Philosophies of Crisis: Edmund Husserl and John Dewey
Edmund Husserl and John Dewey were the main representatives of the early 20th century
philosophy of crisis. Of course, philosophy of crisis was not an official cultural trend, but rather
the common attempt to answer from a philosophical point of view to the dramatic changes which
affected the Western world in the first decades of the 20th century. Both Husserl’s The Crisis of
European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology and Dewey’s articles written during the
Great Depression tried to single out the causes of the crisis, and pointed explicitly to a positive
solution. This paper aims at analyzing the affinities and the divergences between the two
approaches, and finally at sketching some brief Deweyan reflections upon contemporary
European crisis.
Husserl on European krisis
Edmund Husserl wrote his unfinished masterpiece The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology during the years 1935-1937. This far-reaching work was both a
general survey of the theoretical outcomes of phenomenology, and a passionate answer to the
dramatic problems gripping Europe. Particularly, Husserl traced European decadence back to the
crisis of science. This decision looks controversial, especially in the light of the great empirical
success achieved by science. What is more, such an intellectual and cultural phenomenon appears
as a minor factor in the genesis of the economic, social and spiritual tragedy occurring in Europe
during the 30’s. The answer to these questions has to be found in Husserl’s philosophy of history
and history of philosophy.
According to Husserl, European spiritual form, which he controversially identified with the
essence of the whole humanity, consisted of an immanent teleology, revealing itself through the
rising of a new humanity in which men decided to live following the sole authority of reason.
Spiritual Europe had also a precise place and date of birth: Ancient Greece, 6th and 7th centuries
B.C. During that period, Greeks developed a new attitude towards reality, which contested the
evidence of the immediately perceived world and of shared opinions. Truth became the object of
endless research, guided by reason and inspired by the infinite ideal of truth and knowledge. This
new philosophical attitude shaped a brand new humanity, which was permeated with “the spirit
of free critique and of free normativity” and the infinite idea of truth and knowledge.
After the medieval decadence, the Renaissance revolution looked at the ancient world as a model
to follow. This return back to the Greek origins implied the affirmation of the primacy of
philosophical life and of theoretical philosophy. Philosophy became a source of emancipation and
freedom, and a privileged discipline encompassing all sciences and all meaningful questions into
a unitary theoretical system. Unfortunately, this ideal of a universal philosophy failed. In fact, it
turned out that the alleged universal method was partial, as long as it worked successfully only in
the domain of positive sciences. As a reaction to this disappointment, the whole world had been
restricted to the natural and quantitative world, which is the object of natural sciences. But this
mathematization and naturalization of reality entailed losing touch with sense perceptions, and
the related rejection of secondary qualities as devoid of any scientific value. After this sharp
distinction, science circumscribed its domain of action and validity, becoming fragmented into
the different, and often unrelated, single disciplines. Reason became an instrument of science,
conceived as the only source of legitimate knowledge.
According to Husserl, this “beheading of reason”, which in his time was well represented by
logical positivism, was the main cause of crisis for two main reasons. First of all, any objectivist
reduction of reality keeps the subjective dimension out of the field of legitimate experiences.
Nevertheless, the subjective and intersubjective ground of any experience, which Husserl called
lebenswelt (life-world), is the reservoir of any possible sense and meaning of human activities,
including scientific and theoretical ones. Therefore, by repressing the existence of life-world,
naturalistic reason forgoes any contact with the sense of its own activity. Secondly, the mechanist
world depicted by naturalist reason is nothing but facts and means. However, “merely factminded science make merely fact-minded people”, (Husserl 1954: 6) unable to deal with
“questions which are decisive for a genuine humanity”.
Then, European crisis showed how reason is unable to tackle problems concerning sense and
meaning. However, this failure was not due to reason in itself. Rather, it was the inescapable
outcome of its unhappy reduction to naturalist and objectivist naïveté. The rising of irrationalism,
dramatically perceived by Husserl, was based on this misunderstanding. The whole reason was
charged for a crime perpetrated by a degenerated rationality. This is why Husserl invoked a new
“heroism of reason”, overcoming naturalism and leading reason back to itself by means of a
“radical and universal self-understanding of Geist”. The discipline in charge of this task was a
radically new form of philosophy, named phenomenology. Into the innovative phenomenological
inquiry, every problem concerning “the Being, norms and the so-called existence” was supposed
to find its place. Thanks to this new self-reconstruction of reason, humanity could grasp once
again its telos – i.e. authentic philosophical attitude -, and a deeply renewed scientific thought is
reconciled with that life-world wherein the sense of every human activity lies.
Husserl’s profound and insightful analyses, which have been here drastically summarized for the
sake of concision, are problematic under many aspects. First of all, the identification of Europe
with humanity is completely unbearable, as we could see in contemporary times. Again, it is hard
to imagine how a philosophical activity, even if deep and fascinating, could directly reverse well
established historical processes. However, in this paper I would like to focus on a singular
puzzling aspect of Krisis, that is the underlying conception of nature and science. In fact, the idea
according to which naturalism is “the source of every contemporary evil”, as Husserl said during
its famous Vienna lecture in 1935, presupposes a mechanist conception of nature. It is undeniable
that philosophical mechanism cut reality in two: on the one hand, objective reality, which is the
object of natural sciences, and which is governed by stiff causal relations; on the other, subjective
and psychological reality, which is “less real”, and wherein secondary qualities, values and ends
are confined, having been “banned from the realm of science” (Husserl 1954: 6). Given this
irreconcilable dichotomy, scientific reason is in principle forbidden to deal with meaningful,
profound, and finally illusory questions. Now, what if the background conception of nature
changes? What if nature appears not only as a set of static causal relations, but rather as a
dynamic evolutionary process? (Wetz 2003: 110). What if nature encompasses ends and values,
and what if mind is conceived as a natural phenomenon emerging from the natural continuum?
The idea of nature we are referring to is exactly that envisaged by Darwinian revolution. Given
his commitment to naturalist evolutionism, no wonder Dewey’s conception of science and its
philosophical diagnoses and prognoses of the crisis are radically different from Husserl’s
arguments. Anyway, Dewey agreed with two main points maintained in Krisis. Firstly, he
identified crisis with a tragic lack of ends and of meaning. Secondly, he agreed on points with
Husserl’s history of philosophy. Above all, they both considered the Modern Age revolution as a
partial and incomplete one.
John Dewey and the lost individual
In Experience and Nature John Dewey asserted that Greek metaphysics was built upon a strict
dichotomy opposing means as “menial, subservient, slavish”, and ends as “liberal and final”
(DEWEY, LW1: 102). The sacredness of ends was heavily questioned starting from the
Renaissance. Thanks to the scientific revolution of the XVII century, science was finally freed
from the classist cage of pure contemplation and disinterest. Those ends which Greek philosophy
conceived as self-sufficient and unchanging, are now brought back to immanence: “Liberation
from a fixed scheme of ends made modern science possible”, as long as objects were reduced
“from their status of complete objects as to be treated as signs or indications of other objects”
(LW1: 106). Modern and early modern philosophers threw ends out of transcendence, banishing
them into consciousness and individual mind:
The doctrine of natural ends was displaced by a doctrine of designs, ends-in-view, conscious
aims constructed and entertained in individual minds independent of nature. (…) purpose and
contingency were alike relegated to the purely human and personal; nature was evacuated of
qualities and became a homogeneous mass differentiated by differences of homogenous motion
in homogeneous space. (LW1: 81)
The logical result of this process was “to cut off “consciousness”, as the collectivity of
immediate qualities, from nature, and to create the dualism of physical nature and mind which is
the source of modern epistemological problems” (LW1: 94). Scientific revolution went then too
far, falling into a new inadequacy which must be worked out. At this purpose, secondary qualities
and ends must be reintroduced, in order to achieve a full understanding of reality in all its
manifold features.
So far, Dewey is not incompatible with Husserl. But according to the former, reintroduction of
ends is not conceivable as a come back to the Greek origin. Ends cannot be defined as final
causes which bring into existence their means. Rather, they must be understood as endings, that is
as the final moments of natural and organic processes. Also, a crucial distinction must be made.
On the one hand, some ends exist spontaneously in nature, without any human intervention.
Dewey called them terminus. When the terminus of a process can be anticipated by mean of
intelligent reflection, it becomes an end-in-view: “an aim, purpose, a prediction usable as a plan
in shaping the course of events” (LW 1: 88). Differently from their noble Greek ancestors, endsin-view are not the eternal object of a disinterested pure intellectual contemplation, and they can’t
be ranked according to an eternal moral and ontological hierarchy. Rather, they are means of
intellectual action. Their perfection is embedded in concrete experience. Experience and reality
must then be saved from unrealistic reductionisms and from unwilling dualisms. The ends-means,
subjective-objective, emotion-intelligence dichotomies are indeed correlated with the loss of
meaning marking out Dewey’s era, and therefore with crisis.
The split which exists in present social life between ideas and emotions, especially between ideas
that have scientific warrant and uncontrolled emotions that dominate practice, the split between
the affective and the cognitive, is probably one of the chief sources of the maladjustments and
unendurable strains from which the world is suffering. (LW 13: 249)
But recovery is impossible, as long as the main causes of spiritual and material sickness are not
detected. Philosophical diagnoses must always be rooted in social concrete conditions. This
appears clearly as we focus on the main sign of the American crisis, that is the “lost individual”.
This is the subject of a series of article that Dewey wrote from April 1929 to April 1930, and
which were included in his book Individualism, Old and New.
According to Dewey, the causes individual disorientation must not be found in the spiritual
dimension. Rather, they are deeply embedded in social context. If the individual is lost and
frightened, it is because “every bind which once kept the individual together and gave them
support, have now almost completely disappeared” (LW 5: 57). Like Husserl, Dewey interpreted
this dismay as a lack of meaning. But in his perspective, meaning it is a matter of socially shared
and organized beliefs and behaviors. Old individualism, based on the ideal of autonomy and selfsufficiency, maintained that the dissolution of social binds would have corresponded with the
triumph of the individual and its vitality. Lacking the social conditions which made it possible,
old individualism paradoxically crumbled away together with his emancipatory promises. So, a
new individualism was needed. Since “stability of individuality is dependent upon stable objects
to which allegiance firmly attaches itself” (LW 5: 66), renewing individuality implies working on
social conditions:
The inner man is the jungle which can be subdued to order only as the forces of organization at
work in externals are reflected in corresponding patterns of thought, imagination and emotion.
The sick cannot heal themselves by means of their disease, and disintegrated individuals can
achieve unity only as the dominant energies of community life are incorporated to form their
minds. (LW 5: 73).
In order to create new ands and values, intelligence must select those aspects of society which
make possible a reconstruction of the individual, and create new ends starting from the
possibilities opened by actual social conditions. Looking at his society –i.e. the U.S.A. of the
Great Depression -, Dewey maintained that the practical ends-in-view of a socially renewed
individual was anticipated by the existence of small scientific communities:
there is a movement in science which foreshadows, if its inherent promises be carried out, a more
human age. For it looks forward to a time when all individuals may share in the discoveries and
thoughts of others, to the liberation and enrichment of their own experience. (LW 5: 115)
Now, this promise was not a pure ideal, nor a wishful thinking. On the contrary, it was a possible
development of the democratic tendency already present in scientific research:
No scientific inquirer can keep what he finds to himself or turn it to merely private account
without losing his scientific standing. Everything discovered belongs to the community of
workers. Every new idea and theory has to be submitted to this community for confirmation and
test. (LW 5: 115)
By generalizing the attitude of small scientific communities, political, ethical and existential
problems could be dealt with in a revolutionary way. In this sense, science is a “potential creator
of new values and ends” (LW 5: 118).
According to Dewey, the human capacity of reacting to painful and problematic circumstances by
means of intelligent and planned actions is grounded on the special position which men and
women cover into the realm of nature: “while man belongs in nature and mind is connected with
matter, humanity and its collective intelligence are the means by which nature is guided to new
possibilities (LW 5: 101). Finally, Husserl was completely at odds with Dewey. While according
to the former the naturalistic reduction was the source of divorce reason and meaning which
characterizes crisis, the latter conceived naturalism as the inescapable framework of any possible
philosophical reflection upon contemporaneity. Again, this radical disagreement implies two
different conceptions of nature and of scientific activity. Differently from Husserl, who was still
tied to a mechanist conception of science, Dewey exposed a rich conception of nature,
encompassing human peculiar traits which old mechanism banished from the objective world:
“Naturalism” is a word with all kinds of meanings. But a naturalism which perceives that man
with his habits, institutions, desires, thoughts, aspirations, ideals and struggles, is within nature,
an integral part of it, has the philosophical foundation and the practical inspiration for effort to
employ nature as an ally of human ideals and goods such as no dualism can possibly provide.
(LW 5: 114)
Finally, the skeptical and pessimist attitude towards science is completely reversed. The way out
of the crisis consists of the extension of the application of science and scientific method. This
method being intrinsically democratic, extension means also enhancement of people’s
participation to public discussion. Therefore, the broadening of social applications of science is of
a piece with growing substantial democratization of society. Finally, democracy is the ultimate
point of discontinuity between the two perspectives we have been discussing during this
intervention.
Husserl’s phenomenological revolution has to be fulfilled by the community of philosophers.
This community is responsible for the “true being of mankind” (Husserl 1954: 16), and then for
the critical and radical “self-understanding” of what “was originally and always sought in
philosophy”, of “what, in respect to the goals and methods (of philosophy), is ultimate, original,
and genuine”. ( Husserl 1954: 17,18). Thanks to this recovery of the original philosophical
attitude, human beings will then be engaged again with their authentic telos. So therefore, the
effects of the redeeming action of an elitist community will spread over the whole humanity.
Unfortunately, Husserl didn’t say anything about how this philosophical revolution should
influence the broad audience of non-philosophers. Philosophy and philosophers seem to be
equipped with the magical power of changing the world by simply turning their
phenomenological gaze in the right direction. On the contrary, Dewey dealt straightforwardly
with this problem, which is not simply a political and sociological issue, but rather a key
philosophical matter. Ends cannot be drastically separated from means, as long as pure ideal ends
are nothing but a metaphysical invention. So therefore, every discussion about ends and values
must necessarily be a discussion about means, and about the consequences involved by the
realization of the elected purposes and of intermediate means. Without these references,
Husserl’s point appears to be vague and indeterminate. This is why Dewey’s answer to the
question raised by crisis seems more focused and detailed. Also, his reflections might be usefully
employed to deal with contemporary European crisis.
Conclusion: some remarks about contemporary European crisis
The construction of “European people”; the need for European solidarity; the set-up of a new
transnational welfare state; the dialectic between competence and free expression arising from the
new media of public discussion: all these crucial issues can hardly be formulated without
considering together means and ends. Philosophical justifications of this entanglement can be
found in John Dewey’s 1939 article Theory of Valuation. However, considering means and ends
together also answers deep ethical concerns. Ends are often considered as ideals which must be
fulfilled in themselves, apart from the outcomes involved by their achievement. But the
realization of every different means entails different consequences for everyday life. Taking the
ends-means entanglement seriously entails caring about the real import of any practical
realization of ends. This looks like a banal remark, but it might be useful in times of reigning
technocracy and of arising destructive populisms.
Singling out the most suitable means in regard to the fulfillments of certain ends demands,
however, specific competences. So then, the problem of the relation between science and
democracy reappear. Indeed, social sciences could help us in acknowledging the practical import
of the concrete realization of ends. But again, the activity of science must not be limited to the
purely instrumental individuations of means. Rather, their contributions could help people in
critically call prefixed and indisputable ends into question.
From a political point of view, Southern Europe is swaying between the inexorability of
technocracy, which can be summed by the slogan: “Europe ask us to do that!”, and the
obsessions of populist paranoid, moved by an incessant suspicion towards political Institutions.
In both cases, democracy is undermined: either by the holy dogmas of financial power, or by
ignorance and fear. In this sense, the crisis of democracy calls science into question. A new
European democracy requires citizens – and organizations of citizens, of course - to be able to put
critically in question existing ends and to cooperate to the establishment of new ones, if the
former are deemed unfair. Of course, this change can be achieved only by acting on social
conditions: that is, education and social policies, incentives to new forms of organized sociality.
Nowadays, it seems the only way to realize concretely and in a democratic way that “spirit of free
normativity” which Husserl identified with the spiritual essence of Europe, and to help the “lost
individuals” to overcome their dismay and confusion.