Why phenomenology could not commit the linguistic turn

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WHY PHENOMENOLOGY COULD NOT COMMIT THE LINGUISTIC TURN

ANASTASIA MEDOVA

Annotation

linguistic turn frege husserl

Frege and Husserl are traditionally regarded as the precursors of the linguistic turn; however, the importance of their ideas for this event still is not fully comprehended. This article contributes to such comprehension: the principles of the linguistic turn in its analytical interpretation provided by Rorty are applied as an indicator revealing the commonality and difference of Frege's and Husserl's positions regarding key issues of their concepts. The connection of the philosophers' ideas with the linguistic turn is viewed in the context of their interpretation of predicativity, propositionality, contextuality of meaning, and ways of categorization. The analysis conducted gives rise to distinguishing between Frege's and Husserl's referential schemes. It is based on the differences in the characteristics of the connection between perception and predication. In conclusion, the arguments against Frege's and Husserl's involvement in the linguistic turn are emphasized. These arguments stem from the idea of the primacy of sense over language fundamental for both philosophers who proceed from the fact that certain a priori logical relations underlie utterances or other acts. There is a more solid argument which does not allow considering Frege's and Husserl's legacies as its source. This argument consists in the fact that they regard sense as an objective, communicable, and universal phenomenon independent of its carriers, not inherently linguistic, and pre-logical which is due to its intentional nature according to Husserl and logical “indecomposability” of concepts according to Frege.

Keywords: meaning, sense, reference, contextuality, propositionality, meaning-conferring act.

Аннотация

ПОЧЕМУ ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЯ НЕ МОЖЕТ СОВЕРШИТЬ ЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКИЙ ПОВОРОТ?

АНАСТАСИЯ МЁДОВА

Фреге и Гуссерль традиционно рассматриваются как предшественники лингвистического поворота; однако важность их идей для этого процесса еще продолжает осознаваться. Статья способствует этому осознанию: принципы лингвистического поворота в его аналитической интерпретации, представленной Рорти, применяются в качестве индикатора, раскрывающего общность и различие позиций Фреге и Гуссерля по ключевым вопросам их концепций. Связь идей этих философов с лингвистическим поворотом рассматривается в контексте интерпретации предикативности, пропозициональности, контекстуальности значения и способов категоризации. Проведенный анализ позволяет показать различие между референциальными схемами Фреге и Гуссерля. В его основе лежит различие в характеристиках связи между восприятием и предикацией. В заключении приводятся аргументы против того, что Гуссерль и Фреге были частью лингвистического поворота. Эти аргументы отталкиваются от идеи о первичности смысла, а не языка, фундаментальной для обоих философов, исходящих при этом из того, что в основе высказываний или других актов лежат некоторые априорные логические отношения. Существует и более веский аргумент, который не позволяет искать его исток в наследии Фреге и Гуссерля. Он состоит в том, что оба они рассматривают смысл как объективный, передаваемый и универсальный феномен, независимый от своего носителя и не являющийся по своей сути лингвистическим и дологическим. Это обусловлено его интенциональной природой по Гуссерлю и логической «неразложимостью» понятий по Фреге.

Ключевые слова: значение, смысл, референция, контекстуальность, пропозициональность, акт придания значения.

The main text

This article contributes to the problem of relations of phenomenology and analytic philosophy in the light of the possibility of making the linguistic turn by those philosophical trends. We proceed from M. Dummett's statement that making a linguistic turn is impossible for phenomenology. Critical analysis of this thesis is of considerable interest for a variety of reasons. First, it is reasonable to be convinced of its validity. Second, if Dummett's statement turns out to be correct, considering the reasons due to which the linguistic turn is impossible for phenomenology in more detail would be appropriate. Third, the reasons due to which phenomenology could not commit the linguistic turn apparently should be the same due to which analytical philosophy ascending to Frege could do it. Therefore, the answer to the question formulated in the title of the article requires a comparative analysis of Frege's and Husserl's ideas in the light of principles of the linguistic turn. The commonality and difference of Frege's and Husserl's ideas also have an effect on the subsequent conceptual divergence between phenomenology and analytic philosophy. Thus, we have an opportunity to identify the fundamental issues that determine the originality of these two most authoritative philosophical trends.

In the study, the principles of the linguistic turn in its analytical interpretation provided by Rorty are applied as an indicator revealing the commonality and difference of Frege's and Husserl's positions regarding key issues of their concepts. The connection of the philosophers' ideas with the linguistic turn is viewed in the context of their interpretation of predicativity, propositionality, contextuality of meaning, and ways of categorization. The questions as to whether the scholars share the position of methodological nominalism and where they see the limits of generalization of sense are discussed. The analysis conducted gives rise to distinguishing between Frege's and Husserl's referential schemes. It is based on the differences in the characteristics of the connection between perception and predication. In conclusion, the arguments against Frege's and Husserl's involvement in the linguistic turn are emphasized. These arguments stem from the idea of the primacy of sense over language fundamental for both philosophers who proceed from the fact that certain a priori logical relations underlie utterances or other acts. We infer, that both Frege and Husserl regard sense as an objective, communicable, and universal phenomenon independent of its carriers, not inherently linguistic, and pre-logical which is due to its intentional nature according to Husserl and logical “indecomposability” of concepts (Begriffe) according to Frege. As the result, we have pointed out the four ideas commitment to which lead Husserl's phenomenology away from the linguistic turn. Two of them are also shared by Frege; it marks the ambiguity of the role of the father of analytic philosophy in this event.

Frege and Husserl are the two thinkers whose legacy generated an undeniable resonance in the subsequent development of philosophy. Dissimilarities of their views are combined with consentience in essential considerations: both Frege and Husserl studied the issues of pure thinking deducing its categories from its own internal development. Both of them sought to overcome the subjectivity of scientific research, tending to separate the categories of logic from psychological content; for this reason, both are regarded as the forerunners of the linguistic turn in philosophy (Colebrook, 2010). Frege and Husserl express similar views on referential relations. They see the source of reference in the speaker's intention or associating a definite descriptive content with using a given name (Michaelson & Reimer, 2019), i. e. they do not admit any objective connection of referential terms or signifying acts with designated objects in the spirit of semantic externalism. Their ontological and epistemic platforms are also similar. D. Willard defines them as ontological dualism, their epistemological realism, their Platonism, and their anti-Empiricism (Willard, 1994, 252). Ch. Parsons also mentions that Husserl's version of idealism is not immune to early analytic philosophy (Parsons, 2001, 128). The interrelation of Frege's and Husserl's ideas gave rise to a special direction aimed at convergence of their concepts (Smith & McIntyre, 1982; Smith & McIntyre,1975; Hintikka, 1975; Smith, 1978). It started with Dagfinn Follesdal's interpretation of the Husserlian concept of the noema as a Fregean sense (Follesdal, 1969). A number of philosophers attempted to reconcile phenomenology with analytic philosophy by basing upon the idea that Husserl's views on meaning were analogous to Frege's and that Husserl's shift from the Logical Investigations to the Ideas was from a focus on consciousness to a focus on language (Banchetti, 1993, 81).

However, considering common issues and often reaching similar conclusions, Frege and Husserl actively criticized each other and laid the foundations of the trends opposite in a number of aspects-phenomenology and analytical philosophy. The above facts explain why the comparative analysis of Fregean and Husserlian teachings is a separate topic of philosophical research. It is challenging, as it allows examining the origins of the two most influential trends in contemporary philosophy and clarifies the genesis of its key issues among which the interpretation of language and meaning is the leading problem.

This article continues the line of comparative studies of the heritage of the two outstanding scholars in line with the stated problem. We intend to consider the question of the possibility of phenomenology committing a linguistic turn (Dummett, 1993, 26) as shedding light on the fundamental coincidences and divergences of views of Frege and Husserl who stood at the origins of the linguistic turn. We will consequentially examine the moments of consensus and confrontation between Frege and Husserl in terms of the essential principles of the linguistic turn as the crucial event of the last century. In our study, the principles of the linguistic turn in its analytical interpretation formulated by R. Rorty serve as a litmus paper that allows highlighting common traits and differences in Frege's and Husserl's positions. We aim to reveal and emphasize those ideas which allow implementing mutual clarification of the scholars' positions in matters of formation of reference and the interpretation of the nature of sense as fundamental for phenomenology and analytical philosophy. We intend to generalize these moments showing the movement of Husserl and Frege in the direction opposite to the linguistic turn, thereby pointing out the ambiguity of the roles of both philosophers in this event.

MICHAEL DUMMETT'S “CHALLENGE

In his work Origins of Analytical Philosophy, M. Dummett formulates his famous statement that for phenomenology, making a linguistic turn is impossible.

If the linguistic turn is accepted as providing the defining characteristic of analytic philosophy, then what made it possible for the analytic school to take it, and impossible for the phenomenological school to do so, must play a major role in explaining their divergence. (Dummett, 1993, 26)

S. Crowell approaches this far-reaching statement from a methodological point of view: since analytical philosophy was capable of accomplishing the linguistic turn, it managed to establish itself as a viable program of research into meaning. As to phenomenology, it could not accomplish it; hence, it has no viable program of research (Crowell, 2002, 420). However, we consider that Dummett's statement can be understood as follows: analytical philosophy and phenomenology, in spite of their initial common grounds, diverge in one fundamental issue. After this issue was formalized in Frege's and Husserl's reflection, any sort of unification or parallel development of phenomenology and analytical philosophy became impossible.

Dummett's thesis understood in such a way is not only intriguing, but also suggests seeing the connection between Frege's and Husserl's concepts in a new way, namely, noting their (mutual) complementarity. R. McIntyre called to the search for a common “mental space” where philosophical insights of Husserl and Frege, and also perhaps the traditions they fathered, might exist for and act on one another (McIntyre, 1987, 529). However, this search was expressed mainly as a comparison of specific concepts or ideas from the thinkers' early works, for instance, concepts of number, singular terms, proper names, indexicals, and substitutivity. Frege's and Husserl's attitude towards psychologism in logic, the correlation of their key concepts, Sinn and Bedeutung, and the influence of Frege's criticism of Husserl on the formation of phenomenology (Follesdal, 1958; Pivcevic, 1967; Rosado Haddock, 1973; Willard, 1977; Mohanty, 1982; Hanna, 1993; etc.) were also widely discussed.

After the publication of the aforementioned book by Dummett, comparative studies of Frege's and Husserl's heritage gained a new perspective; an opinion that the concepts by these thinkers clarify each other was established. Thus, Follesdal emphasizes that it is helpful to compare and contrast Husserl's views with those of Frege, since the parallels are striking. They help to understand and to appreciate Husserl. In particular, he considers Frege's ideas on sense and reference useful for expounding Husserl's phenomenology and understanding his intention, though he does not allege that Husserl took over these notions from Frege (Husserl, 2001a, 68-69). C. Beyer concludes that conception of perception as the noetic-noematic shaping of sensory content of acts of perception is compatible with Frege's general view of perception and can complement it (Beyer, 2017, 223-224). In parallel, a reverse tendency arose to liberate Husserl's ideas from the Fregean context. А non-Fregean interpretation of Husserl's theory of intentionality was implemented by R. Sokolowski, John J. Drummond, R. Cobb-Stevens, and M. P. Banchetti.

The hypothesis of the existence of a specific “point of fracture” between phenomenology and analytical philosophy implicitly contained in Dummett's statement has also been developed. The search for a point of demarcation between phenomenology and the analytic tradition is maintained by an unrelenting interest in comparative analysis of such concepts used by Frege and Husserl as intention and reference, Sinn and Bedeutung, and Sinn and Noema (Follesdal, 1969; McIntyre, 1987, 534; Smith & McIntyre, 1982, 211-214; Willard, 1994; Carman, 2003, 68; Moran & Cohen, 2012, 285-286).The point of fracture in question is seen primarily in the interpretation of meaning, reference, and language. At the same time, some studies deny the existence of such “point of fracture” and emphasize the points of convergence of phenomenology and analytic philosophy (Frechette, 2021).

The research method selected by us implies comparing Frege's and Husserl's achievements in the light of the principles associated with the linguistic turn. It allows stating the connection between Frege's and Husserl's concepts in their essential, key points without being limited to comparing separate concepts or ideas. Such a strategy is interesting from the historical aspect, as it is likely to concretize the role of each of the scholars in the implementation of the linguistic turn. It also creates a basis for a consistent and targeted coverage of Frege's and Husserl's statements regarding semantics and the theory of language, and hereinafter allows clarifying whether `phenomenology could commit the linguistic turn.'

MARKERS OF THE LINGUISTIC TURN

The concept of the “linguistic turn” was introduced by Gustav Bergmann in 1960 in his review of Individuals by P. F. Strawson (1964). The linguistic turn is described by Bergmann as a methodological setting that allows speaking about the world in an acceptable language, i. e. to ground philosophy on proper, legitimate, functional, or verifiable language. Bergmann identifies two groups of philosophers applying this methodological technique: Ordinary Language philosophers who examine the language people communicate in, and Ideal Language philosophers who aim to develop such a language whose instrumental role is brought to the fore. D. Austin is mentioned as an example of the first type of philosophers, and R. Carnap as that of the second type.

Opinions regarding origins of the linguistic turn, its key principles, consequences, and central figures are different, though it is unanimously claimed that G. Frege initiated it, the decisive step was taken by L. Wittgenstein, and logicism and logical positivism became its most obvious manifestations. As to branches and stages of this event, opinions differ. Thus, M. Fisch (2008), along with the first, “classical” stage of the linguistic turn, distinguishes the second one based on neo-Kantian and neo-pragmatist reflections on the prospects of development of science. Its early representatives are H. Reichenbach and M. Schlick, joined by R. Carnap, who later generalized their insights to apply to scientific language in general. Fisch lists W. Sellars, the later Wittgenstein, and the later Carnap as the key figures of the second stage.

The linguistic turn is associated with departure from descriptive analysis of consciousness in the spirit of transcendentalism. From this point of view, the linguistic turn is directed opposite to phenomenology. Once it had been taken, it was natural to suggest that philosophy could shift towards the practice of influencing consciousness by reforming language because, unlike the intrinsic nature of consciousness or the transcendental unity of apperception, language seems to be a thing that can be changed (Rorty, 1967, 38). The events, however, took an opposite turn, which was the reason why Fisch identifies the second stage of the linguistic turn, and its consequences are relevant to this day. At this stage, the idea that “reality cannot `correct' our language, because the reality we experience is wholly determined by it” was confirmed. Consequently, “nothing can be known by us for which we do not possess a concept, for to know is to conceptualize” (Fisch, 2008, 607-608). At this point, the linguistic turn, on the contrary, “turns” in the direction of phenomenology or at least transcendental philosophy. In fact, the representatives of this stage of the linguistic turn interpret language in the same manner as Husserl and the entire transcendental philosophy interpret consciousness. It is supposed that man has no neutral, concept-free basis he could stand upon outside the “language game” he is involved in.

Cl. Colebrook summarizes a more common view of the premises of the linguistic turn, identifying its two basic branches. The first one, i. e. the analytical one, is associated with attempts to base philosophy on merely formal sign systems of mathematics and logic in the early twentieth century. This branch criticizes attempts of the late nineteenth century speculative philosophy to go beyond individual experience and provide some insight into the prelinguistic absolute, which was, in fact, done by Husserl in Logische Untersuchungen. Instead, the branch tends to provide philosophy with a more definite basis which would be closer to the model of sciences. The second branch is a response to phenomenology and its interest in institutional and constitutive acts of consciousness. This branch of the linguistic turn, equipped with Husserlian methodology, shifts the focus of its studies from the immediate data of consciousness to language, where it detects the premises for the emergence of reference and experience (Colebrook, 2010, 279).

In the 20^th-21^st centuries, the linguistic turn is represented by two basic traditions: the American one, headed by R. Rorty, and the continental one, represented by Deleuze, Derrida, Blanchot, Kristev, etc. The first one, the post-Fregean analytic tradition, regards language a way of releasing philosophy from metaphysical pseudo-problems, and in this regard, it refuses to examine any truth or reality outside the framework of language. Let us make a note of this thesis. As we shall see hereinafter, it is equally alien to both Frege and Husserl.

The second tradition draws attention to the genesis of language, its limits, and the ways of constituting differences in it, preserving the intuition of transcendental foundations of language. But both traditions recognized that language could not have a simple outside for itself (Colebrook, 2010, 285-286).

Identifying universal markers of the linguistic turn, as well as the principles of attributing certain concepts to it, is a comprehensive task deserving a separate study. We do not claim to solve it. Our goal is to proceed from М. Dummett's aforementioned thesis keeping the divergent perspectives of the development of Frege's and Husserl's ideas in analytical philosophy and phenomenology, respectively. Therefore, to advance the research, it would be advisable to concentrate on understanding the linguistic turn exactly in an analytical manner to emphasize the contrast between Fregean and Husserlian approaches. To structure the subsequent comparative analysis, we shall list a number of aspects of the linguistic turn borrowing their wording from R. Rorty. He suggests understanding the latter as a project for studying language that can yield certain necessary truths and contribute to transforming philosophy into strict science (Rorty, 1967, 33, 37). Weighing up pros and cons of the possibility of such a turn for philosophy, Rorty outlines its following key characteristics:

I. The typical philosophical problems and difficulties root in ordinary, unconstructed concepts, in the elusive, deceptive modes of functioning of formalized linguistic expressions;

II. It is possible to transform statements regarding consciousness and knowledge into statements regarding objects of “direct perceptual acquaintance,” as well as to bring statements of the scientific language in line with the basic logical principles;

III. Nominalism serves as the methodological basis of the linguistic turn;

IV. Implied or expressed meaning does not exist independently from language (Rorty, 1967, 9-10, 15).

These four characteristics of the linguistic turn, on the one hand, are universal, indicative, and applicable to a wide range of phenomena in the sphere of philosophy; on the other hand, they are specific enough to make a research purposeful and highlight the specificity of Frege's and Husserl's approaches.

PRO ET CONTRA OF THE LINGUISTIC TURN: CONSENSUS OF HUSSERL AND FREGE

Frege's and Husserl's solidarity regarding (I) is beyond doubt. As both thinkers started their search, they were enthusiastic about the idea of developing a completely objective scientific language based on the principles of “pure” (as Frege describes it), primordial, and natural (cf. Husserl, 1891, 176, 178) thinking. Frege regarded the task of philosophy in breaking the word's domination over the human spirit and releasing thought from the issues imposed on it only by the characteristics of the verbal way of expression (Frege, 1879, XII [VI]). Husserl also calls for meaningfully grouping the functions of cognition around the relevant various categories of the givenness of the object (Gegestands-Kategorien). He insists on excluding all statements containing positive (thetische) existential statements on objectness in space, time, causal relations, the existence of the researcher, his mental abilities, etc., from the theory of cognition as unscientific (Husserl, 1911, 300-301).

As to (II), the possibility of constructing the ideal language, which took as primitives only the objects of “direct perceptual acquaintance,” is seen in the fact that every descriptive proposition regarding consciousness, reason, knowledge, the “underlying nature” of things, etc. could be translated into propositions about these objects. But even if this hypothesis is wrong, Rorty mentions, it only means that an ideal language is not the language of empiricism: “The linguistic turn may, for all we know now, lead us back to rationalism and to idealism” (Rorty, 1967, 9). Husserl admits the possibility of (II), though he believes that it is impossible to derive analytical judgments from word references and at the same time to be sure that knowledge of facts can be achieved in this manner (Husserl, 1911, 304-305). However, one should not derive any judgments from verbal concepts; one should contemplatingly pierce into those phenomena that language designates with corresponding words.

There is no doubt that Husserl and Frege saw the prospects of establishing the correlation between statements and descriptions with the “initial reality,” yet they did not regard the objects of “direct perceptual acquaintance” as this reality. The initial reality was the logical principles and the sphere of immediate data of consciousness. However, this way was not obvious. The transition from propositions of the natural language to those of the formalized language proved to be problematic for Frege's logicism, since initial definitions can ultimately only be provided in the natural language (Frege, 1997b). To Husserl, the larger-scale transition from empirical logical consciousness to judgments and theorems concerning objective meaningfulness of things turned out to be problematic. However, according to Husserl, the meaning of statements regarding what objectivity is and how it manifests itself in cognition can become evident from merely analyzing consciousness (Husserl, 1911, 301).

(IV) should be understood as the idea of futility of attempts to “burrow beneath language” in search of what it actually expresses (Rorty, 1967, 10). Even though (IV) is indicative of the linguistic turn, Husserl and Frege obviously do not share it. They regard meaning and reference as autonomous in relation to language; they are supposed to be sought outside of language. According to Husserl, “we are far from identifying words and thoughts” (LU I §18, Husserl, 2001a, 208).

Whereas the early Frege regretted that logic was still too closely connected with language and grammar (Frege, 1879, XIII), in his later manuscripts (Zahlen und Arithmetik, Neuer Versuchder Grundlegungder Arithmetik) he no longer saw any possibilities of releasing it from the power of language. As an alternative, he suggested a geometrical cognitive source which is least amenable to the “polluting” influence of language, since the infinite in the true and strictest sense of the word, i. e. the actually infinite, results from it (Frege, 1983, 293). As to Husserl, the very idea of phenomenology as a description of prepredicative experience that precedes but also leads up to categorical achievements (Sokolowski, 2000, 93) testifies to his rejection of (IV). According to Derrida's poetic statement, Husserl did want to maintain an originally silent, “pre-expressive” stratum of experience (Derrida, 1973, 15).

HUSSERL'S AND FREGE'S FIRST DIVERGENCE: CONCEPT WORD AND GENERAL NAME

According to Rorty, methodological nominalism (III) is aimed at solving primordial philosophical problems associated with concepts, subsistent universals, or “natures” of objects. If conducting empirical inquiry concerning the behavior or properties of particulars subsumed under such concepts, universals, or natures is impossible, the nominalist solution is answering the questions about the use of linguistic expressions (Rorty, 1967, 11). Operations involving linguistic expressions or symbols are regarded as equivalent to or at least correlative to operations with objects. Let us consider this thesis using the example of formation of general name. According to methodological nominalism, it should be similar to manipulating physical objects to some extent.

Frege is a prominent representative of logic based upon operations with formulas, symbols, and statements. The truths of logic are revealed through transformations of expressions, whereas basic logical principles can be demonstrated using operations with physical objects. For example, object a is equal to object b (in the sense of complete coincidence) if а falls under every concept b falls under and vice versa (Frege, 1997a, 175). To this extent, logic is the embodiment of methodological nominalism, though concepts and universals are regarded here not in a metaphysical sense, but in a formal one. At the same time, Frege mentions that concept words should have a meaning (Sinn), but they do not necessarily have a reference (Bedeutung). It means that concepts that no object falls under are possible. The use of a conceptual word does not depend on whether an object it directly relates to due to its reference actually exists (Frege, 1997a, 180). This does not deny methodological nominalism, yet merely indicates that relations of concepts are independent of relations of individual objects which fall under them.

Husserl, criticizing nominalism of his time, also advocates analyzing general concepts in the true sense of the word (LU II §15b), and this is where his fundamental disagreement with Frege is obvious. To Husserl, a common name is not a result of a psychological function of attachment or association. Thus, saying “all As,” we have a representation of the amount, but not a complex of representations of members of the amount. The concept of “all As” does not require representing any particular “A,” it is based on the intention of the reference of “all.” Therefore, different types of the common (universality of the Species, universality of range) are not formed by particulars conforming to the notion; it is not a sum or a combination of equal contents. The common is the form of reference (Husserl, 1968, 149; 2001a, 265), i. e. a definite mode defining a meaning-conferring intention objectified into Ideal Species.

Constituting general concepts and the ability to use language are closely interconnected. We can use language because of being capable of applying the type of intending which constitutes categorical objects. Why does Husserl deny the traditional concept of categorization as a generalization of particulars by placing the object under a concept? Whereas, according to Frege, a concept behaves essentially predicatively even when something about it is expressed (Frege, 1892, 201), Husserl regards this point as a weakness of nominalism. It is erroneous to think of the common through the predicative function of concepts, namely, as a possibility of associating the same concept predicatively with several subjects (Husserl, 1968, 150; 2001a, 266). As Sokolowski remarks, when we go back to the whole and register it precisely as the whole containing the part in question, we interrupt the continuity of perception. We start again on a new level [...].

This new beginning installs a new kind of consciousness and a new kind of object, the state of affairs, as the objective correlate of that consciousness. (Sokolowski, 2000, 91)

Such an interpretation of common concepts and the way of their constitution excludes a possibility of Husserl's methodological nominalism from both sides simultaneously. First, the nature of a common name is not clarified by analyzing singularities which fall under it. Second, intentions of attaching reference (sinngebendem Akte, Bedeutungsintention) and intentions of perception have fundamentally different qualities and matter; thus, one cannot serve as an explanation to the other.

HUSSERL'S AND FREGE'S SECOND DIVERGENCE: IS A SENSE PROPOSITIONAL?

Correlation of Fregean and Husserlian ideas with the basic principles of the linguistic turn has revealed so far only one point of their fundamental divergence and one reason why both scholars could not make a linguistic turn: this is the autonomy of meaning in relation to language (IV). M. Dummett's authoritative opinion points to another aspect -- the way Husserl interprets meaning or reference. Husserl makes no essential distinction between the reference of an utterance and issues which intentionally direct any other non-linguistic act. “And yet the generalisation precludes the linguistic turn: language can play no especial part in the study and description of these non-linguistic animators of non-linguistic mental acts” (Dummett, 1993, 27). In fact, in § 24 Ideen I, Husserl considers the need to extrapolate such terms as “signifying” and “signification” within the entire noetic-noematic sphere, and, therefore, to apply them to all acts, whether intertwined with acts of expression or not (Husserl, 1913, 256).

This statement can be traced back to the second volume of Logische Untersuchungen. It is manifested in the fact that Husserl insistently separates two functions of a sign: indication (Anzeige) and expression (Ausdruck). The first logical study starts with this division: “To mean is not a particular way of being a sign in the sense of indicating something” (Husserl, 1968, 23; 2001a, 183). If we were exclusively in the linguistic plane and were interested in purely referential relations, this type of division would not be productive. Utterances of any kind establish a reference regardless of the mode of their referring to objects -- whether they express them, state their existence, or describe some objects. From the linguistic point of view, speaking without notification, i. e. without indication is impossible. Husserl, however, regards his task in a different manner. By identifying the layer of indication and subsequently reducing it, he reduces any communicativeness of speech to reveal the layer of pure expression in the language. Within this “pure” expression, he intends to reveal a relation to the object, namely, the intending of an objective ideality, which stands face to face with the meaning-intention (Derrida, 1973, 22).

A vague analogy between the givenness of reference and the givenness of the object perceived by the senses results from Husserl's idea of the content of intentional experience. In his introduction to the fifth logical study, Husserl characterizes reference (Bedeutung) as a result of a certain relation between the intention of reference (Bedeutungsintention) and contemplation (Anschauung). The intention of reference is achieved by means of an appropriate contemplation, and the utmost form of this achievement is that which is provided with evidence (Husserl, 1968, 343-344). In § 14 of study I, Husserl gives an even clearer statement: an object is constituted as one “given” when certain acts of reference are realized on the basis of contemplation which corresponds to these acts; moreover, it is given to us within these acts in the same manner (derselben Weise) in which the expression means it (Husserl, 1968, 50-51). This is supposed to be understood as a search for a universal way of referring to any kind of objectness, regardless of the form of its existence and the mode of the givenness, which takes shape in Ideen I as the concept of noema.

If we interpret the notion of a “noema” like Follesdal, the linguistic turn seems more possible for phenomenology. According to Follesdal, what can be said about Frege's Sinn fits noemata to a certain extent: they both make all referential directedness possible and gather referential tracks “in a bunch.” For Frege, Sinne serves to illuminate aspects of the reference. Husserl, like Frege, states that a physical object has an infinity of noemata and Sinne corresponding to it and can never be exhausted by any of them. Acts involving the same object but different noemata can be said to focus on different aspects of their object or grasp it from different points of view. Therefore, we can say that physical objects are “transcendent” to Sinn and noema (Follesdal, 1969, 686).

At the same time, Husserl distinguishes between two types of equally meaningful names, positing and non-positing names, and two different sorts of nominal acts corresponding to them -- those that give what they name the status of an existent (setzende Akte), and those that do not do this (LU V § 34, Husserl, 2001b, 151). Follesdal regards it as a crucial question: in what does the directedness of an act consist if there is no object it is directed toward? (Follesdal, 2001, 72). Can there be a certain purely linguistic nexus between names and objects? Apparently, it cannot exist. Follesdal himself notices: whereas Frege considers that, in contexts like “believes that...,” terms refer not to their ordinary reference but to their ordinary Sinn, Husserl affirms that acts are normally directed toward ordinary objects instead of Sinne or noemata of such objects (Follesdal, 1969, 686). According to Husserl, language propositional relations do not create any particular connections of senses and objects. This particularity of intentional acts, including meaning-conferring acts, does not allow for direct analogies between Husserl's intentionality and Frege's reference, though it might seem obvious.

It is essential that the noetic-noematic acts, this universal manner of referring, cannot be predicative. The intentional content of acts of perception, desire, or memory is not propositional if proposition is understood as a semantic invariant common to all language constructions derived from a proposition or having a structure of a proposition. In this case, propositionality of the intentional content of acts of imparting meaning (bedeutungverleihenden Akte) is also questionable. Beyer defines perception in Husserl's theory as a pre-predicative experience having “sub-propositional” content. It contains a determinable X it may share with the sub-propositional content of an “act of this-meaning” regarding which it can function as a fulfilling sense (Beyer, 2017).

Here we meet some ambiguity. On the one hand, Husserl writes that we are not free to combine references arbitrarily. The laws of their combination are governed by their belonging to the essential kinds (wesentlichen Gattungen) of references. These laws imply that certain places of statements must be taken by the material of certain categories of references instead of the other ones: “Where nominal material stands, any nominal material can stand, but not adjectival, nor relational, nor completed propositional material” (LU IV § 10, Husserl, 2001b, 63). Thus, semantic categories are expressed in grammatical forms and parts-of-speech; it is their material. Consequently, the a priori system of the formal structures implies something similar to proposition.

At the same time, Husserl states that fluctuations of meaning are fluctuations of a meaning-conferring act (LU I § 28), i. e. meaning is not bound by a grammatical form of a statement by essential modification of meaning (wesentliche Bedeutungsmodifikation). V. Cibotaru emphasizes the importance of the notion of “modification of meaning” in Husserl's theory of meaning since its essence designates the intrinsic possibility of any linguistic expression of naming itself (Cibotaru, 2016, 36). This notion explains how each word and expression can, by a change of meaning, come to occupy every place in a categorematic whole (LU IV § 11, Husserl, 2001b, 64). If the initial non-verbal structure of meaning makes its material so ductile, we can assume that the level of the a priori system of the formal structures is free of propositionality.

This is where we have to makea significant clarification regarding the meaning of the term “proposition.” Like Frege, Husserl considers the proposition (Satz) to be the primary unit of meaning. Unlike him, Husserl distinguishes between the proposition as the logically ideal form of the judgment, and the proposition as the grammatical written or spoken sentence (Rump, 2013, 116). In the Logische Untersuchungen, Husserl elaborates the “pure logic” within which the doctrine of a priori forms of references stands out. This logic is embodied in grammatical forms of language but there is no necessary relation itself between ideal unities actually functioning as references and signs they are bound to, i. e. linguistic expression of references (LU I § 35, Husserl, 1968, 104-105).

References can function as expressed in the language or may not have any expression at all (Bedeutung an sich). Therefore, according to Husserl, two groups of the categories of reference and two levels of propositionality coexist. The first level of categories of “pure references” is independent of natural languages; the second level is categories of natural language or semantic categories as they are referred to in contemporary logic. But besides all of them, there is the initial intentional level of the formation of reference connected with Bedeutungsintention.

Husserl regards reference as not predicative and not propositional on the intentional level and as predicative and propositional on the grammatical level. We would like to leave the question of what it is on the level of “pure references” open for now.

Frege's notion of sense is incapable of generalisation. Senses, for him, even if not intrinsically the senses of linguistic expressions, were intrinsically apt to be expressed in language. They stood in the closest connection with the truth of thoughts of which they were constituents. It is propositionality that makes content “similar” to meaning: nothing that was not a sense could be in the least like a sense (Dummett, 1993, 27).

The opposition between Husserl and Frege in this issue extends to affecting the role of sensory experience in the process of emergence of words and the formation of references. In his work Uber die wissenschaftliche Berechtigung einer Begriffsschrift, Frege describes signs as a way to be released from the power of sensory data. Signs associated with a representation, which, in its turn, is caused by a certain sensory impression, “create a new fixed center (einen neuenfesten Mittelpunkt) around which ideas are grouped” (Frege, 2019, 77). These steady groups allow choosing certain representations for which signs are created again. Therefore, signs serve as a sort of catalog or a navigation system which allows moving freely in the world of representations: they make it possible to address sensory data while staying independent of them. To Frege, signs have the same significance for thinking as the invention of using the wind to sail against the wind has for navigation.

Thus, according to the philosophers' consensus in (IV), meaning has no linguistic nature. According to Frege, however, there is no other way of speaking in terms of meanings than by using symbolic language. Language is a peculiar form of restraining meaning, while in Husserl's later works, language is seen as a form of meaning withering away, its sedimentation, though it contains the potential of its new birth (Husserl, 1939, 212).

CONTEXTUALITY OF MEANING AND PRIMACY OF LANGUAGE OVER MEANING

We have reached the stage of the final concretization of the problem of commonality and difference of Frege's and Husserl's ideas in the light of the principles of the linguistic turn. This concretization is essentially the answer to the key question of the entire linguistic philosophy: how does sense arise? The aforementioned principles of the linguistic turn imply the following consequences: (1) The emergence of reference is a contextual process. For instance, a signaling gesture acquires its reference as a result of falling into a certain context clarified by this gesture. (2) The structure of language gives reference to its elements; to have reference, the elements already have to be linguistic beforehand, for example, they are supposed to have predicativity. (3) Meaning emerges due to the fact that certain a priori logical relations underlie statements or other acts.

Husserl's position regarding (1) is opposite, for example, to the views of such a reputable participant of the linguistic turn as L. Wittgenstein. According to Wittgenstein, the context, which includes the speaker's knowing the language to which his sentence belongs, gives meaning to the speaker's words. For Husserl, as M. Dummett notices, by contrast, it is the speaker who produces composite acts of imparting reference, part physical and part mental (Dummett, 1993, 44).

Husserl certainly paid a lot of attention to non-independent meanings, syncategorematic components of expressions, and essentially occasional expressions. One could agree that he admitted the principle of context applied to the number of specific cases. However, in his analysis, he highlights representative key points. Non-independent meanings, for Husserl, are not contextual meanings, but those which require supplementation to a whole. A whole per se is preassigned a priori: we can “go back to the semantic realm, and point out there the need of completion that attaches to certain nonindependent meanings” (LU IV § 7, Husserl, 2001b, 58).

Essentially occasional expressions like I, he, this, yesterday, here, etc., become meaningful only in their relation to factual circumstances of a statement. But here, Husserl again emphasizes that such expressions are not absolutely meaningless. In occasional expressions, two meanings are built upon one another in a peculiar fashion.

“The former meaning can be called the indicating meaning, the latter the meaning indicated” (Husserl, 2001a, 219). Husserl immerses essentially occasional expressions not in the linguistic context but in the perceptual context, which is considered in detail in § 7 of the Sixth Investigation. Yet here, too, Husserl notes that the meaning of such expressions is not identical to perception. “Essentially occasional expressions like `this' can often be used and understood without an appropriate intuitive foundation” (Husserl, 2001b, 198). Husserl's task is not affirming the principle of context but evading it. Our standpoint aligns with the position of D. W. Smith, who pays special attention to Husserl's analysis of essentially occasional expressions. Smith notices that the demonstrative pronoun “that” refers to its object “directly” rather than “attributively” That is, in this case, the meaning is formed neither by predication nor by description. Husserl opened the perspective of studying how a demonstrative works as opposed to a description (Smith, 2006, 311).

As to Frege, he regarded references as contextual by virtue of the fact that he understood meaning as a propositional issue. Frege's steps towards the linguistic turn are traditionally associated with the principle of context. Although Husserl appeals to the analysis of meanings of expressions in a contextual key, reference (Bedeutung), according to him, is primary in relation to any act that reveals it or a structure. Moreover, it is primary even in relation to thinking, at least, to a particular person's thinking. This idea is consistently implemented by Husserl, starting with Logische Untersuchungen, and reaches its culmination in his work Die Fragenachdem Ursprungder Geometrie, where Husserl regards the historische Apriori as a universal horizontal knowledge (Horizontwissen), hidden yet subject to systematic disclosure due to its essential structure (Husserl, 1939, 222). According to Husserl, any expression initially has its reference, and only due to this fact it acquires a relation to objectness: an expression only refers to an objective correlate because it means something, it can be rightly said to signify or name the object through its meaning. An act of meaning is the determinate manner in which we refer to our object of the moment, though this mode of significant reference and the meaning itself can change while the objective reference remains fixed. (LU I § 13, Husserl, 1968, 49; 2001a, 198)

As we move towards the following statement, we have to return to the issue of the nature of meaning and to thesis (IV), the key thesis that estranges Frege and Husserl from the linguistic turn. Therefore, we can take a closer look at the reasons why Husserl and Frege suppose that meaning has no linguistic nature.

(2) should be understood as the primacy of language over reference. The following thesis by M. Dolar can serve as an example of (2): In order to speak, one has to produce the sounds of a language in such a way as to satisfy its differential matrix (Dolar, 2006, 20). Although it contradicts Dummett's opinion regarding the reason why phenomenology cannot make the linguistic turn, Frege is also far from an explication of Sinn and Bedeutung in terms of functioning of language, and Willard provides numerous examples of it. Frege sees purely logical, not linguistic relations underlying any judgments; to him, language is by no means equivalent to logical operations.

The judgment “in the logical sense” has nothing of the linguistic about it except the capacity-though not the necessity-to be expressed in language. [...] Even judging (acknowledging a Thought as true) can and does occur without expression in language. (Willard, 1994, 250)

Willard's last remark is illustrated by the following quote by Frege:

We express acknowledgment of truth in the form of an assertoric sentence. We do not need the word “truth” for this. And even we do use it the properly assertoric force does not lie in it, but in the assertoric sentence-form. (Frege, 1984, 356)

In Ideen I, Husserl, considering acts of expression, also refuses to acknowledge the participation of language in their formation. The process of providing a reference does not require the slightest “expression,” be it in the form of asserting words or in a meaning in any manner similar to verbal designation. Moreover, meaning does not require any expression for its implementation. In the noetic sense, expression is a special layer of acts all other acts can merge with in such a manner “so that every noematic act-sense, and consequently the relationship to objectivity lying in it, is `conceptually' stamped on the noematic correlate of the expressing” (Husserl, 1913, 257; 1983, 295).