Saturday 26th February, 26
10 am - 5:30 pm
Chapman University

Speakers: Mirja Hartimo (University of Jyvaskyla, Finland ), Erich Reck (UC Riverside), Clinton Tolley (UC San Diego), Kyle Banick (Chapman), Stella Moon (UC Irvine)

Husserl on constitution of abstract objects: from timeless to omnitemporal

This talk examines Husserl’s view of how we constitute abstract objects. In Logical Investigations, in Ideas I, and still in 1917 lectures on logic, the abstract objects are understood to be timeless, platonist objects. In Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929) Husserl finds them as “objects existing for us at all times” (§73), that is, as omnitemporal. This talk, very much work in progress, examines the nature of constitution of abstract objects in the mentioned texts. It suggests that the shift from the timelessness to the omnitemporality of abstract objects is related to the shift from genetic to generative phenomenology. The metaphysical implications of this shift will be discussed, and it will be suggested that Husserl’s view in Formal and Transcendental Logic is that while mathematical objects are in reality constructed in an intersubjective and historical practice, within this practice the abstract objects are constituted as unchanging objects.

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