Imagination in the Midst of Life: Reconsidering the Relation Between Ideal and Real Possibilities
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Imagination in the Midst of Life: Reconsidering the Relation Between Ideal and Real Possibilities Julia Jansen1 Accepted: 29 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract In this article I address the idea that in Husserl’s eidetic ontology all possibilities are fixed ‘in advance’ so that actual objects and events—despite their contingency— can only ever unfold possibilities that are ‘permitted’ to them by their essences. I show how this view distorts Husserl’s ontology and argue that this distortion stems from a misconstrual of the relations between essences and facts, and between ideal and real possibilities. These ‘local’ misconstruals reflect, I contend, a ‘global’ misunderstanding that mistakes descriptive distinctions for ‘real’ separations, and that remains indebted to a non-Husserlian understanding of the a priori–a posteriori-distinction. In support of this argument, I first lay out the relevant objection to Husserl’s eidetics as I understand it. Then, I clarify the relation between ideal and real possibilities in the context of Husserl’s eidetics as I see it. Finally, I make a general point about the status of Husserl’s ontological differentiations ‘in the midst of life,’ namely in how what they differentiate is effective and (tacitly) manifest ever only as one moment (amongst many) of the complex whole that is a concrete life of consciousness. I end with some remarks on what this might mean for future phenomenological research on the imagination. Husserl’s eidetics have always caused irritation. The fact that through his methodological explication of eidetics Husserl elevated fiction to the status of a “‘vital element’ (Lebenselement) of phenomenology” (Hua III/1, §70), immediately implicated imagination in the controversy. There are many bones of contention. Here I want to address only one, which concerns supposed untenable ontological and modal implications of Husserl’s eidetics. More specifically, it concerns the idea that, ontologically speaking, all possibilities are fixed ‘in advance’1 so that actual objects 1 Despite this formulation, the real target of discussion is not the less sophisticated view that essences would be temporally ‘prior’ to the facts they ‘regulate,’ but the notion that they are ‘ontologically’ prior. That they would be temporally priori is non-sensical in the Husserlian framework, already for the simple
* Julia Jansen [email protected] 1
Husserl Archives, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Louvain, Belgium
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Husserl Studies
and events—despite their contingency—can only ever unfold whatever set possibilities are ‘permitted’ to them by their essences. In what follows, I show how this view distorts Husserl’s ontology and argue that this distortion stems from a misconstrual of the relations between essences and facts, and between ideal and real possibilities. These ‘local’ misconstruals reflect, I contend, a ‘global’ misunderstanding that mistakes descriptive distinctions for ‘real’ separations, and tha
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