Husserl (and Brentano) on Abstract Parts

Bernhard Ritter (University of Graz)

In his influential Third Logical Investigation, Husserl employs a generic notion of ‘part’, which has been criticised as merely analogical or metaphorical. Husserl distinguishes between ‘pieces’, which are parts of a whole that can become independent existents, from ‘moments’ or ‘abstract parts’, which cannot. This is evocative of Brentano’s distinction between parts that are separable from a whole and ‘parts’ that are merely ‘distinctional’, i.e. capable of being distinguished in the whole. However, in Brentano, the latter notion does not figure in the context of a philosophical mereology. At the time of his Würzburg lectures on metaphysics, he refers to categories like substance, quality, or quantity as ‘metaphysical parts’ of the subject. A relational property, e.g. to be tall (one of Brentano’s examples), is also a category and thus a distinguishable metaphysical part. To be tall is evidently not a part of the subject in any literal sense. In Husserl, by contrast, the distinction between parts that are pieces and parts that are abstract moments is drawn within a mereological investigation. Peter Simons, one of those who criticise Husserl’s generic notion of ‘parts’, rejects this. Parts and properties, he insists, are fundamentally different things. Yet, Simons believes that Husserl’s moments are particulars, which I find difficult to defend as a philosophical position and an interpretation of Husserl. Husserl is admittedly ambivalent or unclear as to whether ‘property instances’ (Simons) are particulars. In the Second Logical Investigation, §41, he explains that abstract contents are non-independent and that colour is an example of an abstract, not a concrete, content. The fact that he talks about ‘contents’ does not detract from the ontological character of his explanation. On the other hand, he uses language that suggests a commitment to both particularised properties and ideal species. In my talk, I will show that acknowledging this ambivalence is only a first step. If colour moments are neither ‘self-individualising’, as Husserl calls it, nor parts of what they belong to, they cannot be particulars. Phenomenologically, there is no way to justify that colours self-provide their principle of individuation. If, on the other hand, the (supposed) particularity of a colour moment is to be derived from the particularity of the subject, then there is no way around invoking at least part of the surface or a piece of the relevant thing. If so, there will always be a more plausible candidate for the relevant particular than a colour moment, namely, a coloured surface or piece of the subject. A coloured surface or piece of a particular size is, of course, a countable particular or individual. But this is metaphysically unexciting. I will conclude by extrapolating some morals from the discussion of Husserl for the interpretation of Brentano’s late ontology.

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