The Problem of Being in Logical Investigations

Abstract

The problem of being is the central problem of western philosophy. To a large extent, this is related to the copula in western language. The esoteric meaning of philosophy would be hardly accessible to any scholar from a Chinese cultural background, unless he intends to investigate the strange linguistic phenomena leading to such an important philosophical problem. On the other hand, it is due to the phenomenological movement that began with Logical Investigations that attention was again paid to this problem in the twentieth century. Being a phenomenologist from a Chinese cultural background, I think it is proper to examine the problem of being in Logical Investigations. Indeed, as is well known, the close connection between the problem of being and the phenomenological movement began with Martin Heidegger, who expressed the connection with these words: “Only as phenomenology is ontology possible.” Whatever great differences there are between Heidegger and Husserl, the phenomenological career of the former had its beginning when he read Logical Investigations. Undoubtedly, there is something in this great work that aroused him to think about the problem of being. In fact, it cannot be denied that Husserl had his own interpretations of the problem of being. What Heidegger regarded as inaccessible and unsolved is the so-called authentic one. Therefore, our questions are: What kind of problem of being arises in Logical Investigations? How can it be solved using Husserl’s own ideas? Why does this solution in the end miss the authentic problem of being?