E. HUSSERL BETWEEN IDEALISM AND REALISM: INTENTIONALITY AND DOCTRINE OF CONSTITUTION

Abstract

The present article intends to characterize Husserl’s phenomenology vis-à-vis the concepts of realism and idealism. By “idealism” we understand, grosso modo, the thesis according to which reality is dependent upon consciousness or, as the case may be, upon the I; by “realism” we understand, grosso modo, the thesis according to which reality is independent from consciousness, or, as the case may be, from the I. In order to accomplish this characterization of phenomenology we selected two of its most nuclear elements, already operative in Logical Investigations: the phenomenological conception of consciousness as intentionality and the doctrine of constitution (Konstituitionslehre). Hence it will be shown that (i) the notion of intentionality developed by Husserl from Brentano’s stance and in opposition thereto furthers the phenomenology from an idealist position, while (ii) the doctrine of constitution, for its own, distances Husserl from a realist position. Eventually we will show that, if these concepts are at all to be maintained, the Husserlian phenomenology lets itself be best classified as a special kind of idealism. Hence the structure of our article is the following: in Sect.1 we will approach the notion of intentionality; in Sect. 2 we will approach the notion of constitution of objects. Finally we will conclude by delineating some questions still to be worked out.