


In Husserl, traditional metaphysics doubles the naturalistic oppositions between form and matter, subject and object, nature and mind etc., at the grounding layer of reality. This way it never gains an authentically transcendental standpoint. Phenomenology discovers that description is always an intrinsic part of what it describes: in reducing the world the ego makes it possible according to eidetic laws. Therefore, a “phenomenologi- cal metaphysics” should give genetically reason of this movement, which makes reference to the corporeal rootedness of consciousness. Apparently, enactive emergentism seems to respond to this issue in a naturalizing way. In a sense, it pursues the task of genetic phenomenology, shedding light on the temporal dynamics of self–constitution and the metastable balance of consciousness; but the ambition of genetic phenomenology — as every transcendentalism — is also to take into account the not–individually–lived, that is the Lebenswelt, the already–constituted significations which are nei- ther merely biological nor environmental, rather logical, technical, and historical.A phenomenological metaphysics, therefore, should answer for an inclusion and a self–inclusion: the inclusion of all experiences in the “multilayered” temporal display, and the inclusion of itself in itself, for itself contributes, while describing, to that temporal display.



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                                              trópos • anno X • numero 2 • 2017 – ISBN 978-88-255-1253-3
                                               DOI 10.4399/97888255125333 – pag. 29-37 (dicembre 2017)




                              A Question Containing Itself
                  Metaphysics of Genesis and Emergentism
                                                         Francesca Dell’Orto*




Abstract: In Husserl, traditional metaphysics doubles the naturalistic oppo-
sitions between form and matter, subject and object, nature and mind etc.,
at the grounding layer of reality. This way it never gains an authentically
transcendental standpoint. Phenomenology discovers that description is
always an intrinsic part of what it describes: in reducing the world the ego
makes it possible according to eidetic laws. Therefore, a “phenomenologi-
cal metaphysics” should give genetically reason of this movement, which
makes reference to the corporeal rootedness of consciousness. Apparently,
enactive emergentism seems to respond to this issue in a naturalizing way.
In a sense, it pursues the task of genetic phenomenology, shedding light
on the temporal dynamics of self–constitution and the metastable balance
of consciousness; but the ambition of genetic phenomenology — as every
transcendentalism — is also to take into account the not–individually–lived,
that is the Lebenswelt, the already–constituted significations which are nei-
ther merely biological nor environmental, rather logical, technical, and
historical.
    A phenomenological metaphysics, therefore, should answer for an in-
clusion and a self–inclusion: the inclusion of all experiences in the “mul-
tilayered” temporal display, and the inclusion of itself in itself, for itself
contributes, while describing, to that temporal display.

Keywords: transcendental phenomenology — naturalization — temporal
constitution — self–inclusion.

    In Husserl, natural attitude and traditional metaphysics have in common
the disacquaintance of the epoché, that is of the a priori and immanent cor-
relation between Erscheinen and Erscheinenden, constitution and constituted.
Metaphysics, as the study of Being and last foundation, is a dualistic thought
   ⇤
       francesca.dellorto@gmail.com.


                                                                                                    29
30      Francesca Dell’Orto


pretending to occupy the neutral perspective of totality. It doubles the nat-
uralistic oppositions between form and matter, subject and object, nature
and mind etc., at the grounding layer of reality. This way it never gains an
authentically transcendental standpoint: so, classical metaphysics shows that
running parallel to the natural naïveté there can be a transcendental one.
Naïve metaphysics is the history of the abstention from a radical question
about the origin, and empirism and rationalism have been accomplices in
this abstention. Actually, even if in the Logical Investigations Husserl puts
himself in defense of the neutrality of phenomenology with regard to
metaphysical claims, he will increasingly clarify his view and in § 64 of his
Cartesian Meditations, for example, he states definitely that phenomenology
does not disqualify all, but only “naïve” metaphysics:

     To prevent from misunderstandings, I would like to point out the fact that phe-
     nomenology rules out only naive metaphysics, dealing with the absurd things in
     themselves, but not metaphysics in general. (Hua I: 182)

    Phenomenology is the science of the very beginnings (rizomata panteon).
It discovers, through the concept of immanence, that truth and method,
so to speak, genetically overlap each other: description is always an intrin-
sic part of what it describes and, in reducing the world, the ego makes
it possible according to eidetic laws. Properly speaking there is no world
before reduction. The phenomenological concern with consciousness and
intentionality can easily be interpreted as in the service of his metaphysical
interest in objectivity in general. From this point of view the critique, made
against Husserl, of idealism and “loss of the world” seems to be scarcely
pithy. A “phenomenological metaphysics” — whose development arising
from a theory of constitution Husserl does not exclude — should give ge-
netically reason of this overlapping movement between active and passive,
egological and mundane, sides of constitution, which makes eventually ref-
erence to the corporeal rootedness of consciousness, that is to its sensitive,
practical and pre–predicative level. This is the hidden and operative fold of
constitution. In a word, phenomenological metaphysics should substitute
the primacy of substance with that of relation (or correlation). At the origin
of the world, among the conditions of possibility for objectivity in general
and for the appearing — the phenomenon — of the world in general, there
is the non–reality (both in the sense of reell and real) of the noema, which
does not belong to the consciousness nor to the world, which is not in the
consciousness nor in the world. Naïve metaphysics could not account for
this very riddle since it does not operate in the regime of reduction, whereas
the epoché allows the breakthrough of substantialism. Metaphysics classically
deals with transcendence while phenomenology is a discipline confined by
                A Question Containing Itself Metaphysics of Genesis and Emergentism       31


reduction to the region of pure immanence (cf. Landgrebe 1949: 156–58).
Moreover, and coherently, naïve metaphysics sections constitution transver-
sally, as it were, instead of considering it in its “longitudinal” becoming, that
is instead of considering its genesis.
   An absolute consideration of the world, a “metaphysics”, can only first be carried
   out, and the possibility of a world can only first be understood through the genetic
   consideration of individuation. (Hua XI: 343)

    In philosophy of mind, emergentism is the name for those theoretical po-
sitions regarding the mind as an “emerging phenomenon”, that is regarding
mental phenomena as emerging properties of the brain.
    The main thesis pursued by emergentists are:

   a) the existence of emergence as a legitimate category apt to explain
      the reality;
   b) the refusal of every form of ontological dualism;
   c) the refusal of reductionism, or at least of some of its acceptations;
   d) the possibility to apply the concept of emergence to a manifold of
      phenomena such life, mind, and social phenomena in general.

    Moreover, emergentists often share a theory of natural evolution and
the so–called hierarchic theory of the real.
    Historically, emergentism was born from the attempt to find a middle
way between epistemological approaches opposing each other: mechani-
cism and vitalism, materialistic monism and Cartesian dualism, reduction-
ism and holism, scientistic objectivism and humanistic subjectivism. The
conviction that emergentism could sort out such age–old oppositions was
based on the fact that the concept of “emergence” seems to be able to
clarify scientifically the ancient saying “the whole is more than the sum of
its parts”. The emergentists agree on stating that the surplus making the
totality be more than the sum of its parts is exactly what “emerges” from it.
Thus, there are: the parts, their sum, and the emerging quid. According to
the emergentists, the reductionists of every time do not see anything but
parts or, at the most, their sum; they deny or disregard the emerging quid.
Vitalists, Cartesian dualists, and spiritualists in general, on the other hand,
mistake the emergence for an ontologically independent substance and, as
such, for a supernatural substance. So, in the opinion of emergentism, the
stagnant dispute between extremist and misleading epistemologies finds
a solution in two moves: 1) recognizing the existence and the importance
of the emerging quid and 2) preventing it from acquiring the ontological
autonomy and the substantial statute. All the emerging phenomena, mind
included, are spontaneous and not deterministically generated phenomena.
32      Francesca Dell’Orto


They have a processual feature and develop without necessity outcropping
and distinguishing inch by inch from the web of interactions among the
parts of the whole.
    On these grounds, it is possible to elaborate a “neuro–psycho–(evolutionary)
–phenomenology” (Varela 1996) which has the merit of trying to avoid the
risk of reductionism and the static absolutizations of classical metaphysics. It
presents the mental as a network of neurons that interact locally with each
other, and therefore engendering a global cognitive state whose own intrinsic
properties are not reducible to the local properties of the neurons. So, it claims
to describe the laws of the emergence of the global from the local, that is
the dynamic laws through which consciousness is engendered. This way, it
differentiates distinct levels of phenomena and tries to regard how they are
internally regulated, strictly excluding finalism.
    On account of this, apparently, enactive emergentism seems to respond
to the issue of a generative metaphysics as aimed by Husserl. It conceives
the living organisms and the world as spontaneously co–emerging and
evolving along a performative path marked by passivity. According to what
Husserl claims in the Cartesian Meditations,

     anything built by activity necessarily presupposes, as the lowest level, a passivity
     that gives something beforehand; and, when we trace anything built actively, we
     run into constitution by passive generation. (Hua I: 78)

   The neuronal behavior would find its linchpin in an individual situated in
a given environment which, in turn, reacts back upon her and leads her to
put into eVect an incessant process of adaptation resulting from an assumed
passivity rather than from willed actions.

     Ultimately, we arrive at the “obscure”, “hidden”, representations and representa-
     tional complexes. Insofar as attention plays a role in this constitution of transcen-
     dent unities and multiplicities, we have there implicitly an Ego that is accomplishing
     some kind of comportment. The ultimate, however, is a background that is prior to
     all comportment and is instead presupposed by all comportment. (Hua III/2: 291)

   Already in the Ideas, even if Husserl had not yet elaborated a passive phe-
nomenology, which strictly dates at the 1920s, he had clearly distinguished
between a static constitution, that is active, and a blind one, that is passive.

     The specifically spiritual Ego, the subject of spiritual acts, the person, finds itself
     dependent on an obscure underlying basis of traits of character, original and latent
     dispositions, and thereby dependent on nature. [. . . ] In the sphere of the senses,
     in the sphere of the basis, grasped as extensively as possible, we have associations,
     perceverances, determining tendencies, etc. These “make” the constitution of
     nature, but they even extend further, since this constitution is also there for spirits:
                A Question Containing Itself Metaphysics of Genesis and Emergentism        33


   all life of the spirit is permeated by the “blind” operation of associations, drives,
   feelings which are stimuli for drives and determining grounds for drives, tendencies
   which emerge in obscurity, etc., all of which determine the subsequent course of
   consciousness according to “blind” rules. (Ivi: 288–289)


    A naturalization of phenomenology would be possible only on condi-
tion of its “de–reductionism”. In a way, this kind of emergentism (which
might be called incarnate emergentism) claims to pursue the task of the
genetic phenomenology, shedding new light on the temporal dynamics of
self–constitution and the metastable balance of consciousness; but only in a
certain way, for the ambition of genetic phenomenology — as every transcen-
dentalism, I would say — is to take into account the not–individually–lived,
that is the Lebenswelt, the already–constituted significations which are nei-
ther merely biological nor environmental, rather cultural, logical, and even
techno–logical. To put it differently, if emergentism is a theory for ontogene-
sis, it still lacks a phylogenetic integration, which is instead contained in the
Husserlian concept of Stiftung and in the idea of a communal world of the
spirit. We could even suggest that it lacks an “epiphilogenetic” investigation
(Stiegler 1998), that is an investigation into the reciprocal constitution between
organic and inorganic (namely the technical prosthesis).
    Hence, the diVerent versions of emergentism debate about the existence
of a “Principle of Causal Inheritance” (Kim 1999) and of latent properties
(Shoemaker 2002): the former asserts that the causal powers of the emerg-
ing properties (higher level) are identical to those of the basic properties
(lower–level); the latter claims that the elements of an emerging totality
have some properties which cannot be deduced from their manifest prop-
erties and whose eVect can only be observed a posteriori. If such notions
aim to protect emergentism from dualism, nonetheless they pose again the
question of reductionism (to an ontological causal monism) since they keep
emergentism bound within the domain of physical realizers. We do not
have the means (neither linguistic nor conceptual) to collect in a unique
nomological macro–connection the myriad of micro–connections between
the physical realizers tracing the rizoma of their emergence (so that we are
not facing a generalized reductionism). Yet, if we assume the standpoint of
causal inheritance we have to suppose that such a network exists in principle,
to the detriment of the idea that new causal power can emerge. This way,
emergentism can combine with an ontological causal monism and at the
same time with an epistemological causal pluralism.
    For this reason, a “strong” emergentism rejects the Principle of Causal In-
heritance in the name of original and irreducible forms of causal interaction
which put at stake new entities and need diVerent explicative styles from
the ones of the basic layer. These new causal relations are the eVect of some
34    Francesca Dell’Orto


properties that do not present themselves at the first–order level. So, strong
emergentism claims for the necessity of changing the explicative style as
it happens, for example, when we pass from the sub–personal level to the
personal one in order to explain actions and behaviors. From an ontological
standpoint, this leads to a pluralistic view of the world. A plurality of entities
is exhibited, which is sometimes constituted by basic elements, but which
is not exhausted by them, as far as higher–degree entities have diVerent
conditions of identity and diVerent causal powers. An interesting — and
even fairly disturbing from the naturalistic point of view — aspect of this
perspective is that it seems to reverse the relationship of ontological ground
with respect to the Principle of Causal Inheritance: only inasmuch as they
are part of a wider totality the lower constituents of an emergent system
have (also) latent causal properties, whose presence is not traceable as far as
one sticks at the basic layer.
    In this respect, the authentic phenomenological method is close to a
strong emergentism as far as it does not consider the mental properties
as physical properties. In particular, phenomenology is more articulated,
and moves in two directions at once, toward a denaturalization of nature
and a despiritualization of spirit. So, genetic phenomenology is able to com-
bine a double horizon, originally biological and historical–communitarian,
whereas emergentism lies to the individual and his ontogenetic develop-
ment. Bringing to light the dynamic by which our acts are engendered
requires evidently a special consideration for the temporal and associative
synthesis. But that is the point: are time and its synthesis a “mere” eVect of
neuronal interactions? Does emergentism completely exhaust the investiga-
tion of the “transductive” system (in Husserlian terms, the “transcendence
in immanence”) coupling the living organism and the world? Briefly, the
stake of a metaphysical underpinning of phenomenology is time, including
its perceptive, technological, intersubjective and historical unfolding. All
these facets are genetically, or better still generatively, coentailed, so that
one cannot give itself without the others. Landgrebe (op. cit.) is on the
right track when he states that at least two conditions must be filled for
a phenomenological metaphysics to become possible: we first need the
intentionality thesis, which allows to preserve a “world for me”, a world as
pure phenomenon, in the reductive immanence itself; second, we also need
the phenomenological theory of intersubjectivity, which makes possible an
intentional analysis of the world as being an objective world.
    The principle of all possible contribution of phenomenology to meta-
physics must be the notion of intersubjectivity, and the phenomenological
reduction itself can be fully achieved only as a “reduction to intersubjectiv-
ity”. Emergentism, as every kind of naturalism, accounts only for some of
the mentioned levels and deals with them analytically, while the diVerent
                A Question Containing Itself Metaphysics of Genesis and Emergentism   35


ways of giveness are always intertwined and stem from a unique process of
constitution which progressively complexifies (consciousness is « eine nie
abbrechende Geschichte » [Hua XI: 270]). This process, however, is spurious
ab origine, indeed it reveals the lack of origin to be the origin as lack, and so it
radically avoids every reductionism. The novelty of second–order property,
as the novelty of each temporal “now”, is its opacity.
    Phenomenology has understood that consciousness fails in anticipating
itself in its development and in being totally transparent to itself, that is in
fulfilling itself at every phase of its temporalization. Time ruins the linearity of
genesis so that all original presentation is characterized by facticity and contin-
gence. Two consequences are entailed: firstly, the consciousness always throws
a shadow upon its origin “missing itself out” and hiding its own constitutional
performance; an origin can only and always be reactivated and recovered
since it is never constituted as a beginning from the beginning. Secondly, the
self–shadowing of consciousness as origin occurs as the possibility itself of
reiteration and recovery. Such undecidedness is the opacity of the absolute
time–consciousness in its self–differentiation and complexification through
which it comes to encounter itself (Husserl would call this phenomenon Entge-
genleben). Reality is inherently plural in its ontological structure, and not only:
as far as reality is the place of all the causally effective properties, it follows
that the emerging totalities are endowed with a bigger degree of reality (in
the sense of effectuality or, to put it in Hegelian terms, of Wirklichkeit, which
is another way to render the Aristotelian idea of a discard between the whole
and the sum of its parts).
    The mistake of naturalism consists in tending to isolate nature from
the more complex spectrum of the conditions of possibility. Naturalism
absolutizes nature, it takes it for granted: even avoiding reductionism, as in
the case of emergentism, is not enough. Anti–reductionism is only the first
step towards a satisfying understanding of reality. Excluding reductionism
should not entail excluding reduction in the phenomenological sense: we
cannot start from nature, nature must be reduced. Starting from nature
means starting from an unquestioned and unjustified presupposition. The
problem of naturalism (but one could say the same a propos of realism and
idealism) is that it takes step from a dogmatic standpoint. Nature is neither a
row fact nor an ultimate fact since it always already involves consciousness
in their reciprocal and correlative constitution. Consciousness, in turn, is
not a primum but involves the synthetic giveness of the world. Taking nature
for an absolute fact means to suppose a knowledge that we cannot in
anyway justify and wherein we never find ourselves. This is the skeptical
argument, for which in eVect no remedy exists unless one takes up the
phenomenological attitude, that is unless one performs the reduction to
the transcendental immanence.
36      Francesca Dell’Orto


     In all of modern psychology, there has never been an intentional analysis which
     has fully carried through. Obstacle: naturalizing of consciousness. Naturalism
     over–powered intentionality. (Hua IX: 219–220)

    The immanentism of the genesis of consciousness is transcendental; on
the contrary, the emergence cannot go beyond an empirical immanentism.
Whereas naturalism is often contaminated by a metaphysics of presence,
in the form of a blind realism, phenomenology — and Husserl first, in
spite of Derrida — leads it to its inescapable rupture through repetition and
redoubling. Thereby, as Merleau–Ponty claims, « if philosophy wishes to be
absolute, it contains itself » (Merleau–Ponty 1968: 167): a phenomenological
metaphysics should answer for an inclusion and a self–inclusion (similar
to what Fink calls Selbstbezogenheit [Fink 1988: 16]): the inclusion of all
experiences in the “multilayered” temporal display and the inclusion of itself
in itself, for itself contributes, while describing, to that temporal display.
    Metaphysics is certainly the promise of beginning, but that is not enough:
it must be remembered that the recovered beginning is not the one from
where we just started.


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