Научная статья на тему 'EPOCHE AND ANXIETY. NEUTRALIZATION OF THE WORLD OR THE IMITATION OF EXPERIENCE?'

EPOCHE AND ANXIETY. NEUTRALIZATION OF THE WORLD OR THE IMITATION OF EXPERIENCE? Текст научной статьи по специальности «Философия, этика, религиоведение»

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Ключевые слова
EPOCHE / QUASI-EPOCHE / ANXIETY / NEUTRALIZATION / WORLD / EXPERIENCE / DOUBT / ATTEMPT AT DOUBT / TRANSFORMATION

Аннотация научной статьи по философии, этике, религиоведению, автор научной работы — Molchanov Victor

This article discusses Husserl’s “epoche” and “phenomenological reduction” and early Heidegger’s “fear” and “anxiety” from a conceptual and terminological point of view. The basis for comparing “epoche” and “fear” is their main function of neutralizing the world. The author also considers the way of correlating the epoche and anxiety as philosophical concepts with three types of realizable experience that served as their source. The main points and stages of the introduction of the term “epoche” are highlighted; the main functional differences between the terms “epoche” and “phenomenological reduction” in various works of Husserl are indicated. A number of Husserl’s attempts to transform the methodological principles put forward by him into a description of a special experience of detachment, accessible through moral efforts, courage and honesty, are considered. In this regard, the transformation of Cartesian doubt into the procedure of “epoche” through the artificial procedure of “attempt at doubt” is analyzed. Three types of restrictions on the universality of the epoche are distinguished. Terminological and meaningful relationships between neutralization as a mode of consciousness and the epoche are considered. Two main differences are revealed, with the help of which Husserl tries to transform principles into experience: the difference between positional and neutral consciousness (primary and shadow one) and the difference between an epoche and a quasi-epoche . Husserl’s interpretation of the epoche and reduction as a special experience has two main sources: first, the experience of the imagination, or fantasy, and in this sense the source of the epoche is the quasi-epoche , and not vice versa. Secondly, the postulate of the identity of sensation from the real and illusory object. Heidegger’s distinction between fear and anxiety is critically analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that a common source of the phenomena of anxiety, fear, horror, fright, and so on consists in the collision and mutual penetration of various human worlds. It is impossible to distance oneself from this diversity; further, it is the true source of philosophical reflection.

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Текст научной работы на тему «EPOCHE AND ANXIETY. NEUTRALIZATION OF THE WORLD OR THE IMITATION OF EXPERIENCE?»

HORIZON 11 (1) 2022 : I. Research : V. Molchanov : 11-26

ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ • STUDIES IN PHENOMENOLOGY • STUDIEN ZUR PHÄNOMENOLOGIE • ÉTUDES PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIQUES

I. ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ

https://doi.org/10.21638/2226-5260-2022-ll-ll-26

EPOCHE AND ANXIETY. NEUTRALIZATION OF THE WORLD OR THE IMITATION OF EXPERIENCE?*

VICTOR MOLCHANOV

DSc in Philosophy, Professor, Chief Researcher. Russian State University for the Humanities. 125993 Moscow, Russia. E-mail: victor.molchanov@gmail.com

This article discusses Husserl's "epoche" and "phenomenological reduction" and early Heidegger's "fear" and "anxiety" from a conceptual and terminological point of view. The basis for comparing "epoche" and "fear" is their main function of neutralizing the world. The author also considers the way of correlating the epoche and anxiety as philosophical concepts with three types of realizable experience that served as their source. The main points and stages of the introduction of the term "epoche" are highlighted; the main functional differences between the terms "epoche" and "phenomenological reduction" in various works of Husserl are indicated. A number of Husserl's attempts to transform the methodological principles put forward by him into a description of a special experience of detachment, accessible through moral efforts, courage and honesty, are considered. In this regard, the transformation of Cartesian doubt into the procedure of "epoche" through the artificial procedure of "attempt at doubt" is analyzed. Three types of restrictions on the universality of the epoche are distinguished. Terminological and meaningful relationships between neutralization as a mode of consciousness and the epoche are considered. Two main differences are revealed, with the help of which Husserl tries to transform principles into experience: the difference between positional and neutral consciousness (primary and shadow one) and the difference between an epoche and a quasi-epoche. Husserl's interpretation of the epoche and reduction as a special experience has two main sources: first, the experience of the imagination, or fantasy, and in this sense the source of the epoche is the quasi-epoche, and not vice versa. Secondly, the postulate of the identity of sensation from the real and illusory object. Heidegger's

* This work was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 20-011-00842 "Formation and Transformation of Concepts in Phenomenological Philosophy. History of Terms and Discussions."

© VICTOR MOLCHANOV, 2022

distinction between fear and anxiety is critically analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that a common source of the phenomena of anxiety, fear, horror, fright, and so on consists in the collision and mutual penetration of various human worlds. It is impossible to distance oneself from this diversity; further, it is the true source of philosophical reflection.

Keywords: epoche, quasi-epoche, anxiety, neutralization, world, experience, doubt, attempt at doubt, transformation, world.

ЭПОХЕ И СТРАХ. НЕЙТРАЛИЗАЦИЯ МИРА ИЛИ ИМИТАЦИЯ ОПЫТА?*

ВИКТОР МОЛЧАНОВ

Доктор философских наук, профессор, главный научный сотрудник. Российский государственный гуманитарный университет. 125993 Москва, Россия. E-mail: victor.molchanov@gmail.com

«Эпохе» и «феноменологическая редукция» у Гуссерля и «боязнь» и «страх» у раннего Хайде-ггера обсуждаются в этой статье с концептуальной и терминологической точек зрения. Основой для сравнения «epoche» и «страха» выступает их основная функция нейтрализации мира. Автор также рассматривает способ соотнесения эпохе и страха как философских понятий с тремя типами реализуемого опыта, которые послужили их источником. Выделены основные моменты и этапы введения термина эпохе; обозначены основные функциональные различия между терминами «эпохе» и «феноменологическая редукция» в различных работах Гуссерля. Рассмотрен ряд попыток Гуссерля трансформировать выдвинутые им методологические принципы в описание особого опыта отстранения, доступного благодаря моральным усилиям — мужеству и честности. В этой связи анализируется трансформация картезианского сомнения в процедуру «эпохе» посредством искусственной процедуры «попытки сомнения». Выделяются три вида ограничения универсальности эпохе и рассматриваются терминологические и содержательные отношения между нейтрализацией как модусом сознания и эпохе. Выявлены два основных различия, с помощью которых Гуссерль пытается трансформировать принципы в опыт: различие позиционального и нейтрального сознания (первичного и теневого) и различие эпохе и квази-эпохе. Гуссерлевская интерпретация эпохе и редукции как особого опыта имеет два основных источника: во-первых, опыт воображения, или фантазии, и в этом смысле источником эпохе является квази-эпохе, а не наоборот. Во-вторых, постулат тождественности ощущения от реального и иллюзорного предметов. Критически проанализировано различие Хайдеггера между страхом и тревогой. Общий источник явлений тревоги, страха, ужаса, испуга и т. д. автор усматривает в столкновении и взаимном проникновении различных человеческих миров. От этого многообразия нельзя отстраниться, оно является истинным источником философских размышлений.

Ключевые слова: эпохе, квази-эпохе, страх, нейтрализация, мир, опыт, сомнение, «попытка сомнения», трансформация, мир.

Статья подготовлена при поддержке РФФИ, проект № 20-011-00842А «Формирование и трансформация концепций в феноменологической философии. История терминов и дискуссий».

*

1. INTRODUCTION

Epoche and anxiety are again becoming topical, and not only within the framework of phenomenological research. The pandemic provided all the actions and thoughts of the present with an index of refraining (though not from judgments) and anxiety at the same time, and deprived the future of all signs, leaving only the sign als ob. But the past is now seen through rose-coloured glasses: how great our life was before the pandemic, as if there were no problems. It seems that Heidegger's "exis-tentials" again turned out to be more powerful than Husserl's "pure consciousness." If intentionality found its justification in being-in-the-world, then today's "epoche" clearly has as its source fear (Furcht) and anxiety (Angst) at the same time. Heidegger's well-known distinction is too sharp: there is still something between the fear of something definite and a state of anxiety. One may fear serious illness and simultaneously feels uneasy about the general nature of the disease.

Now reality meets philosophers. If one can accept epoche as a useful methodological procedure, then one can hardly seriously believe in the possibility of epoche as a peculiar experience. Even philosophers close to Husserl, for example Merleau-Ponty, considered it impossible to carry out a complete reduction. (For the time being at least I take these terms as interchangeable.) No-one, except true Heideggerians, seriously considered "Nothingness" and "Anxiety" as the source-point of metaphysics. And then reality itself revealed its unreasonable (unfortunately for Hegel), annihilating, and inexorable character producing the refraining and anxiety at once.

This comparison, superficial at first glance, still has a certain basis because first, sometimes "fear-and-anxiety" really paralyses human decision-making and brings to refraining from judgment. Second, both Husserl and Heidegger create their works in an era of "mass uprising" in a mass society. Against this, philosophers can only oppose suspension and anxiety for their own being and being as such. The modern pandemic is the culmination of "mass-ness"; one proof of this is the holding of the delayed 2020 UEFA European Championship and the 2021 CONMEBOL Copa America in South America as well as the delayed summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, in the midst of the spread of the virus and the emergence of new stems.

2. THE BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY POST FACTUM

"Epoche" and "anxiety" are the designations of the starting points of existential conversion and philosophical thinking in Husserl and early Heidegger. It seems that they have nothing in common. However, just the anxiety connects them conceptually

and perhaps, "ontically." If for Husserl courage is necessary to complete the epoche, then this indicates the overcoming of anxiety. Both in Husserl and Heidegger an "anxiety" refers to a natural attitude and to everyday life, but differently in each case. In Husserl, the human being as a "man in the street" is afraid to break away from the world of naive life and climb to the "mountain land of phenomenology," as he designated his teaching in a letter to Gustav Shpet.

In Heidegger one is afraid to remain oneself in everyday life, in a world where signs not only function but also reign; where resolution and courage are dissolved in das Man. However, anxiety (and fear) is an ambivalent state: the anxiety of staying or the anxiety of getting out is intertwined with each other in the human world. Fear and anxiety are fundamental human feelings and states that are difficult to describe "in and for itself"' Linguistically they can be synonyms; in Heidegger's terminology they are different. Fear is something worldly or mundane; it can be classified mainly by the type of threat anticipated and by the strength of the experience, ranging from apprehension to horror. On the other hand, an anxiety is a mood, which is not determined by any threat. It is situated as if between the worldly and superworldly. However, it doesn't have any religious nuance. On the contrary, in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology Husserl endows the epoche with a quasi-religious connotation of meaning.

"Epoche, like "anxiety," has also human experience as its source. Refraining from judgment can be caused by anxiety, and conversely, can be a sign of courage and overcoming of fear. In this case it corresponds to a self-restraint or self-possession, to the ability to distance oneself, to look at "things themselves." It is a real type of experience in the moral sphere, and it does not imply any connection with any philosophical concepts. In the same way, doubts about the reliability of knowledge or the correct direction of action have arisen—and arise—in people who do not even know the word skepticism, or at least the primary meaning of this word. Another question is that those who have this experience do not, as a rule, attempt to describe it; any description pursues a certain goal and has certain presuppositions. However, there is a difference between trying to describe an experience, whatever the goals and premises of this description, and the transformation of this experience into a special and universal one that is not available to everyone, or at least not always. In the inverted world (verkehrte Welt) of philosophy, anxiety and a refraining from judgments assume responsibility for the starting point of philosophy. How can this transformation be carried out? What means are used for this? Is the result a "transformed" experience or an imitation of it?

It is noteworthy that Husserl and Heidegger turn to the question of the foundations of philosophy after their first fundamental works were written: in Husserl's case Logical Investigations (1900-1901) and for Heidegger his 1927 magnum opus Being

and Time. Reflections on the nature of philosophy are thus carried out post factum after philosophical speculation has ended. Minerva's methodological owl had to fly out twice, first a few years after the "series of analytical studies" (1907), as Husserl designated Logical Investigations, and then two years after the uDasein analytics" (1929), in order to determine the path already traveled in both cases.

The terminological role of "epoche" in Husserl and "anxiety" in Heidegger is far from being an equivalent. After the introduction of the 'epoche,' this term remained one of the most frequently used of Husserl's terms; on the contrary, Heidegger's "anxiety" happily dissolved along with "existence" in "historicity" and "the destiny of being." Therefore, the history of the former term dates back much longer than that of the latter.

3. DOUBT AND ATTEMPT AT DOUBT.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF EXPERIENCE

The connection between reduction and the epoche with Cartesian doubt is a cross-cutting theme of Husserl's phenomenology. In The Idea of Phenomenology, Husserl points to Cartesian thinking about doubt (Zweifelsbetrachtung) as the starting point for achieving an absolute foundation with the exclusion of any knowledge as a presupposition. In Ideas I epoche should replace the Cartesian attempt at doubt (Zweifelsversuch); thus Husserl implicitly distinguishes between doubt (as a really possible experience) and an attempt at doubt, which is, according to him, always in our will. Nevertheless, Husserl refuses to recognize the identity of Cartesian attempt to doubt and epoche: it is only a convenient opportunity to highlight the "phenomenon of exclusion" or "parenthesis."

The attempt to doubt clearly goes beyond experience; the main elements of which are judgments, perceptions and emotions. It is actually one of the elements of imaginary experience, the experience als ob. Doubt is the real experience of real individuals, whereas an attempt to doubt is an artificial procedure through which it is easiest to pass to reduction, as Husserl rightly believes, because the reduction itself, or the "epoche" is also an artificial procedure. As well-known authors noted: "The difficulty of performing a phenomenological reduction was constantly associated with its unnaturalness" (Bernet, Kern & Marbach, 1996, 58).

Doubt and an attempt at doubt, no matter how you understand them, presupposes a fluctuation between plus and minus, between the conviction in one thing and the conviction in the opposite, but not between a plus and the absence of a minus, and not between conviction and lack of conviction. Doubt can be anything, but not indifference; not neutrality, which is akin to reduction. The latter means just an equal,

indifferent "distance" between plus and minus, a kind of zero that claims to be the basis of both the first and the second.

In his article What is this—philosophy? Heidegger distinguishes between three principles of philosophizing: Platonic-Aristotelian wonder, Cartesian doubt leading to certainty, and the future, the not yet quite definite beginning of philosophy, which must be in tune with "the voice of Being." Husserl is not mentioned, and probably the Cartesian doubt and the Husserlian epoche seemed to Heidegger to be if not identical, then essentially close.

To elucidate the difference and Husserl's way of transformation of Cartesian doubt I return to Descartes' basic argument, which can be questioned. The argument that it is impossible to doubt the very act of doubting is itself dubious, since it is not always possible to draw a clear distinction between a doubt (in cognition) and an assumption, as well as a denial. In other words, the absolute evidence does not dwell in the awareness of the act of doubt, especially if the act of awareness is considered as an act, which is different from the doubt itself and can transform the primary act which it is "directed" to. Even Brentano's "inner perception," built into the act of consciousness itself, can be effective only in relation to easily distinguishable "mental phenomena." But even if Descartes' reasoning concerning the doubt is true and universal, it cannot be transferred to an attempt to doubt. The statement "I cannot doubt that I am trying to doubt" is not a description of experience, but an artificial construction.

It is obvious however, that in Descartes we are not dealing with a doubt in the usual psychological sense in which there is a fluctuation between two judgments ("opinions"), as well as a state of indecision concerning the truth of the possible judgments. The radical doubt is a result of conviction: "I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life the need to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted" (Descartes, 2018, 13). A conviction in the necessity to doubt is a strange statement from a naive point of view. However, it is nothing else but a radicalization and univer-salization of doubt. Descartes uses the word "doubt" (dubito), which actually has the meaning "assumption leading to negation." To question anything means to suggest an error in identification or assessment; however, it does not mean to doubt, i.e., to hesitate. Husserl quite rightly notes that Descartes' "universal attempt at doubt is just an attempt at universal denial" (Husserl, 1962, 109; Husserl, 1976, 64). However, Husserl fixes only the result, whereas the process itself is significant here, i.e., the movement from assumption to negation, the transformation of the hypothetical into the negative. Two arguments are developed here. If feelings and reason deceive us sometimes, then it should be assumed that they always deceive us. It is noteworthy that Descartes applies an argument taken from the sphere of human relations to the field of percep-

tion and reasoning. Indeed, we do not trust completely the one who once deceived us. This is exactly the transformation of every slightest doubt into denial. Another argument concerns replacing a part with a whole: one can and should reject the whole, instead of doubting the infinite number of objects.

In both cases the transformation of experience is nothing other than an intensification of negative tendencies. It was this lesson that Husserl learned from Descartes: that the possibility of the illusory existence of an object must be strengthened to distance oneself from the existence of objects in general. Of course, epoche is not a negation; it is a neutral position in relation to the existence or non-existence of the perceived objects. It arises from the exaggeration of the role of the illusory perception of a separate object as opposed to the reality of acts of consciousness. For an intentional act, it does not matter whether the object really exists or not, as the "givenness" of the object does not supposedly depend on this.

Husserl reinforces the negative tendencies of Descartes' reasoning: he destroys the last Cartesian Island of the real world with the real Ego and replaces it with a transcendental, non-worldly subjectivity. This is not the first, but the decisive step towards the transformation of inner experience to the imaginary world, which since the time of Kant has been called "the transcendental." Husserl continues the tradition of radicalism, however paradoxical this word-combination may sound. It refers to the attempts of solving problems by increasing negation. Let's take a simple example as an analogy: If the water in a vessel which is being carried begins to spill then there are two ways to "calm it down": stop or go much faster. Radicalism is the choice of the second way: to transform the difference between sensory perception and judgment into a separation of the spheres of sensuality and reason, to declare imagination as a transcendental force that binds the divided, to invent a speculative idea identifying the opposite, to overcome nihilism by strengthening nihilism, to bracket the world through assumption that the perceived object does not exist and so forth. All these conceptions have the same paradigm, which is the strengthening of tendencies. Imagination plays a decisive role in this paradigm, and terminological analysis will help us determine the role of imagination in the concept of epoche.

4. INTRODUCTION OF THE TERMS "PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION" AND "EPOCHE". RESTRICTIONS AND NEUTRALIZATION

The term "phenomenological reduction" was first introduced in the lectures The Idea of Phenomenology (1907), published in 1958. Opposing natural and philosophical thinking, Husserl brings to the fore the problem of the possibility of cogni-

tion, for which the solution the phenomenological method of "criticism of cognition" and phenomenology as a universal science of essences are required. To describe the problem itself, as a rule, the metaphor of a "meeting" (Treffen) of Cognition and Being is used, as well as a series of differences: immanent and transcendent, reell and real, phenomenon (Erscheinen) and Being. A characteristic feature of the first function of reduction recorded by Husserl is its focus primarily on the exclusion of the "in-ternal"—the "immanent psychological" and "reell transcendent." The next step is to exclude all transcendences, including the given of external experience.

As a synonym, Husserl also introduced the term "epoche" (enoxft), which is believed to have been borrowed from ancient skepticism and means "a refraining from final judgment." A translation of this "refraining" into Latin (assensionis retentio) bring us to another famous Husserl's term, that of "retention," borrowed most likely from Locke. It was introduced by Husserl earlier than "epoche" in Lectures on the Phenomenology of the inner Time-Consciousness (1905). Here Husserl uses the key word that will later characterize reduction (and epoche) — "exclusion" (Ausschaltung), namely "the exclusion of objective time," although the term "reduction" has not yet been introduced. "Retention" means a keeping of the primary impression, and then retention of the previous retention leads to the formation of a retention trail, independent of any objectivity. Of course, Husserl's epoche contains a different shade of meaning: it is not something to hold down, but something to refrain from. However, Husserl's "retention" in the Phenomenology of Time presupposes refraining from judgments about objective time. In the linguistic aspect the introduction of the "epoche" and "reduction" was hardly independent of the introduction of "retention."

The distinction between "reduction" and "epoche" is not substantive but functional, and depends on various attempts by Husserl to systematize his own teaching. "Reduction" and "epoche" correspond to another interchangeable pair of terms: "meaning" and "sense" and form the terminological framework of Husserl's methodology.

The word Ausschluß ("exclusion"), along with its synonym Ausschaltung, which is mostly used by Husserl to define phenomenological reduction, is also used in the formulation of the principle of "freedom from presuppositions" as the principle of "the strict exclusion of all statements not permitting of a comprehensive phenome-nological realization" (Husserl, 1970, 177; Husserl, 1984, 24). Verbal similarities are deceptive, because in Logical Investigations we are not talking about excluding the transcendent and immanent but about removing all previously accepted theories and explanations. We are also talking about the fact that the theory of knowledge is not a theory in the proper sense.

In The Idea of Phenomenology, enox^ (epoche) is mentioned just twice but it is here that the birth of this term took place: In the first case, enoxtf is used as one of those Greek words which occasionally appear in Husserl's texts: Husserl writes about the law of enoxtf in relation to the transcendent (Husserl, 1973a, 44). In the second case, we are already talking about the "theoretical-cognitive enoxtf" as a term that is used as identical to the "theoretical-cognitive reduction" (Husserl, 1973a, 48). In the lectures Thing and Space (Ding und Raum, 1907), which followed The Idea of Phenomenology, Husserl operates with the term "phenomenological reduction" as something already known and self-evident, pointing mainly to its function; the term "epoche" as identical to reduction is used only once.

In Ideas I, Husserl outlines a transformation of reduction as a methodological procedure to reduction as a peculiar experience. Here the order of the introduction of terms is reversed; their absolute identity is replaced by a difference of stylistic and systematic character. "Epoche" takes on the meaning of a primary and general procedure and "phenomenological reduction" acquires the plural, or a number of specifications: "the exclusion of the transcendence of God," "the exclusion of pure logic as mathesis universalis" and "the exclusion of material eidetic disciplines." Now the epoche and reduction not only change the natural attitude to the philosophical one, but also open up the sphere of "pure consciousness." Warning that the meanings of these introduced terms are not reduced to the meanings of the historically existing and those familiar to the reader, Husserl complicates the terminology: renaming without any given reason "pure consciousness" into "transcendental," he also calls enoxtf "transcendental," and the step-by-step realization of epoche "phenomenological reductions," which, "from the theoretical-cognitive point of view," will also be designated as "transcendental."

Apart from the Cartesian doubt, two themes in Ideas I directly and terminolog-ically relate to epoche and reduction: the limitation of their scope and modification of neutrality. "The universal epoche in the sharply defined and novel meaning" (Husserl, 1962, 110; Husserl, 1976, 65) can replace the Cartesian attempt at universal doubt. However, the universal procedure introduced is immediately limited in its action. If epoche modifies judgments and bracketing their relation to objects, then within the science of phenomenology, where epoche and reduction are the main principles, judgments cannot be modified. At the same time, the problem of the beginning of philosophical research, the resolution of which is assigned to the epoche and reduction, is only exacerbated, because the difference between modified and unmodified judgments already presupposes an epoche, and the epoche is determined through the difference indicated. The restriction also applies to the pure Self, which cannot be subjected to phenomenological reduction.

The third type of restriction is the recognition that reduction is unnecessary for revealing the essence of consciousness (Husserl, 1962, 114; Husserl, 1976, 69) when considering such topics as cogito as act, reflection, intentional experience, etc. i.e., those that have been introduced in the Logical Investigations.

Another problem area is the terminological and substantive relationship between the phenomenological reduction and epoche with a neutralization, which Husserl singles out as a peculiar modification. This differs from other modifications opposed to "belief-in-something" (not in the religious sense) and to which he gives the same characteristics as the epoche: "It cancels nothing, it 'performs' nothing, it is the conscious counterpart of all performance: its neutralization. It lies enclosed in every 'withholding of performance' 'setting out of action', 'bracketing' " (Husserl, 1962, 306; Husserl, 1976, 247-248). Instead of real belief, valid assumption, denial, etc. we get "neutralized" belief, assumption, denial, and so on. Nevertheless, in Ideas I, Husserl does not connect neutralization and the epoche terminologically, focusing on the "universal difference of consciousness": "Consciousness in general is so articulated as to be of twofold type: original and shadow, positional and neutral consciousness" (Husserl, 1962, 321; Husserl, 1976, 261).

5. EPOCHE AND QUASI-EPOCHE. EXPERIENCE AND IMAGINATION

Husserl returns to this distinction in the lectures The Theory of Phenomenological Reduction (the second part of Husserl's 1923-1924 lectures under the general title First Philosophy, published in 1959), where he again uses the terms "reduction" and "epoche" interchangeably. Here the term "neutral" is replaced by "quasi-positional," and the difference between the positional and the non-positional is associated with the difference between epoche and "quasi-epoche." If in Ideas I Husserl distinguishes between the modification of neutrality and fantasy, here he does not draw a strict distinction between them. Quasi-epoche is epoche als ob, epoche that one performs, imagining oneself as a subject of an imaginary world. Imagining, for example, a certain area and a battle between centaurs and dragons (the example of Husserl), I imagine myself, even if I do not imagine myself as a participant in the action. Husserl points out that we always imagine place and action in certain spatial orientations: some trees are closer, others are further away; a centaur jumps here, a dragon attacks him from above, etc. As Husserl concludes: "All these words: right, left, in front of, behind, from above, etc., are evidently occasional expressions and have an essential relation to the viewing and perceiving ego, which is the zero point of the oriented Space" (Husserl, 1959, 116). These descriptions by Husserl—and especially his last assertion—are du-

bious, since all these orientations are quasi ones and the structure of any imaginary space is analogous to the quasi-spacious field of any picture or canvas. What we imagine is, in fact, a picture, albeit dynamic, as a director does when creating a film. Husserl's difference is too sharp between the "lost-in-fantasising" (selbstverloren) Ego and the Ego observing the act and content of fantasy ("I as a phenomenologist do not feign (fingiere) properly" (Husserl, 1959, 114)). In real experience (in a way that everyone can repeat) there is a difference between a fantasising Ego and the Ego that is conscious of her or his phantasy. To sharply divide two Egos and to pretend to be a spectator of his or her own acts of consciousness means to construct experience rather than describing it. In any way, Brentano's difference between self-observing (which is impossible, according to Brentano) and inner perception is left behind here.

It is assumed that the disinterested observer has already completed an epoche and that he is observing how the fantasising self is performing a quasi-epoche in an imaginary world. But what can "observation" mean here other than following the fantasies of the fantasising self? Thus, contrary to his intentions, Husserl brings epoche and acts of fantasy closer together: "The act 'I fantasise a centaur scene' is only possible in the form that I do perform the act 'I perceive the centaur scene in mode of als ob (Husserl, 1959, 116). The word "scene" makes it clear that we are already situated in the world als ob. Husserl tried to introduce a quasi-epoche as "epoche acting in a fantasy world." However, the world of fantasy is the world created by the empirical Ego, and the experience of als ob is the experience of this Ego immersed in the world of fantasy.

In Cartesian Meditations, Husserl is concerned with giving phenomenology a new systematic form and solving the problem of the objectivity of cognition by posing and solving the problem of intersubjectivity. Therefore, he returns to the problems of the beginning and the disclosing of one's own transcendental field of consciousness. Husserl reinforces here the themes of the loss of the world and one's own empirical self in epoche and reduction, using the terms "reduction" and "epoche" as equivalent. The epoche receives definitions as phenomenological, transcendental and abstractive, and the term "reduction" (Husserl, 1973b, § 44) is used when making the initial distinction in the exposition of the problem of intersubjectivity—between "one's own specific sphere" and the sphere of someone else. Concluding the neo-Cartesian version of phenomenology, Husserl formulates his famous imperative: "One must first lose the world through epoche, in order then to regain it in a universal self-comprehension" (Husserl, 1973b, 183).

In The Crisis of European Sciences, reduction and the epoche have a general character correlating with the world as a phenomenon and the life-world. The re-

duction should reveal a "transcendental subjectivity" that will constitute the naively perceived world in its own significance. Emphasizing the radical difference between diverse social activities and a reflective, philosophical attitude, Husserl talks about the similarity of epoche to a religious conversion. The Russian philosopher Yakov Druskin saw this as a lack of religious energy: reduction, in his opinion, should be a religious act (Druskin, 1995, 167-171). In any case, reduction (and epoche) confirms its status as experience in Crisis.

Despite the radicalism of the separation of attitudes, Husserl self-critically tries to transform the short path to reduction, which he calls Cartesian ("with one jump"), as presented in Ideas I. A new, systematic path is associated with the study of the life-world and its basic structure, namely, perception. In this regard, the methodological problem of the relationship between phenomenology and psychology is being developed.

Now psychology must become the starting point of the path to "phenomeno-logical transcendental philosophy." Husserl calls the gap between them "fatal." The stages of realization of phenomenological psychology must correspond to the stages of realization of the epoche. The study of this multi-stage structure Husserl calls "the phenomenology of phenomenological reduction." However, in fact, Husserl's stages of research correspond to different levels of research of perception—from a separate thing given to a separate subject to an intersubjective givenness.

The formation of the concept of phenomenological reduction, or epoche, is based not only on a particular experience, but above all on the argument concerning the possible non-existence of an object. If we have an object that does not exist, i.e., an illusion, the consciousness of this object takes place nevertheless. In Logical Investigations Husserl gives an example using color: If the object is an illusion, then its color is also an illusion; however, we have a sensation of color, which is a stratum of the reality of consciousness. This argument, which can be subjected to critical analysis, served for Husserl as a substantiation of the independence of intentionality from external objects. Later it becomes an implicit presupposition of pure consciousness, on the one hand, and on the other, substantiation of the possibility of a peculiar experience of indifference in relation to the existence or non-existence of the world and its objects. This reasoning as a presupposition is connected with another presupposition of Husserl that the world is a collection of objects. Any changes in objects do not lead to a change in the world itself, which remains a "common world for all of us." It calls into question the method of reduction or epoche: Can a rapidly changing world and its ever-increasing virtual segment be lost in epoche and even more be restored in universal self-comprehension?

The variability of the terms "reduction" and "epoche" and their functional difference in the series of systematization produces a special style of presentation, which, due to the overload of terminology (phenomenological reduction is designated as transcendental, as phenomenological-transcendental, etc.), creates the illusion of describing the peculiar, not-accessible-for-everyone-experience necessary to start philosophizing. If in Ideas I and earlier the reduction and epoche were conceived mainly as methodological procedures, then later, in Cartesian Meditations and Crisis these terms acquire the meaning of a really practicable experience. The transition point in this process was the Theory of Phenomenological Reduction, where the term "quasi-epoche" was introduced, denoting the experience of an imaginary subject in an imaginary world. If the epoche and reduction rely on any experience, then this is the experience of imagination, or fantasy. In this sense, the source of an epoche is a quasi-epoche, and not vice versa.

Eugen Fink believed that Husserl's epoche is understood

too hastily, if one sees the moment of non-acceptance in the method of epoche above all else, i.e., that suspension of the previous world-theme and throwing off of the initial 'naivete'. Rather we must contemplate precisely this naivete as such, we must watch ourselves, so to speak, as we participate in our own world-theme. (Fink, 1981, 62)

However, the ideal of an uninterested observer, like the ideal of a "sage," is possible only in the abstract; this ideal, like any other, cannot be realized in a communicative and rapidly changing world.

6. ANXIETY AND THE DIVERSITY OF WORLDS

Doubt is a kind of anxiety. Firstly, doubt is a state of indecision, a kind of immobility, a hesitation without action, and secondly, any doubt contains anxiety: a decision or choice may be wrong. Language confirms this: "I'm afraid it is not so" is an expression of doubt and anxiety at the same time. Embarrassment is also a kind of anxiety: an anxiety when there is no threat in the literal sense, when the surrounding world can be quite friendly: such are the worries and anxieties, for example, of beginners and even experienced actors, teachers, and athletes: mainly those who are associated with the uncertainty of the results of actions in which they are involved, as well as those who start a particular type of activity. Thus, anxiety arises without an immediate threat. In other words, the threat does not come from a specific object and person. At the same time, these anxieties arise in certain situations and sometimes even become a mobilizing habit, and it cannot be said that these anxieties or worries

are vague. In any case, Heidegger's distinction between fear and anxiety does not yet give an understanding of what anxiety is. The notorious Unheimlichkeit (uncanni-ness) is described as a psychological state despite the declared ontologism. It is also something "peculiar," similar in this sense to epoche. As well as epoche it doesn't have another source other than itself.

Anxiety has many faces, but what is anxiety? Is it possible to point to a single source of anxiety, fear, horror or fright? In any case, this common source must be looked for, but clearly not in the psychological sphere. However, it is Heidegger who indirectly provides the key to understanding anxiety through the concepts of space and world as an interconnection of references, or, more clearly, the interconnection of familiar or mastered meanings. For Heidegger, as we know, the craft workshop served as the paradigm of the "worldliness" of many human worlds. However, the plurality of human worlds, the plurality of the interrelations of references, presupposes transitions from world to world. In turn, this presupposes the changes in attitudes and Husserl's concept also implicitly indicates the nature of anxiety.

Despite the difference of worlds, Heidegger seeks the sources of fear and anxiety within the separate "worldness." However, they are rather situated between the worlds in a topos that one cannot describe as an interconnection of references. The source of anxiety as well as fear, fright and so on is the transition (either forced, voluntary or accidental) from the mastered world to the unfamiliar one or the invasion of the unfamiliar world elements into the habitual world. Anxiety as a result of transition or invasion, as a state, is a kind of suspension of being-in-the-world; a densification of existence, the loss of "freedom of movement" in a broad sense. Anxiety is a fundamental characteristic of the diverse human being-in-the-worlds and the diversity of human worlds. Reality is saturated with anxiety since reality is uncertain and contingent. Anxiety is not a mental state along with other states (just as music, according to Schopenhauer, is not an art form along with others—let me make such a comparison), but a state of being-in-the-confusion of worlds. For Sartre a strong fear leads to the magical transformation of the world: a person faints and the world is destroyed. However, it is not a frightened person as a psychological individual who turns the world into nothing, but an alien and dangerous world which invades the familiar and safe one, constituting and creating situations of fear or anxiety. The world itself becomes anxious. This is a matter of choice or—if one prefers, of freedom—to give in to this between-world-anxiety suppressing all mental states except the anxious one, or to perform the most difficult of all epoches (the epoche in relation to fear and anxiety) and overcome these states. It is not Nothingness that generates anxiety, but the redundancy of meanings that cannot be assimilated and mastered.

Heidegger's introduction of Nothingness surpasses the artificiality of the introduction of Husserl's epoche. If epoche was introduced as a certain methodological procedure (it is another question whether this procedure is feasible or not), then Heidegger's Nothingness is like a spirit that is invoked by a spell called Eerieness (Unheimlichkeit). Nevertheless, the probable model for Heidegger was that of Faust: The main character felt uneasy and uncomfortable and called on the power that denies everything. However, the spell is not the same. Faust used magic, while Heidegger employs the possibilities of German syntax and got "Nothing" by moving dashes in the right places. In the speech and essay What is metaphysics? the statement "Beings themselves—and nothing else" (das Seiende selbst — und sonst nichts) is replaced by "Only beings, and otherwise—nothing" (nur das Seiende und sonst — nichts) while the phrase "Beings themselves—and nothing more" (das Seiende selbst — und weiter nichts) is replaced by: "Beings themselves, and after that—nothing" (das Seiende allein und weiter — nichts). Similarly "Beings themselves—and beyond that, nothing" (das Seiende selbst — und darüber hinaus nichts) is replaced by: "Solely Beings, and beyond that—nothing" (das Seiende einzig und darüber hinaus — nichts) (Heidegger, 1976, 105). It is in this way that "nothing" or "nothingness" is singled out to be a kind of neutralization of the world.

7. CONCLUSION

Husserl and early Heidegger brought to the fore the basis for comparing their philosophical teachings, namely the neutralization of the world. At the same time, the term 'world' means different things to German philosophers. Husserl's totality of perceived objects (and even the "lifeworld" changes little) differs from Heidegger's interrelation of references. Accordingly, epoche and anxiety are introduced as terms by indicating a peculiar experience that transcends the world of natural attitude and everyday life and has a monopoly on the beginning of philosophical thinking. The way both terms are introduced suggests that their referents are rather constructions based on the exaggeration of the significance of a certain experience and its elevation into a universal one. Husserl's "exemplarism," i.e., the insight into the general from the particular through "ideation" is implicitly applied here in relation to philosophy itself, which must first neutralize the world in epoche and anxiety, in order to find it later in self-comprehension and true being. However, even if we assume the possibility of its real achievement, the deliverance from naivety and everyday life ensures neither "noetic-noematic correlation" nor "ecstatic existence." Clearing a field does not mean sowing it with seed. Anything can grow on it. The acknowledgement of the negative as

the necessary beginning of philosophy is the "merit" of Kant with his Critics and Hegel with his dialectics. In this sense Husserl and Heidegger follow this trend.

The source of philosophical thinking, like any other, is the contact of human worlds, their attraction, repulsion and interpenetration, which produces a variety of problems in the communicative world—and only in the communicative world. The leap into an inverted world by means of epoche or anxiety, interpreted as a certain experience or mood, overshoots the necessary layer of the world, namely the communicative communities, the diversity of which is the true source of all human problems, including philosophical ones.

REFERENCES

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(Hua VIII). Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1962). Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (W. R. Boyce Gibson, Trans.). L.:

George Allen & Unwin LTD. N. Y.: The Macmillan Company. Husserl, E. (1970). Logical Investigations, vol. I (J. N. Findlay, Trans.). London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Husserl, E. (1973a). Die Idee der Phanomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen (Hua II). Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1973b). Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge (Hua I). Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes

Buch (Hua III/1). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Husserl, E. (1984). Logische Untersuchungen. Bd. II. T. 1 (Hua XIX/1). Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. Heidegger, M. (1976). Wegmarken (GA 9). Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Bernet, R., Kern, I., & Marbach, E. (1996). Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens. Hamburg: Meiner.

Fink, O. (1981). Operative Concepts in Husserl's Phenomenology. In W. McKenna, R. M. Harlan & L. E. Winters (Eds.), Apriori and World. European Contributions to Husserlian Phenomenology (56-70). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

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