Logical Construction and Phenomenological Reduction

Abstract

In Part I, an outline of the relations with respect to questions of method is made that hold between some of the most important philosophical movements in the first half of the 20th century and the Pragmatism of Peirce as well as the Phenomenology of Husserl. Attention is focused on methodological difficulties that arise when the difference of word and object including its specialization of mind and body gets questioned. Neither side can subsist in separation; signs and what they stand for depend on each other. It turns out that constructions in the spirit of Peirce as well as reductions in the spirit of Husserl depend on each other, too. Any attempt at reconstructing experience is bound to fail as long as the dialogical polarity of actions—in I-role an action while acting is executed, in You-role it is cognized—is not explicitly taken into account. In Part II, the dialogical organization of such a reconstruction is sketched, and it is shown how logical constructions and phenomenological reductions have to interact in order to achieve such a result. Yet, to do so would have been unlikely without the observation, due to Cavailles, that there is a duality between objects (of procedures) and procedures (of making objects available) such that actions as procedures, i.e., actions while acting, rather than as objects show openly their dialogical polarity.