Defending Husserl

Uwe Meixner

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9783110374605
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Phenomenology in Philosophy

The phenomenological approach to the philosophy of mind, as inaugurated by Brentano and worked out in a very sophisticated way by Husserl, has been severely criticized by philosophers within the Wittgensteinian tradition and, implicitly, by Wittgenstein himself. Their criticism is, in the epistemological regard, directed against introspectionism, and in the ontological regard, against an internalist and qualia-friendly, non-functionalist (or: broadly dualistic/idealistic) conception of the mind. The book examines this criticism in detail, looking at the writings of Wittgenstein, Ryle, Hacker, Dennett, and other authors, reconstructing their arguments, and pointing out where they fall short of their aim. In defending Husserl against his Wittgensteinian critics, the book also offers a comprehensive fresh view of phenomenology as a philosophy of mind. In particular, Husserl's non-representationalist theory of intentionality is carefully described in its various aspects and elucidated also with respect to its development, taking into account writings from various periods of Husserl's career. Last but not least, the book shows Wittgensteinianism to be one of the effective roots of the present-day hegemony of physicalism.

Chapter I:

On Imagining

Imagining is a central mental activity. This is true in imagining’s own right, considering the importance imagining has in our mental life. But it is likewise true if imagining is considered in its close connection to other mental activities, above all to perceiving, thinking, and understanding. The centrality of imagining is the reason why it is treated first in this book. Because of its centrality, imagining can serve as the ideal topic for introducing the issues of this book. As will soon be noticed, the considerations regarding imagining keep touching on other mental matters (mainly, of course, on those that have to do with perceiving).

Illusionary perceiving, hallucinating, dreaming (while asleep), and perception-in-recollection ––– each entails imagining in the broad sense (so that a person who is, for example, dreaming is ipso facto also imagining in the broad sense). Imagining in the narrow sense, however, is entailed by none of the four mental activities just mentioned. In what follows, imagining (simpliciter) will always be imagining in the narrow sense.

As such, imagining is, (a), a mental waking activity ––– in contrast to dreaming (while asleep, but not to dreaming while awake, day-dreaming, which is, indeed, a kind of imagining). It is, (b), a mental activity which is necessarily such that, while the activity lasts, the activity’s subject, the person, is at no moment experiencing the activity’s object as actually present to the subject with the properties ascribed to it in the activity at the moment ––– in contrast to illusionary perceiving and hallucinating (each of which activities is necessarily such that the activity’s subject is at each moment of the activity experiencing the activity’s object as actually present to the subject with the properties ascribed to it in the activity at the moment), and in contrast to perceiving itself and, again, to dreaming. It is, (c), a mental activity which is necessarily such that, while the activity lasts, the activity’s subject is at no moment experiencing the activity’s object as at one (past) time actually present to the subject with the properties ascribed to it, relative to that time, in the activity at the moment––– in contrast to perception-in-recollection (which activity is necessarily such that, while the activity lasts, the activity’s subject is at each moment experiencing the activity’s object as at one time actually present to the subject with the properties ascribed to it, relative to that time, in the activity at the moment). Finally, imagining is, (d), a mental activity which does not per se require for any of its moments t that the activity’s object has at t or at any moment prior to t the properties ascribed to it in the activity at t, or even that the activity’s object is real at t ––– in contrast to veridical perceiving and veridical perception-in-recollection.

Imagining (in the narrow sense) has now been contrasted with various mental activities in its vicinity. The contrasts pointed out are, I believe, uncontroversial. What needs to be considered next, however, is not merely how imagining is distinct, in salient respects, from mental activities in its vicinity; what needs to be considered next is the question of what imagining is in itself. The various attempts to answer this question form a region of controversy.

I.1 Ryle on imagining

According to Ryle, [I.R1] “there exists a quite general tendency among theorists and laymen alike to ascribe some sort of an other-worldly reality to the imaginary and then to treat minds as the clandestine habitats of such fleshless beings” (CoM, 245); the truth of the matter is, according to Ryle, that [I.R2] “[t]here is not a real life outside, shadowily mimicked by some bloodless likenesses inside; there are just things and events, people witnessing some of these things and events, and people fancying themselves witnessing things and events that they are not witnessing” (CoM, 248-249). As is rather usual with Ryle, this (characteristically) robust denial is not matched by a correspondingly robust positive analysis. What is it he has to offer on the positive side?

For Ryle, imagining comes in two kinds: (1) the imagining of something known to be real, and (2) the imagining of nothing known to be real. Ryle’s examples for the first kind of imagining are [I.R3] “[actively or merely passively] [g]oing through a [known] tune in one’s head” (CoM, 269) ––– that is, [I.R4] “fancying oneself humming or playing it and […] fancying oneself merely listening to it” (CoM, 269) ––– and [I.R5] “[s]eeing Helvellyn in one’s mind’s eye” (CoM, 270). Fittingly, Ryle’s examples for the second kind of imagining are also visual and auditory: [I.R6] “We can fancy ourselves looking at fabulous mountains. Composers, presumably, can fancy themselves listening to tunes that have never yet been played” (CoM, 270).

In analysis of the first kind of imagining, regarding his auditory examples, Ryle says this:

[I.R7] “Fancying one is listening to a known tune involves ‘listening for’ the notes which would be due to be heard, were the tune being really [meaning here: presently] performed. It is to listen for those notes in a hypothetical manner. Similarly, fancying one is humming a known tune involves ‘making ready’ for the notes which would be due to be hummed, were the tune actually [presently] being hummed. It is to make ready for those notes in a hypothetical manner. It is not humming very, very quietly, but rather it is deliberately not doing those pieces of humming which would be due, if one were not trying to keep the peace. We might say that imagining oneself talking or humming is a series of abstentions from producing the noises which would be the due words or notes to produce, if one were talking or humming aloud” (CoM, 269).

Also in analysis of the first kind of imagining, but regarding his visual example, Ryle offers the following:

[I.R8] “The expectations which are fulfilled in the recognition at sight of Helvellyn are not indeed fulfilled in picturing it, but the picturing of it is something like a rehearsal of getting them fulfilled. So far from picturing involving the having of faint sensations, or wraiths of sensations, it involves missing just what one would be due to get, if one were seeing the mountain” (CoM, 270).

Ryle’s basic idea behind these analyses might be summed up as follows: imagining something known to be real is a thinking utilisation of knowledge (though, of course, not every thinking utilisation of knowledge is imagining something known to be real). Ryle says:

[I.R9] “Going through a tune in one’s head is like following a heard tune and is, indeed, a sort of rehearsal of it. But what makes the imaginative operation similar to the other is not, as is often supposed, that it incorporates the hearing of ghosts of notes similar in all but loudness to the heard notes of the real tune [meaning here: of the tune if it were presently performed], but the fact that both are utilisations of knowledge of how the tune goes” (CoM, 269; italics mine).

[I.R10] “Seeing Helvellyn in one’s mind’s eye does not entail, what seeing Helvellyn and seeing snapshots of Helvellyn entail, the having of visual sensations. It does involve the thought of having a view of Helvellyn and it is therefore a more sophisticated operation than that of having a view of Helvellyn. It is one utilisation among others of the knowledge of how Helvellyn should look, or, in one sense of the verb, it is thinking how it should look” (CoM, 270; italics mine).

Now, it is quite true that, regarding imagining, there [I.R11] “are questions of fact with which we are not concerned. Our concern is to find out what it means to say, e.g. that someone ‘hears’ something that he is not hearing” (CoM, 270). But there is a fact regarding imagining that philosophers in search of a correct analysis of imagining just cannot afford to ignore: they cannot ignore the descriptions of imaginings that other people give, the fact of such descriptions. Here is a topical example of such a description:

When I imagine hearing a tune I know to exist (though it is not now actually present to me), or imagine seeing a mountain I know to exist (though it is not now actually present to me), I do not have any expectations regarding the tune or the mountain at all. Consequently, there are no expectations of mine regarding the tune or the mountain that I know to be not fulfilled while I somehow pretend ––– to myself ––– that they are fulfilled. What I am experiencing when I am imagining those things is simply this: having inwardly (but not actually) present to myself how I know the tune goes, be it produced by others or by myself; having inwardly (but not actually) present to myself how I know the mountain looks.

Accordingly, Ryle is not going wrong in connecting the imagining of something known to be real with the utilisation of knowledge and with thinking. But thinking how Helvellyn should look is not ––– not in itself, and not even if it is accompanied by pretended-to-be-fulfilled expectations ––– already imagining how Helvellyn looks (though, indeed, at least actively imagining how Helvellyn looks essentially involves thinking how Helvellyn should look); and thinking how the tune goes is not ––– not in itself, and not even if it is accompanied by pretended-to-be-fulfilled expectations ––– already imagining how the tune goes. The designation “imagining” for the mental activity that we are discussing in this chapter is surely not an accident. Inward imagery ––– mental imagery ––– is essential for imagining; imagining simply evaporates if mental imagery is left out of the picture. The problem with mental imagery is not its occurrence ––– it does occur, as everyone knows (or should know). From the cognitive point of view, the occurrence of mental imagery of the visual kind is most important; this is why imagining is called “imagining”, although its scope reaches far beyond that of visual imaging (in fantasy). Indubitably there are also occurrences of mental imagery of the auditory, tactual, olfactory, and gustatory kind, as well as of the proprioceptive¹⁹ and manifest-emotional kind. The problem with mental imagery is the difficulty of answering truthfully the question of what is its true nature. The main issue in this is the question of exactly how experience that consists in mental imagery differs from, while being related to, experience that does not consist...