§6. Introduction

1<23> First of all, we need to segregate kindred, yet distinct, sorts of essence-questions. In their general formulation these questions read as follows:

What is that? [Was ist das?]

What is x [for]? [Was ist x?]

The X, what is that? [Was ist das, das X?]1

2Since concepts of individual as well as of so-called general objects can replace the variable x, the second question splits into two distinct ones. We contrast them by way of examples:

What is a horse? or: What is a square?

What is this horse? or: What is this (fully specified) square?

3As can be seen from the examples, we take the concept of an “individual object” in a somewhat broader sense than is ordinarily done. That is to say, we take it to mean a selfsufficient [selbständigen] object that is an exemplar of a lowest species, irrespective of whether a real or ideal object is at issue.2

4In question (1) the word “that” always designates an object. This question is therefore always taken in its so-called material supposition [Supposition]. In questions (2) and (3), on the other hand, the word that replaces the variable can just as well be taken in its so-called formal as in its material supposition. We, however, shall concern ourselves with these questions only when they are taken in the material supposition.3

5As will presently become apparent, the word ‘what’ is also ambiguous, so that each of the essence-questions is further differentiated into a distinct pair. But a more detailed analysis needs to be carried out in order to make a clear distinction between the two meanings of this word. We therefore confine ourselves to mentioning this here, and proceed to an investigation of the question “What is that?” in its first, customary interpretation.4

§7. Concerning the Question “What is that?”

6We pose the just named question first and foremost in those cases where we catch a glimpse of an individual <24> object with which we had previously been “unfamiliar”. We do so in such cases with the conviction that the questioned individual “knows” what that object is, that he is therefore “acquainted” with it. However, we can just as well pose it even if we do not glimpse or perceive at all the object in question, but rather simply hear someone give an account of it. For example, a friend of mine tells me that one night, while walking through a dark forest, some living creature with soft fur suddenly fell down on him from a tree; he continues to describe this “something” by reporting additional “properties”, but I interrupt him and ask: “So, what actually was it?” And he replies: “I don’t know, it scampered off quickly.”

7In both these partially different cases, the following points are the same: 1) the word ‘that’ (also ‘this’, ‘it’; we leave out of account the relevant meaning modifications that occur here) designates some individual object; 2) I possess a certain stock of information about this object (in the one case thanks to perception, through which I have grasped some of the properties belonging to this something, in the other case thanks to my friend’s account) which suffices to specify unequivocally the direction in which the word “that” points; 3) however, despite these bits of information, the given object remains “unknown” to me; I still ask what it is.

8What is actually “unknown” to me here? What constitutes the unknown of my problem? At first glance it might appear that it is the name, or the proper name, of the given object that constitutes the unknown (and there are theories that seriously make this claim). In reality, however, the situation is different, even though in some instances the name too is unknown to us. The question does not refer to the possibly unknown name. If it did, the corresponding question would have to read, “What is that called?”. There is no doubt that we do sometimes ask “What is that?” instead of “What is that called?” But it is obvious that we are then asking improperly, since the meanings of the two questions are not at all the same. Yet, there is no denying that frequently, though not always, reporting the name also makes it simultaneously possible to answer the question “What is that?”; however, the condition for this to happen is that the name be “intelligible”. But what does it mean for a name to be “intelligible”? A name can be either a “proper name” or a “common name”. A “proper name”, i.e., a word that we use to designate one and only one <25> specific object, begins to be “intelligible” (in the sense we have in mind here) the instant we know not only which object the name is used to designate, but also what sort of object it is. The proper name “J.W. Goethe” is “intelligible” to today’s educated people only because we also know who the man bearing this name was. Hence, if we do not know what sort of object some object is, providing its proper name will not enable us to extend in the least our familiarity with it, apart from the quite inconsequential and at bottom meaningless circumstance that one employs a specific name to designate it. If, on the other hand, the name is a “common name”, and we are familiar with the pertinent language, it is “intelligible” if it tells us of what “kind” (let us initially, though not quite correctly, say) the given object is. And it is only for this reason that the naming of an object in an intelligible way can at the same time be the answer to the question “What is that?”.

9One could therefore be tempted to say at first glance that in posing the question “What is that?”, we are “really” looking for the “kind” of the object to which we point with the word ‘that’. Therefore, for the “kind” – neither for its “characteristics”, for its “properties”, nor its states, or its relations to other entities. Such a resolution to the problem would enable us to understand why we ask the question “What is that?” even though we might be familiar with many of the given object’s properties, namely on the assumption that no property is to be found among these from which we could easily infer the object’s “kind”. This would also result in restricting considerably the domain of what could constitute the unknown in the problem of our question. Nonetheless, this domain would still be broad enough to leave our question very ambiguous. We could still answer it in various ways – for example, “That is an oak”, or “That is a tree”, or “That is a plant”, etc. The circumstances under which we ask our question usually specify its sense more narrowly. Yet even then it would remain ambiguous enough.

10We do not wish to deny that we often ask the question “What is that?” in the sense of inquiring about a given object’s (more or less specific) kind. For all that, we believe <26> we are expressing ourselves imprecisely, and that in this case we should properly have asked the question “What kind of object is that?”. The question “What is that?”, however, has in our opinion a different meaning – a meaning that is [exclusively] proper to it – in which it does not serve as surrogate for some other question but pertains rather to a concern that differs from that of establishing an object’s kind. We now wish to explore this proper meaning of the question.

11When we descend from a particular genus (say, “living being”) to successively lower species, then, as we know, we ultimately arrive at the so-called “lowest species”, to which no species can be further subordinated but under which fall only exemplars of this lowest species – provided they exist at all. If this lowest species does not belong to formal ontology (in Husserl’s sense), and if its exemplars are at the same time selfsufficient objects (thus, for example, are not the characteristics of something), we say that these exemplars are “individual” objects – briefly, “individua”.5 It seems to us, that when we ask the question “What is that?”, we are actually interested in that interpretation in which the “lowest species” of the respective individual object does indeed come into consideration, but is not the unknown of the problem. This contention is in no way contravened by our conceding that at the time of asking the question “What is that?” we do not know what that lowest species is.6

12If A is the lowest species of the object designated by the word ‘that’, then the proposition “That is an A” holds.7 The word ‘is’ in the expression ‘is an A’ exercises here a different function8 than in the expression ‘is red’. It also does not exercise the function of assigning the pertinent object to a particular group or class of objects. Nor is it employed as a means for apprehending the given object as an exemplar <27> of a particular lowest species. (We shall later go into its being capable of exercising such a function.) In the sentence “That is an A” the word ‘is’ exercises the sole function of fully identifying the given object with the “an A”. It is therefore quite obvious that the expression ‘an A’ is not to be understood as the name of a lowest species. Otherwise, a sentence like “That is a dachshund” would be completely absurd (assuming that the species “dachshund” is one of the lowest species of dogs!). “An A” cannot designate anything that might be found “outside” the given object. In this situation it is suggestive that “an A” designates something that is: 1) a moment contained in the respective object, and therefore just as individual as the whole object, and 2) a moment that characterizes the object in the most specific way as a whole that subsists for itself, a moment that makes the object into precisely an A-object, determines it to be such. If we may avail ourselves of an old term, we can say that this moment is the τί of the object, in contradistinction to its ποἶον on the one hand, and to any γένος on the other. We call this moment the “nature” [Natur] of an object. However, in order to signal that an individual moment is at issue, indeed a moment that plays a basic and structurally constitutive role in the object, we speak of its individual, constitutive nature. Talk of the object’s individual nature should not however be taken to mean that two or more objects with the same individual nature cannot exist. On the contrary. If we distinguish in the object’s nature the individual form of being (the moment of individuality) – which in the case of every individual object is characteristic of one and only one object – from the quality-moment contained in this form, then we may say quite generally that the quality-moment of an object’s nature need not in any way imply the individual form of being, even though it actually does so in some cases – e.g. in the case of every person. At the same time let us remark that the object’s nature (speaking once more quite generally) does not9 specify unequivocally all of the individual object’s characteristics.10

13<28> If, however, we determine the individual constitutive nature of an object in the manner indicated above, it becomes quite clear once again that the expression “an A” – in the sentence “That is an A” – cannot be the name of such a nature.11 That is to say, if the “is” performs the function of full identification between the given object and the “an A” [und dem “ein A”], then the expression “an A” cannot designate some moment of the object, since no object can be completely identical with any of its moments. A moment is indeed at best a “non-selfsufficient part” of the individual object (in Husserl’s terminology; cf. LU II/1, Invest. III). Hence, “an A” cannot designate here the object’s individual constitutive nature; it must signify an individual object, and the same object, indeed, which is designated by the indicative “that”12 – one, however, which has already been constituted by the individual nature. But insofar as we are speaking of an object that has “already” been constituted by the individual nature, we are of course far from suggesting that there could be individual objects which have “not yet” been constituted by the nature. Obviously, there are no such objects. Every individual object, insofar as it exists at all, is constituted by a nature. This is not contradicted by the fact that there are subjective ways of apprehending individual objects from the perspective of their nature, so to speak, grasping them through and through by means of their nature. There are also those modes of apprehending which (assuming, as always, that the object is constituted in one way or another) grasp the object in a way that ignores its nature. In the latter case, the object is apprehended, say, by means of some of its properties (e.g. when we point to a Negro and say: “the black”) or by means of some of its relations to other objects (“what lies in front of me”, or by the simply indicative “this”).

14To summarize, we may now say that in the sentence “That is an A” (in concrete terms: “That is a dachshund”) identity <29> is asserted between the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G], which is apprehended in a way that ignores its nature, and the object designated by the predicate-term, which is apprehended by way of its individual nature. In doing so, the individual nature by means of which the given object is constituted is at the same time specified implicite.13

15What then comprises the unknown in the problem of the question “What is this?” This unknown consists of an object that is apprehended by way of its constitutive individual nature. The problem, however, and thereby the object of the question, is the subsistence [Bestehen] of identity between the object designated by the word “that” and the sought value of the unknown. It must be stressed here that this identity does not itself belong to the unknowns of the problems. It is, so to speak, suspended in the question; its subsistence is not asserted (as it is in the sentence “That is A”) precisely because the second term is missing for such an assertion, the one that consists of the sought value of the problem’s unknown. Still, it is not this identity itself that is, as we say, “called into question” – as happens, for example, in the question “Is that anything at all?” In our question, however, there is indeed no doubt that the individual object designated by the word “that” is a “something” constituted by a nature; we simply do not know yet by what nature it is constituted, that is – what it actually is. It is for this reason that we said that the subsistence of this identity is the problem [of the question], and not the unknown of the problem. Nor can it be otherwise. The known of the problem does indeed consist of an individual object, and every individuum is constituted by an individual nature; this state of affairs therefore conditions [bedingt] the problem itself.

16By way of summarizing, we can now state that in the question “What is that?”:

1. the unknown of the problem is an individual object grasped by means of its constitutive nature;
2. the known of the problem is an individual object grasped through a subjective schema that makes up the correlate of pointing out [by the word ‘that’], while ignoring the object’s nature; <30>
3. the problem of the question is the identity between the known and the sought value of the unknown;
4. the presupposition of the question [is] the state of affairs that every individual object is constituted by an individual nature. It further belongs to the question’s presupposition that we possess some minimal stock of information concerning the knowns of the problem that enables us to specify unequivocally the direction in which the word ‘that’ points. In the contrary case, the question is ambiguous. In view of how we had to characterize the unknown of the problem, let us note in conclusion that our question does not presuppose either implicite or explicite the existence of any particular species or genus, nor that of a species or genus as such. That is to say, the circumstance that the individual object as such is constituted by a nature does not in any way presuppose the existence of species or genera. Nor, on the other hand, does this existence follow from that circumstance alone. Only the existence of a plurality of individual objects, all of which are constituted by “the same” individual nature,14 implies the existence of their species. But the existence of such a plurality does not at all follow from the formal structure of an individual object as such. From that standpoint, the eventual empirically ascertained existence of such a plurality is something altogether contingent. In contrast, there exist individual objects (for example, a specific person: Caius Julius Caesar) whose essence precludes the existence of such a plurality. Our claim will appear better substantiated once we are in a position to analyze what a “species” or “genus” is.

17By establishing points (1) - (4), we get a better sense of the question “What is that?” This will have to do for the time being.

18It follows directly from what we have said thus far that a question like “What is this dachshund?” (should dachshunds be a lowest species of dogs) is self-contradictory, and therefore cannot be posed at all: it is formulated in a way that hypostasizes as the unknown of the problem what is in fact known.

19The following situation is still possible. Suppose that the horse at which we are pointing at this moment is an “Arabian”, and that “Arabians” make up a lowest species that falls under the <31> zoological genus “horse”. Then, as we readily concede, for someone who does not know that the given horse is indeed an “Arabian”, but who presumes that there are several species of the genus “horse”, the question arises concerning the given horse’s species. It is then clear that he cannot ask “What is this horse?”, but only “To what species of horses does this horse belong?” But the latter question is manifestly different from the one we are concerned with here.

20Whether the question “What is that?” can also be asked relative to an object that is not an individuum in the sense established above is an issue we would rather not engage at this juncture. Its resolution depends on (1) whether there are non-individual “objects” at all, (2) whether a non-individual object is “constituted” by a “nature”, and what that would mean here, and (3) whether it is possible to specify unequivocally the direction in which the word ‘what’15 is supposed to point without apprehending the relevant non-individual object by way of its “nature”. At the moment, however, we are not in a position to answer any of these questions.

§8. Concerning the Schema-Question16

21In the preceding section we have rejected as contradictory the question “What is this dachshund?” This might elicit a note of protest from the reader. “How” – we may be challenged – “can we not reasonably pose questions such as ‘What is this dachshund?’, ‘What is this horse?’, and the like. There are, after all, judgments of which we can demonstrate that they (1) are true and (2) form quite reasonable answers to the above questions. For example, ‘This dachshund is a mammal’, ‘This dachshund is a living being’, etc.”

22We do not wish to deny that these judgments can be true and may constitute answers to the above question, and that consequently the question itself has an intelligible sense. Nonetheless, we must dispute the contention that the word ‘what’ in this question has a meaning identical to the one it has in the question “What is that?”. Indeed, we have rejected the above question on the very assumption that the identity just contested holds. It is however possible to give the word ‘what’ a somewhat different meaning, and it is then in fact possible to pose the above question reasonably. We now wish to inquire into the sense of the whole question with this other meaning of ‘what’. <32> The easiest way to get clear about this new sense of that word, and thus about the two-fold ambiguity inherent in it, will be to focus on analyzing the answers that might be given, for example, to the question “What is this dachshund?”.17

23Any of the following judgments may serve as reply to this question:

“This dachshund is a mammal”, or

“This dachshund is a living being”;

“This dachshund is my property”, or

“This dachshund is one of the dogs I bought last year”.

24Were we to ask this question without further comment, answers (b1) and (b2) would appear unexpected, and we could not help noting that neither was really the focus of our question. Still, these sorts of answers are not entirely senseless. On the other hand, if someone wished to answer our question by saying

“This dachshund is four-legged (beautiful, strong, etc.)”, or

“This dachshund is a triangle”,

25we would have to retort that answer (c) can indeed be true but cannot be the answer to the question we asked,18 whereas answer (d) makes no sense. From all of this we must conclude that (1) the question put forth is ambiguous and (2) yet does admit some judgments as answer despite this ambiguity.19

26In view of the ambiguity of the examined question, we first analyze its meaning in that sense which makes judgments (a1) and (a2) cogent answers to it.

27We ask, “What is a dachshund?” Do we then not know what it is? Why, it is just a dachshund. To be sure, but now we wish to know something else, namely – not by what individual nature it is constituted, but rather – “what” it is in virtue of [indem]20 its being a dachshund. And here the answer tells us that it is “a mammal”, “a living being”, etc. “A mammal”!21 The concept22 “the mammal”23 is a so-called “generic concept”, i.e. its object is a “genus”. Moreover, it is a genus under which the species [Art] “the dog” falls as one of its kinds [Arten], and thus also the [sub-]species “the dachshund” – of which “this dachshund” is an exemplar. It might therefore appear as if the judgment (A) “This dachshund is a mammal”, has for its object nothing other than the given individuum’s belonging to a particular genus. Instead of judgment (A), one should then have more accurately said: (B) “This dachshund belongs to the genus ‘the mammal’.” It is indisputable that we do often enunciate sentence (A) when we actually mean to enunciate sentence (B), as if the two sentences <33> had the same meaning. Yet, strictly speaking, the objects of the two sentences are quite different. In judgment (B) the object is the relationship between a particular individuum and a genus; in judgment (A), in contrast, it is the state of affairs that obtains between an individuum grasped by means of its individual constitutive nature and that “characteristic” (let us provisionally say, not altogether correctly) which accrues to it as an individuum that falls under a particular genus. Talk of a “characteristic” may however be allowed here only as long as this word is understood in a very vague and broad sense. This “characteristic” is indeed in this case no characteristic in the sense that, say, “four-legged”, “strong”, “jovial”, “hairy”, etc., are “characteristics”. It is therefore no “characteristic” in the sense of an absolute property of the object. One would certainly do better to consider it among the “relative characteristics”, insofar as we take these to mean every single moment that accrues to the object only when it is the term of a relation (in the broadest sense of the word) to some other object. Yet such a broad conception of the “relative characteristic” would go against the grain of common usage, on the one hand, and have the effect of erasing the very distinction that must be acknowledged here, on the other. To see most clearly that there is an essential distinction here, one need only note that the predicate “is a mammal” is quite clearly a predicate of an entirely different type than the predicate “is bigger” – which only ascribes to the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G] a relative characteristic in the ordinary sense of the word. The predicate “is a mammal”, on the other hand,24 does not ascribe any characteristic (taken in the broadest possible sense) to the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G] – not anything that the object “has”. “To be something as the term of a relation” is altogether different than “to have a characteristic”. For two reasons: (1) “mammalhood”25 is nothing that an object can “have”, that can “accrue” to it in the sense in which, say, a “characteristic” or a property accrues to it. Rather, this “mammalhood” belongs to the kind of moments that indeed contribute to enabling an object to be a “mammal”; it belongs to the τί-moments that26 co-constitute the individual object, but which are not capable of constituting it on their own – as can the individual nature of the object.27 <34> The predicate “is a mammal” points only indirectly to this moment [mammalhood].28 This moment can only constitute a quasi-object, a “role”, a “Gestalt”, a “schema”, which cannot at all exist for itself without the support of an individual object. However, when it finds such a support (a “substance”!), it drapes itself over the given object like a vestment or a garb in which the object then “shows up” [auftritt]. The predicate “is a mammal” points to this “showing up in a role”, “in a garb”, “in a schema”. (2) The individuum “this dachshund” shows up in this “garb”, in this “schema”, not as a something taken for itself, but rather because it is apprehended as a term of a relation to the genus “the mammal”, and indeed because it is regarded as an individuum of this genus. To that extent, the schema is something relative through and through. This role that the object assumes, the schema in which it is cloaked, is nothing other than a peculiar Reflex29 of a relationship, a Reflex that shows up as a moment of the given object once we apprehend the latter as a term of this relationship.30 This in no way conflicts with the fact that in this case “the mammalhood” is something contained in the individual nature of the given thing as a non-selfsufficient moment, and is thus, in accordance with its intentional meaning-content [Gehalt],31 something absolute for the object. For it is not the moment “mammalhood” that is relative [relativ] to the relationship between individuum and genus, but rather the schema: “a mammal” = an individuum of the genus “the mammal” – constituted with the collaboration of this moment and in consideration of that relationship between individuum and genus.

28But are we being consistent? Have we then not adopted a different standpoint in the preceding section? We have after all said earlier: if we assert “That is a dachshund”, then “a dachshund” signifies here an object grasped by means of its individual constitutive nature. In doing so, this “nature” was supposed to be something that is absolutely necessary for every individual object, and thus also something absolute for it. Are we not also there merely dealing with a schema which is “a Reflex” of the relation between the individuum and the (lowest) species?

29We maintain that the two cases are not to be identified, and it is precisely the distinction between them that interests us first and foremost. For in this distinction lies the ontological basis for the difference in meaning between the question dealt with in §7 and the one that we are now considering. The illusion that there is no difference here <35> of situation, or of meaning, arises only because the various functions of the word ‘is’, as well as those of the indefinite article, are confused with each other, and thus the predicate of the sentence “That is a dachshund” (only, of course, when it answers the question “What is that?”) appears to be of the same type as the predicate of the sentence “This dachshund is a mammal”. Meanwhile, the word ‘is’ does not exercise the function of identifying in the last sentence (as it does in the first); rather, it performs the function of “apprehending-within-a-schema” [in-ein-Schema-Fassens], or, to put it better, of “presenting-the-object-correlate-of-the-subject-term [S-G]-in-the-schema-‘individuum-of-a-genus’”. As concerns the second aspect of the distinction – i.e. the various functions of the indefinite article that ought not be confused with each other – let us recall that in German the (definite or indefinite) article is called upon to exercise several different functions. Thus, we read, e.g. in Heyse’s well-known Deutsche Grammatik: “Aside from their substantivizing force, by virtue of which they designate the selfsufficiency of the object, both articles have the instantiating (individualizing) power, i.e. the capacity to pick out a single item from a whole genus of objects bearing one denomination”.32 Indeed, it is also common knowledge that the indefinite article differs from the definite only by way of indicating some arbitrary, not well-specified, single item of the denominated species. It seems to us that the two functions of the article are not always invoked with equal force, but rather that in some cases the first, in others the second, gains preeminence. Hence in the sentence that answers the question “What is that?”, only the substantivizing function comes to the fore, whereas the other function is entirely suppressed. The whole weight of the predicate lies in this case in the meaning-content [Gehalt] of the predicate-term, which – as we have already remarked – conveys the respective object’s individual constitutive nature indirectly. This predicate-term shows up there almost like a proper name of the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G]. Although it is not customary, one could for this reason simply reply to the question “What is that?” by saying “That is [a] dachshund”, or just: “Dachshund!”. In contrast, the article cannot be dropped from the sentence “This dachshund is a mammal” because here it plays a vital role. Here it is especially the second <36> of its functions that comes distinctly to the fore, which, together with the function of the word “is”, establishes that sense of the predicate that we have been attempting to sort out above.33

30To clarify the sense in which we here take the sentence “This dachshund is a mammal”, let us also note the following:34

31Of the two judgments: (I) “This dachshund falls under the genus ‘the mammal’” and (II) “This dachshund is a mammal”, (I) is the presupposition for (II). If (I) is true, then (II) is also true. And for the sole reason that in this case (II) is true only if (I) is, so conversely is (I) true when (II) is. If the schema which is here a Reflex of the relation between the individuum and a particular genus could at the same time be the Reflex of some other relation, then the truth of judgment (I) would not at all need to go hand in hand with that of (II).

32If judgment (I)35 is true, then the relation of the respective individual object “this dachshund” belonging to the genus “the mammal” obtains objectively. But in order for a relation R to obtain objectively between two objects G1 and G2, both objects must be constituted by a nature, or have properties that flow from it, which not only allow R to obtain but also provide a sufficient condition for it to do so. We shall, however, return later to the question of what belongs to the necessary or sufficient conditions for the “individuum – genus” relation to arise or subsist.36

33To the ontological distinction between an object constituted by its individual nature and a schema which is relative to some relation – or to the logical distinction between the various types of the predicate in the judgment – corresponds an analogous distinction in the meaning of the word ‘what’, about which we have already spoken earlier. We are now in a position to summarize as follows: on the one hand, the word ‘what’ can be directed interrogatively [fragend] at an individual object grasped by means of its constitutive nature, whereby the <37> core of the unknown comprises precisely the constitutive moment of that nature; on the other hand, this word can pertain to an object which shows up in a “role”, in a “schema”, that is relative to the subsistence of a relation. The object targeted interrogatively is conceived from the outset as showing up in a role, even though it still remains unknown what this role (schema) is.37

34Following these preliminaries, we can already establish which elements are contained in the problem of the question “What is this x?” when it is taken in that sense to which the judgment “This x is a y”, where y is a genus of x, yields an appropriate answer.

1. The known of the problem is a specific individual object grasped by means of its individual constitutive nature.
2. The unknown of the problem is the “role” that the object named under (1) takes on [an sich hat] as an individuum of a particular genus. In the case of the genus, this role is constituted by a different moment, precisely the one which makes up the core of the unknown.38 The unknown is not unequivocally specified insofar as it is not stated in the question regarding which of the object’s higher-order genera is to be considered. Sometimes the circumstances under which the question is asked allow the unknown to be specified more precisely in this regard; generally speaking, however, the question must for this reason be deemed ambiguous.
3. The problem consists in the problem’s knowns39 showing up in the “role” that makes up the unknown of the problem. At the same time, we must note (as we did with respect to the question discussed in §7) that this “showing up in a role” does not belong to the unknowns of the problem;40 its subsistence41 is suspended only because the second term, which is precisely what is unknown, is still missing.
4. The question we are discussing has the following presuppositions:
   1. the known of the problem, or, as we can also say the subject of the problem, can fall under some genus and does in fact fall under one of them;
   2. it is eo ipso presupposed, on the one hand, that there is a genus under which the <38> subject of the problem falls but, on the other hand, that the nature constituting this subject – including the characteristics directly bound up with that nature – allows and provides sufficient conditions for the subsistence of the relation of the given object’s belonging to a particular genus, and thereby allows the object to show up in the role constituted by42 this relation;
   3. a system of genera under which the subject of the problem can fall is determined by the known of the problem (more accurately, by its constitutive nature);
   4. there is a “role” which is constituted by the relation between the subject of the problem as an individuum and some genus.43

35 The facts ascertained under (1) - (4), and especially the presuppositions of the question being considered, imply that the place of the problem-subject cannot be assumed by an object that does not satisfy the conditions contained in these presuppositions. It would be so, for example, if we wished to choose for the subject of a problem an object whose constitutive nature precludes it from belonging to any genus. The question would then be counter-sensical. On the other hand, the ascertained facts stipulate that some judgments cannot serve as an appropriate answer to the question at hand, quite apart from whether they are in themselves true or false. To the true but inappropriate “answers” belongs, for example, the judgment “This horse is old”. The judgment “This horse is a triangle” is in contrast both untrue and inappropriate. For, the known of the problem of “What is this horse [for]?” presupposes that the object “this horse” cannot take on the role that is constituted by the relation between a specific individuum and44 the genus “the triangle”.

36 Let us now proceed to the second interpretation of our question, which is the one that must be adopted if the judgment “This dachshund is my property”, or “This dachshund is one of the dogs I bought last year”, is to comprise an appropriate answer to it.

37 In the first of the above judgments, the predicate ascribes a “role” to the object-correlate of the subject-term [Subjektgegenstand],45 just as in the case already discussed. Yet here this role is not constituted by46 the relation that obtains between an individuum and a genus under which it falls. The object of the concept “my property” is no genus to the individual object “this dachshund”. Objects that have no generic kinship <39> with each other may belong to the domain of the concept “my property”, i.e. objects constituted by such individual natures as do not suffice for the relation of all these objects belonging to one and the same genus to obtain. The object of the concept “my property” can be a genus of the species “my inherited property”, or of the species “the property I bought”, etc.; but it can never be the genus of the object “this dachshund”. Hence, the role that is relevant here is constituted by a relation entirely different from the relation: individuum – genus. This situation gives rise to two different views as to which relation comes into play here. One can say either that it is a legal relation (or some other special relation that would be relevant to other questions), or that what is at issue here is the relation of the given individuum’s belonging to some class. In the latter case the class would also have to be unequivocally specified; thus, for the sentence under discussion, the class would have to be specified by declaring as elements of the class those and only those elements which stand in a particular legal relation to that particular object called “the owner”. It seems to us that the first of these views refers to the judgment “This dachshund is my property”, the second to “This dachshund is one of the dogs I bought last year”. Still, in neither case does the constitutive nature belonging to the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G] (and this object is grasped by means of its nature, and only as such does it come into play here) determine the relation that can obtain between that correlate and some other object. At best, it rules out certain relations to certain objects.

38We can now return to our question in the interpretation dealt with here and state the following: what we have claimed above for the known and the problem itself retains its validity also in the case of our question as presently interpreted. The difference lies only in the unknowns. It consists here of a role that is constituted either (A) by the47 relation of the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G] belonging to a class of objects,48 or (B) by some special material [sachhaltige]49 relation between the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G]50 and another object. Moreover, the relation that comes into play in the last case has nothing to do with the relation between an individuum and a genus.

39As follows from what was said above, the question is then ambiguous not only because it does not disclose whether case (A) <40> or case (B) is at issue, but also because in neither case is it in any way specified what kind of relation (or class) must be taken into consideration when constructing the answer. The circumstances under which we pose these questions – and, on the other hand, the ends toward which we make use of them – constrain their ambiguity in considerable measure. We shall still return to this.

40Here the only presupposition of the question is that the subject of the problem either a) can belong to some class of objects or b) can stand in some indeterminately specified relation to some other object, with the sole restriction that this relation must be different from the “individuum – genus” relation.

41Since there is no indication at all in the formulation of the question at hand as to whether the first or the second of its possible interpretations is involved, its ambiguity is magnified considerably. Since in either event the unknown consists of a “role”, a “schema”, we shall simply call it a “schema-question” and set it sharply apart from the like-sounding question that we are about to deal with. Finally, let us also remark that a “schema-question” can also be asked in the case where the subject of the problem consists of a non-individual object.51 Then, of course, appropriate modifications have to be made in the assertions advanced above. We shall not concern ourselves with these modifications now, however, since we obtain nothing fundamentally new from them.

§9. Introductory Remarks Concerning the Question,“The x, what is that?” [was ist das, das x?].52

42We must now proceed to analyze the question “The x, what is that?”, where “x” designates a non-individual “object”. We have here, in the first place, questions like, “The square, what is that?”, “The horse, what is that?”, “The identity of the object as such, what is that?”, etc.53 Questions of this sort must be distinguished from a determinative question54 as well as from a schema-question. Here, the unknown of the problem is <41> neither an individual object grasped by means of its nature, nor a “role” of an object relative to some55 relation.The question “The x, what is that?” is similar to the schema-question insofar as in both questions the subject of the problem is grasped by means of the constitutive nature.56 They do differ, however, since in the question at hand the subject of the problem is not an individual object, and the unknown is also something else. Eo ipso, both the problems and the presuppositions are different for the two questions. On the other hand, it is characteristic of both the determinative question and the question at issue here that the word ‘is’ exercises the function of identification. But they are different with respect to both the knowns and the unknowns.

43The schema-question in its first interpretation presupposes (as we already remarked) the answer to the question concerning the genus to which the respective individuum or species belongs. But such an answer (for example, “This horse belongs to the genus ‘the mammal’”) presupposes the answers to the questions “The horse, what is that?” and “The mammal, what is that?”. Thus, in the hierarchy of questions that can be asked regarding a particular object, a question of the type “The x, what is that?” ranks logically higher than the schema-question. The answer to the former, however, forms the presupposition for the latter. What then is the problem of such a question?

44In order to gain some measure of clarity here, we once again turn to the answer. We ask, “The square, what is that?” The answer reads: “The square, that is an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram”.57 One ordinarily says that it is a so-called “general concept” that occupies the place of the subject in this judgment, and indeed a “species-concept” which in this case falls under the generic concept “the parallelogram” or “the quadrilateral”. Yet, when we ask what comprises the object of such a specific or generic concept, we run into enormous difficulties. Some say that this object is a “species” [Art] or a “genus” [Gattung]; others, in contrast, say that we are dealing here with a “general object”. And there are even those philosophers who maintain that the given judgment is wrongly formulated and must be replaced by one of the following judgments: “Every square is an equilateral, <42> right-angled parallelogram” or “All squares are …”. Let us examine more closely the views we have brought up.

1. First and foremost, it has thus far not been made clear what the “species” or the “genus” is; quite diverse views are advanced in this regard. The terms ‘species’ and ‘genus’ are at any rate highly ambiguous. But as unclear as we may be about what we really have in mind when we speak of a “species” or “genus” as such, it does nonetheless appear to be certain that any statement to the effect that a species (or genus) is “an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram” is devoid of any rational sense. We can say of a “species”, for example, that it is subordinate to some particular genus, or of the same order as some other species; but what is it supposed to mean that it is “a parallelogram”? We must note in this connection that of this same square, which we just asserted to be “a parallelogram”, another judgment, and – which is not to be overlooked – a true one, states that it possesses two congruent perpendicular diagonals. But can something like that be asserted of any species as such, irrespective of whether one subscribes to this or that view concerning the “species” as such? We must at least provisionally reject the view under discussion here – at least until we have secured the insight into what a species as such is.
2. The assertion that a “general object” makes up the object of the concept square explains rather little, since the expression “a general object” is unclear, and since extensive and arduous analyses would have to be carried out to resolve what the various authors actually had in mind when they spoke of “general objects”. And if anyone wished to say that the “general object” is indeed the object of a “general concept”, we would learn nothing worthwhile as a result, since it is precisely what the object of such a concept truly is that we do not know. And this, irrespective of its being doubtful as to whether the concept of a “general concept” has been clearly and definitively specified, and whether we are quite sure that there are not several different sorts of “general concepts”, and that therefore there do not also exist several fundamental types of “general objects” that are essentially distinct from each other and cannot be brought under one and the same concept. Finally, the obscurities accumulated around the problem of the “general object” have led many, even eminent, philosophers to such absurd claims (let it suffice here <43> to recall J. Locke!) that to refute them turned out to be the easiest of tasks for opponents of “general objects”, although these opponents too often held rather rashly and naively that to refute obscure and ill-formulated claims concerning “general objects” is identical with proving their non-existence. At any rate, given this situation we cannot simply rest satisfied with the statement that that “square” – which our judgment asserts to be a parallelogram – is a “general object”, because on the one hand we would not clarify anything with such a contention and, on the other, we would easily evoke the wrong impression that a thoroughly muddled and unresolved issue had already been settled. We need to clarify the whole issue of the “general object” with the aid of what has already been achieved in this realm, at least to the extent unconditionally necessary for the treatment of our principal theme in this work – namely, to clarify what comprises the object of the question “The x, what is that?”.
3. Only if our hope of clarifying the problem of “general objects” should prove to be a delusion would we have to examine more closely the issue of whether the judgment “The square, that is etc.” is wrongly formulated, and whether the judgment “Every S is p”, or “All S are p”, can and should replace it. For the time being, however – and quite independently of whether we manage to clarify the sense of the proposition “The square, that is an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram”, and to show that this judgment is true – we can state that the content of this judgment is altogether different from that of both the judgment “Every square …” and the judgment “All squares …”. Whereas in both of the latter judgments something is asserted of all individua (or of each individuum) of a class, the judgment we are considering says nothing at all directly about (all or some) individua. It only asserts something generally about the square as such (what that is, is precisely what is to be investigated!), and only if this assertion is true, are the judgments “All squares ... ” and “Every square ... ” likewise true. Even the paradigm “If something is a square, then it is an equilateral and right-angled parallelogram”, which has recently been introduced by some logicists as a replacement for the judgment we are investigating, presupposes the truth of our judgment. It is therefore indispensable that we achieve clear awareness concerning the content of this [latter] proposition <44> and clarify what the expression ‘the square’ truly means.

45Toward that end we must first give the briefest possible account of the views that since Husserl’s pioneering works58 have emerged in the phenomenological literature on the themes of essence, ideal quality [Wesenheit] and idea, and which have thus far [1924] found their most mature expression in Hering’s work “Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee”.59 We must at once note in this connection that we cannot agree with all of Hering’s assertions, and that our presentation is limited to only those that we can endorse as indubitably true. We must forego a thoroughgoing discussion, and thus any discussion, since that would lead us too far away from our principal theme.60 In particular, my conception of “idea” differs from Hering’s and attempts to go beyond what is to be found in his exceedingly interesting work.

§10. Jean Hering’s Conception of Essence and Ideal Quality61

46Hering distinguishes 1. the individual object, 2. its essence (the essence of an object), 3. the ideal quality, 4. the idea.62

47<45> To elucidate: every individual object63 has, according to Hering, one and only one essence, which is indeed solely its essence, and must accordingly be something just as individual as the object itself. And conversely: “Every essence, in accordance with its sense, is essence of something, and indeed essence of this something, and of no other”.64 Regarding the essence itself, Hering says that it is “the being-so [Sosein] of the object taken in the whole fullness of its constitution”. “The single features of being-so (ποῖον εἶναι) are [also] features of its essence”. (496/55)65 Having done so, however, he at once remarks:66 “An object’s being-so (ποῖον εἶναι), the complete ensemble of which coincides with its essence, is to be sharply distinguished from the existent’s So [So] (ποῖον) – its qualitative endowment [Beschaffenheit] in the broadest sense”. (496/55-6) To help us understand what is involved in this “being-so”, let us note that what Aristotle calls ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν is not to be included in it. Likewise, all relative characteristics that accrue to the object only on account of a “philosophical relationship”67 to some other object do not belong to the object’s being-so – for example, A’s being bigger than B – nor does any and every ποῦ, πότε εἶναι. In this sense it belongs to the essence of a pen that it has the capacity to write finely; on the other hand, it is quite inessential to it that it lies on my desk right now. But within the realm of what is excluded from an object’s essence, we must draw a distinction between what is founded in the essence and what is purely contingent. For example (according to Hering), to the essence of the hexameter belongs neither that Konrad Gessner was the first to employ it in German <46> poetry, nor that its use is preferred in epic rather than in lyric poetry. But whereas the former is something purely contingent for the hexameter, the latter is founded in its essence. That is to say, it “belongs” to its essence “to be better suited for the one poetic genre than for the other”. (500/59) However, especially suitable for clarifying what the “essence” of an object is, is the case where we are dealing with a moment of the object that necessarily follows from its essence (either absolutely, or only in concert with certain conditions), and yet does not belong to that essence.68 (We omit the rest of Hering’s assertions pertaining to essence, since they are irrelevant to us here.)

48When we pass from the ποῖον εἶναι to the ποῖον itself, we meet first and foremost with the fundamental distinction between what we have called here the object’s “individual constitutive nature” (in Hering, following the ancient Aristotelian terminology: τί, or “immediate” μορφή) and the ποῖον in the narrower sense. As Hering correctly observes, Aristotle opposes three different categories to the τί: the ποῖον, the πόσον, and the ποῦ. The ποῦ is not involved at all in the essence of an object, but the ποῖον can be so broadly conceived that it encompasses the πόσον. Hence, the need to distinguish two meanings of ποῖον: (1) the narrower, in which ποῖον designates the object’s qualitative endowment and is opposed to the τί, and (2) the broader, which was employed until now, and which comprehends ποῖον1 + τί. If we utilize ποῖον in its first signification, then τί εἶναι signifies the relation of the object to its constitutive nature, while ποῖον εἶναι, on the other hand, signifies its relation to its qualitative endowment. To the essence of the object belong both its τί εἶναι and its ποῖον εἶναι – ποῖον taken in the narrower sense. Or to put it differently: the essence of the object consists of both the one and the other.

49If we now ask what makes up the τί of an individuum that we call “horse”, there can be only one answer: it is the ἱππότης which the respective individuum harbors within itself. (Analogously: the redness that a color (taken as an <47> individual moment) harbors within itself makes up the color’s τί.) When we conceive this τί, the nature, in the role that it assumes in the object, we have arrived at a non-selfsufficient entity that requires an object for its existence. In view of the fact that its nature makes the object into precisely what it is, we have said earlier that its nature “constitutes” the object, and we called this the object’s “constitutive” nature. For the same reason, Hering calls it “immediate μορφή”. And it also turns out that one can speak of “redness” not only in the sense of an object’s constitutive nature – that is, a color – but also in the sense of a “redness for itself”, an ideal quality “redness” or, as Hering puts it, a “Wesenheit”, an εἶδος. In itself, an ideal quality does not play the role of any μορφή, nor is it something non-selfsufficient that would require a substrate for its existence, but rather, as Hering rightly claims, it is “selfsufficient and resting within itself [in sich ruhend].” (510/70) No ideal quality is an object in the narrower sense, i.e. an individual object. We can only say that an individual object harbors within itself concretizations of ideal Wesenheiten,69 be it directly, as its constitutive nature, or indirectly, owing to the fact that there is a concrete correlate to an ideal Wesenheit [serving] as immediate μορφή of the object’s property.70 <48> Hering asserts that the ideal qualities are to be regarded as ultimate conditions for the possibility of the existence of objects, and that they themselves require nothing else for their existence. For this reason, Hering claims that they are πρῶτη οὐσία in the genuine sense. For the time being I cannot say if these claims are true, since I do not rightly understand in what sense “the conditions of the possibility of objects” is spoken about here. I do, on the other hand, agree completely with Hering’s claim that there are peculiar “amalgamations” [Verschmelzungen] of various ideal qualities.71

…the affinity between the eidos “color” and the eidos “redness” is of such a kind that the existence of the latter is enclosed, as it were, in that of the former, and, viewed from the opposite perspective, “redness” appears to spring forth [hervorzuquellen], as it were, out of “color”. But therein lies the basis for morphe “redness” never being able to occur without morphe “color”, and for morphe “redness”, whenever it is adjoined to morphe “color”, to always determine more precisely this latter – amalgamating with it into a unity – and not only the bearer. (512–13/73)

50The situation is quite different if, say, the morphe “ἱππότης” and the morphe “domestic animal” occur in one and the same individuum. In this case only the object that is a domestic animal is more closely specified by being at the same time a horse (or conversely), but neither of the two morphes specifies the other more closely. Finally, it is an important assertion for us – one we shall utilize later – that not every constitutive nature (“[immediate] morphe”) has an ideal quality as correlate.

If we look more closely at “ἱππότης” as the quiddity that makes the horse into what it is in the zoological sense – with which of course is not to be confused the kind of being and comportment that I could discern as “equinness”, similarly to [the way I could discern], say, “lionness” or “bearness” in other creatures – we find that all the many particular features enumerated by the zoologist only form a more or less cohesive bundle of diverse elements, but not a novel entity [Novum] with its own distinct quality.72 Manifestly, we have before us a conglomerate of morphes, or a composite of morphes, if you will, but not a proper complex morphe – or even a simple one. It is for this reason that we speak here of an inauthentic morphe. Such conglomerates of morphes are found to be intrinsic to most empirical things ... (521-2/81)
Inauthentic morphes can be indiscriminately <49> augmented or decomposed, but authentic morphes cannot .... Only the authentic quiddities present themselves as “appearances” of “πρῶται οὐσίαι”…. (522/81)

51Thus, the existence of ideal qualities cannot be dialectically “imposed” by

our plucking out some arbitrary composite of morphes from an object that we may happen to encounter, and tacking on ‘καθ᾽ αὑτὸ’, but their number is fixed, and every single one needs to be diligently sought in the place assigned to it in their world, until one chances upon it as on a rocher de bronce, or until the hope of its existence proves delusional. We do in fact stand here before a new “abyss of the miraculous”. (522/81-2)73

52Hering contrasts ideas both to (real or ideal) individual objects and to essence, and finally to ideal qualities. But he makes a whole series of claims that appear to us dubious,74 and notes himself, incidentally, that some issues remain unclear for him here, issues that for the time being he has been unable to resolve. To the latter belongs, for example, the problem of whether ideas should or should not be identified with ideal objects. Hering gives a whole series of arguments that speak against such an identification; on the other hand, he remarks that we cannot rule out that further investigations will expose and eliminate as inconsequential the difficulties which have cropped up in this context. All this is the cause of our not possessing any clear and coherent picture of Hering’s conception of ideas, and of our preferring for this reason to present how we ourselves see these matters. We confine ourselves here to what is of the utmost necessity.

§11. Introductory Remarks Concerning Ideas

53It is a common way of speaking to say, “This case occurs very often”. At first glance it would appear that this judgment is not formulated altogether precisely; that is to say, if something had occurred, then it had indeed already occurred, is something already consummated and past which, strictly speaking, cannot happen a second time. So perhaps one should say, “Such cases <50> occur very often”. However, when we place stress on the words ‘such cases’ and on their multiplicity, the word ‘often’ does not seem fitting, since it signifies not only that something plays out in a succession of brief time intervals but also that what occurs at such intervals “repeats” itself. Therefore, if we retain the expression ‘such cases’ and place emphasis on their multiplicity, that would seem to conflict with “repeating itself often”, since only what is one and the same can “repeat itself”. It seems that to avoid the incongruity we would have to say, “there are many such cases”. We see quite clear, however, that in doing so we have transitioned to an entirely new judgment75 that cannot replace the one enunciated initially. It is not therefore a matter of the judgment, “This case occurs very often”, or “repeats itself often”, being imprecisely formulated; it is simply difficult to tell what it is that “occurs often” here. If we are talking about a “frequently occurring” case, or a case “frequently repeated”, then on the one hand we are no doubt pointing to a plurality of individual cases, but on the other hand to the fact that each of these cases is “a separate case”, “an exemplar” of something one and identical. And only insofar as some cases are such “exemplars” of something can we say of them that they repeat themselves “often”, that they occur “often”. Already in his Logical Investigations Husserl asserts with full justification that every likeness [Gleichheit] of two objects in some respect presupposes the identity of precisely this respect, and that we cannot speak of “every S” until we have presupposed something or other that defines the range of S-objects and by this means confers unity on this range.76 This identical something – a number of whose “exemplars” may, but need not, exist in the mode of reality – we call an “idea”, and <51> wish to examine it here in somewhat greater detail. This “idea” is nothing real – quite irrespective of whether its “exemplars” are real or not real – and does not participate in the being and vicissitudes of either real or ideal objects. Hering quite rightly asserts of it (in accord with ancient views in this regard): “It (namely, the idea) is ἀγέννητος, ἀνώλεθρος, ἀκίνητος, and does not belong to reality”.77

54 On the one hand, the idea is nothing real [Reales], and for that matter nothing individual either, and as such it has a peculiar and characteristic structure that distinguishes it just as much from all individual objects as it does from ideal qualities, and ultimately from concepts. On the other hand, every idea is an idea of something, as if it mirrored within itself the material attributes and the entire structure of that whose idea it is.78 It is for this reason that the idea was once referred to as a prototype of the individual object; even Hering still speaks of it as a “prototype” of the corresponding object. I would rather not decide at this point whether such locutions have their firm substantive basis, or whether they are a mere “façon de parler”. In view of various mythological theories that can be spun from such turns of phrase, I would prefer to avoid them. Consequently, we only wish to establish that: The idea exhibits a curious duality in its structure – on the one hand, the structure of the idea qua idea, and on the other hand, the meaning-content [Gehalt]79 of the idea – that is, that in which the reference to possible objects is grounded and that in which the qualitative endowment [Beschaffenheit] and structure of the object in question is reflected. This duality is itself a moment of the structure of the idea qua idea.80

55<52> What we have in mind when we speak of the idea’s content mirroring the qualitative endowment and structure of that object whose idea it is will become clearer once we have dealt in greater detail with the idea’s content.

56 We divide ideas into particular (specific [spezielle]) and general. A particular idea, i.e. one whose direct instantiation is an individual object, has the sort of content in which appear the ideal correlates of the full qualitative endowment and structure of the object whose idea it is. (We shall presently explain what this “directness” of the instantiation is supposed to mean.) For example, let us examine the particular idea of the inkwell standing on my desk. In the content of this idea appear the ideal correlates of the inkwell’s full (collecive) ποῖον εἶναι (in the broader sense which includes the τί),81 with the sole proviso that some elements of the content show up as completely and unequivocally determinate constants, while others appear as unequivocally specified variables. The ideal correlates of all the given individual object’s actual [aktuellen] properties and actually effective capabilities [aktuell wirksamen Fähigkeiten] belong to the content of the idea as constants – thus, [the correlates of] everything that Hering calls the “collective qualitative endowment [Qualifikation]”.82 Of course, these correlates occur there in a definite order and in corresponding interrelations. To the constants of the content belong further the ideal correlates of the formal-analytic structure of the object in general (in Husserl’s sense),83 as well as the correlates of all those formal moments that are characteristic of the object-domain to which the individuum under consideration belongs. <53> In contrast, to the idea’s content belong as variables:84

1. the moments of localization in space and time,85
2. moments that comprise the respective object’s modus existentiae,
3. the momentum individuationis86.87

57Thus, it belongs as a constant in the content of the idea of said inkwell that this inkwell is an object of the type of real objects; however, that this object actually exists in the mode of reality [wirklich real existiert] is not to be found among the constants of the idea’s content. Instead, the corresponding variable occurs that the given object can exist in the real mode. Further, the ideal correlate of the fact that precisely today, Wednesday, at a specific instant of time, the inkwell is situated at a specific spot on my desk does not belong to the content’s constants. However, it does belong to the content of the idea as a variable that my inkwell can be situated at some arbitrary location at this or any instant of time. Finally, the momentum individuationis – that the given object is this unique individuum in its original state [im Original] – does not belong to the constants of the idea’s content. On the other hand, there is the variable to the effect that the given object is precisely an object having the individual form of being, which in a particular case can pass over into the individuating moment of just this individuum. The occurrence of variables in the content of the idea we are discussing brings it about that it is not the idea of this sole inkwell (as we have not quite correctly expressed ourselves above), but rather of an inkwell which, with respect to its collective qualitative endowment, is exactly <54> like mine. Whether there are several such inkwells realiter, or only a single solitary one, is of no consequence whatsoever to the particular idea at hand, and no conclusions can be drawn in this regard from its content. The relevant direct experience alone – in our case, the so-called “sensory” experience – can speak the decisive word here.

58 The concept of a variable of an idea’s content should not be identified with the concept of a mathematical variable. A mathematical variable is a symbol whose meaning is established by the convention that it may be replaced by an arbitrary symbol out of some well-defined set of symbols, each of which can signify a determinate and constant value from within some specified set of values. To that end, both the domain of values and the domain of symbols that designate them must be unequivocally defined. If, say, the variable x occurs in a particular mathematical expression, and it is at the same time presupposed that it can be substituted by some arbitrary positive even integer, then this x does not signify any of these numbers, nor the positive even integer generally. The definition of the variable in the mathematical sense is actually just a manipulating88 rule which dictates that in the course of any transformations or operations we may be allowed to carry out on the expression at hand on the basis of my sic iubeo, always only one of the positive even integers may be taken for x, and that in considering the properties of the respective expression it must always be kept in mind that no other kind of numbers may be substituted for x.

59 Yet entirely independently of what problems may arise in the effort to grasp the essence of a mathematical variable – say, the problem of the difference between a mathematical variable and a “general name” – it is nonetheless quite certain that a variable in the content of an idea is no mathematical variable, since it is not any kind of symbol, even though symbols resembling the mathematical may be utilized to designate it. A variable in the content of an idea is, if we may put it this way, a potential, possible being. It exists ideally only as something that can be instantiated in the particular cases specified by it, and does not go beyond this mere capability – that is to say, it is not actualized. One might say that the variable exists effectively [aktuell] only insofar as it specifies the range of possible particular cases.

60 <55> We do not conceal from ourselves that a host of difficult problems crops up here that would lead us very far into the general theory of the forms of being. We are also well aware that what we are able to say at this time concerning the variables of an idea’s content is infinitesimal in comparison with what still remains to be explained in this regard. We also know full well that the definitive conception of the essence of the idea depends on the definitive clarification of the essence of the variables in the content of the idea. But these are only questions to be addressed in specially organized investigations that extend far beyond the theme of our work. This much appears to us to be certain: that the essential fact [Wesensfaktum] of the occurrence of variables in the idea’s content must be acknowledged, and that it is precisely this fact which, in virtue of essence, distinguishes ideas from any other sort of entities. But above all, it is the occurrence of variables in the idea’s content that sets every idea apart from all individual (“object-oriented” [“gegenständlichen”]) being. For it belongs to the essence of every individual object – irrespective of its mode of being – that it is absolutely unequivocally specified with respect to all those of its moments which are not constituted by any philosophical relationship, and that it [the object] contains no variables89.90

61However, because we consider the occurrence of variables in an idea’s content to be an essential moment of the idea in general, we cannot go along with Hering’s claim that an idea is “specific” if “its material composition is determined to the last detail, and is not amenable to any further specification”. (530/89)91 To be sure, every idea qua idea – and not just the “specific” – is unequivocally determined, i.e. there occurs in its content a fully determined system of constants and variables; in that respect, therefore, no idea is92 amenable to being “specified more precisely”. After all, variables occur in the content of every idea, and thus for every variable there exists an unequivocally specified range of particular individual objects into which that variable instantiates itself. To that extent, therefore, every idea is in turn amenable “to being specified more precisely”, if in this way we only wish to say that there are entities in which the <56> individual “values” occur – the individual particular instances of the relevant variables. With particular [besonderen] or, as Hering calls them, “specific” [speziellen] ideas, we simply encounter the peculiarity that the transition from the variables they contain to their particular instances is tantamount to a departure from the realm of ideas, since the particular instances of these variables are possible only in the individual being. The same cannot be maintained in the case of general ideas, which we shall presently consider. In addition, particular ideas are distinctive in that the constants which appear in their content exhaust the respective individual objects’ collective qualification [Qualifikation].93 That is why there can be no talk of specifying in greater detail the content of a particular idea that would be manifested in the appearance of newer constants that pertain to the corresponding qualification of the individua.94 Were it permitted to interpret Hering’s assertion in this sense, then he would be quite right. But one would then have to take the “material composition” about which Hering speaks to mean the totality of those constants in the content which refer to the corresponding individuum’s qualification. We shall refer to such constants as the content’s “qualitative” constants, and contrast them to the “formal” ones, which refer to the corresponding entities’ form.

62 In view of the fact that in the case of a particular idea the transition from the variables contained in its content leads us directly to the individual objects, we spoke above of an individual object’s being an immediate instantiation of the particular idea. Since here the idea’s constants exhaust the corresponding object’s collective qualification, or, what amounts to the same thing, since there is no “qualitative variable” in the content of a particular idea, there is no need to remove any qualitative variable in the transition from idea to individuum, that is, to reach the individuum by way of some other idea. But that is precisely what is necessary in the case of general ideas, which we now proceed to discuss.95

63 When we consider, say, the idea any thing at all [das Ding überhaupt], or any horse at all, we are dealing with general ideas. General ideas are distinguished by the characteristic that the system of their contents’ qualitative constants96 <57> never exhausts the collective qualification of any individual object. In general ideas the constants are the ideal correlates of only some moments in the qualification of some individual objects. Indeed, at least one qualitative variable always occurs in a general idea’s content, which, as variable, is of course unequivocally specified. By a “qualitative” variable we mean a variable that refers to one of the moments of an individual object’s qualification, and which, indeed as variable, determines only a property type, but not the single exemplars of this type. For example, in the idea “any triangle at all”, the relative and absolute lengths of the triangle’s sides comprise such qualitative variables. As we know, a “triangle” is a surface bounded by three straight segments of some absolute length, which have some relationships with respect to length. In this connection, we must take care to observe the law that the sum of any two sides must be greater than the third. The absolute and relative magnitudes of the interior angles are other qualitative variables. The “more general” an idea is, the greater is the number of qualitative variables in its content. The transition from any general idea to an individual object requires above all transition to a particular idea.97 It is for this reason that an individual object is an indirect instantiation of a general idea.

64Let us further detail the characterization of ideas by emphasizing that they differ from both ideal qualities and concepts. As regards the first difference, we are in complete agreement with Hering and endorse his arguments, but even here some modifications need to be made – modifications that follow from the altered conception of ideas. The arguments that can be advanced in favor of the distinction between ideas and ideal qualities can <58> be summarized as follows:

1. By their very essence, ideas exhibit a duality of structure that is wholly alien to ideal qualities.
2. In accordance with its essence, variables occur in the content of the idea – which are indeed absent in ideal qualities. Since Hering did not realize that variables are involved in dealing with ideas, he formulates the corresponding argument somewhat differently:

   The eidos “chromaticity simpliciter” does indeed make comprehensible the existence of the various ideal color qualities (redness, blackness, etc.), and the ideal quality “redness” likewise [makes comprehensible] the existence of the ideal quality “crimson-red.” Conversely, in connection with this, the ideal quality “crimson-redness of determinate hue” (in the sense of the full shading, not in the sense of some new moment adjoined to redness simpliciter) harbors redness simpliciter within itself in a manner similar to the way this happens in the case of ideas. But to speak here of a generality in the sense of an indeterminacy or a deficiency, as in the case of the idea “color-moment in general” or “lamp in general,” seems to us utterly nonsensical. The ideal quality, qua ideal quality, is totally and completely determined. (531/89–90)

3. Variables of spatio-temporal localization98 show up in the content of some ideas. By means of these, this sort of idea receives an index [Index]99 to the real world of individual objects. Through this, these sorts of ideas are ideas of real objects. Nothing analogous can be found in the case of ideal qualities.
4. There are ideas of object-constituting natures [konstitutiven Gegenstandsnaturen] to which no ideal quality corresponds (for Hering, the “inauthentic morphe” or “morphe-complex”; for example, ἱππότης). So the notion that an ideal quality is nothing other than the idea of an object-constituting nature is untenable.
5. The relation between ideal qualities and ideas consists in the fact that among the constants in the content of an idea are to be found concretizations of corresponding ideal qualities. It is for this reason that Hering refers to both ideas and individual objects as “δευτέραι οὐσίαι”, while rightfully warning himself against identifying the “concretization” with its special case of “realization” in real objects.100 <59> Nothing of the kind can be said in the case of the variables in the content of the idea. In view of the preceding, one might abbreviate by saying that every idea is something concrete only in part, whereas the individual object is something concrete through and through. However, this proposition bears the danger of being misinterpreted, since the word “concrete” is all too ambiguous.

65 It follows directly from the last remark that an idea is no concept.101 A concept is, in accordance with its essence, a non-intuitive intention [Meinung (Intention)], or a complex of such intentions. It makes no sense whatsoever to speak of the concretization of something that is indeed merely meant [gemeint] in a concept. An idea, on the other hand, is something that can be given intuitively (it need scarcely be mentioned, of course, that the intuitiveness which comes into play here has nothing to do with the intuitiveness of sensation, or with that of inner experience [Erfahrung]). This possibility obtains, among other reasons, precisely because concretizations of ideal qualities do occur in the content of the idea. Moreover, an idea is not any kind of “intention”. The relation between the idea and the individual object corresponding to it cannot be conceived as an intentional relation, like the one that obtains between the concept and its object. Finally, there are concepts of “contradictory” objects – the concept of a square circle, say. However, there are no ideas of contradictory “objects”.

66 In conclusion, we must still note: If qualitative constants occur in the content of a particular idea which exhaust the totality of the qualification of the corresponding individual object, and if at the same time the essence is contained in the qualification of the object, then it is clear that the ideal correlate of that object’s essence is included in the idea’s content. It is on this basis possible to investigate the essence of an individual object within the content <60> of the corresponding idea.102 From this follow important epistemological and methodological consequences which we cannot discuss here.

§12. The Problem in the Question “The x, what is that?”

67Let us again return to a concrete example.

68The answer to the question “The square, what is that?” can read: “The square, that is an equilateral and right-angled parallelogram”. The object of the concept “the square” is a general idea. However, this concept does not intend [meint] this idea qua idea – rather, it intends [intendiert] it from the perspective of its meaning-content, and it apprehends this content by means of one of its distinctive constant moments. This moment – to circumscribe it in a roundabout way – is the ideal correlate of the individual nature that constitutes any arbitrary individual square. (We are of course speaking here only of an ideal object that is a square. A real “square” does not exist at all. At best, there exist realiter only three-dimensional material bodies, a surface of which has the shape of a “square”. This shape is nothing more than an approximate realization of the ideal quality “squareness”.)103 In the example at hand, the ideal correlate of said nature is a concretization of an ideal quality104 – and indeed of “squareness”. It plays in the respective idea’s content a wholly analogous role to that played by the constitutive nature in an individual square.105 In other words, the concretization of the ideal quality “squareness” – to make use of Hering’s expression – is the immediate morphe of the content of the general idea “the square”. The content of this idea is constituted by some determinate nature, and as a constituted whole it comprises the ideal correlate of an individual square. However, it is not an exact correlate of some determinate square precisely because qualitative variables occur in its content, and indeed the variable <61> “having a side of some fixed length”. The immediate morphe of the idea’s content is of course not itself individual, although in our case the idea of the square belongs to that kind of ideas to which particular ideas of individual objects106 are subordinated.107 But the immediate morphe is non-individual, since the momentum individuationis is indeed a variable.108

69A certain system of constants of the general idea “the square” is intended [vermeint] in the predicate of the judgment “The square, that is an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram”. A more detailed account of the relation that obtains between this system of constants and the immediate morphe of an idea’s content will be the theme of subsequent, more extensive investigations, especially since109 a variety of possible cases [of this relation] still have to be differentiated. For now, let us simply remark that the word ‘is’ in the above judgment exercises the function of identifying the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G] with what is designated by the predicate-term. One may therefore say: what the subject designates and what the predicate designates is one and the same “object” (in the broadest sense of the word), apprehended in two different ways – one time directly, by means of the immediate morphe, and another time by means of the content’s system of constants. Of importance in this connection is that one from among these constants (“parallelogram”) in this system plays the role of a subject of attribution in relationship to the other constants and variables (which, by the way, are not named in the judgment), whereas the remaining constants play the role of characteristics that accrue to this subject. The role of the constant “a parallelogram” is wholly analogous to the role the constant “a square” plays in the content of either the particular idea “a square of side A”, or to the role the constant “a quadrilateral” plays in the content of the general idea “the parallelogram”. We encounter here a moment that is characteristic of the structure of the content of an idea. In view of the role [subject of attribution] that the named constants play in the content of the respective ideas, we term these constants “cores” [Kerne] of those contents. In this connection, we must, as always, distinguish the qualitative moment of this core, which in some ideas is the concretization of an ideal quality, from the core itself and its role.

70<62> We can now say: it may happen that two ideas, A and B, exist110 in such a way that the qualitative moment in the core of the content of idea A is the same as the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe of the content of idea B.111 We then say that idea A is subordinated to idea B. And conversely: idea B is superordinated to idea A.

71When the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe within a particular idea’s content is a concretization of some determinate ideal quality, of which a different kind of concretization forms the individual constitutive nature of an individual object, then the respective individual object is an instantiation of this idea. We say, in contrast, that an individual object G falls under a general idea I if it is the instantiation of a particular idea J that is subordinate to the idea I.

72If for a given individual nature there is no ideal quality whose concretization is the qualitative moment of the given nature, one can only say that the immediate morphe of a corresponding particular idea’s content forms the ideal correlate of the individual constitutive nature.112 Meanwhile, only the immediate morphe of a particular idea has the property that its individual correlate is capable of selfsufficiently constituting an individual object. On the other hand, the individual correlates of those immediate morphes which constitute the content, or the content-core, of general ideas are incapable of constituting individual objects without the collaboration – if we may put it that way – of other morphes. For example, there is no object among individual objects which is a parallelogram and nothing but a parallelogram. Only squares of determinate dimensions exist, only rhombuses in which the interior angles and sides are fully determined, etc. It is for this reason that we say that the immediate morphes of general ideas are doubly non-selfsufficient. That is to say, every morphe, as morphe of something, is non-selfsufficient. But if this something is unable to exist as an individual object, this can only be made accountable to the corresponding immediate morphe <63> – which is incapable of constituting an individual object113. 114

73It is worth noting that in a judgment of the type we are considering here, no concepts occur that refer to the variables of the content of the respective idea. Moreover, not all of the constants of this content are enumerated. This circumstance contributed to the existence of variables in the content of an idea having been always overlooked, which resulted in the essence of the idea having been completely misconstrued – since it [the idea] was fundamentally falsely defined [definiert] from the ground up as, for example, an “object” that contains within itself only those properties that are common to all objects belonging to a particular class.115 In contrast, from the fact that the concepts of variables do not occur in the judgment we are here considering, we shall only be able to draw the conclusion that the variables have no influence at all on the relation between the intentional correlates of the judgment’s subject and the predicate. And conversely: an especially tight relation must apparently obtain between the content of the idea grasped through its immediate morphe, and the system of constants of the idea’s content provided by the given judgment’s predicate – a relation that allows for selecting out of the totality of the content’s constants precisely those specific ones with which the identity between the object-correlate of the subject-term [S-G] and the correlate of the predicate-term can be established.116 Additional investigations must still be launched in this direction. (Cf. Ch. V) For the time being, however, we can say: the predicate-term of the judgment at issue intends such a system of constants belonging to the respective idea’s content, which [system] is necessary and sufficient for identity to obtain between the correlates of both the judgment-terms.

74We can now return to the question “The square, what is that?” and, on the basis of the results obtained in this section, summarize as follows:

1. The known of the problem in the question at hand consists of the content – grasped by means of its immediate morphe – of a general or particular idea.
2. The unknown of the problem consists of a specific system <64> of this same content’s constants, which is necessary and sufficient for identity to obtain between the knowns and the unknowns.
3. Finally, the problem itself is the obtaining of the identity just mentioned between knowns and unknowns.

75We are entitled to advance the assertions just enunciated without investigating too closely whether, and to what extent, the question dealt with is ambiguous. We would however have to consider carefully whether this ambiguity does obtain. For only then could further details be advanced pertaining to both the problem itself and its presuppositions. But we shall accomplish this task most easily by examining closely the various replies that can be given to this question, and by focusing in particular on the relation between the idea’s content as constituted by the immediate morphe and the already mentioned system of constants. Various sorts of ideas must be taken into account here, since, as we shall see, this relation is not in all cases alike. It is however first of all imperative to account for the various circumstances and ends in accordance with which we can pose not only the question under discussion here, but also the determinative and schema-questions – in order to clarify the influence of these circumstances and ends on the sense of all these questions. We now proceed to discuss these circumstances and ends.117

Notes

• 1 [See ftn. 16, below, for a brief discussion of the English rendition of question (2). We shall address our English rendition of question (3) in ftn. 52.]
• 2 [Cont. in P: “provided the given species does not belong to formal ontology”]
• 3 [See the next ftn. for Ingarden’s distinction of formal and material supposition.]
• 4 [This paragraph replaces: “In this connection, I presuppose that we need to differentiate: a) expressions (words); b) concepts expressed by the expressions; c) objects designated by the expressions. We speak of an expression (word) only when it has some kind of meaning (even if not altogether precise). A bare written or acoustic sign is for me not yet an expression. Every meaning of an expression is a concept, but a concept need not be the meaning of an expression (cf. A. Pfänder, Logik). If the word replacing the variable x in a question is utilized only as a word about whose meaning we are asking, or even as a word designating a concept, we say that it is used in the formal supposition. If, however, we employ it for designating an object, we say that we use it in the material supposition.”]
• 5 It is easy to see that our characterization of an “individuum” deviates somewhat from the commonly accepted one. Husserl, for example, says in Ideen I: “A non-selfsufficient essence is called an abstractum, an absolutely selfsufficient one – a concretum. A this-here [Ein Diesda], whose material essence is a concretum, is called an individuum.” (Ideen I, 29) But since Husserl at the same time separates the so-called “ultimate material substrates” [letzte sachhaltige Substrate] into “ultimate material essences” [Sachhaltiges letztes Wesen] and τόδε τι, for him the term ‘ individuum’ designates only an actual individual object (a real thing). We have no desire whatsoever to deny that such a terminology has its firm substantive basis. Our purposes, however, require a concept of the individual object that would embrace ideal individual objects alongside real selfsufficient ones. For example, each of a pair of congruent triangles is, in our sense, an individual object. [We have corrected Ingarden’s citation here, as we will (without comment) whenever necessary elsewhere in the book. Following ‘[ Ein Diesda]’ in line 3 of this ftn., continues in P: “(τόδε τι)”]
• 6 [Replaces: “To be sure, that lowest species is also unknown to us at the time of posing the question under discussion. However, that the latter is not the unknown of the problem is at least attested by the fact that there are other questions alongside ours – such as: ‘What is the lowest species of ‘that’?’ and ‘Under which lowest species does that fall?’ – which differ in content [treść = Inhalt] from the question ‘What is that?’. What then is its unknown?”]
• 7 [in P: “If A is the lowest species of which ‘that’ is an exemplar, then this ‘that’ ‘is an A’.”]
• 8 [Ftn. in P: “We speak here of a ‘function’ rather than simply of a ‘meaning’ because, following Pfänder, we distinguish concepts pertaining to objects (Gegenstandsbegriffe) from concepts that perform functions (funktionierende Begriffe). Obviously, these latter also have their – if we may be permitted to put it that way – functional meaning. For the sake of simplicity, we speak straightforwardly of the ‘function’ they perform.”]
• 9 [‘not’ replaces “not have to”]
• 10 The “individual constitutive nature” of an object should not be identified with the “essence of something”, even though the nature does belong to the object’s essence. What we here call “nature” is – insofar as we understand Jean Hering – identical with what, in the case of an individual object, he calls the “immediate μορφή”. The remarks given in the text are only meant to register some of the moments characteristic of an object’s “nature”, and by this means circumscribe the word’s meaning. We shall yet have numerous occasions in the subsequent parts of our work to go deeper into “nature”, and there the relation between “nature” and “essence of something” will also become clearer. However, we must also first clarify somewhat the sense of an entity’s “essence”. See, Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee, Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung [henceforth, Jahrb .], IV, Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1921, 495-543 [Replaces ftn. in P: “Our remarks concerning ‘the individual nature constituting the object’ are only an attempt to convey several of its characteristics. They should therefore not be regarded as an exhaustive and final “definition” [ definicja = Definition], or something of the kind. We shall still have multiple opportunities in the course of our treatise to deal with the nature of an object, and a number of particulars will be clarified on those occasions. Nonetheless, what we say here is sufficient to solve the problem of what constitutes the object of the question ‘What is that?’ We must note, however, that ‘the individual nature constituting the object’ should not be identified with the essence of the object, about which we shall speak later. What we have in mind when speaking of nature here, is identical with what Jean Hering calls ‘immediate μορφή’ (Cf. “Bemerkungen”). The nature discussed here does however belong to the essence of the object. Before Hering’s essay had even appeared, I wrote in Dążenia fenomenologów [The Quests of Phenomenologists]: ‘By the essence of some real object I understand here that ensemble of its absolute properties, which, non-selfsufficient relative to each other, together comprise a particular simple quale, the upshot of which is that the object is precisely such [as it is], and without which it would not be such [as it is].’ (Przegląd Filozoficzny, v. 22, no. 4 (1919), 323) That quale about which I spoke there is precisely what I am here calling the ‘individual nature constituting the object’. Except that today I would no longer say that this quale has to be simple in every object, or, moreover, that [only] absolute properties ‘comprise’ it. The relation between the nature of an object and its absolute properties appears to me differently today – which I discuss in greater detail in subsequent portions of this work. Moreover, I hold that it is not only in the case of real objects that we can speak of essence. I believe that this ought to be done for every ‘individuum’ in the sense I have established. We shall discuss the essence of an object in greater detail in §§ 15 and 26.”]
• 11 [This sentence replaces: “Yet even with this characterization of the meaning of ‘an A’ we have still committed an error.”]
• 12 [“signify… ‘that”’ replaces “designate the object itself about which we are asking”]
• 13 I am of course familiar with the theory according to which the individual constitutive nature of the object is supposed to be “nothing other” than a subjective apprehension of it. I hold this theory to be completely false, indeed countersensical, and shall deal with it in Ch. IV.
• 14 “By the ‘same’ individual nature” should be taken to mean “by natures that are exactly alike [gleich] with respect to their qualitative moments.” [This ftn. added in G]
• 15 [‘what’ replaces “that”. We cannot rule out that a typo is involved in the word ‘what’ (it is a difference of the first letter – ‘was’ vs. ‘das’), since throughout the Section the pointing out or indicating of direction has been associated with the word ‘that’.]
• 16 [“Schema-Question” replaces “Question ‘What is x [for]?’”. Ingarden was forced to change his way of referring to question (2) (see the title of §8, below) because of the difference in the grammatical structures of Polish and German. The former has declensions (cases), whereas the latter (and English) does not. In the Polish version of question (2), the word ‘what’ occurs in the so-called “instrumental” case (czym) as opposed to its “nominative” case (co) in question (1). The instrumental case is meant to convey the involvement of x in a broader context (schema) that implies its relationship to other objects, leading to such questions as “What is [the purpose of] x?”, “What is [the goal of] x?”, “What is [the function of] x?”, etc. We chose the word ‘for’ to serve as a general “umbrella” marker for signaling that instrumental character of ‘what’. See ftns. 21 and 33 below, for further explication of the instrumental case by Ingarden.]
• 17 [The first two paragraphs of this Section replace: “I have indicated above that the question ‘What is this dachshund?’ cannot be posed. However, a different question can be posed with regard to a certain individual object which is determined as to the nature constituting it: for example, ‘What is this horse [for]?’. This is a question of the type ‘What is x [for]?’, in which x designates a certain individual object. What comprises the problem and the unknown in this case?”.]
• 18 [‘cannot…asked’ replaces “is not at all what we were asking about”]
• 19 [Cont. in P: “eliminating – by means of the knowns as well as the unknowns of the problem – from the set of judgments whose object is ‘this dachshund’ a whole host of judgments that cannot be the answers to the question posed”]
• 20 [The highlighted term ‘indem [in virtue of]’ signals here the instrumental character of ‘what’.]
• 21 [The text from the beginning of the paragraph to this point replaces: “Let us first of all call attention to the grammatical form of the question: in contrast to the question ‘What is that?’, in which the word ‘what’ [co] appears in the nominative case, here we have ‘what’ [czym] in the instrumental case. The object designated by the subject of the question (“this dachshund”) – we shall abbreviate it by ‘subject of the problem’ – is to be treated here not as something for itself and apart from any relations to other objects, but in the guise of something which is a ‘something as…’ [czymś: the instrumental declension of the word coś (= something)]. Now it is only possible to be ‘something as…’ by playing some role in certain additional circumstances which have their source beyond the given object. It is precisely those [external] circumstances that are distinctive for the meaning of the question ‘What is an x [for]’, so that on some occasions it has a meaning for which judgments of the type (a1, a2, …) provide a cogent answer, whereas on others – a meaning for which judgments of the type (b1, b2, …) constitute such a [cogent] response.” It is worth noting that the phrase ‘object designated by the subject of the question’ [second sentence of the ftn.] is here employed by Ingarden as a variant of the German Subjektsgegenstand (for which we adopted as our standard English rendition the phrase ‘object-correlate of the subject-term’). Consequently, with his abridgement of this phrase to ‘subject of the problem’ [also in the second sentence of the ftn.] he has now made Subjektsgegenstand synonymous to Subjekt des Problems [subject of the problem].]
• 22 [Words designating concepts, genera, kinds, and species – that is, general terms – will be printed in italics.]
• 23 [Cont. in P: “, which, in and for itself,”]
• 24 [Cont. in P: “though it undoubtedly points indirectly to a certain relative characteristic,”]
• 25 [Cont. in P: “– sit venia verbo –”]
• 26 [“τί-moments that” replaces “object categories τί, to τί, however, that only”]
• 27 Later we shall call such moments “doubly non-selfsufficient”. Cf. p. <62> f.
• 28 [Cont. in P: “contained in the nature of the object”]
• 29 [The meaning of ‘Reflex’, which Ingarden first introduces here, can be rendered by a variety of terms – byproduct, upshot, offshoot, resultant, manifestation, epiphenomenon, and even the term wykładnik (= exponent) used by Ingarden – none of which fully captures its sense. We therefore leave it untranslated, as is sometimes done with such intractable technical terms, and task the reader to decide which of these would best approximate its meaning in any particular instance of its use.]
• 30 [The preceding three sentences [beginning at (2), above] replace: “However, the object (“this dachshund”) shows up in this role because it simultaneously falls under the genus ‘mammal’ – in view, therefore, of the relation that obtains between the given individual object and the genus. This role – or rather showing up in it – is, if we may put it that way, constituted by a Reflex of this relation which [Reflex] manifests itself on one of its terms, and – precisely as such a Reflex – is something relative.”]
• 31 [The italicized phrase inserted in G]
• 32 See A. Heyse, Deutsche Grammatik, 28th ed., Hannover, 1914, p. 264.
• 33 Other languages have other means for expressing linguistically the distinction we have indicated here. Thus, in Polish, for example, a different case is used to indicate this difference in sense. In the sentence “This is a dachshund.”, the word “jamnik” (=dachshund) is in the nominative case. If however one wants to apprehend an object as showing up in a schema, then here the instrumental case ( instrumentalis) is invoked, and one says “ten jamnik jest ssakiem” [this dachschund is a mammal], where the word “ssakiem” is the the instrumental declension of the nominative “ ssak” = mammal. [In order to avoid introducing any additional auxiliary devices to signal the presence of the instrumental (such as the expression ‘[for]’ in the case of the schema-question), we simply ask the reader to be cognizant of the fact that a judgment which serves as answer to any schema-question will also express its predicate-term in the instrumental.]
• 34 [The entire text commencing with the sentence “For it is not the moment…”, following ftn. 30 (on p. <34>), to this point, replaces: “When we say ‘This is a mammal’, we are apprehending the object ‘this’ in an absolute manner, independently of any relation between it and any genus whatsoever. We do however acknowledge this relation, and apprehend the object by means of its Reflex, when we say ‘This horse is a mammal ’. Thus, the word ‘is’ does not effect an identification in this sentence (as it does in the judgment ‘This is a mammal’), nor does it ascribe any characteristic to the object (as in the judgment ‘This horse is strong’), but performs rather the function – if we may put it that way – of donning over the object a certain role constituted through a Reflex of the relation: individuum falling under a genus.”]
• 35 [Cont. in P: “, comprising the presupposition of judgment (II),”]
• 36 [This sentence replaces: “In the exceptional case: should we ascertain that ‘this horse is a mammal’, then we are eo ipso presupposing that both the individuum ‘this horse’ and the genus ‘the mammal’ possess such characteristics as are necessary and sufficient for the relation of an individuum falling under a genus to obtain. Now what the conditions for that are is a separate matter.”]
• 37 The Polish language also notes this distinction between the two adduced meanings of the word ‘what’ by employing a different case. To the first meaning corresponds the nominative case , ‘ co’; to the second – the instrumental case, ‘ czym’. [The entire paragraph, including this note, added in G.]
• 38 [The preceding two sentences replace: “The unknown of the problem is the role of this object, constituted by a Reflex of the relation of its falling under a certain genus.”]
• 39 [“problem’s knowns” replaces “subject of the problem”. See ftn. 21, above.]
• 40 [Cont. in P: “(as in the question: ‘Is the dachshund a mammal?’)”]
• 41 [“its subsistence” replaces “ascertaining it”]
• 42 [Cont. in P: “the Reflex of”]
• 43 [(d) replaces “there is a Reflex (or a set of them) of this relation”]
• 44 [“constituted … and” replaces “a Reflex of the relation of the given object’s falling under”.]
• 45 [“object-correlate of the subject-term” replaces “subject of the state of affairs”]
• 46 [“constituted by” replaces “a Reflex of”]
• 47 [Cont. in P: “Reflex of the”]
• 48 [Cont. in P: “, and that being a class constituted in such a way that only that is its element which stands in a certain relation R to some object outside of the class”]
• 49 [“some special material” replaces “a Reflex of some other”]
• 50 [“[S-G]” replaces “subject of the problem”]
• 51 [Cont. in P: “hence, e.g. some species or genus”]
• 52 [In English it is customary to speak of the concept “mammal” or the species “dog” or the sub-species “dachschund”. In German, on the other hand, such general terms are designated by attaching an article to the name of the general term: the concept “the mammal” or the species “the dog” or the sub-species “the dachshund”. (See the bottom of p. <32> and ftn. 22, above.) We have formulated the English version of the question so as to preserve the distinction between the two different roles of das: the second, which signals the generality of x; and the first which functions as in the determinative question “What is that?”. [See ftn. 54, below] Neither our rendition, nor the possible alternative “What is that, the x?” sounds “natural” in English. Our version better highlights the distinction.]
• 53 In order to avoid misunderstandings, we must remind the reader that all the questions we are discussing are taken only in their material supposition. [The phrase ‘all the questions we are discussing’ in the ftn. replaces: “here – as in the entirety of the chapter – expressions such as ‘square’, ‘concept’, ‘horse’”]
• 54 For the sake of brevity, this is how we wish to designate the question “What is that?” when its unknown consists of an object grasped by way of its constitutive nature.
• 55 [“relative to some” replaces: “which [role] is the Reflex either of a relation of the falling of an individuum under some genus, or of any other”]
• 56 [Cont. in P: “or some schema or other”]
• 57 Concerning whether the given question can be answered in a different way, see Ch. V.
• 58 LU, Invest. II, and Ideen I, Part I.
• 59 J. Hering 1921.
• 60 [Cont. in P: “, especially since, in view of the extreme compactness of that work, such a discussion would call for extensive analyses”]
• 61 What we submit here is restricted to the main theses of Hering’s work. For this reason, §10 and §11 will be intelligible only to a reader who has become thoroughly acquainted with Hering’s essay, and with at least Invest. II of LU and Section I of Ideas I. [Following the word ‘here’ in the first line of this ftn., P continues: “is a vast abbreviation of Hering’s analyses and”. The end of the first sentence of the ftn. continues in P: “and to citing some examples while omitting any analyses”. See ftn. 10 for bibliographical references to Hering’s essay and its translation.]
• 62 The distinction between what Hering calls “the essence of something” and the “idea” was also indicated in my work Intuition und Intellekt bei H. Bergson (the bulk of which was written in 1916), where I used the expressions ‘individual essence’ and ‘pure essence’. I cannot rule out having partly arrived at this distinction under the influence of Hering, whose treatise I had already read in manuscript form in 1916. But I primarily followed the train of thought initiated by Husserl, who had already distinguished these notions in Ideas I: To begin with, ‘essence’ designated that which is already to be found in an individuum’s very own being as its What [Was]. But every such What can be ‘transposed onto the level of ideas’ [in Idee gesetzt]. [An] empirical intuition [erfahrende Anschauung], or [an] intuition of something individual [individuelle Anschauung], can be transformed into contemplation of essence [Wesensschauung] (ideation [Ideation]) .... What is [thus] intuitively grasped [ Das Erschaute] is then the corresponding pure essence or eidos, be it the highest category or a specification [Besonderung] thereof – all the way down to full concreteness [ Konkretion]. (Ideen I, 10) We must note, however, that Husserl does not yet distinguish here the object’s constitutive nature from its essence. Whereas the first [sentence] of the characterizations just cited does de facto suit the constitutive nature of the object, we read elsewhere in Ideen I (p. 9) a characterization that fits the essence of something: An individual object is not just in general an individual [one], some This-here! [Dies da], a one-off [object]; as ‘in itself’ so and so qualitatively endowed, it has its own specific character [Art], its stock of crucial [wesentlichen] predicables, which must accrue to it (as ‘something that exists [Seiende] as it is in itself’), if other, secondary, relative determinations are to be able to accrue to it. Yet in both instances Husserl speaks of the “essence”. It is clear that the intimate relations governing the nature and essence of something individual entitled Husserl to label both with the same name – so as not to confuse the beginner (for whom the Ideen were indeed intended) with too many distinctions. In this connection, compare our subsequent expositions. [The second sentence of this ftn. added in G. In the ftn., the first sentence following the quotation from Ideen I, 10, cont. in P: “, nor idea from ideal quality”. The last two sentences of the ftn. were added in G.]
• 63 [Cont. in P: “(and Hering means by it exactly the same as I do in this work)”]
• 64 Hering 1921, 497/57.
• 65 [For translation and clarification of the Greek terms employed by Hering, see J. Mitscherling’s “Appendix: Hering’s Greek Terminology” that accompanies the translation of Hering’s “ Bemerkungen”. See ftn. 10 for bibliographical reference.]
• 66 [“remarks” replaces “cautions”]
• 67 [Cont. in P: “(Hume!)”]
• 68 Compare Hering’s example: “It follows with absolute necessity from the essence of a sphere with diameter 1 m that it is smaller [in volume] than any cube with edges of 1 m.” (500/60)
• 69 [‘ideal’ appears redundant as a qualifier of Wesenheiten, since it is already inherent in the translation of the latter.]
• 70 Hering speaks here of a “realization” [Realisation], but he calls the object the “realizer” [Realisator] of the ideal qualities [Wesenheiten], i.e. that within which [worin] the ideal quality “realizes” itself in the form [ Gestalt] of the constitutive nature. Hering himself guards against imputing an actual [ wirklichen] “realization”, and notes that to speak of a realization is unsuitable since we can speak about this not only in conjunction with real objects (cf. 510/70 n.66). For this reason, we make use of the term “concretization”, which Hering employs specifically for the concretization of ideal qualities in ideas. We must note here that the locution “the ideal quality could be realized or concretized in the objects” seems to us to be unsuitable. We are fully aware that it is only a figurative way of speaking which is not to be taken literally. Nonetheless, even as such, it imposes too strongly on the reader the notion of a process of transition of one and the same identical element from the sphere of ideal qualities into that of objects. But such a view would seem to us to be unduly mythological. The problem of the relation that obtains between the ideal quality and its “concretizations” in the objects is still murky for us; we would like to assert only what appears to us incontestable. For the moment we can only say that there surely is something like the ideal quality “redness”, that it must be distinguished from the redness of a concrete red color, and that a correlation obtains between the two. Extensive research is needed along this line. [Following the word ‘realizes’ (in quotes) in the second line of this ftn., P continues: “, ‘embodies’”, and the quotes around the word ‘realizes’ are introduced in G. The sentence ending with the word ‘mythological’ (in the middle of ftn.) continues in P: “, reminiscent of the Platonism of Plato’s late period”]
• 71 [Cont. in P: “, as for example of the ideal qualities ‘coloration’ and ‘redness’”]
• 72 My [R.I.] emphasis.
• 73 Slightly modified [R.I.].
• 74 Hering claims, for example, that the idea has a remarkable two-fold nature and “a two-fold mode of existence, that is to say, 1) in the things and 2) in and for itself” (529/87). “But just as little as the circumstance that there are multiple single lamps hinders any one of them from existing only once, so the fact that an idea is a sole one does not prevent it from existing multiple times in the single lamps.” (527/86)
• 75 [Cont. in P: “with a different content”]
• 76 Cf. LU, Invest. II: “In fact, wherever likeness obtains, we also find an identity in the strict and true sense” (112). “Of course, it would seem to us to be a inversion of the true state of affairs if one had wanted, even if only in the sensuous realm, to define [definieren] identity essentially [essentiell] as limiting case of likeness. Identity is absolutely indefinable, but not likeness. Likeness is the relationship among the objects that are subsumed under one and the same Spezies. Should it no longer be permitted to speak of identity of Spezies, of the respect in which likeness prevails, then any discussion of likeness also loses its basis” (113). Concerning the idea’s establishing the unity of the range of a manifold, see (114-15).
• 77 Hering (528/86). See also: “An idea has no vicissitudes or contingent affections, no ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν. Propositions about its instantiating itself are not propositions about the idea’s vicissitudes; no more than are statements about its appearing in intentional acts.” (528/87)
• 78 We shall still discuss all of that.
• 79 [Since Ingarden invariably speaks of Gehalt, rather than Inhalt, in the context of ideas, we shall generally abbreviate ‘meaning-content’ by ‘content’, and occasionally invoke the full-fledged expression as a reminder.]
• 80 If I understand Hering correctly, he has the same thing in mind when he states: “It would seem, accordingly, as if one could consider the idea in two entirely different ways: first, in its ideal mode of being, which accrues to it qua idea; and secondly, with respect to the prototype of all its exemplars that is inherent in the idea.” (530/88) It is necessary to stress, however, that in the first way of considering the idea it is not only “the ideal mode of being” of the idea that comes into consideration, but all its properties that characterize it qua idea (hence, also its peculiar structure, which comes to expression in the duality mentioned above). We must also note that the only reason the idea can be considered in two different ways is precisely because it possesses such a dual structure. But from that it follows that we cannot agree with Hering’s following claim (which, incidentally, can also be found in other authors): “Everything that we say concerning ideas, holds eo ipso for the existent of its sphere.” (526/85) This assertion is at least incorrectly formulated. [The sentence following the one ending with the parenthetical expression in this ftn. was added in G.]
• 81 This is probably what Hering has in mind when he says (though not altogether correctly) that “in the idea, which indeed itself exists atemporally and non-spatially, is ‘contained’ the collective qualification of its exemplars. One is immediately tempted to designate the idea as the thing itself dissociated from its existence, of whatsoever kind the latter may be.” (Hering 529/88) The incorrectness of this assertion resides in the fact that it is not indeed the individual object’s “collective qualification” itself that occurs in the content of the idea, but rather only its correlates. Thus the “liberation” of the object from its existence, no matter what kind the latter may be (were something of the sort possible at all), does not yet lead eo ipso to the corresponding idea. [The ftn. continues in P: “Besides, it is not true that the modus existentiae does not enter in any form into the content of the idea.”]
• 82 [Ftn. in P: “At the same time, the word ‘qualitative’ must be so broadly conceived that its meaning encompasses all material moments, as opposed to formal, and therefore also quantitative and Gestalt moments.”]
• 83 [“(in Husserl’s sense)” replaces the following ftn. in P: “I have characterized this term [object in general] in Bergson 1922, 399-400. See, moreover, Ideen I, Section I.”]
• 84 [Cont. in P: “the ideal correlates of”]
• 85 Since in this case it is a matter of a spatially and temporally existing object.
• 86 [Cont. in P: “Whether moment of formal structure which are characteristic for objects of particular domains (hence, whether at issue is a real or ideal object, a material object or a mind-endowed individuum) are also included among the constants of the idea’s content depends on how the variable modus existentiae is specified, and on the kind of the remaining constants of that content.”]
• 87 As can be seen at once, all these moments are very intimately interrelated and interdependent. Together with the object’s analytic-categorial structure, they make up what we call the object’s form. Some authors see the momentum individuationis in the moments of spatio-temporal localization themselves. We do not believe this conception to be correct. The localization moments are no doubt closely bound up with a specific type of individual being, namely with “actuality” [Wirklichkeit]. (In this connection, “actuality” must be understood in the quite narrow sense according to which e.g. an individual, wholly determinate geometrical triangle is not actual.) But they do not make up the momentum individuationis. However, it is because they are necessarily bound up with the moment of individuation of a specific type of being that they can be employed as material for constructing a criterion that will unequivocally single out some individual objects. [Following ‘e.g.’ (in the fourth line from the bottom of the ftn.), continues in P: “the house in which I live is actual, as well as my person and its mental states, but”]
• 88 [“manipulating” replaces “procedural”]
• 89 If we are dealing with an object that exists in time, then our characterization of individual being holds only for the being in one and the same instant of time.
• 90 [Continues as a separate paragraph in P: “Anyone who constrains the concept of being, or existence, solely to such individual objects as are determined in every respect, obviously cannot acknowledge the existence of ideas. And I have no intention to dispute that this narrow concept is – if we may put it that way – a fundamental concept, of which all other concepts of existence are derivatives. I do not wish to blur the difference among these concepts; indeed, I am keen on stressing it. Nonetheless, I maintain that even these derivative concepts are no concepts of fictions, but have a fundamentum in re.”]
• 91 The concept of an idea’s content does not appear in Hering. [This ftn. added in G]
• 92 [“in that respect, therefore, no idea is” replaces “but these variables do exist, and it is possible to say about them that they are”]
• 93 [“qualification” replaces “qualitative endowment”. This replacement is operative in every instance where Qualifikation occurs in G.]
• 94 [Last sentence of p. <55>: ‘To the extent…’, up to this point replaces “If by weitere Detaillierung [specifying in greater detail] we are to understand that the variable is replaced by one of the constants that is a particular case of it, then we need to agree that, for all non-particular ideas, by such a “substitution” of one of its corresponding constants for the variable, we would be transitioning to other ideas; for any particular idea, however, this would be impossible insofar as by doing so we would be leaving the domain of ideas altogether, and finding ourselves in the realm of individual objects. For there is no particular idea in which instead of some variable x, its particular case α would occur. Where we are dealing with α, we have before us an individual object, and not a particular idea.”]
• 95 [The last two sentences of the preceding paragraph, up to this point, replace “If, however, the expression materieller Bestand [material composition] in the cited assertion is supposed to designate the idea’s meaning-content (as we could surmise, since this concept of content is not precisely specified in Hering), then the content of no idea is bis ins einzelne bestimmt [determined to the last detail]. It is only possible to say: an idea is particular if constants that exhaust the collective qualitative endowment of an individual object go into making up the composition of its meaning-content; and in this respect there can be no talk of any more detailed determination of a particular idea’s content, as there can be in the case of general ideas, which we shall take up presently. It is in view of this that I said earlier that an idea is particular if an individual object is its direct exemplification. By the expression ‘direct exemplification’, I wish to understand the fact that the transition from a particular idea to an individual object does not require supplanting any qualitative variable, but only a transition from formal variables to their particular values. In this connection, by a qualitative variable (or constant) I understand a variable (constant) that corresponds to some moment of the object’s qualitative endowment; whereas, by a formal variable I understand a variable (constant) that corresponds to some moment of the object’s form in the sense characterized above.”]
• 96 The word ‘qualitative’ must be taken in this context so broadly as to encompass all of an object’s non-formal features.
• 97 W. Schapp (whom J. Hering also quotes) had already called attention to this; cf. Beiträge zur Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung, Göttingen: Universitäts-Buchdruckerei W. Fr. Kaestner, 1910, 136: “It is at any rate certain that it is only the particular idea [Einzelidee] which makes it possible for general ideas to be applied to objects.” Schapp makes various dubious claims relative to ideas – the confusion of ideas with concepts, for example. Also, the following statement of Hering’s is incorrectly formulated at the least, and promotes undesirable associations owing to its imagery: “A character of indeterminacy adheres to the idea ‘lamp simpliciter’ that distinctly comes to the fore in its being impossible for this idea to instantiate itself on its own power.” (530/89)
• 98 [Cont. in P: “and of the momentum individuationis”]
• 99 [“index” replaces “reference”]
• 100 “Already here, in the idea, is truly that place where the eidos concretizes itself into a morphe, which is why this process (?) also has nothing in the least to do with an ‘empirical realization’” (Hering 529/87). I, too, discern the distinction between “realization” and “concretization”. But the relevant issues are not yet clear to a degree that would enable me to say resolutely in what that distinction consists. Mrs. H. Conrad-Martius offers very interesting analyses along these lines in her Realontologie (Jahrb. VI, Halle,1923); unfortunately, this treatise – which calls for a painstaking study – could not be taken into account in this work. [“(?)” replaces “(?!)”. Both are Ingarden’s insertions. The last sentence of this ftn. replaces the corresponding ftn in P: “Hedwig Conrad-Martius broaches these problems in her new work, Realontologie in a chapter entitled Realität. However, this work – very difficult to fully understand – reached me too late to enable me to acknowledge its results pertaining to this issue.”]
• 101 Hering likewise opposes identifying the idea with a concept, and he quite rightly stresses at the same time that the distinction is not a matter of terminology. (533 n. 2/91 n. 124)
• 102 Cf. Hering 528/186-7. Besides, one may find analogous claims in almost every work on phenomenology, starting with the LU. But no detailed substantiation of this assertion is provided. [This sentence replaces in P the continuation of the preceding sentence: “; although a clear articulation of ideas – and their differentiation from ideal qualities and the essence of an individual object – is lacking in these claims.”]
• 103 [Cont. in P: “In other words: the object of the concept ‘the square’ is the meaning-content of a certain general idea, [a content] apprehended by way of the ideal correlate of an individual square’s constitutive nature.”]
• 104 [Ftn. in P: “We need to note that it does not have to be this way in every idea. This follows from what we have said earlier – that ideas of individual objects exist whose individual constitutive nature is just a ‘conglomerate’ (in Hering’s language: unechte Morphe [inauthentic morphe]). In regard to this, see §23, below, entitled ‘Three Kinds of Ideas’, pp. <97-108>.”]
• 105 Consistently with this view, we have claimed in the preceding section that not only the qualitative endowment but also the form of the individual object finds its ideal correlate in the meaning-content of the idea. The qualitative constants have just such relations and interdependencies with one another as do their concretely individual correlates in the individual object.
• 106 Generally speaking, it need not be so. There are, for example, ideas of ideal qualities and ideas of ideas.
• 107 We shall attend presently to what it means for an idea to be subordinated to some other idea.
• 108 [Cont. in P: “This agrees with the remark we made upon introducing the concept of an ‘individual nature constituting the object’ to the effect that this nature is not itself determinative of the moment of individuation, and is itself ‘individual’ because the moment of individuation is simultaneously determined in the individual object. However, this moment does in fact consist of a variable in the content of the idea.”]
• 109 [Cont. in P: “generally speaking – and not as here, in application to a certain specific idea –”]
• 110 For example, the idea ‘the square’ (A) and the idea ‘the parallelogram’ (B).
• 111 This means that in the case where both moments are concretizations of ideal qualities, they must be concretizations of one and the same ideal quality.
• 112 [This sentence replaces: “Now, where the nature constituting an individual object is a conglomerate, we say that such an object is an exemplification of that idea, the immediate morphe of whose content is the ideal correlate of the individual nature.”]
• 113 [Cont. in P: “Thence, double non-selfsufficiency”]
• 114 It would certainly still be useful to investigate the difference between the non-selfsufficiency of a morphe as morphe and the non-selfsufficiency in the sense of constituting an individual object, and [to inquire] on what the latter depends. We shall still deal with this within the bounds set for us by the theme of our work.
• 115 We shall deal further with this “definition” [Definition].
• 116 [This sentence replaces: “Whereas, conversely: some peculiar connection must be concealed behind the identity between the content of the general idea, apprehended through its immediate μορφή, and the constants designated by the predicate of the given judgment, [a connection] which brings about that identity.”]
• 117 [Replaces: “It would in turn be incumbent upon us to ponder over whether, and to what extent, this question is ambiguous, and what it presupposes. But before we do so, it is indispensable to examine more closely the answers to the question discussed here, and especially that connection concealed behind the identity which is the problem of the question; all the more so, since it is not at all certain yet that such a connection must be concealed behind the problem of every question of the type ‘The X, what is that?’. Toward that end, we have to examine whether there are not some sorts of fundamental differences among ideas. Finally, in order to conclude the investigations of the question ‘The X, what is that?’, as well as of the previously discussed essence-questions, we have to consider the circumstances under which – or rather, the ends for the purpose of which – we pose the essence-questions, and to assess their influence on the meaning of these questions. Since also the answers to the essence-questions depend on these ends, we shall therefore first of all take up these ends.”]