Crisis and Husserlian Phenomenology by Kenneth Knies;

Author:Kenneth Knies;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

15. Critical-Historical Appropriation

The straightforward pursuit of phenomenology presupposes an interpretation of philosophical history in which the latter realizes its objectives by overcoming the naïveté of the natural attitude. Awakening to this presupposition is a meta-awakening. It realizes a naïve interpretation of natural-attitude naïveté. This awakening jeopardizes me as someone making sense of and participating in historical traditions, particularly those connected with “philosophy.” The appropriative tasks called for here thus direct the ego back toward realities in the world of human culture and its unique historical present, in which first-personal responsibilities are at stake.

To confirm that philosophical history spans the natural and phenomenological attitudes, it is necessary to employ the form of appropriative reflection we earlier called teleological reconstruction (A § 10). The appropriative reflection on philosophy, however, belongs to a class of reflections to which we did not devote special attention. These are critical reflections that concern interpersonal and intergenerational accomplishments in which the reflecting ego is a participant. In such cases, the teleological reconstruction involves additional forms of interpretation.

The conviction that I cooperate with others always depends upon an interpretation of their actions and expressions. Such an interpretation is inherently fallible because deception, reticence, contextual differences, and sheer accident can lead to misunderstandings. When the others are only indirectly present through their works, there is the additional complication that I cannot refine the interpretation through direct dialogue. Ordinarily, established narratives mask the fragility of this situation. They allow for participation in historical tasks without a recovery of the past willful intentions that are embodied in documents and other works. However, it is also possible to execute actively the interpretations upon which such narratives are built. I can empathetically revitalize the goals of my predecessors on the basis of their works and orient myself toward these goals in the awareness that our shared tradition inevitably makes of me a carrier or miscarrier of their wills. The resulting criticism and appropriation of my predecessors does not arise from a comparison of my purposes with theirs, but from an emerging clarity about how my purposes are the continuance and transformation of theirs. This active communication of wills in the present can then motivate the construction of an optimally grounded teleological history, whether this coincides with or reforms established narratives.

This form of historical interpretation mediates the recognition of consuming interests that concealed what should have been noticed for the realization of the live, intergenerational objective. From the perspective of “historical objectivity,” this leads to bad history. My historical appropriation will not understand predecessors as they understood themselves. Rather, I will criticize predecessors for not having seen what I myself claim they could not (in fact) have seen, but which they should have seen in order to reach the objective I have in view. This is unfair. However, our previous analysis has shown that I am equally unfair to myself in appropriating my own naïve life-phases. When I look into the naïve life-phase, I do not recount what I then experienced. I understand things from the enhanced scope of responsibility claimed in my awakening.

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