The fate of Husserl's theory of categorial intuition

• Grant number: 24/06142-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 29, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Damon Santos Moutinho
• Grantee: Daniel Peluso Guilhermino
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this project is to analyze the development of Edmund Husserl's theory of categorial intuition. This theory aims to explain how a structured and categorially articulated world can be perceived. With it, Husserl reconfigures the separation between sensibility and understanding as a distinction between act-levels: the second-order categorial act would be founded on the first-order sensible act. This schema requires a correct distinction between categorial and sensible content. The description of this distinction, however, is only given directly in the Logical Investigations, and what is presented there is later rejected as "psychologistic". This raises a crucial question: what theoretical solution does phenomenology subsequent to the Investigations present to account for the correct distinction between sensible and categorical content and the consequent description of the latter? Our hypothesis is that if the theory of categorical intuition is to be consistent, then the investigations subsequent to the Logical Investigations must present a sufficient answer to the question of categorial intuitive content. The consistency of the theory, in turn, is required by phenomenology's own claim to be a rigorous philosophy, since its scientific foundation is fundamentally anchored in the possibility of the categorial intuition of essences. We therefore intend to trace an implicit but consistent solution to the problem of categorical content in Husserl's subsequent texts. This solution will be sought in the texts in which Husserl develops his genetic phenomenology, especially in his analyses of passive synthesis and the time-consciousness. Our hypothesis, therefore, is that the consistency of the theory of categorial intuition requires an expansion of the conceptual framework of the static phenomenology of the Logical Investigations. In the end, we intend to present a consistent exposition of the theory in the light of the conceptual horizon opened up by genetic phenomenology.