KARL JASPERS FORUM
TA106 (Müller)
Commentary 57 (Reply to R21 by Herbert FJ Müller)
ARE WE NOT DEMI-URGES ?
by William A. Adams
27 September 2009, posted 3
October 2009
<1>
Herbert Müller’s
Reply R21 helpfully clarifies some points for me but raises new questions.
<2>
I agree that Husserl was a closet
Kantian and an implicit ontologist. However his innovation was to discriminate
mental phenomena given to the mind, from the extended, perceived phenomena of
the world. He was thus not a traditional
ontologist in the sense of attempting to describe the
presumed mind-independent furniture of the world as do biologists or
physicists. Mental phenomena cannot be
mind-independent of course. But Husserl
considered them self-existent, so they were independent of subjective intentionality,
that is, noetically independent.
<3>
Müller wants to classify noetically independent mental objects as elements of a
metaphysical ontology, even though they are mental and have nothing to do with
the world of physics, to which the term “ontology” usually is applied. I will go along with that, for I think it is
correct in principle, but I think it would be useful for Müller to use an
adjective to distinguish mental from traditional physical ontology because
nobody is going to argue that mental objects are mind-independent. What I learn then, is that when Müller
objects to “mind-independent reality,” he is really objecting to a reality
independent of subjective intentionality.
That is a significant clarification.
<4>
If I am correct that Müller’s main point is to deny the existence of objects
persisting independently of
intentionality, then this implies that his (and perhaps Jaspers’) philosophy
takes creativity, intentionality, or at least agency, as a first
principle. If so, I agree with that
axiom. Subjectivity creatively projects aspects of itself outward, away from
itself (to use a spatial metaphor), then self-alienates from its own
projection, resulting in the apprehension of a self-independent object. This process puts creativity at the core of
mental life and is not so different from what Brentano (1874) described as each
object’s latent “intentional inexistence” within the intentional act itself.
<5>
Müller does emphasize the
creative aspect of subjectivity, emphasizing the need “to create structures
rather than find ready-made ones” [8]. He emphasizes that we must face “the
task to structure the unstructured” [8] and he disparages theories that fail to
acknowledge the creative act of structuring, as “delusional” and an “abrogation
of responsibility” [10]. Whereas today we think of ourselves as agents, Müller notes that by contrast, “ in
mythological times … people … understood themselves as effects of super-human
agents”[9].
<6>
Müller also seems to also accept
the second step of the creative process in which the subject self-alienates
from the intentionally projected object.
Müller says “one has to then distance oneself from the created
conceptual tool, and uses a pragmatic dualism from one’s own structures in
order to employ them;
but that is a second step”[8].
So far, so good; we seem to be in agreement.
<7>
But strangely, Müller also denies
that we are capable of projecting objects in the first place, undercutting
everything just established. He says “we
could neither
create onta (noumena), nor
know them in case they did ‘exist’” [7].
Perhaps there is a confusion here about the use
of the term “onta.”
Once the object has been intentionally (creatively) projected from the
self, and after the subject as alienated itself from its own projected object,
the object stands as a perfectly respectable object, does it not? It can be assessed, measured, discussed,
kicked, or bitten. It satisfies every
conceivable criterion of objectivity that one could invoke. So in what way is it not an object? Just because it was projected from
subjectivity makes it no less an object.
Artificial diamonds are real diamonds, chemically and physically
indistinguishable from their geologic cousins.
They are in no sense as-if diamonds.
By analogy, subjectively structured reality is real reality. Its origin in no way diminishes its
ontological status. It is not an ersatz
reality, because there is no other, “true” reality to which it might be
compared. Projected reality IS the
reality. Why then does
Müller assert that we are “incapable of creating onta” [10]?
<8>
Is Müller’s
hesitancy due to the fact that supposed “real,” “genuine” onta
are defined as mind-independent and forever unknowable? But we have already noted that the criterion
that matters is not mind-independence but noetic
independence. If mental objects are noetically (creatively) produced, then we obviously can and
do create onta.
Is the problem that, once projected and alienated from their creative
source, the onta could never be known? That cannot be right either, for we are now
talking about them. Of course they can
be known. Self-alienation from one’s creative products can be overcome with a
little effort (as psychotherapy amply demonstrates).
<9>
There is some question about how
we manage to overcome self-alienation to become reunited with our creative
products. It is not necessarily
easy. But there is no question that we
are capable of doing it. Kant was skeptical of the noumenal because the limits of sensation and perception
logically preclude observation of anything beyond those limits. However, as Husserl demonstrated, it is
possible to apprehend mental phenomena with faculties other than sensation and
perception. Whatever those methods of apprehension are (e.g., the transcendental
reduction, noetic and eidetic analysis, and all the
rest), they are not limited to sensory perception. There is no a priori reason to assume that
self-projected objects must remain forever impenetrable to our inquiries.
<10>
I would appreciate further
clarification from Herbert Müller about this apparent opposition of the
suggested creative origin of objectivity and its denial.
--------------------------------------------
Reference
Brentano,
F. (1874). Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
--------------------------------------------
William A. Adams
e-mail <bill.adams111 (at) gmail.com>