Abstract
Husserl, in his doctrine of categories, distinguishes what he calls regions from what he calls formal categories. The former are most general domains, while the latter are topic-neutral concepts that apply across all domains. Husserl’s understanding of these notions of category is here discussed in detail. It is, moreover, argued that similar notions of category may be recognized in Carnap’s Der logische Aufbau der Welt.
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Notes
- 1.
That is the abbreviation used here for Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie (Husserl 1913). References to this work are of the form Ideen + paragraph number. References to the two other books of the Ideas (Husserl 1952a,b), not published during Husserl’s lifetime, are of the form Ideen + book number + paragraph number. References to the Logische Untersuchungen (Husserl 1901) are of the form LU + investigation number + paragraph number. Its first volume, Prolegomena zur reinen Logik (Husserl 1900), is abbreviated Prolegomena.
- 2.
See Ryle (1954, 116).
- 3.
See the title of Ideen § 17 and also Prolegomena § 67. Husserl included a general discussion of regions and formal categories in his lectures on the theory of science; see Husserl (1996, 274–286).
- 4.
It was Andronicus who placed the Categories first in the Organon and the Organon first in the list of Aristotle’s works; see e.g. Gottschalk (1990, 66).
- 5.
For a critical reading of Simplicius’s argument, see Morrison (2005).
- 6.
For the background of Kant’s table of judgements in traditional logic, see Tonelli (1966).
- 7.
A good place to begin such a study is the Einleitung des Herasugebers in Husserl (2001c).
- 8.
This is clear from Carnap’s diaries of this period: on 21.11.1923 Carnap reports that Husserl has allowed him to participate in his seminar, meeting at 11.00 every Wednesday (cf. Schumann 1977, 273); after that date and until the end of February 1924 Carnap regularly mentions ‘Husserl’ on Wednesdays. What the topic of the seminar was, I do not know. On 13.11.1923 Carnap attended Husserl’s class on Erste Philosophie; Husserl’s notes for the lecture that day (cf. Schumann 1977, 275) can be found in Husserl (1956, 44–51). In his diary Carnap writes ‘nicht sehr gefallen’. Landgrebe reported in 1976 to Schumann that Carnap followed Husserl’s seminars “SS 1924–SS 1925” (Schumann 1977, 281). By considering Carnap’s diary entries on Wednesdays during that year—when, as in the previous years, the seminar met—one sees that this cannot be correct.
- 9.
- 10.
Husserl (1939, 12): “jede Art der Gegenständen hat ihre Art der Selbstgebung.”
- 11.
This is the so-called content/apprehension scheme; see Klev (2013) for more details.
- 12.
The so-called method of eidetic variation is discussed in more detail by Husserl in lecture notes from 1925 (Husserl 1968, 69–87). Husserl notes there how the notion of genus is reached through such variation (ibid. 81–84).
- 13.
Husserl (1976, 36): “Region is nichts anderes als die g e s a m t e z u e i n e m K o n k r e t u m g e h ö r i g e o b e r s t e G a t t u n g s e i n h e i t, also die weseneinheitliche Verknüpfung der obersten Gattungen, die den niedersten Differenzen innerhalb des Konkretums zugehören.”
- 14.
- 15.
The translation is taken from Barnes (2003, 6).
- 16.
The doctrine is found, for instance, in the Port-Royal Logique (I.vii):
J’appelle comprehension de l’idée, les attributs qu’elle enferme en soi, & qu’on ne lui peut ôter sans la détruire, comme la comprehension de l’idée du triangle enferme extension, figure, trois lignes, trois angles, & l’égalité de ces trois angles à deux droits, &c.
J’appelle étendue de l’idée, les sujets à qui cette idée convenient, ce qu’on appelle les inferieurs d’un terme general, qui à leur égard est appelleé superieur, comme l’idée du triangle en general s’étend à toutes les diverses especes de triangles.
Here extension appears to be understood in the first sense. Leibniz considered extension also in the second sense; see Kauppi (1971). The doctrine seems to be have been much discussed by German logicians in the nineteenth century and was well known to Husserl; it is, for instance, taken for granted in Husserl (1891a) and it plays an important role in his 1896 logic lecture notes (Husserl 2001b).
- 17.
This doctrine can be found in Aristotle; see Metaphysics \(\Delta\) 25, 1023b24: “the genus is called a part of the species.”
- 18.
In traditional terms, these are the so-called constitutive, rather than the divisive, differentiae of the essence in question. This distinction seems to have been introduced by Porphyry.
- 19.
Instead of ‘thisness’ Husserl more frequently (Ideen § 14) employs ‘this-here’ (Dies-da), which he takes as a translation of Aristotle’s tode ti. ‘Thisness’ has the advantage of allowing a plural form. The distinction between thisnesses and essences is discussed in several research manuscripts from 1917/1918, in particular in Husserl (2001a, Texte Nr. 16–17, 2012, 112–154).
- 20.
- 21.
This definition is adapted from LU III §§ 13, 21. The requirement that s ′ not be contained in s is not stated by Husserl, but Simons (1982, 125) states something like it in his gloss on the definition of the related notion of foundation from LU III § 14. The definition given at Ideen § 15 is that s is dependent when it founds together with another essence s ′ “the unity of one essence”; I shall not discuss the relation of this definition to the ones found in LU III.
- 22.
This terminology was introduced in LU III § 17. For Husserl’s use of the word ‘abstract’ see also LU II §§ 40–42.
- 23.
- 24.
See the citations and references provided by Barnes (2003, 132–133).
- 25.
This idea is spelled out quite explicitly in a short research manuscript apparently written some time between 1924 and 1928 (Husserl 2012, 254): “Jedes Konkrete steht unter einer konkreten “Kategorie”—das ist die “Region.” Jedes Abstrakte als reine Möglichkeit unter einer abstrakten Kategorie, unter einem reinen Wesensbegriff stehend, der Komponente ist der Region.” From elsewhere in the manuscript it is clear that what is here called categories are highest genera.
- 26.
Note that the Greek word suntaxis simply means a putting together of certain elements, be they words or soldiers or whatnot.
- 27.
See Lohmar (2008) for a helpful discussion.
- 28.
Cf. the following remark of Hilbert from lecture notes dated 1894 (Hallett and Majer 2004, 104):
Unsere Theorie liefert nur das Schema der Begriffe, die durch die unabänderliche Gesetze der Logik mit einander verknüpft sind. Es bleibt dem menschlichen Verstande überlassen, wie er dieses Schema auf die Erscheinung anwendet, wie er es mit Stoff anfüllt.
For more on the relation between Hilbert and Husserl, see Hartimo’s contribution to this volume.
- 29.
Husserl made significant revisions in these paragraphs in the second edition of the Logical Investigations, the relevant part of which was published in the same year as the Ideas. For the definition of analytic and synthetic, see also Husserl (1996, 227–229).
- 30.
See Sundholm (2013) for a discussion of these.
- 31.
A critical discussion of this interpretation can be found in Klev (2014, 15–28).
- 32.
Stone (2000, 129) accepts this identification.
- 33.
On this point, see De Palma (2010).
- 34.
E.g. KrV B134–135: “Verbindung liegt aber nicht in den Gegenständen, und kann von ihnen nicht etwa durch Wahrnehmung entlehnt und in den Verstand dadurch allererst aufgenommen werden, sondern ist allein eine Verrichtung des Verstandes, der selbst nichts weiter ist, als das Vermögen, a priori zu verbinden, und das Mannigfaltige gegebener Vorstellungen unter Einheit der Apperzeption zu bringen.” Cf. B129–130.
- 35.
Cf. the criticism of Kant found already in the Philosophy of Arithmetic (Husserl 1891b, 41):
Kant übersah, daß viele inhaltliche Verbindungen uns gegeben sind, bei denen von einer synthetischen, die inhaltliche Verbundenheit schaffenden Tätigkeit nichts zu merken ist.
- 36.
Carnap’s role in the dissemination of the simple type hierarchy is discussed in Reck (2004, 163–166).
- 37.
The meaning categories (Bedeutungskategorien) of Ajdukiewicz (1935) are of course just simple types.
- 38.
See Carnap (1929, 32).
- 39.
Christian Damböck, who has studied Carnap’s reading lists, reported in a talk at the HOPOS 2014 meeting at Ghent, 4 July, 2014 that between 1920 and 1923 Carnap worked through the Ideas three times.
- 40.
See especially Carnap (1922, 60–61), where Carnap compares the relation between the geometries related to the three kinds of space he has been studying with the relation between formal ontology, regional ontology, and factual science (Tatsachenwissenschaft), and where he also employs the distinction between formalization and generalization. The Husserlian notions of essence and eidetic intuition are fundamental to Carnap’s treatment of what he calls intuitive space (ibid. 22–31).
- 41.
- 42.
In Kant it is the adjective ‘constitutive’ rather than the noun ‘constitution’ that is prominent (cf. Brockhaus 1976); ‘constitution’ is apparently employed by the Marburger neo-Kantians Cohen and Natorp (ibid. 1002–1003); but Carnap distances his use of ‘constitution’ from Marburger-school doctrine in § 5 of the Aufbau. The word features prominently in the Ideas, especially in its final sections, and it may very well have come up in the Husserl seminar Carnap attended; Carnap may also have been familiar, through Ludwig Landgrebe, with the contents of the second book of the Ideas (cf. Stone 2010, fn. 48).
- 43.
Constitution is, as far as I know, not a technical term for Husserl and his employment of it is not so easy to circumscribe.
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Klev, A. (2017). Husserl and Carnap on Regions and Formal Categories. In: Centrone, S. (eds) Essays on Husserl's Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics. Synthese Library, vol 384. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1132-4_15
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