Phenomenology and Being-in-itself in Hartmann’s Ontology: Laying the Foundations

Abstract

Was Nicolai Hartmann a phenomenologist? Answering this question has become more important in the context of debates over new realisms in Continental philosophy. To answer it, the paper highlights five important points. First, Hartmann’s own distinction between the phenomenological school of thought and phenomenological method must be preserved. He does not accept the sweeping humanistic opposition between the sciences and phenomenology, and yet (like the phenomenologists) he employs a method that aims to provide a description of phenomena following on a suspension of metaphysical commitments that is directed at their essential structures, with some important qualifications. Secondly, he rejects the phenomenological reduction because it identifies the natural attitude with a metaphysical standpoint and it advocates instead a ‘naïve consciousness’ free of metaphysical assumptions. Thirdly, his assessment of phenomenology is conditioned by his conception of cognition as a transcendent act. He finds that phenomenology fails to adequately account for the whole phenomenon of cognition, especially its characteristic grasp of something independent of the act. Fourthly, Hartmann grants the irreducibility of phenomena, but holds that they are characteristically unstable, referring to something beyond themselves and forcing us to decide whether what they show is genuine or not. There is thus no infallible intuition of phenomena. Finally, from an epistemological perspective, the concept being-in-itself is merely a counterpart to the concept of the phenomenon, which we do not need for the purposes of ontology. Based on this reassessment, it is concluded that Hartmann employs some form of the phenomenological method but cannot be identified as a phenomenologist.