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HORIZON 5 (i) 2016 : I. Research : V. Grahovac : 194-213
ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ • STUDIES IN PHENOMENOLOGY • STUDIEN ZUR PHÄNOMENOLOGIE • ÉTUDES PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIQUES
Doi: 10.18199/2226-5260-2016-5-1-194-213
THE PERSISTENCE OF SELF-ENCLOSURE IN THE WHOLE-PART RELATIONSHIP: THE CASE OF HUSSERL AND KRACAUER
VEDRAN GRAHOVAC
PhD Candidate, University of Guelph, Philosophy Department, ON N1G 2W1 Guelph, Canada. E-mail: vgrahovac@gmail.com
In this text I suggest the possibility of the strategic-philosophical closeness between Husserl and Kracauer, by closely reading Husserl's Third Logical Investigation and Kracauer's essay «The Mass Ornament». Although the both thinkers come from the traditionally different and often mutually opposing philosophical schools, neither of them simply dismisses or crosses out the position they criticize. To the contrary, I propose that both thinkers exaggerate the seeming self-evidentiality of the phenomenon they analyze. In the Third Logical Investigation Husserl rearticulates the whole-part relation as it is conceived within the formal ontology and psychologistic logic. The connection between parts is available to us only as the relational tension, which is «accumulated» in the mutuality between the irreparably self-enclosed parts. Fusion is therefore a modification in the unfolding of the relation between parts, where every «term in relation» conditions another one through its own positional completion, while being conditioned by another term. The phenomenological analysis, which is conducted through the intensification of the fixity of the above-mentioned poles, is «measured» by the inability of these poles to be self-evidentially isolated and subsequently reconciled. In the second part of my essay I pay attention to Kracauer's suggestion that the vitality of the mass ornament is reflected in the contextual insignificance of its parts. Kracauer addresses the problem of mass depersonalization through the close and sarcastic inspection of the role of abstract rationality in the capitalist mode of production. This close inspection adopts the strategy of exaggeration, where the critical distance must not be considered beyond its ability to disclose the self-obscuring apparatus of the mass performances and spectacles. This disclosure, as Kracuaer suggests, must therapeutically lead through the center of the mass ornament, and not away from it.
Key words: Husserl, Kracauer, wholes and parts, Logical Investigations, phenomenology, Critical Theory, phenomenological analysis.
© VEDRAN GRAHOVAC, 2016
ПОСТОЯНСТВО САМО-ВЛОЖЕНИЯ В ОТНОШЕНИЯХ ЦЕЛОГО И ЧАСТИ: СЛУЧАЙ ГУССЕРЛЯ И КРАКАУЭРА
ВЕДРАН ГРАХОВАЧ
PhD, Департамент философии университета Гуэльфа, ON N1G 2W1 Гуэльф, Канада. E-mail: vgrahovac@gmail.com
В этом тексте я рассматриваю возможность стратегическо-философской близости между Гуссерлем и Кракауэром, основываясь на прочтении Третьего Логического исследования Гуссерля и эссе Кракауэра «Массовое украшение». Несмотря на то, что мыслители относятся к традиционно разным и как правило, оппонирующим друг другу философским школам, ни один из них не отклоняет и не отбрасывает критикуемые тезисы оппонентов просто так. Более того, я полагаю, что оба мыслителя преувеличили кажущуюся само-очевидность анализируемого явления. В Третьем Логическом исследовании Гуссерль вновь актуализирует проблему отношения целого и части в том виде как это понималось в пределах формальной онтологии и психологистической логики. Связь между частями доступна нам только как относительная напряженность, которая «накоплена» в силу взаимосвязи между безнадежно само-замкнутыми частями. Поэтому сплав — это модификация в разворачивании отношения между частями, где каждый «термин в отношении» условия наличия другого термина тем самым обусловлен другим термином посредством его собственной позиционной зависимости. Феноменологический анализ, который проводится посредством усиления неподвижности вышеупомянутых полюсов, «характеризуется» неспособностью этих полюсов быть самоочевидным образом изолированными и впоследствии согласованными. Во второй части моего эссе я обращаю внимание на предположение Кракауэра, согласно которому живучесть массового украшения отражена в контекстуальной незначительности его частей. Кракауэр предлагает решать проблему массовой деперсонализации путём строгого и саркастического контроля за ролью абстрактной рациональности в капиталистическом способе производства. Эта строгая инспекция принимает вид стратегии преувеличения, где критическая дистанция не должна рассматриваться вне ее способности раскрывать аппарат само-сокрытия массовых действий и спектаклей. Это раскрытие и разоблачение, как предполагает Кракауэр, должно терапевтически воздействовать на ядро массового украшения, и не удаляться от него.
Ключевые слова: Гуссерль, Кракауэр, целое и части, Логические исследования, феноменология, критическая теория, феноменологический анализ.
INTRODUCTION
The majority of the analyses done on the relationship between phenomenology and Critical Theory are mostly centered around the work of Heidegger and Adorno. Adorno in Negative Dialectics relentlessly challenges Heidegger's philosophy of the call of Being and suggests that, despite Heidegger's resistance to the propositional thinking, the notion
of Being becomes the new totality, a non-essential essence, «an unknown quantity», which is «nothing but the pathos of its invocation» (Adorno, 1996, 98). Heidegger's criticism of the European metaphysics becomes the new practice of the exclusionary thinking, according to Adorno, where Heidegger «seeks to hold on to that which points beyond itself, and to leave behind, as rubble, that beyond which it points.» (Adorno, 1996, 102) Heidegger, however, remained mostly without the significant philosophical response to the Critical Theory, and, according to Fred Dallmayr, apparently confessed of the complete ignorance of Adorno's work (Dallmayr, 1991, 45). However, if we focus on the reflections upon propositional thinking, identity principle, language and the Enlightenment project, it is hard not to notice the important strategic overlapping between these thinkers. Heidegger, in reflecting upon the Parmenides' insight into the sameness of thinking and being, suggests that the copula «is» in the proposition «A is A» should not be exclusively seen as a nexus or connexio, which merely connects the terms in relation. Heidegger observes that the connection between man and Being should be thematized as «the belonging together», where the representing of the belonging cannot be achieved «in terms of the unity of the together, but rather of experiencing this together in terms of belonging» (Heidegger, 2002, 29). For Heidegger, this mutual belongigness between thinking and being can ony be secured through the unity in the rift, where the proposition A=A expresses that the fixity of one term in relation is possible through the persistence of the other term in its own status of the correlated instance. Adorno, true, criticizes Heidegger for the ontological prioritizing of the above-mentioned belonging within the glorification of the concept of Being and concludes that Heidegger still ontologically separates the copula from the terms it connects. For Adorno, the copula is is «fulfilled only in the relation between subject and predicate» (Adorno, 1996, 101), whereas in Heidegger the ontological peculiarity of the belongigness overarches the specificity of the terms whose belongigness it is ought to reflect under the call of Being. However, if we follow Adorno's thinking on the significance of the copula, we notice the unavoidable simmilarity between his and Heidegger's re-articulation of the identity principle. For Adorno, the reconciliation avoids to become «philosophical imperialism of annexing the alien» only if that which is alien «in the proximity it is granted, remains what is distant and different, beyond the heterogeneus and beyond that which is one's own» (Adorno, 1996, 191). The necessity of the conceptual transformation of the terms
in the identity relation through their self-enclosure distinguishes the approaches of both authors. Dallmayr suggests, in quoting Morchen, that the commonality between Heidegger and Adorno should not be misconstrued as a «unity of results», but it should be recognized «less in similar results or opinions than in underlying or motivating experiences» (Dallmayr, 1991, 46).
In this essay, I intend to emphasize the commonality not only in the «the possible motivating experiences», but also in the execution of the philosophical strategies in Husserl and Kracuaer. My proposal is that, precisely because of the lack of the conceptual pathos which burdens both the call of Being and the negative dialectics, both Kracauer and Husserl are able to transform what they critically address by «clinging to it»,1 or by moving within the body of the concepts they criticize, so to speak. The seeming «methodological modesty» of Husserl and Kracauer is reflected in their strategy of exaggeration, which problematizes the fixed security of the critical distance. Husserl's disinterestedness in the questions of «fundamental ontology» and Kracauer's persistance in the feuilletonistic writing style makes possible for both of these authors not only to avoid to place the object on the orphaned throne of the subject,2 but also to demonstrate how the subject-object hierarchy, to borrow a phrase from Adorno, is, in fact, being abolished.3
In this text I provide a close reading of Husserl's analysis of the whole-part relationship in the Third Investigation and relate it to Kracauer's account of Ratio in
1 This expression is used by Gerhard Funke in Phenomenology: Metaphysics or Method. This expression is part of the following observation by Funke: «Philosophy is , then, not dogmatic, but critical; it does not preach or proclaim, but clings to what is given in order to understand it in terms of its presuppositions: it thereby dissolves calm satisfaction with what is present on hand and becomes a permanent unrest in research into grounds.» (Funke, 1987, 8)
2 «But it is not the purpose of critical thought to place the object on the orphaned trhone once occupied by the subject. On that throne the object would be nothing but an idol. The purpose of critical thought is to abolish the hierarchy.» (Adorno, 1996, 181)
3 This demonstration essentially reflects nothing but the permanent labour of philosophy, which, as Funke suggests, consists in taking the naturalistic matter-of-courseness as its own «point of departure for reiterative reflections on the conditions of its own possibility» (Funke, 1987, 14). Funke observes the following: «The accepted stock of knowledge of "confidentially advancing" sciences is no less problematic than experiences from history. It is proclaimed, defended, absolutized in open or secret metaphysics. That is why new ideas as to what philosophy itself is and how, according to its essence, it should be defined arise again and again, and are taken for granted in each case — only to be stripped of their claim to absolute validity from a higher level of consciousness and reduced to the conditions for their formulation.» (Funke, 1987, 14)
«The Mass Ornament». Both Husserl and Kracauer target a concept of union, where the parts are collected under the banner of the higher categorial entity. Both authors move within the inherent limitations, which underlie the self-evidentiality of the concepts employed in the formal ontology (Husserl) and in the principle of the abstraction in the capitalist mode of production (Kracauer). The intensification of the fixity of the parts of the whole (Husserl) and the parts of the bodies of the dancers in the mass ornament (Kracauer), is proportional to the inability of these poles to be self-evidentially isolated and subsequently reconciled through the process of their unification.
Husserl is decisive that the whole cannot be a simple collection or a hierarchical combination of its parts. The unity of related terms is expressed through the changes in the way in which parts relate to each other through their mutual participation in the definition of their essences. The character of the unifying power is determined through the change of the role of a part in its relation to its complement. The connection between parts is available to us only as the relational tension, which is «accumulated» in the mutuality between the self-enclosed parts. Fusion is therefore a modification in the unfolding of the relation between parts, where every «term in relation» conditions another one through its own completion, while being conditioned by another term.
Kracauer suggests that the participation of the masses in the mass ornament is proportional to their contextual irrelevance. The unity and its parts in the mass ornament are isolated moments, whose relation through the abstraction obscures their own specificity. As much as parts are merely collectible magnitudes for the unity, so too, their union is exclusively an ordering capacity, which secures its isolation from the context of the relation of its parts. The full capacity of the human being who participates in the mass ornament as its mere part never comes to the fore, because her corporeity is abstractly emphasized, so it can be utilized within the «liveliness» of the mass ornament. The humanness of the Tiller Girls dancers is important in its physical concreteness, in the uniqueness of the body of each particular dancer, as long as the dancers sustain the abstraction of the dancing formation. Paradoxically, the more it becomes apparent that, despite the general pattern of the movement of the figure, the dancers move within the «confines» and the capacities of their own body qualities, the stronger will be the submission of their uniqueness to the successful establishment of the mass ornament. Kracauer calls this self-perpetuating unity Ratio, where both the organic aspect of the
human beings and its abstract ordering are equally deprived of their full capacity.
The formal ontological self-evidentiality and the logical psychologistic self-assurance4 culminates in the mere compulsion of inner evidentiality (the mental confirmation of the logical laws) and it calls for the intervention of the pure science of logic. The ideal science of logic, however, deliberately shapes itself as an ironical inversion of the psychologistic justificatory cynicism. This means that the psychologistic thinkers openly take pride in the self-evidentiality of the inner or inward confirmation of the logical operations. Husserl, to the contrary, confronts this cynicism by making explicit that its justification rests on the constancy of its self-reiterating.
Similarly, Kracauer's method consists in the overemphasis of the seeming completion of the unification within the figure of the mass ornament. Kracauer, however, does not assume the safe critical distance from the phenomenon he observes, before he critically addresses it. To the contrary, he illuminates the conceptual self-betrayal of the mass ornament by overemphasizing the inherent reiteration in the justification of its seeming compositional success.
1. HUSSERL'S INVESTIGATION OF FOUNDATIONALISM IN THE THIRD LOGICAL INVESTIGATION
As pointed above, the psychologistic certainty in the mental grounding of logical laws secures its authority through the unacknowledged calling upon its own persistence. The circle of the self-confirmation of Husserl's ideal laws of logic, to the contrary, results in the deliberate and openly acknowledged self-intensification of these laws. However, the
4 An excellent analysis of Husserl's complex relationship with psychologism, which is beyond either mere indeptedness or rejection is provided by Peter Andras Varga in the article, «Psychology as Positive Herritage of Husserl's Phenomenological Philosophy» in Studia Pheanomenologica X (Varga, 2010, 101-127). Varga pays special attention to Husserl's thematizing of Lotze's notion of self-assurance of reason (Selbstvertrauen der Vernunft). Lotze tackles the vicious circle in skepticism where «the justification of our knowledge presupposes the knowledge itself» (Varga, 2010, 111), by resorting to the Selbstvertrauen der Vernunft. Varga suggests that Husserl in the early writings on epistemology challenges the psychologistic position about the inner evidentiality which is built into the seeming obviousness of the mental confirmation that accompanies the logical operations, by recalling the notion of the self-assurance of reason as well. Varga acknowledges the differences between these thinkers in their understanding of circularity, but he nevertheless states that Lotze's similarity with Husserl occurs either in the reaction against skepticism (Lotze) or in the insistence on the peculiar epistemological status of the Selbstvertrauen der Vernunft (Nelson).
final aim of this «eccentricity» is not to secure the new theoretical purity, by excluding the psychologistic concept of inner evidentiality. To the contrary, the pure science of logic is possible as a «theory» of logic only through the constant inspection of the core arguments raised in the justification of the psychologistic notion of inner evidence.5
Husserl avoids the isolation of the «terms in relation» and their reconciliation through the unifying mediator, by insisting on the persistent self-enclosure of the founding-founded poles. The phenomenological-analytic force, which is released through the exaggeration of the parts in relation, challenges the self-evidentiality of the polarity: isolation-reconciliation. Husserl deliberately contrasts the notion of the unity as a «categorial predicate» with the unity as reality, in order to avoid the formal-ontological characterization of the whole-part relation in the Third Investigation. The «collective moment» exists only as the peculiar mutual positioning of the constitutive parts to which it refers. In the following sets of reflections, Husserl counters a concept of collection with a «mutual foundation», and a unifying decision with the stroke of peculiarly intimate fusion:
This depends on the peculiarly intimate fusion of the different «moments» of the concretum, their mutual «penetration», which reveals itself in a mutual dependence as regard change and destruction. This fusion is not a fading into one another in the manner of the continuous, nor does it remove all separateness, but it is nonetheless a sort of peculiarly intimate mutual interconnection which must at a stroke set the whole complex of interpenetrating moments in relief, if only once a single discontinuous moment has provided the right conditions. [...] The only true unifying factors, we may roundly say, are relations of «foundation». (Husserl, 2001b, 16, 36-37, italics added)
The engagement of the terms «stroke» and «the peculiar intimate interconnection» suggests that the notion of unity unfolds as the mirroring of the specific context within which the parts are mutually self-encircled. Husserl observes, in clarifying the peculiarity of the whole-part relationship, that the whole is not just «a peculiar part, a «moment of unity» that binds them [parts] together» (Husserl, 2001b, 37). He sarcastically remarks that if the whole is conceived as a binding power or capacity, then the parts of this whole,
5 The ability of truth to «retain its ideal being», is preceded by its inability to be psycho-physically realized (Husserl, 2001, 86-87). The psychologistic need for the ultimate realization of truth, through its justificatory completion, opens up the space for the purity of the ideal law «to step in». This law, precisely because it is not psycho-physically or formally-ontologically realizable, remains, in its ideally lawful purity, what it is in itself.
as absolutely isolated, simply exist in it as mutually indifferent and are «given in space» (Husserl, 2001b, 36). The moments of the whole, to the contrary, «require no chains and bonds to chain or knit them together, or to bring them to one another». Furthermore, «all these expressions have in fact no sense at all. Where it makes nonsense to speak of isolation, the problem of overcoming such isolation is likewise nonsensical.» (Husserl, 2001b, 36; italics added) The «fusion» is completed once it is clear that the «relief achieved by the whole concretum has priority over the relief of the mutually separated moments of its content» (Husserl, 2001b, 20). The peculiarity of the unity is always achieved and demonstrated through the notion of a whole «in respect of [...] [its] founding members». Only the specific mode of the mutual self-achievement of the parts in relation necessitates the whole as a setting-in-relief:
The notion of what is non-independent, with its indirectly, generally characterized definitory lawfulness, points to many factually determined variable laws of essence. It is not a peculiarity of certain sorts of parts that they should only be parts in general, while it remains quite indifferent what they are conglomerated with, and into what sorts of connection they are fitted. [...] The concept of non-independence accordingly amounts to that of ideal lawfulness in unified combinations. If a part stands in an ideally law-bound and not merely factual combination, it must lack independence; since such a law-bound combination merely means that a part whose pure essence is of one sort, can exist lawfully only in association with certain other parts of these or those suitable sorts. (Husserl, 2001b, 18, some italics added)
The ideally-lawful peculiarity of the parts of the whole is not reflected in the simple fact that they are isolated magnitudes. The mutual foundation of the parts is exhibited within the context of the «sorts of the connection they are fitted». Husserl insists here that the specific mode in which one part is connected to its complement in unity re-articulates the essential characteristic of this part, in addition to defining the whole to which this part belong. The essentiality of the part, as it is determined by its Genus, achieves full clarity only within the context of the connection it participates in. Furthermore, the part of the whole participates in its Genus only through its complementarity with the part, with which it is mutually crystalized in its ideal essence. Husserl even explicitly states that we cannot observe the changes in the Genera of Quality and Extension, when we analyze them in their «mutual inseparability» (Husserl, 2001b, 9), as in the case of the non-independence of the color and extension in the moment of the colored shape. Hussserl insists that the relation between Quality and Extension is not used for the
illustration of their formal-ontological definition, but he proposes that, to the contrary, «we shall rather make use of them to define inseparability or non-independence, or contrariwise, separability or independence.» (Husserl, 2001b, 9) Husserl entirely dismisses the concept of the mutual permeation of the parts within the pecularity of their relation in the whole. Furthermore, it is not only that the Extension and Quality do not impact or transform each other, but they achieve distinctive characteristics only within the context of their specific relation. The formal-categorial specifity of the independent part, its belongingness to certain Genera, becomes ideally-phenomenologically rearticulated in the context of its belongingness to the whole of which this part is independent. Husserl avoids insights such as Stumpf's, according to which the changes in Quality cannot be isolated from the changes in Quantity, once they are analytically treated in their unity (Husserl, 2001b, 8). Although Stumpf implicitly opens up the possibility where the Genera Quality and Quantity cannot be treated outside of their mutuality in the unity, he still suggests that the relationship between Quality, Quantity and their unity is rooted in the «prior» admittance of their separate formal-ontological profile. True, Stumpf proposes that Quality and Quantity cannot be treated anymore in their independence, but he does not explore the possibility where their unification lies beyond their presumed isolation and the subsequent reconciliation.
Although Husserl explicitly states that the essences of the Sense Quality and the Extension in a general fashion fix the «law governed inherence that a non-independent «moment» may have to a whole» (Husserl, 2001b, 18). he nevertheless insists that each of these categories is contained «in its own manner in the essential unity of visual sensation» (Husserl, 2001b, 18). He suggests that we cannot clarify what this manner is, but only emphasize that the ability of the «generic feature of being a sensory "moment"» to yield «the specific feature of being a sensory quality», cannot be further explained without the inclusion of the concept of quality. The part is ideally bound to another part not through the factual combination, but through the mereness of the manner in which «a part whose pure essence is of one sort, can exist lawfully only in association with certain other parts of these or those suitable sorts.» (Husserl, 2001b, 18) Proportionally to the fact that the mutual foundation between two non-independent parts «points backward» to the essential character of the Genera to which each of these parts belong, the fixed categorial position of these parts «points forward» to the peculiarity of the «essential
unity» of the related parts. Husserl's analysis extends beyond the reconciliatory dialectical solution to the relation of the prior isolated moments in the relationship. I call this strategy the sharpening of the moments of relation, where their unity is manifestation of the phenomenologically isolated tension between them. This tension is the reflection of the mutual self-encircling of the related parts, where their definition as parts of the whole illuminates the fixity of their initial categorial profile. Furthermore, the part's participation in the essence of its Genus is fully articulated only though the persistence of the complementary part of the whole in its participation in the essence of its own Genus.
We can, for example, observe the role of the white color in the petunia flower, which swings on the summer breeze, while it contributes, with the variety of its movements and shades, to the overall diversity of the colors and the shapes in the bouquet. If we focus on the relationship between the white color and the shape of the flower, we observe that the participation of the whiteness (of the petal) in the Genus of the white color is unbreakably bound to the way in which the petal bends. We immediately conclude that the petal is the whitest in the segment that bends most sharply, and that the edges of the petal which bend inward exemplify the white color in its purest form. The shape of the parts of the petal, which are remote from the center of the flower, tend to manifest a straight surface, which is accompanied with the decrease in its whiteness. The increase in the mutual proximity of the parts, e.g. the obviousness of the «fusion» between the bending and the coloration of the petal, evokes the purity of their Generic essences and demonstrates that their relation of unity is neither a combination, collection nor a mutual permeation between them. The «closer» the parts seem to each other, the greater is the distinction between them with regards to their essential profiles and vice versa; the further they are from each other by the generality of their definition, the stronger is their bond within the specificity of the manner in which they belong to the whole.
The increase in the «height» of parts universal essentiality is proportional to the decrease in the «length» of the distance between them within the specificity of their union. The focus of the «horizontal» investigations of the agreements, disagreements or the blurring of the distinctions between the parts of the whole is replaced by an emphasis on the increase or the decrease in the intensity of the participation of the parts in their essence within the context of the union to which they belong.
Husserl importantly observes that the mutual necessitation of the increase of the
related parts in their belongingness to their essences is visible not only through their association but also through their exclusion. He remarks that two different colors are mutually founded through their exclusion if they cover «an identical piece of surface», which they «cannot do so completely» (Husserl, 2001b, 18). He further suggests that «to each essential, law-bound exclusion of a determinate characterization, there corresponds a positive law-bound requirement of a corresponding characterization and vice versa.» (Husserl, 2001b, 18) We witness here that the «movement» across the (vertical) ladder of the parts' participation in their essences, is reflected in the persistent «fixity» or the inactivity of the parts in their (horizontal) encounter. The mutual inactivity, which illustrates the essential impermeableness of the parts of the whole, is reflected in the inability of the parts to enter into relation (whether of the mutual inclusion or of the exclusion) by affecting their mutual transformation. Their mutual inability to effect the changes in each other on the «horizontal level» is best illustrated by the concept of their mutual self-encircling, where the increase in their «vertical movement» is proportional to the rigidifying of the fixity of their positions or roles in the whole to which they belong. We can conclude that the white color in the petal, in fact, bends because it demonstrates the pure whiteness only if it is complemented with the bended shape of the petal. The purity of the shape of the bended petal is necessarily accompanied with the lack of any shade in the white color, and conversely, the remoteness of the purity of white is fully illuminated through the straightening (or bending inward) of the shape of the petal. However, Husserl emphasizes that as much as the changes in the «vertical ladder» of the essences of related parts describe their relation, so too the participation of the parts in their essences cannot be disentangled from the peculiarity of the context of their relation. This observation most directly avoids the prioritization of either the fusion without the consideration of its parts or of the analysis of the parts in their essences, outside of the context of their relation.
Husserl performs the fundamental inversion of the concepts of movement and contact, at least in the way these concepts were framed by the traditional interpretation of the parts in relation and their whole. The «movements» or the activities of the parts in relation, their mutual intentionality and the categorial fixity of their whole is inverted in the phenomenological analysis. Husserl's persistent sharpening of the terms in relation with regards to their profile in the unity and their formal-ontological definition, creates
the effect of the topography of «inactivity». The analytical strengthening of this peculiar philosophical pointillism does not merely dismiss the self-evidentiality of the formal-ontological analysis, but it is measured by it.
The above-mentioned topography is further strengthened through the distinction of the nature of the parts of the whole, namely whether they are non-independent or dependent. Thus the «pure Species» of non-independent objects «are governed by a law of essence to the effect that they only exist as parts of more inclusive wholes of a certain appropriate species.» (Husserl, 2001b, 12)6 The ideality of non-independent objects is established through the role these objects play in the whole of which they are parts. Furthermore, the whole of the non-independent parts gains its categorial predicate, achieves its attribute of the novel content, only with regards to its contents, which are mutually founded. The unity of the contents, which are founded on each other (whether one-sidedly or reciprocally), is a «much more intimate unity since less mediated unity» (Husserl, 2001b, 12). This intimacy is manifested in the predestination of the non-independent object to be «non-independent of» something. Therefore, the ideal essence of the non-independent moment is «available» only because of the presence of other moments. The non-independent moment7 «is not merely an actual part, but its essence, its pure Species, predestines it to partial being.» (Husserl, 2001b, 12, italics added) This is why the color in the colored thing can exist «in general, and purely as such only as a "moment"» (Husserl, 2001b, 12). The colored thing does not impose itself as a separate entity which unifies isolated moments of color and quality, but its unifying character is exemplified in the fact «that the existence of certain sorts of contents conditions the mere co-existence of contents of certain coordinated sorts.» (Husserl, 2001b, 36)
Although the independent parts or pieces are not mutually founded, because they «"found" new contents themselves», and they «"found" them together» (Husserl, 2001b, 36), the novelty of this unifying content can be estimated only «in respect of its founding members» (Husserl, 2001b, 37).8 As much as the whole is not a simple addition of its
6 Husserl's caution about the word existence is clearly evident here. This also recalls the non-psychologist nature of the ideal lawfulness, as it is introduced in the Prolegomena of Logical Investigations.
7 Husserl makes a clear distinction between independent parts, calling them pieces, and non-independent one , calling them moments in the section § 17.
8 This unifying content in the case of the independent parts «engenders unity since it is "founded" on many
isolated moments, where the significance of the part is exclusively transferred to the collecting role of the whole, so too the independent part is not explicated outside of the context of its independence — namely in the peculiarity of its relationship with the parts with which it is immediately or mediately associated.9
Husserl suggests «we can give no answer to the question of "what differentiates the generic feature of being a sensory 'moment'" so as to yield the specific feature of being a sensory quality.» (Husserl, 2001b, 18) We cannot define this manner of the mutual foundation, it, simply, «cannot be further described» (Husserl, 2001b, 18). The essence of the part is accessible though the participation of its complement in its own essence, within the mode of their union. However, the mutual «essentialization» of the parts defines this union in the first place. We observe the process of the positioning of the parts of the whole in their essential distinctions, which results in the occurrence of the tension. Furthermore, this tension, the reflection of the formal-ontological impermeableness of the
members separate in themselves» (Husserl, 2001b, 37).
9 For Jay Lampert, the progression towards supplementation is nothing but the referring or progression «back» towards «a priori categories that must have been prior» (Lampert, 1995, 74). He easily avoids privileging the moments-whole over the pieces-whole relationship (the mistake that Sokolowski makes) and openly suggests that when Husserl defines non-independence positively and independence negatively «this is not because independent objects do not need to have their relations to other objects accounted for, but is rather because the independence of an object is in a certain way dependent on relations of dependency, even though the non-independent object negates such relation.» (Lampert, 1995, 75) Lampert directly points out that both independent and non-independent parts equally participate in their essence only within the peculiarity of their mutual (whether reciprocal or one-sided) foundationalism. It is clear that the mode of this foundationalism is different between independent and non-independent parts, precisely because of the difference of the «journey» they undertake on the path between their essential profile and the context of their relation. This is the reason why we cannot prioritize one type of foundationalism over another, as much as we cannot allow for the parts of the whole to be «externally» or «internally» combined or divided: «Husserl's arguments for the objectivity of wholes and parts thus involve a certain rejection of wholes and parts. Wholes are objectively real just because a whole is nothing more than parts» demands for mutual supplementation. Parts are objectively real just because the ultimate indivisible parts, which compose objects are nothing more than the backward-referents of complexes which are already mediated. Hence if the term «whole» were to mean «closed unity» and part were to mean «indivisible unit», then whole and part would at best be hypothetical targets of combination and division; but if «whole» means «system of reciprocal supplementations» and «part» means «presupposed content lying in-between borders», then whole and part are always in the process of being objectified in the passing-over and settings-in-relief carried out in the self-propelling interpretation of individuals-in-context (Lampert, 1995, 85). However, I also want to emphasize that the dynamics of the backward reference fully illuminates the banality of the staticism, which is built into the formality of the separation between part and whole. Furthermore, the dynamics of the self-transformation of whole and parts re-emphasizes the rigidity of their positions and, in this way, raises the question about its own thematization outside its ability for the above-mentioned emphasizing. Therefore, we must be cautious about the «direction» or «result» implied in the dynamism of self-transformation of these categories. I suggest that Lampert's dynamism must be seen within the context of its capacity to illuminate the staticism of the «hypothetical targets of combination and division» (Lampert, 1995, 86).
parts in relation, is what makes the operation of their «unification», its activity, possible. The seeming formal-ontological contradiction of the unity, as seen in the separateness of the union which «endows» its parts with the context, becomes the source of the «agency» of the foundationalism. Foundationalism is therefore not (just) a process on behalf of the unity, but it is also a structure of the mutual necessitation of the essential profiling of the parts.10
10 Robert Sokolowski in «The Logic of Parts and Wholes in Husserl's Investigations», depicts the strategy of foundationalism and suggests that the necessary rules which «govern» the blending between whole and parts «are possible because parts and wholes in general can be blended in certain way» (Sokolowski, 1968, 537). Sokolowski, in describing Husserl's definition of moments as parts which are «inseparable from one another and from their wholes», writes that pieces are parts «that do not permeate one another and hence are separable from their wholes» (Sokolowski, 1968, 539). The concept of moment implies the following foundationalism: «Each part, by virtue of what it is, contains within itself a rule dictating the necessary progression of supplements that it must possess, the necessary series of horizons, within which it must rest.» (Sokolowski, 1968, 539) Sokolowski's delineation of Husserl's strategy of self-enclosure is also visible in his description of Husserl's establishment of the mediate-immediate differentiation. He concludes that color is the «closer moment to a material thing than brightness is (brightness is farther) because color belongs to its whole through the mediation of fewer parts than brightness needs.» (Sokolowski, 1968, 540) Sokolowski, however, imposes the whole-parts dynamics as the analytical unit which underlies the composition and methodology of the whole of Logical Investigations. Sokolowski, for example, notices that Husserl never distinguishes intentionality (the Fifth Investigation) into acts and sensations, material and quality, partial and complete acts etc. so that he can eventually separate any of these pieces or stages from one another and from «consciousness». Although he importantly traces the similarity between the foundationalism of the Third Investigation and the phenomenological analysis employed in other investigations, he tends to interpret the latter through the lens of the former. Furthermore, he prioritizes the whole-moment over whole-pieces dynamic, failing to realize that Husserl employs the same strategy in the analysis of the concepts of pieces and moments. Therefore, we can suggest that as much as non-independent parts through an ideally law-bound combination «must lack independence» (Husserl, 2001b, 18) so too, the independent parts are independent because they are not ideally bound to the above-mentioned combination. We might follow Sokolowski in his observation that the concepts of categorical intentionalities and the «thing in itself» cannot be instantiated as purely separate and isolated either from each other or from the overall context in which they appear (especially from the relations, as well as the processes into which they are immersed). However, we should be particularly hesitant to accept the claim that, when thinking about profiles and objects, we have to rely on moments and whole, instead of focusing on the schema pieces and whole. Overall, Sokolowski makes a misstep because, instead of recognizing the peculiarity of Husserl's «pointilistic» strategy which is established at every analytical level of LI and in accordance with the operational specificity of these levels, he imposes the whole-moments dynamics as a thematic-analytic unit on the whole body of the LI. Therefore, he does not only fail to recognize the significance of circular strategy in each analytical step in LI, but he also blurs and weakens the peculiar shape of this strategy at the level of the whole-parts dynamics. We can, of course, agree with Sokolowski that the objectivity of a priori statements is «grounded in the meaning themselves, in the sense that make up the complex meaning», and that «we do not need to understand them first and then try to see if they are true or not; the very understanding of them is perception of their truth» (Sokolowski, 1968, 551). However, we can hardly agree with Sokolowski that the phenomenological analysis of self-evidentiality in the Sixth Investigation exemplifies the part-whole problematic («all such self-evident statements, whether positive or negative, are instances of part-whole logic») (Sokolowski, 1968, 551). I would rather suggest the reverse: the whole-parts dynamics is one of the six different stages of the problematizing of the concept of self-evidentiality. The major problem of Sokolowski's insight above is reflected in the reduction of the peculiar phenomenological investigations down to the problems of the ontological foundationalism. Husserl remarkably addresses the specificity of the relation form-content, part-whole,
2. THE DYNAMICS OF DEPRIVATION IN THE RECONCILLIATORY CAPACITY OF RATIO: EXAMINING THE VIVACITY OF MASS ORNAMENT
The above-mentioned silence, the impossibility of the answer to the question of what characterizes sensory moment which yields sensory quality, is not only overlooked through the formal-ontological conceptualization of the unity, but it is deliberately ignored by it. The «epoch» of the mass ornament according to Siegfried Kracauer is marked through its own ignoring of the question of its grounding, precisely through the banality of its execution. In the essay «The Mass Ornament» Kracauer explores the loss of the individuality in Weimar Republic through the seemingly liberating effect of subject's participation in the mass spectacles, such as military parades, stadium speeches and extravagant dance performances.
Kracauer's main target in this essay is the strategy of abstraction which shapes the capitalist mode of production. He expands upon the Marx's position on the difference between surplus and use value, suggesting that the production and consumption of values became «the side effects in the service of the production process» (Kracauer, 1995, 78). The increase in profit perpetuates the division between the owners of the means of production and the labor power, by emptying out the agency of both poles of this division. Both community and personality vanish when «what is demanded is calculability», where the individual becomes important only as «a tiny piece of the mass» (Kracauer, 1995, 78). The root of the mass de-personalization is located in the increasing abstraction in the economic and scientific production. Being initially inspired by the process of demythologization, the «abstractness» (Kracauer, 1995, 81), becomes, through its instrumentalization, the purpose in itself, replicating and multiplying the «non-rational» aspect of the externality of «nature», which it is supposed to demystify. The rationality, by becoming the pure instrument for the
categorical-sensous, precisely through a radical re-articulation as an overcoming of these polarities, within the context of their origination. For Husserl, the process of cooperation, unification and abstraction can only come into being through the persistent sharpening of the participation of the parts in relation in their essence. Had we thematically ascribed the process of self-encircling exclusively to only one of the available analytical themes in LI, we would then completely fail to grasp the full effects of every particular stage in LI, and miss the opportunity to understand the scope, origins and modes of Husserl's phenomenological method.
promotion of the self-preservation principle, subverts itself by destroying its ability for reflection over efficiency. The abstract rationality perpetuates the reason-nature difference, by openly turning itself into its opposite, or into the brute force of the non-reflective execution.11 It is, however, important to notice that the seeming proximity between nature and reason through their pure equation, in fact, perpetuates and strengthens their «difference». The reason and nature in their unity under the banner of «abstract rationality», are being treated as self-evidentially isolated concepts, which is further enforced through their reversibility in the unity of the abstract rationality. The instrumental reversibility between reason and nature strengthens the horizontal confrontation-reconciliation dualism between parts, because it formally obscures the fixity of their positions in the relation of their confrontation. The «instrumental reason» (to recall Max Horkheimer), by permuting the nature and reason, seemingly loosens up the pressure of their direct confrontation. However, although the fixity of the initial position of terms in relation is exchanged for their permutation, the relation of conflict is very carefully preserved.
The abstract rationality (or Horkheimer's instrumental reason), the formal-conceptual isolation of the terms in relation necessitates their transformation, where the nature of their mutuality is seen through the inversion of their position within the unity which orders their participation. Even if we perform the permutation between reason and nature, we are still reinforcing the rigidity of their initial isolation and the need for their, also categorially isolated, unifying moment.12 This would correspond to
11 Kracauer points out that the more «abstractness consolidates itself, however, the more man is left behind, ungoverned by reason. If his thought midway likes a detour into the abstract, thereby preventing the true contents of knowledge from breaking through, man will once again be rendered subject to the forces of nature. Instead of suppressing these forces, the thinking that has lost its way provokes their rebellion itself by disregarding the very reason that alone could confront such forces and make them submit. It is a mere consequence of the unhampered expansion of capitalism's power that the dark forces of nature continue to rebel ever more threateningly. thereby preventing the advent of the man of reason.» (Kracauer, 1995, 82-83)
12 The reconciliation-conflict dynamics in the reason-nature dualism reaches a new mode in the instrumental reason. Reason is more efficient in its combat with the externality of nature if it adapts to it and if it openly adopts the brute force, non-reflectiveness, perspectivalism, contingency, trickery and sophistry, which it ascribes to the alterity of nature. Horkheimer names the strategy of reason's imitation of nature mimesis, and defines it as reason's ability to utilize the rebellious impulses of nature, by re-enacting them: «The spiteful use of the mimetic urge explains certain traits of modern demagogues. [...] Hitler's bag of tricks seems almost to have been stolen from Charlie Chaplin. His abrupt and exaggerated gestures were reminiscent of Chaplin's caricatures of strong men in the early slapstick comedies. Modern demagogues usually behave like unruly boys, who normally are
the concept of the unity, which introduces itself as «the apparently plain truth», according to which «wherever two contents form a real unity, there must be a peculiar part, a "moment of unity", that binds them together.» (Husserl, 2001b, 37) We would end up in this case, according to Husserl, in the indefinite complication of the relations between the parts, where the foundationalist concept of unity wouldn't be separated from the formal-ontological. In this sense we would literally come up with the new unifying moment not only between parts, but also between each isolated part and the unity, etc. For example if U is the moment of unity between B and A, then U1 is the moment of unity between U and A (or U2 between U and B), U1.1 between U1 and U, U1.2 between U2 and U, «and so on in infinitum» (Husserl, 2001b, 37).
To come back to Kracauer, the efficiency of the abstract rationality overpowers every particular distinction and quality of either individual personality or communities, where humans become mere attributes of the higher order of efficiency. Therefore, Kracauer suggests that the mass figures, which embody the abstract rationality, are «composed of elements that are mere building blocks and nothing more» (Kracauer, 1995, 76), and that people become «the fractions of figure» only «as parts of a mass, and not as individuals who believe themselves to be formed from within» (Kracauer, 1995, 76). He further observes the following:
Rather the girl-units drill in order to produce an immense number of parallel lines. The goal being to train the broadest mass of people in order to create a pattern of undreamed-of dimensions. The end result is the ornament, whose closure is brought about by emptying all the substantial constructs of their contents. Although the masses give rise to the ornament, they are not involved in thinking it through. As linear as it may be, there is no line that extend from the small sections of the mass to the entire figure. The ornament resembles aerial photographs of landscapes and cities in that it does not emerge out of the interior of the given conditions, but rather appears above them. The more the coherence of the figure is relinquished in favor of mere linearity, the more distant it becomes from the immanent consciousness of those constituting it. (Kracauer, 1995, 77, some italics added)
reprimanded or repressed by their parents, teachers, or some other civilizing agency. Their effect on an audience seems due partly to the fact that by acting out repressed urges they seem to be flying in the face of civilization and sponsoring the revolt of nature. But their protest is by no means genuine or naive. They never forget the purpose of their clowning. Their constant aim is to tempt nature to join the forces of repression by which nature itself is to be crushed.» (Horkheimer, 2004, 81, italics added) The major source of the success of cynicism of instrumental reason is in the promotion of its limitation as the condition for its expansion. The authorirty of the reason in its abstraction is guarded through its mere execution.
The full capacity of the human being who participates in the mass ornament as its mere part never comes to the fore, because her corporeity, her «organic naturality» is abstractly emphasized, so it can be utilized within the «liveliness» of the mass ornament. Kracauer uses the example of Tiller Girls dancing groups, whose female members' distinction is important as long as it perpetuates the movement of the mass figure they create. The humanness of the dancers is important in its physical concreteness, in the uniqueness of their bodies, as long as they sustain the abstraction of the dancing formation. Paradoxically, the more it becomes apparent that, in spite of the regularity of the general pattern of the movement of the figure, the dancers move within the «confines» and the capacities of their own body qualities, the stronger will be the submission of their uniqueness to the successful establishment of the mass ornament. The dancers usually swing their legs either to the right or to the left, while «chaining» themselves to each other through the intertwining of their hands. The result is the creation of a geometric figure, whose pattern relies on the pace of the dancers' movements. Dancers' legs appear to be more free and emphasized, while their torsos are sequenced as building blocks for the center piece of the figure they create. The «naturality» of the parts of the figure is abstractly isolated and emphasized, which is proportional to the accentuation of the mere «corporeity» of the figure of the mass ornament, and therefore to the banality of its execution. In this sense, both the organic aspect of the human beings and its abstract ordering are equally deprived of their full capacity, and are therefore being equally abstracted from (Kracauer, 1995, 84). This is why both «rationality» of the pattern of the mass ornament and the «irrational» corporeity of its components reinforce the nature-reason rift through the fusion, which accomplishes itself through the linearity of the utilization of its components. Kracauer calls this self-perpetuating unity Ratio, and describes it in the following way:
In spite of the rationality of the mass pattern, such patterns simultaneously give rise to the natural in its impenetrability. Certainly man as an organic being has disappeared from these ornaments, but that does not suffice to bring man's basis to the fore; on the contrary, the remaining little mass particle cuts itself off from this basis just as any general formal concept does. Admittedly, it is the legs of the Tiller Girls that swing in perfect parallel, not the natural unity of their bodies, and it is also true that the thousands of people in the stadium form one single star. But this star does not shine, and the legs of the Tiller Girls are an abstract designation of their bodies. [.] The Ratio that gives rise to the ornament is strong enough to invoke the mass and to expunge all life from the figures constituting it. It is too weak to find the human beings within the mass and to render the figures in the ornament transparent to knowledge. Because this Ratio flees from reason and takes refuge
in the abstract, uncontrolled nature proliferates under the guise of rational expression and
uses abstract signs to display itself. (Kracauer, 1995, 84, italics added)
We can also suggest that not in spite, but precisely because of the rationality of the mass patterns (as seen in its capacity for a merely abstractive utilization of its components), the nature of the components appears «in its impenetrability» (Kracauer, 1995, 84). Furthermore, it is important to pay attention to Kracauer's emphasis on the lack of shining in the mass-constructed stars, and the fact the operational mereness of the legs of the dancers in the mass-figure is abstracted from their corporeity. Both cases illustrate the situation where both the whole and its parts are treated as purely isolated moments. The «voice» of this treatment, its articulate noise prevents us from comprehending the inescapability of Husserlian silence in an answer to the question what is being «added» to the sensory moment «so as to yield the specific feature of being a sensory quality» (Husserl, 2001b, 18) in the union of the extended quality. The combination of the parts is possible because the essentiality of the founding part necessitates the essentiality of the founded one. The mutual foundation of parts, which «equally» participate in their essence is what constitutes their union. The «silence» of the mutual self-encircling of the parts of the whole which produces the «voice» of their articulation should be seen as a tension which is released in the smoothness of the unification of the parts, conceived as the separate moments in the process of their, equally isolated, unification. What appears as the initial articulation of the whole-part relationship, which rests on the isolation of parts as moments in unity, disarticulates itself in the moment of its reiterative self-evidentiality. The only way we can point out the inherent self-betrayal of the formal-ontological articulation of the unification process, is to move within the formality of the categories, and trace their self-evidentiality back to the question of its justification. This is why Kracauer's critical move beyond the mass ornament, as the identification of the «superficial shallowness» of Ratio, «leads directly through the center of the mass ornament, not away from it» (Kracauer, 1995, 86).
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