In the article Husserl’s view of the infinite around 1890 is analysed. I give a survey of his mathematical background and other important influences (especially Bolzano). The article contains a short exposition on Husserl's distinction between proper and symbolic presentations in the "Philosophie der Arithmetik" and between finite and infinite symbolic collections. Subsequently Husserl’s conception of surrogate presentations in his treatise "Zur Logik der Zeichen (Semiotik)" is discussed. In this text Husserl gives a detailed account of infinity, using surrogate presentations. (...) The conclusion is that with surrogates we can only operate according to blind psychological rules. (shrink)

In this article I will analyse Husserl’s conception of the infinite as ex- pressed in the paragraph Unendliche Mengen of his Philosophie der Arithmetik (PA). I will give a short exposition on his distinction be- tween proper and symbolic presentations and then proceed to the logi- cal distinctions that Husserl makes between finite and infinite symbolic collections. Subsequently (in section 2.3), I will discuss Husserl’s addition of surrogate presentations as a sub-type of symbolic presentations in his short treatise Zur Logik (...) der Zeichen (Semiotik). In this later text (which was originally intended as an appendix to the never published second volume of the PA) Husserl gives a more detailed account of how we can conceive of the infinite, using surrogate presentations. (shrink)

Husserl (1859-1938) hatte sich in seinem Werk "Formale und transzendentale Logik" das Ziel gesetzt, den inneren Sinn, die Gliederung und Zusammengehörigkeit all dessen nachzuweisen, was bislang an logischen Problemen behandelt worden war, und die Notwendigkeit einer phänomenologischen Durchleuchtung der gesamten logischen Problematik darzutun. Ein Hauptstück der analytisch-deskriptiven Untersuchungen, die einer solchen phänomenologischen Begründung der Logik dienen, ist "Erfahrung und Urteil". Das Buch entstand in Zusammenarbeit mit Schülern und Mitarbeitern.

In reworking his Logical Investigations Husserl adopts two positions that were not actually incorporated into later editions of the Investigations but do appear in other writings: a new distinction between signitive and significative intentions, and the claim that even naming and perceiving acts are categorially formed. This paper investigates Husserl's notion of noematic sense and the pure grammatical ' categories ' intimated therein in order to shed light on these new positions. The paper argues that the development of the theories (...) of the noema and of pure grammar allows us to recognize how even merely perceived or named things have a certain categoriality belonging to them, but that this development also requires us to distinguish between an anticipatory categoriality and an articulated categoriality. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes two tasks. First, I examine in detail Edmund Husserl’s earliest philosophy of surrogates, as it is found in his 1890 “On the Logic of Signs ”. I analyze his psychological and logical investigations of surrogates, where the former is concerned with explaining how these signs function and the latter with how they do so reliably. His differentiation of surrogates on the basis of their genetic origins and degrees of necessity is discussed. Second, the historical importance of this (...) text is disclosed by showing how Semiotic serves as both the inspiration for, and the foil to, Husserl’s 1901 First Logical Investigation. Husserl not only adopts the idea that linguistic signs can function via association, but also maintains that such signs can motivate me to execute one of two experiences. The key difference between the texts is that Husserl abandons his theory of surrogates in 1901, instead holding that I can experience absent objects by means of empty intentions. The reasons why Husserl found it necessary to transform this tenet of his philosophy are discussed at length. (shrink)

Phenomenology, according to Husserl, is meant to be philosophy as rigorous science. It was Franz Brentano who inspired him to pursue the ideal of scientific philosophy. Though Husserl began his philosophical career as an orthodox disciple of Brentano, he eventually began to have doubts about this orientation. The Logische Unterschungen is the result of such doubts. Especially after the publication of that work, he became increasingly convinced that, in the interests of scientific philosophy, he had to go in a direction (...) which diverged from Brentano and other members of this school (`Brentanists') who believed in the same ideal. An attempt is made here to ascertain Husserl's philosophical relation to Brentano and certain other Brentanists (Carl Stumpf, Benno Kerry, Kasimir Twardowski, Alexius Meinong, and Anton Marty). The crucial turning point in the development of these relations is to be found in the essay which Husserl wrote in 1894 (particularly in response to Twardowski) under the title `Intentional Objects' (which is translated as an appendix in this volume). This study will be of interest to historians of philosophy and phenomenology in particular, but also to anyone concerned with the ideal of scientific philosophy. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that one experience is synthesized with others? This study is a speculative-exegetical Husserlian account of the ground, the mechanisms, and the results of synthesis. A detailed, rigorous and systematic analysis of Husserl's Logical Investigations, it argues that synthesizing consciousness must be a self-explicating system of interpretive acts driven by ongoing forward and backward references, grounding its structures as it proceeds and positing its origins as that which must have been given `in advance'. It thus (...) develops a dialectical phenomenology grounded in Husserl's largely untreated category of `referring backward'. This book provides the first systematic examination of synthesis in Husserl's major early work. It offers Husserl scholars a wide range of original interpretations, on issues ranging from closed and unclosed linguistic expressions, to the indeterminacy of perspective, to the ego's return to itself. At the same time, it contributes a new model for dialogue among phenomenology, dialectics, and deconstruction, by incorporating a metaphysics of subjectivity and a structure of open-ended interpretation into a phenomenological framework. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the historical roots of the analytical tradition. As Michael Dummett points out in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, many tendencies in Central European thought contributed to the early development of analytic philosophy. Dummett himself concentrates on just one aspect of this historical complex, namely on the relationship between the theories of meaning and reference developed by Frege and by Husserl in the years around the turn of the century. It is to this specific issue (...) that the present essay is devoted, though we attempt a more sympathetic reading of Husserl's views on these matters than is to be found in Dummett’s work. Topics covered include Husserl’s theory of intentionality, his view of meanings as types or essences of mental acts, of the relation between meaning and expression, of states of affairs, and of indexicality. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss Edmund Husserl’s critique of Franz Brentano’s interpretation of categorical judgments as Double Judgments (Doppelurteile). This will be developed mostly as an internal critique, within the framework of the school of Brentano, and not through a direct contrast with Husserl’s own theory of judgment, as presented e.g. in the Fifth Investigation. Already during the 1890s Husserl overcame the psychologistic aspects of Brentano’s approach, advocating the importance of analysing the logical structure underlying language independently from psychology. (...) Moreover, Husserl’s critique seems to be also applicable to Bertrand Russell’s analysis, which shares an important aspect of Brentano’s theory. I will try to avoid going too deep into the various theories of judgment and keep mostly to the issue of double judgments. (shrink)