‘TheSouthern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol.

XLN

:Logicas a Universal Medium or Logic as

a Calculus? Husserl and the
:Presuppositionsof “the Ultimate
Presupposition of Twentieth Century
Philosophy”
Mirja Hartimo
University of Tampere

Abstract
This paper discusses J e a n van Heijenoort’s (1967) and J a a k k o a n d
Merrill B. Hintikka’s (1986, 1997) distinction between logic as a
universal language and logic a s a calculus, a n d its applicability t o
Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. Although it is argued that Husserl’s
phenomenology shares characteristics with both sides, his view of logic
i s closer to t h e model-theoretical, logic-as-calculus view. However,
Husserl’s philosophy as transcendental philosophy i s closer to t h e
universalist view. This paper suggests t h a t Husserl’s position shows
t h a t holding a model-theoretical view of logic does not necessarily
imply a calculus view about t h e relations between language and t h e
world. The situation calls for reflection about the distinction: It will be
suggested t h a t t h e applicability of t h e v a n Heijenoort a n d t h e
H i n t i k k a s distinction e i t h e r h a s to be restricted to a p a r t i c u l a r
philosopher’s views about logic, in which case no implications about his
or her more general philosophical views should be inferred from it; or
t h e distinction t u r n s into a question of whether our human predica-
ment is inescapable or whether it is possible, presumably by means of
model theory, to obtain neutral answers to philosophical questions.
Thus the distinction ultimately turns into a question about the correct
method for doing philosophy.

Mirja Hartimo graduated from Boston University in 2005 with a

dissertation entitled E d m u n d Husserl’s Phenomenology a n d t h e
Development of Mathematics in t h e Late Nineteenth Century. Since
her graduation, she has lectured at Tufts University and, beginning in
2006, she i s working as a researcher a t the University of Tampere,
Finland. She has published articles on Husserl in Synthese, Journal of
History and Philosophy of Logic, and Philosophy Today.

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1. Logic as Language, Logic as Calculus

In 1967 Jean van Heijenoort introduced a distinction between
two different kinds of approaches to logic, termed “universality
of logic” and “logic as calculus.” According to van Heijenoort, the
former view characterizes both Frege’s and Russell’s concep-
tions of logic, whereas t h e l a t t e r view is represented by
Lowenheim. According t o t h e universalist view, logic is a
universal language, which we are inside of. It is inescapable; we
cannot step outside of logic t o describe the relations between
language and the world. As van Heijenoort puts it, a n “impor-
tant consequence of the universality of logic is that nothing can
be, or has to be, said outside of the system” (1967, 326). The
universalist view thus rules out the metasystematic considera-
tions such as completeness, consistency, or truth of the system.
In contrast, in the view of logic as calculus, logic is regarded as
a formal system, which can be given any interpretation one
wants. Recently, the historical accuracy of van Heijenoort’s
distinction has been questioned (for example, Peckhaus 2004).
However, even if historically dubious, it has been appreciated as
a n evaluative distinction. This paper reflects on it as a n
evaluative distinction by attempting t o apply it t o Edmund
Husserl’s philosophy.
Jaakko and Merrill B. Hintikka (1986) have generalized van
Heijenoort’s distinction by applying i t to language instead of
logic. They present the distinction in terms of “language as the
universal medium” and “language as calculus.” According t o the
former view, semantics is ineffable because one cannot step
outside of language to talk about language-world relationships.
A particularly famous statement of the view is Wittgenstein’s
dictum t h a t the limits of my language a r e the limits of my
world. An outcome of t h e ineffability of semantics is
Wittgenstein’s say-show distinction-semantics is something
t h a t can only be shown, t h a t is, beyond t h e limits of t h e
language. Wittgenstein’s say-show distinction originated in
Frege’s view of elucidations with which he guides his readers to
learn the language of Begriffschrift.
According to Jaakko Hintikka (1997), another predecessor to
Wittgenstein is Kant. Instead of limits of language, Kant’s
doctrine concerns the limits of our knowledge and the unknow-
ability of things in themselves. Hintikka then generalized the
distinction from analytic philosophy to all of twentieth century
philosophy, holding that the dichotomy is the ultimate presup-
position of twentieth century philosophy. Kantians, transcen-
dentalists, and anyone engaged in the hermeneutic tradition are
i n Hintikka’s view universalists, whereas t h e bulk of t h e
analytic tradition, having adopted modern logic as an important
tool for philosophy, belongs to the calculus view. Hintikka even
suggests t h a t perhaps we should call the calculus view t h e

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 Logic as a Universal Medium or Logic as a Calculus?

model-theoretical tradition i n logic and the philosophy of

language (Hintikka 1997, xi). The question to be discussed in
this paper is where does Husserl belong in this divide? I t will
be shown that Husserl shares characteristics of both sides of
the divide. This prompts reflection about the nature and appli-
cability of the distinction. I t will be argued t h a t while t h e
distinction is often valuable, it is not always straightforwardly
applicable. Problems arise in situations where model-theoretical
logic is not used as a method for doing philosophy and where
language is not considered to be t h e foundation for meta-
physical views.

2. Husserl’s Views on Logic

Husserl’s views on logic quite clearly suggest that he adopted a
model-theoretical approach t o logic. Indeed, in his dissertation
Martin Kusch viewed Heidegger and Derrida as the univer-
salists, whereas Husserl is taken to be a representative of the
calculus view (Kusch 1989). Kusch views Husserl as a repre-
,sentative of the calculus view mainly because of the model-
theoretical n a t u r e of Husserl’s views on logic. Because of
Heidegger’s and Derrida’s later emphasis on language, Kusch
takes the move from Husserl to Heidegger to represent a shift
from a view of logic as a calculus to a view of language as a
universal medium.
While I disagree with Kusch’s view of Husserl’s philosophy,
his diagnosis of Husserl’s logic is quite correct: Husserl’s view of
logic, when he discusses it in the most detail in the late 1890s,
follows t h e algebraic tradition of George Boole, in spite of
Husserl’s familiarity with Frege’s Begriffschrift. Husserl was
originally inspired by Gauss and Grassmann’s approach to
complex numbers (Husserl 1979a, 396-7). In 1891 Husserl
]published a review of Schroder’s Vorlesungen, i n which he
explained how Schroder’s extensional calculus should be modi-
jtied to analyze genuine thought (Husserl 1979b, 44-72). In the
1890s Husserl seems to have thought of Grassmann’s
,4usdehnungsZehre as a general framework in which t h e
individual theories of manifolds are embedded. The individual
theories of manifolds discussed by Husserl were algebraic
theories such as a theory about one-dimensional manifolds by
Peirce’s former student, Benjamin Ives Gilman (1892). During
the summer semesters of 1895 and 1896, Husserl lectured on
the latest developments in deductive logic, concluding with a
discussion of Boole’s approach (Husserl 2001, 305). On the basis
of Boole’s algebraic approach, Husserl realized that the same
technique of calculation can be applied in a different domain
when every concept of one domain corresponds to a concept in
the other and vice versa and also when every operational concept
corresponds to an operational concept of another domain, and so

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on. (Husserl 1979a, 63). This led Husserl to develop the concept
of a theory f o r m as well as the concept “the general deductive
domain” t o which the domains of cardinals, ordinals, vectors,
and curiously also segments in time belong as its special cases.
A theory f o r m is, ideally, what is today called a categorical
theory. Categoricity also characterizes Husserl’s view of the
essence of logic in his Prolegomena, as well as Husserl’s notion
of Definitheit. The notion of Definitheit remained central to
Husserl’s phenomenology. He mentioned i t in Formal a n d
Transcendental Logic (1929, i n Husserl 1974 $31) as t h e
Euclidean ideal of a form for theory, and even in the Crisis of
European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, written
in the 1930s, Husserl calls it the formal-logical idea of a “world-
in-general” (Husserl 1992, $80. (The development of Husserl’s
view of theories of manifolds has been discussed in detail in
Hartimo, forthcoming).
What is important here is t h a t Husserl’s logic is model-
theoretical, and i t remains so throughout his life. Husserl
repeatedly explains how a sign can be reinterpreted as a
number, line segment, moment in time, etc. In his logic, Husserl
is not bound to any particular domain. Thus, as far as Husserl’s
views on logic are concerned, they are as model-theoretical as
possible at the time, given their formulation some forty years
before Tarski.

3. But Husserl’s Phenomenology

Appears Universalist
Largely due to his model-theoretical view of logic, many
philosophers such as Kusch and Hintikka have claimed t h a t
Husserl’s phenomenology belongs among t h e “language a s
calculus” theories. Some even claim that Husserl’s distinction
between meaning-intention and meaning-fulfillment and the
method of phenomenological reduction are elements that make
Husserl’s philosophy a doctrine of “language a s calculus”
(Bachetti-Robino, 1997). Contrary to these ways of reading
Husserl, I will argue here that there are better reasons to think
that Husserlian philosophy is universalist in the same fashion
as Kant and other transcendental philosophers.
Before proceeding further, I need t o specify which Husserl
we are talking about. The central disagreement among Husserl
scholars hinges on their reading of his concept of n o e m a .
Husserl introduces the notion in Ideas I . According to him, it is
a sense “as i t inheres ‘immanently’ in the mental process of
perceiving, of judging, of liking; and so forth; that is, just as it is
offered t o us when we inquire purely into t h i s mental process
itself’ (Husserl 1982, $88). Dagfinn Fdlesdal h a s compared
Husserl’s noema to Frege’s notion of Sinn, construing i t a s
something through which the object is intended. This kind of

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 Logic as a Universal Medium or Logic as a Calculus?

reading of noema is characteristic of what is called a West

Coast interpretation. On the West Coast of the United States,
Fflllesdal, Dreyfus, Miller, Smith, and McIntyre hold t h a t
Husserl’s noema is a mediator, a n instrument with which we
intend the objects themselves (Sokolowski 2000, 222-3; Zahavi
2003, 58-9). One can arguably claim that, on this view, noernata
indeed appear as magical entities t h a t purport to relate the
mind to the world.
In contrast, on t h e E a s t Coast, Sokolowski, Drummond,
Hart, Cobb-Stevens, and Brough think that noemata are objects
“out there” as considered in a philosophical attitude. Whereas
t h e West Coast interpretation of Husserl easily leads to a
Cartesian view of the mind, in which intentionality is viewed as
mysteriously “reaching out” t o the world, the East Coast inter-
pretation is Aristotelian: in it we are already out there in the
world. While in the West Coast interpretation the role of the
phenomenological reduction is t o bracket the external world in
alrder to secure the sphere of consciousness, according to the
East Coast phenomenologists, we do not lose anything in the
phenomenological reduction but we “turn around” and s t a r t
reflecting on the way in which objects are given to us. While in
t h e West Coast model phenomenology is arguably close to
introspection, in the East Coast view, it is reflection on how we
experience the world.
The view of Husserl on the East Coast is less metaphysical
alnd hence philosophically more interesting in a post-Wittgen-
steinian a n d post-Quinean world. Moreover, i t appears to
capture what Husserl actually meant. Husserl starts his
introduction to pure phenomenology by describing the world of
the natural attitude. In brief, such a world consists of every-
thing one takes to be there. I t not only consists of what I can
find in my field of perception, nor is i t only a world of mere
things, but it is also a world of objects with values, a world of
goods, a practical world. “I simply find the physical things in
front of me furnished not only with merely material determina-
tions but also with value-characteristics, as beautiful and ugly,
pleasant and unpleasant, agreeable and disagreeable, and the
like” (Husserl 1982, $27). In addition t o mere physical things
there are also other human beings and animals. Insofar as I
enter into an arithmetical attitude, the world of numbers is also
there. Along with Quine, Husserl would answer the question
“what is there?” in a word: “Everything” (cf. Quine 1980, 1).
Contrary to Quine, Husserl would talk about different kinds of
attitudes, such as an arithmetical attitude, or a scientific atti-
tude. The attitude that one adopts results in different kinds of
ontologies, or worlds, as Husserl would put it. For example, in
t h e arithmetical attitude one’s ontology includes numbers.
However, whereas the ontology of numbers is there for me only
i:nsofar a s I am in the arithmetical attitude, the world of the

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natural attitude is there continually. The natural attitude is the

basis, the background, in which we find ourselves naturally, in
so far as we a r e alive. In t h e n a t u r a l attitude there a r e no
“meanings” floating around somehow and somewhere (in the
way that meanings are anathema to Quine). Husserl does not
posit what he thinks t h e r e are, but he describes what one
assumes to be there when one is in different kinds of attitudes.
According to the Husserl of Ideas I , the positive sciences
belong t o the natural attitude. “To cognize ‘the’ world more
comprehensively, more reliably, more perfectly in every respect
than naive experiential cognizance can, to solve all the problems
of scientific cognition which offer themselves within the realm
of the world, t h a t is the aim of the sciences belonging to the
natural attitude” (Husserl 1982, 530).Nothing suggests t h a t
Husserl would disagree with Quine’s view that “[tlhe variables
of quantification, ‘something’, ‘nothing’, ‘everything’, range over
our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of
a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, t h e
alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities
over which our variables range in order t o render one of our
affirmations true” (Quine 1980, 13). (To be sure, Husserl would
take logic to be second order.) According to Husserl, the descrip-
tion of what can be found as data accepted in the natural atti-
tude is a scientific t a s k and, as such, is a n extraordinarily
important one. Husserl’s discussion of facts and essences,
different kinds of regions a n d material and formal eidetic
sciences in the beginning of Ideas I is a logical description of
what is given in the natural theoretical attitude. He claims he
is only describing, hence not positing, what is given i n t h e
theoretical attitude. In other words, h e thinks essences and
universals a r e posited by t h e sciences, not by him. I n t h e
sciences, essences belong to our ontology.
As in Quine’s philosophy, epistemology h a s to be distin-
guished from ontology in Husserl’s philosophy. While Quine
introduces notions such as stimulus meaning to explain how we
get t o know things, Husserl establishes a methodology that is
strictly divorced from the sciences. The reason is that he wants
to found the sciences, and giving sciences a scientific foundation
would lead t o an infinite regress. Here a warning is in order:
Husserl does not mean that the sciences are in a need of foun-
dations t h a t would make them secure or certain. Rather his
worry is epistemological, and later “existential.” Van Breda uses
Heideggerian terms to describe the situation: without phenom-
enological clarification, man’s existence is inauthentic.’ I would
like to borrow Marx’s terms: without phenomenological founda-
tion we are alienated from scientific knowledge.
To avoid an infinite regress, Husserl introduces the phenom-
enological reduction, with which one enters into a philosophical
attitude. In the phenomenological reduction, the general positing

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 Logic as a Universal Medium or Logic as a Calculus?

1;hat belongs to the essence of the natural attitude is put out of

action (Husserl 1982, $32). What is left is the sphere of con-
sciousness, that is, the sphere of all mental processes. Phenomen-
ological analysis is then described as a study of what can be
found immanently within the sphere of consciousness. A source
of confusion is t h a t Husserl uses the term “consciousness” in
several senses. Here he uses it in its broadest sense, as includ-
ing everything we perceive, remember, imagine, judge, feel,
desire, will, etc. Thus when we analyze objects within t h e
immanence of our consciousness we are not analyzing objects
1;hat are in our consciousness in a stricter sense, that is, in our
mind. Rather the sphere of consciousness extends as far as our
experience. (Likewise, he uses the terms “immanence” and
“transcendence” i n several senses. I n t h e n a t u r a l attitude,
external objects a r e transcendent objects, a s opposed to our
thoughts, for example. But in the phenomenological attitude the
same objects are considered to be immanent t o our conscious-
ness. This however does not mean that the objects are somehow
transferred from out there into our mind; the only thing t h a t
changes is our attitude toward them.) We perceive objects to be
out there and we analyze them as such. As Husserl puts it,
“everything remains as of old. Even the phenomenologically
reduced perceptual mental process is a perceiving of ‘this
blossoming apple tree, in this garden,’ etc., and, likewise, the
reduced liking is a liking of this same thing. The tree has not
1.ost the least nuance of all these moments, qualities, character-
istics with which it was appearing in this perception, with
which it was appearing as ‘lovely,’‘attractive,’ and so forth ‘in’
t h i s liking” (Husserl 1982, $88). In the phenomenological
reduction nothing is lost. None of the characteristics we take
the object to have are lost. Thus phenomenological reduction is
not really a reduction in the usual sense. In it nothing happens
to the world; only our attitude toward the world is changed.
Thus the reduced objects are still taken to be out there. Conse-
quently, the noemata are not in our minds, but in the world. The
result is that what is given to us undergoes, according to Husserl,
i l radical modification of sense, even though it is given as
precisely the same (Husserl 1982, $89). The radical modification
of sense results from the change in the way we relate t o the
world. Thus, for example, when I look at the cup on my table in
the natural attitude, I see a cup on the table. When I change
the attitude to the phenomenologically reduced one, I start to
reflect on its givenness: I see exactly the same cup, but I am
focused on what makes me identify it as the cup, and hence its
sense has been radically modified. Instead of naively positing
the world around us, we focus on how the things are given to
11s.Consequently, the noema is an object in the world, but as we
see i t in a reflective attitude, in which we wonder about the
ways in which it is given to us.

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Phenomenological attitude is t h u s a prime example of a

universalist approach. In it we do not even attempt to describe
the relationship between us and the world from some objective,
logical point of view, but we analyze the world as it is given t o
us. Thus the aim of the phenomenological reduction is to move
us from the natural, model-theoretical attitude, to the phenomen-
ological, universalist attitude. One could even go so far a s to
claim that model theory requires phenomenological foundations.

4. Eidetic Reduction
A phenomenologist does not posit or construct, but describes
whatever is given to him. Thus Husserl holds that if “‘positivism’
is tantamount to an absolutely unprejudiced grounding of all
t h e sciences on t h e ‘positive,’ .... Then we a r e t h e genuine
positivists” (1982, 520). The question arises, what about all
those essences? What about the noernata? What about all the
structures Husserl claims to exist?
To Husserl phenomenology is an eidetic science. What we
intuit is not limited to perceivable individuals, but also includes
forms. When we intuit a group of things we can intuit necessary
similarities between them. This happens through free variation
of the individuals in our imagination such that we can find out
what characteristics the things in question have t o have, and
thus invariant forms that Husserl calls “essences.” The task of
(eidetic) phenomenology is to focus on these invariant struc-
tures; for this purpose Husserl introduces what is called eidetic
reduction. “For instance, the phenomenology of perception of
bodies will not be (simply) a report on the factually occurring
perceptions or those to be expected; rather it will be the presen-
tation of invariant structural systems without which perception
of a body and a synthetically concordant multiplicity of percep-
tions of one and the same body as such would be unthinkable”
(Husserl 1927, 25). Eidetic reduction is something that can be
carried out both in the natural theoretical attitude as well as in
the phenomenological attitude. If we focus on the invariant
structures of what is out there, we perform an eidetic reduction
in the natural attitude. If we reflect on how the world is given
to us, on our conscious experiences, and focus on the invariant
structures of our experiences, we glean the structure of inten-
tionality.
Husserl claims t h a t even eidetic phenomenology is only
describing what is given to us. This is not obviously the case in
eidetic phenomenology. A phenomenologist is supposed to
proceed without presuppositions, but Husserl’s eidetic phenomen-
ology is clearly guided by his belief t h a t t h e world h a s a
hierarchical formal structure. Related to his view of the formal
structure of the world, Husserl posits a teleology of reason
according to which the sciences and humanity on the whole

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 Logic as a Universal Medium or Logic as a Calculus?

make progress toward expression of the structure of the world.

This underlying belief in the teleology of reason is a presupposi-
tion that Husserl should not have assumed if he attempted t o
follow his own guidelines. In any case, it is clear that Husserl
does not posit essences in order t o explain our knowledge; he
does not posit noernata, for example, as building blocks out of
which our experience is constructed. Rather, they are a result of
description of the invariant structures of our perception.
Husserl holds that our conscious, intentional experiences are
universal, and we cannot step outside of them to examine mind-
world relations or mind-body relations. However, Husserl does
not deny the value of the attempts t o describe consciousness-
world o r consciousness-brain relations. For him, such relations
are studied in the sciences, within the natural attitude. But
what comes first and hence serves as the foundation for such
study, is our universal experience. Husserl’s philosophy thus
appears universalist indeed.

5. Van Heijenoort’s and Hintikka’s

Distinctions and Husserl
litusserl’s philosophy thus appears universalist while his view of
logic is model-theoretical. This raises questions: Why is this the
case? What do we learn about van Heijenoort’s distinction? Can
we still claim that the distinction is evaluatively useful?
There seem t o be a t least two related reasons why Husserl’s
phenomenology fails t o be classified with van Heijenoort’s
distinction. The first relates t o the role of logic or language in
Husserl’s philosophy: Logic or language does not play a funda-
mental a role in Husserl’s philosophy that anything profound
about Husserl’s overall philosophy can be inferred from it. This
suggests that van Heijenoort’s distinction tacitly presupposes
the linguistic turn and that the philosopher in question views
logic o r language t o be the basis for his or her metaphysical
views. For Husserl, intentional experiences are much wider in
scope, as well as more fundamental than language. For him, the
limits of one’s world are not identical t o t h e limits of one’s
language or logic. For him, logicflanguage is only a subset of all
our intentional experiences. Our intentional experiences have a
logical structure, but this does not mean that his views of logic
directly translate t o his philosophical views. Thus classifying
Husserl in terms of his views on language does not capture the
very essence of his views, and reading Husserl through the lens
of the linguistic turn does not do justice to the many facets of
his philosophy.
The other reason that Husserl eludes the distinction is the
way in which he relates t o logic. While the supporters of the
model-theoretical view of logic use model theory t o obtain
philosophical results, logic has nothing t o do with Husserl’s

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methodology. On the contrary, logic is explicitly bracketed in the

phenomenological reduction. Phenomenological analysis is
reflective description, not proving or modeling. Instead, logic as
Husserl discusses it in the Prolegomena and Part I of Formal
and Transcendental Logic, for example, is an object of investi-
gation. Logical Investigations discusses the ways in which the
essential structures of logic are given to us, culminating in the
notion of categorial intuition. Likewise, Part I1 of Formal and
Transcendental Logic points to the phenomenological or
transcendental investigations into the presuppositions of formal
logic. In phenomenology, logic is a n object of philosophical
investigation rather t h a n a tool used in it. Similarly, many
mathematicians view logic a s a mathematical theory rather
than as a philosophical tool. Viewing logic as a theory rather
than a tool, a transcendental philosopher can admire Tarski’s
definition of truth without holding a model-theoretical concep-
tion of philosophy.
Van Heijenoort’s and Hintikka’s distinctions seem t o pre-
suppose two related assumptions: first, that logic or language is
most fundamental to philosophy and, second, that model theory,
if approved, is viewed as a tool for philosophical investigation.
Thus the language-as-calculus view suggests that logic offers a
“God’s point of view,” t h a t is, a way t o escape our h u m a n
predicament when solving philosophical problems. The assump-
tion seems t o be that by means of model-theoretical logic we
can arrive at objective philosophical results.
The distinction has been enormously valuable in bringing to
light fundamental differences between philosophers and i n
raising interesting questions in Frege and Wittgenstein scholar-
ship, for example. But it has to be applied with care when the
philosopher in question does not endorse the above presupposi-
tions. In Husserl’s case, the distinction is interesting if i t is
used t o evaluate Husserl’s views of logic, for example, in com-
parison with Frege’s views. However, Husserl’s model-theoreti-
cal view of logic is not grounds to argue t h a t h e is not a
transcendental philosopher.
But if we want to classify Husserl’s philosophy more
generally, rather than just his views on logic, we should focus
on his view of experience, not logic. Then Husserl is a univer-
salist along with all the other transcendental philosophers. The
distinction turns into a more general question of whether our
human point of view is inescapable, o r whether, perhaps by
means of model theory, objective truths can be obtained about
different kinds of philosophical problems. Thus van Heijenoort’s
distinction turns into a question of whether or not model theory
is a correct method for philosophy.

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 Logic as a Universal Medium or Logic as a Calculus?

6. Conclusion
Husserl’s phenomenology should be considered a universalist
view according t o van Heijenoort’s and Hintikka’s distinctions
between logic as a universal medium or a language. However,
since Husserl does not think t h a t philosophy has a basis in
logical or linguistic analysis, he is simultaneously able to
maintain a view of logic that anticipates model theory. To him,
the model-theoretical view of logic is a mathematical theory,
not a tool for solving philosophical problems. This shows that
the model-theoretical view of logic does not as such make one
a defender of a calculus view of logic.
This shows t h a t the applicability of van Heijenoort’s and
Hintikka’s distinctions should be either restricted to logic, or
else the distinction is about the inescapability of our human
predicament. In the latter case, the distinction is ultimately
about the correct method for doing philosophy, and in particular
about whether logic is able to offer us an escape from the limits
of our human experiences. A defender of the view of logic as
calculus holds that philosophical problems should be settled by
means of logic. But a universalist might think t h a t model
theory is a n unproblematic and even interesting branch of
mathematics while holding that philosophical problems are not
up t o model-theoreticians to decide. The distinction is evalua-
tively valuable, though some care should be taken in i t s
application.
Notes
Part of this paper was delivered at the Teleology workshop at Boston
University i n J a n u a r y 2005. I a m g r a t e f u l especially t o Milton
Trimitsis, Daniel Dahlstrom, a n d Charles Wolfe for criticism a n d
comments during the various stages of development of this paper.
’Phenomenology is t h u s i m p e r a t i v e to a philosopher: “The
philosopher-by definition t h e man who tries to know t h e origins of
everything given and who is at pains to live the authentic life-ought
to exercise t h e phenomenological reduction, if h e does not w a n t to
betray his calling” (Van Breda 1977, 125).

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