FUNDIERUNG AS A LOGICAL CONCEPT

Authors(s): Gian-Carlo Rota

Source: The Monist, Vol. 72, No. 1, Logic as a Field of Knowledge (JANUARY 1989), pp. 70-
77
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903124
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 FUNDIERUNG AS A LOGICAL CONCEPT

Husserl's Third Logical Investigation, ostensibly dealing with the

phenomenology of whole and parts, is actually meant to introduce the no
tion of Fundierung. This term is frequently used in the phenomenological
literature, although little has been written about Fundierung itself since
Husserl introduced it. Husserl himself, although he used it extensively,
never again felt the need to reopen the discussion.
Our purpose will be to give a phenomenological description of Fun
dierung, which follows Husserl's original intention, but which uses il
lustrative examples taken from the works of Wittgenstein, Ryle, and
Austin, as well as from Husserl.
Although our method of presentation is descriptive, we do not pretend
(as Husserl does) to give "pure description". It is more evident in our day
than it was when Husserl wrote, that phenomenological descriptions, far
from being pure, are resolutely motivated by the search for hidden motiva
tions.
Accordingly, we avow from the start that we are motivated, as Husserl
was, by the hope that the concept of Fundierung will one day enrich formal
logic, on a par with connectives like implication and negation. That is, in
Fundierung one finds a necessary connection which can unconditionally
serve as basis for valid inferences and necessary truths. However, we know
now, what Husserl was not aware of, that Fundierung is not just one more
trick to be added to the techniques of mathematical logic. Quite the con
trary. It is likely that Fundierung may eventually alter the structure of logic
more radically than anything Husserl might have envisaged or wished.
In describing Fundierung, we face a difficulty similar to that of the
logician who, in teaching the basic operations between sets, such as union
and intersection, has to proceed indirectly, leading his students through a
sequence of examples, hoping that the underlying concept will eventually
come through.
Actually, our task is more difficult than that of the logician. We intend
to present a philosophical concept that, unlike a mathematical notion, can
not at present be formalized; nor can we hope to give it any kind of defini
tion, since standards of acceptable definition are missing in philosophy.
The impossibility of a formal system, however, should not be con

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 FUNDIERUNG AS A LOGICAL CONCEPT 71

strued as a lack of rigor. A presentation by examples can be as rigorous as a

mathematical proof. Rigor is not the exclusive preserve of mathematics.
The day may come when examples will be incorporated into a formal
presentation. Unfortunately, the widely admired success of mathematical
exposition, where examples are informally viewed as essential but formally
excluded, has worked against a rigorous formalization of a presentation
by examples.
We begin by an example gleaned from the long passage in Wittgen
stein's Philosophical Investigations, dealing with reading.
In this passage, Wittgenstein convincingly argues that reading cannot
be reduced to any sequence of specific acts. This conclusion is arrived at by
proposing several thought experiments (what Husserl would call eidetic
variations). Each eidetic variation is followed by a counterexample. My eye
movements, a detailed map of neuronal firings in the brain (obtained by the
insertion of electrodes), spelling out the letters of each word one by one,
understanding each single word, and sundry other physical events are
shown not to suffice to unequivocably determine the fact that a person may
be reading.
In Wittgenstein's discussion, the term 'reading' is used in two senses:
(a) The process of reading, namely, an event taking place in space and
time, made up (like a set out of elements) of "smaller" events (mental or
physical), which follow each other in time.
The weight of factual evidence seems superficially to support the opin
ion that reading is such a process. As I read, I stare at the text, while moving
my eyes back and forth in a characteristic manner. Certain changes go on in
my brain as I read, which can be registered and plotted. I believe that the
content "on" paper is being gradually imprinted "in" my mind.
(b) Reading as a function.
I have learned the content of the text by reading the text. But logical
hygiene demands that we keep the two terms 'text' and 'content of the text'
separate and equal. The text may be an object. The content of the text is not
an object in any ordinary sense, but it is no less "important" than the text.
What matters is my learning the content of the text.
My learning the content depends on the text and on the process of
reading, but "learning the content" is not a process, taking place at a
specific where and when.
The distinctness of text and content is undeniable. It may be confirmed
by eidetic variations, such as: I may learn the same content by reading
another text.
After reading, I may react to what I have read with puzzlement or with

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72 GIAN-CARLO ROTA

surprise, or I may decide to make a hurried phone call. These reactions are
improperly attributed to the process of reading. But in fact, the content, not
the text, is responsible for all my further dealings with the world, for deter
mining my course of action. True, my learning the content of the text
depends upon the process of reading the text. Nonetheless, my further deal
ings with the world will be determined by the content, and not by the text. It
may be argued that since my further dealings with the world depend on the
content, and since the content in turn "really" depends on the text, it
should follow that my further dealings with the world "really" depend on
the text. But the relation of "dependency," in the sense we are using it, is
not transitive, and I am in error when I conclude that my dealings with the
world depend on the text, whether "really" or not.
We have come face-to-face with a fundamental problem: the problem
of understanding what is to be meant by dependency of the content of what
I read upon the text that I read. This kind of dependency is called Fun
dierung.
What is probably bothering the reader is our contention that contents
matters more than texts, yet contents seems to exist less than texts, or than
the physical and mental acts required in the process of reading. In point of
fact, there is no way we can get contents to "exist." It is nonsensical to
force contents to "be" somewhere. We may try to pin the content onto the
brain, but then we will be brought face-to-face with an even more dis
quieting relationship of "dependency": the dependency of the content upon
the workings of the brain. To assert that the content of what I have read "is
really nothing but" neuronal firings in the brain (say) is to commit an even
more grotesque error of logic than pinning the content onto the text that
"carries "it.
Our next example is due to Gilbert Ryle. The queen of hearts in a game
of bridge may be the same card (as one card in the deck of cards) as the
queen of hearts in a game of poker. There is a relation of Fundierung be
tween the function of the queen of hearts, whether in poker or in bridge,
and the actual (material) card. One cannot infer the function (the "role") of
the queen of hearts in either game from a mere knowledge, no matter how
detailed, of decks of cards. Furthermore, it is nonsensical to ask "where ex
actly" the role of the queen of hearts in a bridge game is located. Such a role
is related, by complex Fundierung relations, to brain processes, to the
physics of playing-cards, to the players' physiques, etc., but the role itself is
nowhere.
By this example, we are led to single out another basic term. When we
focus on the content of a text, or on the rules of bridge, we focus on the

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 FUNDIERUNG AS A LOGICAL CONCEPT 73

function of the content, or on the function of the queen of hearts.

Fundierung is a relationship one of whose terms is a function. The con
tent of the text is a function. This function is related to the text by a
Fundierung-relation. The other term of a Fundierung-relation we call the
facticity: in the first example, the text; in the second example, the queen of
hearts as a mere card in the deck.
Facticity plays a "supporting role" to function. Only the function is
relevant. The text is the facticity that lets the content function as relevant.
We shall say for short that the content of the letter is factically related (or
that it bears a Fundierungsverh?ltnis) to the text.
Fundierung is a primitive logical relation, one that can in no way be
reduced to simpler (let alone to any "material") relation. Confusing func
tion with facticity in a Fundierung relation is an instance of reduction, an
error in reasoning as common as, or more common than, a petitio principii
or an ignoratio elenchi.
Facticity is the essential support (it is selbsst?ndig), but it is meant not
to upstage the function it founds.
Function is relevant; facticity is not. Nonetheless, function lacks
autonomous standing (it is unselbsst?ndig): take away the facticity, and the
function also disappears. This tenuous umbilical chord between relevant
function and irrelevant facticity is a source of anxiety. It is awkward to ad
mit that what matters most, namely, functions, is unselbsst?ndig', we might
feel more comfortable if we succeeded in reducing functions to selbsst?ndig
facticities. Psychologists and brain scientists will see to it (or so we delude
ourselves) that functions are comfortingly reduced to the workings of the
brain or to "something concrete," something that will relieve us of the
burden of developing a non-reductionistic logic of Fundierung.
Roles are examples of functions. In various contexts, I may be "play
ing" the roles of a teacher, of a patient or of a taxpayer. My role as a
teacher is founded on my being a person. As functions in Fundierung
relations, roles are structurally similar to the function of a trump card in
bridge.
Tools make striking examples of Fundierung-r dations. Pencil, paper,
ink, are tools I use in my writing. They are normally viewed as material ob
jects. But this is a mistake, one of many mistakes we are forced to make in
order to be understood. In point of fact, pen, paper, and ink are functions
in Fundierung-rclations. The pen with which I write, which I commonly
take to be a material object, is, strictly speaking, not material at all: it is a
function that lets me write. I recognize this object as a pen only in virtue of
my familiarity with its possible functions. The facticities 'ink', 'plastic',

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74 GIAN-CARLO ROTA

'small metal ball', etc., of which the pen is "made" (as we ordinarily but
imprecisely say) let this odd-shaped object function as a pen. Like most fac
ticities, they are indispensable in a pen's function; this indispensability of
facticities leads into the mistaken belief that facticities matter. The absurdi
ty of this reduction can be realized by eidetic variations: no amount of star
ing at this object as a mere assemblage of plastic, metal, and ink will reveal
that this object "is" a pen, unless I am able and willing to view the function
of pens, unless my familiarity lets me view the pen through all facticities
upon which it is founded.
We shall next consider the Fundierung relation between viewing and
seeing. That this is a Fundierung relation, on a par with those of the
preceding examples, there is no question: my viewing the pen is founded
upon my seeing something; my viewing the content of a printed page as I
read it is founded upon my seeing it. I may see the printed page without
viewing it as reading material. This may happen when the facticities of see
ing intrude upon my view: I may not know the language in which the text is
written, the printed page may be faded, etc. When reading is difficult, I
view the printed page rather than the content: I scan the text, I try to
decipher it, etc., always with a definite purpose: to let the facticities of the
text fade, so that I may read, that is, view the content through the facticities
of seeing.
Viewing, in mainfold modes, is a function in my worldly dealings; see
ing is the material support that founds viewing. Pretending to reduce any
mode of viewing, for example "reading," to a series of psychological or
physical processes, as Wittgenstein mockingly pretends to do, is to commit
the same reductionist error a child makes when he dismantles a clock to in
vestigate the nature of time. The Fundierung-rciation separates seeing from
viewing by an abyss, all the more insurmountable because it is a logical
abyss. Seeing may be a process taking place in time, one that founds my
view. But viewing has the same St?ndigkeit as the rules of the game of
bridge, the third declension, or the cohomology of sheaves.
Lastly, let us consider an example already touched upon, namely, the
relation of dependency between the instances (the "examples") of a general
(say mathematical) concept, and the concept itself. I look at the blackboard
and see triangles of different shapes. One may object: strictly speaking, I do
not see triangles, but only imperfectly drawn shapes. Is this objection valid?
We claim it is not. What I normally view when I stare at a drawing is a
triangle. The drawing founds the view of the triangle. The misunderstand
ing arises out of a misuse of the word 'see': normally I view the triangle
through a drawing "of it." I cannot "see" anything unless I view. I view

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 FUNDIERUNG AS A LOGICAL CONCEPT 75

the triangle through its drawings, because all viewing is a viewing through,
because all viewing is founded upon (and thus distinct from and not reduci
ble to) facticities, whether I view a content through a text, a pen through its
material components, or a teacher through a person.
We are misled into a reduction of viewing to the facticity of seeing,
because we are wedded to the prejudice that seeing is "rear* and that view
ing, as we have described it, is "imaginary." How can something imaginary
matter "more" than something real?
Our list of examples is concluded.
The examples given above are meant as instances of one and the same
Fundierung relation. Our claim to the universality of Fundierung, however,
may not convince a skeptic, any more than one can convince a skeptic of set
theory that the center of a circle and a marble in a box are two instances of
the same relation of containment between sets. There is no blinder person
than one who refuses to see.
The distinction between facticity and function should be obvious in the
above examples. However, the same distinction becomes difficult to draw in
investigations of mental and psychological phenomena. These investiga
tions could greatly benefit from a more careful mapping of Fundierung
relations.
Western philosophy, haunted as it is by a reductionist anxiety, has
refused to face up to the consequences of taking Fundierung seriously. The
history of philosophy is riddled with attempts, some of them extremely sub
tle, to reduce Fundierung-r?lations to "something else" that will satisfy our
demands for a certification of existence. We find it inadmissible that
"unreal" functions should turn out to matter, rather than "real" objects or
neurons in people's brains. Since we erroneously believe that whatever mat
ters must be real, we demand that functions should be reduced to something
real. Ryle's sarcasm has yet to make a dent in these demands.
The impoverished language of set theory, where sets are the only
allowed objects of discourse and where containment is the only possible
relation between sets, has armed the reductionists with one more weapon,
one that is the object of Wittgenstein's jibes. As in his example of the
broom, we may ask: is the pen a set (or a set of sets, etc.)? If so, what are
the elements of each "component" set? Are they the "pieces" of the pen?
Are plastic, ink, and metal "elements" of the set "pen"? Are atoms and
molecules elements of some set in the chain of set "composing" the pen? Or
else (cribbing an example of Austin's) we look at four people sitting around
a table and handling small pieces of cardboard, and ask: what do we see?
People playing bridge? People faking a bridge game? Players at a
bridge championship? etc., etc.

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76 GIAN-CARLO ROTA

The point is that there is no single "what" that we necessarily "see"

while watching four people around a table?or while watching anything. All
what9s whatsoever are functions in Fundierung-r ?i&tions. AU what's "are"
by the grace of some Fundierung-r?lation whose context-dependence cannot
be shoved under the rug.
The context-dependence of Fundierung is taken by the reductionist for
"arbitrariness." But this is a mistake. The rules of bridge are dependent
upon the context of the game of bridge, but they are in no way arbitrary.
Wittgenstein's vignettes (in the Logical Investigations and in Zettel)
ridicule various tantrums that seize the reductionist who desperately avoids
admitting the universality of context-dependence. But Wittgenstein is aware
that no amount of evidence will deter the reductionist, that he will clamor
for "existence" and "reality," no matter how crushing the evidence of Fun
dierung. The thesis of phenomenology that functions neither "exist" nor
"do not exist," but are founded, that the only kind of "existence" that
makes any sense?if any?is the evanescent existence of the trump card, will
only exacerbate the cravings for massiveness which the reductionist needs to
stifle his anxiety.
After an extensive list of reductions, Wittgenstein pessimistically
throws up his hands. He then takes perverse pleasure (as he often does) in
stopping short of all conclusion, and glibly goes on to the next topic.

***

We shall outline some problems that a further discussion of the notion

of Fundierung might have to deal with.
1. Fundierung-relations may be layered. The fact that the content of a
letter is a confession is factically related to my understanding the content of
the letter. The content, in turn, is factically related to my reading the text.
Next, my reading the text is factically related to my being able to see, etc. Or
else, following another chain of motivations: the text is factically related to
the writing, which is in turn factically related to ink and paper, etc.
Similarly, the function of the queen of hearts in bridge is factically
related to the function of the queen of hearts as a card in the deck. The lat
ter function is in turn factically related to the queen of hearts as a picture on
one of the cards. There is a further Fundierung relation between the picture
of the queen of spades on the card and the physical composition of the card,
etc. The layering of Fundierung relations is problematic. The facticity in
one Fundierung relation may be the function of a "lower" Fundierung rela
tion. How can this be?

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 FUNDIERUNG AS A LOGICAL CONCEPT 77

2. Whenever the relevant function functions as it is meant to function,

the "underlying" facticities are not thematized, they are unobtrusive. In
playing a bridge game, the material composition of the cards is irrelevant, if
the cards are properly made. Facticity is thematized in a breakdown. How
does such a change of view happen?
3. What separates function and Facticity in a Fundierung relation? Are
function and facticities two aspects (Teile) of some identity?
4. The "world" is "made of" functions. What will such a world be
like? How does it differ from the world of set theory, or from the Cartesian
world?
5. In the formalization of logic (or of set theory) what would result by
incorporating the notion of Fundierung! Would the notion of set have to be
radically altered or even entirely done away with?

Gian-Carlo Rota
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Mathematics

NOTES

1. The concept of Fundierung is introduced by Husserl in Logische Unter

suchungen, Husserliana XIX, vol. 1, pp. 267-300. The first revealing example is
given on page 293. The term is extensively used in the succeeding investigations,
especially in the sixth investigation.
2. The discussion of "reading" is to be found in Philosophical Investigations,
pp. 156-71. It is one of the longest descriptions Wittgenstein gives. The example of
the broom ("What is a broom made of . . . ?") is also to be found in Philosophical
Investigations.
3. Ryle's example of the playing cards is to be found in Dilemmas', his sarcas
tic remarks about "existence" are in The Concept of Mind.
4. Austin's example of looking through the telescope, from which we have
adapted the example of the bridge game, is to be found in "Sense and Sensibilia."

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