not create it for himself. He goes to the very limits of the subjective but without crossing it. (WL, 49/51) This is the precise point where Sartre’s analysis of attitudes meets the ontological and metaphysical problems we were interested in at the beginning: if each has its own reasons to write (for some, writing is a way of conquering, for others is a way to escape from reality), there must be “a deeper and more immediate choice which is common to all of us” (WL, 45/48). Something that explains why we conquer or we escape by writing (rather than by committing suicide or conquering by arms). And at this point, “ontology” already suggests an answer: one writes because one wants to be essential in relation to the being of the world, and because, in general, that is, in the practical-instrumental attitude, one is only the revealer of being. More precisely, one writes because one wants to be in-itself-for-itself, that is, be the one who produces the world in revealing it, or who reveals the world in producing it. But if writing is, indeed, a peculiar form of “imaginary attitude”, it alone is clearly not enough to fulfil this need which gives rise to it. When I write, I certainly produce something; but I only produce transcendences in immanence that I, as a writer, cannot reveal in the way I would reveal a thing. Since “it is our history, our love, our gaiety that we recognize in [our work]”, “we never receive from it that gaiety of love. We put them into it”; “when we seek to perceive our work, we create it again, we repeat mentally the operations which produced it”. In short, “in the perception, the object is given as the essential thing and the subject as the inessential. The latter seeks essentiality in the creation and obtains it, but then it is the object which becomes the inessential” (WL, 47–8/49–50). Thus, the question remains: how is the writer supposed to fulfil his desire to be initself-for-itself, producer as well as revealer of the being of the world? And this leads us to the second diffraction of the general concept of “imaginary conduct” and a second description of attitudes. For it is only after having described the imaginary attitude of reading (prose) that we will be able to have a satisfactory— phenomenological—answer to the metaphysical question “Why write”? As Sartre points out, The creative act is only an incomplete and abstract moment in the production of a work. If the author existed alone he would be able to write as much as he liked; the work as object would never see the light of day and he would either have to put down his pen or despair. But the operation of writing implies that of reading as its dialectical correlative and these two connected acts necessitate two distinct

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agents. It is the joint effort of author and reader which brings upon the scene that concrete and imaginary object which is the work of the mind. (WL, 49–50/51–2) Thus, the writer needs the reader “in order to make one’s self be recognized as essential to the totality of being” (WL, 67/65). Then again, how could the reader be of any help to fulfil the writer’s desperate desire of recognition? Sartre’s answer is quite straightforward: it is only the conduct of reading that makes the writer’s work exist as an object—providing an objective existence to something the writer can never be in contact with, because of that phenomenon of quasi-reading involved in writing. Hence, reading written prose must be something like perceiving transcendent things. And since in this very specific case, reading is providing intuitive givenness to the imaginary object itself, then reading itself must be considered as a special form of imagining. In short, as Sartre puts it, Reading seems (…) to be the synthesis of perception and creation. It posits the essentiality of both the subject and the object. The object is essential because it is strictly transcendent, because it imposes its own structures, and because one must wait for it and observe it; but the subject is also essential because it is required not only to disclose the object (that is, to make it possible for there to be an object) but also so that this object might exist absolutely (that is, to produce it). In a word, the reader is conscious of disclosing in creating, of creating by disclosing. (WL, 50/52) Reading is not, however, and cannot be a mix of perception and imagination. Each attitude, as we have seen, is governed by rules specific to it. And if reading is an attitude, it cannot be governed by two distinct and contradictory sets of rules. As Sartre had put it already in The Imaginary, I cannot perceive and at the same time imagine one and the same thing: I can either perceive it or imagine it.19 Recast within the ontological framework of BN, this implies that perception and imagination each have its own mode of manifestation of the Being of the phenomenon. Accordingly, if “reading” is a conduct that diffracts or specifies the constitutive rules of imagination, it could, at best, “look like” or be somehow “analogous” to perception—but it cannot comply, in part or as a whole, to the constitutive rules of perception. While I read Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, I do not perceive Athos, Porthos or D’Artagnan: not only do I posit them as given-absent of the world (since I do not believe in their existence), but also they are given in a way that is entirely different from the way in which perceptual things are given (as overflowing, maintaining relations with a ground of worldly existent things to which I can always turn my attention etc.). Moreover, they all display that distinctive poverty of the image, for there is nothing more in Dumas’s novel than what Dumas puts inside it. Thus, there is no answer to the question: “what happened in Marseille during the events narrated in The Three Musketeers?”. Or, differently put, no true or false judgement could ever be able to express this state of affairs. Thus, “reading”, though analogous to, is not

19 Imaginary objects, Sartre says, “exist only in so far as they are thought. This is what is incomprehensible for all those who consider the image a reborn perception. Indeed, it is not at all a question of a difference in intensity, but rather the objects of the world of images could in no way exist in the world of perception; they do not meet the necessary conditions” (IMA, 26/10).

276 Aurélien Djian identical with “perceiving”, for it is structured according to the constitutive rules of a completely different “project” or “conduct”: reading is imagining. And yet one should also add that it is a special form of imagining. Since I am not the one whose imagination has originally produced Athos or D’Artagnan (Dumas’s imagination did it, through the very act of writing), while reading the novel, I can only encounter imaginary objects appearing to me as “to-be-learnt”. In other words, not only The Three Musketeers are given by profiles, but the profiles are somehow “observed” through the process of reading. Such “observation”, however, should rather be called “faked-observation”, as opposed to both the “actual observation” of perception and the “quasi-observation” of sheer non-narrative imagination. D’Artagnan’s arrival in Paris does not overflow or maintain infinitely pre-given relations with other existents in the “world” of The Three Musketeers. It only shows the relations Dumas writes about. Thus, I cannot freely turn my attention towards indeterminate elements that, for the moment, simply appear as parts of the background of something actually observed. In the novel, things are exactly how they appear to be, namely in the way in which the narrator writes about them. And yet, we nonetheless learn about what D’Artagnan actually did when he arrived in Paris for the first time—and we learn it by reading; we foresee and make conjectures about probable events that could finally turn out to be otherwise than they seemed to be at first, and so on. Accordingly, D’Artagnan’s adventures are at once events that I reveal—for, when I read “I undergo a modification of which I am not the origin; that is, neither the source nor the creator” (BN, 24/lviii)—and events that I create—for there are no adventures if I do not imagine them: D’Artagnan is not a “given-present thing” that is even if I am not here to manifest it (WL, 45–48) but a “given-absent nothingness” that needs the spontaneity of imagination in order to be. This is a decisive point and, as such, it is imperative to spell it out as carefully as possible. What does Sartre say exactly about the twofold character (producing/revealing) of reading intended as a specific form of imaginary attitude? Imagination is a necessary condition to create the literary object, because reading does not boil down to a series of impressions made by signs upon me, “as light does on a photographic plate” (WL, 50/52); quite the opposite, I must create the imaginary “world” (not unlike the perceptual thing, appearing as being-such-and-such only insofar as I transcend its finite appearances toward the infinite reason of the series) by surpassing “the hundred thousand words aligned in a book” towards the meaning of the work and its imaginary “world”, considered as an organic totality (totalité organique). Hence, Sartre says, “the literary object, though realized through language, is never given in language. On the contrary, it is by nature a silence and an opponent of the word” (WL, 51/52). This transcendence, one must note, is an endless transcendence. Admittedly, this “silence (…) is really the goal at which the author is aiming, [even if] he has, at least, never been familiar with it”; but if the silence I produce in reading is the object that only appears to the writer as a transcendence in immanence, “at the very interior of this object there are more silences—what the author does not say (ce que l’auteur ne dit pas)” (WL, 51/53). Hence, Sartre adds, To say that they are unexpressed is hardly the word; for they are precisely the inexpressible. And that is why one does not come upon them at any definite moment in the reading; they are everywhere and nowhere. The quality

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of the marvelous in Le Grand Meaulnes, the greatness of Armance, the degree of realism and truth of Kafka’s mythology, these are never given. The reader must invent them all in a continual (perpétuel) exceeding of the written thing. (WL, 51–2/53). Sartre can finally draw the following conclusion: For the reader, all is to do and all is already done; the work exists only at the exact level of his capacities; while he reads and creates, he knows that he can always go further in his reading, can always create more profoundly, and thus the work seems to him as inexhaustible and opaque as things. We would readily reconcile that ‘rational intuition’ which Kant reserved to divine Reason with this absolute production of qualities, which, to the extent that they emanate from our subjectivity, congeal before our eyes into impenetrable objectivities. (WL, 52–3/54) Here lies the paradoxical structure of narrative imagination. Transcending the passively received clues—“discontinuously” dropped here and there by the imagination of the writer—the endless “continuous” imagination of the reader is, at the same time, creation of a definite non-worldly object, an object that appears as inexhaustible as a worldly one. In the object of narrative imagination there is nothing more than what I put and, at the same time, there is always more, infinitely more, that I could possibly put into it. This is why reading is analog to Kant’s concept of “rational intuition”: it creates what it receives or receives what it creates. And this is precisely the ontological goal of the writer: he/she intends to fulfil his/her desire of being foritself-in-itself as if by proxy, by interposed imagination. He/she wants to be the one who can say that the “world” the reader reveals/creates as an object is due to him/her. That he/she is essential in relation to this world because, by proxy, he/she is the foundation of its being as well as of its nothingness, namely of its manifestation.

14.4 Conclusion Sartre’s move in BN, according to which the answer to the metaphysical (“why?) and the ontological (“what?”) questions has to be grounded on the basis of a phenomenological “how?”, is of great philosophical significance. By rejecting Kant’s account of “phenomenon” and replacing it by the “phenomenon of Being/trans-phenomenal Being of consciousness” correlation, Sartre points out that any answer to the ontological question of the “what?” can only be clarified by unfolding a set of correlative “attitudes” towards the world. This fundamental intuition is extended on WL as to include the question: “what is writing?” (poetic attitude vs. literary, prose attitude). And this move is tantamount to claiming that ontology can only be carried out phenomenologically—hence the concept of “attitude” discussed in the first part of this chapter—a concept that, though often unnoticed, lies at the heart of Sartre’s philosophy. Rejecting Kant’s phenomenon/noumenon distinction and replacing it by a new theory of the phenomenon not only brings Sartre to the idea of tracing back ontological questions to descriptions of attitudes (“what is writing?” → “how do we come to posit something as being-prose or being-poetry?”) but also allows metaphysical questions (Why?) to be rephrased as legitimate parts of a full-fledged philosophical

278 Aurélien Djian inquiry, and ultimately provides new means to answer them. Admittedly, ontology provides the foundations of metaphysics. It is indeed a contingent fact that human beings write novels, tales, stories and the like. And yet there is a deep ontological reason for this. Human beings do so on the basis of their own mode of being, out of their desire to be causa sui. Now, in the present study, we have tried to show that the only clarification of how we fulfil our metaphysical desire in writing (prose) is, again, to describe phenomenologically the writer’s and the reader’s attitudes as a relation of various interposed imaginations. Hence, Sartre’s phenomenology of narrative imagination displayed in WL? turns out to be a “science” of a new kind, whose richness still needs to be fully appreciated. It is a description of attitudes or correlations (“how?”), forming the ground from which any ontological (“what?”, namely “what is writing (in the case of prose)?”) or metaphysical (“why?”, namely “why writing (in the case of prose)?”) matters can, by their turn, be clarified. And here, regardless of any relations Sartre still maintains with other kinds of phenomenology—including Heidegger’s—and notwithstanding his own protests, we should safely admit that his account of attitudes culminating in his complex description of the attitude of narrative imagination is precisely what makes Sartre’s phenomenology in general, and his phenomenology of literature in particular, deeply Husserlian. But this would be the subject of a different study.

References Bonnemann, Jens. “Sartre and the Role of Imagination in Mutual Understanding”, in Imagination and Social Perspectives. Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology, edited by M. Summa, T. Fuchs and L. Vanzago, 155–166. New York: Routledge, 2017. De Coorebyter, Vincent. “De Husserl à Sartre. La structure intentionnelle de l’image dans L’Imagination et L’Imaginaire” Methodos 12 (2012). Elpidorou, Andreas. “Horror, Fear, and the Sartrean Account of Emotions” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 54/2 (2016): 209–225. Majolino, Claudio. “A Kind of Magic’. Emotion, Imagination, Language” Research in Phenomenology, 51, 2 (2021): 200–220. Masselot, Nathanaël. “L’ontologie sartrienne est-elle une phénoménologie transcendantale? Imagination et constitution” Methodos 12 (2012): 1–30. Natanson, Maurice. A Critique of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Ontology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Qu’est-ce que la littérature? Paris: Gallimard, 2008. English translation: What is Literature? and Other Essays, trans. S. Ungar. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Sartre, Jean-Paul. L’Être et le Néant. Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. English translation: Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological Essay on Ontology, trans. H. E. Barnes. New-York: Pocket Books, 1978. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Esquisse d’une théorie des émotions. Paris: Hermann, 1995. English translation: Sketch for a Theory of Emotions, trans. P. Mairet. London: Methuen & Co, 1962. Sartre, Jean-Paul. L’imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination. Paris: Gallimard, 2005. English translation: The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination, trans.J. Webber. London-New-York: Routledge, 2004. De Warren, Nicolas. “Eyes Wild Shut. Sartre’s Phenomenology of Dreaming” in Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology. Conceptual and Empirical Approaches, edited by D. O. Dahlstrom, A. Elpidorou and W. Hopp, 224–246. New-York: Routledge, 2016.

Part III

In review

15 Review of S. Centrone, Studien zu Bolzano (Sankt Augustin: Akademia Verlag, 2015) Hynek Janoušek

Stefania Centrone’s book Studien zu Bolzano, published in 2015, is a collection of six German written articles dealing mostly with Bolzano’s logic and previously published in several journals. The number of texts is expanded to seven by a new study on Bolzano’s concept of logical consequence. The essays in the book can be read individually and there is some repetition in the expositions, since the topics of the essays partially overlap. It hardly needs mentioning that the book targets mainly Bolzano scholars. However, by contrasting Bolzano’s ideas with the kindred conceptions of his predecessors and followers, such as Leibniz and Husserl, it will also be of interest to philosophers working in the field of the history and the philosophy of logic as well as, in some of its parts, to Husserl scholars. From the standpoint of Bolzano scholarship, the book offers substantial discussions of Bolzano’s early views on logic and proper method of mathematics in his early Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics (1810). In the following, I will discuss the essays in a slightly different order from the one offered by the book, as it allows for a smoother exposition of the interconnected topics.1 Bolzano’s Contributions are discussed in the first essay right from the beginning. For Bolzano, the proper method of mathematics is the method of proper scientific treatment of all objective regions. Its aim is to present a strictly objective nexus of logical relations of grounds and consequences holding between objective truths about objects.2 Bolzano, as is known, interprets these truths as propositions in themselves, even though—as Centrone points out—he did not have the terminology in place in 1810 and talked instead about judgment contents (p. 17). Both in the Contributions and in his first mathematical work (1804), Bolzano demands that a strict proof is given for every non-axiomatic truth, no matter how simple and evident it may seem to be. He further demands that these truths follow only from the concepts that are contained in them. Otherwise, the foundation becomes a metábasis eis állo génos.3

1 In footnotes the reader will also find references to passages of Husserl’s work that are relevant to the discussions of Centrone’s book. They came to mind as I was reading it. 2 As is known, this view will be taken up by Husserl and his conception of pure logic in the Logical Investigations; see E. Husserl, Logical Investigations, Vol. I. (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 144–147. 3 This Greek expression made a deep impression on Husserl, who had read Bolzano’s Contributions with interest. With respect to Bolzano, Husserl employs it a stricter way in connection to foundational mistakes of higher kind, as it were, in which not only a founding concept but also a relevant ontological region is “eis állo génos.”

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-18

282 Hynek Janoušek Finally, the logical proofs should always go from general to particular truths as well as from less to more complex ones. These teachings of Bolzano offer Centrone an opportunity to discuss Bolzano’s early views on the notions of concept and judgment (proposition). Some of these views, such as his views on negative concepts, possible judgments, or Bolzano’s early and more Kantian sounding positions on analytic propositions, are less known to general public. It is interesting to see that Bolzano, for a short while, toyed with the terminology of ideal existence (p. 30) before he aligned “existence” with reality (Wirklichkeit) and opted for a more neutral talk of “es gibt” according to which there are also things that neither exist nor are real. Bolzano’s treatment of possible judgments and his argument for treating the “possible” as a part of the copula is also remarkable (pp. 30–32). It is perhaps a pity that the book does not go into the historical context and further philosophical explications of these early views, but the goal of the essay, as well as of the book as a whole, is to explain Bolzano’s logic, which is presented (in the first essay and throughout the book) by means of settheoretic notation. Accordingly, in the first essay, considerably more space is given to the explication of Bolzano’s understanding of four formally valid figures of simple logical inferences. In addition to the traditional Barbara-figure, Bolzano introduces a form in which the predicates of the premises are unified in the predicate of the conclusion by the “and” operator, and a form in which the same operator unifies the predicates of the premises in the predicate of the conclusion. He also adds a weaker Barbara-form in which the conclusion follows from a possible judgment. So from “Every man is mortal” and “A man born on Mars is possible”4 follows that “A man born on Mars is mortal.” The existence deduced here is an ideal existence and not (at least not yet) a real one. However, there are also ambivalences and weaker points. Centrone points out that Bolzano’s logic is not able to satisfy the principles according to which consequences should be founded in their grounds. Bolzano states the principles mentioned earlier only after he attempts to prove that there are first grounding propositions (Grundsätze) which necessarily have simple concepts as subjects and predicates. Among these principles, the one that prohibits a proof from concepts that are not properly included in the concept of a subject or of a predicate of the premises seems to be flawed: for, it requires that a mediating concept grounding an affirmative conclusion in the premises be not wider than the subject concept and that it be narrower then the predicate concept. Centrone shows that all the figures of the syllogism—with the exception of the Barbara-figure if it is read in a way that does not make two principles above redundant—violate this requirement. The discussion of Bolzano’s Contributions continues in the second essay, which tackles Bolzano’s treatment of arguments via reductio ad absurdum. Bolzano’s method prohibits him from using such arguments in proving a ground-consequence relations between true propositions, as they presuppose a false premise and a negative proposition, which always must be proved indirectly. Hence, they do not prove a proposition directly, as would be methodically required. However, Bolzano tries to

4 In her transcription, Centrone treats possibility as a predicate rather than as a part of the copula—as on the contrary seems to be suggested by Bolzano.

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argue that these arguments can be transformed into direct and acceptable ones. As a consequence, he differentiates between: (1) a reduction in which the proof consists in showing that there is a contradiction with what we know to be true (S is C) by denying (S is not P) what we want to prove (S is P); and (2) a reduction in which a presupposed negation (S is not P) contradicts itself, thereby proving the truth of S is P and its own falsehood. The latter has been sometimes called “amazing consequence” (consequentia mirabilis). Centrone shows that in the first case, Bolzano’s claim concerning the possible transformation of all of these reductions into direct arguments does not hold. If we argue for a negative conclusion from its negation, we will not be able to get rid of a negative proposition while proving the consequence. Moreover, Bolzano’s procedure relies on the validity of the law of contraposition, which is not generally true in systems with existential import, as is the case with Bolzano’s logic. Indeed, in such systems universal propositions, for example, “All witches are women,” are true only if their subject concept is not empty. In the second case of the so called consequentia mirabilis, Bolzano claims that what we have is not a reduction ad absurdum, but rather a dilemma in which we accept either that S is P is true—which is what we aimed at in the first place—or that it is false. Now, if the latter is taken in conjunction with the premise of the consequentia mirabilis (¬(S is P)→S is P), it also states that S is P by the mere application of the modus ponens. In both cases, the conclusion S is P is true and this procedure presents, according to Bolzano, a direct proof (pp. 87–88). Even much later, in his Theory of Science, Bolzano does not change much in his view of apagogic arguments. Centrone gives a detailed and formalized explication of Bolzano’s procedure of transforming indirect apagogic arguments into standard direct ones. She shows why Bolzano fails and then attributes this failure to a possible over-generalization of a particular case of such transformations (pp. 103–106). Bolzano’s assessment of the consequentia mirabilis (CM) is similar. In both works, Bolzano tackles Christian Wolff’s acceptance of CM (1679–1754) and Johann Heinrich Lambert’s (1728–1777) refusal of it. Lambert’s rejection of CM and Bolzano’s critique of it is addressed in the sixth essay of the volume as well. Here we can see that the dismissal of such rejection of CM was quite essential for Bolzano’s philosophy, for a strong version of CM5 is used by Bolzano in his anti-skeptical proof according to which there is at least one true proposition and that, as a consequence, if there is one, then there are infinitely many true propositions. However, according to Lambert, CM violates the principle of identity. In order to prove that A is not B from A is B, one has to state that B is C, C is D (D is E etc.), and that D is not B (E is not B etc.), yet this implies that B is not B. It is therefore impossible to start with a proposition and reach its contradictory opposite by a series of logically valid deductions. Bolzano disagrees. In his anti-skeptical example (see p. 238), he rephrases the strong version of CM as a modus Barbara in the following, rough way. Every

5 The strong version of CM attempts to prove p from ¬ p, whereas the weak one ¬ p from p. While the weak version is universally accepted, the strong one is valid only for those kinds of logical systems that accept the disputed law of double negation (¬ ¬p → p).

284 Hynek Janoušek proposition is false. “Every propositions is false” is a proposition. Therefore, it is false that every proposition is false. According to Bolzano, Lambert falsely presupposes that the conceptual elements with respect to which we can deduce “A is not B” from “A is B” are the same as those in the contradicting conclusion. However, this is not the case, as we have deduced the conclusion from three conceptual elements while the conclusion contradicts the premise in only two of them. Since Bolzano considers the conclusion to be true, he controversially considers the first premise of the argument to be false. We have therefore deduced a true proposition from a false one and thus avoided deducing a contradiction of two true propositions from true premises by a series of valid deductions. This, for Bolzano, is a logically acceptable result. As Bolzano also accepts that “if p is true” then a different proposition, “the proposition that p is true,” is true, he can rely on the anti-skeptical argument plus induction to prove that there are infinitely many true propositions. This treatment of CM, Centrone holds, testifies to Bolzano’s strategy that consists in regarding all grammatically correct sentences—including those that predicate their own truth value about themselves—as logically acceptable propositions and as either true or false. This, as Centrone also shows, sets Bolzano against those traditional approaches (like Savonarola’s) which either claim that self-referential sentences (e.g. “This is not a sentence”) are not proper sentences or that they are neither true nor false. Bolzano optimistic treatment of the Liar’s paradox and the like—which he understands as paralogisms based on the confusion of proper meanings of seemingly contradictory propositions—clearly shows how much he underestimated the gravity of the whole problem of the contradictory self-reference in logic. The fourth essay is the longest and is published here for the first time. It gives a detailed overview and analysis of Bolzano’s concept of logical consequence and compares it to a similar theory that was independently developed by Alfred Tarski. As is usual in overviews of Bolzano’s logic, the text first discusses Bolzano’s ingenious application of the variational technique in his theory of concept and proposition. As regards concepts, Centrone considers its application to the determination of overfilled concepts, in the variations of the indexical parts of a concept, and in the relations between concepts with respect to their extension (conceptual compatibility, incompatibility, subordination, etc.). She then moves on to examining the same method in a propositional context and with respect to propositional truth and falsehood. As is known, Bolzano uses this technique to classify the propositions and the relations holding between them. Centrone first examines the relation of compatibility among relations. A group of propositions is compatible with respect to their chosen variable parts, if there is a group of concepts that can fill the variable parts in such a manner that all the propositions in the group are true. Centrone goes into a detailed consideration of how this claim could be possibly formalized (e.g., the compatibility can be treated as a relation or as an absolute property). She then offers a formalized description of some various properties of compatibility (i.e., symmetricity, reciprocity and others) and discusses some ambiguous or counter-intuitive claims of Bolzano’s theory.6

6 For example, if we treat all the parts of a proposition, including the “logical form,” as variables, then—on condition that the variations comply with laws of proper logical syntax—any group of propositions will be compatible.

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A similar treatment is given to Bolzano’s definition of derivability. Roughly put: a proposition N is derivable from a proposition (or from a group of propositions) M, when all the concepts filling certain chosen variable conceptual parts of M and N, which make M true, make N true as well. Yet, again there are some ambiguities about how we should treat the variability and compatibility of propositions that are presupposed by this definition. In her formalized discussion, Centrone follows some of the hints from Bolzano and Rolf George,7 and therefore applies Bolzano’s treatment of enthymematic arguments to materially valid arguments with an unexpressed premise. The truth of these arguments depends on fixed, and invariable concepts that do not belong to logic.8 She also introduces Bolzano’s concept of strict derivability, and compares his conception of derivability with the one offered by Tarski. Tarski has shown that there are special circumstances in which the condition for derivability set by Bolzano can be fulfilled, and yet the result goes against our intuitive understanding of the logical consequence. To avoid this result, the concept of derivability has to be tied to a formalized language with fixed set of individual objects and one-to-one mapping of singular names with individuals, and predicates with nonempty subsets of individuals. Centrone does not say whether Bolzano’s own concept derivability operating in the realm of natural language can be defended against Tarski’s analysis. However, the Bolzanian approach, she holds, has at least one advantage. Since it allows for variation of only some non-logical concepts (constants), while the others can be treated as fixed or “locked,” it can be used to formally capture enthymematic arguments (p. 207). In her study on the concept of grounding in Bolzano and the early Husserl (in the third essay of the book) Centrone pays attention to Bolzano’s and Husserl’s view on the difference between the relation of logical derivability and logical grounding. Following Leibniz, Bolzano introduced the concept of grounding to capture the objective, subject-independent structure of truths in which some true propositions are objective grounds or reasons for the truth of other propositions. This is a core idea of Bolzano’s philosophy and he already expressed it in his Contributions (p. 118), where is is said that the authentic goal of any proper science is to present the objective order of propositions that are true of its relevant objective region. Obviously, this is an idea that reappeared in Husserl’s conception of scientific endeavor as is described in his Prolegomena to a Pure Logic. However, Husserl goes one step further, as he points out the ontological correlate of the order of truths in the objective order of things in themselves (an sich). According to Bolzano, Centrone claims, there are some important differences between the two concepts. In proving formal derivability, we aim at proving that one proposition follows from another; in proving the relation of grounding, we aim at answering the objective question of why a proposition is true. Proofs of the first kind establish certainty and are thus

7 R. George, “Bolzano’s Concept of Consequence,” Journal of Philosophy, 83, 1986, 558–564: 561. 8 Husserl’s rather cryptic definition of analytic and synthetic (or “material,” as he says) a priori and a posteriori laws in his third Logical Investigation derives the method of variation, which is used to determine them, from Bolzano. See E. Husserl, Logical Investigations. Vol. II, (London and New York: Routledge 2001, 20–22. If Husserl had clearly pointed his source, he could have spared himself a lot of misunderstanding by Kantian minded readers.

286 Hynek Janoušek “Gewissmachungen,” whereas proofs of the second kind establish objective grounds and are thus “Begründungen.” In the Theory of Science, Bolzano gives further specifications of the relation of grounding. Such relation is irreflexive, asymmetrical, intransitive, functional (every given ground offers only one grounding or ground entailment [Abfolge]), injective (every given grounding [Abfolge] has only one set of grounds), there can be first ground, which are not themselves groundings of different grounds, but every proposition can serve as a conclusion of a premise in a formally valid argument. Finally, it is a non-monotonic relation (pp. 128–131). After presenting Bolzano’s stance on proofs of grounding (see the discussion at the beginning of this review), Centrone compares Husserl’s and Bolzano’s views on proofs in axiomatic sciences. Traditionally, as basic concepts in axiomatic systems should be immediately understandable, the axioms are deemed self-evident. While Husserl, Centrone claims, accepts the evidence of axioms from which the theorems are proved, Bolzano rejects both these traditional requirements. Ground concepts cannot be defined directly but only by means of a group of indirect descriptions. Furthermore, axioms are often less evident then the theorems which follow from them. I am not sure whether the difference between Bolzano and Husserl concerning evidence is as substantial as it might seem based on Centrone’s arguments. Bolzano seems to use the concept of evidence in a psychological sense, not epistemologically, allowing for grades of evidence and pointing out its empirical conditioning. His views bear on mathematics. Here, Husserl’s Hilbertian views concerning formal axiomatic theories, for example, formal geometry,9 might be more relevant to the discussion than the Prolegomena’s general descriptions of the sciences (for Husserl even natural sciences like physics are deductive sciences in the sense presented in the Prolegomena). Moreover, for Husserl, the appeal to evidence does not make redundant the proof of a groundable truth within formal axiomatic systems. Quite the contrary, such requirement of formal validity of truths and the purely formal, symbolic treatment of mathematical knowledge represents a radical difference between the natural, and intuitive treatment of mathematical knowledge proper to the tradition and the formal, non-intuitive axiomatic systems that pertains to the completely new, and more advanced style of mathematical theories. The last two essays offer insights into Bolzano’s theory of concept. Bolzano famously rejected the old dictum about the inverse relation between the content and the extension of a concept.10 According to the traditional doctrine, as represented in modern times by Leibniz, Kant, and partially accepted by Frege (p. 210), the more content a concept has the smaller is its extension and vice versa. This implies that subordinated concepts have less extension then the more general concepts of kinds and categories under which they stand. Centrone points out that in his Contributions Bolzano still subscribed to this view. This, however, creates tension within his system, since he also maintained that when we deal with simple concepts, such as a concept “point,” we are not able to determine

9 E.g. E. Husserl, Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), 486–489. 10 Centrone acknowledges that Bolzano’s use of the word “extension” is not completely clear, as it can be interpreted in set-theoretical terms or in mereologically. She prefers the former interpretation (see 226).

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a specific conceptual part that separates this concept from its genus, e.g. “spatial object.”11 In his Theory of Science Bolzano changed his mind about the inverse content-extension relationship. First, it is possible to form pleonastic, overfilled concept, such as “three-sided triangle,” which are richer but have the same extension as their non-pleonastic counterparts, for example, the concept “triangle.” Second, Bolzano maintains that the conceptual content can be formed within the concept in different ways, for example, by disjunction. Thus, we can form concepts such as “A speaker of German or Italian,” which clearly contradict the traditional view.12 Third, he upholds his teaching concerning the simplicity of some subordinated concepts. The last essay of Centrone’s book scrutinizes Bolzano’s distinction between clear and obscure ideas on the one hand, and that between distinct and confused ideas on the other hand, thereby comparing such distinctions with the corresponding ones in Leibniz. By ideas (Vorstellungen) Bolzano means here subjective ideas, that is real “inherences” (Adhärenzen) that belong to and are individualized by the subject to which they inhere. The irrelative contents (Gehalten) of these ideas are the objective ideas (Vorstellungen an sich). Centrone goes through a long argument to show the motivation behind Bolzano’s definition of a clear idea. An idea is clear at a certain moment, only if we have an intuition of this idea at that moment. By intuition, Bolzano means a simple and singular idea “this.” According to Bolzano, it is a fact that we have such intuitions. Some of our ideas are clear, that is, inwardly perceived. However, this cannot be the case for all our ideas. Since an intuition is itself an idea different from the idea that is intuited in it, then the claim there is a universal inner perception of all our ideas would result in an infinite regress. Some of our presentations have to be obscure or “unconscious.”13 This being pointed out, if we replace “ideas” with “judgments” we get Bolzano’s definition of clear judgments. Moreover, Bolzano differentiates distinct and indistinct ideas. Our ideas are distinct when we know the parts of their contents and when we know the way in which these parts are combined. However, according to this definition, as Bolzano notes, all simple ideas would have to be treated as indistinct. He therefore expands his definition so that simple ideas—when we know them to be simple—count as distinct too. Distinctiveness implies clearness,14 but whereas clearness does not have grades (ideas are either clear or obscure), distinctiveness does. Since parts can themselves consists of parts, and these can be, in turn, distinct or indistinct, the more parts of the content we can distinguish, the more distinct our idea will be. We have reached the highest

11 Interestingly, this is accepted by Husserl in his third Logical Investigation as well, see E. Husserl, Logical Investigations. Vol. II, 4. 12 It would be interesting to relate this passage to Husserl’s early critique of Bolzano’s example. As Husserl would say, this kind of examples work because they rely on a definition of the conceptual content that is wider than the one traditionally assumed (E. Husserl, Logik. Vorlesung 1896, Hua-Mat I (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 124–125). 13 Surprisingly, the book does not notice that, if viewed from more contemporary perspectives, these arguments make Bolzano a defender of the so-called higher theory of consciousness, with all the problems associated with it. In this respect, there would be room for further discussing and relating Bolzano to contemporary discussions on the matter.. 14 Centrone argues that Bolzano’s account of such implication is problematic and would need to be understood as related to a particular moment in time, as we can correctly judge that such and such idea has such and such parts without intuiting that idea’s content in the very same moment we are making the judgment (284).

288 Hynek Janoušek possible grade of distinctiveness possible for a particular idea as all its simple parts are distinct. Bolzano labels those complex ideas that are not distinct obscure ideas (verworrene Vorstellungen). Since by his definitions, Bolzano is intentionally modifying Leibniz’s ideas, Centrone offers a detailed analysis also of relevant texts by Leibniz, notably, the Nouveaux Essais and the Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et Ideis. It is surprisingly difficult to understand what the bearers of clarity and distinctness would be for Leibniz, as he employs plenty of synonymous terms (cognitions, notions, propositions, ideas etc.). Some of his quotes suggest that by an idea (cognition, notion etc.), he means a disposition or capacity to recognize an object. According to Leibniz, we have a clear idea of an object, if we can recognize and thus differentiate it from all other objects; otherwise, our idea is obscure. If we also know the marks that distinguish the object from other objects, we obtain a distinct idea of that object. Otherwise, our idea is confused. Centrone points out that Bolzano considers “clearness” as an internal property of the ideas, while for Leibniz, it consists of a relation between an idea and its object. In his critique of Leibniz’s notion of clear ideas, Bolzano shows that it is not clear what “object” is supposed to mean here. If the notion of object is understood as the object of an idea, then all objectless ideas, as well as most universal ideas, would have to count as unclear. Which seems absurd. Bolzano therefore suggests that we take “object” to be that to which the ideas of predicates are related while making a judgment (p. 300). Now, since for Bolzano, the differentiation of one thing from another already implies the knowledge of the differentiating marks, then what follows is a sort of intellectualization, as it were, of Leibniz’s view. Hence, Leibniz’s clear ideas fall on the side of what Bolzano calls distinct ideas. Leibniz frames his definition of clear ideas based on sensory perception, which is often obscure in his own sense of the expression; yet, this allows for a much safer identifications and differentiation among sensory objects. Finally, Bolzano criticizes Leibniz’s clarifications of the concept of distinct idea for confusing properties of ideas with properties of things. This critique is partially justified, yet it is possible, as Centrone does not fail to point out, to come across passages where both groups of properties are clearly differentiated. It is therefore not easy to evaluate Bolzano’s critique of Leibniz, as it mostly stems from the difference between the basic presuppositions underlying the two systems and from certain ambivalences of Leibniz’s thought (rather than from some obvious mistakes on Leibniz’s part). Let us mention that Centron’s book also tackles a great amount of issues and problems, especially with respect to the possible formalization of Bolzano’s views, which could not be mentioned here. Hopefully, our overview has made it clear that the essays published in the book provide interesting insights into selected teachings of Bolzano’s logic, their development, historical background and relevance for contemporary discussions. Accordingly, the book is a valuable resource for whoever is already familiar with Bolzano’s logic and also wants to expand their knowledge in this area.

16 Review of G. E. Rosado Haddock (Ed.), Husserl and Analytic Philosophy (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016) Francesco Pisano

Husserl and Analytic Philosophy is a collection of essays and documents published by De Gruyter in 2016 and edited by a renowned Husserl’s scholar, G. E. Rosado Haddock. The Editor’s Introduction begins by speaking of analytic philosophy in the past tense (p. 1). This stylistic choice sets up the tone of the whole volume. As the twentieth-century mainstream distinction between analytic and continental philosophy seems to lay itself more open to systematic re-examination, the issues that animated both traditions can be eventually rediscovered, today, as connected or even convergent. Husserl and Analytic Philosophy undertakes this task through a series of lively confrontations between Husserl’s phenomenological project and some traditional issues of analytic philosophy, such as the nature of the relation between meaning and truth, the verification of judgments and the analytic/synthetic distinction that concerns them. The volume focuses, with few exceptions, on the so-called early Husserl: the authors refer to works ranging from the Philosophie der Arithmetik to the first book of Ideen, including Husserl’s first logical writings (published in Husserliana XXII) and the Logische Untersuchungen. For what concerns analytic philosophy, the volume builds upon a quite specific conception of it, namely, the one represented by Frege, Carnap and Tarski. Thus, the actual goal of the book consists in initiating and deepening a dialogue between Husserl’s early logical inquiries and what is nowadays generally deemed the beginning of modern logic. As the Editor swiftly recognizes (p. 10), such approach is far from offering a complete account of all the potential affinities and complementarities between Husserl’s lifelong work and the many varieties of analytic philosophy. There are, however, some methodological hints that pave the way for the future development and enrichment of this broader conciliatory enterprise. Instead of dealing with the work of Frege, Carnap and Tarski as one organic and homogenous whole, the authors highlight various exemplary theoretical issues, addressing their complex and hybrid genesis. This is especially evident in the case of Carnap’s Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, whose more or less hidden phenomenological background is a recurring theme in many of the essays. In general, the authors show a deep familiarity with both traditions and avoid looking at analytic philosophy as an undifferentiated unity. For the same reason, they tend to stress the internal variety of Husserl’s work rather than its continuity. In many cases, this is done by contrasting the early Husserl with his later understanding of phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy (e. g., p. 3 and p. 83). DOI: 10.4324/b23065-19

290 Francesco Pisano Accordingly, the volume is characterized by a careful selection of which Husserl and which analytic philosophy should enter in dialogue. Most essays take a specific, focused stance on the relation between Husserlian and analytic themes. Looking for a common thread among them, it is worth observing that the thematic choices implied in this pluralistic approach mostly conform to the “West Coast” readings of Husserl’s work. The volume could be even read as an implicitly “West Coast”oriented answer to Cobb-Stevens’ “East Coast” interpretation of the relation between Husserl and analytic philosophy in his homonymous 1990 book. However, its main strenght still lies in its internal pluralism and open structure. It derives from this openness and from the active, and often explicit stance-taking on the part of the authors – which also represents, to a certain extent, its limits. In short, the book stands out as a choral work. Hence, beyond the common inspiration and the logic-oriented perspective, the essays offer a variety of approaches and ambitions. Besides the Editor’s introduction and two useful indexes, the volume presents three main parts. The first part focuses on questioning which logical concerns from the early Husserl are shared by the analytic tradition. It avoids, however, the risk of reducing Husserl’s project to another variety of analytic philosophy. The essays of the second part investigate the presence of phenomenology in the analytic tradition, notably, in some of its most traditional debates. The third part provides the reader with some new documents about the relation between Husserl and analytic philosophy, the most prominent of which is the partial edition of a Husserlian manuscript (A I 35) in which the paradoxes of contemporary set theory are tackled. The first part includes three essays. Husserl as Analytic Philosopher by G. E. Rosado Haddock is an energetic advocacy of Husserl’s originality vis-à-vis Frege. It presents an overview of issues such as the sense/reference distinction, the conception of logico-mathematical truths and factual truths and the relation between countersense and nonsense. The Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy. Husserl and the Analytic Tradition by J. J. da Silva argues that Husserl’s work on synthetic a priori judgments is the main obstacle to a complete inclusion of phenomenology in the horizon of analytic philosophy, for it implies that meanings are grounded in experience, thereby running against one of the pivotal features of the Fregeinspired analytic tradition. U. Meixner’s Husserl’s Classical Conception of Intentionality – and Its Enemies develops a confrontation between Husserl and the Wittgenstein-Ryle tradition on the nature of intentionality. It shows that Husserl’s phenomenological account of intentionality is more explicative than WittgensteinRyle’s functionalist one, especially regarding the existence of real objects outside the mind. The second part consists of five essays. Husserl and Frege on Functions by C. O. Hill draws a comparison between Husserl and Frege by a thorough but concise exploration of Husserl’s theory of judgment. The discussion brings to light some affinities between Husserl and Frege with respect to their function-oriented conception of judgments and its consequences bearing upon the logical and formal nature of mathematics. Yet, it also shows a major difference concerning the formality of logical and mathematical laws. As is argued, Husserl’s intensional logic does not fall prey to the paradoxes of the Frege-Russell extensional view because the formality of logical laws is to be grounded, as is always the case in phenomenology, in the ideal structure

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of experience. C. Ierna’s The Reception of Russell’s Paradox in Early Phenomenology and the School of Brentano: The Case of Husserl’s Manuscript A I 35 is a detailed analysis of the manuscript published in the third part of the volume. Ierna deals with the debate about Russell’s paradox in Göttingen during Husserl’s teaching years. This debate offers a picture of Husserl’s reception of the paradox through his student Koyré, thereby also shedding light on the phenomenological background of Koyré’s confrontation with Russell. The essay by D. W. Smith (Husserl and Tarski: The Semantic Conception of Intentionality and Truth) argues that Husserl and Tarski share a common, basic picture of the relation between language and world: a semantic picture, in which Husserl’s early phenomenology and the Carnap-TarskiHintikka lineage converge. V. Meyer’s Der Logische Aufbau als Plagiat is the most ambitious and systematic essay of the volume. Along with Rosado Haddock’s shorter, quasinarrative essay on The Old Husserl and the Young Carnap, Meyer’s contribution tackles the most relevant thematic aspect of the book, namely, the often hidden or ignored influence of Husserl on Carnap and the systematic project of logical positivism. Meyer’s close-up examination of Carnap’s Der Logische Aufbau der Welt shows how Husserl’s teaching contributed in quite a substantial way to the composition of Carnap’s well-known work, even if, for academic reasons, Carnap later tried to hide this fundamental influence and to remove the presence of Husserl from his autobiography. There is no doubt that Carnap’s self-censorship had a meaningful impact on the further developments and self-interpretation of the analytic tradition. But perhaps the most interesting question – which V. Meyer’s detailed analysis does not explore as much as it could – is what theoretical possibilities emerge for us today in light of this now evident hybridization of phenomenology and Viennese empiricism in Carnap’s Aufbau. The third and last part of the volume presents three documents. The manuscript A I 35 is edited by C. Ierna and D. Lohmar, and it is certainly an interesting piece for the Husserlian scholar who focuses on logic. The second document is a short letter from Carnap to Jonas Cohn, dated 26 September 1925. It is a testimony to Carnap’s study period in Freiburg. Unfortunately, the letter has been published as a picture without being transcribed, resulting in scarce readability. This letter – a document to which all the Carnap-focused essays of the volume refer as evidence of the sincere interest that the young Carnap had for Husserl – is followed by a commentary by Th. Vongehr on the professional and human relation between Husserl and Cohn (a Kantian philosopher, a student of Wundt, and one of Carnap’s main interlocutors during his studies with Husserl). Albeit interesting, this latter document seems a little out of place given the overall anti-Kantian tone of the volume. The analysis of the rich and essentially positive relation between Husserl and Cohn shows that Husserl’s relation to Kantianism and transcendental philosophy was always complex and multifaceted, It started from his years in the school of Brentano and went all the way down to his 1917/18 lecture on Logik und Allgemeine Wissenschaftheorie (Husserliana XXX) at least. This lecture does, in fact, still include a significant confrontation with nineteenth-century Kantianism. The essay by C. O. Hill, the english translator of Hua XXX, nevertheless argues for a resolute dismissal of Husserl’s transcendental project, and of transcendental philosophy in general, in favor of a markedly realistic interpretation of Husserl’s work.

292 Francesco Pisano Now, if the decision to confine the overall attention of the volume to the early Husserl is based on specific methodological reasons, the polemical stance and the patronizing tone toward transcendental philosophy adopted by some of the authors seem on the contrary to be mostly taken for granted. They speak of “the sirens of transcendental phenomenology” (p. 89) as a somewhat alien force that, at some point in time, would have distracted Husserl from his purely logical endeavours. As, for instance, the Editor puts it, one of the volume’s aims is to demonstrate that “there is much more in Husserl’s philosophical views than transcendental philosophy, as clearly seen from the fact that Husserl’s opus magnum [the Logische Untersuchungen] does not belong to the transcendental phenomenological tradition” (p. 8). And while it is arguable that the Logische Untersuchungen are Husserl’s masterpiece, the implicit assumption that strikes as even more problematic is that Husserl’s logical work should reside only outside of his transcendental investigations. A presumed incompatibility between Husserl’s logical work and his transcendental analyses resurfaces on many occasions (see, e. g., p. 94), implying a rigid separation between rationalism (or Platonism) and Kantianism (see p. 278). These unjustified assumptions affect the overall architecture of the volume to the extent in which they narrow down the scope of a possible pluralistic and issuefocused research on the relation between Husserl and analytic philosophy, whose promise is one of the main merits of the book. The outline of a further research suggested by the Editor (pp. 10–11) hints at other critical issues to be addressed, namely, the relations between Husserl and Gödel, Husserl and Hilbert and Husserl and the Bourbaki mathematicians. However, if one adopts a less dichotomic perspective on Husserl’s work on logic, then the unexplored overlapping between Husserl and analytic philosophy can turn out to include a much broader range of issues. Let us just emphasize that, in the wake of Formale und transzendentale Logik, formal logic cannot dispense with a (transcendental) logic of experience. But one could also think of Petitot’s, Varela’s and Zahavi’s research to understand how Husserl’s transcendental investigations might also be relevant for the critical assessment of the attempts at a naturalized epistemology that hark back all the way to Quine. Mentioning, even in passing, these other aspects of the relation between Husserl’s work and analytic philosophy would have enriched the perspective presented through this collective endeavour, without jeopardizing its methodological and thematic consistency. As one of the volume’s merits consists in the idea of a pluralistic and issue-focused discussion between phenomenology and analytic philosophy, maybe the very goal of overcoming the limitations pointed out above should be read as a task that the volume bequeaths to the reader. Anyway, this work remains an important and selfsufficient contribution to the debate concerning Husserl and analytic philosophy. All the essays offer rich, interesting, and insightful analyses, especially when it comes to Husserl’s historical relations with Carnap and Frege. The claims made by the authors often provide original perspectives even on Husserl’s phenomenology per se taken, regardless of its relations to analytic philosophy. Husserl and Analytic Philosophy can be seen by Husserl scholars as a source of historical information, but also as a prompt for new directions that the phenomenological research might take (e.g., in relation to the theory of judgment), especially if understood in a broader sense. By contrast, the analytic-minded philosopher could appreciate this volume not only because of its invitation toward

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a new systematic perspective but also because it presents relevant and not so wellknown historical analyses about Rudolf Carnap, notably, his phenomenological background. Hopefully, in the future, more books like this one will be published, for they would help rethink some of the already outdated twentieth-century partitions within our common philosophical culture.

17 Review of M. Ritter, Into the World: The Movement of Patočka’s Phenomenology (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Springer, 2019) Riccardo Paparusso

Martin Ritter’s recently published book, whose ambition is to offer a comprehensive perspective on the thinking of the Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, consists of two main parts: 1. The Development of Patočka’s Phenomenology and 2. Rethinking Existence. To summarize in a few words, the main lines of thought of the author, while the first part focuses on the theoretical side of Patočka’s philosophy, the second evaluates its moral and political aspects. In light of this dual approach, both the Patočkean scholar and those who are yet to know his work will find Ritter’s analyses of great interest, albeit for different reasons. Given the richness of Ritter’s book, the present review will pursue one main goal or, better, it will focus on one particular aspect of the book, that is, the question of life as the early Patočka conceives of it. Accordingly, in what follows, I will be mainly focusing on Chapter 2 and 4 of the first part, wherein Ritter carries out a significant operation. On the one hand, he directly and systematically tackles the Patočkean conception of life (which, although already submitted to critical scrutiny by scholars, is still in need of a full assessment). On the other hand, the great merit and novelty of Ritter’s analysis consists in inscribing Patočka’s conception of life within the context of his early philosophy, with a special focus on the works from the 1940s (which until now have received little, if no attention at all within the framework of non-Czech speaking scholarship). For these reasons, therefore, the aforementioned chapters are by far among the most original and innovative of the whole book. This being preliminarily said, let us start off with Chapter 1. Here, as could be expected, the author traces the origin of Patočka’s reflection all the way back to Edmund Husserl. For this purpose, he takes as a point of departure the dissertation written by the young Bohemian philosopher in 1929 and entitled The Concept of Evidence and Its Significance for Noetics.1 As Ritter concisely explains, in this early text, Patočka makes the case to the effect that the Husserlian phenomenological approach represents a break with all causal and positivistic worldviews. The world is no logical construction, nor a closed, independent sphere. Rather, it builds on the phenomenon of evidence that, in turn, refers back to consciousness, which, as a non-worldly being, is what solely

1 J. Patočka, Pojem evidence a jeho význam pro noetiku, in J. Patočka, Fenomenologické Spisy I, Eds. I. Chvatík and P. Kouba (Praha: Oykoimenh, 2008).

DOI: 10.4324/b23065-20

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guarantees the very possibility of evidence. Of course, the concept of consciousness in this context does not coincide with what could be assumed as the consciousness of a particular human being: it the absolute consciousness obtained by means of the transcendental reduction. Already at this point, as the author hastens to explain, it becomes apparent that Patočka’s re-elaboration of phenomenology is affected by a clear discrepancy. For, while on the one hand, he identifies, as the foundation of Husserl’s phenomenology, something like an intellectus dei infinitus, on the other hand, his own phenomenological analyses hinge on the relation between reality and the finite consciousness. And such a finite consciousness can only develop a sort of “fore-knowledge” characterized by an irremediable deficiency, as it inevitably faces the ultimate absence of its object. Now, were we to try to better understand in what this fore-knowledge properly consists and what its object is, then we would need to delve mode deeply into the relation between reality and finite consciousness. Patočka’s consciousness is finite and situated within the concrete world. However, it is also important to immediately warn the reader that here “world” is not to be prima facie identified with the concrete world understood as the world of praxis, that is, as the world in which human existence dwells by dealing with innumerable tools. In other words, the finite consciousness here in question is not to be equated with the Heideggerian Dasein. To better comprehend the difference between the Patočkean finite consciousness and the notion of Dasein, we can briefly consider an expression used by Patočka in 1938, when, in a text called Universal history, the philosopher is defined as a “born man.”2 Now, in light of this expression, the claim could be advanced that in his dissertation, the young Patočka holds consciousness to be finite because not due to its mortality but rather in light of its being born. What follows is that Patočka’s consciousness is hence finite to the extent that it is rooted and immersed in the vital, biological flow of the world. Hence, and given this condition, it is fully unable (contrary to Husserl’s transcendental consciousness) to bring about the meanings and sense of what is in the real world. Quite the opposite: it can only grasp the living possibilities (possibilities related to human life) that open up from the things themselves and allow human beings to experience them in manifold ways. It is in this sense that finite consciousness’ own knowledge is to be considered a fore-knowledge: a knowledge inhabited by irremediable lack and interminable absence. For, if humans can have access to knowledge only as long as it is rooted in certain vital conditions, then such knowledge will remain irremediably marked by a residue of the lack of reflection proper to such vital ground—which hence inevitably makes the former missing and deficient. Otherwise put: as the finite consciousness can essentially know only based upon the possibilities that the things can offer to human life (all the way from the biological up to the existential dimension), then knowledge itself is constitutively exposed to an absence: the absence determined by the infinite horizon of

2 J. Patočka, Historie Universelle, in J. Patočka, L’Europe après l’Europe, trans. E. Abrams (Lagrasse: Verdier: 2007), p. 169.

296 Riccardo Paparusso possibilities that every single thing represents for our human life and its realization in the world. It is now time to let the author speak for himself by quoting a passage from the fourth section of the second chapter (the title of which is: No Passageway from Ideas to Things): Life seems to be here the very essence of the process of being: life as “that realizing, that which is active in time, is the genuine reality [ta pravá realita] we incessantly experience and whose part we are at the same time” (Patočka 2008: 48). This is not the only statement bearing witness to the fact that Patočka was influenced by (Bergson’s) philosophy of life. (p. 17). If we were to elaborate on the first sentence of the just quoted passage, thus on the author’s own attempt at equating the terms “life” and “being,” we could surmise that, although not entirely explicitly, in 1929, Patočka thinks of concept of “phenomenality” in terms of “life.” In short, Ritter invites us to think that in his dissertation, the young Bohemian philosopher radicalizes the vital sense of Husserl’s transcendental consciousness, the latter understood as a flux of Erlebnisse displaying itself as the original life of consciousness—thereby somehow anticipating an operation that Michel Henry will carry out many years later. At the same time, however, under the influence of Bergson, Patočka seems to turn the very Husserlian notion of life into an unreflected original vital flow—to which consciousness itself belongs and out of which it comes to the light of manifestation. As the author writes in the aforementioned passage, this Bergsonian life is “the very essence of the process of being.” Therefore, if we follow the interpretative line proposed by Ritter, we can affirm that in 1929, Patočka, by taking up a Bergsonian angle, regards the vital impulse as an immanent principle of the self-realization of being—both in the material and subjective sense. Thus, by coupling together the Bergsonian influence on Patočka’s philosophy and the latter’s phenomenological perspective, we can then surmise that in the thought of the young Patočka, the primordial vital energy acts as the very source of manifestation of both being and consciousness—in such a manner that life is always prior to the latter and the latter can only have a “fore-knowledge” of it. Clearly, the emphasis that in these pages Ritter places upon the Bergsonian concept of life and its phenomenological significance in the thought of the early Patočka is one of the most interesting aspects of the book. The link between “phenomenality” and “life” (as natural life) is a recurring “theme” in the writings of Patočka, especially in those of the mature Patočka (albeit the Czech philosopher never tackled this question explicitly and systematically). Thus, the analyses that Ritter proposes of The Concept of Evidence and its Significance for Noetics make it possible to trace the origin of this continuity between “life” and “phenomenality” all the way back to the very initial phase of Patočka’s phenomenological path. More generally, therefore, Ritter’s exegesis gives us the possibility of assuming the question of life as a thin, yet crucial guiding thread that runs through the philosophical production of the early Patočka. This is additionally demonstrated by the author himself in the fourth chapter of the first part, entitled Life of Inwardness: this chapter deserves to be praised in

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itself, as it focuses upon the texts written by Patočka during World War II and that are still available only in Czech. The ambition of Ritter is here to track down the first seeds and elements of that “a-subjective” thought that will characterize the speculative production of the Czech philosopher in the 1940s (the main reference being to a series of essays that the Patočka Archive published in 2014 with the title Nitro a svet (Inwardness and the World)3. The notion around which these texts revolve is precisely that of “inwardness” (nitro). As the author clearly explains, this is a term by which the Czech philosopher intends to define that inner existential movement—passive and unconscious—which can never be objectified and which, as such, always precedes the intentional and constitutive consciousness. This is why the constitutive subjectivity never manages to have control over and govern such inwardness. Of course, were we to raise the question as to whence the inwardness’s irreducibility to both the objectivity and subjectivity comes from, the only possible answer would be, once again, the concept of “life.” In light of Ritter’s analyses, we can now affirm that if the “inwardness”dimension is “beyond the subject-object dichotomy” (p. 30), it is because of the sympathetic relation it establishes with the world (a relation resembling the one in which the animal being stands to its own environment). De facto, Patočka conceives of the inwardness as a natural being, a living being, which as such exceeds the categories of objectivity and subjectivity. As we have already seen, the early Patočka is strongly influenced by Henri Bergson and, more generally, by the philosophy of life. In this regard, one could even go as far as to claim that Patočka regards the inwardness-dimension through the lenses of the late Scheler—who thinks of the core of the human being as a dynamic intertwining of the spiritual sphere with the realm of the vital impetus. In sum, in the thought of the late Scheler, we come across a spirit imbued with life and a spiritualized life. By the same token, Patočka seems to take the “inwardness” as a vitalized spiritual dimension propelling itself as a living force able to also establish a sympathetic relationship with nature. As a consequence, insofar as that the inner living being of human existence borders on the spirit, it can spontaneously transcend its own vitality so as to rediscover life itself as something more than a bare natural entity, that is, as the original phenomenal horizon out of which both the natural entity and the inwardness itself emerge. In light of the considerations just developed, we could therefore affirm that Patočka’s World War II writings contribute to enhancing that understanding of life as phenomenality that, as we saw, was already suggested by Patočka in his dissertation. Let the author speak directly by citing a passage in which the status of life’s original phenomenality comes to full light. Patočka’s thesis that it is the life which “discloses the ‘meaning’ of objectivity in the whole and in the particular… life in its basic characteristic that makes it performance” (Patočka 2014c: 47), is in accordance with the aforesaid. Or, to express it again in Patočka’s own words, “life is that which gives meaning to the existent as such [co jsoucímu vůbec dává smysl], to which ‘being’ [bytí]

3 J. Patočka, Fenomenologické spisy. 3.1: Nitro a svě t. nepublikované texty ze 40. Let, Eds. I. Chvatík and V. Schifferová (Prague: Oykoimenh, 2014).

298 Riccardo Paparusso means anything at all, [and hence] it is only from there where one can set out to the very central philosophical problem” (Patočka 2014c: 48). To put it in a simplified manner, it is rather on the concept of life than on the concept of the conscious ego that we should base phenomenology (p. 35). After reading this passage, it is also necessary to take into account the following one, which concerns the disclosing performance proper to the inwardness-dimension. Inwardness is fundamentally related to the world, it discloses the world; but, again, it would be wrong to conceive the world as constituted by inwardness. One may recall here Heidegger’s idea of the world from Being and Time: the world is certainly not constituted by Dasein, yet it is here only through it. Analogically, the world is here only through inwardness, yet it is not constituted by it. Ana Santos captures the relation between the “subject” and the world thus: “The world… cannot be separated from us, yet we need not conceive it as identical to our subjectivity. The world is neither inside nor outside the subject; the world is… a primordial… ‘light of life’… illuminating the way of the human being” (Santos 2007: 19). Most importantly, insofar as the world is that in which inwardness finds itself, or insofar as the world is, as Santos quotes, “the light of life,” it surely cannot be conceived of as constituted by inwardness—inwardness is rather, as it were, enlightened by it. Patočka’s description of the relation between meaning-disclosing performance and the ego indicates that this performance of the self is, paradoxically, nontransparent to the self itself, and his description of the relation between the world and inwardness indicates even the priority of the world and its irreducibility to the self (p. 35). The just quoted long passage sheds light on another property of inwardness. For if it is prior to the alleged constitutive activity of consciousness, thereby being irreducible to it, then it cannot develop or turn into any founding process itself. In fact, in a way that is similar to the Heideggerian Dasein, the inwardness does not constitute, but rather unveils the world. More precisely, it contributes to the self-unveiling of the world itself: the inwardness bring about a disclosing performance that helps the world to reveal itself as the source of manifestation of both the entities and human consciousness. Yet, in comparison to the Heideggerian Dasein, which is stripped of all vital determinations, Patočka’s inwardness is the very living being of the human, for it displays as the inner dimension of the human existence itself. Now, it is precisely such internal and vital bulk of the human being that contributes to the disclosure or self-disclosure of the world. By the same token, the world itself opens up as a life that, in turn, discloses the meaning, the sense of any existing being, namely, of existence as such. Linking this back to the dissertation of 1929, we can sum up our account of Ritter’s book as follows and therefore move toward the conclusion: if the human being opens up to the field of phenomenality through its own internal living dimension, phenomenality itself cannot be other than a form of original and universal living energy. The latter, in turn, is what

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releases all those vital possibilities out of which human beings can understand the meaning of every possible entity and thereby experience it. In conclusion, I think that this is precisely the most strictly phenomenological proposal that can be identified, albeit implicitly, in some of the most significant pages of the book. This is why I focused so much on it, with the risk of going beyond the very intentions expressed by the author: the very point for me was to find and offer to the reader a key to Ritter’s book.

Index

Page numbers followed by “n” indicate notes.

abundant properties 248, 249 acceptance (Annahme) 94, 143 “Action Theory of Exchanges” (ATE) 133, 134, 137, 145, 147–8. See also Standard Theory of Exchanges (STE) active ego 73, 73n13 active experience 74–5 act-quality 87 acts of promising 114, 115. See also promises/promising “affects” (emotional experience) 160 The Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy. Husserl and the Analytic Tradition 290 Anzeichen 197, 201, 202, 203 Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law 69, 70, 72; promises 90, 91–5, 118; to-you-ness 82, 83, 88 arguments: in favor of value-feeling model 165–9 ATE. See “Action Theory of Exchanges” (ATE) “attestations” (Ausweise) 13 attitude: action as an 262–4; concept of 258–66; distinctive features 261–2, 265; imaginary 266–71; of narrative imagination 271–7 Aufbau 291 Austin, J.L. 56, 91; promises and insincere promises 114, 114n2, 117 authority transfer, promising and 115 “authority-interest” approach 115 The Basic Problems of Phenomenology 237 Being. See logic of Being Being and Nothingness 255, 255n3, 256; introductory strategy, steps 258–60 Being and Time 195–6, 195n3, 197–8, 199, 204, 206, 210, 216; logic of Being in 220–52

‘being determinated in some way,’ onemembered states of affairs 25–7 Being-for-itself 259, 260, 261, 262, 267 Being-in-itself 267 Bell, Winthrop 11 Bobbio, Norberto 47–8 “body of social acts” 117 Carnap, Rudolf 289, 291, 292–3 categorial declarative 116 Cavell, Stanley 114, 116, 116n6, 129 Centrone, Stefania: Studien zu Bolzano 281–8 co-extentionality 80 cognitive function, value-feelings as 154–5 commanding 78, 79, 80 complete givenness 181–3, 182n14, 184, 190 complex social acts 63–4 The Concept of Evidence and Its Significance for Noetics 294 “Concerning Phenomenology” 70 concretions of indication, sign as 205–8 conditional content 144 conditioned social acts 65–7 confederate successor states 118–19 consciousness, stream of 71, 72, 181, 182, 183, 184–7 conspicuousness, signs and 211–12 Conte, Amedeo Giovanni 44 contract of sale 132, 133, 133n2, 138; substructure 138–43; super-structure 143–5; vs. exchange 140 contracts 132; rational 138 contracts and exchanges 4 contrasting experiences 80 convergent preferences 137 conviction (Überzeugung) 25, 75, 86 cooperation, promises and 98 cooperative and joint activities 105, 106–8 cultural artefacts 237

Index da Silva, J. J. 290 Dahlstrom, Daniel O. 236 Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (Ressentiment) 162 Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values) 157 Der Logische Aufbau als Plagiat 291 Der Logische Aufbau der Welt 291 Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes 40–1 directed commitments, promises as 101–4 directed obligations, in promises 98 distrust 122–3 Double Intentionality View 85–8 economic exchanges, STE and 136 ego 72–3; active 73, 73n13 egoism 156 eidetic intuition 11, 267 eidographic predication 44 eidological truths 50 emotional act-experiences 159–60 emotional experience 160 emotional responses vs. value-feelings 152, 153–7 enactments (Bestimmungen) 46–7 endurants 136 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 51–2 epistemological realism 11–14 essences: intuition of 10, 11, 71; morphological essences vs. ideas of particular realities 189–91; morphological vs. ideal 179–80, 188–9; realism of 5; vs. ideas in the Kantian sense 187–91 exchanges: ATE 133, 134, 137, 148; endurants 136; inverse preferences and 137; The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange 132–3, 136–7; of services 136–7; Standard Theory of Exchanges (STE) 132–7; vs. contract of sale 140 existential quantifiers 224 existential states of affairs 11 Existenz 220, 222, 227 experiencing 70–1; intuition of 71 explicit expression 125–6 external perceptions 14 external world 14, 231, 232, 233, 238 extrinsic values 139–40 feeling-states 158–9 fetishism 201, 208, 218; coincidence of 215; use of signs in 212–16 Fine, Kit 232, 241–7; challenges raised by 242–4; “The Question of Ontology” 221,

301

242, 252; “Question of Realism” 245–6, 251 first whole, conditioned social act 66 first-order properties 11 first-personal authority, promises 113, 127 force and experience, social acts 117 forgiving 78, 79, 80 The Fragmentation of Being 250 fulfillable objects 49–50 fundamental term 250–2, 252n140 fundamental truth 250–2, 252n140 Gegenüber 82 Geiger, Moritz 74, 74n17 Gewordensein 229 Gezeigten 214 Gilbert, Margaret: analysis of promises 90, 95–101; criticism of Hume’s “No Willing Dogma” 101, 104–5; joint activity 110; promises as directed commitments 101–4; theory of joint commitment 96–8 God, existence of 228–30, 247 goods 156 grounding, relations of 7 “Grundbegriffe der Ethik” (Basic Concepts of Ethics) 152, 156 Haddock, G. E. Rosado: Husserl and Analytic Philosophy 289–93 handiness 199–200; of signs 205, 208–10 Heidegger, Martin: Being and Time 195–8, 195n3, 199, 204, 206, 210, 216, 220–52; concept of meaningfulness 198–200; Kant and 231, 232; logic of Being 220–52; meets Fine 222, 241–7; meets Sider 222–6; primitive Dasein (See primitive Dasein); “reality” 232–4; signs 204–12 (See also signs); Verweisung 197, 198 “Heidegger’s Metaphysics of Material Beings” 235 “hermeneutical” argument 239–40 Hill, C. O. 290 Hippolytus 129 How Performatives Work 47 Hume’s “No Willing Dogma” 101, 104–5 Husserl, Edmund 3, 177; concept of sign 200–4 (See also signs); Ideas I 13, 14, 177, 178–82, 190, 191; Logical Investigations 5, 6, 10, 15, 190, 197, 198; notion of idea in the Kantian sense 178–87; Reinach and, common concerns 5; signs and 198; signs vs. signals 202 Husserl and Analytic Philosophy (Haddock) 289–93 Husserl and Frege on Functions 290 Husserl and Tarski: The Semantic

302 Index Conception of Intentionality and Truth 291 Husserl’s Classical Conception of Intentionality– and Its Enemies 290 idea in the Kantian sense: complete givenness 181–3, 182n14, 190; Husserl’s 178–87; notion of, meaning 182–7; occurrences in Ideas I 178–82, 191; vs. essences 187–91 ideal essences 183, 184; vs. morphological 179–80, 188–9 ideal objects 40, 45–6 ideal of perfection or exactness 183 Ideas I 13, 14, 177, 190; notion of idea in 178–82, 191 idiographic predication 44 idiological truths 50–1 Ierna, C. 291 illusion of immanence 267 illusory communication (Scheinmitteilung) 120 illusory execution (Scheinvollzug) 120 Imaginary 266, 267, 275 imaginary attitude 266–71 imaginary character 257 imaginary conduct 274 imaginary object 267 Immoral Promises Dogma 100 impersonal judgements, one-membered states of affairs 24–5 implication, relations of 8 “in need of uptake” (vernehmungsbedürftig) 117–18 incantatory embodiment 265 inconspicuous things 211 indications 13, 198–200, 204–5. See also signs; realization of 206, 214; sign as concretion of 205–8 indignation 74 ineffectual action 264 “information-interest” approach 115 Ingarden, Roman 12, 14 inner experience, promise 91, 92, 117, 120 Innerweltlichkeit 237 insincere promises 118–30. See also promises/promising; sincerity of promising; overview 113–14; sincerity and acknowledgement 114, 122–7; trust and trustworthiness 122–3 insincerity 123, 124 institutionalization 117 instrumental embodiment 263 intangible possessions 156 intentional experiences, promise 92, 93, 116 intentional feelings 158–9, 160 intentionality 83–4; of emotions 151 intentions, promise 91

internal act 77 interpersonal obligations and claims 109 interpersonal relation, promise 95, 123, 126 intersubjective objects 46 Into the World: The Movement of Patoèka’s Phenomenology (Ritter) 294–9 intrinsic unity 204 intrinsic values 139–40 “Introduction to Philosophy” 10, 11, 12 “The Introduction to the Phenomenology of Religion” 229 intuition of essence 10, 11, 71 intuition of experiencing 71 intuitive certainty 262–3 inverse preferences, exchanges and 137, 140 involuntary expression 92 joint actions 105, 106–8, 110 joint carvingness 221, 224, 241, 250 joint commitment, promise 96–8 judgments: contrasting 71 Kant, Immanuel: external world 230, 231, 232, 233; Heidegger and 231, 232; idea, Kantian sense (See idea in the Kantian sense) Kantian sense, notion of idea. See idea in the Kantian sense “kinds of being” 234–40. See also logic of Being; Heidegger’s 222–3; overview 221 lebendigen Funktion 203 legal formations (Gebilde) 148 legal objects: dramatic discovery of 39–42; obligation and claim 42–6; phenomenology of 42–6; Reinach and 40–4, 49–50 “legitimizing ground” (Rechtsgrund) 14 Leibniz’s Law 235 Leitfaden 199 “Letter on ‘Humanism’” 230 Lewis, David 248 linguistic component, social acts 117, 118–19 LMU. See Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) local existential quantifiers 224, 250 logic 6; definition 7; Husserl’s view 6–7, 9; ontologize propositional logic 8; Reinach’s view 7–8, 9; states of affairs and 8 Logic of 1921 12 logic of Being: in Being and Time 220–52; Beings of many kinds 234–40; grammer of Being in Being and Time 240–1; McDaniel on 223–4; overview 220–1; predicates and properties 247–50; quantificational questions and 226–34

Index Logical Investigations 5, 6, 10, 15, 87, 190, 197, 198 logical laws 5–6, 8 logical objects 6–7, 7n2 logical realism 6, 9 Logik und Allgemeine Wissenschaftheorie 291 Logische Untersuchungen 289 Lohmar, D. 291 Lotze, Hermann 12 love and hate 160 Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) 3 magic and fetishism, signs in 212–16 “major thesis” 10 Massin, Olivier 132–3, 134, 148; The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange 132–3, 136–7, 146 matter of fact 52–3 matter of law 53 McDaniel, Kris 221, 222, 225, 226, 234–40; “Heidegger’s Metaphysics of Material Beings” 235; kinds of being, quantificational interpretation 228; local existential quantifiers 224; “Ways of Being” 221, 221n11, 225, 250–1 meaningfulness 198–200, 216; relational structure of 200 media 86 Meinong, Alexius 40 Meixner, U. 290 mental acts 18 meta-ontology 222 metaphysical questions 256, 271 metaphysical realism 5–11 The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange 132–3, 136–7, 146 the method of contrast 70, 71, 72 Meyer, V. 291 mock-performance 86 mode of existence 267 mode of my being 267 moral good 156 moral obligation, promise 100, 101 Moral Requirement Dogma 100, 100n45, 104 moral values vs. moral rightness 152–3 Moran, Richard: sincerity 114, 122, 122n24, 123–7 morphological essences: vs. ideal essences as ideas in the Kantian sense 179–80, 188–9; vs. ideas of particular realities 189–91 Mulligan, Kevin 3n1, 84; act of promising 117, 117n8 multiplicity 200–1 Munich-Göttingen Circle 11 mutual commitment, promises 98–9 mutually independent 79

303

narrative imagination 271–7 narrative-fictional prose 257 need of being heard (Vernehmungsbedürftigkeit) 69, 79–80, 81, 92, 93 negative judgment 7, 7n4, 8–9, 75 Network for Phenomenological Research 3 The New Science of Law (Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht) 133–4, 148 The New Science of Law (Die neue Wissenschaft vom Recht) 133–4 Nitro a svet (Inwardness and the World) 297 No Willing Dogma 101, 104–5 nomological truths 51 non-existing objects 10 non-formal ethics 157–8 non-Platonist 6n1 non-spontaneous experiences 73 normative implications: promises 116, 125; STE and 136 object intuition 11 objecthood, of God 229–30 objective attitude 156 objects: fulfillable 49–50; having content 48–9; ideal 40, 45–6; physical 42–4; psychical 44–5; theory of objects, Meinong’s 9, 10, 40; thetic 46–8 obligation and claim: fulfillable objects 49–50; not ideal objects 45–6; not physical objects 42–4; not psychical objects 44–5; objects having content 48–9; philosophically peculiar features of 46–50; promises, analysis of 90–110; thetic objects 46–8 offer (Angebot) 143 The Old Husserl and the Young Carnap 291 one-membered states of affairs 22–31; ‘being determinated in some way’ 25–7; do not refer to relations 22–4; impersonal judgements and 24–5; modest account of 31–5; real subsistence 30–1 ontological structure: promises 94; What Is Literature? 255 ontology 4, 10, 21–2 ordo amoris 161 Ortega y Gasset, José 39, 40, 42, 163 other-personal (fremdpersonal) 78 other-personality 79, 80 Owens, David: “authority-interest” approach 115 ownership 140, 140n18, 141 Patoèka, Jan 294 perception vs. value-feeling 153, 155 perceptual model 151, 151n3, 152, 161, 165, 166. See also value-feeling model

304 Index personal commitment 103–4 Pfänder, Alexander 12, 13, 13n27, 163 Phaedo 13 “phenomenal originator (phänomenaler Urheber)” 74 phenomenological ontology, of imagination 267 phenomenological psychology 267 “phenomenon of observation” 268 philosophia perennis 3 Philosophie der Arithmetik 289 philosophy of feelings, emotions and values 4 physical objects 42–4 Platonism 6, 6n1 possession 140n18 preferences, STE and 136 preferring 159–60 presence-at-hand 221, 222, 226, 231, 231n55, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 249 pre-theoretical, unity 204 “Prichard’s Point” 100, 101n52 primitive Dasein 195–7, 217, 219 primitivism 70, 84 “principle of all principles” 12, 13 principle of excluded middle 8 “principle of exhibition” 12 principle of non-contradiction 8 “principle” of phenomenology 10 Prolegomena 198, 199, 201, 210, 216 promisee 92, 94, 95–9, 102, 115; pro tanto claims on 143–4; trust and 122–3 promises/promising: alternative proposal 101, 105–10; Gilbert’s analysis 90, 95–101; insincere 113–30; joint commitment 96–8; obligation of 90–110; ontological structure 94; overview 90–1; Reinach’s analysis 90, 91–5; sincerity and 114, 122–7; social acts, conditions 91; strange 99, 100; as utterances 92, 93 promisor 92, 94, 95–9, 102, 115; pro tanto commitments on 143–4; trust and 122–3 properties, conceptions of 248–50 propositional form 49 propositional nature 49 pseudo-promise (Scheinversprechen) 118 psychical objects 44–5 public manifestation, promise 91 punctual experience 75, 76 pure phenomenon 256 “pure presence-at-hand of things” 246 Pythagoras of Samos 40 quantificational questions 226–34 quasi-observation 268, 269, 273 quasi-reading 273 “question of meaning” (Bedeutungsfrage) 13 “The Question of Ontology” 221, 242, 252

“Question of Realism” 245–6, 251 “question of right” (Rechtsfrage) 13 questions: metaphysical 256, 271; quantificational 226–34; “question of meaning” (Bedeutungsfrage) 13; “question of right” (Rechtsfrage) 13 readiness-to-hand 221, 222, 226, 236, 237, 239 real objects 40 “real ontology” (Realontologie) 5 real subsistence 30–1 realism (Reinach’s) 5–16; epistemological 11–14; logical 6; metaphysical 5–11; phenomenology and 15–16 realist phenomenology 133 “reality” (Realität) 5 The Reception of Russell’s Paradox in Early Phenomenology and the School of Brentano: The Case of Husserl’s Manuscript A I 35 291 reciprocal interaction 110 “Refutation of Idealism” 231 Reinach, Adolf: Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes 40–1; discovery of legal objects 40–2; Husserl and, common concerns 5; insincere promises 114, 114n2; on legal objects 40–4, 49–50; on the method of phenomenology 70–1, 70n4; moral values vs. moral rightness 152–3; one-membered states of affairs 22–31; ontology 21–2; overview 3–4; promises, analysis of 90, 91–5, 114–15; realism 5–16; Schapp’s theory of contracts 133, 137–45; social acts (See social acts); states of affairs 6, 7, 7n3, 9 (See also states of affairs); value-feelings vs. emotions 153–7 Reinach Centennial Conference 3 rejoicing 160 relations of ideas 52; vs. matters of fact 51–2 “religious life,” phenomenological reconstruction 229 resolution, making 73, 73n14, 75 ressentiment 156, 162 review: Husserl and Analytic Philosophy (Haddock) 289–93; Studien zu Bolzano (Centrone) 281–8; Into the World: The Movement of Patoèka’s Phenomenology (Ritter) 294–9 Ritter, Martin: Into the World: The Movement of Patoèka’s Phenomenology 294–9 robust realism 5, 12 rule-description, promises 116 sadness 74 Sämtliche Werke 83n46

Index Sartre, Jean-Paul 50, 255–78; attitudes, distinctive features 261–2, 265; Being and Nothingness 255, 255n3, 256, 258–60; concept of “attitude” 258–66; What Is Literature? 255, 255n2, 271–5 Schapp, Wilhelm 133, 134n8; ATE 145, 147–8; The New Science of Law 133–4, 148; Schapp’s theory of contracts 133, 137–45 Scheler, Max 39, 157–62; feeling of value 157–8; feeling of values vs. emotions 158–60; ordo amoris 161 Searle, John 47, 48–9 second whole, conditioned social act 66 Second-Order Intention View 84–5, 86 semantic objectivism 10 services, transfer of 136–7 Sider, Theodore 221, 224–6, 252; joint_carvingness 221, 224 signs 197–204; “being something” of 209; as a coincidence 214, 219; as concretions 204–8; conspicuousness and 211–12; fetishism and 212–16; handiness of 208–10; Husserl’s account of 198; institution of 210–12; multiplicity and unity 200–4, 214; usefulness and 211, 212–13; vs. signals 202 simple social acts 63 sincerity of promising 114, 122–7. See also promises/promising; Moran on 114, 122, 122n24, 123–7; value of 123, 126; Williams on 114, 122–5 Smith, Barry 3n1 Smith, D. W. 291 social acts: complex 63–4; conditioned 65–7; demarcating phenomenologically 72–80; on experiential level 82; modifications of 61–7; promises as 91, 113, 115–16 (See also promises/promising); simple 63; to-you-ness 70, 80–8 social acts and their products 4 social acts as wholes: necessary and possible parts of 58–9 “sparse” properties 248 spontaneous act 73, 74, 76–7, 92, 116; types of 77 Standard Theory of Exchanges (STE): overview 132–6; shortcomings 136–7, 145–6 states of affairs 6, 7, 7n3, 9; conditions for 7; existential 11; non-obtaining 10; onemembered 22–36; ownership and 141–2; roles and nature 18–20; vs state, process and event 27–30 STE. See Standard Theory of Exchanges (STE) strange promises 99, 100

305

stream of consciousness 71, 72, 181, 182, 183, 184–7 Studien zu Bolzano (Centrone) 281–8 subsistence, real 30–1 substructure (Unterbau), contract of sale 138–43 sui generis intentional structure 151, 153, 158 super-structure (Oberbau), contract of sale 138, 143–5 tangible possessions 156 temporally scattered wholes 65–7 Tepley, Joshua 248 “The Ontology of Economics. Capital, Exchanges and Preferences” 148 theory of inference 8 theory of objects, Meinong’s 9, 10, 40 thetic objects 46–8 The Three Musketeers 275–6 Tieffenbach, Emma 132–3, 134, 148; The Metaphysics of Economic Exchange 132–3, 136–7, 146 to-you-ness 70, 80–8; against Double Intentionality View 85–8; as primitive experiential feature of social acts 82–8; against Second-Order Intention View 84–5, 86 transfers of goods 136 trans-mundane presence 266 trust and distrust, promise and 114 trust and trustworthiness 122–3 truth: eidological 50; fundamental 250–2, 252n140; idiological 50–1; nomological 51 Truth and Truthfulness 122 turning attention toward (Zuwenden) 73, 78–9, 81 the turning to others 81–2 Über Gegenstände höherer Ordnung und deren Verhältnis zur inneren Wahrnehmung 40 unavoidable difficulty 263 uncertainty 86 unconditional promise 144–5 “unity of an open multiplicity” 183 unity of sign 203–4, 214 universal commitment 228, 232 Universal history 295 univocal criteria 117 usefulness, of signs 211, 212–13 utterances 92, 93, 95, 117. See also promises/ promising “value-ception” 163–4 value-feeling model: arguments in favor of 165–9; in early phenomenology 162–5;

306 Index overview 152; strengths of 165–71; valuefeelings vs. emotional responses 152, 153–7 value-feelings: alternatives to 163–5; conflation with emotion 169–71; Scheler and 157–62; vs. emotional responses 152, 153–7; vs. perception 153, 155 van Inwagen, Peter 224 Verweisung 197, 198, 204, 241 “volitional reflection” 138, 153 voluntary acts 92 waiving a claim 79, 80, 83, 95 “Ways of Being” 221, 221n11, 225, 250–1 Weber, Max 93n13

Wesenserschauung 11 What Is Literature? 255, 255n2, 271–5 whole-parts connections 57–8 Williams, Bernard: sincerity 114, 122–5; trust and distrust 122–3; Truth and Truthfulness 122, 122n24 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 108n69 Writing the Book of the World 252 Zeichen 197, 198, 201, 204 Zeichenstiftung 202, 210 Znamierowski, Czes³aw 41 Zuhandenheit 205, 227 Zusammenfallen 214