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p Does recognising the independence of the material object from individual consciousness signify a rejection of the attempt itself of substantiating knowledge through assertion of the self-certainty of knowledge or some subjective structures connected with it? The experiences of philosophy throughout its history show that it is not obligatory. There are epistemological conceptions in bourgeois philosophy which try not to make the mistakes characteristic of subjectivist empiricism, of the “ sensedatum” doctrine, and at the same time to substantiate knowledge through fundamental recognition of the specific and autonomous nature of subjectiveness. It is stressed in this case that any cognitive experiences have such constitutive links (stipulating the presence in experience of physical objects with a definite correlation and subordination of the various aspects of these objects, of causal chains, of spatio-temporal arrangement of objects and events, etc.) which cannot be reduced to "sense data”, to some chance empirical filling of experience or mere physical impact of an external object on the cognizant 63 subject’s sense organs. The structure of experience is objective in nature, assert the adherents of this approach, and it does not depend on the individual observer, individual subject, his states and "sense data”.

p At the same time a fundamentally important step is taken in the interpretation of the subject himself: the subject is split, as it were, into two distinct constitutive strata, the individual and transcendental subjects. As regards the first, the objective structure of experience is believed to be independent of it. At the same time, this structure, the norms and criteria applied in the cognitive process, are rooted in the propertied of the transcendental subject. This approach, which came to be termed transcendentalism, is thus a kind of reformulation of Descartes’ programme of analysing cognition. Various types of transcendentalism differ from each other in their treatment of the possibility itself of discovering the transcendental structure of experience and, consequently, the possibility of solving the problem of substantiation of knowledge.

p One of the most influential conceptions of this type in modern bourgeois philosophy is Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. It should be noted that of all the transcendentalist doctrines, phenomenology is the closest to Descartes in the formulation of tasks and in the search for the methods of epistemological research. Husserl endeavours to analyse transcendental consciousness by applying a specific procedure which he calls a phenomenological description of what is given to consciousness with the greatest obviousness and self-certainty.

p Husserl believes that any cognition of reality is founded on direct, intuitive knowledge identified in phenomenology with perception. The latter, however, is not understood at all in the spirit of philosophical empiricism. Sense perception and direct perception are not synonymous in Husserl’s philosophy. First, Husserl singles out various types of direct perception and the corresponding experiences of obviousness, pertaining not only to physical objects but also to states of consciousness, not only to individual objects but also to their essences, “eidoses”, or universals (the so-called immediate insight into essence). Second, Husserl asserts that perception of physical objects, or "external perception”, is by no means reducible to a given ensemble of sensual components, the "sense data”, but always includes certain non-sensual elements or layers characterising the schema of the given kind of objectiveness.

p Substantiation of knowledge in transcendental phenomenology is reduced to singling out the acts of cognition whose objects are experienced quite obviously, 64 that is, are actually and immediately given to consciousness. The other aspect of the solution offered is separation of the actually given from that which is not actually given. The point is, Husserl argues, that in ordinary cognition as it factually occurs, the actually given, i.e., immediately grasped, is mixed with what is not actually given, what is added in thinking, assumed or supposed (“imagined”, in Husserl’s terminology). Certainly that which is not given actually but merely assumed is linked in a definite way with what is given quite obviously. However, this link is not of the sort to warrant certain expectation that future experience will ensure the “implementation” of experiential components that are purely “imaginary” at the given stage (i.e., it will provide corresponding data experienced with certainty).^^59^^

p For instance, if I perceive a house, I obviously perceive at the given moment only the givenness to me of the side of the house that directly faces me. At the same time, the very act of my perception includes the assumption of the existence of the house’s other sides and the possibility for me to see these sides provided I move in a certain manner round the house. (That is exactly what the representatives of the empirical conception analysed above called the "possible sense data".) Without assuming the possibility of obtaining corresponding obvious entities, the act of perception itself would be impossible. It may so happen, however, that in moving round the house I shall discover that its back wall is destroyed by some catastrophe, that consequently it is no longer a house in the proper sense of the word, and that the dwellers have left it. In this case my original perception of the given object as a normal house will prove to be erroneous, and expectations of corresponding obvious entities connected with the given object, unrealised.

p Thus, the assumption in the act of perception itself of some individual object being a thing of a given kind, in this case "a house" (its perception "against the horizon" of a definite kind of objectiveness, as Husserl puts it), proved to be unsatisfied by the corresponding individual certainties. The individual object, "this house”, was not given to consciousness with complete certainty. It is, however, important to emphasise, Husserl continues, that the very act of assumption, the act of “opinion” about the given individual object, is given to consciousness with certainty. The perception of the individual object as a house proved to be unrealised, but the very act of such and such orientation of consciousness, in this case orientation at perception of the given object as a house, is fully 65 obvious to the consciousness.

p From Husserl’s standpoint, a "material thing always remains incompletely and one-sidedly open. This involves the possibility of disappointment, that is, the possibility that in new ‘perspectives’ the thing will not prove to be identical to itself. A material thing always reveals itself relatively, so that doubt about its actual being is not excluded, and its being thereby manifests itself as accidental. The being of a material thing is never considered other than along with the consideration of the possibility of its non-being. We shall never be able to assert with full certaintiy, that is, apodictically, that this table actually exists because I actually and directly see this colour and this figure.”^^60^^

p The fact, however, is given to consciousness with full apodictical obviousness that it performs at a given moment the acts of such and such orientation, assuming, “opining” something. One can doubt the being of the external world but one cannot doubt the being of consciousness itself, the being of self, Husserl repeats Descartes’ train of thought.

p As we orientate our consciousness at direct perception, at experiencing its acts with apodictical certainty, ignoring the question whether actual objects correspond to these acts (i.e., performing in Husserl’s terms the epoche procedure, that is, refraining from asserting the actual existence of the corresponding objects), we are dealing, from the standpoint of transcendental phenomenology, with a special kind of object—"pure consciousness , and with a special act of direct comprehension, intuitive grasping of this object—transcendental reflexion.

p Husserl underlines the fact that ordinary experience, with which everyday practice has to do, and the special sciences, proceed from the actual existence of the world of material objects. That is the so-called natural attitude of consciousness. Transcendental reflexion, whose task is finding out apodictical certainties (and that is the only way to "solving the problem of substantiation of knowledge, Husserl believes), is forced to abandon the “natural” attitude of ordinary consciousness, that is, it has to perform the epoche procedure.

p But "transcendental reduction" and epoche are not enough for substantiating knowledge, Husserl believes. To achieve that goal, "eidetic reduction" is also needed.

p Knowledge of certain objective givenness always assumes direct grasping not only of individual givenness but also of the substantive, necessary connections, of object structures. Individual certainty itself is given only in the 66 framework of “horizon” of essential (“eidetic”) dependences. Substantiation of knowledge is therefore, first of all, establishment of these dependences which determine the possibility of any concrete experience pertaining to the comprehension of individual real objects. In other words, the answer to the question "How is knowledge possible?" assumes, first of all, the establishment of the essences, the “eidoses” of all the various types of “thingness” with which experience has to deal.

p “Eidoses" in transcendental phenomenology are not the same as concepts, although they appear very close at first glance, for concepts, too, characterise the essence of objects. “Eidoses” are not cognitive, logical constructions but rather meanings and essential structures of various types of thingness, which are given, in Husserl’s view, directly, intuitively, within a specific attitude of consciousness. They exist prelingually, although they may be expressed in language, too. However, language is incapable of fully expressing all their shadings, for first, it is the instrument of reasoning rather than of direct contemplation, and second, it is inseparable from the “natural”, ordinary attitude of consciousness. The task of phenomenological description is exceptionally difficult, both because of the difficulty of performing the act itself of intuitively grasping the “ eidoses”, an act assuming a rejection of the “natural” attitude of consciousness, and because of the impossibility of describing precisely in language the results of transcendental reflexion; it therefore proves necessary to resort to metaphors, hints, allegories, and other modes of oblique rendering of meaning, including the invention of new verbal constructions.

p The types and kinds of “eidoses” are assumed to be varied and irreducible to one another in transcendental phenomenology. They include the “eidoses” of separate kinds of physical objects (a “table”, a “chair”, a “house”, etc.); such “eidoses” as "physical object”, “number”, “figure”, “perception”, “reasoning”, etc.; such “eidoses” which phenomenalist empiricists would refer to as "sense universals": “redness”, “blueness”, “colouredness”, “loudness”, etc.

p Thus for Husserl, genuine knowledge essentially coincides with experience, with direct perception of the corresponding objective givenness (it is another matter that perception itself, as we have said, is interpreted very broadly, with various types of perception singled put, etc.).

p In Husserl’s view, thinking taken by itself does not give true knowledge but only knowledge in a tentative sense of the term, “figurative” or “symbolic” knowledge, one that is derived from and dependent on genuine, 67 experiential knowledge. Although thinking is necessarily woven into the flow of experience and scientific activity is impossible without it, overestimating the significance of thinking at the expense of underestimating the fundamental role of the intuitions lying at its basis leads cognition into a cul-de-sac, insists Husserl.

p Let us pay special attention to this point in transcendental phenomenology, for the view of knowledge as being very close, if not identical, with a certain mode of immediately grasping the ojbject essentially characterises all the varieties of substantfation of knowledge undertaken in the bourgeois philosophy of the New Times. The trend of thinking leading to this understanding of the problem of substantiation is very simple. Indeed, if purely cognitive knowledge is derivative in nature, its premises are obviously different, for they would otherwise be themselves conditioned and substantiated. They cannot therefore fail to be, to some extent or other, given immediately and intuitively.

p What are the modes of discovering the “eidoses”, that is, the possibilities of experiential knowledge? They include transcendental eidetic reflexion, the experience of consciousness of a special type, inner perception realised without the mediation of the sense organs and directed at "pure consciousness" itself. Husserl believes that “eidoses” are usually not given in consciousness in pure form, being merged, as it were, with certain individual certainties. Transcendental consciousness takes up the “eidetic” attitude, which permits it to separate an “eidos” from its concrete, individual exemplification and grasp it directly as such (“intuitive insight into the essence”). It is in principle enough to have one copy, one individual embodiment of some “eidos” to grasp the “eidos” itself; e.g., transcendental eidetic reflexion about the act of perception of the given house is enough to discover the “eidos” of houses in general. In practice, however, this procedure is difficult to realise, if not at all impossible, Husserl has to concede. He therefore suggests a special technique for "eidetic description" which he worked out. Proceeding from an actual instance of assuming the given object to be associated with the given meaning (e.g., the meaning of “house”), we start freely fantasising, varying the exemplifications of the given meaning, the given “eidos”. We discover something invariant in these exemplifications, something that cannot be eliminated as long as we continue to “imagine” objects associated with the given meaning. That invariant will be the “eidos” of the objective givenness. "Eidetic analysis”, in Husserl’s view, 68 permits to single out the structures of experience, and in the first place, the necessary a priori connections independent of any concrete accumulation of experience. This, in its turn, enables one to construct apriori "regional ontologies" corresponding to various types of objective givenness and specifying the “horizons” of cognitive activity both in the sphere of pre-scientific knowledge and in the diverse scientific disciplines.

p Fundamentally important for Husserl is the circumstance established in transcendental reflexion that consciousness is always aimed or intentionally directed, as Husserl puts it, at some thing, at some object. This object need not necessarily be a material individual thing, it may also be an ideal “essence”, “eidos”, a universal, or acts of consciousness itself. The object may exist really, and then it may not be real but merely “imagined” in the acts of consciousness. If transcendental reflexion reveals “eidoses” that are not related to a certain "material ontology" but characterise the nature of consciousness itself; if, for instance, the object is the “eidos” of "perception in general”, the act of perception in this case may not actually exist as a subject of reflexion but be merely “imagined” in the free variation in fantasy of various copies of perception associated with the meaning of perception in general. In this case the act of perception, being an object of intentional analysis, is irreal, while the act of transcendental reflexion directed at this object, pertains to the reality of consciousness, continues Husserl. Thus, the possibility of real or irreal existence obtains not only for such objects as material bodies but also for such potential objects of transcendental reflexion as acts of consciousness. As for the “eidoses” that are either included among the material bodies, or else are formal (logical and mathematical) “eidoses”, or the “eidoses” of consciousness itself, they have a special ideal existence in transcendental consciousness, for, as distinct from the real events which “happen”, “eidoses” cannot “happen”: their existence is inseparable from the existence of transcendental consciousness itself. It is important, according to Husserl, that consciousness is in any case objective, it is objectively oriented. Each act of consciousness assumes the existence of two poles, the intentional object of some kind and the subject himself implementing the act of consciousness, of “I”, the ego. The object lies outside consciousness, for it is transcendental relative to the intentional act, and at the same time it is in another respect immanent to consciousness, for it is assumed or “imagined” by consciousness, while the question of the existence of reality corresponding to the 69 given intentional object always remains open, Husserl believes.

p Thus, the specificity of organisation of consciousness, from the standpoint of transcendental phenomenology, is expressed in its subject-object structure. The subject- object relation is only inherent in consciousness and expresses the links between its different poles. It would be absurd and meaningless to try to model this relation in terms of some physical bodies or systems, Husserl believes, for the components of this relation (the intentional act, the intentional object, the subject implementing these acts) characterise only "pure consciousness" and would be inconceivable without it.

p The so-called natural attitude proceeds from the existence of both the “I” and the world of real objects external with regard to me. The “I” in this case refers to a concrete corporeal individual endowed with the psyche, with consciousness. However, since the act of transcendental reduction assumes temporary removal from consideration of the real existence of the world of material objects, Husserl reminds us, the question of the existence of my body also remains open. Transcendental reflexion has to do only with "pure consciousness”. The latter is formed of intentional acts with corresponding intentional objects. If I perform, however, not only transcendental but also “eidetic” reduction, setting myself the goal of discovering the “eidoses” of certain material and formal objects as well as the “eidoses” of consciousness itself, Husserl insists, I reveal and directly grasp the essence of "pure consciousness" itself, namely the Transcendental Ego as underlying all these “eidoses” and intentional acts, as constituting the meanings of all the objective givennesses. The object correlative to the Transcendental Ego is the "eidos of the world" as the horizon of all possible types and kinds of objects. It is the Transcendental Ego that implements the acts of transcendental reflexion, Husserl believes. Therefore, when the latter is directed at the Transcendental Ego itself, it coincides, as it were, with itself, having itself for an object of its own reflexion. In this case, "absolute reflexion" is realised, "absolute knowledge" is attained which underlies all knowledge and is the supreme instance of substantiating cognition in general. The whole of transcendental phenomenology can therefore be regarded as “egology”, a doctrine of the Transcendental Ego. It is the knowledge of subjective being that underlies any knowledge, Husserl believes, stressing the need for " looking towards" the subject.^^61^^

p Thus from Husserl’s viewpoint, reflexion and self- 70 cognition underlie knowledge and experience. That knowledge is the most adequate which coincides with absolute reflexion, absolute self-cognition, that is, the kind of knowledge which knows that it knows, being fully cognizant of both its own object and its own being and those procedures by which it is attained. Let us pay special attention to this important point of transcendental phenomenology.

p Let us further single out certain traits of the Transcendental Ego as Husserl understands it. It must not be viewed as a kind of supraindividual essence unifying various concrete consciousnesses and, still less, different corporeal individuals (the way Hegel presents the Absolute Subject). Of course, at the level of transcendental reflexion directed at the Transcendental Ego, Husserl believes, there is no question of difference between concrete individual consciousnesses (and in this sense no question of difference between “me” and “thou”), for in this case it is a matter of finding the “eidos” of consciousness itself. But the main thing, from the standpoint of transcendental phenomenology, is that the Transcendental Ego is grasped as a result of a definite type of my reflexion directed at my own consciousness. The Transcendental Ego proves to be the deep formative basis of my consciousness and, consequently, the basis of myself. The ordinary language, which is in the power of the “natural” attitude, Husserl believes, is capable in this case, too, to lead into error, for I can speak of “myself” as of a concrete corporeal individual, with a characteristic figure, gait, facial expression, as of the unique individual life of consciousness with its unique “biography”, a specific attitude to its past and future, and finally as the supreme instance of all cognitive activity and of all intentions, that instance which exists before any individual psychological biography (and in this sense before any individual “I”) and at the same time underlies it. It is this supreme instance that is the Transcendental Ego which, as is clear from the above, is also I myself residing in me, not somewhere else. There is no access to the Transcendental Ego other than through a special type of analysis of my own consciousness.

p Let us now go back to the assertion of the subjectobject structure of consciousness—a thesis characteristic of phenomenology. The intentional object in Husserl’s interpretation is not something ephemeral and purely individual (as we have indicated already, that is the way phenomenalist empiricists interpret such "special objects" of consciousness as "sense data”), for it is always given "on the horizon" of some “eidos” or other, within the framework of certain essential, necessary object structures 71 (and in the case of transcendental eidetic reflexion the object may also be a pure “eidos”). In this connection Husserl criticises empirical introspectionism which prevailed in West European psychology for two centuries. Following a definite interpretation of Descartes’ philosophy and combining this interpretation with empiricist propositions, adherents of introspectionism believed the task of psychology to be, above all, the discovery of empirical dependences between the data of consciousness which are interpreted, first, as purely individual “events” in the consciousness field, and second, as purely subjective data, whose relation to the objects must be completely eliminated for the sake of purity of inquiry. Husserl shows (and he is quite right on this score) that analysis of the subjective, of consciousness, is impossible outside its relation to the object (its intentional orientation at the object, as Husserl puts it). Husserl also insists that the data of consciousness are not purely individual events but facts included in certain stable and necessary structures. Meanwhile, if one regards the task of psychology to be the description of individual facts in the field of consciousness and establishment of their empirical dependences, it will have to be recognised that the act of self-consciousness, of empirical introspection, interferes in the flow of psychical life, distorting the purity of the object studied (for self- consciousness is also included in the life of consciousness) and thereby preventing the realisation of that very goal that is set before it. This criticism was traditionally levelled at introspectionist empiricist psychology. Husserl believes, however, that psychology must not set itself goals characteristic of introspectionism. The task of psychology indubitably consists in studying subjective reality, consciousness, and in this connection psychology is close to transcendental phenomenology, although in the former the study of consciousness must be carried out from a somewhat different angle than in the latter (the question of the relation of phenomenological psychology and transcendental phenomenology is a special theme which we shall not touch upon here). The study of subjective reality is certainly inconceivable outside of acts of self- consciousness, Husserl believes. But the procedure of self- consciousness, he continues, must be carried out as phenomenological reflexion aimed first of all at discovering the “ eidoses” of consciousness rather than as empirical introspection. Traditional introspectionist psychology has not attained any considerable results, he thinks, precisely because it followed from the very first a wrong path determined by a false understanding of the subject-matter and 72 methods of research. It was not due to but in spite of its general approach that it did obtain certain results.

p Husserl believes that the discovery of the subject- object structure of consciousness also helps to overcome Descartes’ dualism with its characteristic orientation at establishing "purely subjective" structures outside their objective correlation.

p As can be seen from the above, Husserl’s phenomenolo- * gy touches on a number of real problems in the analysis of cognition and consciousness. Let us point to some of them only insofar as they are important for the present study. As we have pointed out already, he stresses quite correctly the impossibility of studying the subjective, consciousness, without taking into account its objective correlation (its "intentional orientation”). Husserl correctly shows some fundamental weaknesses of introspectionist empiricist psychology, of the epistemological conception of subjectivist empiricism. He also states quite rightly that consciousness is an object of a special kind, and that its cognition must differ in some respects from cognition of a material object external with regard to consciousness (for I have "an internal access”, as it were, to my consciousness). It is also true that a definite connection exists between the cognition of an external object and the fact of correlating knowledge to the cognizing subject, that is, the fact of self-accounting, self-consciousness, self-reflexion. It should also be pointed out that within the framework of transcendental phenomenology and phenomenological psychology both Husserl and-his disciples described a great number of facts pertaining to the work of consciousness. Certainly these facts require critical evaluation, for their description by phenomenologists exists within the framework of a false conception (we shall dwell on this point somewhat later), but at the same time they may be taken into account and re-interpreted in those disciplines which in one way or another deal with the analysis of consciousness: psychology, psychiatry, esthetics, epistemology, etc.

p However, with reference to Husserl’s general epistemological conception, to his solution of the problem of substantiation of knowledge, the untenability of transcendental phenomenology must be stated quite definitely. Let us discuss this point in greater detail.

p We must recall that Husserl proceeds from the fundamental division into what is and what is not actually given to consciousness. Only the former, he believes, is accompanied by the experience of self-certainty, which is proclaimed in transcendental phenomenology to be an indication of genuine, actual existence of the 73 corresponding objective givenness. We all know, however, that experiencing some fact or event as evident is by no means a guarantee of its actual existence. All illusions of perception show, for instance, that we can perceive something that actually does not exist as evident and indubitable.

p Husserl fully realises this fact. He therefore indicates that phenomenological self-certainty is not identical to subjective psychological confidence. The former is, as he says, attained through a special attitude of consciousness, through special procedures of transcendental reflexion.

p The latter, in Husserl’s view, can also exist when consciousness assumes intentional objects to which no reality corresponds; it is here that perception illusions arise.

p Let us ask this question: does transcendental phenomenology offer a method for distinctly separating subjective confidence from the experience of certainty? Husserl sees such a method in transcendental reflexion (assuming epoche, “transcendental” and, in some cases, “eidetic” reduction, etc.). But how are we to find out that we have performed all the operations required by transcendental reflexion? This can only be ensured by attaining the result of this reflexion, Husserl answers, that is, by the emergence of a specific experience of self-certainty. We thus find ourselves in a vicious circle.

p Husserl himself has to admit that in the process of phenomenological description it is in practice very difficult to separate “pure” transcendental experience of evidence from subjective psychological phenomena that look like it. The development of his conception was therefore continually accompanied not only by specification of descriptions already carried out but also, in some cases, by essential modifications. As for Husserl’s followers, they often “saw” quite different things as “self-evident”. Let us also add to this the assertion, characteristic of phenomenology, that ordinary language cannot render precisely the data experienced, so that even where the doctrine’s requirements are satisfied, there is no guarantee of adequate expression of the results of analysis. All of this makes it practically impossible to indicate any clearcut criteria which will permit to state that the necessary purity of phenomenological research has been attained. But if that is the case, there is much room for arbitrariness and subjectivism. Husserl therefore has to concede that a pure description of the data of transcendental consciousness is not so much an actual result of existing phenomenological studies but rather a kind of ideal goal towards which they must strive. That goal, Husserl believes, is conditioned by the very formulation of the problem of 74 substantiation, assuming the existence of such knowledge in which the corresponding object is given immediately, intuitively and self-evidently.

p Thus the assertion of experiencing self-certainty as true indication of objective reality is based not so much on factual analysis of cognition and consciousness as on definite assumptions about the nature of the problem of substantiation of knowledge and the possible ways of its solution, those very same assumptions of non-Marxist epistemological conceptions of which we spoke at the beginning of this chapter. But why should we take the assumptions themselves to be justified?

p The method, suggested by Husserl, of free variation in imagination of different expressions for the given meaning for determining their invariant, or “eidos”, is an attempt at overcoming subjectivism in phenomenological description. This method was intended to ensure some kind of generally valid technique for analysis of consciousness. It is easy to see, however, that this method is fundamentally the same as ordinary empirical generalisation through comparing individual objects. Why must the results of such generalisation be viewed as apriori entities of consciousness rather than as what they actually are—expressions of finite empirical experience?

p Generally speaking, the procedure itself to which Husserl refers as transcendental reflexion appears doubtful on several significant counts. First of all that applies to epoche, that is, refraining from judgement about the existence of the objects of the material world. Of course, situations sometimes arise in our experience when we cannot say with certainty whether we actually deal with the object which appears to us as really existing or whether that is no more than appearance, an error of perception. It is essential, however, that, first, situations of this kind are not very frequent; second, that there are always means of ascertaining the nature of perception, that is, of establishing whether it is illusory or genuine; and third, that the experiential distinction between illusion and reality is based on a well-founded conviction of the actual existence of at least the overwhelming majority of the objects given us in perception. Thus the “natural” attitude of consciousness taking the existence of the material world for granted is not at all naive; on the contrary, the belief in the universality of the situation of uncertainty about the reality of the object of perception is unfounded. The assertion of phenomenology that the existence of the objects of the material world (of all the material objects in general, rather than of particular objects of this world) 75 is never given with complete certainty, is the result of a false preconception and not of analysis of actual experience. This attitude is closely linked with the desire for establishing the conditions of "absolute knowledge”. The latter is said to be attained when knowledge of the object coincides with reflexion about knowledge itself, which, in Husserl’s view, occurs in transcendental reflexion.

p But can "absolute knowledge" alone be viewed as genuine? What grounds have we for disclaiming the status of real knowledge (and that is what Husserl insists on) for the results of cognitive activity both in the sphere of everyday experience and in the domain of various scientific disciplines studying empirical facts? Would it not be more correct to correlate, on the contrary, our ideal model of knowledge with actual samples of knowledge obtained in the actual cognitive process? Let us state in this connection that those examples of apriori "absolute knowledge" which Husserl cites (the truths of logic and mathematics, the so-called regional ontologies, that is, phenomenological descriptions of “eidoses” that are said to underlie the scientific disciplines) have failed the test of the development of science in the 20th century, as far as their apriori and absolute quality is concerned. That is the point where the fundamental defect is revealed not only of Husserl’s phenomenology but also of all kinds of transcendentalism as a mode for substantiating knowledge. We shall have occasion to return to this question.

p Finally, let us consider the assertion of the Transcendental Ego’s existence, the supreme substantiating proposition of phenomenology. This assertion is obtained, as we have seen, as a result of transcendental reflexion. But the procedure of transcendental reflexion, involving epoche and the singling out of a special object, "pure consciousness”, is very doubtful, as we have said. Therefore the attempts to separate the ego as a unity of consciousness and material corporeality from the ego as “pure” individual consciousness, and the latter, from the Transcendental Ego, appear to be unconvincing. As for the statement that all referential meanings, just as all individual subjects (i.e., I myself and other sentient beings) are constituted by myself as the Transcendental Ego, it cannot but lead to the most odious form of subjective idealism, so completely compromised—to solipsism, hard as Husserl might try to dissociate himself from it. Although Husserl insists on the impossibility of analysing the subjective, of analysing consciousness, outside its objective correlation, that is not enough to overcome Cartesian subjectivism, for the intentional object is viewed as existing in the framework of 76 transcendental consciousness and as constituted by the latter, while the existence of real objective givenness corresponding to the intentional object is assumed to be irrelevant to transcendental phenomenology.

p But can the basic premises of transcendentalism in substantiating knowledge be retained while such obvious weaknesses of phenomenology are discarded as its appeal to the subjective experiences of self-certainty unsupported by any other procedures that would be more convincing logically? In other words, are there such variants of solving the problem of the possibility of knowledge which endeavour to take a more logical path remaining at the same time in the fundamental framework of transcendentalism? Let us consider the epistemological conception of Fichte as an attempt to provide this kind of solution.^^62^^

p Fichte starts from propositions which appear to be similar to those of phenomenology. He sets himself the task of transforming transcendental philosophy, the doctrine of the possibility of cognition in general and of scientific cognition in particular, into an "evident science”,^^63^^ pointing out that the theoretical doctrine of science ( Wissenschaftslehre) "presupposes the possibility of freedom of inner contemplation".”^^4^^ The foundation of knowledge, Fichte insists, must be found as something absolutely first, something that cannot be either proved or defined.

p Starting from the facts of empirical consciousness, and then mentally discarding everything that is accidental, and leaving only that which can no longer be separated from consciousness (that is, performing a procedure which somehow reminds one of Husserl’s transcendental reflexion), Fichte’ arrives at Descartes’ proposition "I am" as the supreme fact underlying all others. This proposition "must probably be assumed without any proof, although the whole doctrine of science is busy proving it".^^65^^

p Fichte’s train of thought then reveals fundamentally new elements. He asserts that the self-consciousness of the Transcendental Ego, expressed in the proposition "I am”, is not simply the product of direct inner perception of a certain evidence (as Husserl would have said) but the result of the activity of determining the indeterminate. Selfconsciousness must be understood not simply as intuitive grasping of the object given, as it were, to the intentional act from the outside, but as mental positing of the object itself and at the same time as reflexion about the product of this positing, the reflexion (which appears as only one of the moments of a complex procedure of self-consciousness) is by no means reduced to mere contemplation of givenness, constituting the strenuous 77 activity of analytically breaking down the posited givenness. Thus, the Transcendental Ego is not simply a given object, as it appears to Husserl, but a kind of unity of activity and its product, or “act-action”. The Pure Ego does not exist outside of the activity of self-consciousness directed at it (let us recall a similar point in Descartes’ reasoning): "The ego posits itself, and it is only thanks to this self-positing; and vice versa: the ego is, and it posits its being, only due to its own being.—It is simultaneously the agent and the product of action; the source of activity and that which emerges as the result of activity; act and action are one and the same; and that is why 7 am’ is the expression of an act-action...”^^66^^

p Fichte insists that the ego outside the activity of selfpositing and self-reflexion is nothing, it simply does not exist. But it is precisely the active nature of the Absolute Ego, which compels it to strive towards an ever greater degree of self-determinateness (resulting from action upon itself), that further leads to the necessity of opposing to it the non-ego, which, on the one hand, delimits the ego, and on the other, exists in the framework of the Absolute Ego, being posited by the latter. The ego becomes an object in its own right for itself only with the opposition of ego and non-ego, states Fichte, that is, with the appearance of an object external with regard to the ego. It is only through the non-ego that the ego becomes something, i.e., that of which something may be said. That ego which exists in the framework of the opposition to non-ego is no longer an Absolute Subject but an empirical one, for it is restricted by an object external to it. While the pure activity (act-action) of the Absolute Ego does not assume any object, "turning back on itself”, the definition of the ego as an empirical subject (“descending” from the Absolute Subject to the empirical one) reveals the mutual mediation of ego and non-ego as the law of consciousness: "no subject, no object- no object, no subject".^ Thus, while the original proposition "I am" appears as something immediately given and certain, the activity of selfconsciousness necessarily leads to its self-mediation, to the generation of a whole series of positings and contrapositings which, in Fichte’s view, logically follow one from another. To this mediating activity of self-consciousness corresponds the reflective activity of the theoretical doctrine of science, in which the proposition is formulated that the activity of the ego can only be mediated, and "there can be no unmediated" activity at all.^^68^^ The abstract moments of these positings and contrapositings of the Pure Ego following from each other are logical 78 categories (reality, negation, causality, interaction, etc.) expressing the necessary connections and dependences of experience and making knowledge possible. The reflexion of the theoretical doctrine of science singles out the categorial dependences of knowledge.

p Attention should be paid to the following traits of the epistemological conception analysed here, which will be of importance in our further inquiry.

p According to Fichte, self-consciousness and self-cognition are not just passive immediate grasping of some given object but always an excursion beyond the boundaries of the immediate, an attempt to define, to interpret the latter (any elementary consciousness already contains in it an element of thinking, Fichte believes).

p The ego, the pure consciousness, is not a ready-made object from the outset, it becomes such, being objectified as it becomes the object of its own self-cognizing activity.

p Hence the ego as my own object is in a certain sense a result of creation, of constructing (positing).

p To the extent to which the ego becomes the object of its own activity and reflexion, contrapositing itself to the non-ego, it becomes different from what it originally was, dialectically changing and developing itself. In other words, the object of self-cognition is the product of its own activity, not in the sense, however, that it is a certain fabrication of consciousness, an arbitrary fiction, but in the sense that the ego as an object appears as the result of the necessary unfolding and dialectical mediation of what originally emerged as the purely immediate indentity 1=1. Self-cognition and reflexion assume the exteriorisation and objectification of what was at first purely internal and subjective, directly merging with itself as a "fact of consciousness": "I am”.

p Generally speaking, the definition and unfolding of the essence of what appears to be directly given and evident, reveals a complex system of the activity of consciousness hidden behind it, Fichte affirms.

p In these arguments, Fichte grasps in a speculative idealistic form some moments of cognitive activity to which we shall recur in our positive discussion of the problem. It is easy to show, however, that the Fichtean conception does not solve the problem of substantiation of knowledge either.

p Fichte correctly states that the necessary condition of cognition is determining the indeterminate, mental mediation of what originally appeared as purely immediate; he also notes correctly that these conditions are relevant not only to the cognition of objects external to the 79 subject but also to the cognition of the subject himself. He cannot prove, however, with any degree of convincingness, that the required determination of the indeterminate, equivalent to the construction of experience, must be realised precisely in those categorial forms of which his Wissenschaftslehre treats. In other words, he cannot deduce apriori the essential dependence of any knowledge on the acts of positing and contrapositing of the Pure Ego, as he claims. In fact, Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre assumes a number of categorial links characterising the available empirical experience, as well as the traditionally accepted laws of formal logic (the laws of identity, contradiction, etc.). Thus the assertion that the self-positing of the Pure Ego (“I am”) underlies all knowledge and its substantive apriori dependences; an assertion central to his conception, remains an assurance without proof or support.

Furthermore, we do not touch here on the fact that acceptance of Fichte’s Absolute Ego as the centre constituting knowledge and objective reality leads to the cul- desacs of idealistic subjectivism, just as Husserl’s Transcendental Ego.