File clean-up May 24, 2022, 5:21 pm sdvig press Offprint from: Roman Jakobson: Echoes of His Scholarship Lisse: The Peter de Ridder Press, 1977
2Originally published in Cornelis van Schooneveld & Daniel Armstrong (eds), Roman Jakobson, Lisse, Peter de Ridder (1977): 145-162.
3A paper on the contribution of Jakobson’s structural linguistics to phenomenology is almost exclusively prospective in nature. Although Jakobson’s basic concepts are either directly influenced by Husserl’s phenomenology, or at least reveal a convergence between structural and phenomenological conceptions (Holenstein 1975a; 1975b; 1976), pheno|menology has either ignored or indeed misunderstood the findings of structural linguistics. Two reasons in particular may be responsible for this situation, which, seen from the common cause, is utterly incompre|hensible.
4(1) Phenomenological philosophy still enjoys being anti-scientific, an attitude that was originally well-founded but that today appears to be quite out-dated. In fact, phenomenology has burdened itself with the image of a dispute over principles, which has been resolved already for decades. The branch of knowledge originally rejected by phenomenology involved a general science conceived according to a model of mechanistic natural science. However, what phenomenology often overlooks is the fact that most of the so-called modern sciences — with structural linguistics in the first rank — owe their birth to the very same rejection of the mechanistic model for scientific procedure. (2) The few attempts to approach the ideas of structural linguistics were doomed to failure because of the diversity of trends which were all given the name “structuralism.” This was particularly true of Ricoeur’s studies (Ricoeur 1969), which have had great influence in phenomenological circles. The fact that decidedly positivistic, anti-mentalistic, and therefore also anti-phenomenological positions are lumped together under the label of “structuralism” often seems to be a source of confusion. However, it is almost a historical curiosity to find phenomenological opponents of European structuralism harking back to Chomsky’s criticism of structuralism, which can be shown to consist largely of an attack on post-Bloomfieldian structuralism in the U.S.A, with the help of arguments themselves based on the Prague structuralism of Jakobson (Holenstein 1975a, 95ff).
5In order to expound Jakobson’s place in the phenomenological philo|sophy, it is convenient to refer to Husserl’s division of phenomenology into four sections, all of which, however, overlap in some way. Husserl designates these four sections: “static and genetic phenomenology” and “eidetic and transcendental phenomenology.”
61. Static phenomenology represents a reaction to the above-mentioned model of a science that admits the mechanistic-causal derivation of a datum from an immediately preceding datum as the only valid form of explanation. The forerunner of static phenomenology is Brentano’s distinction between genetic and descriptive psychology. Both descriptive psychology and static phenomenology treat the relations immanent to a datum or to a category of data.1 The relation to a “something” is, for example, immanent to a mental act. There is no mind without a “something” that is intended, be it a thing or a state.
7According to Jakobson both “static” and “descriptive” are misleading epithets of the new science (Jakobson 1971 [1953], 562ff.). “Static” suggests that among the relations that are constitutive of a whole, there are no relations of a dynamic nature. By equating “static vs. dynamic” with “synchronic vs. diachronic” as Saussure did, the fact has been further obscured that there are also static elements in the dimension of diachrony, the historical development of a system. In the philosophic tradition, the opposition of “descriptive” and “explanatory” has been taken for granted. Jakobson, however, offers more than a mere description when he shows that the constitution of the phonological system “follows the principle of maximal contrast and proceeds from the simple and homogeneous to the complex and differentiated” (Jakobson 1971 [1941], 373ff.). He also demonstrates the structural consequence for the child’s acquisition of the phonological system. The systematic priority of the optimal over the restricted and of the simple over the complex is the “inner reason" for the temporal priority of the optimal and the simple in the development of child language. These structural laws of stratification can be explained functionally as well. Maximal contrast seems to fulfill best the function of phonemes, which lies in the differentiation of meanings. Furthermore, the progression from the simple to the differentiated corresponds to the economic principle of the greatest possible simplicity.
8Static phenomenology is, strictly speaking, a structural science since it aims to elucidate the kinds of relations that connect the parts of a whole and the parts to a whole, whether this whole be one single object or a comprehensive set of objects. According to Husserl two kinds of relations are formally constitutive of the unity of a whole, namely, relations of one-sided founding and relations of reciprocal founding (Husserl 1913, 265). Husserl’s concept of founding and the more common logical concept of implication are complementary terms. The proposition “B implies A” corresponds to the proposition “A founds B.” Jakobson prefers the first formulation. An illustration of one-sided implication is the relationship between ideas and propositions. Propositions imply underlying ideas. But there are also ideas independent of propositions. An illustration of a reciprocal implication is the relationship between color and extension in visual perception.
9Starting from Husserl’s formal definition of relations that are constitutive of a whole, Jakobson has succeeded in uncovering universal laws underlying the constitution of language and in particular its phono|logical level This perhaps most consistent and remarkable application of Husserl’s “theory of wholes and parts”2 certainly merits attention from phenomenological philosophy since it refers to an area which Husserl himself proposed exploring in his Logical Investigations (see Husserl 1913, I and IV). Jakobson’s application of this theory, using the pioneering work of H. Pos (Pos 1937; 1938; 1939) as a springboard, led him to a conceptual clarification of an important relation of reciprocal implication, namely the relation of opposition and — taking up where Trubetzkoy (Trubeckoj 1931) left off — to the exposure of a still more remarkable relation of one-sided implication, namely the relation between marked and unmarked elements of a system. Both relations play a fundamental role in the constitution of the system of language.3
10The relation of opposition is an excellent example for determining whether a structural description is phenomenological or logicistic. Logic defines opposition as a formal exclusion. The proponents of a positivistic logicism in linguistics have adopted this definition. Pos and Jakobson, on the other hand, practice a phenomenological definition of opposition. A phenomenological definition differs from a purely logicistic one in that the definiendum is examined not only as it is “in itself”, but also as it is given in the “mind”, “for us.” From this phenomenological point of view, oppo|sition appears to be both an exclusion as well as an inclusion. Oppositions such as light and dark also exclude each other in the mind, but the excluded member of the opposition is necessarily also included in the mind. The perception of a light phoneme presupposes the idea of dark sounds, on the background of which we become aware of the lightness of the perceived phoneme. The same thing applies to other oppositional features of a single phoneme. This means that the discrimination of the distinctive features of a single phoneme implies the “co-presentation” in the mind of a whole system of distinctive features. The system is not co-present in the form of a perception or a phantasy, but rather, as pheno|menology puts it, intentionally. An intentional co-presence possesses the possibility of one’s being able to reflect upon it, whereby the intentional can become imaginatively conscious.
11This analysis of concepts shows that static, i.e. structural, phenomeno|logy cannot be separated from transcendental phenomenology, insofar as transcendental phenomenology is understood to explore all data in their relation to the mind, in which they appear as perceived, thought, or otherwise intended.
12One of the most remarkable phenomena in the constitution of language is the relationship of marked and unmarked data. Trubetzkoy (Trubeckoj 1931, 97) introduced this pair of concepts within phonology for the fact that the two members of a correlative contrast (e.g. voiced vs. voiceless) are not equivalent. The one member possesses the respective marking; the other either does not possess it or possesses it in its negative form. In Trubetzkoy’s definition the relation marked vs. unmarked is reduced to a “privative opposition”, the presence vs. the absence of a marking. Jakobson (Jakobson 1971 [1931], 3ff.) transferred this pair of concepts from phonology to the fields of morphology, syntax, and semantics, thus delineating his definition more precisely by uncovering the complex semantic structure of the unmarked term. The unmarked sign can have two different meanings, a general meaning and a restricted meaning. In its general meaning the unmarked sign provides no information about the presence or absence of a positive or negative property. In its specific meaning, however, it indicates the absence of this property. The marked sign indicates its presence. If an acquaintance asks me with whom I had dinner the night before and I answer “with an actor”, then I have said nothing about whether it was a man or a woman (non-indication of the marking “female”). If the acquaintance is curious and continues to probe “was it an actress?” (indication of the marking “female”), and I reply “No, it was an actor!” (indication of “not-female”), then with the same unmarked expression, “actor”, I have revealed the gender of my dinner companion of the previous evening. The marked sign provides more information than the unmarked sign. If I ask someone “How old is Peter?” I suggest that I know nothing precise about his age. But if I ask “How young is Peter?” then I indicate that I know Peter is more young than old.
13A series of interesting properties is linked with the relation of marked and unmarked signs: (1) There is no language that contains a marked term without the corresponding unmarked term. (2) In the constitution of language the unmarked term appears first. (3) In the disintegration of language, it is the marked term that is lost first. (4) It follows from points 1, 2, and 3 that there are more unmarked than marked terms. (5) The external form (phonological and morphological) of the unmarked term is usually simpler than that of the marked term. If in a language only one of the two grammatical categories, singular and plural, is characterized by a particular morpheme, then it is always the marked category of the plural. (6) The inner form of the unmarked term is usually more complex than that of the marked term. If the differentiation of a grammatical category reflects meaning, then this always applies to its unmarked members first. Thus the three genders in German, masculine, feminine, and neuter, are distinguished in the unmarked singular of the article and not in the marked plural.
14Jakobson does not stop at the mere enumeration of such properties. Nor does he take the positivistic course of deriving all properties from the property of the greater frequency of the unmarked term, here listed third. Rather, he looks for an “inner reason.” This is to be found in the qualitative nature of the individual terms. Only an analysis of the quali|tative nature is capable of explaining why, for example, the compactness of vowels is unmarked and their diffuseness marked, while the pattern is reversed with consonants. In accordance with their dominant feature, vowels are compact, consonants diffuse. Vocality and compactness are related features which mutually imply and reinforce each other. Diffuseness, on the other hand, obstructs vocality. The vowel /u/, which appears diffuse in comparison to the optimal vowel /a/, is a non|conforming, exceptional, and differentiated representative of its class; it is understandable why the child acquires it at a later stage and the aphasic loses it at an earlier one.
15A phenomenological analysis of structure is characterized by the fact, firstly, that it recurs to the mind in which a structure is given, and, secondly, that it takes into account the qualitative or material content of the members of a relation. In this sense, Jakobson’s findings on the relation of opposition and on the relation between marked and unmarked data can be designated as phenomenological analyses.
162. While static phenomenology explores the “connections governed by ideal laws” (idealgesetzliche Zusammenhänge) (Husserl 1913, 470) genetic phenomenology is concerned with the temporal dimension of these connections. The question is to what extent the hierarchy of the levels and strata of a datum allows or requires a temporal or a historical inter|pretation. Through the ordering of the temporal aspect, the question as to what kind of causal connection there is between the various strata comes to the fore as well and is further clarified.
17Phenomenology as well as structural linguistics arose as counter|movements to the genetically based sciences at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet, interestingly enough, both rehabilitate genetic questions and include them in systematic investigations the moment other forms of causal dependence are discovered besides real-causal (as Husserl would put it) or mechanistic-causal (as Jakobson would put it) dependence. In Husserl’s case these other forms are motivational; in the case of Prague structuralism they are functional or teleological relations of dependence.4 Causation is the form of causality that connects physical objects with one another. Motivation is the form of causality that governs mental and phenomenal data. A causal explanation of the data of the mind recurs to physiological and ultimately to physical events. A motivational explanation confines itself to the framework of the mind. Mental data are explained only through other mental data. The perception of a car that is driving straight toward me motivates me to jump aside. The direct cause of my movement is not a physical object (the car), but rather a phenomenal datum (the perception of the car). A motivational explanation is an explanation immanent to the mind.
18The functional or teleological explanation is also an immanent explanation. A datum is explained within the system of which it is a member. Thus, structural linguistics explains a sound mutation not primarily through external, physical, and physiological influences, but rather (1) through the structural pattern of the phonological system, and (2) through the role that this phonological system plays within the entire language system. The role of phonemes in language consists of the differentiation of values, of cognitive values (i.e., meanings) and of emotional values. A living language presupposes a rich stock of differ|entiated and differentiating signs. Often the creation of new sound variations along with the disregard of established sound variations grows out of the need of the speaker to express emotional attitudes such as the awareness of belonging to a new generation (Jakobson 1971 [1953], 562ff.). Sound variations whose functions lie in an emotional differ|entiation easily assume the function of differentiating meaning as well. The establishment of the new sound variations, however, leads to a disruption of the structural balance of the phonological system. This results in a chain reaction of sound modifications whose function it is to restore the disrupted harmony of the system.
19To what extent the language system is a mental system and to what extent the functional explanation can be considered not only immanent to the system but also immanent to the mind is another question. Most representatives of structural linguistics manifest a certain reserve toward questions concerning the ontological status of a system. This reserve is partially motivated by Husserl’s discussion of the psychologicistic reassessment of the formal laws of logic. In the first volume of his Logical Investigations, Husserl demonstrated the absurdity of a psychological interpretation of formal, a priori laws. In section IV below concerning transcendental phenomenology, the relationship between structuralism and mentalism will be treated in more detail. Important here is only the observation that both phenomenology and structural linguistics agree that the genesis of a phenomenal field can be treated structurally. Systematic, structural treatment is no longer confined to the synchronic dimension, as it was in the early phase of phenomenology (see Husserl 1913, 470) and in Saussure’s Cours (Saussure 1967 [1916]). According to both phenome|nology and structural linguistics, the systematic-structural treatment of the diachronic dimension is made possible through the presence of a form of immanent causality that is distinguished from the mechanistic form of causality.
20The genetic phenomenology of Husserl and the structural linguistics of Jakobson and his Prague colleagues consider time itself as an essential feature, i.e. as a structural factor in a series of data.5 Time is no longer something that is external to a system; it is an inherent factor of the system. Linguistic patterns of an older generation that are being replaced by newly introduced forms of a younger generation often continue to coexist quite a while with the new forms. They survive in the intuition of the native speakers as “archaisms”, i.e., with a temporal index. By using them one can give voice to a conservative, reactionary, or simply nostalgic attitude. The time factor is a value factor. In poetry an additional aspect is involved. The relationship between the time experienced during the recitation of a poem and the objective time described in the poetic text can be exploited by the poet as a stylistic device. The range of remembrance is also of decisive significance for the closed structure of a poem. All parts, including the beginning and ending of a poem, are structurally joined together. They are effective only if all parts of the poem to the last line are vividly remembered (Jakobson 1973, 42ff.; 489ff.).
21Husserl explored the relationship between static and genetic pheno|menology almost exclusively in research manuscripts. These unpublished manuscripts, in which he tried to come to grips with these problems, seldom have a systematic character. Nor have they any claim to a definitive presentation of a problem. Accordingly, one looks in vain for a systematic, coherent, consistent discussion of the relationship between static and genetic phenomenology in Husserl’s work. This is particularly regrettable since in the years following the First World War, Husserl had clearly left behind, as the main subject of his research, the abstraction of the early static phase of phenomenology and also the static orientation of Gestalt psychology in favor of genetic problems.
22On the other hand, Jakobson began his linguistic analyses precisely with a systematic elucidation of the relationship between synchrony and diachrony, i.e., between system and history. He rejected Saussure’s strict separation of the two dimensions and undertook a detailed investigation of the new conception of their relationship on the basis of the sound development of Slavic languages (Jakobson 1971 [1928]). Saussure’s anti|nomic approach rests on the equivalence of the dichotomy synchronic vs. diachronic, with three other dichotomies, namely, systematic vs. chaotic, teleological vs. mechanic, and static vs. dynamic. Jakobson succeeds in demonstrating that diachrony is no less systematic and teleological than synchrony, and that static and dynamic phenomena occur on both the synchronic and diachronic axes.6
233. Husserl calls phenomenology an eidetic science inasmuch as it does not merely deal with empirical facts, but rather with the “cognition of essences” (Wesenserkenntnisse). Eidetic phenomenology does not merely try to determine how an object is actually constituted (e.g., the average volume in speaking of a particular phoneme in a particular dialect). Nor does it simply aim to arrive at empirical universals (e.g., the observation that all people speak with a frequency of 20 to 20,000 cps.), which can be explained by empirical means (e.g., the actual nature of the human speech-organs). It is rather the aim of phenomenology to explore the essence of a datum of a particular category (e.g., a vowel), to explore what necessarily belongs to it in order to make it a datum of this category (e.g., the unmarkedness of its compactness), and not simply to explore what coincidentally belongs to it on the basis of external circumstances. Accordingly, the findings are not empirical universals, but rather “eidetic universals” (Wesensallgemeinheiten), which are necessarily valid for all objects of the same category. Only those invariants are designated as universals, in the actual sense of the word, which are valid for an entire category such as the grammar of all languages, and not merely for a subcategory of objects such as the grammar of individual languages.
24Phenomenological research has concentrated largely on the episte|mological and ontological status of eidetic universals. Is an eidetic universal directly approachable through an intuition (the so-called “seeing of an essence”, Wesensschau) (roughly Husserl’s early position), or is it not more the result of a multi-level genetic process of constitution (Husserl’s later position)? In recent times Husserl’s doctrine of essences has been questioned as a kind of rationalistic dogma. These reservations can in part be ascribed to the attractiveness of Wittgenstein’s thesis of “family resemblances” (Wittgenstein 1953, §67).
25Jakobson’s contribution to eidetic phenomenology consists in his having set forth the relational and implicational character of a great many eidetic universals in exemplary analyses in the fields of phonology and morphology. It is largely due to Jakobson’s influence on linguistics (and anthropology) that universals have become a major theme of scientific research (see Greenberg 1963; 1971, 294ff.; 327) and that the line drawn by Husserl in the Ideas I (Husserl 1950, 3ff) between sciences that restrict themselves to the factual and empirical universals, and phenomenology which is directed toward eidetic universals can no longer be maintained.
26Husserl’s eidetic analyses are limited mainly to individual, isolated objects. Husserl is, of course, aware that a phenomenon has not been fully elucidated until those relations have been examined that the object maintains with the other phenomena in the immediate category or region to which it belongs and ultimately with the totality of all categories, with the world as a whole. But there are no systematically elaborated illustrations of a non-atomistic, holistic eidetic analysis, although some efforts in that direction have been made, for example, in the analyses of the various mental modes (the relationships among perception, memory, expectation, imagination, etc.). Jakobson, on the other hand, offers well-rounded eidetic analyses of various closed fields of data such as the universal phonological system (Jakobson 1971 [1956], 464ff.). and the general meanings of the Russian cases (Jakobson 1971 [1936], 23ff.). He demonstrates that it is a harmonic system of relational features that is constitutive of the individual elements of a field of data.
27Thus, four Russian cases (nominative, accusative, instrumental, and dative) have a simple or double relation of opposition to each other, which is formed by the relation of presence vs. absence of the two general meanings of “directedness” and/or “marginality.” In addition, the nominative differs from the other three cases through the absence of both markings vs. their varying presence in the other cases. The accusative differs from the nominative through the presence of directedness vs. its absence, from the instrumental through the same relationship plus the absence of marginality vs. its presence, from the dative — characterized by the presence of both markings — through the absence of marginality vs. its presence. With only one additional feature, that of “quantification," the other two Russian cases, the genitive and locative, that is, the other four cases if the sub-groups of the genitive and locative are counted separately, can be successfully included in this network of opposing relations.
28The distinction between absolute and implicational universals is of great theoretical significance. Absolute universals hold for all the repre|sentatives of a category. An absolute linguistic universal is, for instance, the distinction between vowels and consonants. This distinction occurs in all languages. Other universals, conditional or implicational, build upon these absolute universals, which serve as the base of a system. The presence of nasal vowels, for example, presupposes in all languages the presence of oral vowels. Languages with only oral and no nasal vowels do exist, but one finds no languages that have nasal vowels without oral vowels. Entire hierarchies of such implicational rules can be set up for all linguistic entities. In addition to positive forms of implication, there are also negative forms, which express incompatibility. The presence of a particular phonological opposition can exclude the presence of another opposition. The presence of the one implies the absence of the other. This means that not all languages can simultaneously realize all the possibilities given in the comprehensive code of the human language. At certain levels in the constitution of individual languages, one must make a choice between alternative possibilities.
29Each individual language is a subsystem of a comprehensive super|system; it shares its base with all other languages, i.e., the base is absolutely universal. What is erected on this base is variable, but not arbitrarily so. The variability obeys strict rules of implication, according to which certain actualizations either include, admit, or exclude other actualizations.
30Jakobson’s conception of a hierarchically stratified system of absolute and implicational universals lies between Husserl’s classical doctrine of essences and Wittgenstein’s thesis of “family resemblances.” Husserl’s doctrine of essences recognizes only absolute invariants. In Wittgenstein’s thesis of “family resemblances”, the elements of a class, in much the same way as the members of a family, are characterized by a series of different features, none of which is, however, to be found without exception in all of the elements. A complicated network of resemblances is given; these resemblances are always shared by groups of elements, but never by the whole class of connected elements. What distinguishes Jakobson from Wittgenstein is the non-arbitrariness, the strictly ordered presence and absence of features. Features are not arbitrarily present or absent; their presence or absence depends on the presence or absence of other features.
314. To appreciate Jakobson’s contribution to transcendental phenomenology, one must distinguish two stages in which the phenomenological attitude is executed. The first stage consists of an ordinary-phenomenological (schlicht-phänomenologische) attitude, also called by Husserl the geisteswissenschaftliche attitude. It is characterized by the rejection of the physicalistic explanation of mental and cultural phenomena. Instead of explaining these phenomena physicalistically by means of postulated physical (physiological and neuro|logical) entities, phenomenology “reduces” research to the meaning and structures inherent to these phenomena and to examining to what extent they are intuitively accessible to a subject. The second stage leads to the pure transcendental attitude. The main concern here is the ontological status of the objects investigated and of the subject itself.
32According to Husserl the sciences are content with the first stage; the second stage is reserved for philosophy. This division could well lead to a dispute of words. As soon as a science such as psychology or physics encounters phenomena that imply questions about the ontological status of these phenomena, then it must necessarily become philosophical. Why such questions are not raised on every page of a scientific paper is easily explained. The structure of a phenomenon does not change in the transition from the ordinary-phenomenological attitude to the transcendental attitude. In the transcendental attitude we cannot discover any language structures that we have not already found in the ordinary-phenomenological attitude.
33A phenomenological attitude is without doubt a prerequisite for determining the structure and function of a phonological system (see Jakobson 1936, 81). Traditional phonetics, prejudiced by a naturalistic orientation, examined the sounds of language largely in terms of their causal dependence upon physiological and physical events, that is upon the articulation processes and acoustic waves that accompany them. Thus, traditional phonetics failed to recognize that which distinguishes the sounds of language from other auditory sounds, i.e., their function of differentiating meaning and the effect of this function on the stratification of the sound system. The function of differentiating meaning leads to the development of a hierarchically stratified system of oppositional features. Such a system best serves the function of language sounds.
34An ordinary-phenomenological attitude suffices for all these discov|eries. The transcendental attitude does not expose any additional structures, but it and it alone can elucidate the following two questions. The first pertains to the existence of “things in themselves” independent of the mind and, correspondingly, to the ontological status of the mind itself. For example, do the acoustic waves that become visible in the form of a spectogram by means of a technical apparatus lead an existence inde|pendent of the mind, or is the postulate that they exist independent of the mind merely a so-called “transcendental illusion”? In other words, is this postulate grounded not in things themselves, but only in the structure of our minds, which upon the appearance of certain phenomena automa|tically motivates us to believe in their existence independent of the mind? And what about the mind? Is it really the source of all empirical reality, and is it not itself an entity in an independent, real world and real time? The second question arises out of this complex of ontological questions. It concerns the relation of causal dependence which we postulate, for instance, between acoustic waves and our auditory perceptions. Again the question is whether the postulate of causal dependence corresponds to a fact that is independent of the mind or whether it, too, is a “tran|scendental illusion.” Neither the findings of linguistics nor those of physics change when both questions are answered “idealistically” rather than “realistically.”
35Fixed adherence to one attitude, however, has proven to impede scientific research. The naturalistic orientation of traditional phonetics was not receptive to the discoveries to which modern phonology owes its key position within recent linguistics. Likewise, traditional phenomenology with its bracketing-out of all physical data from the phenomenology of perception, which is so basic to phenomenological philosophy, was not receptive to the insight that it is most fruitful to view physical data such as the above-mentioned acoustic waves purely phenomenologically, and as such, to relate them to other phenomenological data, namely auditorily perceived phonemes (see Holenstein 1976, 114ff.).
36There is nevertheless a certain discrepancy here between phenomeno|logy and structuralism, due to divergent interests in research. The supersession of the scientific conception of the universe at the close of the nineteenth century received impetus from philosophy, which is mainly interested in ontological questions, especially in terms of the two concepts, phenomenological vs. naturalistic (or phenomenalistic vs. physicalistic). Most of the sciences directed their attention to other aspects of the two attitudes. Thus, structural vs. atomistic and functional vs. mechanistic are the opposing concepts of the “structural and functional linguistics” of the Prague school. In description, atomistic stimuli and sense data are replaced by structural wholes; in explanation, teleological principles take the place of the old mechanistic principles.
37It is often said that the main concern of transcendental phenomenology lies in the inevitable attachment of all experience and all theoretical reflection to the subject that does the experiencing and sets up the theories. On this basis phenomenologists reproach structuralism for ignoring the subjective relativity of all objective cognition (Ricoeur 1969, 55ff.), but it can easily be shown that just the opposite is the case (Holenstein 1975b, 55ff.). By no means is the fact overlooked that the subject always co-appears in the object of experience; in other words, the observer is a part of his observation. It was Husserl’s theory of apper|ception (attitude) that helped Jakobson to clarify the difference between a phonetic and a phonological treatment of speech sounds. We can view the same perceptual data in different ways: as physiologically produced acoustic waves and auditory sounds, and as instances in a system of values that differentiate meaning. Depending on our orientation, different structures come to the foreground of perception. The subject is not eliminated in Jakobson’s structural linguistics; on the contrary, it is elaborated. In fact, language is not carried by the single individual, but rather by an intersubjective community — and less by the self-conscious ego than by the unconscious strata of the human mind. Furthermore, this differentiation of the subject in structuralism quite coincides with Husserl’s own development. After an extremely egocentric phase in the years before the First World War (Husserl 1950), Husserl’s analyses of the mind led him in the 1920’s and 1930’s to increasingly accentuated research into the intersubjective and passive (i.e., unconscious and invol|untary) strata of the transcendental sphere.7
38One can also describe the difference between a naturalistic and a phenomenological attitude through the conception of the whole, in relation to which the particular data are defined.8 In the naturalistic attitude the real, physical world is the totality through which an individual datum is explained. A complex of visual data is seen as a thing. The particular state of its properties results from the causal nexus in which the thing rests, with its environment and ultimately with the world, defined as the totality of all things. In the transcendental-phenomenological attitude the mind becomes the whole through which everything is endowed with form and meaning. One single datum, along with the world in which it is embedded, thus proves to be a part of a more comprehensive whole. The (real) world appears to be something that is never given independent of the mind in which it is constituted as a phenomenon among others (other possible worlds). With modern linguistics a new turn in the definition of the whole has been ushered in, a turn that takes place, however, within the transcendental framework. At least this is one way of interpreting it. Apel speaks of it as “language oriented” or as a “semiotic transformation of transcendental philosophy” (Apel 1973, 271; 353).
39To clarify what this transformation refers to and to determine the specific contribution of the structural linguistics, it is necessary to dis|criminate between the noetic and the noematic side of the transcendental mind. Mental acts or experiences (e.g. acts of perceiving, remembering, understanding, etc.) form the noetic side of the mind. The objects or contents of the mind (the perceived, remembered, understood objects as such) belong to the noematic side. The explicit distinction between noesis and noema stems from Husserl (Husserl 1950, 179ff.). The really basic stratum is the noematic side (Husserl 1963, 87ff.). The essential structure of intentional objects (e.g. a thing, but also a linguistic entity of language such as a sentence) forms a “regulative structure (Regelstruktur) for the transcendental ego.” This means that, according to Husserl and to Jakobson as well (Jakobson 1971 [1967], 676), the ground upon which everything is constituted is not a psychologically (or even biologically) apprehended mind, i.e., a bundle of innate dispositions, but rather an objective system of categories, rules, and relations.
40Kantian transcendental philosophy proposes a logical derivation of the system of categories. Kant’s table of categories is a reformulation of the table of logical functions, i.e., the table of the different forms of propositions. The categories of quantity (unity, plurality, totality) are, for example, derived from the forms of propositions of quantity (universal, particular, and singular propositions) (Kant 1781 A 70; 1787 B 95ff.). In reference to this table of categories (or the noematic side of the mind), one can view a linguistic-semiotic transformation of transcendental philosophy in two ways: (1) as evidence that besides the categories taken over from logic, there are other categories that are not logical (at least not in the classical sense of the word), but rather grammatical in nature; (2) as evidence that the table of categories itself originates not so much in logic as in language.
41Husserl has demonstrated the validity of the first point (Husserl 1913, 326ff.). Infringement of the laws of formal logic results in “counter-sense” (contradiction; e.g., a “round square”). These laws are preceded by other laws which cannot be ignored without producing utter “nonsense” (e.g., “those man and is”). The cognition or constitution of objectivities is bound not only to logical but also to grammatical laws of compatibility and incompatibility. Evidence for the second point has been submitted by Benveniste, who refers, however, to Aristotle’s older table of categories instead of to Kant’s (Benveniste 1966, 63–74). According to Benveniste, the choice of these categories is determined by the Greek language, in other words, by the Indo-European grammatical pattern. A philosopher without an Indo-European language pattern would hardly have arrived at the same table of categories.
42The system of categories must not be dogmatized as an independent whole. It is never given to us other than in an indissoluble correlation with mental acts, in which it is endowed with a phenomenal existence. The specific contribution of structural linguistics to the transformation of transcendental philosophy lies in the fact that it also provides an approach to a semiotic interpretation of noetic phenomena, whose definition until recently was a prerogative of psychology. This approach involves the acts of signification and understanding (Verstehen).
43The traditional theory of signification is characterized by a blend of formal and psychological determinations. In addition to the formal definition aliquid stat pro aliquo, there are psychological definitions according to which signification is determined as an expression of something intelligible by something perceptual. Modern semiotics proposes a methodologically unified structural definition of the relationship between signans and signatum and its various modes.9
44The process of understanding, too, is no longer described primarily with psychological (or biological) categories, for example, as a subjective appropriation or assimilation, but rather with a linguistic category, as translation. We have grasped the meaning of a sign only when we have mastered the replacement of this sign by a sign that belongs to another system. According to Peirce’s definition, the essence of a sign lies in its translatability into other signs (Peirce 1931). Jakobson distinguishes three kinds of translation: intralingual (paraphrases, definitions in the same language), interlingual (translations in the customary sense of the word), and inter-semiotic translations (interpretations of verbal signs by means of signs from nonverbal sign systems) (Jakobson 1971 [1958], 261). Under|standing is equivalent to mastering the relation in which a sign is embedded. We understand a sign when we are capable of actualizing its relations.
45The impression that structuralism neglects the subject may well be a simple misunderstanding of a divergent emphasis. Traditional transcen|dental philosophy put the accent on the fact that the structure of the world reflects the structure of the mind. The categories of things are identical with the categories of experience and thought, in other words, they are “subjective.” Structuralism emphasizes another fact, the fact that in the cognition or constitution of the world, the mind is bound to a system of categories, rules, and relations. Whether this system can be completely translated into linguistic or semiotic terminology is most doubtful.10 This is also a secondary problem. More important is the reaffirmation of the traditional view that this system is to an astonishing extent universal and a priori in nature.
- 1 Husserl’s static phenomenology differs from Brentano’s descriptive psychology in the bracketing of all existential suppositions of a mental datum. In Husserl’s opinion descriptive psychology naively postulates a real mind for every mental phenomenon. The “thesis of empirical reality of one’s own mind is, according to Husserl, an act of the mind itself, motivated by certain phenomenal data. In an analysis of the mind, therefore, the reality of the mind cannot be presupposed from the first. I render the German terms Bewusstsein and Gegebenheit with “mind (mental)” and “datum.” The connotations of “consciousness” (and of the German Bewusstsein!) and “givenness” seem to me to give rise to more confusion for non-phenomenologists than do the potential connotations of “mind” and “datum”.
- 2 In the foreword to the second edition of Logische Untersuchungen [Logical Investigations] (Vol. I, XV), Husserl expresses his regret that the third investigation, devoted to wholes and parts, received but little consideration. He himself deems it an “essential prerequisite for a complete understanding of the following investigations.” After Gurwitsch’s critical treatment of this third investigation from the point of view of Gestalt psychology (Aron Gurwitsch, “Phänomenologie der Thematik und des reinen Ich”, Psychologische Forschung 12 [1929], 19–381), Sokolowski has recently used it as the starting point for a remarkable phenomenological study (Robert Sokolowski, Husserlian Meditations [Evanston, III.: Northwestern University Press, 1974]). As the underlying theme of this study, he chose the same formal relations, the elucidations of which by Husserl was so highly valued by Jakobson and his colleagues in the Linguistic Circle of Prague. These relations are, in addition to the relations between wholes and parts, the relation between presence and absence, i.e., between empty and filled (see the discussion below and also Holenstein 1975, 71) and the relation of identity (invariants) in manifolds (see the section below concerning eidetic phenomenology).
- 3 For a more detailed presentation, see Holenstein (1975a 126ff.)
- 4 Husserl, too, often appeals to teleology as an explanatory principle (Husserl 1950), 110ff.). Teleology is, however, not clarified in his writing to the same extent as motivation so that it retains a dogmatic character.
- 5 In addition, Husserl in Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1893–1917) [=Husserliana X (Husserl 1966) elucidates the essential structure of time and of awareness of time itself.]
- 6 For a more detailed presentation of the relationship between static and genetic phenomenology in Husserl and of the relationship between synchrony and diachrony in Jakobson, see Holenstein (1972, 25ff.; 297ff.; 1975b 34ff.).
- 7 The phenomenology of intersubjectivity deals with two different problems: (1) the possibility of understanding other subjects whose language and experience are asymmetric in relation to my language and my experience; (2) the possibility of an objective cognition or constitution of the world, i.e., a cognition that holds “for everybody”, or, in other words, a constitution that is shared by various subjects, that is invariant as seen from the standpoint of various subjects. On Jakobson’s contribution to the first problem, see Holenstein (1976); on the second problem, see Holenstein (1975b).
- 8 For an analogous interpretation of the hermeneutic and the structuralistic conception of understanding, see Holenstein, “The Structure of Understanding.” Sokolowski (1974, 12ff.) also chooses the whole on the basis of which the part is defined as the guiding principle for his presentation of different attitudes.
- 9 For Saussure it was semiology, as he called the theory of signs, that allowed him to dissolve the bands between linguistics and its traditional foundation in psychology (and sociology as well), and to formulate it as an autonomous science (Engler 1970, 61–73).
- 10 Note Husserl’s critique of theories that explain perception as “picture consciousness” and the apperception of sensory things as interpretation (Husserl 1950, 99ff.;Holenstein 1972, 145ff). For a more extensive discussion of the problems in Section IV, see Holenstein (1976, 148ff.).
