Husserl's Conception of Reason as Authenticity

Abstract

Both of Husserl's last two major publications from the 30's refer to a crisis-a crisis in Europe, a crisis in and regarding science, and a crisis concerning the nature and possibilities of philosophy.1 They are of course for him symptoms of the same crisis, and at both the beginning and the end of each of these works, Husserl also characterizes this crisis as a crisis of "reason," as a crisis about the nature, limits, and possibilities of reason itself (VI, 7, 10, 13, 273, 319, 347). In fact, one way to characterize his basic message in both of these writings is that modern Western ("European," he calls it here) thinking has taken a fatal turn by orienting itself on a technically fruitful, but philosophically much too narrow conception of reason that precludes the possibility of a reasonable philosophical discussion of the normative, social, ethical, and practical questions that cannot be solved by modern natural sciences. The discussion is occasionally somewhat confusing because of the ambiguity of the very notion of reason and of Husserl's use of the term Rationalitat in some places to describe the inappropriate and fateful restriction of what reason is and can be, and in other places as the name for the project of philosophy itself and as the goal of Western humanity that goes well beyond the narrower project of modern natural science. In the German text of the longer work, it helps that the former, narrower notion is often referred to by means of the Latin term ratio or its Germanic derivatives Rationalitat and Rationalismus (cf., e.g., VI, 18 ff. in his account of the origin of modern mathematically oriented science), whereas the broader and in his view more appropriate conception is usually terminologically fixed through the German word Vernunft (e.g., in §§2-6 in his description of the traditional role of philosophy [VI, 3-14, 275, 329, and 337]). It would not be completely inappropriate to characterize the overall tenor of the two writings as a call back from rationality as mere Rationalismus in favor of a return to a broader conception of rationality as Vernunft.2 Another problem connected with Husserl's use of the term "rationality" in these writings is that he is very specific and relatively clear about what rationality in the broader, more appropriate sense is not, i.e., he gives a very detailed account of the origin of the inadequate modern conception of rationality, but that he does not specify in nearly as clear terms what he means by "reason" in the sense of Vernunft. In what follows, I will be arguing that his use of the term in these final two writings is consistent with the positive sense of the term "reason" that he adopted from Franz Brentano and then developed and explicated in earlier writings, most especially in final section of the Ideas I and in the Kaizo articles from the 1920s. I will also try to show how reading his positive use of the term "reason" against this background can not only help us better understand what he means by reason in the positive sense in those writings, but also help us understand his general project in a somewhat different way than it has often been seen by commentators who want to see Husserl simply as a twentieth century version of Descartes.3 The picture that emerges will have Husserl end up in closer company to hermeneutical philosophy along the lines or Heidegger or Gadamer, or critical theory along the lines of Habermas than has commonly been recognized. There is a rule of thumb for German philosophical terminology that says that in order to figure out how a term is used, you can normally go back to Kant (or otherwise Hegel) to find out where the usage comes from. There are some notable exceptions, of course. Heidegger's attempt to invent a whole new philosophical terminology in German-an attempt inspired by his understanding of the way the classic Greek philosophers had coined their technical terms-is the most prominent exception, but for nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophers, the rule is pretty reliable. …