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A hallucination of death – Edmund Husserl

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In the late 19 century, the appearance of phenomenology overturned the old concept of philosophy. Whereas the seeds of phenomenology can be traced back to Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the experience world and rational world, the thread of phenomenology really comes to its being is when the Logical Investigation published – German Philosopher Edmund Husserl in the last decade of 19 century. Its influence covers the landscape of continental philosophy. From Foucault and Sartre to Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler.

Edmund Husserl

Phenomenology is an entirely new perspective, different from the previous school of philosophy, Husserl investigates the raw consciousness, and his arguments are mostly subjective that digs into our experience. What impact on latter philosophers, is his methodology of investigating the consciousness, called Epoche (or bracketing). Disregard those terms, a simpler way to understand Husserl and his phenomenology is the way of “feeling”. For example, towards the topic of death, rationalist would dispute about the mortal or immortality, the things happened after death, or souls and existence. Rene Descartes disproved our sensations and direct consciousness that subjectively examining our world. However, from the view of phenomenology, which you could understand as part of empiricism that emphasizes the first person point of view. When Husserl thinks about death, he probably would investigate the subjective first-person experience, which asks those people who have a near-death experience and more or less close to the “representation of reality”.

Edmund Husserl was born in Prossnitz on April 8, 1859. When Husserl was about 17 years old, he studied astronomy and mathematics, also philosophy in Leipzig. Among other things, he heard Wilhelm Wundt’s psychology lecture (Wilhelm Wundt is the founder of experimental psychology) on philosophy. This lecture is considered as a significant moment that Husserl combined psychology and philosphers later in his works. In 1988 to 1881 Husserl continues to study mathematics, physics and philosophy in Berlin. He took a PhD in mathematics in Vienna. After his graduation, he has been advised to study philosophy with Brenotano, and Husserl is influenced by Brenotano’s psychology lectures. Later he has been introduced to Brenotano’s pupil, enable him to prepare for publishing books. It is notable that Husserl is a productive writer. Philosophy of Arithmetic published in 1891, which is his first published monograph. In 1900 the two volumes logical investigation published as his first work on phenomenology. From April 26 to May 2, 1907, Husserl delivered five lectures in Gottingen. He introduced the main ideas of his phenomenology. Specifically, the lectures are striking attacking on psychologism, which he particularly oppose “biologism” and “anthropologism”.

His speeches later are arranged in The idea of phenomenology, a collection contains five of his speeches. “How can cognition reach a being, and why is there not this doubt and this difficulty in connection with the cogitationes? (Husserl 2)” He considers the self-reference of cognition is a question yet to be answered in the current study of philosophy and psychology. We take for granted that the world around us exists independently of us and our consciousness. He claims that transcendent experience is posited regard as “the natural attitude”. In the speech, he introduced “the epistemological reduction” to emphasize that we shouldn’t posit a star or outer space exist unless we can cognize them. Whereas Husserl called this method “epoche” in Idea I, the true meaning of “epistemological reduction” or “epoche” is the key to open the gate of phenomenology. This means that all judgments that presume the independent existence of the world or worldly entities, are to be the bracket and have no use to phenomenology. For example, the phenomenon of fire. In order to approach this phenomenon, we discard those prior judgments of fire, cut off the connectiona between the fire and the outside world, and concentrate on the experience of it. The key of epoche is to reduce the phenomenon to its rawest experience. Ultimately, the consciousness you have could be your dream, your hallucinations, or real. But for phenomenologists, it is all the same.

Indeed, Husserl has never discussed death in any of his works, but he has constructed a path toward death for those philosophers after him. According to Being and Nothing, Sartre has quoted Husserl 60 times to state his thought. This demonstrated clearly that the edifice of philosophy is built on one by another. Even though Husserl didn’t express anything about death, it is not difficult to investigate this topic follow the logic of Husserl’s contributions.

Since Husserl opposes biologism or anthropologism, then he must be indifferent in physiological death. His method of investigation depends on one’s perceptions and experience. However, there will be no more experience after death. This is probably the reason Husserl has never talked about death – at the moment of death, your consciousness passed away. Thus, it is impossible for anyone to experience real “death”. 

Nevertheless, according to the methodology of epoche, the experience must be described from the first person point of view, to ensure the image of representation is exact as one experienced. As previously mentioned, phenomenologist doesn’t care whether an experience is a hallucination or real. This is because either a dream or hallucination, one’s undergoes is exactly the same as perceiving the external objects. “Therefore, the (adequacy of a) phenomenological description of a perceptual experience should be independent of whether for the experience under investigation there is an object it represents or not. (Stanford)” Moreover, Husserl calls up any consciousness that contains perceptual content the “the perceptual noema”. As long as a hallucination involves intentional acts, it is a “real” perception of objects.

Therefore, even though it is impossible for any living being to experience death, a hallucination of death is an alternative way to understand what is death. The only question is: how could a human being imagine something he or she has never experienced? Husserl might say: “Thinking about death doesn’t matter whether the imaginary death is based on a true experience or not, I concern the intentionality.”

References:

Beyer, Christian. “Edmund Husserl”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). URL =<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/husserl/>

Joel, Smith. “Phenomenology”. Internet Encyclopedia of philosophy. URL =<https://iep.utm.edu/phenom/#H3>

Edmund, Husserl. Logical Investigation, Volume I. translated by J. N. Findly. Routledge, NY, 1970.

Edmund, Husserl. Logical Investigation, Volume II. translated by J. N. Findly. Routledge, NY, 1970.

Edmund, Husserl. The idea of Phenomenology. Translated by William P. Alston, George Nakhnikian. The Hague, Netherland, 1973.

Death is nothingness: Jean-Paul Sartre

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If you are looking for a profound interpretation that concerns death, then existentialism must be one of the philosophies you should take into account. Jean-Paul Sartre was born on 21 June 1905, was a French philosopher, playwright, and novelist. His work involves a great deal with modern philosophy.

Is the phenomenon identical to existence? Sartre has asked this question at the beginning of his most famed book: “Being and Nothingness”. The problem of existence has been discussed for centuries, and the elaboration of either phenomenon of being or being of phenomenon unfolds Sartre’s argument. Descartes said: “I think, therefore I am”. But Sartre isn’t satisfied with this answer. Descartes articulated that our perception is not reliable, which could occasionally deceive us. Yet Sartre thinks the phenomenon of being is a part of being of phenomenon, which the subjective phenomenon of being does not suffice to conclude the being. Hence he elaborated: “the being of the phenomenon can not be reduced to the phenomenon of being. (Sartre 49)” This statement is in agreement with Descartes, but Sartre goes further than this. He has particularly mentioned essentialism to build on his theory. Sartre claimed that our sensation that conceives qualities of an object, does not determine the object itself. Instead of producing an “organized-whole”, the essence only tells the meaning of the object. For example, you presume you saw the color “red” because you perceived it. However, Sartre considers that you only saw the quality of the red, but not the essence of it.

“The object does not possess being, and its existence is not a participation in being, nor any other kind of relation. It is. That is the only way to define its manner of being; the object does not hide being, but neither does it reveal being.” (Sartre 49)

Consequently, it is impossible to identify essence through its phenomenon. Yet, Sartre says that existence is a phenomenon, but we are still not able to assure an object’s being by telling its appearance. Before we need to assure something is exist, the necessary step is to be conscious of it. Consciousness, which itself is an empty content, needs to be filling up by things. The action of filling your consciousness does not mean anything, it is futile. Thus, Sartre wrote: “However, the necessary and sufficient condition for a knowing consciousness to be knowledge of its object, is that it be consciousness of itself as being that knowledge. (Sartre 52)” He raised a phrase called consciousness of consciousness and pointed out that we are suffering too much from the illusory of the primacy of knowledge. “To know is to be conscious of knowing. (Sartre 52)” Then he quotes Spinoza to illustrate this, and it might confusing when you first read this. Now think, how would you know that you know you have some sort of knowledge of something? For example, how would you know whether you possess the consciousness of the color red? Well, you have to have the consciousness of consciousness.

What if our consciousness comes to its cessation? We can no longer sense anything after death. Death is a wall that cut off our existence via putting out our consciousness. There are few terms you could manage to comprehend Sartre’s concerns about death: nihility, nothingness, or non-human. An open door towards the contact of nothingness and escaping from reality. In the contrast, philosophers like Malraux disproves Sartre: “Man can no longer encounter anything but the human.” Namely, death is interiorized and humanized. Whereas Malraux has a compelling stand, we may discuss this later.

It is terrible to think that we will all die when the time comes. Christian wisdom suggests people should be prepared for death at any hour. Besides, it has often been said that we are in the identical situation of a condemned man who doesn’t know his day of execution. However, Sartre believes this is not wholly exact. This is a pathetic way of understanding it – death is inevitable, universal, and also individualized – because nobody could die for you. Heidegger said those. He has made death an irreplaceable thing, and it is narrowed in cogito. Anything that can be projected by anyone else but other than me is irreplaceable. Thus the commonplace love, which no one can love for me.

Moreover, Sartre has emphasized the difference between waiting and expecting. “Furthermore death can not be awaited unless it is very precisely designated as my condemnation to death. (Sartre 535)” I wait for Luke to come into the classroom at 7 pm. Of course, he could be late or earlier. Some causes would bring him late. But when we waiting to see whether he is running late or earlier, this is a constrained one-dimensional perspective. That I presumed he will be arriving on time, but there is nothing I can do to change the result. Alternatively, I expect the death is a whole lotta different. Although it is still undecided to know that death will come sooner or later, I can not say that in the next second the death comes sooner or later. I may drink a can of soda, but it is suspense to know whether I will be killed by a sonorous burp or live for another 50 years. In other words, I’m free to die.