On Husserl’s Approach to Necessary Truth

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate some aspects of what Husserl means by “A priori” in the light of recent considerations concerning the nature of necessary truth. I shall first discuss some of the results of the dispute between Carnap and Quine about analytic sentences. These results bring to the fore linguistic aspects of the problem of necessary truth. It can be shown, I believe, that Husserl’s position is substantially in accord with the basic agreements issuing from the Carnap-Quine controversy. In Husserl’s view this clarification of the analytic-synthetic distinction opens up a whole new area of investigation, an area in which phenomenology would be able to locate important necessities and universalities. I have selected an instance of the explication of such an essential necessity, and I shall relate this explication to current views of necessary truth. My position will be that Husserl is in general agreement with contemporary linguistic philosophy as regards the area toward which philosophical attention should be directed, but that Husserl fails to provide a method for such investigation. The appropriate method is that of the linguistic philosophers, and I shall close with a few comments on the way in which Husserl’s phenomenology may be construed as implicitly linguistic.

Reprinted from The Monist, with permission. — J.N.M.