Husserl’s Project of Ultimate Elucidation and the Principle of All Principles

Philipp Berghofer

doi:10.1017/can.2019.40

Abstract

AbstractIt is well known that Husserl considered phenomenology to be First Philosophy—the ultimate science. For Husserl, this means that phenomenology must clarify the ultimate phenomenological-epistemological principle that leads to ultimate elucidation. But what is this ultimate principle and what does ultimate elucidation mean? It is the aim of this paper to answer these questions. In section 2, we shall discuss what role Husserl’s principle of all principles can play in the quest for ultimate elucidation and what it means for a principle to be ultimately elucidating (letztaufklärend) and ultimately elucidated (letztaufgeklärt). We will see that the Husserlian thesis that originary presentive intuitions are an immediate and the ultimate source of justification qualifies as the ultimate epistemological principle.

Highlights

Husserl’s phenomenology as a subjective science of the ultimate epistemological principles For Husserl, the most fundamental epistemological question is how subjectivity can be the source of objective knowledge
Husserl understands phenomenology as the “First Philosophy,” the “science of the principles, namely science of ultimate elucidation, of ultimate justification and sense-bestowing” (Husserl 1984, 165).2. This remains true for Husserl for the rest of his career it is not always as clearly stated as in his Londoner Vorträge (1922): the central significance of phenomenology within the entire sphere of sciences shall be disclosed and it shall be shown that phenomenology encompasses the whole system of sources of knowledge from which all true sciences must draw their fundamental concepts and statements and the entire force of their ultimate justification [Rechtfertigung]
Since transcendental phenomenology has the ambition to elucidate the ultimate epistemological principles, phenomenology has to investigate the carriers of justification, i.e., mental states

Summary

Introduction

We shall see that, for Husserl, originary presentive intuitions are the ultimate source of justification. Combining PaP and PUJ amounts to what I shall call the ultimate epistemological principle (UEP): UEP: Originary presentive intuitions are an immediate and the ultimate source of justification.

Results

Conclusion