As described so far, the problem of transcendence concerns the possibility of rational positings of objects that are transcendent in the sense of existing in themselves, independently of being cognized. For lack of a better term, I will refer to transcendence in this sense as metaphysical transcendence; and I will designate the problem of how rational positings of metaphysically transcendent objects are possible as the problem of metaphysical transcendence.16 In a formulation of the problem of transcendence from a 1908 research manuscript, where the “lived experiences” referred to are rational intentional experiences of various kinds, Husserl in effect specifies it in just this way:17
How is it to be understood that in such connections of lived experiences, called
“cognitions”, I can achieve cognition of an object that exists in itself, whether or not it is cognized? (XXXVI 23)
As it turns out, however, this cannot be taken as Husserl’s ultimate
specification of the problem. To see this, let us begin by asking in what, exactly,
16 The term is admittedly somewhat unfortunate. For by ‘metaphysical transcendence’
(metaphysische Transzendenz), Husserl on at least some occasions means something that is not just an sich, but also in principle uncognizable, which metaphysically transcendent objects in the current sense are not (cf. VII 248).
17 For similar formulations of the problem, see XXIV 150, 339; II 3, 25; XXXVI 41 ff.; and M VII 5, 46, 49, 73.
the problem of metaphysical transcendence is supposed to consist. Why should the possibility of positing metaphysically transcendent objects in a rational way pose a mystery? A passage from the 1906/07 lecture course previously cited suggests an answer:
The trivial truism [Selbstverständlichkeit] that there are things [Sachen] in themselves and that we just appear on the scene and grasp them, regard them, make statements about them, etc. turns into a mystery. Knowing about things in themselves means having a subjective experience called “knowing”, and if the things are not something itself occurring at the same time in the human
consciousness, like a feeling, a sensation, and so on, then all talk about knowledge seems fictional. No knowing can go beyond itself. It is precisely knowing,
consciousness, and not something that is not consciousness (XXIV 153/151).
According to this, the possibility of rational positings of metaphysically transcendent objects is mysterious because it entails that there can be rational positings of objects that are not experiences or occurrences in consciousness (cf.
M VII 50). More specifically, the supposedly problematic entailment is that there can be rational positings of objects that are not experiences belonging to the positing experiences themselves as “proper” (reelle) parts—roughly, parts that come into being and cease to exist with the experiences to which they belong (cf. II 35; III/1 74). This is already indicated by the two last sentences of the passage, and it is further suggested by other formulations of the problem of transcendence:
[T]he cognitive act, the cogitatio, has proper moments [reelle momente] properly constituting it. But the physical thing, which it means and supposedly perceives, remembers and so on, is not properly to be found in the cogitatio itself, as an experience; it is not to be found in the experience as a piece [Stück], a being that is really contained therein. So the question is: how can the experience so to speak go beyond itself? (II 35/27 f.)
Specified as the problem of metaphysical transcendence, then, the problem of transcendence would appear to be the problem of how a positing can be rational when the object posited does not form a proper part of the positing experience itself. But to specify the problem in this way is, in effect, to specify it in terms of a different Husserlian concept of transcendence, on which an object is transcendent precisely if and only if it does not form a proper part of the experience whose object it is (II 35; XIII 171). Let us refer to transcendence in
this sense as proper transcendence.18 Given this, it would seem that the problem of transcendence may also be specified as what could be called the problem of proper transcendence, or the problem of how rational positing of properly transcendent objects is possible. And Husserl does, in fact, specify the problem in this way:
I do not now ask: How can consciousness go beyond itself; but, rather, how can it become certain of the legitimacy [Rechtmäßigkeit] of its judging. How does the
“actual world”, which is not a cogitatio in consciousness, authenticate its being in the cogitationes—that is, before that tribunal before which it must authenticate itself—if it is justifiably [rechtmäßig] to count for this consciousness as the actual world? (XXXVI 7 f.)19
To so specify the problem is, however, implicitly to deny that it may also be specified as the problem of metaphysical transcendence—at least ultimately.20 For, despite what the above passages may suggest, Husserl’s concept of proper transcendence is broader than his concept of metaphysical transcendence.
Among the objects falling under the former, but not under the latter, are cognized experiences belonging to streams of consciousness other than that of the cognizing subject herself, or to past phases of her own stream.21 These do clearly not have being in themselves, but just as clearly they are not proper parts of the cognitions whose objects they are (cf. III/1 87). Also included, on
Husserl’s view, are such things as beautiful and useful objects, or, more
precisely, the axiological and practical determinations by virtue of which certain physical objects qualify as beautiful and useful. Unlike physical determinations like extension and colour, which, according to Husserl, have being in themselves
18 Ingarden calls this “ontic” transcendence (1992, 177 ff.), and Willard refers to it as
“ontological” transcendence (1995, 158).
19 My translation of this passage draws on Naberhaus’s translation in his (2007, 250).
20 This is not to say that, on Husserl’s view, there are no special problems relating to the possibility of rational positings of metaphysically transcendent objects. It is just to say that, judging from the passages cited, the mystery with which it supposedly presents us derives, not from the fact that the objects rationally posited are metaphysically transcendent, but from the fact that they are properly transcendent. Consequently, we need to distinguish between what could be called the general problem of proper transcendence, which concerns the very possibility of properly transcendent rational acts, and a range of specific problems concerning the possibility of specific kinds of such acts, acts directed on objects that are metaphysically transcendent as well as acts directed on objects that are not.
21 To be sure, cognized experiences belonging to streams of consciousness other than the subject’s own have being in themselves in relation to her stream of consciousness. But they do not have being in themselves in general.
(IV 59), such determinations depend for their being on certain kinds of intentional experiences—in this case, experiences of evaluation and practical intention (IV 14 f.; IX 118). Yet, they do not depend on these experiences in the sense of forming proper parts of them. The beauty of the statue I see is present as a determination, not of my experience of seeing the statue, but of the statue itself: What I see is, precisely, the beauty of the statue (cf. IV 8 f.).