Name: Lau Tin Fung

SID: 1155195245
Course: PHIL 4153
Assignment: Exercise #1

Introduction
The text I am going to evaluate in this essay is an excerpt from Husserl’s “Vienna
Lecture”, which is a lecture given by Husserl in Vienna during May 1935. During the
1930s, the Nazi Party was ruling Germany, and since Husserl was a Jewish, he was
not allowed to use the academic library and publish his works in Germany. And due
to these restrictions, he gave several lectures in other nations, including Vienna.
Besides, more importantly, the 1930s is a historical period in between the two world
wars, and the massacre brought by the First World War had already raised many
thinkers’ reflections on it. Husserl had reflected deeply on that as well, and therefore
in the 1936, he published the “The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology”, which focuses on how the development of modern science leads to
the European crisis, or, the development of modern science itself is the crisis. This
book is represented as late-Husserl’s thought, and this 1935 “Vienna Lecture” can be
seen as a basis for understanding the “crisis”.

In this essay, I will first reconstruct Husserl’s argument in the excerpt, since that
paragraph can be seen as the conclusion of the “Vienna Lecture”. Afterwards, I will
elaborate Husserl’s reasons for supporting those premises of the argument, which
have to be found in the other part of the text. During the elaboration, I will at the same
time explain Husserl’s terminology, and summarize the main points of the “Vienna
Lecture”. Lastly, I will try to give some comments on this text.

Argument restructured
First of all, there are two conclusions provided by Husserl in this part, and these two
conclusions can further points to a main conclusion. And the first conclusion is,
“Natural Science have to be grounded on a spiritual explanation”.
 “Now is it not absurd and circular to want to explain the historical event
"natural science" in a natural-scientific way, to explain it by bringing in natural
science and its natural laws, which, as spiritual accomplishment, themselves belong to
the problem?”

The above quote from the excerpt is the first conclusion of the “Vienna Lecture”.
From it, we can see that Husserl had claimed that it is circular and absurd, when we
explain natural science in a natural-scientific way, and there are two reasons for it.
Firstly, if we try to explain the plausibility of natural science by using the natural-
scientific way, then it is circular, because we have already assumed the plausibility of
natural science while we are justifying it. Secondly, Husserl thinks that the natural
laws in natural science are the product of “spirit” (spiritual accomplishment),
therefore these natural laws and natural science should ultimately be grounded by
“spirit”, therefore it is absurd to explain natural science simply by the way of natural
science and without referring to a spiritual explanation.

This is the first conclusion made by Husserl in the above excerpt, and the second
conclusion is, humanistic science should also be grounded by a spiritual explanation
as well. This idea can be seen from the quote “Thus there is no reason for him who
makes spirit as spirit his subject matter to demand anything other than a purely
spiritual explanation for it”, where “makes spirit as spirit his subject matter” is
referring to humanistic science.

By these two conclusions, we can further point out that Husserl requires a spiritual
explanation both for natural science and humanistic science itself. Therefore, “spirit”
is the grounding of both natural science and humanistic science, and this is the main
conclusion made by Husserl in the “Vienna Lecture”. But what is the reason for that?

The reason behind is, Husserl thinks that all our interests and beliefs are located in a
spiritual sphere, which he called it as “surrounding world”. 1 Furthermore, this
“surrounding world” as a spiritual structure is always inhabited in us, 2 which means
our spiritual structure always leads us to live in our “surrounding world”. In short, we
1
That we live in our particular surrounding world, which is the locus of all our cares and endeavors -- this refers
to a fact that occurs purely within the spiritual realm.
2
Our surrounding world is a spiritual structure in us and in our historical life.
always live in a spiritual sphere of life, and therefore all our beliefs and interests
towards the world are grounded on such a spiritual sphere of life.

Therefore, the argument presented by Husserl is as follow:

P1: The surrounding world is the pure spiritual sphere of our life
P2: We always live in our surrounding world
P3: All human activities are possible only if they can be constituted by our
pure spiritual sphere
P4&C1: Therefore all human activities have to be grounded on a spiritual
explanation
P5: Both Natural Science and Humanistic Science are a kind of human activity
C2: Therefore both Natural Science and Humanistic Science have to be
grounded on a spiritual explanation

This is Husserl’s argument presented in a syllogistic form, and the most crucial
premise of the argument is premise 3, which is “All human activities are possible only
if they can be constituted by our pure spiritual sphere”. This premise has to be
understood by reading the other part of “Vienna Lecture”, and therefore I will now
move on to the other part of the text, and at the same time explain some of the key
terms of the text.

Key Terms

Natural Science and Humanistic Science

Before explaining the premise 3 stated above, a few concepts have to be clarified.

First of all, Husserl started his critique on Europe due to his observation towards the
situation of natural science and humanistic science during that time. Besides, what
Husserl attempted in the “Vienna Lecture” was to search for the grounding of
knowledge and our beliefs, and since knowledge could mainly be classified into
natural science and humanistic science, therefore their difference has to be explained.
Generally, natural science investigates nature, while humanistic science investigates
human beings. This means that natural science investigates something that is true,
even though human beings do not exist. For example, the law of gravity is real, even
though we do not exist. While for humanistic science, since they investigates human
beings, therefore they are based on human existence. For example, History investigate
historical events of human beings. But if human beings never exist, then there will be
no such thing as historical events of human beings, therefore History is based on
human existence.

Furthermore, natural science could also investigate human beings, but as biological
organisms, which means they emphasize the “physical aspect” of human beings.
While more precisely speaking, humanistic science investigates human beings as
persons, which means they emphasizes on the “spiritual aspect” of human beings.
These two aspects differ, because the former investigates something that is
independent from our spirit, while the latter investigates our spirit. For example, no
matter what a person desire are, he is still the same biological organism, which shares
the similar biological structure with other human beings. However, History also
investigate how a historical person’s spirit affects the world, for example how Hitler’s
desire changes the world. Therefore, the crucial difference between natural science
and humanistic science is that, the former investigate something that are independent
of our spirit, while the latter investigate our spiritual activity, or in Husserl’s words,
they investigate the “spiritual products” of us.3

Since their object of inquiry differ, therefore their methodology differ as well. As
mentioned above, natural science investigates the nature which are independent with
our spirit. By doing so, natural science would not care about “how we subjectively
knows about the world”, because our subjectivity are finite and varies. This means
that our subjectivity always belongs simply to ourselves, and therefore they could not
be objective to all. For example, different people could have different taste of an
apple, some find it sweet, while some find it sour. Therefore, if we investigate the
nature by considering our subjectivity, then it probably will mislead us. Therefore,
natural science will simply see everything as physical, as presenting objectively in the
3
“......humanistic discipline......is directed at human beings exclusively as persons, at their personal life and
accomplishments,......accomplishing spiritual products.” Vienna Lecture, p270.
space and time, independent from our spirit and consciousness. This means that they
will reduce everything into physical entities or attributes, because only this way can
let us “see” everythings as independent existence from our spirit. And this applies to
their investigation on the “Spiritual aspect” of human beings as well. For them,
“spirit” can also be reduced back to some physical entities, namely, our brain.
Therefore their way of understanding our spirit is simply by investigating our brain,
and this can be seen from Psychotherapy as well, because they would try to cure our
mental issues by giving us pills. In short, natural science simply ignores our
subjectivity, and to pursue knowledge by seeing everything as physical.

In the other way round, since humanistic science is interested in our spiritual activity,
therefore they will concern our subjectivity when they are conducting their research. 4
For example, Religious Studies is interested in different religions and their practices,
and they are interested in how the religion shapes the believers life attitudes and
habits. Therefore the believers’ subjective feeling towards the religion will be
concerned by those Cultural Studies researchers.

Success of natural science

As mentioned above, since our subjectivity is finite and varies, therefore natural
science will ignore our subjectivity while they are conducting their research. And by
doing so, natural science receives a huge success, because they could encompass
“infinity”. Aside from the reason mentioned above, the other reason for subjectivity
being finite is that, what we can experience is always finite, or in other words, we
cannot experience “infinite” itself. However, by getting rid of subjectivity, natural
science could encompass “infinity” in their research, for example mathematics or
physics could encompass “infinitely all possible number and time”, which in reality,
we could never experience such “infinity” in our subjective life. Such encompasses of
“infinity” and objective perspective makes natural science more far-reaching and
exact, and therefore leads them to success, for example in the advancement of
technology. The reason behind is, since everything is seen as objective existence,
therefore it means we could control them, including natural resources.5

4
But this does not means they will ignore the objective side of the world
5
“The result of the consistent development of the exact sciences in the modern period was a true revolution in
the technical control of nature.” Vienna Lecture, p.271.
Objectivism
The success of natural science makes more and more people believe in the domination
of natural science, or even some believe that natural science is the foundation of all
knowledge, which is the view of “Objectivism”.

Their reason behind is, since truth should be true to all people, and since our
subjectivity is finite and varies, therefore our subjectivity becomes an obstacle in
achieving objective truth. And since natural science bypasses our subjectivity,
therefore natural science should be the foundation of all knowledge, including
humanistic science. This means that when we are acquiring all sorts of knowledge, we
must consider our object of inquiry as physical entities or attributes, as presenting
objectively in the space and time. Therefore, even when we are investigating our
“spirit”, we should also view them as something physical, namely, our brain, just as
the example of psychotherapy mentioned above. And one thing has to be reminded is
that, Objectivist would also suggests that “spirit” could be investigated in a spiritual
way, but the crucial point is, they eventually must be consistent with the results in
natural science, or even start their research on the basis of natural science’s findings.6

To summarize, Objectivism believes that truth should be objective to all people, and
since our subjectivity is finite and varies, therefore knowledge should be acquired
simply through an objective perspective. And since only natural science adopts such
an objective perspective, therefore natural science becomes the foundation of all
knowledge, including humanistic science.

One-Sided Rationality and the Ideal form of Rationality

However, in spite of its domination, Husserl criticized the domination of Objectivism
as the European crisis, and there are two reasons for that, the first is its “one-sided
rationality”.

6
“So if a truly exact explanation of the phenomena of the humanistic disciplines is to be possible, and accordingly
a far-reaching scientific praxis similar to that in the natural sphere, the humanists must not only consider the
spirit as spirit but must also go back to the corporeal basis and carry out their explanations by means of exact
physics and chemistry,.” Vienna Lecture, p.271.
First of all, for Husserl, the European crisis does not merely mean Europe, as a
geographical place, is having a crisis. More importantly, it refers to Europe, as an
ideal of rationality,7 is also having a crisis, which means the spirit of rationality is
developing in a dissatisfactory way. But before introducing “one-sided rationality”,
the ideal form of rationality has to be explained.

For Husserl, he thinks that philosophy or rationality is an infinitely ongoing process,

which means there would never be an end for philosophy, because philosophy has an
“infinite task”. By infinite task, Husserl means that Philosophy as an attitude that
seeks knowledge for its own sake, Philosophy would never end, because there could
be infinite knowledge and ideas to search for.

Besides, Philosophy as an art of questioning would never take anything as granted, 8

and therefore we have to keep reflecting on our knowledge. This means that even if a
belief was being recognized as true knowledge, the spirit of Philosophy requires us to
keep reflecting on this knowledge, and to raise infinite challenges towards it. These
reflections should never stop and keep ongoing in the future. And only by refuting
these challenges, this knowledge can subsists as a true knowledge. Therefore, a true
knowledge is built on infinite challenges, and this is the infinite task of philosophy,
and the full sense of Philosophy. 9 10 11

For these reasons, the full sense of Philosophy, strictly speaking, could never be
achieved, because the task is infinite and without an end. And this is the reason for it
being an “ideal” form of rationality. 12

Thus, we could finally come to know that, the “one-sided rationality” is exactly the
opposite of the ideal form of rationality, because “one-sided rationality” is the attitude

7
Husserl had a huge part in the “Vienna Lecture” focused on the “History of Rationality”, which he traced the
history of rationality back to Ancient Greek. Besides, he had compared the Ancient Greek Philosophy with the
Chinese and Indian Philosophy, to prove that the European Philosophy is the ideal form of rationality. But
unfortunately, I cannot spend time elaborating this part of the “Vienna Lecture”.
8
“No line of knowledge, no single truth may be absolutized and isolated”. Vienna Lecture, p.291. Absolutizing a
knowledge means taking that knowledge for granted forever.
9
The word “Philosophy” is interchanged with “Rationality” in this article
10
“Thus the philosopher must always devote himself to mastering the true and full sense of philosophy, the
totality of its horizons of infinity.” Vienna Lecture, p.291.
11
“Only through this constant reflexivity is a philosophy universal knowledge.” Vienna Lecture, 291.
12
But of course, even though we could not arrive it, we can get near to it
that views knowledge as absolutely true and undoubtable. As mentioned above,
during Husserl’s time, Objectivism and natural science had been regarded as the
groundings of all knowledge. Moreover, people had thought that was indubitable, or
even “forgot” about their assumption on its indubitable, which means they even did
not realize that they had assumed it. Therefore, Husserl regarded the domination of
Objectivism and natural science as “one-sided rationality’, because they had failed to
practice the “infinite task” of rationality, which is the continuous self-reflection, and
should never take themselves as granted.13

This is the first reason for Husserl’s criticism of Objectivism and natural science.

Surrounding World and Ideas

The second reason for Husserl’s criticism is that, he thinks it is our “spirit” that
grounds natural science, therefore those Objectivist had overlooked the
fundamentality of “spirit”, and this finally links with the premise 3 I mentioned
above. (All human activities are possible only if they can be constituted by our pure
spiritual sphere). As mentioned above, we could know from the excerpt that all our
beliefs and interests towards the world are grounded on a spiritual sphere of life
(surrounding world). But what does it mean?

First of all, the surrounding world refers to the world that we always live in, because
the surrounding world is the world that is full of “meanings”. Everything that we
experience are meaningful, for example the computer we use, the words we read, the
thoughts we think. By recognizing a thing as meaningful, it means that we recognize
it as something, for example recognizing a “football” as “football”. But things can be
meaningful even though the meaning we constituted on it is different from others, for
example I recognize a “football” as “basketball”. Furthermore, things can be
meaningful even if I do not know what it is, but still, it is recognized by me as
“something”, for example recognizing a “football” as “something”. There is only one
situation that “a being” do not have any meaning, which is the situation that I could
not even recognize it as “something”.

13
We can even expand Husserl’s thought, to claim that every kind of domination of thought would easily fall into
the “one-sided rationality”, because mainstream thought easily takes themselves as granted.
From here, we could realize that, “something” can be “something” because we
constitute meaning in it. Besides, something can said to be present because we could
at least recognize it as something. Therefore, the presence of a “thing” is based on our
constitution, and such constitution ability is inhabited in our spiritual structure. This
means that we as persons have an innate intuitive intention to constitute meanings to
“things”, and such constitution power is part of our innate spiritual structure.
Therefore, “anything” can be possible only if they can be constituted by our spiritual
sphere, including our activities. This means that any activity can be possible only if
we could constitute meaning to it, and this is the meaning of Premise 3.

Thus, to state it more clearly, there would be no such thing as “natural science” and
“humanistic science” if we could not constitute meaning to it. Therefore, both “natural
science” and “humanistic science” is possible only if we could constitute the meaning
“investigating nature” and “investigating spirit” to it, therefore both natural science
and humanistic science are indeed grounded by our “spirit”.

To sum up, we always live in the surrounding world, because everything we see are
meaningful. And “things” can be meaningful because they are recognized by us as a
“thing”. Besides, a thing can be a thing because our “spirit” constitute meaning on it.
Therefore, our “spirit” is the grounding of all things, including natural science. This is
the second reason for Husserl’s criticism on Objectivism and natural science.

Transcendental Phenomenology
The spiritual aspect is the fundamentality of the world. However, since we are used to
focus on things that are already constituted, therefore we thought that we are living in
a fundamentally physical world, and forget about the constitution of “physical world”
itself lies in our “spirit”, and this is the meaning for the sentence from the excerpt
“What is obviously also completely forgotten is that natural science is a title for
spiritual accomplishment.”

Therefore, in order to overcome this problem, we must understand the constitution

ability of our spirit, and even understand more deeply about ourselves. Therefore,
Transcendental Phenomenology is the way to escape from the European crisis,
because it is a science that studies “spirit” simply as “spirit”. 14 One of the reasons
behind is, Transcendental Phenomenology stresses on our constitution ability. And by
reminding us of our constitution ability, we would aware that we are the one who give
meanings to the world, which means the meaning of the world is no longer pre-given
by others, but given by ourselves. After realizing this, we should no longer take
anything for granted simply because others talk about it. Instead, things have to be
grounded on our own understanding. And by doing so, we could get more closer to
the ideal form of rationality, because we no longer take things for granted. Besides,
we judge things not by others, but by ourselves.

Summary
In the “Vienna Lecture”, Husserl wanted to address the Europe is having a crisis,
because Europe is falling into a “one-sided rationality”, and is keeping away from the
Ideal form of Rationality. The ideal form of rationality suggests people to reflect on
their knowledge, and to treat Philosophy as an infinite task, and therefore should not
take anything for granted. However, the situation goes in the opposite way, since
people at that time had taken Objectivism and Natural Science as granted, and this is
the first reason for Husserl’s criticism on Objectivism and Natural Science.

Aside from that, people at that time had also treated these two as the foundation of all
knowledge, which view everything as fundamentally physical, including Humanistic
Science. However, Husserl disagree on that, because he thinks everything has to be
possible only if our spirit constitute meaning on it, and therefore both Natural Science
and Humanistic Science have to be possible only if our spirit constitute meaning on
them. Therefore, it is our spirit that grounds all things, including knowledge.

Lastly, he thinks that the way to cure this crisis is to practice Transcendental
Phenomenology, because it investigates how we constitute “meanings”, therefore it is
a science that begins from our subjectivity. Besides, such practice could remind us not
to take anything for granted, and to judge things by our own understanding instead of
others, and therefore could lead us closer to the Ideal form of Rationality.

14
Since this article is not focusing on “how Transcendental Phenomenology works”, therefore I will not spend
much time on it.
My Comments
First of all, I find Husserl’s view influential, because the critique on Objectivism and
natural science seems to have influenced Heidegger’s view on technology. As
mentioned, natural science views all things as fundamentally physical, which means
all things are objectively presented in the space and time. Such worldview shapes our
beliefs that things seem to be “controllable”, because they are simply physical objects
“over-there”, which makes us have a sense of “grasping it”, including natural
resources.15 I think this view is similar to Heidegger’s critique on modern technology
that it shapes our attitude of viewing everything as “manipulable”, especially on
natural resources. However, I believe Heidegger will further replies that, under the
view of Objectivism, although all things seem to be controllable “by us”, even
ourselves are manipulated by Objectivism, in the sense that we are manipulated to see
all things as manipulated. Besides, we would not realize that we are manipulated, and
I think such “concealment of our manipulated-self” is a more crucial phenomena for
Heidegger.

However, I worry that Husserl’s emphasize on spirit will falls into another “one-sided
rationality”, which is the over-emphasizing on “one’s own spirit”. This means that, as
Husserl emphasized the grounding of knowledge should be on our own
understanding, I afraid this will leads to the phenomena that people only believes in
what they think as meaningful or true, without appreciating others’ opinions. And the
reason behind is, my surrounding world could only be grounded by myself, but
others’ surrounding world could only be grounded by themselves as well, then such
situation will leads to the arbitrariness of the world. For example, some people
recognize a thing as “football”, while other recognize the same thing as “basketball”.
However, both could claimed that they derived their beliefs based on their own
understandings, therefore they are both justified to recognize that thing as a “football”
and “basketball”, which this might be a problem for the universality of knowledge.

Conclusion

15
“The result of the consistent development of the exact sciences in the modern period was a true revolution in
the technical control of nature.” Vienna Lecture, p.271.
In the “Vienna Lecture”, Husserl wanted to stress the fundamentality of “spirit” in
constituting the world, and therefore everything becomes meaningful and possible
based on our spiritual structure of constitution. However, people had forgotten about
it. Instead, they see everything as fundamentally physical, and even take this for
granted. Such an attitude is the European crisis, because this attitude violates the Ideal
form of Rationality. In order to cure this, Husserl advocates to practice
Transcendental Phenomenology, which is the spirit of grounding knowledge on our
own understanding. However, I afraid the over-emphasizing of our own spirit might
lead to the arbitrariness of the world. Nevertheless, I appreciate Husserl’s thought,
and I think it had influenced Heidegger’s thought on modern technology.