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Document Details : Title: Phenomenological Platonism Author(s): MEIXNER, Uwe Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 87 Issue: 3 Date: 2025 Pages: 399-423 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.87.3.3295570 Abstract : The word 'essence' is used in a relational sense when speaking of the essence of something, and it is used in a non-relational sense when speaking simply of essences. The two uses are not unrelated: It seems obvious that every essence of something is an essence. But whether, conversely, every essence is an essence of something is already a matter for philosophical discussion. The present essay focuses on the ontology and epistemology of essences simpliciter, taking them as the entities that Husserl — deliberately employing Platonic terminology — called eide. It turns out that eide are closer to our everyday experience than is commonly thought, and that Husserl’s insistence on the intuitability of eide is far from being unfounded. For grasping Husserl’s rationale for this, it is helpful to consider a piece of recent formal ontology within Analytic Philosophy, namely, the ontology of properties — and, by implication, of type-objects — proposed by the American philosopher David Lewis. In most respects, Husserl and Lewis are very different philosophers, but the basic plan for representing eide, alias type-objects, in human cognition can be discerned in the philosophies of both. In the end, however, the historically well-known, straight Platonic grasp of eide — if they can be grasped at all in human cognition — is seen to prevail against that plan. The essay closes with observations on Husserl’s views on essence-truths (truths involving, beside the purely logico-ontological functors, only essences), in contrast to Kripke’s views, which observations serve to illustrate and highlight Husserlian ideas. |
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