Unpacking Heideggerian Phenomenology

Introduction
In recent years the volume of nursing research making use of
qualitative methodologies has increased dramatically. By choosing
such methodologies insight has been provided into the human side
of nursing, which has not been served well by the positivist
paradigm. As offered by Birks, Chapman and Francis The
methodological approach utilizedmust facilitate answers to the
research questions(s), be appropriate for addressing the aims of the
specific research.and fit the needs and abilities of the
researcher.1
Phenomenology is a complex methodology with many researchers
finding the esoteric nature of the language both daunting and
exclusive. Heideggers hermeneutic phenomenology, whilst an
extremely valuable resource for nursing researchers, is perhaps,
one of the least understood or misunderstood methodology.2
Arguably this is because of the idiosyncratic way in which he used
language. Consequently one of the main challenges in studying
Heidegger is deciphering his language. Not only did he write in an
exceedingly technical manner, but, he frequently invented his own
terminology in order to highlight or explain a concept. Furthermore
this difficulty is heightened by the translations and the lack of
direct translatability of some of the phrases into languages other
than German. Hence, drawing upon our extensive combined
experiences in studying Heidegger this paper will explicate some
of his terminology, offering our interpretations.3-6 Our intent is to
assist other nurse researchers to develop an understanding of
Heideggerian thought. Additionally we will demonstrate how we
have applied the philosophy to frame a nursing research project.
The research question: An exemplar
The research question, What is the experience of nursing someone
you know? was conceptualized from the many experiences the
researchers, as rural nurses, had encountered. Understanding
gained through this research will provide valuable insights to
experienced rural nurses, those new to the area and educators of
rural nurses.
Choosing a methodological framework
Phenomenology relies on borrowing peoples lived experiences so
that the researcher can better understand the meaning or the
significance of the event.7 The wide-ranging applicability of
phenomenology has seen it heavily employed in many areas or
research concerned with human experience, including nursing,
psychology, sociology and more recently education.8 Notable
nursing studies utilizing phenomenology include Chapman,4
Davenport,9 Gullickson,10 Robertson-Malt,11 Walters,12
Taylor,13 Pearson et al,14James,15 Rather,16 Ferguson17 and
McManus-Holroyd.18
In line with Heideggers thinking, it is not possible to interpret a
text or work devoid of judgment(s). Therefore we make no apology
for the components of Heideggers work that we have chosen to
highlight, and integrate into our study, and furthermore those that
have been purposefully downplayed or neglected. It must be
stressed that the concepts we have chosen are used to couch our
questioning and understanding of the data generated in our study.
Above all it should be remembered that the appraisal of Heidegger,
in this context, is not entirely about the philosophy per se, but
rather about meshing relevant philosophical standpoints into a
usable, methodological framework, to guide and ultimately
interpret nursing research.
People, their interactions and their lived experiences are the core of
nursing. Whilst logio-positivism will always have a place in
nursing, nurses have always displayed interest in seeking meaning
from their work as evidenced by nurses willingness to share their
stories. From the pooled anecdotes insights are gained and
knowledge generated both of which can then be injected back into
the profession. Interpretive research is simply the formalizing of
this tradition.19
Considering hermeneutic phenomenology as a vehicle for
exploring the experience of nurses caring for people with who they
have a dual relationship is viewed as eminently befitting. As rural
nurses we are always engrossed in the world of rural nursing.
Furthermore as a people we are always immersed in the world of
rural life. These entities are contributors to our Dasein, and as such
we are unable to separate ourselves from these. We are not objects
amongst the objects of rural nursing or living, rather we are at all
times absorbed within the world of rural nursing and living.
Therefore the beauty of using Heidegger to underpin this study is
that his philosophy permits and encourages the exploration and
inclusion of preconceptions as legitimate components of the
research.20 Hence our experiences, both as practitioners and as
researchers are then woven together to produce a shared
understanding of the phenomena, or a fusion of horizons, as
Gadamer called it.21 The ultimate aim in expounding a shared
experience is to look beyond the words, or the superficially
accepted sense of the experiences, to broaden the understanding
beyond the everyday reality.22 Asking the question what does this
really mean? is often a helpful start to this process.
The development of Heideggerian Phenomenology
Phenomenology was one of the first genuine moves away from the
positivist paradigm and into qualitative research, where the
subjectivity of human experience became more valued.23 The
father of phenomenology was a mathematician Edmund Husserl,
who developed transcendental phenomenology.24 He believed that
in order to generate valid data it was first necessary for the
researcher to put aside any presuppositions that they may have in
relation to the question. He termed this bracketing or
phenomenological reduction.25,26 What resulted was data that was
fundamentally epistemological in nature. That is, it provided a
description of the experience, as he reasoned that raising awareness
of a phenomenon equated with knowledge.27
Martin Heidegger, a student of Husserl, challenged this idea, by
suggesting that the researcher is as much a part of the research as
the participant, and that their ability to interpret the data was reliant
on previous knowledge. Heidegger called this prior understanding
fore-structure.28 He postulated that there is no such thing as
interpretive research, free of the judgement or influence of the
researcher.
More to the point, he sees the researcher as Being-in-the-world of
the participant and research question. What is vital, however, if the
researcher does subscribe to the philosophical standpoint of Being-
in-the-world attested to by Heidegger is that they are open and
upfront with this viewpoint. In regards to bracketing, Heideggers
message was simple; Understanding is never without
presuppositions. We do not, and cannot, understand anything from
a purely objective position. We always understand from within the
context of our disposition and involvement in the world (Johnson,
2000, pp. 23).
Heidegger emphasized that there was no discernable difference
between epistemology and ontology. For him, knowing is
extrapolated from interpretation and understanding.
In other words we construct our reality, and therefore,
comprehension from our experience of Beingin-the-world.
Hermeneutics and the Hermeneutic Circle
The word hermeneutics comes from the Greek word hermeneusin,
a verb, meaning to understand or interpret.29 Hermeneutics is the
stream of phenomenology supported by Heidegger. Although
originating as a method for studying theological scriptures,
Heidegger redefined hermeneutics as a way of studying all
human activities (Dreyfus, 1994, pp.2). It is the basis for
interpretation, with the aim of allowing the text to speak for itself.
Heidegger saw himself as an ontologist.30 That is, he aimed to ask
the questions that would ultimately result in the uncovering of the
meaning of being. He viewed humans as entities with the
awareness and thus the ability to ask ontological questions . He
contends that the only true way for the researcher to conduct a
hermeneutic inquiry was to have prior knowledge, some fore-
structure to ensure that the questions asked were pertinent.31
A hermeneutic enquiry, in the tradition of Heideggers philosophy
aims to elucidate the subjective, humanistic meaning of an
experience or as noted by Mulhall32 employing the hermeneutic
circle augments the elucidation of Dasein. There is no attempt
to reveal casual relationships, but rather to reveal the nature of
phenomena as humanly experienced.33 Rather the goals of
hermeneutic research, in line with Heidegger thinking are to enter
the world of the person and interpret the meaning they assign to the
experience.34
The hermeneutic circle relies on the circular movement from the
whole to the parts, deconstructing and then re-constructing the text,
resulting in a shared understanding.35 In terms of this research we
are endeavoring to answer the question what is the experience of
being a rural nurse caring for someone you know? It must be
stressed however, that it is the researchers who ask the text what
does it mean to be a rural nurse living out the phenomenon in
question. It is not the responsibility of the participant to analyze the
situation, rather the participant simply describes, or recounts the
experience. By utilizing the hermeneutic circle the researcher
attempts to read between the lines and uncover the true essence of
the experience. Gadamer21 termed the understanding obtained
when the researcher and the text meet as the fusion of horizons,
and further notes that in the setting of phenomenological reduction
a shared understanding is not possible. Also worth noting is the
infinite possibility of the hermeneutic circle.36 Koch37 further
elaborated by explaining that every time the text is re-explored,
further possibilities are feasible.
Dasein
The concept of Dasein is pivotal to the philosophical standpoint of
Heidegger. Although not directly translatable into English, in
colloquial German, Dasein means human existence with the entity
to ask what is means to be.38 Similarly Johnson (2002)
definedDasein as meaning there being. Dasein is the foundation
upon which Heidegger built up the entirety of his thinking.
As Dasein is not static it can not be measured objectively (Stumf,
1994). Sheehan39 summarized by stating that Dasein is the
answer to the questions about the meaning of being.39 Wrathall40
agreed, concluding that everyone is Dasein or moreover that every
human is a meaningful being. Fundamentally Heideggerian
phenomenology considers what it means to Be-in-the-world. The
meaning is subject to context but always a possibility. Heidegger28
claimed that the aim should be to discover, or uncover the
universal structures of Being as they manifest themselves in
phenomena.28
In-der-Welt-sein (Being-in-the-world)
As explained by James15 Heidegger argued that we are not entities
that exist parallel to our world. Rather we are, at all times,
submerged in our world. Hence Heidegger coined the term Being-
in-the-world, hyphenating the words as a way of emphasizing that
there is no separation between our being and our world; they are as
one.41 Dietsch42 concurred, noting that humans are inseparable
from their world, and further that the ability to interpret the world
relies on the marriage of the two.
To illustrate Being-in-the-world in the context of this enquiry
consider that the nurse living in a rural community is always
situated within in the world of rural nursing, regardless of whether
at work or not. Hence our task, as researchers is to ask the text
what it means to be a rural nurse in the world of rural nursing,
faced with a patient known to the nurse.
Sorge (Care)
Caring is a fundamental function of nursing,43 a concept which
underlies every aspect of nursing. Nursing is built upon the
foundation of human interaction. Neither a nursing, nor a patient
experience happens in isolation. Heidegger28 summarized this
sentiment, by declaring that to be with another is to care.
Additionally he claimed that everything one does can be
understood as a way of caring. Further as alluded to by Benner and
Wrubel,44 Heidegger identified caring in two ways. Firstly, as
taking over others concern, and secondly, as empowering others
via advocacy and facilitation.
Leonard (1989) purported that Sorge (care) is pivotal to Dasein,
and in reality Dasein is not possible in the absence of caring.
Caring is symbolic of not only Being-in-the-world, but also being
connected to others, and furthermore believing that connectedness
is of consequence. To provide comfort requires the being-with of
Dasein; to be actively engaged in anothers lifeworld. In addition,
an integral part of Daseins identity is centered on what or who, is
cared about, and deeming these entities significant.45 The notion
of connectedness is an area that will be explored in this study, by
asking the text what does it mean to care for a patient known to the
nurse?
Authenticity
To be authentic is to be aware of what is means to exist.28 In
terms of human interaction Krasner46 explained that an authentic
relationship involves responding to the appeal of the presence
of other Dasein.46 In other words Dasein is not isolated but rather
is absorbed within a relationship with others.47 Dasein may be
described as the glue that binds a nurse and a patient. Consequently
our study aims to uncover the Dasein that exists when a nurse cares
for a person who they know. Also of interest is the authenticity of
the relationship, both in terms of the previous relationship as well
as the nurse/patient relationship. Ultimately the aim of a
phenomenological study, such as this, is to let Dasein reveal and
interpret itself.48
Befindlichkeit (Disposition)
In line with Heideggers conviction that Dasein is relative to
context, so too did he believe that Dasein is never devoid of a
mood or disposition, for which he used the word Befindlichkeit.49
Regardless of the phenomenon, the starting point is always the
mood in which the experience is lived. Moreover Heidegger
affirmed that disposition arises out of Being-in-the-world. To
further illuminate this concept Wrathall40 stated that moods
come from a whole way of comporting ourselves and relating
ourselves to the things and people around us.40
In terms of the research in question, namely nurses caring for
people they know, it is not necessarily the patient nor the patients
condition that the nurse may hold some reservation. More
accurately it is the nurses feelings in approaching the situation,
underpinned by Befindlichkeit that influences the experience.
Mood takes into account ideas preconceived in relation to
experiences ofBeing-in-the-world; in this instance, the world of
living in a rural community and working as a nurse.
Whilst being totally in control of the context is only a reality in
idealism, humans are always in control of deriving meaning
(Verstehen) from the situation (Johnson, 2000).
Temporality and Spaciality (Time and Space)
Heidegger did not define time (Temporality) and space (Spaciality)
as chronological, linear or measurable entities. Instead he declared
that time for Dasein is infinite.45 Heidegger was adamant that time
is the foundation of Dasein, or as described by Gelven,49
thatDasein is to always in time . To illustrate his point Heidegger
asked the question: What does it mean to be in time? So important
was the concept of time to Heidegger that he chose to refer to time
as esctasis, a word derived from Greek meaning to
standout.40Essentially Heidegger suggested that, when reflecting
on a phenomenon chronological time did not matter. What
mattered was what, or why, it stood out from the general flow of
time.50 To exemplify this point one simply needs to think of a
significant time either in history, such as 911, or in their life, such
as the birth of a child, to understand how a time may stand out
from the general flow, yet the date or time of day be rendered
irrelevant. The same may be true of a nurse caring for a patient
with whom they share a dual relationship. Whilst the time of day,
nor the date may be recalled, the way in which this time stood out
may still be obvious because of the significance of the event.
In terms of space Heidegger once more considered the concept by
asking: What does it mean to be in space? He did not mean space
as a place per se, but rather by how it feels to be in a space.49 As
an example, when one talks of being in love, love is not a
geographical place, but rather a sense of being in a particular
space. Where that space is, no one knows, yet the concept is
universally understood and accepted. The same is true of
Heideggers perception of Spaciality. It is not a particular space
that he refers to, moreover a sense of what it means to be in that
space, and how that feeling influences experiences.51 In regards to
this research we aim to examine and re-examine the text with the
question what does it mean to be in the space of nursing a person
the nurse knows?
Heidegger28 advocated strongly that there is no such thing as a
situation-less experience. He insisted that we are located within our
own temporo-spatial circumstance, and that it is the context which
influences the meaning of the event. In other words if the time and
setting were to differ then so too would the experience, because
every experience is context specific.
Acknowledging the argument against Heidegger
In considering whether to adopt Heideggers philosophy to frame a
study, some researchers are apprehensive, influenced by the
controversies surrounding him. Essentially the debates surrounding
Heidegger are centered around his involvement in Nazism.52 We
emphatically agree that fascist, anti-Semitic beliefs have no place
in nursing. In his defense, however and as noted by
Johnson,48even philosophers are not spared the horror of wars, and
as such philosophy and political views are not presented the luxury
of remaining mutually exclusive. Whilst mindful of the warnings
heralded, we nevertheless believe that many areas of Heideggers
thinking remain relevant to generating thought in contemporary
nursing research, regardless of his life choices. In the end the
choice of philosophy is determined by it s relevance to a study, not
simply by the philosopher as a person judged by a set of life
choices.
Conclusion
With a raft of approaches available, choosing an appropriate
methodology when developing a research project is paramount.
Moreover it is vital that researchers are cognizant with the chosen
methodologys philosophical underpinnings. We believe that
Heideggerian phenomenology is exceedingly valuable for
informing nursing. Therefore throughout this paper we have
selected and deciphered examples of the intricate expression as a
way of unpacking Heideggers thinking. Furthermore we have
illustrated the applicability of these chosen concepts for nursing
research, using our study as an exemplar. It is hoped that the
greater understanding gained from this paper will motivate
researchers to consider the suitability of Heideggerian hermeneutic
phenomenology for future research.
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in nu
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ISSN 1393-614X Minerva - An Internet Journal of Philosophy Vol.

7 2003.
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HUSSERL, HEIDEGGER AND THE INTENTIONALITY

QUESTION
Archana Barua

AbstractRaising an ontological question regarding the meaning of

'a being' and also the meaning of an 'intelligent being', Heidegger
identifies intentionality with the skilful coping of a social, norm
bound, engaged and context dependent embodied being. This he
describes in terms of a Dasein, a being-in-the-world, and its tool
using activity with respect to social practices and norms. Unlike
Husserl's, intentionality in Heidegger is primarily semantic: the
necessary conditions of skilful coping are also the necessary
conditions of intentional acts. The entire question of computers
attaining Dasein-like character is largely dependent on whether
these purposeful causal laws can also be formalized. While
Dreyfus rules out this possibility, Mark Okrent successfully argues
that there is nothing in Heidegger that rules out the possibility of
computers attaining a Dasein-like character. While in full
agreement with Mark Okrent, I have made an attempt at
understanding the entire debate with more emphasis on the
implications of a Dasein attaining a computer-like character.

What I intend to do in this article is to make a comparative study of

Hebert Dreyfus and Mark Okrent's philosophical observations as
presented in two respective articles: 'What Computers Can't Do?'
and 'Why The Mind Isn't a Program (But Some Digital Computer
Might Have a Mind)?' In light of this, I have accepted Okrent's
(1996, online) observation that the claim made by Dreyfus, 'that in
the light of Heidegger's interpretation of 'intentionality', it is at
least highly unlikely for digital computers to ever satisfy
Heideggerian constraints, and thus count as thinking', is not strong
enough. I have made an attempt to justify my observation, which is
contrary to what Dreyfus has said (1997, p.108) in some occasions,
that it is more difficult to accommodate machine intelligence in the
Husserlian framework. On the contrary, Okrent has sufficiently
justified that more than Husserl's,Heidegger's programme could
accommodate machine intelligence into its fold. For the later part, I
concentrate more on Husserl's 1893 phase of philosophical
development.

Mark Okrent, in his article, 'Why The Mind Isn't a Program?' has
referred to some of the Heideggerian constraints, which Dreyfus
has considered as prime requirements for any thinking entity to
undergo. These are: (i) the thinking entity must be 'in-the-world'
which makes it a contextualized and an embodied entity, and (ii)
the thinking entity must have a minimum understanding of how to
cope successfully in the world environment. The skill and the
practical coping ability, the 'know how', rather than theoretical,
detached and disembodied reflection, are learnt by adopting
successful social practices. This suggests that Heidegger puts
forward a set of constraints for computational model of thought,
which is acknowledged in the field of cognitive science. For
example, Bechtel and Abrahamsen in Connectionism and the
Mind: "Thus it provides hope of situating cognitive processing in
the world, and so begins to elucidate what Heidegger may have
had in mind when he emphasized that our cognitive system exists
enmeshed in the world in which we do things, where we have skills
and social practices that facilitate our interaction with objects"
(Bechtel and Abrahamsen 1991, p.126). Any thought model, to be
similar to our conscious model of thought, must incorporate those
essential requirements. This, Dreyfus seriously believes, is
impossible for a digital computer, which manipulates formal
symbols in accordance with a set of rules organized in a program,
to ever satisfy the Heideggerian constraints.

Interestingly, Mark Okrent, while accepting the first part of

Dreyfus's interpretation of a set of conditions provided by
Heidegger on what it is to think, differs from Dreyfus's other
observations that these conditions could not be satisfied by
program-driven digital computers. Okrent strongly believes that
there is nothing in Heidegger, which counts against the possibility
of ascribing thoughts to computers. To reinterpret Heidegger in the
light of his new findings, Okrent focuses on two basic questions:
(1) what it is to be a thinker? And (2) which actual entities might
count as thinkers? The first issue concerns the 'question of being',
and the second concerns the matters of fact. What qualifies an
entity to be a thinking entity is for Heidegger an issue of being, an
ontological question that is necessarily tied to the question of the
meaning of being. But how ought we to understand what it is to
think? If we consider rationality to be the necessary and sufficient
condition for an entity to be intelligent or as thinking, what
motivates this is the recognition that some machines, manipulating
formal symbols in accordance with a set of pre-defined rules, have
proved successful in behaving in a rational manner. In this sense,
such a machine qualifies to be a thinking entity. On the other hand,
if what it is to think cannot be captured in any program, is it
possible for a rational entity so defined to independently satisfy
those other requirements laid down by Heidegger that a thinking
entity must undergo?
Mark Okrent's rereading of Heidegger's work leads him to a
different conclusion. Okrent believes Heidegger does leave open
the possibility that some computers could actually think in spite of
the fact that necessary requirements laid down by him for any
intelligent being, 'being-in-the-world', 'skills', and social practices,
are not a set of behaviours which can be defined in terms of formal
symbols. Heidegger follows Husserl and Brenteno and defines
consciousness in terms of intentionality. Here, unlike Husserl's
identification of intentionality with the nature of the act, Heidegger
concentrates more on the question of being. Heidegger accepts the
basic requirement of intentionality as laid down by Husserl and
Brentano, its object directedness, but with more emphasis on the
question of 'being'. Ultimately the question of being is 'what is the
most general way to understand and how it is possible to intend
something?' (Okrent 1996, online) So what a 'thinking being'
means is to be determined by investigating that which characterizes
that type of entity. Heidegger has made a shift from an articulation
of the question of being to an articulation of the character of
intentionality. The crux of the question is: what conditions must be
satisfied when some event is correctly described in intentional
terms? The meaning of an intentional entity is related to the
meaning of that general entity, that being, in Heidegger's
terminology, Dasein, which has that intentional state and also some
other states.

The essential character of Dasein is its 'being-in-the-world', acting

purposefully in a goal directed way, and using tools as tools in
pursuing its goals. In general Dasein does what it is socially
appropriate for it to do, using tools as tools the way they should be
used, which is defined by usual habitual practices, in a norm
governed way. Dasein's 'being-in-the-world' involves a care
structure, it is ahead of itself, being alongside other entities etc.,
which are necessary for having intentional states and these are
expressed in several ways: cultivating and caring something,
holding something, letting something go etc., the common
denominator of which is 'concern'. All of these are instances of the
overt behavior of embodied persons, described in intentional terms.
Instead of making intentional states central from which overt acts
are derived, Heidegger takes the intentionality of overt acts as
primary and of inner states as secondary. So the necessary
condition of a goal-directed intentional overt act is its practice,
appropriately chosen, learning proper manner of tool use, and since
engaging in a practical activity is a necessary condition for having
intentionality, a person engages in a practical activity if he intends
tools as tools by using them. For example, if it is correct to
describe a certain event as hammering, that it is directed towards
the goal of a nail being made fast, it is correct to say that the agent
is treating the object being used as a hammer, and the entity as a
nail by using it as a nail, so the primary way to intend hammer as
hammer is by hammering it, by intending tools as tools. Now the
question is: what are the necessary conditions for intending tools as
tools? Rather than using them in an arbitrary manner, they should
be used the way society prescribes a definite way of using them,
ascribing a function which is a rule to use them.

Accommodating a wider scope for intentionality criterion in terms

of Dasein and its tool using capacity, and identifying intentionality
with that semantic meaning, Heidegger has waived the
consciousness requirement and thereby there is no way in which
the mind is a program in the sense that a program defines what it is
to have a mind. This is not because programs are syntactic and a
mind has semantics. All that Heidegger has to say here is the fact
that what it is to think cannot be defined in terms of programs;
however it does not follow that entities which act in a programmed
way could not be counted as thinking entities. At this juncture,
Okrent pursues the implications of a dialogue which Dreyfus
initiated with the ghost of Alan Turing, the fact that Turing was
willing to admit that "it is not possible to produce a set of rules
purporting to describe what a man should do in every conceivable
set of circumstances" (Turing 1950, P.441). From this above
premise it follows that no set of formal rules could ever specify
what it is to have a mind in the Heideggerian sense of acting in
accordance with some set of rules describing what should be done
in every conceivable circumstance. So no set of formal rules could
specify what it is to have a mind. Now the question is: could a
machine be doing what it should, where what it should do is
determined by social practices? Could such a machine have
Dasein-like character?

From what Turing is willing to accept as a premise in the above

argument, it does not follow that what a person should do can
never be expressed in any set of rules. Dreyfus responds that it
does not follow from the fact that the behavior of human agents
follows causal laws that these laws could be embodied in a
computer program. But it also surely does not follow that these
causal laws could not be embodied in computer programs, and then
a machine is surely expected to do everything that a person does in
that similar situation, physically described. In that case the
machine attains Dasein-like character; it is an entity, which has
intentional states. Given Heidegger's views, this cannot be the case.
On the one hand his Husserlian background still keeps room for
some form of consciousness as a requirement for intentionality,
and that machines following formal rules cannot possibly be
conscious. But this possibility could not be explored further as for
Heidegger consciousness is not necessary for intentionality, rather
in having intentions one must do what one should do and what one
should do cannot be formalized, then one cannot argue from "A
and B do the same things, physically described", to "doing the
same thing intentionally described", since there could be no lawful
relationship between these two, so from the fact that A and B do
the same thing physically described, one can not infer "A and B
both are Daseins" (Okrent 1996, online).

For Heidegger, intenationality requires a relation between an entity

and the social practices; if one alters that social context, one is
altering the intentionality part, even if the physical description of
the act remains the same. This logical independence of these two
phases of description does not rule out the possibility of behavior
of some entity satisfying both these descriptions. All one has to do
is actually building such an entity which could satisfy both these
descriptions, coming up with a set of rules which adequately
describe our own behavior, which under another description is also
skillful coping with environment by acting in accordance with
social practices. Even if what qualifies a thinker as a thinker is not
acting in accordance with rule manipulating symbols, it does not
follow that some computers, or symbol manipulators, could not
also be thinkers. What it is to be a 'thinking being', is an
ontological question. The question of the being of a thinking entity
is incompatible with the hypothesis that the mind is a computer.
Since this is not relevant, the later phase, whether some computers
can also have a mind, is a logically separate question, even if the
qualification for thinking is not that it behaves as some computers
would, does not rule out the possibility that they would also behave
the way a thinking entity should.

My second contention is regarding the non-computational model of

intentionality provided by Husserl. In his Philosophy of
Arithmetic (1891), Husserl deals with the concept of numbers and
also the psychological origin of the concept. He first describes the
'genuine presentations' of the concepts of unity, multitude, number,
etc, and in the second part he defines the so-called symbolic
representations. The genuine presentation is the same as the
intuitive or insightful presentation in which the intended object is
itself given. But this intuitive insight is restricted to a very small
group of entities, as for a large set of hundreds or thousands of
objects, the second presentation, of signs and symbols, is the only
device. But the question is: how are these symbolic devices to be
elucidated? This is the basic question of his Philosophy of
Arithmetic. While there was no question regarding the
arithmetical device resulting (objectively) in the truth, what he
wanted to explore was the justification part, whether these devices
are also (subjectively) justified, that is, whether the devices can be
performed with evidence, rather than merely blindly or by vote. It
cannot be denied that the devices applied in the art of calculation
do indeed result in truth. The Philosophy of Arithmetic aims at
justifying them, which should be the aim of the 'true philosophy of
the calculus', the desideratum of centuries. According to Husserl,
calculation, and all other higher forms of mental life in general (cf.
especially 1890, p.349f) etc. are based on "mental mechanisms"
(Munch 1996, p. 199 - 210), "Arithmetical devices are neither
typically applied with evidence, nor have they been invented on the
basis of arithmetical insights: our mind, in using them, becomes
rather like the working of a machine, which uses "blind
mechanical" or "logicalmechanical" devices (1890, p.364); i.e.,
the unelucidated processes that we normally use, are the result of a
kind of "natural selection". It is, he says, 'in the struggle for
existence that the truth was won (1890, p.371).' The description of
these natural devices is the first task of Husserl's programme for
elucidating them. However, this description of the natural
mechanical processes, according to Husserl, is only the first stage
in the full elucidation of symbolic representations. In a second,
constitutive stage, the stage of justification, a logical device
parallel to the psychological mechanism (a parallelaufendes
logisches Verfahren 1890, p.359ff.) is to be developed. In this stage
abstract algorithmical equivalents will be developed as well as
rules for testing and inventing them.' (Munch 1996, p. 199)

Thus the theories advocated by Husserl in his pre-1890 theories of

mind came close to the computational model of thought. However,
the initial difficulty of providing a special theory of symbolic
knowledge providing insight and illumination as necessary criteria
was overcome by his introduction of 'intentionality' over intuitions.
In 1893 Husserl introduced a new concept, of intention or
representation, which is contrasted with the concept of intuition.
Now intuitions are those phenomena that are given directly or
without mediation, while in the case of intention our interest is
directed towards an object, which is not intuited at the same time.
Intentions or representations always intend a fulfilment, which is
supplied by intuitions. Until this concept was introduced symbols
served as surrogates, the signs are not numbers but they
represented numbers because of the fact that the digits belonged to
a sign-system that mirrors the structure of numbers. It is therefore,
by virtue of the structure, the syntax, that surrogates mean
something, otherwise these signs are blind. In representations as
intentions, Husserl discovered a psychological bond between the
sign and the intuition in which the represented object is given. The
sign is no longer a blind object but an 'Anhalt', a hold for
meaningful act. He defines representation in Psychological
Studies (1894) as 'merely intending', and the dichotomy of the
Philosophy of Arithmetic is broken. On the strength of this newly
found intentionality concept, Searle argues that consciousness is
necessary for semantic content and that syntax is insufficient for
consciousness. As Dier Munch (1996) sums up, 'Thus Husserl
anticipates not only a programme of cognitive simulation, but also
its criticism'.

Let me recapitulate the basic requirements laid down by Husserl

and by Heidegger which must be fulfilled by any entity to be
properly regarded as thinking. Husserl's dissatisfaction with the
mode of calculative rationality and the use of inauthentic concepts
expressed a genuine urge on his part to safeguard the human
dimension of thought. He saw danger in machine intelligence
replacing human intelligence when thought was identified with
efficiency and with speed and on 'economy of thought which does
not require much human effort.' But with its inherent blindness, it
allows a powerful thinking without insight and illumination,
without any need for self-justification. This notion can be evident
when expert computer systems sometimes behave in an absurd
manner when they have been provided with insufficient data. For
Heidegger, this 'blindness' belongs to the essence of science.
According to Husserl, for science to be true science, it must escape
from the pressing demands of everyday praxis; for Heidegger, the
entanglement of theory and praxis shows that for finite, human
Dasein, there is no such thing as pure theory. "Whereas Husserl
interprets the narrowing of science to mere calculation as a loss of
the original ideal of science, Heidegger holds that the dominance
of calculative thought reveals the very essence of science. Where
Husserl speaks of correcting all these short-comings of science by
a willful assuming of another attitude, Heidegger alludes to a
completely other form of thought, which can neither be willed,
sought after, nor mastered" (Buckley 1992). In the Heideggerian
framework, Dasein is called to respond to Being and Being's
giving of itself in our time is through revelation in the form of
technology. In a very specific sense, then, Dasein can be said to be
responsible for technology. "Rather technology is the Gestell,
which itself enframes everything, including Dasein. For this
reason, Heidegger is able to claim that the essence of technology is
'nothing human.' This framework is not possible without humanity,
but it reminds something beyond complete human control"
(Buckley 1992).

In his response to Being, Dasein is responsible for that which to

some extent is beyond Dasein. Being responsible in this manner
implies a fundamental vulnerability on Dasein's part. We are
responsible only for that which we can predict and control. This is
quite contrary to the traditional sense of responsibility that we are
responsible for that which comes from us, not for that which comes
from afar, irrespective of the fact that there are many unforeseen
consequences of our actions, which are beyond our control. We are
responsible for those people or things which are given to us, not
only to those whom we can control or predict." To be sure, such
thinking is often closely allied with talk about responsibility, but
this is a pseudo-responsibility, a responsibility for that which I can
control, but not for that that might place me under its spell. Far
more suitable responses might be gratitude, or remorse resuming
in the request for forgiveness. Without doubt, the great difficulty
which many philosophers have with Heidegger's own involvement
with National Socialism is not just the involvement itself, but
Heidegger's quasi-calculative defence that nobody could foresee
the course that National Socialism was going to take. Perhaps he
genuinely could not. But this in no way lessens responsibility and
the obligation of a correct response which in this case could only
be humility and remorse. Such a response was never forthcoming"
(Buckley 1992). Dasein's sense of responsibility is to respond to
what comes from afar and to assume the care for that which it
cannot master. Husserl's centrality to self-responsibility and the
centrality for self-awareness and consciousness in any intentional
act make human intelligence different from machine intelligence. A
responsible man, an entity which has a mind, is not just capable of
having calculative and predicative ability, but to an insightful way
in which one is engaged with a dialogue with oneself, seeking
justification with the willingness to question oneself, to seek
evidence for that which one believes.

There was need for this critical quest even in Heidegger as his
Being and Time, published in 1927, still carried the legacy of
Husserlian and also the Hegelian emphasis on the primacy of
thinking. With his central focus on 'how to think?', Heidegger made
experiments with thought and with truth though for him it was an
exploration of another kind of thinking: 'To think is to confine
yourself to a Single thought that one-day stands Still like a star in
the world's sky' (Quoted in McCann, 1979).

What is distinctive in us as thinkers is our ability to ask questions

in our search for meaning and authenticity of life and existence.
For Heidegger, the most vital question is the question of Being,'
what it means for something to be?' Our encounter with the
question of Being discloses the practical nature of thought in its
intimate relation with historicity and existence. Heidegger sought
to unveil the nature of thinking of the earth-bound man who is
ruled not by the image of the sun, not by the light of reason per se,
but by the logic of life depending on idiosyncratic circumstances of
the moment for insight and practical wisdom. Dasein is neither a
subject against an object, nor a man differing from a machine or a
computer, but an understanding of how to use tools as tools. Its
membership to its kind is crucial than its personal or non-personal
dimensions. As Dasein is a kind of equipmental understanding that
appropriately deals with equipments using tools as tools, anything
could attain a Dasein like status provided it has a coping ability
with mechanical commitments to rules which are already codified
either in the wisdom of a tradition or in a rule book. For Heidegger
Being question is related to our ability to make sense of things, an
ability to interpret. Being is not a phenomenon that could be
grasped in intuitive insight. We conduct our activities with a vague
understanding of Being which is in the horizon of our ability to
make sense of making sense. Husserl saw the inherent blindness of
machine intelligence which he sought to overcome with due
recognition to the logical and the rational dimension of thinking
within his transcendental Phenomenology. For him entities in their
mode of being could be rendered present as a phenomenon through
categorical intuition and in rational insight. This light of reason is
not a distinctive mark of machine intelligence or of mindless
everyday coping skills in the background of socialized context of
everyday practices. For Husserl there is threat to reason,
responsibility and to morality if there is complete replacement of
transcendental with the ontological dimensions of phenomenology.

My initial question was: beginning with this outline of Heidegger's

Dasein, could one ascribe Dasein like character to a cyber being?
For Dreyfus computers would never be able to act intentionally
since it acts only in a programmed way and it would be impossible
for a computer or for a cyber being to successfully cope with its
environment unless all the variables of a context are programmed.
Contrary to what Dreyfus says, with the advances made in
technology and also in the field of AI, a robot of the most
sophisticated construction could be programmed to display better
coping abilities than humans. If that is what characterizes human
intentionality then these robots are better qualified to be
Heideggerian Dasein in terms of better coping skills, better than
any human grandmaster could ever display. "Kasparov ultimately
seems to have allowed himself to be spooked by the computer,
even after he demonstrated an ability to defeat it on occasion. He
might very well have won it if he were playing a human player
with exactly the same skill as deep blue (at least as the computer
exists this year). Instead, Kasparov detected a sinister stone face
where in fact there was absolutely nothing. While the contrast was
not intended as a Turing Test, it ended up as one, and Kasparov
was fooled" (Lanier, online). That a machine could attain a Dasein
like character is now no longer an issue for me. What I am
interested in finding is what is that which is distinctively human,
that which would have made Kasparov look for a human face
which could not come from his opponent displaying all coping
abilities and all the known techniques of a skilled player? Why that
stone face of his opponent could make him so unsure of himself?
For me, this is related to a more vital question regarding another
dimension of meaning of Being. My question now is, 'What makes
our coping abilities distinctively human?'

We as humans have the capacity to learn from our mistakes, we

can commit wrongs and can repent for those wrongs, we may
continuously ask the being question in order to redefine our stand
and to remake ourselves, the qualities which humans alone are
required to possess in a match for equality between humans and
machines. "This is what makes our being distinct, this specific
style of coping. It is a style consisting of unknowns and knowns, of
past and future, of stumbling not gliding. It is our combination of
Heidegger's big words, disclosed and undisclosed that characterize
our way of coping our being. Confusing gibberish it is, but in many
ways it is confusing gibberish that dominates what we are and
therefore is a major part of what it means to be a Dasein" (Frey
1999). For us the real defeat comes not from a machine acting
smarter than us, it is a defeat that comes when we surrender our
distinctively human style of coping imbibing a style that is alien to
us. Heidegger's late philosophy was a move toward a mystical
dimension, more for mechanical submission to the moods of the
commune than to reflect and research, more with an urge to be
seized than to seize, for a kind of conversion than rational
persuasion. His ideal Dasein became more machine-like with
blindness to those emotions, which are necessary for us to cope
with a style that is distinctively our own. The real threat comes if
Dasein attains a machine-like character wearing a mask of a
sinister stone face which is a real threat to its own being and to its
authentic mode of being in the world.

References

Bechtel, W. and A. Abrahamsen (1991). Connectionism and the

Mind. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Buckley P. (1992). Husserl, Heidegger and the Crisis of
Philosophical Responsibility. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Dreyfus H. L. (1997). 'Beingintheworld'. The MIT Press.
Cambridge.
Frey C.H. (1999). Cyber-being and Time,Website:
http://www.spark-online.com/december99/discourse/frey.htm
[Accessed 4 August 2003]
Lanier J. Why the Deep Blues, Website: http://www.anti-
feminism.com/chess.htm [Accessed 2 August 2003].
McCann C. (Ed.) (1979). Martin Heidegger: Critical Assessment,
Volume 1. Routledge.
Munch D. (1996). 'The Early Husserl and Cognitive Science'. In:
Baumgartner, E., Hrg., Handbook - Phenomenology and Cognitive
Science, mit Illustrationen von Edo Podreka, Dettelbach: Rll.
Okrent, Mark. 1996. 'Why The Mind Isn't a Program (But Some
Digital Computer Might Have a Mind)', The Electronic Journal of
Analytic Philosophy, Website:
http://ejap.louisiana.edu/EJAP/1996.spring/okrent.1996.spring.htm
l [Accessed 10 February 2003].
Turing, A. M. (1950). 'Computing Machinery and
Intelligence.'Mind LIX: 433-460.

Copyright 2003 Minerva.

All rights are reserved, but fair and good faith use with full
attribution may be made of this work for educational or scholarly
purposes.
Dr. Archana Barua teaches philosophy at the Indian Institute of
Technology, Guwahati. Her major areas of interest are
Phenomenology of Religion and Phenomenology and Cognitive
Science.

Mail to: Archana Barua

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Universitas, Number 9, September 2001
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Phenomenology and Philosophy
dgboland 2001
"Is it possible, as the Pope seems to try and do, to reconcile
Thomism with phenomenology?" is a question that has recently
been put to us. It would be useful first of all to define the terms of
the question. As we may presume that most of our readers will
have a pretty good idea of what Thomism is, the task of definition
principally relates to the word "Phenomenology". As most would
be aware, it is the name for a philosophical movement that owes its
origin to Edmund Husserl. It came to prominence in the early part
of the last century and has had profound influence on the whole
range of contemporary thought. It is obviously a movement of
some significance even today.
So as not to be accused of colouring our definition of it, let us take
over for this purpose, without necessarily accepting what is said in
it, one of the many descriptions of Phenomenology that can be
found simply by searching the internet.
Phenomenology
"Phenomenology, 20th-century philosophical movement dedicated
to describing the structures of experience as they present
themselves to consciousness, without recourse to theory,
deduction, or assumptions from other disciplines such as the
natural sciences."
Husserl
The founder of phenomenology, the German philosopher Edmund
Husserl, introduced the term in his book Ideas: A General
Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1913; trans. 1931). Early
followers of Husserl such as the German philosopher Max Scheler,
influenced by his previous book, Logical Investigations (1900-1;
trans. 1970), claimed that the task of phenomenology is to study
essences, such as the essence of emotions. Although Husserl
himself never gave up his early interest in essences, he later held
that only the essences of certain special conscious structures are
the proper object of phenomenology. As formulated by Husserl
after 1910, phenomenology is the study of the structures of
consciousness that enable consciousness to refer to objects outside
itself. This study requires reflection on the content of the mind to
the exclusion of everything else. Husserl called this type of
reflection the phenomenological reduction. Because the mind can
be directed toward nonexistent as well as real objects, Husserl
noted that phenomenological reflection does not presuppose that
anything exists, but rather amounts to a "bracketing of existence,"
that is, setting aside the question of the real existence of the
contemplated object.
What Husserl discovered when he contemplated the content of his
mind were such acts as remembering, desiring, and perceiving and
the abstract content of these acts, which Husserl called meanings.
These meanings, he claimed, enabled an act to be directed toward
an object under a certain aspect; and such directedness, called
intentionality, he held to be the essence of consciousness.
Transcendental phenomenology, according to Husserl, was the
study of the basic components of the meanings that make
intentionality possible. Later, in Cartesian Meditations (1931;
trans. 1960), he introduced genetic phenomenology, which he
defined as the study of how these meanings are built up in the
course of experience.
Heidegger
All phenomenologists follow Husserl in attempting to use pure
description. Thus, they all subscribe to Husserl's slogan "To the
things themselves." They differ among themselves, however, as to
whether the phenomenological reduction can be performed, and as
to what is manifest to the philosopher giving a pure description of
experience. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger, Husserl's
colleague and most brilliant critic, claimed that phenomenology
should make manifest what is hidden in ordinary, everyday
experience. He thus attempted in Being and Time (1927; trans.
1962) to describe what he called the structure of everydayness, or
being-in-the-world, which he found to be an interconnected system
of equipment, social roles, and purposes.
Because, for Heidegger, one is what one does in the world, a
phenomenological reduction to one's own private experience is
impossible; and because human action consists of a direct grasp of
objects, it is not necessary to posit a special mental entity called a
meaning to account for intentionality. For Heidegger, being thrown
into the world among things in the act of realizing projects is a
more fundamental kind of intentionality than that revealed in
merely staring at or thinking about objects, and it is this more
fundamental intentionality that makes possible the directness
analyzed by Husserl.
French Phenomenology
The French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre attempted to adapt
Heidegger's phenomenology to the philosophy of consciousness,
thereby in effect returning to Husserl. He agreed with Husserl that
consciousness is always directed at objects but criticized his claim
that such directedness is possible only by means of special mental
entities called meanings. The French philosopher Maurice
Merleau-Ponty rejected Sartre's view that phenomenological
description reveals human beings to be pure, isolated, and free
consciousnesses. He stressed the role of the active, involved body
in all human knowledge, thus generalizing Heidegger's insights to
include the analysis of perception. Like Heidegger and Sartre,
Merleau-Ponty is an existential phenomenologist, in that he denies
the possibility of bracketing existence. See EXISTENTIALISM.
Phenomenology has had a pervasive influence on 20th-century
thought. Phenomenological versions of theology, sociology,
psychology, psychiatry, and literary criticism have been developed,
and phenomenology remains one of the most important schools of
contemporary philosophy."
As may be seen from this short description, Husserl's original
concept has taken flesh, as it were, in a variety of ways, some of
which are hardly compatible with each other. What will be noted,
for instance, is the curious way in which Husserl's intentional urge
to go "back to the things themselves" originally is expressed in
terms of essences and pure intelligibility but ends up, via
Heidegger and Sartre, concentrating on pure existence and the
absurdity of the human condition. We have to be careful, then, to
distinguish Phenomenology from some of its offshoots. The effort
to be completely authentic in our thinking can sometimes result in
a kind of mental exhaustion.
Fortunately, Husserl himself has left us a description of what he
was trying to do in the Inaugural Lecture he gave on the occasion
of his taking up a professorship at Freiburg im Breisgau in 1917.
The lecture is entitled Pure Phenomenology, Its Method and Its
Field of Investigation. Though his thought may have undergone
some change of perspective after that it can be taken as
representing his basic position. How thoroughgoing his project was
may be gathered from his opening words:
"A new fundamental science, pure phenomenology, has developed
within philosophy: This is a science of a thoroughly new type and
endless scope. It is inferior in methodological rigor to none of the
modern sciences. All philosophical disciplines are rooted in pure
phenomenology, through whose development, and through it alone,
they obtain their proper force. Philosophy is possible as a rigorous
science at all only through pure phenomenology. It is of pure
phenomenology I wish to speak: the intrinsic nature of its method
and its subject matter that is invisible to naturally oriented points of
view."
Focused as it is on the objects of consciousness, phenomenology
can best be appreciated by contrasting it with scientific
psychology. Thus Husserl goes on to say: "The ideal of a pure
phenomenology will be perfected only by answering this question;
pure phenomenology is to be separated sharply from psychology at
large and, specifically, from the descriptive psychology of the
phenomena of consciousness. Only with this separation does the
centuries-old conflict over "psychologism" reach its final
conclusion. The conflict is over nothing less than the true
philosophical method and the foundation of any philosophy as pure
and strict science."
Generally, Husserl is part of a movement at the end of the
nineteenth century to transcend the limitations of the
materialist/empiricist approach to science and philosophy. It is the
expression of a desire, as he puts it, to return to the investigation of
the things themselves, rather than examining only their material
conditions, extrinsic causes etc. In Aristotelian terms, the
philosophers especially had been starved of knowledge of forms.
They had been concentrating on finding out everything about
things except what they are intrinsically.
Interestingly enough, though in some respects a return to
traditional scholastic concerns and aristotelian methodology, the
new movement has tended to retain the language of empiricism.
Thus, "We are the true positivists", Husserl says in 1913 in his
"Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological
Philosophy". Experience is not to be arbitrarily limited to sense
data but extends to all objects that present themselves to our
consciousness. This adaptation of terminology does have a positive
effect. For it highlights the actuality and vividness of our
awareness of the intelligible world. The sense of wonder and
mystery that ought to mark our endeavours to understand reality
seemed to have gotten lost in the over-concentration on the
reductive analysis of the empiricists and the positivists, on the one
hand, and the logical constructions of the rationalists and the
idealists, on the other.
The very word phenomenon is taken from the heart of empiricism
and given a new meaning. There is a world of difference between
the phenomenalism of Hume and the phenomenology of Husserl. A
return to things themselves beyond their superficial appearances
has been signaled by the new approach of phenomenology. The use
of his opponents' terminology by Husserl is somewhat
disconcerting and naturally casts suspicion on his project in the
minds of some Thomists. But many of the insights of
Phenomenology, properly interpreted, can in my view be
reconciled with Thomism. Like it or not, too, it may be that we
have a better chance of getting the philosophy of St. Thomas
across in a language that is familiar to modern ears than in the
traditional scholastic terminology. This to me appears the clue to
the present Pope's "leaning towards Phenomenology".
Nonetheless, there remain problems with accommodating Husserl's
thought to Thomism. It seems that he never quite resolved the issue
of Realism versus Idealism within his new system of thought.
Though he rightly recognised that this issue was to some extent a
false antithesis, and that the fundamental reality of the objects of
our experience is not an issue that confronts our consciousness, his
language does lend itself in certain cases to an immanentist
interpretation. Thus, he says, in his lecture:
"To begin with, we put the proposition: pure phenomenology is the
science of pure consciousness. This means that pure
phenomenology draws upon pure reflection exclusively, and pure
reflection excludes, as such, every type of external experience and
therefore precludes any co-positing of objects alien to
consciousness.. Consciousness is taken purely as it intrinsically
is with its own intrinsic constituents, and no being that transcends
consciousness is co-posited ".
He likens his project to that of Descartes. "The so-called
phenomenological reduction can be effected by modifying
Descartes's method, by carrying it through purely and
consequentially while disregarding all Cartesian aims;
phenomenological reduction is the method for effecting radical
purification of the phenomenological field of consciousness from
all obtrusions from Objective actualities and for keeping it pure of
them. The actuality of all of material Nature is therefore kept out
of action and that of all corporeality along with it, including the
actuality of my body, the body of the cognizing subject."
Nonetheless, the return "to the things themselves", as a rejection of
Idealism, is the basis of his thought. It remains to consider whether
and how his project can be interpreted in realistic terms. I believe
that what he was attempting can be explained in a manner
compatible with thomistic philosophy. It is significant that Husserl
speaks in terms of bracketing of existence when we wish to
consider the very object of consciousness in itself. For St. Thomas
says something like this, in De Ente et Essentia (On Being and
Essence).
He distinguishes two ways in which we can consider the essence of
a thing. The first way is to consider it is according to its proper
notion, or absolutely. In the second way we can consider the
essence as it has existence in this and that. Looking at the essence
in this second way brings into play considerations pertaining to the
conditions of existence of the essence, whether it exists in the real
or in mind. It is the essence, e.g. of man, considered in the first
way that is said first of all of anything, e.g. of Socrates. It seems to
me that this is the consideration that Husserl is trying to rescue
from those philosophies that blindly immerse themselves in the
material and accidental existence of things, like someone feeling
his way around with his eyes shut. Those who close themselves in
upon the world of essences considered solely according to their
logical existence in the mind, such as the Idealists, are equally
blind to what is staring them in the face.
The essence absolutely considered does not include existence, but,
as St. Thomas is careful to note, neither does it exclude it. Husserl,
too, was not concerned to deny the actual existence of the real
world, but sought simply to focus on the sense of the world that
everyone is aware of as actually existing. In thomistic terminology,
the first objects of the intellect are the intelligible principles of
things, their substantial rationes, natures, essences. But we know
that there is more to the things examined than that. By conversion
to the phantasm, i.e. the concrete image of the imagination, the
intellect is able to rejoin this abstract concept to the accidentals that
belong to its individual existence. Thus, we not only understand
what Socrates is, a man, but also that he is a white man. Linked
integrally with our sense awareness, our intellect also grasps things
in their actual existence. Thus, in his time, Plato, when awake,
could say that his friend Socrates actually exists. We are using
Aristotle's theory of knowledge here, not Plato's.
The realism of knowledge, therefore, becomes a problem for the
modern mind because of the loss of the distinction made by St.
Thomas. The fact that our concepts, according to an absolute
consideration, do not posit the existence of the things understood
does not mean that we have no way of knowing if such things
exist. It is a consideration only, necessary because of the abstract
nature of our intellectual knowledge. That does not preclude the
consideration of those same things, according to the way they
actually exist, firstly in the material world in which we live (as
individuals), and secondly, in the spiritual world of our minds (as
universals).
The return to things in themselves that Husserl is concerned with is
the same as the consideration of the intrinsic principles of things of
Thomistic philosophy. It presupposes the original "co-positing" of
the existence of things. For one cannot consider the real essences
of things that do not exist. But the consideration of such essences
absolutely or "purely" abstracts from the conditions of their
existence. So the problems within Phenomenology, both for
Husserl himself and for his followers, are not about the realism or
idealism of the objects of consciousness. They are primarily
focused on how to understand the essences simply considered.
Because the essences of things in our world are not simple but
complex misunderstandings can arise as to what is the nature of
man, for instance, even when considered absolutely in itself or, in
Husserl's language, as a pure phenomenon. It is divergence of
understandings in this regard that differentiates the various
positions taken by his followers. The change of focus, though an
advance in philosophical terms, does not automatically simplify
things. So we see mirrored in Phenomenology, as it were, the
spectrum of positions that can be, and historically have been, taken
with regard to the nature of being generally and of man in
particular.
The language of this discussion has become quite exotic. For "old"
ideas, such as essences, and the corresponding philosophical
sciences, such as Ontology, have been resurrected and dressed in a
new terminology that contains elements of the old terminology as
well. At the same time, the consideration of things according to the
conditions of their existence, and particularly the human "thing"
according to its human existence, have been given interpretations
that, on the one hand allow for the spiritual dimension, and on the
other hand do not. It is not surprising that the latter should end up
in absurdity.
We can, therefore, "take on board" to some extent the
phenomenological philosophy of Husserl. So too can we accept the
use of it made by one of his close associates who at the same time
was a wonderful witness to the Faith, namely Blessed Edith Stein.
But its use by such as Heidegger and Sartre is another matter. The
direction it has taken from their thought has been towards a
humanism that quite readily converts into atheism. That does not
mean to say that they do not have valuable particular insights into
the human condition.
However, an adequate treatment of their positions is beyond the
scope of this article. Neither do I presume to comment upon the
Pope's personal philosophy, as that would require a more complete
knowledge of his mind than I have. I have no worries about its
perfect harmony with the thought of St. Thomas. Nor would I be
concerned if in some respects he makes use of the language of
phenomenology.
* Quotations from the English translation of the lecture are taken
from the Internet resource on Husserl maintained by Dr. Scott
Moore, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, U.S.A.
dgboland 2001
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Don Boland is a lecturer at the Centre for Thomistic Studies, in

Sydney, Australia.
This article posted September 2001. It was published in
Universitas, No. 9 (2001).
Permission is granted to copy or quote from this article, provided
that full credit is given to the author and to the
Centre for Thomistic Studies, Sydney, Australia.
We would be grateful to receive a copy of any republication.
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