Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy,
trans. F. Kersten
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 1982
(USA: Kluwer, Boston and Dordrecht, The Netherlands)
https://ia800303.us.archive.org/10/items/IdeasPartI/HusserlIdeasI.pdf
selections from sections 2732, pp. 5160 (but excerpts)
(from Ideas I, sections 2732)
§27. The world of the natural attitude: I and my surrounding world
We begin our considerations as human beings who are living naturally, objectivating, judging,
feeling, willing "in the natural attitude." What that signifies we shall make clear in simple
meditations which can best be carried out in the first person singular.
I am conscious of a world endlessly spread out in space, endlessly becoming and having
endlessly become in time. I am conscious of it: that signifies, above all, that intuitively I find it
immediately, that I experience it. By my seeing, touching, hearing, and so forth, and in the
different modes of sensuous perception, corporeal physical things with some spatial distribution
or other are simply there for me, "on hand" in the literal or the figurative sense, whether or not I
am particularly heedful of them and busied with them in my considering, thinking, feeling, or
willing. Animate beings too human beings, let us say are immediately there for me: I look
up; I see them; I hear their approach; I grasp their hands; talking with them I understand
immediately what they objectivate and think, what feelings stir within them, what they wish or
will. They are also present as actualities in my field of intuition even when I do not heed them.
But it is not necessary that they, and likewise that other objects, be found directly in my field of
perception. Along with the ones now perceived, other actual objects are there for me as
1
determinate, as more or less well known, without being themselves perceived or, indeed, present
in any other mode of intuition. I can let my attention wander away from the writing table which
was just now seen and noticed, out through the unseen parts of the room which are behind my
back, to the verandah, into the garden, to the children in the arbor, etc., to all the Objects I
directly "know of" as being there and here in the surroundings of which there is also
consciousness a "knowing of them" which involves no conceptual thinking and which changes
into a clear intuiting only with the advertence of attention, and even then only partially and for
the most part very imperfectly.
But not even with the domain of this intuitionally clear or obscure, distinct or indistinct,
copresent which makes up a constant halo around the field of actual perception is the world
exhausted which is "on hand" for me in the manner peculiar to consciousness at every waking
moment. On the contrary, in the fixed order of its being, it reaches into the unlimited. What is
now perceived and what is more or less clearly copresent and determinate (or at least somewhat
determinate), are penetrated and surrounded by an obscurely intended to horizon of
indeterminate actuality. I can send rays of the illuminative regard of attention into this horizon
with varying results. Determining presentations, obscure at first and then becoming alive, haul
something out for me; a chain of such quasimemories is linked together; the sphere of
determinateness becomes wider and wider, perhaps so wide that connection is made with the
field of actual perception as my central surroundings. But generally the result is different: an
empty mist of obscure indeterminateness is populated with intuited possibilities or likelihoods;
and only the "form" of the world, precisely as "the world," is predelineated. Moreover, my
indeterminate surroundings are infinite, the misty and never fully determinable horizon is
necessarily there.
What is the case with the world as existing in the order of the spatial present, which I have just
been tracing, is also the case with respect to its order in the sequence of time. This world, on
hand for me now and manifestly in every waking Now, has its twosidedly infinite temporal
horizon, its known and unknown, immediately living and lifeless past and future. In the free
activity of experiencing which makes what is present intuited, I can trace these interrelations of
the actuality immediately surrounding me.
I can change my standpoint in space and time, tum my regard in this or that direction, forwards
or backwards in time; I can always obtain new perceptions and presentations, more or less clear
2
and more or less rich in content, or else more or less clear images in which I illustrate to myself
intuitionally what is possible or likely within the fixed forms of a spatial and temporal world.
In my waking consciousness I find myself in this manner at all times, and without ever being
able to alter the fact, in relation to the world which remains one and the same, though changing
with respect to the composition of its contents. It is continually "on hand" for me and I myself
am a member of it. Moreover, this world is there for me not only as a world of mere things, but
also with the same immediacy as a world of objects with values, a world of goods, a practical
world. I simply find the physical things in front of me furnished not only with merely material
determinations but also with valuecharacteristics, as beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant,
agreeable and disagreeable, and the like. Immediately, physical things stand there as Objects of
use, the "table" with its "books," the "drinking glass," the "vase," the "piano," etc. These
valuecharacteristics and practical characteristics also belong constitutively to the Objects "on
hand" as Objects, regardless of whether or not I tum to such characteristics and the Objects.
Naturally this applies not only in the case of the "mere physical things," but also in the case of
humans and brute animals belonging to my surroundings. They are my "friends" or "enemies,"
my "servants" or "superiors," "strangers" or "relatives," etc.
§28. The cogito. My natural surrounding world and the ideal surrounding worlds
The complexes of my manifoldly changing spontaneities of consciousness then relate to this
world, the world in which I find myself and which is, at the same time, my surrounding world
complexes of investigative inspecting, of explicating and conceptualizing in descriptions, of
comparing and distinguishing, of collecting and counting, of presupposing and inferring: in
short, of theorizing consciousness in its different forms and at its different levels. Likewise the
multiform acts and states of emotion and of willing: liking and disliking, being glad and being
sorry, desiring and shunning, hoping and fearing, deciding and acting. All of themincluding the
simple Egoacts in which I, in spontaneous advertence and seizing, am conscious of the world as
immediately present embraced by the one Cartesian expression, cogito. Living along naturally,
I live continually in this fundamental form of "active" living whether, while so living, I state the
cogito, whether I am directed "reflectively" to the Ego and the cogitare. If I am directed to them,
a new cogito is alive, one that, for its part, is not reflected on and thus is not objective for me.
I always find myself as someone who is perceiving, objectivating in memory or in phantasy,
thinking, feeling, desiring, etc.; and I find myself actively related in these activities for the most
3
part to the actuality continually surrounding me. For I am not always so related; not every cogito
in which I live has as its cogitatum physical things, human beings, objects or affaircomplexes of
some kind or other that belong to my surrounding world. I busy myself, let us say, with pure
numbers and their laws: Nothing like that is present in the surrounding world, this world of "real
actuality." The world of numbers is likewise there for me precisely as the Objectfield of
arithmetical busiedness; during such busiedness single numbers of numerical formations will be
at the focus of my regard, surrounded by a partly determinate, partly indeterminate arithmetical
horizon; but obviously this factual beingthereforme, like the factually existent itself, is of a
different sort. The arithmetical world is there for me only if, and as long as, I am in the
arithmetical attitude. The natural world, however, the world in the usual sense of the word is, and
has been, there for me continuously as long as I go on living naturally. As long as this is the case,
I am "in the natural attitude," indeed both signify precisely the same thing. That need not be
altered in any respect whatever if, at the same time, I appropriate to myself the arithmetical
world and other similar "worlds" by effecting the suitable attitudes. In that case the natural world
remains "on hand": afterwards, as well as before, I am in the natural attitude, undisturbed in it by
the new attitudes. If my cogito is moving only in the worlds pertaining to these new attitudes, the
natural world remains outside consideration; it is a background for my actconsciousness, but it
is not a horizon within which an arithmetical world finds a place. The two worlds simultaneously
present are not connected, disregarding their Egorelation by virtue of which I can freely direct
my regard and my acts into the one or the other.
§29. The "other" Egosubjects and the intersubjective natural surrounding world
All that which holds for me myself holds, as I know, for all other human beings whom I find
present in my surrounding world. Experiencing them as human beings, I understand and accept
each of them as an Egosubject just as I myself am one, and as related to his natural surrounding
world. But I do this in such a way that I take their surrounding world and mine Objectively as
one and the same world of which we all are conscious, only in different modes. Each has his
place from which he sees the physical things present; and, accordingly, each has different
physicalthing appearances. Also, for each the fields of actual perception, actual memory, etc.,
are different, leaving aside the fact that intersubjectively common objects of consciousness in
those fields are intended to as having different modes, different manners of apprehension,
different degrees of clarity, and so forth. For all that, we come to an understanding with our
4
fellow human beings and in common with them posit an Objective spatiotemporal actuality as
our factually existent surrounding world to which we ourselves nonetheless belong.
§30. The general positing which characterizes the natural attitude
What we presented as a characterization of the givenness belonging to the natural attitude, and
therefore as a characterization of that attitude itself, was a piece of pure description prior to any
"theory." In these investigations, we keep theories here the word designates preconceived
opinions of every sort strictly at a distance. Only as facts of our surrounding world, not as
actual or supposed unities of validity, do theories belong in our sphere. …
Once more, in the following propositions we single out something most important: As what
confronts me, I continually find the one spatiotemporal actuality to which I belong like all other
human beings who are to be found in it and who are related to it as I am. I find the "actuality,"
the word already says it, as a factually existent actuality and also accept it as it presents itself to
me as factually existing. No doubt about or rejection of data belonging to the natural world alters
in any respect the general positing which characterizes the natural attitude. "The" world is always
there as an actuality; here and there it is at most "otherwise" than I supposed; this or that is, so to
speak, to be struck out of it and given such titles as "illusion" and "hallucination," and the like;
<it is to be struck out of "the" world> whichaccording to the general positingis always factually
existent. To cognize "the" world more comprehensively, more reliably, more perfectly in every
respect than naive experiential cognizance can, to solve all the problems of scientific cognition
which offer themselves within the realm of the world, that is the aim of the sciences belonging to
the natural attitude.
§31. Radical alteration of the natural positing. "Excluding," "parenthesizing"
Instead of remaining in this attitude, we propose to alter it radically. What we now must do is to
convince ourselves of the essential possibility of the alteration in question.
The general positing, by virtue of which there is not just any continual apprehensional
consciousness of the real surrounding world, but a consciousness of it as a factually existing
"actuality," naturally does not consist of a particular act, perchance an articulated judgment about
existence. It is, after all, something that lasts continuously throughout the whole duration of the
attitude, i.e., throughout natural waking life. That which at any time is perceived, is clearly or
5
obscurely presentiated in short, everything which is, before any thinking, an object of
experiential consciousness issuing from the natural world bears, in its total unity and with
respect to all articulated saliencies in it, the characteristic "there," "on hand"; and it is essentially
possible to base on this characteristic an explicit (predicative) judgment of existence agreeing
with it. If we state such a judgment, we nevertheless know that in it we have only made thematic
and conceived as a predicate what already was somehow inherent, as unthematic, unthought,
unpredicated, in the original experiencing or, correlatively, in the experienced, as the
characteristic of something "on hand." …
It is clear that the attempt to doubt anything intended to as something on hand necessarily effects
a certain annulment of positing and precisely this interests us. The annulment in question is not a
transmutation of positing into counter positing, of position into negation; it is also not a
transmutation into uncertain presumption, deeming possible, undecidedness, into a doubt (in any
sense what? ever of the word): nor indeed is anything like that within the sphere of our free
choice. Rather it is something wholly peculiar. We do not give up the positing we effected, we
do not in any respect alter our conviction which remains in itself as it is as long as we do not
introduce new judgment motives: precisely this is what we do not do. Nevertheless the positing
undergoes a modification: while it in itself remains what it is, we, so to speak, "put it out of
action," we "exclude it," we "parenthesize it." It is still there, like the parenthesized in the
parentheses, like the excluded outside the context of inclusion. We can also say: The positing is a
mental process, but we make "no use" of it, and this is not understood, naturally, as implying that
we are deprived of it (as it would if we said of someone who was not conscious, that he made no
use of a positing); rather, in the case of this expression and all parallel expressions it is a matter
of indicative designations of a definite, specifically peculiar mode of consciousness which is
added to the original positing simpliciter (whether this is or not an actional and even a
predicative positing of existence) and, likewise in a specifically peculiar manner, changes its
value. This changing of value is a matter in which we are perfectly free, and it stands over
against all cogitative positiontakings coordinate with the positing and incompatible with the
positing in the unity of the "simultaneous," as well as over against all positiontakings in the
proper sense of the term. …
We single out only the phenomenon of "parenthesizing" or "excluding" which, while obviously
not restricted to the phenomenon of attempting to doubt, is particularly easy to analyze out and
which can, on the contrary, make its appearance also in other combinations and, equally well,
alone. With regard to any positing we can quite freely exercise this peculiar epoche’, a certain
6
refraining from judgment which is compatible with the unshaken conviction of truth, even with
the unshakable conviction of evident truth. The positing is "put out of action," parenthesized,
converted into the modification, "parenthesized positing"; the judgment simpliciter is converted
into the "parenthesized judgment."
§32. The phenomenological epoche’
We put out of action the general positing which belongs to the essence of the natural at? titude;
we parenthesize everything which that positing encompasses with respect to being: thus the
whole natural world which is continually "there for us," "on hand," and which will always
remain there according to consciousness as an "actuality" even if we choose to parenthesize it.
If I do that, as I can with complete freedom, then I am not negating this "world" as though I were
a sophist; I am not doubting its factual being as though I were a skeptic; rather I am exercising
the "phenomenological" epoche’ which also completely shuts me off from any judgment about
spatiotemporal factual being.
Thus I exclude all sciences relating to this natural world no matter how firmly they stand there
for me, no matter how much I admire them, no matter how little I think of making even the least
objection to them; I make absolutely no use of the things posited in them. Nor do I make my own
a single one of the propositions belonging to <those sciences>, even though it be perfectly
evident; none is accepted by me; none gives me a foundation let this be well noted: as long as
it is understood as it is presented in one of those sciences as a truth about actualities of this
world. I must not accept such a proposition until after I have put parenthesis around it. That
signifies that I may accept such a proposition only in the modified consciousness, the
consciousness of judgmentexcluding, and therefore not as it is in science, a proposition which
claims validity and the validity of which I accept and use.
7