Thomism and Husserlian Phenomenology: Combinable?

Over the phone the other night, Steven Nemes told me that his project is to synthesize Thomism and phenomenology. I expressed some skepticism. Here are my reasons.

Part I: Methodological Incompatibility

Essential to Thomism is the belief that the existence of God can be proven a posteriori by human reason unaided by divine revelation.  Thus the Third of Aquinas's Five Ways begins with the premise that there are contingent beings, "things that are possible to be and not to be."  From this starting point, by reasoning we needn't here examine, Aquinas arrives at the conclusion that there exists an absolutely necessary being. "And this all men call God."

The argument moves within what Husserl calls the natural attitude, from contingent beings that are taken to exist in themselves to a causa prima that is taken to exist in itself. Note also that  when the Third Way in enacted by a person who works his way through it, in an attempt to arrive at a justified belief that God exists, the particular judgments and inferences made by the person in question are themselves psychic realities in nature that exist in themselves with the earlier following the later in  objective time. With the suspension of the natural attitude by the phenomenologist, all of this must be eingeklammert, placed within brackets. This includes  the starting point (the existence in themselves of contingent beings), the ending point (the existence in itself of God), and the sequence of judgmental and inferential steps that the person who enacts the argument must run through in order to generate within himself the belief that God exists. No use can be made of any of this by the phenomenologist qua phenomenologist.

It seems we ought to conclude that Thomas's dialectical procedure is unphenomenological both at its starting point and at its ending point.  The dialectical procedure itself, the  arguing with its judgments and inferences, is also unphenomenological in that the judgments are posited as true in themselves, and the inferences as valid in themselves.

To summarize the argument up to this point:

a) Thomists are committed to the proposition that God's existence is provable, equivalently, that there are sound arguments for God's existence, arguments that move from premises that record what to Thomists are obvious facts of sense perception such as that trees and rocks exist in themselves (independently of us and our consciousness of them), that they exist contingently, that they are in motion, etc., arguments that end in a conclusion that records the existence in itself of a divine first cause.

b) Phenomenologists operate under a methodological restriction: the thesis of the natural standpoint is ausgeschaltet, disconnected, and the objects  in the natural attitude are eingeklammert, bracketed. The existence of these objects is not denied, or even doubted; no use is made of their existence. (Cf. Ideas I, secs. 31, 32)  Now if we abstain from affirming the existence of contingent beings, then the question cannot arise within the phenomenological epoche as to whether or not they have a cause of their existence.  But this is a question that Thomists ask and answer by positing the existence of God.

Therefore

c) Thomism and Husserlian phenomenology are incompatible and cannot be synthesized.

Part II: Metaphysical Incompatibility

Things are worse for the proposed synthesis when we consider that Husserlian phenomenology is not just a study of the modes and manners of the appearing of things, but implies transcendental idealism, a theory about the mode of existence of the things themselves. To state the incompatibility bluntly: Husserl is an idealist; Thomas is a realist. 

At its starting point, the argument a contingentia mundi presupposes the existence in themselves of contingent beings.   If these beings existed only for (finite) consciousness, then one could not arrive at an absolutely transcendent divine cause of their existence that exists in itself.  Phenomenology, however,  is committed to transcendental idealism, according to which contingent beings do not exist in themselves but only for transcendental subjectivity.  Here is a characteristic passage from Husserl:

Alles, was ich je als wahrhaft Seiendes einsehen kann, ist gar nichts anderes als ein intentionales Vorkommnis meines eigenen -- des Erkennenden -- Lebens . . . . (Erste Philosophie (1923/24), Zweiter Teil, Theorie der Phaenomenologischen Reduktion, Husserliana Band VIII, S. 184 f.)

Whatever I can recognize as a genuine being is nothing other than an intentional occurrence of my own -- the knower's -- life . . . .

For Husserl, the very Being of beings is their Being for consciousness, their being constituted in and by consciousness.  Their Sein reduces to Seinsinn, and that Sinn points back to the transcendental ego from which all sense derives. So the Sinn is not Original Sinn, pun intended, but derivative Sinn. Therefore, on transcendental idealism, contingent beings have no need for a divine ground of their existence, their existence being adequately accounted for by transcendental subjectivity. And since they have no need of a divine ground, one cannot prove that they must have such a ground.

At its ending point, too, cosmological arguments such as the Third Way are unphenomenological since they posit an absolutely transcendent cause of existence that is not given as it is in itself, and cannot be so given and whose identity and existence cannot be grounded subjectively. It makes some sense to say that the tree in the garden is a unity of noemata the unity of which is brought about by the synthetic, unifying activity of my transcendental ego.  But it makes no sense to say this of God.  This would be tantamount to saying that the unity and existence of the divine being derives from the synthetic activities of the creature's ego. 

The God of classical theism, the numero uno representative of which is the doctor angelicus, is by definition absolutely transcendent. He is not transcendent in relation to our consciousness like the blooming tree in Husserl's garden.  He cannot be transcendentally constituted. Even in the Beatific Vision God will not be given to us as he is in himself.  His reality infinitely surpasses anything we will ever have evidence for. It should therefore be quite clear that Husserlian phenomenology and classical theism are logically incompatible.

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Addendum 10/22. A reader comments,

I've just read your post on Thomism and phenomenology. Subsuming Husserl to a Weltanschauung philosophy is to deeply and badly miss the point and much of the value of his work.

This is a just criticism of Nemes' proposed synthesis.   Husserl sharply distinguishes between world view philosophy and philosophy as strict science.  Thomism is  a worldview philosophy.  This is another reason why the proposed synthesis is dubious.   The issues here are extremely deep and complicated. But to simplify, the specifically philosophical portions of the Thomistic system are in the service of  a body of beliefs that Thomas will hold to no matter what sober philosophical inquiry establishes.  If unaided human reason can be enlisted in the service of the teachings of the Church, well and good; if not, that is no reason to doubt any of the teachings.  Philosophia ancilla theologiae. Perhaps we can say that philosophy in relation to theology is ancillary but not necessary. 

For details on the whole messy problematic, see my Genuine Inquiry and Two Forms of Pseudo-Inquiry: Sham Reasoning and Fake Reasoning.

Comments

[Steven Nemes]

Bill,

Thanks very much for this post. These conversations are fascinating to me, and I’ve been enjoying thinking about all this. I am looking forward to seeing you in person soon.

As for your arguments in this post, I would make a first, more formal point. If we were to think in a Hegelian fashion, any synthesis presupposes two contradictory theses. It would not be a “synthesis” if it were simply a matter of conjoining insights without at the same time transforming them. Any synthesis implies a certain evolution and development of the synthesized elements, and this implies that they are not initially or prima facie compatible. So also, Thomism and phenomenology certain seem at first glance to be incompatible with each other. But this is precisely what makes them prime candidates for synthesis.

The second formal point I would make is this. Synthesis presupposes a prior incompatibility between two theses. But the synthesis also implies discerning the “core” or “essence” of each thesis and combining them in a creative fashion. That also implies leaving certain things behind which are deemed (rightly or wrongly) inessential. The synthesis is always a step beyond either of the synthesized elements, which from the point of view of the synthesis are seen to have been at best partial articulations of the whole truth. So also, a synthesis of Thomism and phenomenology would involve identifying certain essential elements of both positions and finding a way of combining them in a creative and potentially fruitful way, leaving the inessential stuff behind. I would also add that there is no scientific method to be applied here. It is a hermeneutical venture that can only be evaluated once it is completed and “put into practice,” so to speak.

These are admittedly merely formal points. I will address your specific critiques tomorrow. The material point I intend to make then is that phenomenology is capable of being interpreted in a more Thomist-friendly way than you write here. For now I wanted only to make a general point about the nature of synthesis, in response to the conclusions of your arguments as they are stated in the post above.

[BV]

Steven,

And I thank you for getting me going on Husserl again. My desk is now piled high with those big black Husserliana volumes. I am having a blast working out with these tomes.

Interesting and a somewhat surprising response. So you mean synthesis in the Hegelian sense?

That if course is not the only sense. I don't think you would say that the Thomistic synthesis is of the Hegelian type.

I look forward to your specific responses.

[Steven Nemes]

Bill,

I understand the function of the epoché, the relation of the phenomenological attitude to the natural attitude, and the nature of constitution somewhat differently from you.

To my mind, the purpose of the epoché is to make possible a shift in focus from the natural attitude to the phenomenological attitude, so that the reduction can be practiced. But the precise manner in which this shift is to be accomplished can differ. The epoché of Ideas I, with its apparent world-denial, is one way, but it need not be the only way. I try to show in my dissertation that one can accede to the phenomenological attitude without setting aside the mind-independent existence of the world. This is accomplished by defining that which appears in experience as not first and foremost the individual object but all of being, oneself included, and all at once. Everything, oneself included, contributes to the total appearance which is given in consciousness. Once the appearance of any particular object is seen as only a part of the greater self-showing of all that is, oneself included as a part of this greater "all", then one has attained to the phenomenological attitude. Everything is seen as correlated to consciousness -- though not because it could not exist apart from consciousness, but precisely because it is taken as showing itself to consciousness without holding anything back.

If this is a legitimate way to the phenomenological attitude, -- and I think it is, -- then it is possible to engage in phenomenology without abandoning the conviction of the independent existence of things which is taken for granted in the natural attitude. And in general, on such an interpretation as I am proposing here, reflection from within the phenomenological attitude does not radically compromise or contradict the natural attitude, but rather makes it more precise and exact. It is not essential to the position of phenomenologist that one reject the natural attitude as false.

Finally, I think of constitution as a way in which consciousness "focuses" itself so that a given object can become visible. Constitution is something like a categorial intuition, only what one intuits is not a state of affairs like "S is P", but rather an object of a certain kind. An object is constituted in consciousness when one intuits a given object as being of a certain type, e.g. when one sees that "this is a cat." Now, obviously not everything can be constituted in the manner of bodily objects such as cats and dogs. These are constituted on the basis of the natural and proper mode of disclosure of these bodily objects to the senses. But the prior condition of constitution is that a thing show itself, not necessarily that it show itself in a sensory way. So I do not see why the Thomist arguments could not be interpreted phenomenologically as attempts to aid in the constitution of God as "that in virtue of which things exist."

As for the idea that Thomism is a worldview philosophy whereas phenomenology must be rigorously scientific and thus proceed from the things themselves, I suppose I would say that I would not be a Thomist of sorts if I did not think that its descriptions of things were adequate to the way they show themselves. On the other hand, even Thomas himself was willing to admit that all he had written was straw once something greater showed itself. So I do not think that this is a substantial argument against the synthetic project.