Descartes & Husserl

Overcoming Skepticism through Rationalism and Phenomenology

Despite apparent differences, 20th century phenomenology and 17th century rationalism, converge onto the famous philosophical problem of skeptical doubt and the path(s) towards certainty leading out of it where certainty implies the possibility of providing a firm foundation for human experience and scientific knowledge. Both Husserl and Descartes are responding to an ancient skeptical challenge in the philosophical tradition and both of them assume the skeptic’s position in order to undermine it from within.

Edmund Husserl, famously known as the father of phenomenology sought to uncover the essence of human experience through the analysis of the more apparent phenomena of consciousness, seeking to provide an account of our immediate perceptual experience and the way our experienced lifeworld, far from being a source of deception, in reality serves as the guiding thread to the establishment of the most certain, transcendental knowledge of eidetic (ideal) truths. Rene Descartes, driven by the very same ambition to found the positive sciences and bring clarity to the human epistemological condition, chose very different methods to achieve certainty.

The main focus of the present work will be to concentrate precisely on the ways in which each of these thinkers assumes a skeptical attitude towards the world, questioning everything they know. After focusing on the common features of the respective ways in which both thinkers step down from the all too familiar attitude of common-sense understanding, I will then describe the differences in their approaches and summarize the work by showing the philosophical continuity and the final synthesis that results from their antagonism.

The paper will limit itself fully and exclusively to a comparative analysis of Husserl’s method of the epistemological suspension of the natural attitude, in contrast to the Cartesian method of radical doubt, with the exception of further underlining some general differences between rationalism and phenomenology. No part of the results of these skeptical attitudes, nor their further development will be addressed, apart from their nature and execution.

One of the distinct and over-arching similarities is that both Descartes and Husserl are dualists. They both promote a certain type of Subject-Object epistemology. In the cartesian case, the Subject occupies a central position and the rest of the world is only re-constructed after the Cogito has been assumed in full, whereas Husserl, following the Kantian tradition, evidenced by him referring to phenomenology as a Transcendental phenomenology, though distinguishing the Ego and positing it as an irrefutable truth, places it side by side with the object of its apprehension (or Intention as will be revealed below). It is not only the Subject that is ontologically primordial with Husserl, but the Object exhibits just the same level of certainty. The intentional act is as readily given as the intentional object. And therefore, despite the fact that both thinkers are dualists and both take the distinctions between the Subject and the Object as self-evident, Husserl seems to be binding the Subject to the Object and stating that in fact, one cannot have the one without the other. This renders phenomenology a transcendental phenomenology.

At first sight, the Cartesian and the phenomenological forms of skepticism may seem identical. As we shall see however, the differences are quite noteworthy. For good reasons, Cartesian skepticism is often referred to as an overthrow. Precisely, because the world is assumed to be false, entirely. It is tossed aside as an illusion. With Husserl, the skepticism is much more subtle. Despite the fact that Husserl often talks about the destruction of the world, such talk is merely hypothetical, but it is hypothetical in a sense different from that of Descartes. Instead of negating the world, Husserl suspends it. The phenomenological Epokhe is much more controlled and complex. The world is still there, so to speak, there is no fear of a demon nor an evil genius who stages the world and the plurality of its appearances. The world is no longer tossed aside, but instead, it is temporarily put out of play. No one doubts its existence. The question is stated rather differently, the question is instead stated thus: How can my mind reach out to these transcendental forms of knowledge?

Let us not forget, that the book Cartesian Meditations, as one may obviously recognize from the title, is essentially Husserl’s tribute to Descartes. Husserl thought that Descartes did not go far enough, that Cartesian doubt was not radical enough in its reflexivity. The continuity therefore is clearly apparent, but there is an entirely different side to the Husserlian method, which does not find an analogue in Cartesian metaphysics. The reduction has two sides, each may in turn be termed the transcendental reduction on the one hand and the phenomenological reduction on the other. As mentioned before, Husserl’s philosophy binds the Subject closer to the object, where Descartes binds the object and the rest of the empirical world to the subject (through God’s mediation). With Husserl, there is in a certain sense, more symmetry, since the intentional relation, which will be discussed in the next paragraph, binds both the subject and the object together in a way that each depends on the other. In a somewhat superficial sense and in very broad strokes, we may say that it is precisely the object, the content of the Ego’s apprehension, taken as a starting point through its givenness in immediate appearance that corresponds to the “other side” of the phenomenological reduction. The “properly” phenomenological, as opposed to transcendental reduction, involves a focus on appearances; the focus on immediately given representations as an epistemological starting point. Husserl says, that it is not just the ‘I’ or the ‘pure self’ which is taken for certain, but also that which is apparent as a representation, even if it is a false one.

Here we must introduce a high level of nuance from the start, before returning to the basics. Descartes states, that everything in the world may be a product of an artificial workings of an evil genius and therefore we must doubt everything. We must doubt, because we can. Eventually, he arrives at the conclusion that one may not doubt the act of doubting itself. There is someone or something which doubts, and doubting is a form of thinking, negating is an activity of the mind — I think it to be an illusion — we may say. Thus regressively, we arrive at the foundation. This is somewhat similar to Husserl’s transcendental reduction, but it is radically different from the phenomenological reduction.

While reasoning about the material world, Descartes would state that despite the treacherous nature of appearances, I still cannot doubt the fact that it is I who is getting deceived by the appearances. Husserl states something quite different. According to Husserl one cannot doubt the appearance itself, even though it may have no transcendental/objective status. Husserl states, that the appearance is indeed given to me, true or false, it is definitively an appearing appearance. And this very fact offers a firm epistemological grounding for an entire region of possible knowledge. The seeming immanence of a reality (real or unreal) is nevertheless definitively given.

Husserl’s phenomenology, in a way similar to Cartesian metaphysics, seeks to arrive at an irrefutable foundation of knowledge and erect the objective world from the ground up. Both Husserl and Descartes assume a skeptical attitude towards reality, they employ similar techniques for getting at the so called “ultimate” truths of reality. The phenomenological method builds on the Cartesian technique of radical reflexivity and doubt. The very same, though slightly modified, method of the suspension or ‘bracketing’ of all inner-worldly experiences — of everything that can be doubted, leaves the phenomenologist (just like the Cartesian subject, in this case and so far) with the most absolute, irrefutable foundation for the first fundamental structure of being and the foundation of a general science: The Ego Cogito or the ‘I’. This is the point of complete convergence. This is precisely where the two thinkers agree. The ontology of Ego as a firm starting point for the reconstruction of the whole universe; rationally - in the case of Descartes, Eidetically - in the case of Husserl. Some additional differences between the Cartesian Ego and the Transcendental Consciousness reside in the latter’s directedness onto an object, or what Husserl refers to as Intentionality. Intentionality, according to Husserl, is the most basic property of consciousness. Wherever we have consciousness, it is intentionally directed towards some (at least hypothetical) object. It is the unifying principle of the entire horizon of conscious actual and possible experience. First introduced by Franz Brentano, Intentionality is for Husserl the basic structure of consciousness. One cannot stress the importance of the concept of Intentionality enough. Not only is it the basis of phenomenological analysis, but also the source and foundation for other concepts within phenomenology. Phenomenology revolves around this central notion. Intentional analysis refers to the description and clarification of our first-person perspective; our primary form of engagement with the world. The title of ¶84 Ideas I speaks for itself: “Intentionality as the main theme of phenomenology” (E. Husserl 2014, pp. 161). Reading further into the text: “By ‘intentionality,’ we understand the distinguishing property of experiences: ‘being consciousness of something.’ … … a perceiving is a perceiving of something, for instance, a thing; a judging is a judging of some state of affairs; valuing is a valuing of a valued state; wishing is a wishing for a wished state, and so forth.” (E. Husserl 2014, pp. 162) Quoting further from the 2nd volume of the Logical Investigations: “In perception something is perceived, in imagination, something imagined, in a statement something stated, in love something loved, in hate hated, in desire desired etc.” (E. Husserl 2001, pp. 95) It is important to note that the ‘something’ of which one is always conscious does not have to be a material thing, nor some mathematical or scientific certainty. In fact, one may not be conscious of it in the literal sense. Not only can it be a hallucination, a whim of fantasy or an error, but it may be an unconscious affect. Though the latter is quite problematic and seems to be an attempt at expanding the scope of the concept of intention, beyond its true meaning. An intention may be empty and frustrated or it may be satisfied. An apple that I desire, is as much an object for me, as the one I will be eating in the future, as well as the one I am referring to using language. These three ways of presentification belong to three different levels of intentional experience. One may remember, perceive or anticipate intentionally, these are all modalities of intentional experience and pose no problems for the theory of intentionality. In order to present the notion of the phenomenological reduction, the technique, to be more accurate, of the Epokhē, translated literally as ‘suspension’, I will draw on Sebastian Luft’s article ‘Husserl’s Theory of the Phenomenological Reduction: Between Life-World and Cartesianism.’ The article presents the method of bracketing, the suspension, as mentioned before, of the naïve, the natural attitude and the every-day attitude as the entrance hall or the gateway into phenomenology. The ‘gateway’ metaphor is a very helpful literary device to illuminate the function of the reduction; where Intentionality may be seen as the true center of phenomenological analysis, the very thing discovered as the result of the reduction, the ἐποχή is the starting point and an initiation, without which the phenomenological attitude remains hidden. Not to mention, the constant effort required for one to remain within the phenomenological attitude, upon entering. “The problem of entering this emergent science is not a ladder to be thrown away once climbed. Rather, “the problem of entry” is, and remains, part of phenomenology itself.” (S. Luft, 2004)

Traditionally, the phenomenological reduction or the transcendental turn is an epistemological problem. Quite similar to Descartes’ question: ‘How do we know there really is a world?’, but stated a little differently: ‘How is it possible that the conscious mind can grasp things outside itself? How do we transcend the world of impressions and representations to comprehend the things as they truly are?’ The question aims to bring clarity to our experience, as well as a firm grounding for scientific knowledge.

Where Descartes sets all but the most certain knowledge (including the setting aside of the propositions of natural science, things known through the sense, mathematical truths and so forth) aside as false, Husserl sets himself aside from the Natural Attitude, in a way that does not negate nor affirm anything. This marks, again, the distinction between the techniques of universal doubt and phenomenological suspension of knowledge. Analogously, the types of essences, or universal a priori structures discovered as the result of the two ways of intellectual abstinence are the Cartesian Ego and the Phenomenological, Intentional-Transcendental Consciousness, respectively. “Husserl’s philosophy remains a critical transcendental philosophy that can never do without an absolute ego as foundation and starting point of all reflection. It is precisely this “Cartesianistic” motif that Husserl never gives up…” (S. Luft, 2004). Despite all the differences, one can see quite clearly, that Husserl remains a Cartesian at heart.

Another difference between the two lies in the fact that Descartes posited a single essence, the Cogito as the point of departure reconstructing his divine mathematical and axiomatic ontology, whereas Husserl posited the entire intentional structure, a dualistic essence of both the Cogito and the Cogitatione, as well as the multiplicity of eidetic essences that spring therefrom. It is not only the Husserlian ontology that admits of multiplicity, but his epistemology is expressed by a similar multiplicity of beginnings as well. Where Descartes offers us a single and undivided path to epistemic certainty, Husserl, as though to illustrate the inevitability of his foundational system, provides us with several options, which we will mention only in passing without delving deeper into these complicated questions. A simplistic division would be to say that Husserl separates a total or full Epokhe from a partial Epokhe. Where the former applies to the entire world and the latter only to particular forms within the horizon of human experience. A more complex division would take the variety of techniques into consideration and discuss, for instance, the psychological as opposed to the purely phenomenological reduction or the reduction from the life-world and so on.

We have delved into the questions of epistemology, skepticism, rationalism and phenomenology and we have returned if not victorious, then at least not empty-handed either. We have seen that the old rationalists have more in common with contemporary phenomenology and that the common ground is not only that of Kantian philosophy nor skepticism, in fact, it is perhaps least of all the realm of skepticism, given the rich variety of the techniques of skeptical approaches, but that there is also a point of convergence concerning unshakeable truths and firm foundations. The Cartesian declaration: “Cogito Ergo Sum” has found its counterpart in the Husserlian notion of Transcendental Consciousness. However, Cartesian metaphysics had nothing to offer to phenomenology in place of the study of appearances or phenomena, which should be of no surprise, since one must, after all ascribe phenomenology its proper place in the history of western metaphysics. The goal of the paper was to present a thoroughgoing presentation of the methods of radical doubt and phenomenological suspension of knowledge through the double lens of two famous and powerful western thinkers: Rene Descartes and Edmund Husserl. Despite similarities in methods and identical goals, despite considerable similarity in their corresponding ontologies, the two thinkers turned out to be worlds apart in their respective and unique ways of attempting to provide a firm foundation for human experience and scientific knowledge despite uncovering some similar structures within the flux of consciousness. Notwithstanding Husserl being indebted to Descartes in many ways, while continuing his legacy of radical reflexivity, phenomenology has introduced an entirely novel diversity of various methods of reducing the horizon of human experience and reconstituting it in new ways. Both thinkers are dualists where Descartes turned out to be a dualist in the stronger sense and Husserl had brought the Ego, closer to the objects it perceives constituting them through intentionality. More specifically, through the intertwinement between the intentional act and the intentional object. We have shown that doubting, in the sense of overthrowing the world and negating the propositions of science and common sense is very different from suspending or bracketing the natural attitude together with the familiar realm of typical human first-person experiences. Rationalism thus tends to overemphasize the role played by the thinking subject of the Cogito, whereas phenomenology elevates the ontology of the content of one’s intention to the same level as the perceiving, judging and feeling subject’s act of intention. Put briefly: The similarities between the two thinkers include: Their skepticism, their dualism, their common search for effective epistemic foundations and their emphasis on the Absolute Ego or Pure Consciousness as a source of certainty, whereas the differences pertain to nuances relating to their methods and techniques of doubt and Epokhe respectively, together with the fact, that unlike rationalism, phenomenology includes both the science of the Ego as well as a detailed analysis and description of phenomena as appearances given to consciousness as immanent representations of objects.

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