Taylor Coles3/15/15Final Husserl Homework

What does the term horizon mean in Husserls lingo?

A horizon is the connected series of co-intended potential perceptions that are meant in an intentional act of perceiving an object. A horizon is made up of what is given in a particular perception alongside what is implied but not given, i.e. different aspects of the object that are perceived as ways an object could appear, but are not determinately expressed.

What is the relation between adumbrations and horizons in Husserls system?

An adumbration, a slice of objective experience, is what is given to me in perception of an object, but this slice of the object is connected with the slices I would see if different aspects of the object were presented to me. The network of these projected adumbrations form the horizon in which my experience of an object as a unified object is possible. In my lived experience with the world, I create new horizons by changing my perspective, fulfilling previously empty intuitions and making new possible perceptions.

Do some phenomenology: give a rich phenomenological description (max 250 words) of your visual experience of some physical object.

I visually perceive a coke bottle. In so doing, a picture of one face and perspective on the bottle shows up to me, but it also suggests the different views I could have of it. Each possible view has consistent dimensions, and by conceiving of the bottle within a horizon of possible appearances, I am able to understand how I could interact with it. I perceive that the bottle is clear and that it would remain so from each possible vantage point. The bottle has a certain extended shape and volume which would hold if I reached over and picked it up, or tried to push it off the table. Each of these aspects locates the object in my possible experience and prompts me to understand it as an object of possible experience that is freely available to me.

Husserl states that its not just (physical) objects that have adumbrations, but also the properties of physical objects. Give an example of a property of a physical object, a property that presents itself in adumbrations. Describe it (max 150 words).

The grayness of the coke bottle cap presents itself in adumbrations as a property of the bottle cap. Although only one side of the bottle cap is present to me, and I am only experiencing it in one kind of lighting conditions at one time, I nonetheless perceive a gray bottlecap. I project possible adumbrations of the cap as ways I would perceive it if I were to change my position. Each projected adumbration is an appearance of a color and I identify each appearance as a different aspect of the same color, each being a property of the same thing. In perceiving the bottle cap as having the property gray, I perceive that each possible appearance of the cap will be the same color.

Husserl states that immanent objects are not adumbrated. Why not? Give an example of an immanent object and explain why it does not present itself in adumbrations.

An immanent object, like the experience of a color or an emotion, is not adumbrated, because it isnt an object that presents itself as having concealed sides. Immanent objects are wholly present to consciousness, which means they dont possess any possible, but indeterminate presentations or aspects. My experience of a color at a particular time cant be changed by changing my perspective on it, it simply is the mental phenomena as it was experienced. The color doesnt have a back side or a progression of shades under different light, since it is an object that exists as a single perception.

Do you think that abstract objects, such as numbers, present themselves in adumbrations? Consider the number two. (Not the numeral, the inscription that designats the number, but the number itself.) Give some reasons.

I do not think that abstract objects present themselves in adumbrations. They are not presented in aspects, as though one could perceive part of Two and grasp that I could at the same time perceive a different part. In particular, there is no sense in which different ways of encountering Two conflict with one another. It is an essential aspect of an adumbrated object that each perspective is exclusive with every other, such that I cannot make every aspect of the object determinate. Nothing I could learn inferentially or logically about the number two obscures any other encounter with the number. Given this, it does not make sense to think of abstract objects as objects that admit of perspectives like natural objects do.