Husserl Stud

DOI 10.1007/s10743-016-9195-7

Possibility and Consciousness in Husserls Thought

Andrea Zhok1

 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract Clarifying the nature of possibility is crucial for an evaluation of the

phenomenological approach to ontology. From a phenomenological perspective, it
is ontological possibility, and not spatiotemporal existence, that has pre-eminent
ontological status. Since the sphere of phenomenological being and the sphere of
experienceability turn out to be overlapping, this makes room for two perspectives.
We can confer foundational priority to the acts of consciousness over possibilities,
or to pre-set possibilities over the activity of consciousness. Husserls position on
this issue seems to change over time. Ultimately, the establishment of a phenomenological perspective must involve a rejection of any hypostatization of pre-set
possibilities, but not all implications of this theoretical step seem to be drawn in
Husserls texts. This paper is devoted to an illustration of how the phenomenological notion of possibility should change when we reject the hypostatization of
possibility, that is, when we reject the idea that all acts of consciousness are to be
conceived as realizations of pre-set ideal forms. We examine this question, first,
by trying to clarify the conceptual constellation of possibility in Husserls texts.
This leads to an overall classification of the features of constituted (ontic) possibilities. Then we distinguish such constituted possibilities from their constituting
conditions, which outlines a different sense of possibility. In the last instance two
possibilizing dimensions (transcendental motivation and transcendental contingency) are shown to lie at the root of all ontic possibilities. This leads to a final
suggestion on the nature of the relation between experience and possibility. Actual
experiences create the room for possibility: they are possibilizations
(Ermoglichungen). In this sense, experience is to be taken as a generative sphere
which goes beyond the customary boundary between epistemic and ontological.
From this point of view all experience is to be conceived as emergence .
& Andrea Zhok
andrea.zhok@unimi.it
1

University of Milan, Milan, Italy

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1 The Aporetic Position of Possibility

Phenomenology does not endorse any straightforward approach to ontology
(Mohanty 1999, p. 160): the method of epoche and the process of phenomenological
reduction are meant to avoid any hasty conclusion about what truly is by
introducing a preliminary investigation into the conditions of possibility of what
there is. This does not mean that the question of being is marginal or negligible for
phenomenology. Yet, from a phenomenological perspective, it is ontological
possibility, and not spatiotemporal actuality, that has pre-eminent ontological status.
All being is, according to Husserl, either experienced or experienceable (Hua XLI,
p. 375). And since what is experienced must be a subset of what is experienceable,
we can conclude that, at least prima facie, the sphere of being and the sphere of
experienceability must coincide.
Yet, this statement signals a powerful aporia. Within the very idea of
experienceability we find the unification of two notions that are not obviously
compatible. On the one hand we have a reference to the actual experience of
consciousness, which belongs to the sphere of the intentional acts of a living and
embodied consciousness. On the other hand, we have a reference to the possibility
of such experiences. If we set our ontological roots in the possibility of experiences,
that is, in the possibility of consciousness, then possibility has ontological priority
over consciousness. But, from a phenomenological point of view, we should give
priority to the intentional acts of consciousness, and this is not the same as a merely
possible consciousness: here we have to do with consciousness as actuality, not just
possibility. There is a manifest tension between attributing ontological priority to
consciousness as sense-bestowing activity or to a realm of possibilities, however
we may conceive of it.
This aporetic situation can be outlined as follows: should we regard consciousness and its activity as realizations of a priori possibilities, or should we regard
possibilities as conceptual contents produced by the acts of consciousness?
Husserls writings seem often ambiguous in this regard.
In many pages, especially passages written before the 1920s, Husserl seems to
sympathize with the picture of a Platonic-Leibnizian realm of a priori possibilities,
which would have ontological priority over the acts of consciousness (Hopkins
2010, pp. 8990). Thus, he writes that in principle, there must be for each truly
existing object a corresponding idea of its possible consciousness, where the object
is adequately graspable (Hua III, p. 349), and that the possibility of any essential
connection is a priori and is a possibility for all consciousness in general (Hua
XXXVI, pp. 1617).
More specifically, he argues that A exists is tantamount to saying that it is
possible to construct a way to prove the existence of A, i.e., that there is the ideal
and intuitive possibility of such proof (Hua XXXVI, pp. 7374).1 This vision is
1

,,Der Satz A existiertund der Satz Es ist ein Weg moglicher Ausweisung der Existenz des A zu
quivalenzen.
konstruieren, Es besteht die ideale und einsehbare Moglichkeit solcher Ausweisungsind A
So sind generell die Ideen Wahrheitund ideale Moglichkeit einsichtiger Ausweisungaquivalente Ideen.
[] Ein individueller Gegenstand kann nicht existieren, ohne dass ein Ich bzw. ein aktuelles Bewusstsein
existiert, das auf ihn bezogenist. Ein eidetischer Gegenstand aber fordert blo die mogliche Existenz

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inspired by a classical (Fregean) model of the existence of mathematical objects,

where it is assumed that all mathematical objects for which a demonstration is
possible, already exist (and have always existed). This vision posits the foundation
of existence of essential units (at least of logical-mathematical ones) in an a priori
possibility, which needs no consciousness in order to subsist. Especially in the
Logical Investigations the idea of an ontological priority of the realm of possibilities
over consciousness is stated in fairly explicit terms (cf. Hua XVIII, pp. 135).
Yet, if we look at later texts, it is easy to meet reflections that are differently
oriented than the ones that we have just mentioned (Rinofner-Kreidl 2000, p. 638).
Thus, the possibilities that we produce as eidetic variants in phantasy are said to
be real possibilities, tightly bound to our living experience, and in this sense
experienced reality seems to precede possibilities (Hua XXIX, pp. 8586).2 Every
possible world is said to be a world (Welt) for a subjectivity to whom it is given as
environment (Umwelt), and the ontological possibilities that we grasp through
variations of such an experienced world are said to necessarily include all
ontological possibilities (Hua XLI, p. 337).3 All possibilities that I can conceive of
are variations of my living existence, and any conceivable a priori sphere is bound
to the facticity of a rational subjectivity and presupposes our existence as human
beings (Hua XLI, pp. 338339). Moreover, if we recall the passage above that
equated the existence of A with the subsistence of the ideal and intuitive possibility
of As proof, we find passages where the very sense of this statement is put into
doubt. Indeed, Husserl writes, how should we know a priori that demonstrations in
themselves subsist, if they have never been performed (Hua XVII, p. 175)?
At first sight, it could seem that Husserl simply changed his mind, that is, that
he was initially prone to a vision of Leibnizian (or Platonic) possibilities, which is
then successively dropped in favor of the ontological priority of living consciousness. But even if there is something true in such a theoretical shift, we need to
account for its rationale.

Footnote 1 continued
eines auf ihn zu beziehenden Bewusstseins. Die mathematische Existenz von Zahlen, Mannigfaltigkeiten
etc. fordert mit der idealen Moglichkeit der einsichtigen Ausweisung nicht die wirkliche Existenz eines
Bewusstseins, das unmittelbar oder mittelbar auf Mathematisches bezogen oder zu beziehen ist. (Hua
XXXVI, pp. 7374).
2

,,Die Phantasiemoglichkeiten als Varianten des Eidos schweben nicht frei in der Luft, sondern sind
konstitutiv bezogen auf mich in meinem Faktum, mit meiner lebendigen Gegenwart, die ich faktisch lebe,
apodiktisch vorfinde und mit allem, was darin enthullbar liegt. [] ich, der ich apodiktisch bin, einen
unbekannten Horizont des Seins habe und offen unbestimmte, aber reale Moglichkeiten, von denen eine
wirklich sein mu, erst dadurch wird das Eidos die Form der Moglichkeiten von Seiendem. Somit geht
die Wirklichkeit den Moglichkeiten voraus und gibt den Phantasiemoglichkeiten erst die Bedeutung von
realen Moglichkeiten.(Hua XXIX, pp. 8586).

[J]ede mogliche Welt ist Welt fur eine Subjektivitat, der sie umweltlich gegeben ist. [] Also die
Seinsmoglichkeiten bzw. seienden Abwandlungen der Welt, die in einer Menschenwelt und im Menschen
selbst beschlossen sind, schlieen alle ontologischen Moglichkeiten notwendig ein[].(Hua XLI,
p. 337).

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2 The Conceptual Constellation of possibility

Husserl qualifies the notion of possibility through a plurality of specifications. He
talks about ideal possibility, logical possibility, real possibility, pure
possibility, bound [gebundene] possibility, motivated possibility, empty
[leere] possibility, open possibility, free possibility, practical possibility,
and presumptive [vermutliche, anmutliche or prasumptive] possibility. This
conceptual cloud is not easy to disentangle. Some of these expressions are
synonyms, others partially overlap, and some of them are used in a loose fashion.
Before trying a full-fledged clarification of the status of possibility, it is necessary to
disentangle such expressions and their relations.
2.1) The notion of ideal possibility is used in a relatively loose fashion. It is
certainly opposed to real possibilities and to its reference to an existing
consciousness (Hua XXXVI, p. 20; Hua XXXIII, p. 193). Apart from this major
opposition, we find that ideal possibility is sometimes associated with regulated
essential connections (Hua XVI, pp. 71, 104105; Hua XXXVI, pp. 7374; Hua
XXXIII, pp. 332333), and sometimes (especially in the wording mere [blo] ideal
possibility) it is associated with the arbitrariness of mere possibilities of phantasy
(Hua XXXVI, pp. 119, 7576, 186187). In the first case, ideal possibility refers to
essential laws and the relevant limitsfor instance, to the possibility of inverting
spatial orderings but not temporal ones. In the second case, ideal possibility refers to
the freedom of producing boundless representations. In this second sense, ideal
possibility is a synonym of empty possibility.
2.2) The expression empty possibility designates the mere possibility to
imagine or represent something in general (Hua XXXIII, pp. 332333). Empty
possibilities cannot be regarded as conditions of knowledge (Hua XXXVI,
pp. 3637): something can be imagined or represented without any plausibility of
ever being actually experienced. Empty possibilities are compossible with endless
further possibilities with which they could never coexist. In this sense, as we are
going to see, empty possibility can be regarded as a synonym of pure possibility
and even of logical possibility.
2.3) Pure possibility is univocally associated with free imaginability or
representability (Hua XLI, pp. 304305; Hua IX, pp. 756), and in this sense
pure possibility is interchangeable not only with empty possibility, but also with
free possibility (Hua XXIII, pp. 280281). However, the way in which pure
possibility as free representability is to be interpreted is something that apparently
changes over time. Before the 1920s, free phantasy is regarded as a constitutive act
(as much as perception), and the laws of pure possibilities brought to light by free
phantasy are regarded as essential laws, which are mediately also laws for reality
(Hua XLI, pp. 193194). But in later texts, the idea that explorations of pure
possible representations as such could produce an a priori science of essential
possibilities turns out to be doubtful (Hua I, p. 66). The kind of phantasy variation
that is able to bring to light essential ties must rely on the experiential predelineation ultimately provided by perceptual and practical experience (Elliott
2005, p. 65). Thus, pure possibility becomes a designation for sheer arbitrariness,

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which does not contribute to the determination of any possible world, because (as
much as empty possibility) it includes all kinds of mutually incompatible
representations (Hua XXXVI, pp. 186187). In this sense, pure possibility is
something devoid of ontological value, since it does not outline any possible reality.
2.4) Husserl does not talk too often of logical possibility, and when he does, it is
mostly with reference to a notion akin to empty possibility (Hua III, p. 111). Logical
possibility designates mere lack of contradiction. Yet, mere lack of contradiction
does not contribute at all to the determination of verisimilitude, truth and reality
(Hua III, p. 325). Thus, the use of logical possibility seems to coincide with that
of ideal possibility, with regard to the shift of meaning between early texts and
later ones. In the Logical Investigations, logical possibility names the universal
character of essential contents like triangle or red (Hua XVIII, pp. 152153).
But here also sheer products of phantasy like centaurs and nymphs have ontological
dignity, insofar as they are said to be the possible basis for theoretical explorations,
provided that some of their possibilities turns out to be realized in nature (Hua
XVIII, p. 150). Here logical possibility coincides with free representability, which is
considered enough to grant that such possibility is a possibility-to-be-fulfilled: it
represents something that has a validity of its own, independently of scientific and
psychological reality. In later texts, this sense of possibility is no longer considered
conducive to any potential anticipation of reality; therefore, we find logical
possibility (as much as ideal possibility) usually opposed to motivated or real
possibility (Hua XXXVI, pp. 3637).
2.5) Open possibility does not seem to be always used in a strict technical
sense (cf. Hua XLI, pp. 291292), but when it is, it means a possibility that is not
already presumed to be more or less likely (Hua XI, p. 43), but which belongs to a
settled sphere of options among which it is possible to doubt (Hua I, p. 56; Hua
XXIX, p. 200; Husserl 1939, p. 107). Hence, an open possibility is not completely
empty and arbitrary because it depends on motivations, which are however
insufficient to determine particular expectations or probabilities. For instance, we
expect that the backside of a house has a color, but we may have no reason to expect
any particular color. Occasionally the notion of free possibility is used in the
same sense (Hua XXIII, pp. 280281).
2.6) Motivated possibility and real possibility appear often as interchangeable
terms (Hua XXXVI, pp. 77, 3637). A real possibility is a possibility dictated by
association with the actual reality of an experienced appearance (Hua XVI,
pp. 292293). Something is a real possibility when I can anticipate a way to
experience it, starting from the sphere of my current experience (Hua XXXVI,
p. 169). Real possibilities are continuations of what is experientially known in the
direction of the unknown: they are pre-delineations of the coming experience (Hua
IX, pp. 889). Similar considerations pertain to motivated possibilities: they belong
to an entity posited as real and pre-delineate a specific course of expectations
dependent on the actual manifestation of the entity (Hua XXXVI, p. 64). Typical
instances of motivated possibility are the perceptual anticipations (protentions) that
intrinsically belong to the ordinary course of sensuous experience. Such anticipations could turn out to be otherwise, but in the absence of disproof they remain valid
as immediate expectations (Hua XLI, p. 310). Yet, neither real possibility nor

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motivated possibility is limited to the sphere of actual perceptual anticipations;

every experiential anticipation that is dependent on previous experience falls under
the category of motivated (or real) possibility. The same sematic area seems to be
identified by the expressions that can be translated as presumptive possibilities
(vermutliche, anmutliche or prasumtive Moglichkeiten) (for anmutliche M. see
Hua XI, pp. 4243; for prasumptive M. see Hua XLI, p. 208).
2.7) Finally, the notion of practical possibility (praktische Moglichkeit) deserves
separate mention. Although it is not an expression frequently used in Husserls
texts, it identifies an aspect of possibility which is not covered by the previously
mentioned notions. In the first instance, the notion of practical possibility embraces
the sphere of the capacities to act, that is, the sphere of what I can do in an
ordinary practical sense. This dimension is apparently opposed to the sphere of
possibilities generated by reflecting on perceptual experiences, as when I vary in
reflection the features of a percept. Practical possibility would be to practical acts
(related to will and values) what theoretical possibilities would be to perceptual
representations (Hua IV, p. 263). But this picture is not as clear-cut as it may seem.
The sphere of what I can do extends also to perception insofar as perception
depends on kinaesthetic acts (Zahavi 1996, p. 34). Therefore, the opposition
between the dimension of belief determined by perceptual acts and the dimension of
belief determined by practical capacities is uncertain and blurred (Hua VIII, p. 404).
Nevertheless, it is true, as Mohanty (1999, p. 165) notices, that there is a theoretical
sense of can that cannot be easily reduced to practical possibilities: the capacity
to direct intentional acts in alternative ways, so that different items can become
intentional objects (Hua IV, p. 258). This is a dimension of powers and therefore of
possibilities which is hard to consider practical, if we take what is practical to
depend on will and valuation. Instead, we should say that the capacity to orient
intentional acts coincides with the sphere of will and valuation, and does not
depend on it.

3 A Midway Conceptual Synthesis

At this point, we can try to put some order in the list above by coalescing the
synonymous expressions and isolating the core characterizations of possibility. It
seems that we can identify three or four main acceptations of the term, which we are
going to name by selecting one of the expressions used by Husserl.
1) Ideal possibility. The first sense of possibility that Husserl argues for is the one
defined by the idea that the universality inherent in essences circumscribes sets of
equipollent particulars. This means that possibility is everywhere eidetic
possibility (Hua V, p. 83). This statement must be understood in its whole
significance. It does not mean that the truth about possibility is to be found in the
nature of essences, since it can also mean that a clarification of the nature of
possibility illuminates the nature of essences. If we assume the first perspective, we
may incline toward a vision of possibility as static ontological stock, which
underlies experiential reality. That is, if the truth about possibility is taken to rest on
the essential structure of the world, we are likely to envision the sphere of

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possibilities as an omnicomprehensive set of predetermined slots, which can be

filled or not. Yet, as we have begun to see, this Leibnizian or Platonic vision of the
sphere of possibilities runs into significant difficulties.
Even if Husserl is not always consistent in his use of ideal possibility, in the
following we will use this wording to capture such an intrinsic relation between the
notions of possibility and essence.
2) Empty possibility. The second crucial characterization of possibility is the one
that refers to possibility as a product of free phantasy, as mere representability. Here
the main idea is that we can produce representations completely devoid of reasons
in support of their content; we can produce mental images of items incompatible
with anything we know. We can imagine a diamond as big as the sun, or that whales
can fly or that the flow of time can be reversed, etc. Such products of imagination
are intersubjectively shareable, but at the same time they can be in contradiction
both with all empirical laws (epistemic impossibility) and with all general and
transcendental laws that we are able to identify (metaphysical impossibility). We
may have knowledge of natural laws that forbid the possibility that diamonds as big
as the sun, or flying whales, could ever come to existence, while freely producing a
representation of them. Similarly, even if there are essential laws that forbid
conceiving of a reversal of the temporal flow,4 we may well produce images that
apparently betoken that possibility. The crucial point here is that the possibility
envisaged as free representability cannot be regarded as evidence of true ontological
possibility, i.e., of possibilities that could in principle become real. As we saw, from
the terminological point of view Husserl expresses this idea in a variety of ways:
empty possibility, pure possibility, logical possibility and sometimes
merely ideal possibility. In Sect. 5 we will dwell on the implications of
assimilating logical possibilities to empty possibilities. At any rate, in the following,
we will stipulatively capture this whole semantic area through the expression empty
possibility.
3) Real possibility. A third characterization of possibility that we can distinguish
in Husserls texts captures the idea that current experiences pre-delineate a sphere of
possible developments. Such possibilities are real in a double sense: they depend on
our experience of spatiotemporal reality, and they generate a web of expectations
which are taken to be valid (real) unless or until an alternative experience emerges.
Perceptual anticipation is the main example of real possibility, but real possibilities
involve all anticipations based on experience and not just the ones dependent on
current protentions. As we noticed, the notion of real possibility is mostly used in a
way indistinguishable from motivated possibility, even if the two expressions
emphasize different aspects: the connection with reality and the motivational
character of this connection, respectively. In this sense also the notions of open or
free possibility, as they are used by Husserl, designate motivated possibilities.
The only distinguishing feature between open and free possibility seems to be a
difference in the degree of generality: real possibilities speak in favor of a
4

Of course, we can imagine the reversal of any succession of events, but such imagined reversal takes
place in a different time than the original succession, a time defined by my flow of retentions and
protentions.

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specific possible experience (e.g., the next page will be white), while open
possibilities pre-delineate a class of experiences among which different experiences are equally likely (e.g., the next page will be somehow colored).
4) Practical possibility. As we noticed, the notion of practical possibility partially
overlaps with that of real (motivated) possibility. The areas of conceptual
overlapping are defined by two arguments. On the one hand, perception is a
kinaesthetic praxis, and what is anticipated in perception (real possibility) depends
on what we are able to do in the kinaesthetic sphere. On the other hand, practical
possibility is essentially tied to motivations, and in this sense it is itself a motivated
possibility. Yet, the notion of practical possibility captures, in a way that other
notions do not, the dispositional character of possibility. Although the wording
practical possibility is not common in Husserls texts, its role is played in later
texts by the expression Vermoglichkeit, which designates precisely a disposition,
dependent on experiential acquisitions, which generates a space of possibilities.
All in all, there are reasons to stress the distinctive aspects captured by the
expressions real, motivated and practical possibility, but at the same time
there are also good reasons to underline the common core of all these notions, all of
which are motivated by experience. Thus, when there are no reasons to underline the
distinctive features, we will gather all these notions under the expression
motivated possibility.
Yet, as we noticed above in the wake of Mohantys observations, there is a
dimension of possibility, related to the ability to direct intentional acts, which is not
adequately captured by any of the above mentioned notions, not even practical
possibility. As we will see in Sect. 6, this aspect of possibility opens up a different
dimension in our understanding of possibility.
Let us see if such classification is truly able to capture all conceptual facets of the
phenomena that characterize possibility.

4 Possibility and Essence

The conceptual overlap of the notions of possibility and essence can be understood
in the light of Husserls main argument in support of the subsistence of essences. I
take this argument to be the one developed in the Prolegomena to the Logical
Investigations (3238), which could be summarized as follows: in an ontology
that legitimately hosts true judgments, there must be room for an ideal dimension
irreducible to facts. Indeed, if we assumed an ontology of mere particular facts, of
individual occurrences, no truth could ever emerge, since there would be no room
for intentions and propositions endowed with a stable content, there would be
nothing that could be confirmed or disconfirmed in different times and
contexts, and by a plurality of different subjects, which is what is required for truth
(or its claim) to exist. In a realm of mere facts there could never be re-identifications
(for the same subject, across time, and in different contexts), since there would be
no enduring self-identical units, which require the subsistence of a more-thanfactual dimension.

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This argument is compelling, but it deserves some reflection. It is an overriding

argument because any opposite claim must appeal to truthful judgments, which in
their turn require the subsistence of a more-than-factual dimension. The statement:
there are only individual facts is performatively self-defeating since, if it was
true, it could be never expressed as a judgment. This argument, however, says very
little about the nature and ontological status of essences (Wesen, Eide).5 Essence
names a dimension of generality under which an indefinite plurality of individual
instances can be collected, and this relation can also be expressed in terms of a
unitary possibility which envisages an indefinite plurality of realizations (Mensch
1981, p. 65). Essences in an extensive sense include all conceivable possibilities in
opposition to the flow of actual individual occurrences.
As we noticed, for a long while Husserl seems to interpret the relation between
essence and possibility so that the sphere of essences, as realm of all conceivable
possibilities, sets the rules and conditions for all possible reality (Hua XLI, p. 194).
In Platos Theaetetus the sphere of essences (Ideas) was introduced as a precondition for false judgments, which are possible because they would be true of
ideas (not of reality). This stance evokes a picture where the set of all possible
worlds contains and determines all reality. What Husserl advances is a vision
composed of two parts. First, he submits the apparently self-evident intuition that
any event or thing that we might ever encounter must have been in principle
conceivable in advance. Second, this intuition is interpreted in terms that introduce a
further claim, according to which conceivable is equivalent with to be
conceived according to the laws of possibility (essential laws). This second
passage hypostasizes the predicate possible by interpreting it as derived from a
separately subsisting atemporal lawfulness (essences).
Indeed, when Husserl first defines essences he claims that they must be
supertemporal (uberzeitlich) (Hua XVIII, p. 134). Phenomenologically, this idea is
based on the observation that our grasp of self-identical objects requires that
something stays for us while individual experiences continuously change. Hence,
this trait of stability in knowledge cannot be justified on the basis of actual steadily
changing experiences but must rest on an identity-bestowing dimension, which does
not belong to the flow of immanent experiences. This argument suffices to state that
there is a dimension of being (in the widest sense) that does not belong to the flow of
changing experiences.
But is this argument in a position to claim that essences are eternal entities,
superior and external to consciousness and experience? Such a mainstream
Platonic solution was explicitly rejected by Husserl himself. Yet, although he took
distance from mainstream Platonism very early, it cannot be denied that his
understanding of the sphere of essence shows some ambiguity, which signals a
residual Platonism implicit in his thought and which Husserl retrospectively
imputed to himself (HuaDok III/5, p. 137). In the absence of an alternative, the idea
of an independent sphere of atemporal universals has traditionally offered itself as a
model to capture the more-than-individual sphere of being. Yet, this is not easily
reconcilable with the phenomenological tenet that all judgments must be ultimately
5

For a detailed analysis of the ontological status of essences in Husserls thought see Zhok (2011).

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motivated by what is given to consciousness, which denies our entitlement to speak

of a separate ontological sphere (the realm of ideas or essences).
In this sense, we should try to phenomenologize possibility (essence) by
isolating the core phenomenal traits that motivate our belief in such a sphere. We
identify three phenomenal traits:
1.

2.

3.

We must grant the subsistence of a more-than-individual (general) dimension in

ontology; an ontology of mere particulars is insufficient to account for the
intelligibility of our world.
Ontological generality articulates into enduring units endowed with limits of
validity; there are crucial boundaries within which an entity can be regarded as
the same and beyond which it must be regarded as different.
The limits of validity that define essential units (i.e., possibilities) are set a
priori, that is, they do not depend on contingent reality and do not temporally
follow real experience.

These three conditions may be used to demand the introduction of a separate

sphere of essences, but from a phenomenological point of view we do not want to
introduce ontological instances for which there is no phenomenal justification. And
there is no phenomenon that speaks in favor of a hypostasized notion of possibility
(as separately existent forms, as a special kind of slot or container, etc.). The only
traits that must be granted are the above mentioned ones: limits of validity,
apriority, more-than-individual validity.
In the following paragraphs we will discuss each of these features in a
phenomenological framework where experience is primarily constituting.
(1) The question of eidetic boundaries. Ever since the first edition of the Logical
Investigations Husserl granted that essences need experience to come to light. Yet
the theoretical position of experience changes over time. He designates the process
leading from experience (primarily sensuous experience) to the grasp of essences
with a variety of expressions: Ideation, Ideenschau, Wesensschau, ideierende
Abstraktion, etc. However, in the Logical Investigations we miss a full-fledged
positive account of this experiential process, Husserls analyses of kategoriale
Anschauung notwithstanding (Hua XIX/2, passim).
In later works Husserl introduces a specific account of the ideating process
leading from sensuous experience to the detection of essential features; he calls this
process eidetic variation. Although something like eidetic variation is occasionally used in a variety of scientific fields, the specific contribution of phenomenology
concerns a conceptual clarification of the authentic meaning of this procedure (Hua
IX, p. 322). In outline, eidetic variation is a procedure where the features of an
arbitrarily chosen entity, drawn from actual experience, are freely varied in
imagination. This free variation brings to light boundaries, beyond which we judge
that the relevant entity is no longer the same, but becomes something different. Such
boundaries may or may not be already captured by an available verbal expression.
This process enables us to discern essential from accidental features: essential
features are the ones that we intend as identity-bestowing in relation to some
intentional objects.

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The process of eidetic variation can start from any accidental object. It is
important to observe that the outcome that we can expect from an analysis through
eidetic variation is not the univocal definition of the nature of an entity, but the
discovery of characterizing features. I can summon in phantasy the image of a knife
and ask what makes it a knife. Although a knife is doubtlessly a cultural artefact,
nevertheless we can discover non-arbitrary traits, which depend on our implicit
understanding of what is indispensable to consider it a knife. We can vary all
features of the knife that come to mind: length, shape, matter, color, etc. And then
we can wonder whether a knife is still a knife when its blade is too soft to cut or
when it is as long as a sword, or when it is painted in funny colors, etc. Different
answers may emerge: some may be clear, some others blurred or even open to
conventional adjustments. This kind of inquiry is an investigation of the boundaries
of meaning that we always already use. It is not a merely analytic process: we
actively produce hypotheses (variation of features), we test them by creating in
imagination possible application contexts, and we discover the boundaries between
core (essential) traits and more or less marginal (accidental) ones.
In this process we bring to light a constellation of meanings that contribute to the
definition of our starting example. Among them there are also essential a priori
traits. For instance, our knife could be black, or green, red, etc., yet if it is a knife it
is a thing, and if it is a thing it has a volume, a shape, a surface, and I cannot
annihilate the surface of a thing without annihilating its color, while I can annihilate
color without annihilating surface, etc.
According to Husserl, the free variability of features in eidetic variation meets
boundaries where variation cannot be pursued further (Husserl 1939, p. 435). But the
nature of such inability to imaginatively trespass those boundaries must be clarified.
Let us take basic ontological categories like living being and material thing.
What does it mean that in varying the features of a living being (e.g., a dog) we
cannot inadvertently land in the semantic area of a material thing? Quite clearly
this impossibility is no empirical impossibility; there is no practical hindrance in
trespassing in imagination the boundary between material thing and living
being. Indeed, we even have acquaintance with ontological theories where this
boundary has been explicitly rejected: modern physics may be taken to tell us that
ultimately living beings are nothing but material things; and ancient hylozoism
argued that ultimately all material things are living beings. Yet, there is a sense in
which we must regard that boundary as necessarynot because we are unable to
trespass it, but because our understanding cannot do without it. We may embrace an
ontological vision that denies the actual existence of a boundary between living
beings and dead matter, but we are bound to take a stance towards such a boundary,
which is evidently crucial. In other words, even if we established that no real state of
affairs corresponds to the conceptual boundary between animals and things,
nevertheless we should take stance toward that intentional distinction. We may be
unable to agree on what exactly distinguishes a living being from a mere material
thing, but we cannot deny that this boundary is essential, is compellingly significant.
We can provisionally conclude that the first of the features that characterize
eidetic possibilities manifests itself as intentional preferences that materialize as
intelligible differences. The thresholds that qualify units of meaning do not manifest

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themselves as something belonging to the sphere of empirical facts or constraints,

but rather to a motivational sphere.
(2) Actuality and the a priori nature of possibility. The second feature of eidetic
possibilities that we want to consider is the a priori character of the above
mentioned crucial thresholds. Even if apriority here does not mean validity that
pre-exists all experience, still, before the 1920s, Husserl does seem to endorse a
notion of apriority which makes room also for the classical notion of pre-existent
ideas. He distinguishes an innate, transcendental apriori from an affective
contingent apriori (Hua XLI, p. 101), which justifies the idea that apriority, in a
specific acceptation, may be wholly independent from experience.6 But this stance
does not seem to be confirmed in following texts. Rather, apriority seems to imply
just that what is a priori cannot be inductively derived from collections of particular
experiences (Hua XLI, p. 292), and that, after being acquired, it can be applied to an
indefinite plurality of particular experiences. As Husserl observes, if our experience
of the chromatic spectrum were limited to the perception of nuances of grey, we
would never be able to obtain blue or red by variation of shades of grey (Hua XLI,
p. 206). Phantasy is a modification (Abwandlungsprodukt) of perceptual experiences
and the richer the original experience in a field, the richer the range of phantasy.
This is the case also for the constitution of eidetic possibilities concerning
conceptual spheres like geometry, which are usually regarded as archetypes of pure
ideality (Hua XLI, p. 293; cf. VI, p. 24f.).7 Even the notion of something in
general (Hua XVII, p. 68), which is the basis of formal ontology, needs experience
to emerge (Hua XLI, pp. 328329). In the end, the difference between a
contingent apriori and a transcendental apriori seems to reduce to the
difference between units of meaning that need a specific experience to emerge (e.g.,
color, knife) and units of meaning that just need experience as such to emerge (e.g.,
object, temporality, etc.).
Phantasy does not merely reproduce experiences, but its active powers are rooted
in the passive sphere of experience that belongs to perception.
However, even if experience in this sense is constitutive of possibility, this does
not imply that the sphere of possibilities depends on reality; nor does it imply that
possibilities are something that temporally follows real experience. Let us examine
why this is so.
Possibilities depend on the actuality of experience, but such an actuality must be
kept conceptually separated from reality (Realitat), which in Husserlian terms is
defined as spatiotemporal existence. Reality as spatiotemporal existence is
6

,,Also scheiden wir terminologisch das angeborene, transzendentale Apriori und das affektive
kontingente Apriori. Seine Kontingenz besteht darin, dass nur solche Subjekte es erwerben konnen, die
Exempel dafur haben, und diese stammen aus der Affektion. So sind auch ewige Wahrheiten blo affektiv
kontingent, wenn ihre Begriffe es sind.(Hua XLI, p. 101).

,,Phantasie ist ein genetisches Abwandlungsprodukt von Erfahrungen, und je reicher die Ausbildung
ursprunglicher Erfahrung in einem Erfahrungsgebiet ist, um so vollkommener ist die entsprechende
Phantasieeine Erfahrung-als-obin ihren freien Gestaltungen. Ohne die reich ausgebildete sinnendingliche Erfahrung des vorwissenschaftlichen Lebens, deren grundliche Ausbildung die ganze
Kindheitsperiode erfullt, und vor allem der Erfahrung sinnendinglicher Raumgestalten, ware eine
geometrische Anschauung als phantasiemaig frei gestaltende nicht moglich gewesen.(Hua XLI,
p. 293).

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something constituted through experience, not something independently subsisting

in itself, regardless of experience (Claesges 1964, pp. 23). Therefore, saying that
possibilities (essences) depend on reality would be misleading; they depend on the
actuality of experience, which is not to be conceived as something that takes place
in spatiotemporal reality.
When we consider experience at the primal constituting level, we must refrain
from describing it as encounter of a human body with external matter. Experience
is the originary constituting relation between transcendental (inter)subjectivity and
a transcendent something (Hyle or, in late texts, Ur-Hyle).8 As we noticed before,
even the notions that traditionally belong to the formal apriori require experience
to emerge, since they rest on the notion of something in general, which requires
consciousness to be intentionally directed to Hyle as such (Hua XVII, pp. 3334).
The primal transcendental world-constitution that takes place in experience signals
the essential correlation between subject and object (Hua VI, p. 154). This primal
constitution is sometimes designated by Husserl as the absolute fact [absolute
Tatsache] (Hua XV, p. 403), which is no ordinary spatiotemporal fact. An ordinary
fact is by definition contingent, that is, it is interpreted as something that actually
happens against a background of alternative possibilities. But this is precisely what
the absolute fact of experience cannot be: the actuality of experience grounds
possibilities. Therefore, we cannot conceive of having experience, i.e., of the
subsistence of consciousness, as a mere fact among many possible alternatives (Hua
XV, pp. 668669),9 because there are no possibilities in the absence of the actuality
of experience. Of course, we may well imagine a world where no living being has
ever appeared, but it is we who project the possibilities of such a world in the wake
of the absolute fact of (inter)subjective world-constitution.
The constituting character of experience, especially sensuous experience,
excludes that such experience can be interpreted as a mere fact in space and time.
We must rather understand experience, with particular reference to perceptual
experience, as a primary and irreducible constituting source; units of meaning and
possibilities are emergent items generated by experience.
Similar considerations must come into play with regard to the attribution to
possibility of a temporal position (preceding or following experience). Even if
possibilities depend on experience, this does not mean that they are temporally a
posteriori. They are not a posteriori in a temporal sense, since temporality does not
exist outside experience. We can say that changes happen independently of
conscious activity, but this is far from saying that temporality exists separately from
experience. Temporality is not just change; it is an order of change where two forms
8

Initially Hyle designated sensations interpreted as raw matter of intentionality. But since sensations
are properly speaking still immanent data, in later writings Husserl introduced the term Ur-hyle, to
emphasize the pre-cognitive transcendent character of the substrate of all sensuous experience.

,,Ist es also zufallig, dass Menschen und Tiere sind? Diese Welt ist, wie sie ist. Aber es ist widersinnig
zu sagen, zufallig, da Zufall in sich schliesst einen Horizont von Moglichkeiten, in dem selbst das
Zufallige eine der Moglichkeiten, eben die wirklich eingetretene, bedeutet. Absolutes Faktum das
Wort Faktum ist seinem Sinn nach verkehrt hier angewendet, ebenso Tatsache, hier ist kein Tater. Es ist
eben das Absolute, das auch nicht als notwendigbezeichnet werden kann, das allen Moglichkeiten, allen
Relativitaten, allen Bedingtheiten zugrunde liegend, ihnen Sinn und Sein gebend ist.(Hua XV,
pp. 668669).

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of absence (retained experiences and potential ones) are tied to current occurrences.
No factual state of affairs can dictate the ordering of temporality. In the absence of
retentions-in-sight-of-protentions there is no such a thing as an intrinsic temporal
ordering.
Possibilities are neither temporally a posteriori nor temporally a priori. Even if
we grant that possibilities are a priori, such apriority should not be read as temporal
priority (Hua XXXVI, p. 20). Essences are said to be supertemporal
[uberzeitlich] (Hua XVIII, p. 134), and the same can be said about possibilities,
but this does not involve their pre-existing actual experience. Their supertemporal
character merely requires them to be re-identifiable over time.
(3) Generality and teleological functions. Now, we still need to account for the
third trait of constituted possibilities in terms that avoid the pitfall of hypostatization. How should we understand the generality that characterizes essences and
possibilities? General validity is what primarily characterizes the ideal sphere in all
philosophical accounts since Plato. It signals a phenomenon that manifests itself in
the contrast between the mobility and variety of sensuous particulars (of external or
internal perception) and the mental availability of stable re-identifiable units, able to
subsume a multiplicity of past experiences and to anticipate an indefinitely vast set
of further particulars that have not been met yet.
In a phenomenological (non-Platonic) framework the relation between generality
and particularity should be understood as a process that constitutes essential units
through experience, with particular reference to sensuous experience. This is the
process that Husserl calls Ideation (Hua XIX/1, p. 111f.), ideierende Abstraktion
(Hua XIX/2, p. 690f.), but also, from a different perspective, Typisierung (Husserl
1946, pp. 332333). In traditional accounts (e.g., Berkeley), abstraction is
interpreted as a process that is supposed to obtain generality by depriving sensuous
experience of some of its particular traits. As Husserl shows very early (Hua XIX/1,
pp. 160161), this explanation cannot work, since such a process of abstraction
would merely lead to an impoverished sensuous particular, never to generality.
We can try to increase the intelligibility of the relation between generality and
particularity in experience through two observations.
First, we must not conceive of sensuous particularity as if it was something
altogether heterogeneous to cognitive acts; sensuous particularity is not the same as
transcendent matter. There is no categorical heterogeneity between sensuous
particulars and concepts (or types) because also the passive sphere that fulfils
intentions has intentional character: sensations are co-generated with bodily
(sensorimotor) reactions. Therefore, there is no reason to understand the opposition
between sensuous particularity and the generality of types as irreducible and foreign
to intentionality. This makes room for a second remark.
We can distinguish sensuous particulars from stable general contents according
to their functional roles in our apprehension of experiential reality. Each sensuous
particular immediately appears as a unit endowed with general validity as soon as
we actively use it. Something is a particular givenness, and not a general content,
insofar as it plays the role of passively acknowledged source of affections. For
instance, our glance draws information from a landscape where we have to do with
countless nuances of color, with shadows and reflexes, dots and spots, etc. As soon

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as we focus on a specific shade of blue, a shadow, a spot, it immediately turns into a

potentially general content, since it can be used as a superindividual unit, which
could be compared, re-identified or misidentified, in different contexts and times.
Even if we may never again have the actual opportunity to re-identify such a spot or
shade of blue, its nature now is and remains general. Nothing has changed in its
intrinsic nature, but only in its function. As soon as something becomes part of a
function subordinated to a telic attitude, the same aspects that appeared as mere
particulars when they were passively apprehended become units endowed with
general validity, because a plurality of elements can satisfy the same telos (cf. Hua
III, p. 213). From this perspective we may acknowledge that, according to the
phenomena, the sensuous sphere is intrinsically no more particular than general;
generality or particularity is brought forth by our use of sensuous experience.
Generality is bestowed on experiences by their active teleological function, since
any unitary telos can always in principle be satisfied by an indefinite plurality of
occurrences.
These observations may allow us to re-evaluate the role of the practical and
teleological dimension in the constitution of possibilities. The world, Husserl says,
is constituted as a horizon of practical possibilities (HuaMat VIII, p. 239; cf. Hua
XLI, pp. 250251), and the same is true of the substantial existence and coexistence
of things in the world (HuaMat VIII, p. 236). Material objects are constituted as
units of enduring interest (Einheiten bleibender Interessen), which rest on an
acquired patrimony (Vermogen) of practices, among which a prominent role is
played by kinaestheses (HuaMat VIII, pp. 3367). Thus, the world and all beings in
it are determined as internal or external horizons of practical possibilities or
Vermoglichkeiten (Hua XV, pp. 203, 282). These considerations tell us that being
as such, in its constituted (ontic) sense, which involves the intertemporal existence
and coexistence of all that is absent, has an essentially dispositional nature. The real
possibilities that inhere in constituted being rely on the availability of settled
practices (in an extended sense) and on the constituting dimension of teleology.
Settled practices define the contents that we are able to entertain in mind and to vary
in phantasy, while a telic drive defines the thresholds and generality (difference and
identity) of meaningful units.

5 The Sphere of Constituted Possibilities: Ontological Versus Empty

In Sect. 3 we provided a first conceptual synthesis of the plurality of meanings of
possibility that occur in Husserls texts. They have been reduced to three or four
main categories: ideal possibilities, empty possibilities, real possibilities and
practical possibilities, where real and practical possibilities appear more as different
aspects of the unitary category motivated possibilities than as altogether distinct
instances. These sorts of possibility are constituted (ontic) possibilities, that is, they
name qualified units of meaning which potentially embrace actual realizations. As
we will soon see, constituted possibilities should be conceptually separated from
constituting possibilities, that is, from the background of conditions of possibility
that constitutes them as the units of meaning they are.

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We devoted Sect. 4 to showing how the traits that justify the subsistence of ideal
possibilities do not justify any Leibnizian-Platonic hypostatization. In the process,
we have seen that some practical and teleological traits are sufficient to account
for the conceptual core of ideal possibility. This implies that we should not treat
ideal possibilities as an altogether independent class either, but that they can be
seen, in turn, as specific forms of motivated possibilities.
Now it is time to turn to the nature of empty possibilities. Are there reasons to
preserve them as an autonomous kind of possibility irreducible to the others
(ultimately, to motivated possibility in all its aspects)? Indeed there are. The sphere
of empty possibilities (i.e., of merely logical possibilities) is not akin to motivated
possibilities in a crucial respect: while all motivated possibilities tend towards a
synthesis such that all their realizations would belong to a unitary world, this is not
the case for empty/logical possibilities.
The total sphere of all logical possibilities is by definition no unitary sphere, since
it must include all contradictory options. When we conceive of logical possibilities
as everything that is non-contradictory, we usually omit that this statement makes
sense only when it is applied to a positive state of affairs, with which such and such
possibilities are considered non-contradictory: granted that X, then Y and Z are
logical possibilities, non-contradictory with X. But when we formulate the idea
of a totality of logical possibilities, such a totality must include all contradictory and
incompatible options that can be produced by phantasy. This is what Husserl means
by saying that empty possibilities are free because they are characterized by lack
of connection (Zusammenhangslosigkeit) (Hua XLI, p. 146).
Free possibilities are collections of anonymous units, of somethings in general,
which characterize formal logical thought and on which any self-consistent order
can be imposed (cf. XLI, pp. 227228). For these reasons, empty possibilities as
such are ontologically weak: they do not represent possibilities in the main sense of
possibilities of existing, because they are silent about any reason to expect that
something specific exists. Only motivated possibilities have grounds to be
considered conducive to determinate existence or its denial (Hua XXXVI,
pp. 3637). The possible worlds that we may conceive are variations of our
actual human world (Hua XLI, pp. 338339) and in fact the very talk of possible
worldsis ontologically empty, since unmotivated possibilities cannot outline any
world-horizon (Drummond 1990, pp. 218219).
The sphere of all merely logical possibilities is not conceivable as a unitary set,
not even an infinite set. This sphere is the realm of disconnection and therefore is
nothing like a world, or a set of worlds. In Husserls account, empty possibilities
may have a representational content; I can produce in phantasy a plastic
representation of flying whales. But while whales and wings are motivated
contents, their connection into a flying whale is unmotivated and therefore empty; it
is emptily betokened (indiziert).
That said, there is nevertheless an important sense in which logical possibilities
can represent ontological possibilities. This is not a sense of the term ontology
that Husserl usually acknowledges, but it is undoubtedly coherent with his
phenomenological account. There is an intuitive sense in which the sphere of
sensuous transcendence can be named ontological: it manifests itself as

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independently being. The transcendent dimension of phenomena appears in

phenomenological accounts as a borderline dimension, which is recognized by
consciousness as being beyond the activity (and telos) of consciousness. Sensuous
transcendence is the irretrievable otherness that can always surprise us and that is
not always and not necessarily synthesizable. Sometimes such a resistance to
intentional synthesis is radical and we have to do with unintelligible chaos, other
times (more often) we have to do with surprising events that simply do not fit our
rational synthesis of the world.
In the field of the events that resist rational synthesis we should put all events for
which there is no adequate account consistent with our vision of the world. Thus, we
should include in this field of non-synthesizable events everything that is just
partially, provisionally and locally described by particular accounts, without being
reconciled with the overall descriptions of the world that we regard as valid. This set
of accounts is vast. Among them we can count everything that we describe in
supernatural or preternatural terms. But this class can be also extended to local
scientific accounts that are not properly harmonized with core scientific theories.
Beyond these cases, there are plenty of other hasty, improvised, momentary or
superstitious accounts of reality. We entertain urban legends, pseudo-scientific
beliefs, dogmatic traditional views, private superstitions, more or less educated
guesses, etc. When we formulate superstitious accounts based on bizarre
coincidences, or on the apparent symbolic or moral value of accidental events, we
produce free-floating hypotheses which outline possibilities that can often be shown
to be empty. Nevertheless, such a production of empty possibilities can contribute to
our management of reality.
Empty/logical possibilities can play an important function. Logical-mathematical
descriptions play an important role in scientific thought, not only for computational
purposes, but also when they enable local or partial rational orderings and
classifications, which can work without any current reason to believe that their
empty slots could be ever filled. We can and do elaborate mathematical models
even in the absence of meaningful empirical ground to motivate them. Empty/logical possibilities, with their appeal to free-floating phantasy possibilities can indeed
play a role in capturing a crucial ontological aspect that is not accounted for by
motivated possibilities.
Motivated possibilities help us to conceive a meaningful world, pervaded by
opportunities to act and endowed with an intrinsic telic dimension. This is the
sphere of possibilities whose analysis issues into regional ontologies and the
ontology of Lebenswelt. Empty/logical possibilities play an altogether different role
in ontological considerations, a role which is discontinuous with motivated
possibilities. Empty/logical possibilities can be applied to elements of being which
are refractory to rational synthesis. Empty/logical possibilities and motivated
possibilities do not compete with each other in ontological accounts; they have
different functions and operate at different levels. Thus, we can use empty
mathematical models to tame phenomena that apparently resist rational
imagination. For instance, this might be the case for quantum phenomena, which
have mathematical treatment without being rationally reconcilable with the
syntheses of perception, recollection, narration, etc.

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In our vision of life and the world we aim at a structured unitary vision of being,
where motivated accounts (scientific, philosophical and commonsense ones) are
able to shape a consistent ontology. But, at the same time, we also entertain a vast
multiplicity of mutually disconnected (zusammenhangslos) beliefs, which currently
resist rational reconciliation with our core (motivated) ontology, while playing
nevertheless a rational function. Empty possibilities refer to their objects in the way
in which empty signs betoken (indizieren) their references. This is what formal
signs of mathematical or logical expressions and unmotivated imaginative
projections have in common (Hua XVII, pp. 6263). This is what Heisenbergs
use of the matrix calculus in quantum mechanics and phantasy conjectures about a
diamond as big as the sun have in common. There are no experiential motives to
think that such betokening representations capture the ontological nature of their
intentional references, nevertheless they may (and often do) play an ordering
function, by which we tame unruly appearances that do not fit in our unitary
ontology.
Empty possibilities and motivated possibilities turn out to be two ultimately
irreducible sets of ontic possibilities, endowed with substantially different functions
and different potentialities.

6 The Sphere of Constituting Possibility: Contingence and Teleology

As we noticed, both motivated and empty possibilities are constituted ontic
possibilities, that is, they are possibilities conceived as available to be realized by
entities, beings, events. Yet, the traditional (Platonic) vision of ideal
possibility as a separate spheresuch that real beings would just be those pre-set
possibilities that became actualalso had the ambition to depict the transcendental
role of possibility, that is, its role as a condition of possibility of Being as such. By
setting aside the Platonic-Leibnizian hypostatization of possibility, then, we seem
also to have relinquished the ambition to provide a radical account of ontological
conditions of possibility, since both empty and motivated possibilities depend on
actual experience and pre-delineated beings.
However, we have encountered theoretical elements that may allow a
reconstruction of ontological conditions of possibility that does not require the
hypostatization of possibility. In late texts, Husserl occasionally refers to this preontological sphere as pre-being (Vor-Sein or Vor-Seiende) (HuaMat VIII, p. 223f.).
World constitution demands a pre-constitution (Hua XV, p. 173), which must not be
described as temporally antecedent, but as endowed with ontological priority.
Husserl is not explicit about the traits that we can legitimately ascribe to this sphere,
yet from what we have seen, we are inclined to ascribe to this primal dimension just
two specific traits.
On the one hand, we have the irretrievably contingent nature of sensuous
transcendence, which seems to be what Husserl occasionally names vor-seiende
Hyle (HuaMat VIII, p. 224) or Ur-hyle (Hua XV, p. 78). On the other hand, we
find what Husserl sometimes calls Ur-praxis (Hua XV, p. 328), which signals the
functional teleology that rules over all our practical or theoretical activity. Thus,

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a transcendental regression to the ultimate conditions of possibility of constitution

comes to a correlation between Ur-hyle and Ur-praxis (or equivalent expressions),
which cannot be further analyzed.
Before any talk of subject and object, we should recognize an original
complementary duality between Ur-hyle, as contingent transcendent self-givenness,
and a functional teleology, as possibilizing force (cf. Janssen 1970,
pp. 122123). As we saw in Sect. 4, a telic functional dimension is needed in
order to support both the general validity of possibility and its articulation according
to thresholds. This is the context in which it is pertinent to recall Husserls claim
that any accomplished ontology is teleology (Hua XV, p. 385).10
Against this background, we can draw our last conclusions from the rejection of
the hypostasized conception of possibility. Possibilities are not waiting for us
anywhere, but we have to make room for an idea of possibility as possibilizing
actuality, which is tantamount to saying as emergence (cf. De Warren 2009,
p. 199). Specific possibilities come into the world (emerge) together with specific
actualizations. In this sense the truism, that if something is real (actual) then it must
be possible, should be indisputably granted only a posteriori.
Yet, insofar as each actual experience should be read also as possibilization
(Ermoglichung) (Held 1966, p. 4; Claesges 1964, pp. 107108), and not just as
instantiating a pre-set possibility, then we should think of development as a
pervasive, omnicomprehensive trait of being. Insofar as we can grasp Being, we
should conceive it as renewal and becoming (genesis, evolution).
If possibility were understood according to the model of pre-set containers,
necessarily each actualization in a succession should be conceived as a restriction of
a primordial set of possibilities. But under the different premises that we are
suggesting, each actualization of previous possibilities manifests itself as further
possibilization. We could try a naturalistic illustration of this process as follows.
We could say, for instance, that as soon as eyeswith their ordinary physiology and
functionemerged in natural history, all the bounded possibilities related to
continuity and contrast between colors, to the necessary tie between color and visual
surfaces, etc., came into the world. From then on, the possibilities (and their limits)
concerning chromatic experience could be realized or not. Yet it would be
misleading here to state that the range of possibilities in chromatic experience has
always already been there, just unfulfilled. This would be a relapse into an
unwarranted representation of possibilities subsisting somewhere ab aeterno.
When novel possibilities appear on the stage they add options but do not replace
previous options. When, for instance, language articulations and formations of sense
10

,,Nur bedenke ich aber, dass in der Ruckfrage sich schliesslich die Urstruktur ergibt in ihrem Wandel
der Urhyle etc. mit den Urkinasthesen, Urgefuhlen, Urinstinkten. Danach liegt es im Faktum, dass das
Urmaterial gerade so verlauft in einer Einheitsform, die Wesenform ist vor der Weltlichkeit. Damit
scheint schon instinktiv die Konstitution der ganzen Welt fur mich vorgezeichnet, wobei die
ermoglichenden Funktionen selbst ihr Wesens-ABC, ihre Wesensgrammatik im voraus haben. Also im
Faktum liegt es, dass im voraus eine Teleologie statthat. Eine volle Ontologie ist Teleologie, sie setzt aber
das Faktum voraus. [] Aber nun hat diese Teleologie Bedingungen ihrer Moglichkeit, also auch das
Sein der teleologischen Wirklichkeit selbst, und von der (transzendentalen) Wirklichkeit her ihre
Wesensmoglichkeit. Eben im Verwiesenwerden auf die Urfakta der Hyle (im weitesten Sinne); ohne die
ware keine Welt moglich und keine transzendentale Allsubjektivitat.(Hua XV, p. 385).

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in general (Husserls Sinngebilde) appear on the stage of human history (or

ontogeny), they do not erase or violate the settled laws of perceptual constitution.
Nevertheless, such novel formations of sense do radically affect the scope,
meaning and import of perceptual knowledge.
The laws of perception are valid in the sphere of perceptual acts and
perceptual objects, but they do not pre-figure (do not include in advance) the
developments of consciousness that may emerge in the wake of perception. For
instance, natural language necessarily rests on perceptual activity, but language
brings to light intentional acts (e.g., irony, questioning, narrative, metaphors, etc.)
that have no straightforward pre-linguistic equivalent (cf. Dodd 2004, p. 117). Each
essential law implicitly assumes a set of entities and conditions for which it
claims validity, but when new entities and/or conditions come about, the law is not
violated, since new laws apply to new entities/conditions. This perspective seems
strange only if we assume the unwarranted metaphysical thesis that there is no such
a thing as true ontological novelty and that all possibilities are already available in
embryo in what presently is.

7 Conclusions
At the beginning of the paper we wondered how the relation between the actuality
of experience and the possibility of experience (and its conditions) had to be
conceived.
Husserls phenomenology of possibility has led us to a rejection of the
hypostatization of possibilities and to a radicalization of the very idea of possibility.
In Husserls analysis, the motivational sphere is shown to be ubiquitously at work,
and no ontological stance is extraneous to the sense-bestowing impulse of the
motivational instances of consciousness. All intentionality, all spheres of apperceptions and horizons, express systems of motivations (Hua XI, p. 337)11 which
determine the whole connection of dynamic relations of experience (Hua XXXVI,
p. 179).12 Possibility appears to be rooted in what is, each time, actual experience
and is characterized by the potential and forward-looking character inherent in
horizons. Inner and outer horizons are Vermoglichkeiten, which are primarily
characterized by teleological (axiological) instances; they are animated by an
inexhaustible drive towards synthesis, an ontological drive that does not mirror facts
but expresses fundamental living instances.
These traits are mirrored in the first instance by the conceptual classification of
constituted ontic possibilities, which are ultimately reduced to two ways of predelineating entities: a real/motivated one and an empty/logical one. Not only the
11

,,Jede unerfullte Intention, jeder unerfullte Horizont birgt Motivationen, Systeme von Motivationen in
sich. Es ist eine Potentialitat der Motivation. Wenn die Erfullung eintritt, ist eine aktuelle Motivation da.
Man kann auch sagen, dass Apperzeption selbst eine Motivation \ sei [ , sie motiviere, was auch immer
erfullend eintreten mag, sie motiviere ins Leere hinaus.(Hua XI, p. 337).

12
,,Das immanente Erlebnisreich ist eine kontinuierliche Synthese in der Form der immanenten Zeit und
ist durch und durch ein Motivationszusammenhang, durch und durch ein Zusammenhang des WeilSo.(Hua XXXVI, p. 179).

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first class of ontic possibilities, but also the class of empty/logical possibilities, is
subordinated to a telic function. Empty possibilities help to tame unruly
appearances by grasping them through provisional and local representations, which
make sense even if they are disconnected from each other and from motivated
possibilities.
But this classification of constituted possibilities refers us back to a more
fundamental sphere of constituting possibilities. This is a dimension of possibility
which can be regarded as ontologically prior to actuality, without being temporally
antecedent to consciousness. In this ontologically primal sphere where ontic
possibility is rooted, we discern two complementary elements, which could be
named transcendental contingency and transcendental motivation respectively.
These spheres are complementary because something is contingent only by being
beyond and against the sense-bestowing process supported by motivation. And
motivation manifests itself only in its application to transcendent otherness, which
is always originarily contingent.
We are never in a position to delimit the scope of transcendental motivation.
What we know is that transcendental motivation cannot be fully sovereign, since the
sphere of transcendental contingency (pre-eminently sensuous transcendence) is
never fully subordinate to intelligibility and manipulation. The telic structure of
consciousness intrinsically aims at taming transcendent otherness, but this is a
task that can be accomplished always at most partially and provisionally.
These considerations lead to a final suggestion on the nature of the relation
between experience and possibility. The identity of constituted ontic possibilities
depends on how transcendental motivation and transcendental contingency combine
in instantiations of actual experience. Nothing in constituted ontic possibilities is
ontologically prior to experience. That is, actual experiences create the room for
possibility; they are possibilizations (Ermoglichungen). In this sense, experience is
to be taken as a generative sphere which goes beyond the customary boundary
between epistemic and ontological. Experience is emergence in both an epistemic
and an ontological sense, because it creates the room for possibilities. Such a
dynamic possibilizing dimension expresses a constitutive drive. To be a living
consciousness hunting for meaningful units is tantamount to being a possibilizing
actuality.

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