Table Of ContentPhilosophy’s Nature: Husserl’s
Phenomenology, Natural Science,
and Metaphysics
This book offers a systematic interpretation of the relation between
natural science and metaphysics in Husserl’s phenomenology. It shows
that Husserl’s account of scientific knowledge is a radical alternative to
established methods and frameworks in contemporary philosophy of
science.
The author’s interpretation of Husserl’s philosophy offers a critical
reconstruction of the historical context from which his phenomenological
approach developed, as well as new interpretations of key Husserlian
concepts such as metaphysics, idealization, life-world, objectivism,
crisis of the sciences, and historicity. The development of Husserl’s
philosophical project is marked by the tension between natural science
and transcendental phenomenology. While natural science provides a
paradigmatic case of the way in which transcendental phenomenology,
ontology, empirical science, and metaphysics can be articulated, it has also
been the object of philosophical misunderstandings that have determined
the current cultural and philosophical crisis. This book demonstrates the
way in which Husserl shows that our conceptions of philosophy and of
nature are inseparable.
Philosophy’s Nature will appeal to scholars and advanced students
who are interested in Husserl and the relations between phenomenology,
natural science, and metaphysics.
Emiliano Trizio is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the
West of England, Bristol, UK.
Routledge Research in Phenomenology
Edited by Søren Overgaard
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Komarine Romdenh-Romluc
University of Sheffield, UK
David Cerbone
West Virginia University, USA
Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science
A Hybrid and Heretical Proposal
Jack Reynolds
Imagination and Social Perspectives
Approaches from Phenomenology and Psychopathology
Edited by Michela Summa, Thomas Fuchs, and Luca Vanzago
Wittgenstein and Phenomenology
Edited by Oskari Kuusela, Mihai Ometiţă, and Timur Uçan
Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity
Historical Interpretations and Contemporary Applications
Edited by Frode Kjosavik, Christian Beyer, and Christel Fricke
Phenomenology of the Broken Body
Edited by Espen Dahl, Cassandra Falke, and Thor Erik Eriksen
Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology
Edited by Matthew Burch, Jack Marsh, and Irene McMullin
Political Phenomenology
Experience, Ontology, Episteme
Edited by Thomas Bedorf and Steffen Herrmann
Levinas and Analytic Philosophy
Second-Person Normativity and the Moral Life
Edited by Michael Fagenblat and Melis Erdur
Philosophy’s Nature: Husserl’s Phenomenology, Natural Science, and
Metaphysics
Emiliano Trizio
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Research-in-Phenomenology/book-series/RRP
Philosophy’s Nature:
Husserl’s Phenomenology,
Natural Science, and
Metaphysics
Emiliano Trizio
First published 2021
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Emiliano Trizio to be identified as author of this
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ISBN: 978-0-367-43912-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-00747-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
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A mio padre Eugenio, in memoria
Sono parole in una lingua diversa, ma amica
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
List of abbreviations xii
Introduction and Plan of the Work 1
Plan of the Work 6
Chapter One: The Relation Between Physical
Theory and Reality: Historical and Conceptual
Material 6
Chapter Two: Husserl’s Conception of Natural
Science Between the Theory of Knowledge
and Metaphysics 7
Chapter Three: Transcendental Consciousness
and Nature 7
Chapter Four: The Transcendental Constitution
of Material Nature 8
Chapter Five: Life-World, Natural Science,
and the Crisis of Philosophy 9
1 The Relation Between Physical Theory and Reality:
Historical and Conceptual Material 11
§1. The Problem of the Object of Physical Theory at
the Time of the Decline of the Classical Mechanistic
Worldview 11
§2. The Problem of the Limits of Physical Knowledge:
Du Bois-Reymond 13
§3. Ernst Mach’s Phenomenalism and the Elimination
of the Limits of Physical Knowledge 17
§4. Hermann Von Helmholtz, Critical Realism, and the
Shifting Limits of Physical Knowledge 21
§5. Summary and Conclusion 25
viii Contents
2 Husserl’s Conception of Natural Science Between the
Theory of Knowledge and Metaphysics 36
§1. Husserl’s Early Interest in Metaphysics: The
Example of the Metaphysics of Space 36
§2. The Problem of Knowledge as the Determining
Factor of the Conception of Reality 41
§3. Natural Science’s Ontological Inadequacy and
Metaphysics as the Ultimate Science of Reality
Completing It 46
§4. Natural Science and Metaphysics in the Logical
Investigations 51
§5. The Metaphysical Closure of the Empirical Sciences
in the Years of Husserl’s Transcendental Turn and
an Indication of the Investigations Necessary
for It 58
§6. Regional Ontology 65
§7. Transition to Transcendental Phenomenology: The
Ontology of Nature as Explication of the General
Formal Sense of What Is Posited by the Natural
Attitude 71
§8. Transcendental Phenomenology and the Theory
of Knowledge 73
§9. Transcendental Phenomenology and Metaphysics as
the Ultimate Science of Reality 80
§10. Summary and Conclusion 85
3 Transcendental Consciousness and Nature 97
§1. The Centrality of the Thing of Perception in the
Delimitation of the Region of Pure Consciousness 97
§2. Husserl’s Critique of Naïve Realism and of the
Traditional Formulation of the Primary/Secondary
Quality Distinction 101
§3. The Target of Husserl’s Critique: The Wrong Sense
of Transcendence Underlying Critical Realism 106
§4. Husserl’s Solution to the “Two Things
Problem” 110
§5. The Mythical Causal Depth of Reality 115
§6. Hypotheses About Nature’s Sensuous
Determinations and Hypotheses About Nature’s
Intrinsic Categorial Determinations 118
§7. Criticism of the Interpretations Based on
Contemporary Philosophy of Science 124
Contents ix
§8. Transcendental Phenomenology and Existence
Claims 138
§9. Summary and Conclusion 141
4 The Transcendental Constitution of Material Nature 151
§1. Transition to the Stepwise Constitution of Material
Nature in Ideas II 151
§2. The Thing and the Aesthetic Leib: From the Thing
of Perception to the “Empty X” 154
§3. The “Empty X” and the Objective Space as the
Form of All Possible Things 159
§4. Physical Theory as the Ultimate Objectivation
of Material Nature 164
§5. The Relation Between Husserl’s Conception
of Material Nature in Ideas I and Ideas II
and the Krisis 168
§6. The Problem of the Transcendental Status
of Husserl’s Constitutive Analysis in Ideas II:
A Response to Ingarden’s Critiques 174
§7. Transcendental Phenomenology and the Debate
on the Relation Between Science of Nature and
Metaphysics 184
§8. Transcendental Phenomenology and the Challenge
of the “New Physics” 189
§9. Summary and Conclusion 194
5 Life-World, Natural Science, and the Crisis of Philosophy 203
§1. The Crisis of European Sciences as the Repercussion
on Their Scientificity of the Crisis of Philosophy 203
§2. The Crisis of Philosophy and the Forgetfulness
of the World of Spirit 207
§3. The Idea of Philosophy and the Origin of the
Mathematical Science of Nature 215
§4. The Background of Galileo’s Mathematization
of Nature: The New Scientific Ideal 219
§5. Pure Geometry (Krisis §9a) 223
§6. The Mathematization of Sensible “Plena”
(Krisis §§9b–9e) 228
§7. Technization and Emptying of Sense
(Krisis §§9f–9g) 234
§8. The Life-World as the Forgotten Meaning-
Fundament of Natural Science (Krisis §9h) 241
