Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

DOI 10.1007/s10743-006-9016-5

‘‘For a New World’’: On the practical impulse

of Husserlian theory

Marcus Brainard

Received: 19 October 2006 / Accepted: 30 October 2006 / Published online: 19 January 2007

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract The thesis of this article is that in Husserlian phenomenology there

is no opposition between theory and praxis. On the contrary, he understands
the former to serve the latter, so as to usher in a new world. The means for
doing is the phenomenological reduction or epoché. It gives the phenomen-
ologist access to the starting point, the ‘‘first things,’’ and orients his/her
striving towards reason and the renewal of humanity. Careful attention to the
significance of the epoché also sheds light on Husserl’s understanding of the
relationship of phenomenology not only to philosophy but also to the other
sciences. Though an exposition of the ‘‘phenomenology of the philosophical
vocation’’ which Husserl sketched in the 1920s, e.g., in his Kaizo articles and
lectures on first philosophy, the author seeks to shore up his thesis.

Keywords Crisis Æ Epoché Æ Husserl Æ Idealism Æ Phenomenology Æ

Philosophical vocation Æ Practical philosophy Æ Reduction Æ Renewal

In Husserlian phenomenology there is no opposition between theory and

praxis.1 On the contrary, he understands the former to serve the latter, or as
he says in a letter from 1920: ‘‘all theory means nothing to me except for a new
world’’ (Husserl, 1994, III, 16; August 11, 1920).2 On Husserl’s view a new

For Walter Biemel

1
The larger context for the case made here in support of this claim may be found in Brainard
(2002, 2001).
2
All translations are performed by the author. Whenever a series of quotations fall on the same
page, the reference is provided only in the first instance.

M. Brainard (&)
785 West End Ave., Apt. 6B, New York, NY 10025, USA
e-mail: brainoid@gmail.com

123
18 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

world must be ushered in due to the fallenness of the world in which he finds
himself and his fellow Europeans, a state that did not first arise in the wake of
the First World War but had been long in the making—and would continue to
grow in intensity for some time. That is to say, at least until European
humanity had become aware of the source of its prevailing crisis, which, not
long after the passage just cited, Husserl characterizes as follows: ‘‘European
humanity has strayed from its inborn telos. It has fallen prey to a sinful
degeneration insofar as it had already become aware of this telos (had already
tasted of the tree of knowledge), yet had neither raised this telos to the fullest
consciousness nor continued to implement it rigorously as the practical sense
of its life, but instead became unfaithful to this sense’’ (Hua XXVII, 117–118).
Europe is in crisis on account of its unfaithfulness to its sense, its telos, its
essence. And it is precisely the insight into this state of affairs that moves
phenomenology. It understands itself to be a radical response to crisis, an
‘‘absolute situation’’ that marks a crossroads: either disastrous demise or vital
renewal. The practical aim of Husserlian theory is to bring about the necessary
renewal by restoring European humanity to its proper path.
As for how phenomenology is to do this, Husserl gives an indication in the
letter cited at the outset, just a few lines after his assertion of the practical
impulse of his theoretical endeavors: ‘‘It is very gratifying that there are still
lively people on this gloomy planet: Were there none, I nevertheless would
not despair, but would build them up eidetically for myself, firmly convinced
that purely formed ideas must give rise to lively people who accord with
them’’ (Husserl, 1994, III, 16–17). Since it is the ideal that is to govern the real
in its becoming, Husserl considers it one of theory’s chief tasks to disclose the
ideas, the ideals, the norms according to which people are to live. In keeping
with this task, he characterizes phenomenology as a ‘‘science of becoming,’’
where becoming occurs ever in accordance with its proper telos. The new
eidetics that phenomenology is to be, engages in eidetic analyses whereby
essential distinctions are drawn that govern becoming in a given instance.
But if phenomenology is a science of becoming, it is equally, as Husserl
says, a ‘‘beginning science,’’ which is to say, it is simultaneously the science of
the beginning and the science that begins, and for the first time. It is precisely
in light of this beginning character of phenomenology that a common view of
Husserl proves to be misguided, namely that his work is highly, even her-
metically, ‘‘theoretical’’ and thus largely unpractical—if not just plain
impractical. This view claims to find evidence of Husserlian thought’s lack of
practical utility, for instance, in Husserl’s ‘‘obsession’’ with drawing ‘‘endless’’
distinctions, which together constitute little more than a ‘‘sea’’ of beginnings
that threaten never to add up to anything, save perhaps a postponement of
decision—thus a kind of proto-différance. This suspicion must evaporate,
however, once one has gained insight into the distinction on which depend all
others made in the course of transcendental phenomenological practice—it is
a distinction in and of attitude. In fact, the crucial insight for Husserlian
thought is a methodical one—since it is the method that enables one to make
one’s way to the all-important distinction, a distinction that sets one on the

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 19

course of decision, the course on which the individual (and, by extension, the
community) stands to achieve his telos. Pivotal, in other words, is the insight
into the decisiveness of the epoché.3 It both secures the beginning to which
becoming and ultimately the achievement of a telos is tied and inaugurates the
phenomenological attitude, the attitude in which the Husserlian ethos finds its
most faithful expression. This double beginning proves to be the crux of the
renewal that Husserl deems necessary. Indeed, so much so, that if there can be
any talk of a Husserlian ethics, then it must be less as a formal system than as
the cultivation and maintenance of the right ethos, for the right ethos is what
enables one to accord most fully with one’s essence.4
Given the centrality of this method, it is only natural that Husserl regards
the philosopher as uniquely charged with this task of initiating the said re-
newal. However, before he can reawaken humanity to its essence and thereby
restore it to the path towards its ownmost telos, the philosopher himself must
first begin. It is for this reason that Husserl becomes increasingly aware of the
importance of instilling in the would-be philosopher the proper ethos, and
thus guiding him to make the proper beginning. This also helps to explain
Husserl’s increasingly frequent thematization of the philosophical vocation,
beginning in his 1911 manifesto ‘‘Philosophy as Rigorous Science’’ (see
Husserl, 1911), and continuing with renewed vigor in the 1920s—in the midst
of the social and political upheavals in Weimar Germany—until his death in
1938. Since it is in the 1920s that Husserl treats most extensively the trajectory
of the philosopher’s becoming and all that it entails, since the key to instituting
the new world lies in the philosophical vocation, and since it is the method that
is central to this vocation and that indeed is the key to the whole progres-
sion—from the individual philosopher to European humanity and be-
yond—the focus in what follows will be on two texts within which Husserl
poignantly lays out the motivation for the philosophical vocation and indicates
its role in remedying the ills of European humanity. That is, the focus here will
be on what might be called his phenomenology of the philosophical vocation,
as he discusses it in his 1923–1924 lectures on First Philosophy,5 as well as in
his 1922–1924 Kaizo articles on renewal (see Hua XXVII). By reconsidering
these introductions to the ethos of Husserlian phenomenology, it becomes

3
It is striking that Husserl’s growing awareness of the practical implications of phenomenology
coincides with his increasing sense of the crisis of European humanity. And it is no less striking
that this twofold awareness seems to be initiated by his ‘‘transcendental turn’’; at least it is only
after his discovery of the epoché in 1905 that he comes to speak increasingly about phenome-
nology with a view to overcoming the prevailing crisis. Likewise, it is after this discovery that he
speaks of his ‘‘life’s work’’ and ‘‘life’s task,’’ as well as of his ‘‘mission.’’ It should become clear in
what follows that this is not a coincidence, but rather inheres in the radical nature of the epoché.
4
As interesting as they are for the light they shed on Husserl’s understanding of the practical, his
lectures on ethics (Hua XXVIII) grow out of this ethos; they do not found the latter. In the present
essay, the focus is thus on the more radical moment of Husserlian thought: the ethos that not only
would make possible a Husserlian ethics in the strict sense, but that also animates Husserl’s entire
endeavor.
5
See Hua VII and Hua VIII. See also his ‘‘introduction to philosophy’’ from 1922–1923 (Hua
XXXV), lectures that are no less instructive in this connection.

123
20 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

clearer why and how Husserl understands the new world to depend on the
new man, who is first and foremost the new philosopher, or in other words,
why and how Husserl later calls such philosophers the ‘‘functionaries of
humanity’’ (Hua VI, 15/17), and so why and how theory is to serve praxis.
The vocation of philosophy stands apart from all other vocations because it
begins in what Husserl calls the ‘‘absolute situation.’’ It is absolute due to both
the potential impasse it represents for and the twofold break it requires of the
would-be philosopher. This situation does not just irrupt into the life of the
novice from out of nowhere, but is ushered in by his volitional prehistory, as it
were: Prior to being swept up in the absolute situation, he has become a
radical scientist, one who, out of the ‘‘love of truth’’ that has been stirred in
him, has learned to subject every knowledge claim to radical critique, thus to
abide by the demand that all knowledge be examined and legitimized, from
the ground up, if it is at all to count as knowledge. In this quest he is filled with
the ethos of radicality and guided by the presentiment that the sciences mark
out the domain in which that ethos can best be actualized. However, a dis-
sonance between ethos and presentiment arises once the would-be philoso-
pher sees that ‘‘all previous science, however highly valued, suffers from
incurable incompleteness—incurable as long as science remains within its
type’’ (Hua VIII, 21). This is to say that Husserl views the incompleteness
riddling the edifice of science in the form of obscurities and naivetes as
belonging essentially to it as science in its familiar form, which can therefore
be cured, if at all, only by stepping outside of the type. This insight ultimately
leads to ‘‘a kind of collapse of all naive cognitive and scientific values’’ in the
scientist and plunges him into the absolute situation.
This situation is absolute, first of all, in its scope. This situation impacts not
only the sciences, but all domains of life, since the sciences had been assumed
to disclose and ground all knowledge in them. Hence everything becomes
questionable, in terms of both comprehensibility and the means by which to
be comprehended. The would-be philosopher seems to have reached an im-
passe, the experience of which is doubly critical, given that he is still filled with
the love of truth. Yet precisely this love, or the ethos of radicality, shows the
absolute situation to be not necessarily an impasse but possibly the crossroads
of a decision. Since everything is at stake in it, it is an all-or-nothing, a life-or-
death situation. The would-be philosopher comes to see that the absolute
situation is such—and this is the second sense of its absoluteness—insofar as it
confronts him with an absolute opposition between two forms of life: either
the life lived in partial or total naiveté or the life lived in total clarity, in total
justification. If he fathoms the implications of each option and searches his
conscience, then he sees that there are not really two options here, but only
one: to live a life in pursuit of total clarity. Resolving to lead this life means
affirming anew the ethos of radicality that had originally guided the scientist
and ultimately, as Husserl will later say, it means deciding to ‘‘freely give
oneself, one’s entire life, its rule out of pure reason, out of philosophy’’ (Hua
VI, 5/8). And yet it is more than a mere repetition, as the mention of phi-
losophy here already implies; for to make the resolution instigated by the

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 21

absolute situation, the would-be philosopher must first have radicalized his
grasp of that ethos and drawn the appropriate consequences. He must hear the
call of the absolute as such.
To move from the absolute situation to the resolution, a twofold break or
reduction must be carried out. The first dispenses with every theory and its
artifacts, as they have been found to be unreliable. The second side of the
reduction concerns not theory but Being. This reduction itself has two parts.
(A) Here the would-be philosopher first breaks with transcendence, with the
world and all that it contains, including other subjects. The transcendent is to
be excluded, because of its contingency. (B) Then, after wresting himself from
his lostness in the world, the reduction is to immanence. He is thrown back
wholly onto himself. Henceforth, he must no longer lose himself in the things
‘‘out there,’’ but instead attend to his relation to and role in their Being. Thus,
the second reduction is ultimately a reduction to the self, which in its radicality
has nothing but itself. It is the incipiently philosophical self, since it is com-
pletely self-reliant in its quest to fathom and abide by the idea of philosophy.
Its first task thereby is to reflect on and investigate itself in its solitude.
These two reductions, which might be called the theoretical and the
ontological reductions, respectively, are held by Husserl to be absolutely
necessary—not only due to the failure of the sciences to live up to the demand
for radical critique, but above all because the reductions alone give access to
the poles of the striving constitutive of the philosophical vocation. Once they
have been effected, that failure and the absolute situation to which it gives rise
prove to be merely first for us; they are but symptomatic of a disharmony with
what is actually first by nature, namely the pole of individual consciousness or
subjectivity and the pole of the idea. Precisely because it unfolds along the
trajectory leading from the former to the latter, the vocation of philosophy is
in a class by itself: ‘‘vocation in the everyday sense and vocation out of calling
are heavens apart. Indeed—a heaven apart; for the home of the latter, genuine
vocation, is the topos ouranios of the absolute idea, of the absolute or pure
value over against the merely meant value’’ (Hua VIII, 13)—as episteme is
opposed to doxa. ‘‘On the other hand, the home of the calling is the ego itself
that not only values in general but that, by passing through all one-sided
finitizations and obfuscations, intends by means of presentiment and fore-
casting to the pure and genuine values themselves, devotes itself to them
lovingly, unites with them in creative realization’’ (Ibid.). However, while in a
sense they always already inform every striving, it is only when one comes see
them as poles of a ‘‘career’’ that one’s chances of achieving the supreme goal
increase. The merit of the absolute situation is that it awakens the philo-
sophically-inclined to his ownmost telos and the path it prescribes.
If one is to enter actively onto this path, one must make ‘‘a special great
life-resolution,’’ which is possible only in response to a great call. This reso-
lution is distinct from everyday resolutions due to the high price it exacts.
Namely, if one is not to succumb in the life-or-death situation, one must
resolve to take ‘‘the risk and stake one’s life on it—on the risk of seeking
(filled with the radicalism of the ultimate) truth and science, or rather of

123
22 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

attempting [to institute] such a [science] from out of oneself and in association
with others who are imbued with the same ethos [Gleichgesinnten]: a science
based on an ultimate, good conscience, that alone can henceforth satisfy the
love of knowledge ultimately’’ (Hua VIII, 22). The risk requires that one give
up one’s life so as to gain it. One must start anew, breaking with all that is
familiar and thus also and especially with the old self, and put on the new man.
Just this is the consequence to be drawn from the twofold reduction sketched
in the foregoing. It is a purification of the self that returns the subject to
himself: the absolute danger of losing his self in the absolute situation forces
the subject back upon himself and compels him to ask about the genuine
nature of that self—for the first time. This reflective inquiry rests on an
incipient, willed jettisoning of the will and a turn to the things themselves in
openness, the principial thing here being the self, the new self that can be
grasped only after the old self has been shed. The danger posed by this risk
consists in the self-reliance it requires. After it has been taken, there can no
longer be any appeal to anything outside of the self; the nascent philosopher
has only himself and may rely only on himself, on what his own resources
make available to him. If the subject has an ultimate point of support, an
Archimedean point, then it will be found only in himself.
However, this distinction of the self, between the self lost in the world and
the solitary self wrested from such lostness, cannot occur on its own, but
hinges on the resolution’s second, correlative side. Husserl indicates as much
by asking: ‘‘But now, is the choice [of one supreme value], is the unconditional
decision here a matter of chance? The recollection of the word ‘calling’ gives
us the answer’’ (Hua VIII, 15). The call is given. It is received. The subject’s
chief action is to hear and cor-respond. Hence the chain of action does not
originate in the subject. Though free, the will required for his resolution of will
is itself motivated, and in fact by the idea or supreme value: ‘‘It is a decision by
which the subject himself decides, and simply as himself—out of the innermost
center of his personality—for what is in itself the best within the universal
value-realm of knowledge and for a consistent living towards the idea of this
best’’ (Hua VIII, 11). The resolution is therefore the decision of one pole for
the other, of the ego for the supreme idea, which has called the ego. In the
case of the would-be philosopher, what is best is truth or ‘‘supreme knowl-
edge,’’ and his decision for it results in his pursuit of ‘‘philosophy as an
absolute final purpose of this striving life, as his true ‘vocation’ for which he
has determined himself and decided once and for all, to which he has devoted
himself absolutely as a practical ego’’ (Hua VIII, 11–12). In response to the
call of the idea, he resolutely enters into a ‘‘life out of absolute calling’’ (Hua
VIII, 11). This is the first step in the infinite process of purification or renewal
that, on Husserl’s view, constitutes a radically new form of life. It is the
renewal that is demanded in answer to the crisis; the ‘‘life of renewal’’ is lived
by the philosopher in constant devotion to truth or supreme knowledge.
The insight into the possibility and necessity of such a life is rooted in the
insight into the distinction between the real and the ideal as it applies to
philosophy, a distinction he later expresses thus in his Vienna lecture from

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 23

1935: ‘‘‘Philosophy’—here we must be sure to distinguish between philosophy

as a historical fact of a particular time and philosophy as idea, the idea of an
infinite task. The particular, historically actual philosophy is the more or less
successful attempt to actualize the guiding idea of infinity and thereby even
the totality of truths’’ (Hua VI, 338/291). Of these two, it is the idea that
Husserl always affirms. If, on the other hand, he always rejects the actualities,
then he does so only insofar as they are historical. Despite their partial suc-
cesses, the former philosophies did not actualize the guiding idea, for they did
not grasp that idea in its most radical sense and consequently could not de-
velop the most radical method needed to pursue it. Instead of building up its
thought in accordance with the idea, and so from out of the things themselves,
each philosophy imposed a theory on those things from ‘‘on high’’ and thereby
concealed their proper sense. In other words, each lost sight of the whole
defined by the idea, and plunged both itself and the humanity for which it was
responsible into crisis. Just this failure is testimony enough for Husserl that
the old philosophies can no longer be continued and that a radically new
beginning must be made.
By targeting the historical actualities, however, Husserl makes it clear that
he does not reject every possible instantiation of the idea of philosophy, nor
could he, since it would not be enough to affirm the idea. For if it is to become
more than mere talk or speculation, if it is to make a difference with respect to
the whole, the idea of philosophy must be put into practice. Yet this cannot
occur immediately; setting a philosophy into the world without taking one’s
bearings by the idea would destine it to a failure no less total than that
experienced by past philosophies. Here what holds of the philosopher proves
to hold of philosophy as well: it is true philosophy only insofar as it follows the
call that sounds from the idea of philosophy, only insofar as it grasps the task
that that idea represents for any science that would make its appearance as
philosophy.
The idea that Husserl affirms is summed up in the names ‘‘sapientia uni-
versalis’’ and ‘‘philosophy as rigorous science.’’ Confronted with the absolute
situation, the would-be philosopher resolves to risk his life for just this science.
It is to be universal in a twofold sense: first, because it includes and accounts
for everything; second, because it begins with the absolute ground and ends
only in the actualized idea, in absolute truth or reason. Furthermore, it is to be
transcendental insofar as it seeks to clarify everything from the absolute
ground (of its possibility) up, for the ground alone guarantees the certainty
needed. The idea fixes a strict order of clarification: It is from out of the
beginning that everything, the totality of Being, is to be unfolded—just as
every discipline is to be unfolded from out of the first science. Hence the
universality of the science called for ultimately depends upon its transcen-
dentality.
The distinction of philosophy, between its idea and instantiations, does not
lead to a dead end, where only an empty idea would be had, but to a further,
pivotal distinction, namely between old and new instantiations. If the one
thing needful in the face of the crisis is philosophy, then it is a new philosophy

123
24 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

that is called for here, both as the science that serves the idea and as the
vocation that serves the science. Insofar as he is radical, the would-be phi-
losopher must recognize on the verge of his great resolution that an absolutely
radical, new science is demanded and, with it, a radically new form of life. In
resolving to live for philosophy, he therefore cannot continue any factual
tradition, but must break with everything past and seek to institute a science
that accords wholly with the idea. This is the positive effect of the afore-
mentioned distinction: Through the twofold radicalization it entails, philoso-
phy and the would-be philosopher undergo a fundamental transformation;
they make the transcendental turn in its peculiarly Husserlian sense. To have
seen the possibility of this turn and worked it out systematically is the heart of
Husserl’s achievement. It is the methodical expression of his revaluation and
instrumentalization of crisis.
The instantiation of the idea of philosophy that Husserl affirms thereby is
the one that grasps the idea most radically as an infinite task and strives to
actualize it. It is just such a philosophy, in contradistinction to all past phi-
losophies, that he intends to institute as ‘‘a reformed, an absolute science, a
science that overcomes all naiveté, stands on an absolute ground, and, from
the start, is the science of the absolute’’ (Husserl, 1994, VII, 18). Yet what he
first has in view is not, strictly speaking, philosophy at all, or if so, then only by
virtue of its ethos. Before it can lay claim to the name of philosophy, and that
is precisely what Husserl longs to do, the new science must prepare the way to
and for all future philosophy; in doing so, it proves to be the first side to what
Husserl considers the whole of genuine philosophy, that is, philosophy as
rigorous science or ‘‘sapientia universalis.’’ It is First Science or First Philos-
ophy, on account of both its object and the circumstances within which it
begins.
The new science earns the rank of First Science, on the one hand, because it
deals with what is first. In keeping with the idea’s demand for radicality, the
new science has to begin at the beginning, thus with subjectivity: ‘‘the sentence
‘I am’ has to be the true principle of all principles and the first sentence of all
true philosophy’’ (Hua VIII, 42). But again, even though Husserl considers the
new science to be the truest philosophy, especially due to the radicality with
which it wills philosophy, in fact it is not philosophy, but the discipline upon
which all true philosophy is to be based. As the ‘‘science of the primal source,
a First Philosophy, a science of transcendental subjectivity’’ (Hua VIII, 4), the
new science is literally ‘‘archaeology’’ (Hua VIII, 29). Husserl calls it tran-
scendental phenomenology. It is this rigorous science and it alone, on his view,
that is able to institute the infinite progression up towards the fulfillment of
the idea of ‘‘sapientia universalis.’’
On the other hand, the status ascribed to the new science is justified by the
fact that its struggle for the idea is a solitary one: phenomenology cannot rely
on any other discipline or theory, nor on any previous achievement. Like the
would-be philosopher in the absolute situation, the new science must also
begin entirely on its own. Its self-reliance is a necessary consequence of its
focus on the idea or end, as well as on the beginning that the idea demands.

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 25

The new science is so new that it has no place within any continuum, save that
of the idea, and therefore it lies outside all known types of science, including
past philosophy. It is essentially related to these sciences, while nevertheless
differing radically from them. Yet it is precisely its peculiar ‘‘sameness in
otherness’’ that enables it not only to ground true philosophy, but, prior to
that, to cure the ills caused by the familiar sciences, since it alone is able to get
to the root of the problem. In accordance with the ‘‘natural course’’ of things,
which ‘‘starts out from something that is most universal and proceeds from
there to the fulfilled particularities’’ (Hua VIII, 26), transcendental phenom-
enology must come first, and only then ‘‘a genuine philosophy that springs
from it’’ (Hua VIII, 4), as well as the other genuine sciences. Together they
make up the whole of ‘‘sapientia universalis,’’ but a whole that can arise only
through transcendental phenomenology. For, once again, it concentrates on
the beginning in light of the end, thus on subjectivity under the scope of the
idea of philosophy, or the idea of absolute reason. In the face of the absolute
situation, therefore, the radicalized would-be philosopher’s resolution to risk
his life in the quest for truth and science, and even in the effort to institute a
science, proves to be the resolution to risk his life for this absolute science; he
begins in solitude by investigating the new field of inquiry, solitary subjec-
tivity, and strives to climb up to absolute reason. In thus vowing to pursue the
life of transcendental phenomenology, he is a true beginner: he is henceforth a
phenomenologist in the making.
But while the talk has been of its beginning and end, one grasps tran-
scendental phenomenology fully only when a third, mediating element is
introduced, namely the method of advance. For without it the phenomenol-
ogist cannot move from the lower to the upper pole. In fact he cannot even
attain the beginning without an adequate method. Hence the ‘‘great question
of the beginning’’ (Hua VIII, 26) before which the would-be philosopher is
placed upon making the ‘‘great life-resolution’’ proves to be first and foremost
a question of method. The method is the phenomenologist’s means of
‘‘fleshing out’’ the idea. As he progresses, he zigzags between method and idea
and seeks to improve his grasp of each. Neither can be completely articulated
without the other.
As for what the method is, Husserl’s account of the philosophical vocation
presupposes the paradigmatic form first presented in Ideas I (See Hua III, 1,
§§ 27–32, esp. § 32). There it is shown to have two parts: the eidetic reduction
on the one hand and the epoché or transcendental-phenomenological reduc-
tion on the other. The eidetic reduction is a purification of consciousness
whereby attention is freed from its distraction by the many and shifted to the
one, or from the variable to the invariant. In doing this, it gives access to the
possibilities, norms, goals—in short, values—for which the phenomenologist is
to strive and by means of which he is to institute the new science. Husserl
makes it clear that since transcendental phenomenology is to be a science of
the primal source, of the first principle from which all else gains its sense, it is
not an empirical science. Rather, it is more radical insofar as it discloses that
which every empirical science presupposes. Since it is essence that provides

123
26 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

the key to understanding the empirical, as well as the non-empirical, the new
science is to be a science of essence, or eidetics, and in fact a system of eidetic
and thus normative cognitions. With the aid of the eidetic reduction, the
phenomenologist’s first order of business is therefore to trace everything back
to its eidetic laws. As ‘‘the normative forms of ‘reason’’’ (Hua VIII, 9), they
provide the standards by which the rationality of any intention must be
measured. Actuality by actuality, region by region, the phenomenologist must
disclose the norms and thereby rationalize everything if he is to make strides
towards absolute reason. The step-by-step articulation of this whole coincides
with the unfolding of the infinite system of phenomenology.
But the actualization of the system becomes possible only after its begin-
ning has been secured. And that is the function of the second, though by
nature first, part of the phenomenological method, the epoché. Its primacy
derives from the systematic difference it makes. Although the eidetic reduc-
tion enables the acquisition of all manner of essences, it does not provide any
means for organizing them. This is done solely by the epoché, insofar as it
gives access to the beginning, to the ‘‘irreality that all reality presupposes’’
(Hua VIII, 79). It is the beginning or Archimedean point of that whole which
culminates in absolute truth or reason. By purifying consciousness of a specific
kind of belief, the epoché reduces consciousness-in-the-world to pure, solitary
consciousness. That is, by neutralizing his belief in the existence of the
world—which Husserl terms the ‘‘general thesis’’—this reduction frees the
subject from his presumed (cognitive) dependence on the world, and in truth
turns the tables by showing that it is instead the world that depends on con-
sciousness. The epoché by no means dispenses with all belief—nor can it do so
if there is to be any striving—but only with the belief in the world. After the
reduction, the purified ego still harbors belief, though now a distinguished
belief: only to the extent that it believes in reason will the ego be able to climb
from itself up towards reason. Since it is only by means of the epoché that the
span of striving (from the ego to reason) becomes visible, as does the order of
the problems and regions to be investigated along the way, the epoché proves
to be the properly systematizing reduction.
The life lived under the scope of the epoché is a distinguished life, one that
has set itself off from another life, which is first for us but not by nature.
Crucial in this connection is the distinction between attitudes, specifically
between what Husserl terms the natural and the phenomenological attitudes.
Each corresponds to a way of life that diverges sharply from the other due to a
radical difference in their bases. To begin with, every consciousness is a nat-
ural consciousness and as such lives in the natural attitude. Its naturalness
consists principially in its naive effectuation of the general thesis—naive be-
cause it is unaware that it does so or even of what such effectuation entails.
Natural consciousness is caught up in the world; it thoughtlessly gives priority
to the world and forgets itself. As should already be clear from the foregoing,
the attitudinal distinction aims at just this thesis in order to disclose con-
sciousness as the true, absolute ground. However, it is also meant to show the
inherent naiveté and thus prejudice of natural consciousness; for only after it

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 27

has been seen does the possibility and even the necessity of freeing oneself
from the general thesis become apparent. While that ground is as important as
the starting point, both the insight into one’s naiveté and the latter’s sub-
sequent expunction are pivotal, since it is the ethos of radicalism, or the will to
purge oneself of all naiveté, that animates one’s striving from the ground up
into the heights. It is against this background that the epoché is effected.
The epoché brings about a radical modification of consciousness, a move
away from the natural to ‘‘a wholly ‘unnatural’ attitude,’’ namely the phe-
nomenological attitude (Hua VIII, 121). By excluding the general thesis and
thereby purifying consciousness, the epoché returns the subject to himself as
the absolute ground; it shows him his self in its proper light for the very first
time. It is here that the crucial, practical effect of the epoché becomes visible.
It dislodges the new self from the old and inaugurates a new form of life:
‘‘Whoever wants to become a phenomenologist must free himself systemati-
cally from the natural state of being a child of the world [natürliche
Weltkindschaft] and effect the phenomenological reduction with respect to
all types of experiencing, objectivating, thinking, and living, as well as all
correlative types of worldly-natural existence, proper to the child of the world;
thus [he must effect] that systematic epoché by means of which everything
worldly is lifted up into pure subjectivity, is transcendentally spiritualized. At
the same time, the natural child, the child of the world [Weltkind], is trans-
formed into the phenomenological child, the child in the realm of the pure
spirit’’ (Hua VIII, 123). As a result of the epoché, the nascent phenomenol-
ogist, though still in it, is no longer of the world. He has been transformed.
With his new reflective awareness, with the new self, he sees his previous
lostness in the world, his objective orientation at the expense of his subjec-
tivity—in short: the one-sidedness of his former life. He understands himself
to be invested with a new task, which is to be true to the doubleness of life, of
world and spirit, explicating both out of the latter with respect to their sense.
His is the task, in other words, of solving the ‘‘enigma of enigmas,’’ which he
can achieve only in the new attitude.
Contrary to a widespread view, then, the effect of the epoché is not only
theoretical (providing access to a new field of inquiry, pure consciousness), but
also and especially existential: it institutes phenomenology as a radically new
life-form. Yet its discovery does not simply add another life-form to those
long-since familiar; the new form does not merely take its place alongside the
others. Rather, it both precedes and orients every other life-form. For on
Husserl’s view the archontic life-form is the ethical life-form, which is pre-
cisely what the epoché inaugurates: Since it is the philosophical life that he
first presents as the ethical life, it follows that through its radicalization by the
epoché the status of the supremely ethical existence is transferred to the
phenomenological existence. And it then becomes clear that Husserl’s general
remarks about the ethical life hold especially of the phenomenological life. It
proves to be ‘‘the sole absolutely valuable’’ form in the hierarchy of life-forms
and as such it gives the other forms ‘‘not only a new form but also the norm
and limit of their ultimate legitimacy’’ (Hua XXVII, 29). This new life-form

123
28 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

sets the standard, then, of value and genuineness for every other form. So
much so that it is only by virtue of his participation in it as the ethical life-form
that a practitioner of any vocation can be considered genuine. Genuineness
inheres in the motivation; the degree of the latter determines the degree of
the former. In the best case, it comes in the form of the ethical demand to
take up a life in which one strives for ‘‘the highest and ultimate self-reflection,
self-understanding, and self-responsibility for his cognitive achievements’’
(Hua VIII, 3). In fact the demand proves to be nothing but the call of ‘‘the
idea of the ‘genuine and true man’ or the rational man’’ (Hua XXVII, 33),
which is precisely the practical side of the idea of philosophy. This is not to say
that Husserl considers it necessary, in the face of the crisis, that everyone
become a philosopher, but only that everyone become philosophical and,
prior to that, phenomenological. For only in that way will the practitioner of a
given vocation understand how his work is to fit into the whole defined by the
idea. In the will to the ethical life, one opens oneself to the call and to the
whole it entails. One’s life regains its sense.
The epoché institutes a life that is unnatural, though, paradoxically, first by
nature. It is the most original expression of the will to the ethical life, which is
precisely the ‘‘will to the new man’’ (Hua XXVII, 38). But what results from
the epoché is not a life of (static) Being, but of (perennial) becoming. The
ethical life is accordingly ‘‘a life based on a ‘renewal,’ on an original and then
repeatedly reactivated will to renewal’’ (Hua XXVII, 42); it is a life of per-
manent revolution or crisis, in which one seeks, time and again, on each new
level, to overcome the old self in the climb up to the idea. However, it is
important to note that the becoming at issue here is not natural, it does not
merely ‘‘come to be and grow ‘of its own,’ after the manner of organic pas-
sivity.’’ Rather, it can be only as a reflected life, as one that is willed; for
Husserl, the life of blessedness cannot arise out of a life of sinfulness, but only
upon the conscious break with the latter. Therein lies the significance of the
great life-resolution to the process of ethical becoming: ‘‘Through this
free primal institution or primal generation, which initiates his methodical
self-development towards the absolute ethical idea, man determines himself
(or is determined) to be the new and genuine man, who casts off his old man
and prescribes for himself the form of a new humanness. Insofar as the ethical
life is, by its essence, a battle with the ‘inclinations that drag one down,’ it can
also be described as a continual renewal’’ (Hua XXVII, 43). The epoché is the
methodical implementation of this resolution.
In its most radical form, therefore, this development is the struggle of the
subject in the phenomenological attitude against the natural attitude in his
effort to achieve the supreme goal: absolute reason. It is a striving, in other
words, to lead a rational life. Just that is what makes the new life-form
philosophical in the originary sense. Whereas the resolution sets ‘‘the
habitual life-form of the becoming philosopher’’ (Hua VIII, 7) in motion,
the epoché channels that becoming in keeping with the ethos of radicality,
which demands legitimization in all quarters, from the ground up. That is,
inasmuch as it first ushers in and then maintains the ‘‘new and true life’’ by

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 29

constantly inhibiting the general thesis, the epoché proves to be a ‘‘universal

regulation of the will,’’ it is ‘‘ethical self-regulation’’ (Hua VIII, 155). On
Husserl’s view, a life is ethical to the extent that it is ‘‘a life of self-discipline
or self-cultivation, of self-purification under constant self-surveillance’’ (Hua
XXVII, 39), which requires the employment of the right method. It is in this
sense that the new life is quite literally ‘‘a life of ‘method’’’ (Hua XXVII,
38), for it is solely the radical method of epoché that ensures that the life
remains pure and free for the fulfillment of the task with which it has been
charged.
What distinguishes the new man from the old, or the genuine from the non-
genuine, is precisely his responsiveness to the demand of ethical self-regula-
tion: under the scope of the epoché, the subject seeks to live with a good
conscience. This requires that he live a life of total self-legitimization with
reference to a fundamental knowledge, the knowledge of the absolute ought
or the categorical imperative. Husserl’s version of the latter reads: ‘‘Be a true
man; lead the life that you can legitimize completely with insight, a life of
practical reason’’ (Hua XXVII, 36). The quest to accord with this imperative
is not aimed at something external to the subject, but at something thoroughly
essential to him. Only on that account could such striving possibly enable him
to become a true man. Hence, the duty it entails is as much to his self as it is to
the idea: Just as the ethically striving man is ‘‘the subject and simultaneously
the object of his striving, the work that becomes unto infinity, [the work]
whose master [Werkmeister] he himself is,’’ likewise if he is to have some
measure of success in the work on his self, ‘‘the habitual form of the ought or
ethos’’ must hold sway, that is, he must constantly ‘‘want to act … ‘consci-
entiously,’ ‘as well as possible’’’ (Hua XXVII, 37). The struggle to achieve the
idea expressed in the categorical imperative is simultaneously the work on the
self. Consequently, an authentically dutiful and thus ethical life is not one of
passivity or blind subservience to some imposed standard or authority, but of
willed, conscious activity. It is a life lived in cognizance of the supreme norm, a
life defined by the three interrelated moments sketched in the foregoing: First
the insight into the primacy of reason; in the form of the ought, this insight
‘‘apodictically compels the will’’ (Hua VI, 16/18) and orients all subsequent
striving. Then the method, which puts and keeps the subject on track by
keeping him pure—the new life literally hinges upon the epoché. And finally
the conscience, in which his acts are scrutinized. The life of conscience unfolds
as a continuous zigzag between act and norm, whereby the former is measured
against the latter.
The good conscience arises when one is in harmony with the imperative; the
bad, when one is in disharmony with it. Insofar as the categorical imperative is
bound up with one’s essence, the good conscience is the expression of one’s
harmony with one’s self. It is self-satisfaction. The bad conscience is the
expression of disharmony or dissatisfaction, which gives rise to a crisis in the
subject. Here it becomes clear how the categorical imperative entails a duty to
oneself and to the idea. The poles of striving do not lie in physical space, but in
consciousness. Between the ego and the idea of absolute reason there is a

123
30 Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31

community of essence. This is already expressed in the classical definition of

man as the rational being (animal rationale), to which Husserl appeals time
and again. The life of conscience is one of becoming as rational striving, which
is ‘‘a striving to give one’s personal life regarding its particular judging, val-
uing, and practical position-takings the form of … legitimacy or rationality’’
(Hua XXVII, 26). The subject seeks to form his life rationally. As a conse-
quence, the ethical form of life proves to be literally a form, which is specified
in the idea of reason and expressed practically in the categorical imperative.
The task of striving is to fill it out, to become rational, by living up to the norm
of reason. That is the peculiar intentional or teleological character of con-
scious life.
The philosophical existence is precisely a life lived in pursuit of rationality.
It is the vocation of philosophy, but first and foremost the vocation of phe-
nomenology, that is charged with the task of instituting such an existence, on
both a personal and a communal level. The heart of this existence is the idea
of philosophy, which determines both the beginning and the end of the phi-
losopher’s—or most radically: the phenomenologist’s—striving. It is a life
lived under the scope of the supreme idea and with the aid of the most radical
method. For Husserl the genuine philosophical life is only habitual becoming,
whereby the subject constantly strives to accord fully with the norm of
absolute reason. Though the philosopher will never come to the end, it is his
duty—bound by his love for the supreme value—to pursue it to the last. This is
once again the risk involved in the resolution. It is never ending so long as one
lives and lives it. For Husserl, only those who can bear the burden of infinity,
the uncertainty of it, while being filled with the certainty of the idea, are called
to be philosophers. Only those with such mettle will not flee in the face of the
‘‘enigma of the world.’’ They alone are ‘‘the beginners,’’ who are called to
‘‘prepare the way to a new future’’ (Husserl, 1994, VII, 222). The new future is
to dawn for a new world, which is inhabited by the new man. As such he is the
functionary of the new, universal science, which is to lead humanity out of
crisis to the ‘‘promised land,’’ or to what Husserl also refers to as the
‘‘Kingdom of God on Earth’’ (Hua XXVII, 118). This is the new world at
which Husserlian theory aims, the telos of what Husserl calls his ‘‘teleological
worldview’’ (See, e.g., Husserl, 1994, VII, 190). The sole means he sees of
achieving this goal is the epoché. Insofar as it is this method that both ushers
in and shores up the ethos proper to transcendental phenomenology, it proves
to be the cornerstone not only of phenomenological theory, but of all phe-
nomenological praxis.

References

Brainard, M. (2001). As fate would have it: Husserl on the vocation of philosophy. In New
yearbook for phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy I (pp. 111–160).
Brainard, M. (2002) Belief and its neutralization: Husserl’s system of phenomenology in Ideas I.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

123
Husserl Stud (2007) 23:17–31 31

Husserl, E. (1911). Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft. In Logos. Internationale Zeitschrift für
Philosophie der Kultur 1 (1910–11) (pp. 289–341). English translation: Philosophy as rigorous
science. In New yearbook for phenomenology and phenomenological philosophy II (2002) (pp.
249–295). Translated by Marcus Brainard.
Husserl, E. (1994). Briefwechsel. In K. Schuhmann & E. Schuhmann (Eds.), Husserliana Doku-
mente III (10 Vols.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (Volume numbers are indicated
in Roman).

123