From Metaphysical Neutrality to the Metaphysics of Problems. The Status of Metaphysics in Husserl’s Philosophy

Abstract

From Metaphysical Neutrality to the Metaphysics of Problems. The Status of Metaphysics in Husserl’s Philosophy

Summary

The article presents the transition of Husserl’s philosophy from phenomenological psychology to transcendental phenomenology as a metaphysical turn. Husserl’s pre-transcendental phenomenology as a descriptive analysis of mental phenomena excludes all metaphysical questions concerning the existence of the external world, whereas transcendental phenomenology is not metaphysically neutral because it has the task to disclose the ultimate meaning of the world with its factual existence. On the one hand, according to priority of eidetic possibilities over actuality, the transcendental phenomenology as an eidetic science precedes the metaphysics as the science of reality and makes it possible. From this point of view, the transcendental phenomenology can be understood in the sense of ultimate foundation of metaphysics as the universal and absolute science of facts which is the culmination of the natural sciences of being. On the other hand, principle of the priority of an essence over fact does not apply to the transcendental fact of constitution of the world and this irrational fact leads to metaphysics as a philosophy that is concerned with “supreme and ultimate questions”, such as the teleological, theological and ethical questions. These questions appear to be an irrational rest (metaphysical residuum) of the transcendental phenomenology and its culmination.

Key words: eidetic possibilities, absolute fact, transcendental phenomenology, critical metaphysics, metaphysics of problems, science of facts