§22. Introduction

11 2The answer to the question “X, what is that?” is a judgment of the general type “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ”. As we already noted earlier, the object of such a judgment is the existence [Bestehen] of identity between the meaning-content of a general idea grasped by way of its immediate morphe, and a determinate system3 of this content’s qualitative constants, among which <97> the content-core plays a prominent role. However, we have thus far not explained why it is possible to select a specific system of qualitative constants that not only allows for the identity just mentioned but also demands it, and which also allows the remaining constants and variables of the given idea’s content to be left out, so that the selected system forms the necessary and sufficient condition for the identity to obtain.4 We now have to fill this gap in our preceding analyses. But in order to avoid hasty generalizations, we must first distinguish different kinds of ideas according to the composition of the immediate morphe of their content. In doing so, our attention must be directed primarily to the relation that obtains between the immediate morphe of an idea’s meaning-content and the system of that content’s qualitative constants.5

§23. Three Kinds of Ideas

2We distinguish the following three kinds of ideas, irrespective of whether they are general or specific [spezielle]:6

1. Ideas in which the immediate morphe of the meaning-content [Gehalt]7 is a conglomerate that lacks an inner unity.8 We term such ideas inexact;
2. Ideas in which the immediate morphe of the idea’s content forms a distinctive unity, but in which at the same time a particular system of constants appears in the content that is, to express this provisionally, “equivalent” to the immediate morphe. In this case we speak of exact ideas;
3. Ideas in which the immediate morphe forms a distinctive, absolute unity to which no system of the content’s constants can be made equivalent. Here we speak of simple ideas.

3We are of course far from claiming prematurely that we have already exhausted all possible cases by means of the differentiation just indicated.

4ad 1) As with every idea, so in the case of the content of an inexact idea, we can distinguish on the one hand between the content-constituting morphe and the content itself, and on the other hand between this morphe and the set of constants that occur in the idea’s content. Meanwhile, in the case of an inexact idea, this distinction is dictated much more by formal considerations than by the distinctiveness of what makes up the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe on the one hand and what makes up the <98> qualitative moments of the content’s remaining constants on the other. If we inquire into the general idea “plate”, we cannot say that the content of this idea is constituted by some singular, unitary morphe that would prescribe which constants must occur in that content. One can certainly say that the morphe “platehood” constitutes the content of this idea. But we would be searching in vain for a corresponding ideal quality whose concretization is the given morphe. However, if we tried to sort out carefully what belongs to the content of this idea – in order to have full confidence that we had not overlooked anything important – we would find ourselves in a great quandary as to what should be considered the constants of this content, and especially what should be selected as the content-core of this idea. We would then be rather inclined to say that it [plate] is “something” that possesses “properties” or “characteristics” of one sort of another. What we are trying to say here is that if we wish to come to grips with what makes up the immediate morphe of this idea’s content, we must necessarily reach to an analysis of its constants, and only on this basis, so to speak, can we succeed in grasping synthetically the sought morphe. As we have already mentioned, this morphe is only a conglomerate; it is merely a correlate of a peculiar synthesis of the constants grasped in the given instant. In analyzing the constants of such an idea’s content, it is necessary to reach to the corresponding particular ideas, or to the corresponding individual instantiations, and pay heed to their specific properties, the factual occurrence of which must be ascertained in a corresponding experience.9 As long as we do not <99> reach back to the experience of the separate individuals, the corresponding general idea is grasped only in an unclear fashion.10 The object’s individual constitutive nature is in this case merely the object-correlate of the synthesis of the ascertained properties. However, just as in our experience of individual real objects (which take top priority in our considerations here),11 we must always rest satisfied with some fortuitous selection of properties that has been given to us in prior experience, so too the individual nature cannot be determined with a finality that could no longer be corrected or augmented. And, conversely, precisely because there is no such individual constitutive nature here that would imply special associated properties within the unity of the same object, we can never say with certainty whether continued experience will not disclose the existence of properties whose presence in the object would allow us to modify drastically our prevailing conception of the immediate morphe. The constitutive nature is not just a conglomerate, but also an accidental conglomerate.12 We cannot hit on the principle (if we may put it that way) in the course of investigating the object that would enable us to understand why an object of this kind possesses precisely these rather than other properties.13 It is a fact that it possesses them, and that is all we can ascertain – barring a causal explanation, of course. <100> In other instances, the object’s individual constitutive nature affords us the sort of principle that is lacking here, provided it is not the kind of conglomerate we have just discussed.

5The following state of affairs is connected with the absence of inner unity on the part of the immediate morphes that occur in the contents of the ideas we are considering here: When we analyze the content of a general, inexact idea, the scope of the qualitative variables cannot be exhausted to the extent of enumerating all the ideas that are less general and subordinate to the given one. One cannot foresee, for example, what “kinds” of “plates” are possible if one simply confines oneself to investigating the general idea “plate”. It is always possible that we have not taken into account some qualitative variable which is independent of the ones already enumerated, and that we have thereby overlooked some of the less general ideas (or even a whole manifold of them) that contain specific values for the variables unaccounted for. And it is by no means the contingent imperfection of our knowledge that is at fault; the basis of the possibility just set forth lies in the fact that the content of an inexact idea lacks a unitary immediate morphe that would unequivocally specify the system of qualitative variables. For the same reason it is also impossible in this case to acquire an exhaustive survey of the manifold of individual objects which, through the mediation of the particular ideas, fall under one and the same inexact general idea; and this survey can be obtained neither by means of analyzing the content of a general idea, nor via a direct cognition of the instantiations of the corresponding particular ideas. If we understand Husserl correctly, he calls such a manifold of objects “an indefinite manifold,” without however telling us exactly what the basis of this indefiniteness is.14 We shall retain this Husserlian term.

6The question of which objects of outer or inner experience comprise an indefinite manifold belongs among the problems of the special ontologies, and as such cannot be answered here.

7<101> ad 2) To the inexact ideas must be opposed the exact ones. As we have said, we understand the latter to be ideas whose content is constituted by a unitary [einheitliche] immediate morphe, to which a system of qualitative constants occurring in that content is “equivalent”.15 The general idea “square” may serve here as an example.16

8The immediate morphe of the content of an exact idea is the concretization of an ideal quality,17 but it is simultaneously singled out by the fact that, in constituting the respective content, that morphe at the same time decides which constants and variables occur in this content. But since the immediate morphe of the idea’s content is – or, better put, contains within itself – a concretization of an ideal quality, it is possible to cognize that morphe without resorting to the qualitative constants and variables of the respective idea’s content [Gehalt]. That is to say, we are not dealing in this case with something that is simply a correlate or result of a synthesis of a number of qualitative constants, or a conglomerate that is wholly dependent on the composition of the content, but rather with something that in itself forms a peculiar qualitative unity, and for which it is at bottom an entirely fortuitous circumstance that in the concretization it forms the immediate morphe of an idea’s content. It could just as well exist as pure ideal quality without this concretization. By way of clarification, as the morphe of something, the immediate morphe is here – as everywhere – something non-selfsufficient. But the form of the immediate morphe must be distinguished from its content [Inhalt]. The form [must be distinguished] as that in virtue of which morphe is precisely “morphe” and not pure ideal quality, and by means of which it simultaneously “constitutes” – in the broadest sense of the word – an “object”. The form [must be distinguished] as that which is alike for all natures of individual objects, and which in turn is alike for all immediate morphes of the contents of ideas but is different from the form of the individual nature. The content, in contrast, or the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe, [must be distinguished] as that which differentiates the one nature from another, but which is alike for all exemplars of one and the same particular idea; the content distinguishes from each other not only the exemplars of two different particular ideas, but also the ideas themselves. In the exact ideas, the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe of the idea’s content is the concretization of a pure ideal quality, thus the concretization of something which is not only something peculiar and unique unto itself, <102> but also something that requires no augmentation by other ideal qualities. For every Wesenheit as such is, as an ideal quality,18 selfsufficient in itself and self-enclosed.

9The assertion we have just stated, which applies to every ideal quality as such, may elicit opposition from the reader. For it appears to be at odds with the familiar state of affairs that no color as such can be unextended. Meanwhile, things are quite otherwise. That is to say, we can both acknowledge the state of affairs just introduced, as well as preserve the validity of our claim that every ideal quality is in itself something selfsufficient.19

10Since our assertion applies to every ideal quality, and not just to those whose concretizations are the constitutive natures or immediate morphes of the contents of ideas, we may here set aside the issue of whether the ideal quality “color” is capable of constituting an “object”. We must note, however, that when we speak of “redness” we do not have in mind any concrete red color – be it as the property of an individual object or as a constant in the content of some general or particular idea. The concretization of the pure ideal quality “redness’” occurs in the qualitative moment of a concrete red color. The assertion we have advanced says of this qualitative moment of the concrete color and of the moment of the extendedness of the latter that they are mutually non-selfsufficient – that is, that they require each other in order to exist.20 This assertion is no doubt right. We are not, however, speaking of the concretizations of the pure ideal qualities, but of these ideal qualities themselves. And we are not even going so far as to claim that the advanced assertion would be false if it were to refer to the pure ideal qualities “redness” and “extendedness”. For even if it were to apply in this case,21 <103> we would need to ascertain that it only asserts the necessity of co-existence of said ideal qualities but does not say that the ideal quality “redness” is, so to speak, qualitatively augmented by the “extendedness” [Ausgedehntheit] that may perhaps necessarily co-exist with it. In other words, even if the cited assertion were applicable to the pure ideal qualities “redness” and “extendedness”, the first of these is not determined more specifically or differently by the second, or, to put it still another way, the redness is in no way augmented with respect to its coloration [Farbigkeit] (if such a locution may be permitted) by having to co-exist with extendedness; at most, the proposition may be valid that redness must make up a unitary whole with some other ideal quality which is wholly and thoroughly heterogeneous relative to it, and to which there is no transition starting from the former. But we only wish to assert the subsistence of this heterogeneity – of the unbridgeable chasm between two different ideal qualities – when we speak of the ideal quality as of an isolated, self-enclosed, “selfsufficient” unity. That can be asserted of every ideal quality and does not contradict the fact that there are ideal qualities which are “amalgams” [Verschmelzungen] of other ideal qualities (example: a “mixed [or secondary] color”, cf. Hering, 520-1, 80). We shall have occasion to return to this below.

11Wherever, then, as in the exact ideas, the immediate morphe is a concretization of an ideal quality, cognition of the morphe’s qualitative moment is possible without appealing to the cognition of some other element of that content. And this is possible only because every ideal quality <104> is a self-enclosed, selfsufficient unity, and because this property of ideal qualities is also preserved in the concretization. Moreover, we can only cognize this sort of immediate morphe by grasping intuitively its qualitative moment, hence, cognize indirectly the corresponding ideal quality. We are dealing here with a fact that is directly contrary to what we found in the case of inexact ideas. Thus, whereas in the case of the exemplars of inexact ideas the split between the constitutive nature (or the immediate morphe of the idea’s content) and the ποῖον (or the constants and variables of that content) was motivated only by formal considerations – i.e. with regard to the distinction that obtains between the form of the immediate morphe (of the constitutive nature) and the form of the property (or of the constants in the content of an idea) – in the case of exact ideas (or in the case of the individual objects falling under them), this differentiation is motivated both by the difference between the relevant forms, as well as that between the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe and the qualitative moments of the qualitative constants and variables of the idea’s content.22 It is indeed for this reason that Hering – if we understand him correctly23 – speaks in these cases of “the genuine morphe”. Only here, in the case of the immediate morphe of an exact idea, is it possible to achieve an exhaustive cognition of the immediate morphe that is attainable in a single stroke, a cognition which, to the extent that it has actually been achieved, can undergo no further modification or augmentations.

12But the exact ideas do not differ from the inexact ones only in the structure of the immediate morphe of their content. The structure of the content of exact ideas is equally characteristic relative to the system of the remaining constants and variables that occur in this content. The fact that here the immediate morphe of the content is the concretization of a pure ideal quality entails that the morphe specifies unequivocally the system of the content’s remaining constants and variables. Moreover, from among all the constants a special group of constants is singled out in which is present a finite number of mutually independent, tightly bound constants (how tightly depends on the idea at issue) that are closely connected with the immediate morphe of the idea’s content – namely, are its “equivalent”. <105> We shall try to illustrate what that means with a concrete example. This group of constants is indeed named in the predicate-term of an essence-judgment of the type “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ”.24 We shall try to show that when the content of an exact idea which is grasped by way of its immediate morphe is designated by means of the subject-term of such a judgment, there is (contrary to the currently prevailing view) only one single group of the content’s constants that can be equivalent to the immediate morphe of such an idea. What makes this group distinctive is that all the remaining constants and variables of the content depend on it, and that at the same time it comprises the minimum set of constants that suffice to sustain this dependence.25 Once we are familiar with the immediate morphe of the idea’s content and with this special group of constants, i.e. once we have issued the judgment “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ”,26 we can in principle derive all the remaining constants of the respective idea by means of purely logical operations. In other words, we can then formulate and prove a series of assertions concerning the content of that idea. Since the immediate morphe of an exact idea’s content is bound up with the named group of constants in an especially intimate fashion, and specifies it unequivocally, it is in this morphe that we acquire the principle which enables us to understand the structure of the given content. The idea’s content is in this case a cohesive [einheitliche] system constructed on the principle just mentioned. It is precisely this transparency and systematicity27 that is lacking in the inexact ideas. Since, finally, in the case of an exact idea the immediate morphe specifies unequivocally not only the system of constants but also that of the variables; since among those constants there is a finite group, which is equivalent to the immediate morphe, on which all the remaining constants depend, and since an analogous [core] group can also be discovered among the variables – all of that makes it possible to predict, on the basis of an analysis of an exact general idea’s content, which, and how many, ideas are directly subordinate to the general one. For this purpose, it is entirely sufficient to bear in mind which values the individual variables can take on and which dependencies obtain or can obtain among the individual variables or their specific values, and for their part <106> – admit or exclude specific combinations of values for the variables. By applying this procedure to successively less general ideas, which are all subordinate to the given general idea, we ultimately arrive at the particular ideas. In this manner – provided that we are always dealing with exact ideas in the course of this procedure – it is possible to start out from a general idea and acquire an exhaustive overview of the totality of particular ideas that are subordinate to it, and with that a survey of the manifold of individual objects that fall under the respective [general] idea. This task may pose serious difficulties in the concrete case, but it can be carried out here in principle. Such a manifold of individual objects, which collectively fall under one and the same exact general idea, we call – to make use of an expression already employed by Husserl – a “definite manifold.”28

13ad 3) We now turn to those ideas in which the immediate morphe of the content is an absolutely simple moment, to which no system of constants can be equivalent. We term such ideas simple or primitive [ursprüngliche]. To these belong, for example, all ideas of absolutely simple ideal qualities, such as, say, “the pure Red”, “the coloration” [“die Farbhaftigkeit”],29 and the like, but also some object-pertaining ideas [Gegenstandsideen], like the geometric ideas “point”, “line”, “plane [or surface]”, and the like. Consequently, various types of simple ideas exist: first, ideas whose content is the concretization <107> of an absolutely simple ideal quality,30 secondly, ideas for which only the immediate morphe of the content is such a concretization. In the first case, there can of course be no talk of any other constants and variables existing in the content of the idea: the idea’s collective content is nothing other than the concretization of a simple ideal quality. In the second case, in contrast, other constants and variables do indeed also exist in the idea’s content, but there is no system of constants among them which could be equivalent to the respective immediate morphe (for example, in the geometric idea “the point” occur the constants “something spatial” and “[something] extensionless”). Analogously to the case of exact ideas, these constants are unequivocally specified by the content’s immediate morphe. No matter which, and how many, additional constants we might be able to enumerate, they can never be “equivalent” to the immediate morphe. When we explain what is at issue for this “equivalence” in the case of exact ideas, this heretofore obscure point31 will also be illumined. For the time being, we can only note that the familiar fact of our inability to “define” [“definieren”] certain ideas – say, that of a mathematical point – has its origin and basis precisely in the peculiar structure of the simple idea.

14We must confine ourselves to the above remarks. They will suffice to establish that judgments of the type “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ” can be employed for unfolding the idea’s content only in the case of exact and inexact ideas. On the other hand, in the case of simple ideas we can at best construct a judgment of the type “A is A”, to which we shall still have occasion to return. We call the judgment “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ” an “essence-judgment” when X designates an exact idea grasped by means of the immediate morphe of its content, and when precisely that group of constants which is equivalent to the immediate morphe is named in the predicate-term. Only later will it become clear why we are here speaking of an “essence-judgment”. We shall presently deal with the ontological foundations of essence-judgments. However, as concerns the other judgments of the general type “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ”, we confine ourselves to what we have said in our discussion of inexact ideas. The “essence- judgments” can however perform two different functions: either as a “real definition” [“reale Definition”] <108> or as a judgment that unfolds for us the content of an idea. We must therefore first turn to this distinction. This will at the same time enable us to show that the immediate morphe of an exact idea’s content should not be identified with that special group of constants which is equivalent to it.32

§24. The Essence-Judgment as “Real Definition”33 and as an Explicative Judgment [Explikationsurteil]34: The Essence-Judgment in the Narrower Sense

15To begin with, let us take the judgment “The square, that is an equilateral, rectangular parallelogram” in that sense in which someone (Peter) states the judgment upon having cognized the content of the general idea “the square” – and the ideal quality “the squareness” concretized in it – on the basis of a direct, intuitive grasp of35 an individual square, and issues that judgment on the basis of this cognition. The judgment so understood then unfolds the content of the respective general idea by asserting the identity that obtains between the content of the idea grasped by means of the immediate morphe36 and the content-core which is qualitatively endowed in a particular way. This judgment has a somewhat different sense37 if Paul is trying to understand it but has never intuitively grasped either the ideal quality “squareness” or an individual square, yet “knows” [“weiß”] exactly, on the basis of an intuitive cognition, what a parallelogram is and what equilaterality and orthogonality are. If Paul confines himself to understanding the judgment he has heard, then he knows on the basis of this judgment that a certain idea, whose content is constituted by a concretization of some specific ideal quality called “the squareness”,38 is the same as “an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram”. However, the understanding of the judgment and this knowledge [Wissen] alone will not be enough to give him the direct cognition of the ideal quality “the squareness”.39 If he were accidentally to glimpse a real drawing that depicts40 – though with an essential inaccuracy – a geometric object “a square”, and if no one were to tell him that it is (incorrectly speaking) “a square”, but he were himself to ascertain that it is something which is an <109> equilateral, right-angled parallelogram, then two different cases can occur: either (1) Paul will not manage to grasp intuitively the individual constitutive nature of the respective object (nor by the same token the concretization of the ideal quality “the squareness”), in which case he will just blindly state – solely on the basis of the judgment he heard – that “that is a square”; or (2) he will grasp intuitively the individual constitutive nature of the given object, in which case he will connect the knowledge thus attained with the “characterization” contained in the judgment heard, and achieve in this manner the intuitive cognition “so that is a square!”, or transpose [versetzen] it at once into the sphere of ideas, and say “This is something identical with an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram”. In both cases Paul utilizes the judgment cited [in the first sentence of the Section] in the second of the two functions we have distinguished.41 We call the essence-judgment taken in this function a “real definition”. The only difference between the two situations in which Paul can find himself is that in the first case he employs a real definition as a “criterion” that allows him not so much to “cognize” the respective individual object42 (which he surely does not succeed in doing) as to find it; and Paul is indeed satisfied with that. In the second case, in contrast, Paul exploits the information contained in the predicate of the real definition in order first of all to find a corresponding individual object, and only then does he cognize it as a square; but not until the instant when he has intuitively grasped the ideal quality “squareness” does he possess the full understanding, founded on intuitive cognition, of the respective essence-judgment.43

16We wish to limit the use of the expression ‘essence-judgment’ to only those cases in which the judgment here under discussion performs the first of the two functions we have distinguished.

17The difference between an essence-judgment and a real definition depends not only on the fact that the meaning-intention of the subject-term in the real definition <110> is deprived of intuitive fulfillment,44 but above all on the fact that the semantic essence45 of this term depends on the content of the predicate-term, on the fact that the subject-term draws its content from the predicate-term, that the latter “defines” the former. For this reason, [in the real definition] the word ‘square’ actually designates an unknown, of which only as much is known as the predicate says about it. The whole judgment does not in this case [real definition] ascertain – as happens in the essence-judgment – the identity between the intentional correlates of the subject and the predicate. Rather, it makes use of this identity to “define” what should replace the subject-term, which at bottom remains unknown. In the example at hand, the formal object of the concept “the square” is defined by the group of constants that are designated by the predicate. The essence-judgment, in contrast, is indeed precisely a statement of the identity at issue; but above all, its predicate does not perform the function of defining the object referred to by the subject-term. This object is not the kind of unknown that would require a “definition”. In other words, even when an essence-judgment and a real definition are completely identical in their verbal formulation, they differ with respect to the formal objects that correspond to them. The objective state of affairs that exists independently of the cognizing subject – to which both an essence-judgment and the corresponding like-sounding real definition refer as their material object – is no doubt identical in both cases. But in the case of the formal object of the real definition, those intentional moments of “defining the correlate of the subject-term through the predicate” are planted by the form of the definition before the objective state of affairs as a background.46 These intentional moments are absent from the formal object that corresponds to an essence-judgment. But even though the objective state of affairs recedes into the background in the case of a real definition, it is not dispensable to it. That is to say, only because the identity affirmed in a corresponding essence-judgment does objectively obtain is the intentional correlate of the definition’s predicate (“definiens”) capable of “defining” the formal object of its subject-term. We may also say that the real definition presupposes the corresponding essence-judgment. Or to put it differently, the content of an essence-judgment determines the content [Inhalt] of a corresponding real <111> definition. We call “cogent” a real definition that does have a true essence-judgment as correlate. It follows directly that a cogent real definition can be formulated only once the corresponding true essence-judgment is known. The attempt to construct a real definition without having at one’s disposal corresponding true essence-judgments is ultimately an intractable endeavor. But whoever undertakes such an effort without reckoning with this fact can attain the goal only accidentally – by taking advantage of the wisdom contained in every living language. Even in this case, however, the ambiguity of words will pose grave dangers.47

18The above considerations have also convinced us that the relation between the ideal quality “the squareness” and the group of constants designated by the predicate-term is not that of identity, although identity does obtain between “the square” and the object of the predicate-term. For otherwise it would be impossible for the cognition of this group of constants not to suffice for a cognition of “squareness”. We are therefore still left with circumscribing in a positive manner the nature of the relation at issue here, a relation that we have provisionally designated with the name “equivalence”.

§25. Eliminating a Possible Objection

19One might raise the following objection: One cannot attribute the distinction between an essence-judgment and a real definition to the meaning-intention [Bedeutungsintention] of the two propositions’ subject-terms being fulfilled by intuition in different measure. For in this way, these propositions are characterized by something that is completely irrelevant to the semantic essence of the judgment,48 to its “content”.49 As we well know, the sense of a proposition is altogether independent of the degree of intuitive fulfillment.50

20We have no desire whatsoever to deny the correctness of the argument just advanced. Nonetheless, we can still sustain our position with regard to the distinction between an essence-judgment <112> and a real definition. That is to say, we are not claiming at all that this distinction51 consists only in the differing degree of intuitive fulfillment of the subject-term’s meaning-intention. This distinction52 resides above all in the difference in kind of the relation that obtains between subject and predicate in each of the propositions we have distinguished. But this difference in kind of said relation obtains only because the meaning-intention of the subject in the real definition is not only deprived of intuitive fulfillment but – quite strictly speaking – does not possess its own content at all, and is for this reason incapable of achieving intuitive saturation [Erfülltheit] on its own. The concept corresponding to the subject-term in the essence-judgment is a concept of an exact idea that is grasped by way of the immediate morphe of its meaning-content [Gehalt], whereby this morphe is [a] concretization of an ideal quality. Finally, this ideal quality is something distinctive and unitary, though not absolutely simple. To the totality of meaning-intentions that refer to the given idea also belongs as a constitutive element the intention toward the unitary ideal quality. Once we inquire more thoroughly into the concepts of those ideal qualities that are not simply conglomerates of various haphazardly assembled elements but are instead something plainly distinctive and unitary, we shall then be convinced of the correctness of our contention that the subject-term in a real definition does not truly possess a content of its own.

21Two different elements must be distinguished in every instance of meaning (intending) a concept [Begriffsmeinung (Intention)]:53 (1) that element which determines nothing other than the mere direction of the intention, and (2) that element which makes up the “content” of a concept in the narrower sense, that is, the intention of the constitutive nature,54 or of the properties of what we encounter when we turn our attention in the direction specified by the first element. No conceptual intention can lack either of these elements. At the same time, if a conceptual intention is involved which is not bound up with other conceptual intentions or has no direct connection with any kind of fulfilling intuitions,55 then the first element is determined solely by the second. But a conceptual intention can in principle draw its content from two different sources: (1) from the intuitive, first-hand [originären]56 cognition of the respective object, or (2) from the content of other conceptual intentions. <113> What occurs in the second case is commonly termed the “definition” of one concept by means of another. In the conceptual intentions of simple qualities, or of ideal qualities – and likewise with intentions of everything that is distinctive, unitary, and irreducible to other elements – the content can be drawn exclusively from what is given by means of first-hand cognition of the respective entities. If this cognition is missing, be it for essential or for merely contingent reasons, then such a conceptual intention cannot constitute itself on its own power. There are nonetheless cases in which such a conceptual intention does exist, but it comes to that only because its direction is “specified” (“defined”) by other conceptual intentions in which the contents of the latter comprise the surrogate contents of the former.57 But this surrogate content is not the genuine content of the conceptual intention, nor is it adequate to the material object of such concepts. Such a conceptual intention is therefore, strictly speaking, empty and requires augmentation by a genuine content. But the instant the direction of the relevant intention is determined by other conceptual intentions, there exists in principle the possibility of augmenting the conceptual intention by reaching the appropriate first-hand cognition.58 It is with precisely this case that we are dealing in our example. The meaning-element59 contained in the concept “the square” – when it occurs in the real definition – is determined with respect to its direction of meaning by the content of the predicate-term. But the latter is incapable of procuring for that concept a genuine content.60 Hence, as long as someone who makes use of the real definition does not succeed in grasping intuitively the ideal quality “squareness”61 – and thereby grasp the object “the square” through its immediate morphe – the meaning-intention of the subject-term in the respective real definition will also require augmenting by a genuine content. This content is represented to a certain <114> degree by the content of the concepts appearing in the predicate-term, owing to the function of “defining” performed by these concepts in the predicate of the definition. On the other hand, this function is only necessary because the meaning-intention of the subject of the definition is bereft of genuine content. And that, in turn, has its basis in the lack of fulfillment of this intention by appropriate intuition.62 We see therefore that this property of the concept corresponding to the subject-term in the real definition is essential to the latter and pertains to its semantic essence. Together with the other characteristic moments we have put forth earlier, it makes a completely sufficient basis for effecting the split between the essence-judgment and the real definition.

§26. Ontological Foundations of the Essence-Judgment

22Let us now proceed to analyze the already oft-mentioned “equivalence” between the immediate morphe of an exact idea’s meaning-content and what we have provisionally, but not altogether correctly, named the special group of constants in that content (which are independent of one another but at the same time condition all the other constants within it). This “equivalence” forms the ontological foundation of the essence-judgment, because its existence makes possible, and implies, that identity obtains between the intentional correlates of the subject- and predicate-terms in that judgment. It is thus altogether reasonable that we have to submit this “equivalence” to a thorough inquiry.

23Let us compare the following judgments:

“The square, that is an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram”;

“The square, that is a polygon which has two equal, perpendicular diagonals that bisect each other”;

“The square, that is a regular polygon with sides of length R√2, where R is the radius of the circumscribing circle.”

24It is clear to every reader familiar with elementary geometry that all three judgments – and a considerably greater number of such judgments could be constructed – are true in reference to only one and the same “object”. It is just as clear that one can begin with any one of the judgments in order to prove that the respective “object” possesses all of the properties set forth in the predicate-terms of the other two. <115> Consequently, the mathematician says without reservation that it is completely irrelevant which of these judgments is chosen for the “definition” of the square, and that there is therefore complete freedom in [the process of] defining. We do not at all wish to deny the existence of such freedom if by “definition” one understands a methodical device for achieving one of the following four ends: (1) to specify the object unequivocally; (2) its classification; (3) to determine a concept of an object; (4) to confer a meaning on a sign, which thereby becomes a symbol or a word. If, in contrast, our aim is to arrive at an essence-judgment, or to construct a real definition, then only judgment (1) can achieve that end. Eo ipso we deny that the freedom in constructing a real definition is analogous to that which a mathematician rightly stipulates for his “definitions”.

25Decisive for settling the issue of which one of us is right, we or the mathematician – who would also demand complete freedom in constructing a real definition – is the answer to a further question: does the same relation hold between the moments designated by the predicate-term of judgments (2) and (3) and the immediate morphe of the content of the general idea “the square”, as between the moments designated by the predicate-term of judgment (1) and this morphe? To this question we must reply in the negative. In this connection, the following line of reasoning seems to support our claim. In the first instance – that is, in judgments (2) and (3) – this relation is such that if an object is a square, then it has the characteristics designated by the predicate-terms of judgments (2) and (3); and conversely: [the relation is such] that if an object has these characteristics, it is a square, i.e. it is constituted by the individual nature “the squareness”.

26In this case, however, the relation is indirect; that is, it obtains only because a sequence of other mediating relations or dependencies obtains. In order to state that the respective characteristics accrue to the object “a square”, one has to “prove” it, i.e. to demonstrate the existence of all those relations that mediate between the fact that an object is a square (that, therefore, its individual constitutive nature is a concretization of the ideal quality “the squareness”) and the fact that all the characteristics of (2) and (3) accrue to it. <116> In contrast, that an object is an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram, is directly bound up with its individual constitutive nature, which is a concretization of the ideal quality “the squareness”. And conversely: were we to presuppose of an object that it is a polygon with two equal diagonals that are perpendicular bisectors of each other, the claim that this object is a square would require us to demonstrate that the mediating relations obtain – that is, a proof.63 Were we, in contrast, to presuppose that an object possesses two pairs of equal parallel sides and that every interior angle is congruent to a right angle, then we would need no proof that this object is a square. The truth of the latter judgment can be demonstrated only by realizing that a direct relation obtains between the squareness and the moments designated by the predicate-term of judgment (1).

27To that, however, the mathematician would retort: Of course it will be so, if we agree in advance that a square should be an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram. Yet nothing forces us into such a consensus. We can just as well establish a convention in the sense of judgment (2) or (3). However, if we do so in the sense of judgment (2), no proof will be necessary to show that a polygon with two equal diagonals that are perpendicular bisectors of each other is a square. Nor will one need toward that end an intuitive demonstration of the existence of any direct relations, since in this case that is simply contained in the “definition” of a square. One will however need a proof to show that an object so characterized is a parallelogram with equal and perpendicular sides. There is, therefore, no fundamental difference between the two cases. One must simply be mindful that a totally arbitrary convention is involved in each of them. Precisely which of the possible conventions we choose is a matter of convenience, frequently also a matter of so-called mathematical “elegance”. There is no need to talk of any sort of “nature” of an object, [a nature] which is supposed to be independent of us, and that one would have to cognize in a direct, intuitive cognition. We determine the object’s presumptive “nature” <117> by means of an appropriate convention, and then draw from it inferences that are of interest to us. That is all.

28The point of view we just reconstructed – which, it is worth noting, is the dominant and (with few exceptions) the only one among mathematicians who engage in philosophy – calls for a thorough examination, since so many (and often rather eminent) researchers subscribe to it. It is, above all, singled out by the fundamentally skeptical conviction that the objects of knowledge depend on all kinds of subjective cognitive operations. For this reason, in the next chapter we shall have to consider the question whether, in what sense, and within what bounds, the cognizing subject can willfully alter the object of cognition or is capable of exerting any influence on it. In addition, the standpoint we have reconstructed presupposes – in so general a formulation – the patently false view that the object’s individual constitutive nature64 is for every object in general identical with the system of characteristics (or properties)65 that accrue to it. We tried to make the case for the incorrectness of this view in the preceding sections. For even in the case of inexact ideas, or of the corresponding individual objects (hence, wherever the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe is a conglomerate, a synthesis), the formal differences prevent us from carrying out this identification. The impossibility of effecting it compels the mathematicians or mathematically-engaged philosophers – wittingly or unwittingly – to make a distinction between the “definition” and the “proposition”. The constitution (if we may put it that way) of the object is implemented in the “definition”, whereas the existence of such and such “characteristics” of that object, or the existence of certain relations among them, is affirmed in the “proposition” on the basis of the already consummated constitution of the object. However, that the mathematician at the same time demands license to willfully convert a definition into a proposition and a proposition into a definition, and thereby claims for himself the freedom to conceive of any arbitrary characteristic of the object as its <118> constitutive nature, and thereby to transform – or even to “create” [“schaffen”] – the object, only proves that the situations and interconnections discerned by him intuitively and without volition become reinterpreted, or interpreted away, so as to fall in line with the theory currently in vogue, since they are of no consequence to the ends pursued by mathematics.66 Now if we could manage to show that the cognizing subject has no power to arbitrarily transform or create the object of cognition – apart from pure fictions, which, as we shall show, strictly speaking do not exist – we could regard this whole reproach on the part of the philosophizing mathematician as unfounded. But since we are making use here of an example drawn from the realm of geometric objects, it is at the same time incumbent on us to show that these sorts of objects are no pure fictions.67

29But it is not without reason that we bring up this objection already now. For it allows us to realize that the argumentation we employed above is not entirely sound, and indeed for two different reasons. One reason is that it shifts the entire problem into the realm of individual objects, whereas de facto interconnections are at issue that play out within the contents of exact ideas and have their ultimate source in the peculiar interconnections among ideal qualities. The other reason is that, while the claim that a direct relation, though in other cases an indirect one, obtains between the immediate morphe of the idea’s content and the special group of the content’s constants designated by the predicate-term in the essence-judgment is indeed at bottom true – it does not say much. Nor does it say much concerning the equally true claim to a mediated relation obtaining in the other cases. Aside from that, the above argument does not explain why there can be talk of a direct relation in the one case but not in the others. For all these reasons, therefore, we must search for a deeper argument.

30First of all, let us note that the whole problem of the special relation between the immediate morphe of the content of an exact idea and a select group of this content’s constants cannot be resolved in a satisfactory manner until we first take account of the fact that the occurrence of a particular element in the idea’s content entails the necessary occurrence of some other element. For we encounter this fact not only <119> when we are dealing with the immediate morphe of an exact idea’s content and that cited group of constants, but also when we take other constants into consideration, and even when we set suitably matched constants into relation with one another.68 The dependencies of [constants] occurring together in the idea’s content are frequently – if we may put it this way – reciprocal. It can be shown in many cases that not only does the occurrence of element A entail the occurrence of element B, but also conversely. There is then no reason to grant priority to either of these directions of dependence. If, in addition, we establish the fact of such a dependence, we are indeed establishing nothing more than a fact – an ideal one, of course. This fact may have very important consequences for this or that theory; if, however, we confine ourselves to merely establishing it, it is just as incomprehensible to us as the facts of sense experience – which ultimately remain incomprehensible even when we cite their direct causes. Whether, finally, the occurrence of an element A in the content of an idea entails directly or indirectly the occurrence of some other element in this same content, that too is initially nothing more than an ideal fact that calls for further elucidation.69 But if our problem is not amenable to being solved by simple reference to certain ideal facts,70 the existence of these facts is nonetheless instructive, because it teaches us that they must after all – popularly speaking – have a “cause”. And here we are presented with the sole possible conclusion that this “cause” can reside only in the pure ideal qualities whose concretizations comprise the qualitative moments of the pertinent elements of an idea’s content. These ideal qualities must be responsible for their concretizations having necessarily to occur together, or not occur together, in the same idea’s content. They must also bring it about that in some cases indirect, but in others direct, relations of occurring together obtain in one and the same content of an idea. We must therefore attend to these ideal qualities in order to arrive at a definitive clarification of these facts, and thereby also at the solution of our problem.

31Toward this end, we must take up a singular phenomenon in the region of pure ideal qualities, to which the phenomenologists have already long ago directed attention, but which Jean Hering first dealt with in detail in the <120> already oft-quoted treatise “Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit, und die Idee” (1921).71

32Hering investigates the relations that obtain among the several (immediate or mediate) morphes of one and the same object. His analyses lead to distinguishing the following three cases:

1. The individual morphes are bound together only via the mediation of the object, as a bearer of characteristics – but they never amalgamate into a new unitary [einheitliche] morphe. This is the case we had in mind when we spoke of the immediate morphe of an inexact idea’s content, where we dealt with only a conglomerate, with a synthesis, or – as Hering says – with an “inauthentic” morphe. Example: morphe “ἱππότης” and morphe “domestic animal”, which on occasion are realized in one and the same object. This case does not interest us at the moment.72
2. The individual morphes are unified directly (hence, not indirectly – via the mediation of the bearer in which they happen to be realized) into one new morphe, which is not an ordinary linkage, a conglomerate, but something unitary and indissoluble, but within which the two united morphes can nonetheless be distinguished through abstraction. The basis of such a union is here the essence of the two ideal qualities involved, which already as ideal qualities can unite into a new ideal quality whose concretization comprises the qualitative moment of the respective morphe. All the ideal qualities involved here require reciprocal completion; so too in the concretization – as morphe – they can exist only in the just-named union, in an amalgamation.73 <121> Examples: (1) “redness” and “coloration”, (2) “sound-pitch” and “sound-quality”.74 Hering says here quite clearly: “The eidos ‘sound-pitch’ and the eidos ‘sound-quality’ are indeed of such a kind that they can already consolidate qua ideal qualities, and that the forms75 intrinsic to the empirical sound determined by them must do so because they cannot subsist without each other. What makes pitch into pitch demands for its completion that which makes quality into quality, but by no means anything like intensity or timbre.” (ib 518-19, 78; slightly modified)
   In connection with this, one must distinguish – as does Hering – between the primitive [or original] ideal qualities [Ur-Wesenheiten] and the derivative ideal qualities (or morphes). The latter are amalgams of the primitive ideal qualities.
   
3. In this last case we are likewise dealing with a unitary morphe, yet a derived one. But the morphes that are unified in it are of such a kind that they do not necessarily require each other’s completion; in other words, each can occur in the object without the other. In this case too the ultimate basis of the phenomenon is the essence of the corresponding ideal qualities, which, although mutually selfsufficient, are still structured in such a way that a new ideal quality emerges in which one can distinguish moments that refer to the respective ideal qualities themselves. Hering’s examples: “cunning-yet-stupid”76 and the qualities of the so-called “mixed colors”, like “auburn” or “orange.”77

33<122> It is both cases, (2) and (3), of the amalgamation of primitive ideal qualities into derivative ones, which are not simple and yet unitary, that we had in mind when characterizing exact ideas. These ideas are structured in just such a way that the immediate morphe of the idea’s content is a concretization of a derivative ideal quality. The general idea “the square” is an idea in which the immediate morphe of the content is a concretization of a derivative ideal quality that belongs to the third of the types distinguished by Hering. The ideal quality “squareness” is a derivative one; it is no simple conglomerate in which various qualities occur side by side;78 in relationship to “parallelogramness”, “equilaterality” and “orthogonality”, it is a new, distinct ideal quality, in which one can nevertheless distinguish moments that point to the preceding three.79 At this juncture we do not wish to address the issue of whether these latter are original ideal qualities or merely derivative. In the general case, however, both possibilities are admissible.80

34We wish to amend Hering’s views on only one particular point, which does not however <123> rule out that a mere change in wording might be involved, for it is not very likely that Hering wants his way of speaking to be understood literally when he says that a derivative ideal quality is a “conjoining” or an “amalgam” of other ideal qualities.81 Such a mode of expression could however lead a reader who has not yet achieved any first-hand cognition of a derivative ideal quality, or who doubts the existence of ideal qualities altogether, to the unpleasant misunderstanding that there occurs in the realm of ideal qualities something like a [process of] “amalgamating”, “arising”, “altering”, etc. Meanwhile, it is quite clear that there is nothing of the sort in that realm. Ideal qualities are absolutely immutable and – if we may put it this way – immovable. For this reason, we wish to avoid saying that the derivative ideal qualities are “combinations” or “amalgams” of other ideal qualities. We say instead that there are certain absolutely simple primitive ideal qualities, and there are, on the other hand, derivative and yet unitary ideal qualities in which non-selfsufficient moments can be distinguished that point to other, simpler, or absolutely simple ones. We can distinguish a finite number of such moments in every derivative ideal quality; or, to put it differently, every derivative ideal quality points to a finite number of other, simpler ideal qualities. The collective ensemble of the latter is characterized by each of its elements being related to one and the same derivative ideal quality. When these elements are mutually selfsufficient (are not in need of completion by other ideal qualities), they can also belong to other ensembles of simple ideal qualities which are related to some other derivative one. The collective ensemble of such [primitive] ideal qualities is, as we say, “equivalent” to the corresponding derivative ideal quality. Obviously there can be no talk of identity here, if for no other reason than that the derivative ideal quality is one, whereas the simple ideal qualities that are kindred to it are many, and nothing can transform this multiplicity into a unity. But if we wished to admit for an instant this deeply absurd fiction that we could link together or conjoin the several simple, primitive ideal qualities, even then we would not succeed in obtaining from such a conjoining (for example, of the ideal qualities “parallelogramness”, “equilaterality” and “orthogonality”) a whole that would be identical with the“squareness”. For – as every genuine derivative ideal quality – this latter <124> is something undeniably new and original in comparison to such an artificially thrown-together whole, and no combinatorics of simple ideal qualities can reconstruct a derivative ideal quality. In its application to this case, and only as restricted to this case, Bergson’s similar-sounding thesis is quite correct.82 It is incorrect only insofar as Bergson pronounces it in reference to real objects,83 whereas what is at issue has its place in the realm of ideal qualities. The Bergsonian thesis is also incorrect because he sees in it something that is characteristic for his “ordre vital”, whereas this whole issue has in fact absolutely nothing to do with the distinction between the animate and inanimate worlds.

35Even when we speak of the “equivalence” between the ideal quality “squareness” and the oft-mentioned group of simpler ideal qualities, it is also to be noted here that there is something in “squareness” which in relationship to this group is undeniably novel and cannot be counterbalanced [aufgewogen] by anything else. Let the word “equivalence” signify here84 only the special mode of correlation [Zugehörigkeit] of a group of ideal qualities to a specific derivative quality. But in this mode of correlation lies the basis for why the corresponding simpler qualities have to be concretized whenever the derivative one is. Consequently the entire realm of the simpler qualities is bound up in a particularly intimate manner with the concretization of the correlative derivative quality. It is for this reason that we said above that that group of the content’s constants which is designated by the predicate-term in the essence-judgment stands in a “direct” relation to the immediate morphe of the content of the corresponding exact idea. We can also apply the term “equivalence” to this direct relation. This “equivalence” is the basis and the indispensable condition for identity to obtain between that idea’s content as grasped by way of the immediate morphe and the same content as grasped by means of the relevant group of constants.85 This “equivalence” is, finally, the ultimate ontological foundation of the essence-judgment. Its obtaining also allows us to understand why in an essence-judgment we select only one specific group out of the content’s constants and thereby confer on it priority over the others. We do so not because the remaining constants are dependent on the singled-out <125> group in a way that makes it possible to deduce the former in a purely logical fashion – nor because considerations of economy of thought, of “elegance” in conceptual construction, perhaps induce us to take all the unneccesary ballast out of our “definitions” – but strictly because the “equivalence” we have ascertained above between the ideal qualities gives us the right86 to do so. The concretization of a specific derivative ideal quality comprises the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe of the content of an exact idea, i.e. it decides “what” this content is. The concretization of this ideal quality entails the concretization of the corresponding simple ideal qualities. These latter concretizations participate, as it were, in the decision just mentioned; they co-constitute the idea’s content.87 From another perspective, they comprise an explicite unfolding of everything that is distinguishable in the constitutive immediate morphe of the content. The answer to the question “X, what is that?” – to which the essence-judgment is one possible answer – must single out this [select] group of constants but pass over the remaining ones in silence; their occurrence in the respective content is just the necessary consequence of the occurrence of the group singled out. The instant we have established the subject of the essence-judgment, we have eo ipso selected the corresponding idea, and thereby the corresponding derivative ideal quality whose concretization forms the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe. Everything else is a mere consequence of the selection made.88

36“Equivalence” between some ideal qualities or morphes also enables us to understand how the immediate morphe of the content of an exact idea dictates the structure of that entire content. As itself a concretization of a derivative ideal quality, the immediate morphe can be such a concretization only on the condition that the equivalent ensemble of simpler ideal qualities has been concretized. Depending, therefore, on which derivative ideal quality forms the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe in the concretization, only quite specific concretizations of ideal qualities can occur in the content of the respective idea – be it as mediated morphes, or as immediate morphes of the content-core. In the case at hand, it is in this way that the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe determines altogether unequivocally the constants of the idea’s content, be it directly, as is the case with the constants that belong to the select group, <126> or indirectly, as in the case of the remaining constants. At the same time the scope and typology of the individual variables is also unequivocally specified.89

37In connection with the above, we can articulate a concept of the essence of an individual object that differs from Hering’s, which we set forth earlier. At issue is that concept of the essence of something which, it seems to us, the phenomenologists have foremost in mind when they speak of an “essence of something”. Up to now, however, we have no sufficiently rigorous articulation of this concept. In contrast to the previously articulated concept of the essence of something, according to which every individual object has its very own essence, only some individual objects have an essence in the new sense to be articulated, and indeed only those whose individual constitutive nature embodies as its qualitative moment the concretization of a derivative ideal quality.90 By an “essence”, then, we understand the individual constitutive nature of the object, together with all the properties whose immediate morphes (hence, mediate91 relative to the object) are concretizations of the ideal qualities that belong to the ensemble of ideal qualities which is equivalent to the object’s nature. Whether we can also speak in this sense of an idea’s essence is something we do not wish to decide here. It is now clear: just as there is one and only one essence-judgment for every exact idea, so too for every object there is one and only one judgment that explicates its “essence” – provided there is such a thing at all. It is now also clear precisely why we have named the “essence-judgment” an “essence-judgment”: All the elements designated by its terms must belong to the essence in the individual concretization, or make up the essence of an object whose individual constitutive nature is an individual concretization of the same derivative ideal quality whose ideal concretization makes up the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe of the corresponding exact idea.92 <127>

§27. Judgments About Simple Ideas: Three Cognitive Tasks93

38As we have already remarked earlier, to be able to enunciate an essence-judgment that pertains to the content of a simple idea is totally out of the question. All one can achieve here is a judgment of the type “X is X”. One ordinarily refers to judgments of this type as “tautologies”: it is for this very reason that they are banned from the realm of science.94 It is well-known that W. Wundt once said of E. Husserl – with the aim of expressing in a nutshell his disdain for the latter’s Logical Investigations – that he had discovered the profound truth that A = A. We want to ignore what is laughable in this declaration. We merely wish to note here that Wundt asserted something that is in fact quite to the point with respect to some phenomenological analyses, since some of them actually do have as their end-result the judgment A is A. However, the value-judgment lurking behind Wundt’s pronouncement goes completely astray.95 For if the point is to express in a judgment the result of cognizing the content of a simple idea, then one can only arrive at a judgment of the type “A is A”.96 We must however protest against deeming every judgment of this type just as worthless as the familiar, jocular refrain “Butter is butter”, where we are in fact dealing with a completely mindless repetition of the same word emerging from the inability to give a more detailed characterization of the corresponding object.

39A judgment of the type “A is A”, taken for itself alone and merely treated as a conceptual whole, is no doubt always worthless as information for someone who is not familiar with object A. It is incapable on its own of imparting any indirect knowledge of that object. But it is incapable of doing so either because it can be construed as a routine affirmation of the identity of some object with itself – in which case such a judgment can be stated of every object whatsoever and hence contains nothing that would be characteristic of A; or, in case A is unfamiliar, [because it can be construed] as a determination of an unknown object by something unknown. This judgment would eo ipso be completely worthless if one wished to utilize it for the purpose of an unequivocal articulation or a classification of an object.

40<128> If however we adopt a different perspective with respect to judgments and conceive of them as the ultimate goal and guiding light for every cognitive operation that is not motivated by practical concerns, and if we see the value of the judgment in its truth and in the significance of what the judgment is concerned with, then there is no denying that judgments of the type “A is A” comprise the aim and the result of some cognitive operations, that they are true, and that they deal with something which is not entirely bereft of theoretical importance.

41In order to explain this more precisely, we must above all attempt to come to grips with three different views of what it means to “cognize” something. Each of these views is true as long as it is not considered to be the only one possible, and as negating the others. For each of these views does de facto emphasize one of the tasks of cognition, each of which is justified and of importance.

1. The first view implies that to “cognize” an object is tantamount to giving an account of the “causes” of the state in which the given object happens to find itself. The word ‘cause’ has two different meanings in this connection. According to the one meaning it signifies “cause” in the narrower and only proper sense, in which we say, for example, that the “cause” of a metal wire heating up is a flow of electricity through it, along with the resistance offered by its specific cross-section. But the word ‘cause’ can also have the meaning of a “principle” on which the respective judgment rests. So when we take the word ‘cause’ in its first signification, to “cognize” something means: to explain it in terms of the causes out of which it has arisen. In its second signification, on the other hand, it is tantamount to meaning: to derive the given judgment from principles97 – in short, to prove it. The view that identifies cognition in general with the operations set forth here98 we call the genetic conception of cognition. It is correct insofar as the two tasks we have distinguished are indeed cognitive tasks, and are, moreover, tasks, each of which plays an important role in the appropriate problem domain; a failure to perform either of them would amount to a grave depletion in our store of knowledge. This view first begins to be false the instant it comes to the just-named identification of cognition in general with causal explanation or proof, hence, the instant <129> only these operations99 come to be regarded as cognitive operations and every other cognitive task is overlooked, among them even the one that must be presupposed for a causal explanation. This latter task is stressed above all by:
2. The descriptive conception of cognition. This is how we name that conception according to which to “cognize” something is tantamount to meaning: to “specify” an object by reporting which immediate and mediate morphes constitute it. Or in other words: to tell what its nature and properties are. This conception has from time to time been given different form [Gestalt]. For example, to cognize something means here: (a) to determine something by way of “general concepts” under which it falls; (b) to give the “definition” of the respective object; and (c) to subordinate the object to some class, and the like. Bergson formulated this conception most glaringly – and thereby also incorrectly100 – when he said that to cognize an object is tantamount to determining precisely what it is not. At this point we do not wish to get into a discussion as to which of these formulations is the best, for at bottom they are all simply different variants of one and the same thought, which takes on different forms depending on one’s fundamental epistemological and even metaphysical positions, or biases. For us, the following two points are of importance:101 (1) The object of the cognition is here something within which a multiplicity of moments can be distinguished. At the same time, it is entirely irrelevant102 whether these moments are regarded as real [reale]103 constituents of the object or only as its “moments”, or as something ideal – as “likenesses” [“Abbilder”], “Reflexe”104 of ideas or concepts. (2) To cognize the object means here to know [wissen] which moments occur within the realm of this multiplicity. Depending on the domain to which the respective object of cognition belongs, the goal may be attained by means of so-called “empirical description” on one occasion, on another – by way of so-called “exact definition”.
   Here we must once again stress what we have already highlighted in our discussion of the genetic conception of cognition: that the task which the descriptive conception of cognition presents does undoubtedly exist. It must be performed, even if in a quite rudimentary manner, if the tasks that the genetic conception thrusts to the fore are to be tackled. It is unlikely that anyone will want to claim that all cognitive tasks <130> are – vaguely speaking – exhausted in description. One will still have to take into account the “genetic” tasks (in the sense we have established). At most, one will be able to argue about which of the tasks is more important, which will have to be regarded as the final and ultimate goal of cognition and which only as a means to this goal. The majority of epistemologists will concur that there are no crucial cognitive tasks apart from the genetic and descriptive.105 Against this speaks:
   
3. the intuitionist [intuitive] conception of cognition. We are not in this connection utilizing the expression ‘intuition’ [Intuition], or ‘intuitionist’, in any special sense that may be suitable for only one system, e.g. the Bergsonian. We are concerned rather with the following matter:

42There are two fundamentally different ways for a cognizing subject to relate intentionally to the object to be cognized. The first can briefly be termed “thinking”, and the second “perceiving”, both terms taken in a very broad sense which can be clarified with the observation that in the first case a non-intuitive and indirect intentional “relatedness” is involved, whereas in the second this “relatedness” is intuitive and direct. Both these modes of reference are of course only to be regarded as limiting cases between which there is room for a vast multitude of intermediate types.106 The two limiting types are different cases of “knowing” [“Wissen”] about the object, the term ‘knowing’ once again understood in a very broad sense. However, whereas in the case of “thinking” this “knowing” is only comparable to a “targeting” of the object,107 in the case of perceiving we are engaged in reaching this target by means of a direct, intuitive grasp of that object in its very self.108 The intuitionist conception of cognition elevates knowledge to the cognitive ideal of acquiring absolutely direct and intuitive cognition throughout, and constrains knowledge [Erkenntnis] in general to this ideal. For that reason, <131> this conception becomes just as onesided as both of the others. It appears to be indubitable, however, that the task of attaining direct and intuitive cognition – whenever at all possible – does exist, and that in accomplishing it lies the ultimate source of any knowledge [Wissens] of the object of cognition. In particular, cognition of (absolutely simple) elements can only be achieved in a “perceiving” (in the broad sense delineated above).109 The concepts of the absolutely simple elements, but also the concepts of objects whose immediate morphe is something distinctive and unitary with respect to its qualitative moment, are – as we have already once noted – imperfect (i.e. have only a surrogate content [Inhalt])110 as long as we have not attained to the direct, intuitive cognition of the corresponding objects. What can we achieve through such a cognition in this case? In what judgment can we express what has been achieved? For, when a “description” is involved, the attained goal will consist of ascertaining that the object of cognition possesses a determinate array of properties (more generally: characteristics), an ascertainment that can be acquired through a “decomposition”, a fragmentation, of the respective object as a whole into simple or simpler elements. There can of course be no talk of that in the currently discussed case. We have a concept A,111 and “know” through it “what is involved”. The direction112 of the respective concept is specified in some113 way. Let us moreover assume that this concept possesses only a surrogate content – determined by other concepts – that is to say, that it possesses no genuine content. It is only possible to attain this content by means of a corresponding direct and intuitive cognition. The goal therefore consists in abandoning the state in which we only quite blindly intend the object, and in attaining such a “proximity” to the object itself that it is intuitively given to us in its own Gestalt. It is a matter of grasping this Gestalt intuitively in its own peculiar114 character (in that which cannot be expressed or rendered through anything else), a matter of “saturating” the empty intention [Meinung] with intuitive, first-hand content.115

43Let us suppose that we have achieved this objective, that we have therefore “saturated”, or – as Husserl puts it – “fulfilled”, this initially empty and blind notion with intuitive, first-hand content. <132> But if this “fulfillment” of the initially empty116 intention [Intention] has run its course in perfect fashion, as presupposed, can we then117 say anything other than that whatever was earlier intended non-intuitively and blindly is identical with what now shows up in direct cognition and fulfills the original intention, confers genuine content on it? It is questionable whether what we find in a concrete case lends itself to being expressed in a judgment other than of the type “A is A” (“redness is redness”). But now this judgment is no mindless repetition of the same word, is no longer an ordinary “tautology”. For, whereas on the left side of such an identity-judgment we have a concept which only has a direction specified by a surrogate content, we do indeed find on its right side a concept of the same object as meant on its left side, but at the same time a concept that is saturated with genuine content and is thereby capable of determining the empty concept on the left.118

44Let no one presume in this connection that it is an easy and theoretically unimportant matter to achieve direct cognition of absolutely simple elements – such as, say, some ideal qualities or simple ideas. A false view in this regard, espoused by numerous authors, stems from our being ordinarily convinced in everyday life, and often even in scientific work, that we know best the elements, the simple qualities. Difficulties first seem to show up where a description of something composite is involved, or a genetic explanation, or a proof. All of this work falls by the wayside in the course of attaining direct, intuitive cognition, and for that reason the task to be completed appears to be simpler and easier. Meanwhile, the difficulties here are at least as great as with both of the other cognitive tasks. The difficulties are admittedly not so much of a theoretical as of a psychological and methodological nature. They consist, on the one hand, in achieving that intellectual [geistigen] stance in which we are capable not merely of looking [schauen] but also of clearly and distinctly seeing [sehen] what we are looking at.119 We are confronted with other kinds of difficulties when we search for the methodological means that are necessary for communicating to another cognizing subject, as a finished cognitive result, what has been intuitively grasped. For where the cognition of absolutely simple, or singular and unitary, moments is involved, a cognitive result is, <133> in the strict sense of the word, incommunicable. Thus, instead of engaging in the futile attempt to communicate it, one must try to shift the other subject into that cognitive stance which will enable him to perform the appropriate direct cognition.120

45When it comes to attaining the direct and to some extent crude cognition of one of the so-called “sensory qualities”, like “redness”, “sweetness”, and the like, we do not ordinarily encounter any particularly serious difficulties. There, it is enough to effect the appropriate outer perception, and to attentively distinguish the corresponding moment and grasp its distinctness.121 But one can easily convince oneself that the difficulties become considerably more challenging when it comes to a subtle differentiation of qualities that are very close to each other, for example when one wishes to learn the richly diverse flavors of wines, say, their “bouquet”, the way a skilled wine merchant knows them, or the subtle nuances of one and the same color, which a sensitive color expert distinguishes effortlessly. The posture of practical living ordinarily has a rather disruptive effect in such cases, and even rules out the pure, almost contemplative cognitive stance122 that must be adopted if a true grasp of the singular qualities is to occur. It will turn out to be a yet incomparably more difficult affair when it comes to a first-hand grasp of the elements of mental life. But almost insurmountable difficulties first emerge when one wishes to grasp with full adequacy and first-hand such moments as an object’s “actuality”, its “materiality”, its “self-identity”, or its “uniqueness”. The difficulties that must be overcome in the attempt to express what has been grasped in such cases, or in trying to bring another subject into the requisite “contemplative” [“seherische”] stance, almost exceed the power of the methodological tools that we have at our disposal at this time.

46The achievement of direct, first-hand cognition wherever it is at all possible, and especially of absolutely simple elements, has, as we have already noted, great theoretical significance.123 First of all because one can get to know new, previously <134> unfamiliar objects (wherever it is not a matter of a definite manifold of objects) only along the path of direct, first-hand cognition. Only in the realm of objects that form a definite manifold is it also possible to attain truly new cognitive results along a mediated, purely deductive path. But on the other hand, [such first-hand cognition has great significance] for a second, very important reason. Every empirical or apiori theory ultimately has at its basis a series of concepts of simple ideas or ideal qualities. If these concepts are not acquired by means of direct cognition, or are not investigated with respect to their objectivity in such cognition, it is easily possible to apply them to ideal qualities or ideas that are akin to the ones actually being currently dealt with, but that differ from them nonetheless. From there it is not far to various difficulties that cannot be eliminated along a purely conceptual path, to unsolvable problems, to all sorts of paradoxes, etc., especially since the sameness of symbol or word all too often conceals the ambiguity hidden beneath the word. Only one solitary, but unfortunately all too seldom forged path then remains for liberating oneself from such a delicate situation: the return to direct, first-hand cognition – this true fountain of all knowledge.

47One must of course not forget here, as with the cognitive tasks discussed earlier, that this is a matter of just one cognitive task, which should not be regarded as the only one. And indeed not only because in this way one would diminish appreciably the treasure trove of knowledge,124 but above all because the neglect of other cognitive tasks, or the denial of their cognitive value, is ordinarily bound up with a false conception of the essence of cognition in general, and must therefore lead to unresolvable difficulties125 in the theory of knowledge.

§28. A Glance Back at the Question “The X, what is that?”

48In the considerations presented above, we have discussed all the possible cases of answers to the question “The X, what is that?” for that case, specifically, where the purpose of asking such a question is to achieve cognition of the meaning-content [Gehalt]126 of an idea. We must now consider whether, and to what extent, the moments that are characteristic for each of the types of answers distinguished <135> occur in the question itself. At the same time we must also take into account the other possible reasons for asking the question and consider once again whether these are somehow signaled in the very question. We begin with the last point.

49In Chapter III we have discussed in detail (1) the unequivocal specification of an object, (2) the cognition of its essence, and (3) the classification of an object. The result at which we have thus far arrived is that one of the most important objectives127 for asking the question “The X, what is that?” is to become familiar with the content of an idea. Now there is no denying that we also frequently ask this question for the purpose of an unequivocal specification of X.128 But we are then, strictly speaking, asking an inappropriate question, since not a word of that question signals this purpose implicite or explicite. In particular, neither the unequivocal specification of an object, nor whether an unequivocally determinative characteristic accrues to the object, is asked about with this question. Thus,129 when the suspicion arises that the inquirer is posing an inappropriate question, there is first of all the task of revising the question in a suitable manner. One must also do this because questions asked for the purpose of an unequivocal specification also allow as answers (though by no means require them) the sorts of judgments that constitute a reply to the question “The X, what is that?”, especially since this question best serves the purpose of cognizing an idea’s content. At the same time, however, they allow for a whole series of judgments of the type “X, that is a Y with characteristics a,b,c, ... ”, which are expressly constructed for the purpose of an unequivocal specification. It is when we construe an answer designed for the sole aim of an unequivocal specification as answer to a question whose purpose is the cognition of an idea’s content that all those misunderstandings arise which, among others, have led to a misinterpretation of the essence of an object and of ideas.130

50It is likewise undeniable that we often ask the question at hand for the purpose of conducting a classification of an object that happens to interest us. In this instance, too, the question employed is unsuitable, for there is no indication in its wording131 that one would like to determine the membership of the respective object in this or that class. <136> Indeed, if that were the goal, there would have to occur in the question a concept that specifies the system of classes, or higher-order class, adopted in advance, with respect to which we wish to classify X. However, we do not in fact encounter any trace of that in the wording of the question at issue. If a fitting answer to our question can at the same time be utilized for the purposes of a classification, this answer nonetheless does not comprise the expression of an accomplished classification, nor is it indispensable for that purpose. That is to say, there is a large set of judgments that classify an object but make no use of the information put at our disposal by a fitting answer to our question (by an essence-judgment, for example). Here too, therefore, in the face of a growing suspicion that a question has been wrongly posed, one must first get clear about the problem the questioner actually has in mind – perhaps, above all, in order to revise the question.

51Hence, the sole genuine function of the essence-question is to serve the purpose of cognizing an idea’s content.132 We have already said (in §12) what its problem is in this case. However, in consideration of the results of Chapter V thus far, we must still note that the general formula of this question – with the variable X – prejudges nothing concerning whether the answer to it is supposed to be an essence-judgment, or merely a judgment that specifies in the predicate-term the content-core of an idea and some system of constants, or, finally, a judgment of the “A is A” variety. That is to say, X can be replaced just as well by an exact idea as by an inexact idea, or even a simple one. But even if we are not dealing with the general formula, but rather with a quite concrete question, two different cases can still occur in practical life: either we shall know at the time of asking the question what kind of idea occupies the position of variable X (whether it is an exact, an inexact, or a simple idea), or we shall not know this. Only in the first case will it be possible to foresee what kind of answer is called for. In conjunction with this it must of course be presupposed that the relevant question, and especially the term that designates the subject of the problem, is unequivocally formulated. That is to say, if (1) the concept of an exact idea occupies the place of variable X, the answer will consist of a quite specific essence-judgment (or a real definition) pertaining to the content of that idea; <137> in this case there will be one and only one answer to the question at hand. If, on the other hand, (2) the concept of a simple idea replaces the variable X, one will be able to receive only a verbally articulated reply in the form of a judgment of the type “A is A”. If, finally, (3) the concept of an inexact idea replaces the variable X, then a judgment of the type “X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ” – which, however, is no kind of essence-judgment – will serve as answer. In this case the given answer will admit a series of other judgments of the same kind, depending on the degree of completeness with which we have come to cognize the respective idea in terms of its content. A whole class of judgments then corresponds to the question, each of which makes up a possible answer to it; which of them we shall actually choose in a concrete case is simply a matter of contingency.

52So the matter appears if we take the question here at issue as a purely logical formation, as an ideal conceptual unity, without taking into account the actual intentions some particular questioner has in mind in asking it.

53In practical life, however, the matter presents itself somewhat differently. In the majority of cases, when asking the question “The X, what is that?”, we do not know whether the concept that specifies the subject of the problem is a concept of an exact, or of an inexact or even a simple idea. We do not know this because the mere understanding of the word, hence merely the knowledge of which idea is involved, does not imply familiarity with what kind of idea it is. Only when we avail ourselves of the respective word following a prior cognition of the immediate morphe of the given idea’s content will this knowledge be bound up with the usage of the word. Only then will we also possess the full understanding of the question we have asked. Yet, as we said, ordinarily matters are otherwise. This culminates in the following methodological remark: If we ask the essence-question without possessing the full understanding of its content [Inhalt], then we cannot demand from the outset that the respondent answer it with an essence-judgment. Without prior investigation such a demand would presuppose that the subject of our question’s problem is an exact idea, which, as we <138> know, is not at all necessarily the case. In this situation – provided we do not wish to believe the received answer blindly – we must reach for the direct cognition of the idea specified in the question.

54The logical structure of the question “The X, what is that?” also does not at all rule out that the concept of an ideal quality occupy the place of the variable X. The answer then can be given only in the form of the judgment “A is A”, quite independently of which ideal quality happens to be involved. But from the remarks in the discussion of simple ideas, which can be applied here mutatis mutandis, it follows that such an answer to this sort of question is wholly bereft of any informational value, and that consequently one must perform the appropriate analysis jointly with the questioner, i.e. that one must go together with him through all those methodical steps that make possible the attaining of direct and first-hand133 cognition of the respective ideal quality.

55Finally, the question “The X, what is that?” can be so formulated that the place of variable X is occupied by a concept which grasps the content of an idea not by way of the immediate morphe but in some other manner.134 No direct answer can be given to a question so formulated. One must first of all come to an understanding with the questioner as to which idea is really at issue, that is, [one must] specify it unequivocally, determine the immediate morphe of its content, and formulate the question anew. It will then often turn out that no idea or ideal quality corresponds to the concept occupying the place of variable X – that, in other words, the subject of the problem is a fiction.135 A great deal of worthless ballast could probably be removed from science through a consistent critique of key questions.

56It follows from what was said thus far136 that it is impossible to establish which presuppositions are in force for the question “The X, what is that?” if we are to deal exclusively with the general formula for this question. For the presuppositions will be different depending on the value of variable X and the purpose of the question. On the basis of the preceding deliberations it is relatively easy to establish which presuppositions are operative in the individual instances. We shall therefore confine ourselves to the case most important for us, <139> in which the aim of the question is cognition, and the concept of an exact idea occupies the place of variable X. The presuppositions are then the following:

1. There are primitive ideal qualities and derivative ones;
2. There are relations of “equivalence” among ideal qualities;
3. There are ideas, and in particular – exact ideas;
4. There is something like the immediate morphe of an idea’s content;
5. The immediate morphe of the content of the idea whose concept occupies the place of variable X is a concretization of a derivative ideal quality;
6. There is one and only one system of constants of the respective idea’s content whose qualitative moments are equivalent to the qualitative moment of the given idea’s immediate morphe;
7. The relation of identity obtains between the idea’s content grasped by way of the immediate morphe and this same content grasped by means of the system of constants named under (6);
8. The concept in the position of variable X captures the content of the idea by way of its immediate morphe;
9. The content of the idea whose concept occupies the position of variable X is in fact constituted by the immediate morphe that is named implicite in this concept.137

Notes

• 1 [Wesensurteil – this term replaces ‘predicative judgment’ in P. In a letter to Twardowski, dated Nov. 4, 1923, Ingarden expresses his dissatisfaction with the term ‘predicative judgment’ since “every judgment is after all ‘predicative’”. He suggests that “perhaps it would be better to replace it with ‘explicative’ [eksplikujący] or ‘expository [wyłuszczający] judgment’ in view of the fact that such a judgment explicates or expounds [wyłuszcza] the meaning-content of a certain idea”. Korespondencja Romana Witolda Ingardena z Kazimierzem Twardowskim, eds. Radosław Kuliniak, Dorota Leszczyna and Mariusz Pandura: Kęty, Wydawnictwo Marek Derewiecki, 2016, p. 257. Colloquially, wyłuszczyć [infinitive form] can also be rendered by ‘ferret out’, ‘tease out’, or ‘flesh out’. The substitution will be made without comment in all subsequent occurrences.]
• 2 [Cont. in P: “Second Characterization of the Essence of an Object”]
• 3 [“determinate system” replaces “selection”]
• 4 [This sentence replaces: “However, we have thus far not explained the intimate connection that obtains between the qualitative moment of the immediate morphe of an idea’s content and a selection of the qualitative moments of the constants named in the predicate-term of the cited judgment; this connection not only entitles us to pass over in silence the variables of the idea’s content, but enjoins us moreover to select from the totality of constants only those which – as we provisionally put it – are necessary and sufficient for the identity ascertained in a judgment of the type discussed to obtain.”]
• 5 [This sentence replaces: “Moreover, we need to examine whether in each of these cases – irrespective of the identity declared in the judgment being discussed – identity obtains between the qualitative moment of the idea’s immediate μορφή and a selection of qualitative moments of the constants set forth in the predicate of the judgment, or whether this does not come into question in any of the cases.”]
• 6 [Continues in P: “, differing from each other in the structure of their meaning-content”]
• 7 [Throughout the remainder of this section (apart from the two exceptions ( Inhalt) that will be expressly noted) ‘content’ – as an abridgment for the full-fledged expression ‘meaning-content’ – will correspond to Gehalt, with the full expression being occasionally employed as a reminder.]
• 8 [“unity” replaces “cohesion”]
• 9 Hering also notices that there are two different ways of giving a “definition” [Definition] of ideas, as he expresses it. “An idea can be unequivocally defined in two ways: either by means of an allusion to a determinate τόδε τι with respect to which it is idea, or by adducing the ideal qualities that constitute it.” (“Bemerkungen” 534,92) But Hering does not seem to have realized (at least as far as we can conclude on the basis of the given text) that for some general ideas this reference to the respective τόδε τι is indispensable, and that the point of such a “reference” is precisely to grasp the corresponding immediate morphe of the idea’s content. It needs be stressed in this connection that a mere “reference” does not at all suffice for this purpose, and that properties of the respective individual object must also necessarily be grasped in order to achieve it. Indeed, Hering says: “The second method permits us to synthetically construct clearly delimited ideas to our heart’s content, but never (in the realm of sensory reality) to reach that total plenitude by which the full individuality of the sensible τόδε τι – and with that also its idea – is characterized.” (ib 534, 92-3) But this sentence purports that it is impossible to investigate the qualitative elements of some ideas in an exhaustive fashion without recourse to the direct cognition of the respective individual object. We, in contrast, claim that it is impossible to cognize adequately the immediate morphe of some general ideas without grasping the properties of the corresponding objects; it is all the same to us whether, in doing so, we attain to that “exhaustive fullness”. (The expression ‘exhaustive fullness’ suggests at the same time that Hering does not notice the fact that there are variables in the content of every idea.) It is for this very reason that Hering’s partition of ideas into “abstracted” and “genuine” is not entirely suitable and, although – so it seems to us – it coincides with our distinction between inexact and exact ideas in terms of extension, it does not capture the crux of the matter.
• 10 [This sentence added in G]
• 11 Whether individual non-real objects also come into consideration here, I cannot say.
• 12 Hering speaks here of a “non-genuine morphe”; his example in this case is the horse and its morphe.
• 13 [Ftn. in P: “If I understand him correctly, Leibniz has this kind of object in mind when he says: ‘An accidens is, to the contrary, an entity [Wesen] whose concept by no means includes all that can in addition be ascribed to the relevant substrate of which this attribute is enunciated.’ (Metaphysische Abhandlung, 1686; quotation from Leibniz, Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung der Philosophie, Cassirer, v. II, p. 143.) On the other hand, it is questionable whether Leibniz’s characterization of an individual substance, and therewith also the opposition between the latter and an accidens, is cogent. However, I do not have access to Gerhardt’s edition of Leibniz’s works, whereas from the fragments included by Cassirer it is impossible to get one’s bearings to the extent of being able to say something responsible on this issue.”]
• 14 Cf. E. Husserl, Ideen I, 78 ff. [This sentence, along with its ftn. replaces “We shall call such a manifold of individual objects ‘indeterminate’, whereas the ideas discussed here – inexact ideas.]
• 15 [This sentence replaces the following continuation of the preceding sentence in P: “, i.e. the kind in which the immediate μορϕή of the content consists of a singular unity, and at the same time such a selection of constants occurs in their content, that their qualitative moments in this system ‘are equivalent to’ [or ‘counterweigh’] the qualitative moment of the immediate μορϕή . (In the subsequent analyses we shall try to explain in greater detail what ‘to be equivalent’ means here.)]
• 16 [Ftn. in P: “Whether all geometric ideas are exact ideas in the sense intended here is an issue requiring separate investigations. Here we can only note that the ideas of a regular polygon, a circle, a regular polyhedron, a sphere, and the like, can at any rate be regarded as exact ideas. Whereas we have reservations in this regard with respect to the ideas; rhombus, rhomboid, rectangle. The ideas: point, straight line, plane belong to the third [simple] of the types of ideas differentiated here. We also leave open the matter as to whether geometric ideas exhaust the scope of exact ideas, or not. Of sole importance for us here is that something like an exact idea exists.”]
• 17 [Cont. in P: “of a special type (we shall later call such ideal qualities derivative)”]
• 18 [Cont. in P: “a whole”]
• 19 [This paragraph is formulated as follows in P: “In order to make more precise what concerns us here, while at the same time avoiding a misunderstanding that could arise from an imperfect formulation of our claim, we have to note that if we apply our claim to a particular case, it does not conflict with the well-known assertion – sometimes conveyed in this form – that color cannot be unextended. This assertion – given its proper interpretation – we fully endorse, but having endorsed it we do not see the need to cast doubt on ours.”]
• 20 [Cont. in P: “in a concretization”]
• 21 If we understand him correctly, Hering seems to claim that it is not so. On p. (517, 77) of his essay, we read: “Let μ1 be the ideal what-quality [Washeit] ‘redness’ which accrues to the moment ‘Red’ of some empirical color (e.g. of a table); now μ1 is founded in the moment: quality of the color, which in turn is itself in need of completion by the moment: extension of the color – and this same cannot subsist without harboring within itself ‘extendedness’ [Ausdehnungshaftigkeit], which we wish to designate with μ2. “Nothing but μ1 and μ2 bear responsibility for the need of quality and extension to be mutually founded. Nevertheless, on closer inspection of the situation, we shall be hard-pressed to propound a direct need for completion of μ1 by μ2, or conversely; nonetheless, we need to speak here of a need by μ1 for an indirect founding by μ2, or, briefly, [to speak] of a reciprocal need by μ1 and μ2 to be indirectly founded; μ1 cannot be thought otherwise than as belonging to a bearer B1, which is founded (and indeed directly in this case) by a bearer B2 of μ2; but μ1 and μ2 do not together form any kind of partial whole [Teilganzes] within the whole: W(B1, B2, μ1, μ2).” Hering’s statement is obfuscated by the remark that “μ 1 cannot be thought otherwise than as belonging to a bearer B1.” Namely, we are convinced that, when Hering speaks of the “quiddity [Washeit] ‘redness’”, an ideal quality (εἶδος) is involved which consists of the complement to “extendedness”. But in the quotation from Hering a concretization is obviously already at issue. For we recall Hering’s assertion that “They [the ideal qualities] are not, like the morphes, non-selfsufficient entities in need of a bearer, but are, as can be seen with intuitive self-evidence, selfsufficient and resting within themselves.” (ib 510, 70) Or is this last assertion perhaps false? [The interrogative at the end of this paragraph added in G]
• 22 [“the qualitative constants…content” replaces “the properties (or of the remaining constants and variables of the idea’s content)”]
• 23 [The phrase between dashes added in G]
• 24 [Cont. in P: “(and thus in our example, ‘The square, that is an equilateral, right-angled parallelogram’)”]
• 25 [“suffice…dependence” replaces “are needed for identity to obtain between the correlates of the subject- and predicate-terms of the mentioned group of judgments of the type, ‘X, that is a Y with characteristics a, b, c, ... ’.”]
• 26 [Cont. in P: “, where X designates a certain exact idea”]
• 27 [Cont. in P: “, which characterizes the content of every exact idea,”]
• 28 We dare not claim that what we term a “definite manifold” is completely identical with what Husserl means by it. It was at any rate our aim to discover the ultimate basis of Husserl’s assertions concerning the definite manifold. Whether we have succeeded in this, or whether we have not arrived on our path at a somewhat narrower concept than his, remains a question. Husserl’s analyses in Ideen I, as well as the corresponding considerations by Hering, were very helpful to us. On the other hand, we were not yet able to take due account of O. Becker’s interesting expositions in his Beiträge zur phänomenologischen Begründung der Geometrie (Jahrb., v. VI, 1923), since this work calls for a thorough study. We must note parenthetically that the notion of axiomatizing various domains of research, so fervent in our times, can only be realized in those realms which are determined by an exact general idea. But the problem and task of axiomatization presents us with too many important and difficult problems for us to be able to settle this whole situation here. [The first paragraph of the footnote replaces “In Husserl, definite Mannigfaltigkeit (cf. Ideen I, 133-6). Husserl calls attention to the connection between definite Mannigfaltigkeit and Hilbert’s so-called Vollständigkeitsaxiom [completeness axiom].” “can only be … general idea” [in second line of second paragraph of this ftn.] replaces “can be realized only if we are dealing with a definite manifold”]
• 29 [Ftn. in P: “Obviously, this word is not to be used in that sense in which one says, for example, ‘this carpet is so colorful’, which is to say that many and vibrant colors appear in it. We employ it to designate that moment whose concretization distinguishes every color from, say, a sound.” It may be worth noting that Ingarden ordinarily employed terms like Farbhaftigkeit to designate morphes rather than ideal qualities.]
• 30 [Ftn. in P: “Hering also affirms the possibility of such ideas.”]
• 31 [“this heretofore obscure point” replaces “the lack of ‘equivalence’ in simple ideas”]
• 32 [This last sentence received the following formulation in P: “This will at the same time serve to show us that the immediate μορφή of an exact idea’s content – more precisely, its qualitative moment – should not be identified with the system of moments of qualitative constants designated by the essence-judgment’s predicate-term, despite the identity affirmed by this judgment between the correlates of its subject- and predicate-terms.”]
• 33 [Quotation marks inserted in G]
• 34 [“Explicative Judgment” replaces “Explication of the Content of an Exact Idea”. See §22, ftn. 1]
• 35 [“a direct intuitive grasp of” replaces “an intuitive cognitive contact with”]
• 36 [“immediate morphe” replaces “nature constituting it”]
• 37 [“sense” replaces “content [Inhalt]”]
• 38 [“a certain idea, whose…‘the squareness’” replaces “the content of a certain idea whose immediate μορϕή comprises the concretization of ‘the squareness’, which is unknown to him”]
• 39 We shall have occasion to discuss in detail what we mean here by the term ‘cognition’ when we contrast its three different concepts or tasks. For the time being, the reader should take this word in its customary, vague sense. (Cf. §27, pp. <130 f.>) [The last sentence of the ftn. added in G]
• 40 [“depicts” replaces “embodies”]
• 41 [To avoid confusion, it may be worth noting that in the two instances where Ingarden names the two functions of the essence-judgment – at the end of §23 and in the title of this one – he does so in the same order. The order in which he distinguishes and discusses them is the opposite: first, in the sense Peter understands it (explicative judgment); second, as Paul does (real definition). It is to this order that he makes reference in the body of the text.]
• 42 [Cont. in P: “in the nature constituting it”]
• 43 The reader will get a better appreciation for the situation into which we have here projected Paul if we say the following to Fred, who has never seen the color orange, but is familiar with the colors red and yellow: “The color orange is a color which is an intermingling of the colors red and yellow.” Here too it will be impossible for Fred to cognize the “orangeness” of the color orange solely on the basis of his understanding of this judgment. One must appeal to direct intuitive cognition also in this case.
• 44 E. Husserl deals with the fulfillment of a meaning intention in the Logical Investigations, vol, II, Invs. I and VI.
• 45 Compare, E. Husserl, LU 1, Invest. V.
• 46 [The formulation of this sentence reads as follows in P: “In the case of a real definition, those intentional moments of ‘characterizing’ the object denoted by the subject-term through what the predicate-term designates are planted by the form of the definition against the background of the judgment’s material object, which, as it were, recedes into the shadows.”]
• 47 The problem of real definition, or of definition in general, still awaits more detailed analyses. Here we confine ourselves to what is absolutely necessary for our purposes.
• 48 [Cont. in P: “or (making use of terminology that has become commonplace for us),”]
• 49 [Gehalt [meaning-content] occurs only once in this section (and will be noted); here, as elsewhere in the remainder of the section, ‘content’ will be a translation of Inhalt.]
• 50 Compare in this connection, E. Husserl, LU 1, Inv. V. [“Invest. V.” replaces “Invests. I, V and VI”]
• 51 [“this distinction” replaces “the distinction between the contents of these two propositions”]
• 52 [“This distinction” replaces “The distinction between these contents”]
• 53 [Begriffsmeinung is an oft-repeated term in this section, so we shall henceforth abbreviate it by its rendition in P: “conceptual intention”.]
• 54 [“of the constitutive nature” replaces “of the object grasped by way of its nature”]
• 55 [“has no direct connection with any kind of fulfilling intuitions” replaces “with the meaning-content of an intuitive cognition”]
• 56 [originäre (inserted by Ingarden in G) became a prominent technical term for Husserl as a more emphatic (radical) version of the word ‘direct’ (see end of ftn. 58, below). He introduces it at the very beginning (§1) of Ideen I by stating that “we have originäre experience [Erfahrung] of physical things in ‘outer perception’” (Ideen I, 8), and explicates such an experience most commonly by saying that something is apprehended originär when it is grasped “in its bodily selfhood [leihaftigen Selbstheit]” (Ideen I, 11). He notes (ib ftn. 1) that the term is also applicable to ideation as the intuitive grasping of essences [ originärgebende Wesenserschauung], and by extension to Ingarden’s cognition of ideal qualities (see ftn. 58, below). When Husserl employs the expression in articulating his Principle of all Principles at the beginning of §24, he substitutes ‘actuality’ [ Wirklichkeit] for ‘selfhood’ (ib 43-4) .]
• 57 So, for example, the surrogate content of the concept “red color” consists of the sense rendered by the predicate of the proposition “Red color, that is a color which is visible at such and such a location of the solar spectrum”.
• 58 The attempt to achieve a first-hand cognition of an ideal quality can lead to a two-fold result: to the disclosure and cognition of the respective ideal quality, or to establishing that there is no such ideal quality. There is always the grave danger of an error in such an intuitive demonstration [ Ausweisung] of the non-existence of an ideal quality that is intended strictly by means of surrogate contents. [“first-hand” replaces “direct” – both at the end of the sentence in the text […appropriate first-hand cognition.] and in the first line of this ftn.]
• 59 [“meaning-element” replaces “intention”]
• 60 [Cont. in P: “pertaining to the moment that points to the immediate μορϕή of the given idea’s content”]
• 61 [Cont. in P: “along some other path”]
• 62 [This sentence added in G]
• 63 [This sentence added in G]
• 64 [Cont. in P: “(there is no point in speaking about the immediate μορϕή of the idea’s meaning-content, which de facto is also at issue here, since researchers of this orientation want to know nothing of ideas)”]
• 65 The philosophers who adopt this standpoint see no difference between a “characteristic” [“Merkmal”] and a “property” [“Eigenschaft”]. But they use the term ‘characteristic’ in as broad a conception as we tried to formulate in §16. See p. <74>, above.
• 66 [This rather lengthy sentence replaces the following three sentences in P: “Except that the mathematician imputes to himself the freedom of changing a definition into a proposition and a proposition into a definition, and thereby to select any of the object’s characteristics (or assortment of characteristics) as the qualitative moment of the immediate μορϕή, and through this – a wanton change, or even creation, of an object. Whereas by endorsing this freedom, he in effect denies the existence of some distinctive nature of the object, reduces it to the order of its characteristics, without heeding that by doing so he destroys the basis for distinguishing between a definition and a proposition. He is surely then only left with appealing to the order in which particular judgments occur in the theory, an order which, given these assumptions, is obviously dependent on the theoretician’s volition.”]
• 67 [“we could regard…pure fictions” replaces “we would in this way eliminate a group of serious objections against our conception of an object’s immediate μορϕή (or of an idea’s content), and at the same time objections that could be raised against our position in the matter of an ontological foundation of the essence-judgment on whose refinement we are now working”]
• 68 [Cont. in P: “If for no other reason, this already follows from what we have said above concerning the structure of an exact idea.”]
• 69 [This sentence replaces “Empirical facts do not admit an explanation other than that of pointing to increasingly more remote causes, or to so-called ‘general laws’, that is to say, to de facto empirically grounded propositions to the effect that thus far events have usually occurred in such and such a way. And so, at bottom, they too are not ‘intelligible’. Things are otherwise with ‘facts’ in the realm of ideas, especially exact ideas, where we rightfully insist on being provided with such motives as would ultimately make these ‘facts’ intelligible to us.”]
• 70 [Cont. in P: “(in the given case, of a direct or indirect dependence among some elements of the exact idea)”]
• 71 [Cont. in P: “The views we aim to present here are contained in its [Ch. II,] §6, entitled “ Zur Frage der einfachen and zusammengestzten Morphen und Wesenheiten” [On the Question of Simple and Composite Morphes and Ideal Qualities] (ib 515-25, 75-84). Besides, we already touched on this issue earlier (cf. §10).” The pages cited by Ingarden cover the entire last part of Ch. II (§§6-9). The pages of §6 alone are (515-21, 75-80).]
• 72 Hering says: “Every μ (μορϕή) requires completion by its bearer. Now if the need for completion of various μs (μ 1, μ2, μ3, ...) is satisfied by the same object A, these μs together with A form a whole. The particular μs are indirectly knotted [ verknüpft] by A; they can be selfsufficient relative to each other. A binding together [ Verbindung] of the μ’s into a founded unity is not procured in this way. ... Consequently, special relations must prevail between μ 1 and μ2 if we are to have any hope of binding them together into a founded unity.” (ib 516-17, 76-7, slightly modified) [‘(μορϕή)’ in first line of this ftn. was inserted by Ingarden. The last sentence of the ftn. replaces the following sentence that precedes it in Hering (accounted for by the ellipses): “Example: morphe ‘domestic animal’ and morphe ‘horse’ can occur in one animal, yet are selfsufficient relative to each other.”]
• 73 “This amalgamation of both morphes is however so tight that we do not have before us merely something like a mere knotting together [Verknüpfung] of two quiddities [Washaftigkeiten]: ‘coloration’ and ‘redness’ [Röte], but rather one (new) quiddity ‘concretized redness’ [‘ Rothaftigkeit’] or, more correctly, ‘concretized Red-coloration’ [‘ Rotfarb-Haftigkeit’], [a quiddity] in itself indeed characterized as not a simple one, but rather as one in which the different components that condition that new quiddity’s complexity can be exhibited. This need of completion of μ 2 by μ1 we would by all means wish to designate as unmediated [unmittelbare].” (ib 518, 77; slightly modified)
• 74 “Tone-quality” in the sense that enables us to regard tones c and c1 as tones of one and the same quality, though of different pitch, but tones c and d as tones of different tone-quality.
• 75 [Ftn. in P: “I.e. μορφαί.”]
• 76 [Concerning this rendition of Dummschlauheit, see Hering, “Remarks…”, Phenomenological Investigations 1 (2021), p. 79, n. 91.]
• 77 This last case is in fact one to which the phenomenologists first called attention. Secondary colors were also dealt with by empirical psychology; but either physical or physiological factors were introduced, against which a justified opposition arose, or the difference between primary and secondary colors was altogether rejected. In Hering, compare: “‘Cunning-yet-stupid’ is certainly its own singular quiddity, but not a simple one…. But no one will venture to claim that stupidity [ Dummheit] is inconceivable unless it be linked with cunning [ Schlauheit] (or conversely). Nonetheless, the two morphes amalgamate [ verschmelzen] in as tight a fashion as only two moments in need of completion can.... If we see it correctly, that amalgamation also takes place already in the sphere of pure what-qualities [ Washeiten], of quiddities in and for themselves, without relation to some bearer whose ‘form’ they are ...” (ib 519-20, 79-80). “An even more astounding example for these relationships appears to us to be on offer in the familiar phenomenon of the mixed [or secondary] color. A mixed color, e.g. auburn [ Braunrosa] (taken as color, not as quiddity), is in no way a whole in which two parts, brown and pink, interpenetrate as abstract moments (like, say, color and extension in the case of a surface); rather, it is in itself homogenous [ homogen] and undecomposable like a basic [or primary] color .... But this distinction (between the mixed color and the basic color) is nonetheless fully justified. It seems to us, however, that it is not the phenomenon of an interpenetration of several simple color-moments into a single complex one that lies at the basis of the mixed color (neither in the real nor in the ideal sphere), but rather that of a linking together two or more quiddities (or ideal qualities) into some other, which, in itself new and homogenous, allows nonetheless for the clearest recognition of the features of the separate simpler ideal qualities, and in such a way that in the particular color -moment auburn we can discern not the simpler colors brown and pink themselves, to be sure, but rather a moment (‘shade’, and the like) that points to them.” (ib 520-21, 80; slightly modified) In conjunction with the above, Hering correctly remarks that “the peculiarity of certain quiddities to be in this fashion homogeneous and yet complex [ komplex] shines forth like a miracle. But it cannot be denied.” (ib 521, 80) [It may be worth quoting here a footnote that occurs at the word ‘one’ in Hering’s text (in the fourth line of this ftn.), but is omitted by Ingarden: “That is to say, it is neither a mere juxtaposition [ Nebeneinander] of ‘stupidity’ and ‘cunning’, nor even an ultimately simple morphe, like ‘stupidity’ or ‘cunning’.” The parenthetical phrase ‘(between the mixed color and the basic color)’ in the middle of the ftn. was inserted by Ingarden.]
• 78 [Cont. in P: “, without uniting with each other directly”]
• 79 [Cont. in P: “, but which is not an ordinary sum of these latter”]
• 80 [Cont. in P: “We can only observe that the ideal quality ‘parallelogramness’ is surely derivative, which among other things, finds its reflection in the hierarchy of geometric concepts that are superordinate to the concept of square”.]
• 81 [Cont. in P: “as if it were the resultant of a certain process”]
• 82 [Cont. in P: “(cp. l’Evolution créatrice)”]
• 83 [“real objects” replaces “individual real objects”]
• 84 [“here” replaces “in the realm of [ideal] qualities”]
• 85 [“group of constants” replaces “combination of concretized qualities that counterbalances the derivative quality”]
• 86 [Cont. in P: “and the obligation”]
• 87 [“co-constitute the idea’s content” replaces “go into the composition of the whole content of this ‘what’”]
• 88 [Cont. in P: “, only, obviously, when we are dealing with exact ideas”]
• 89 [Cont. in P: “The specific values of the variables are indeed concretizations of those ideal qualities which only can, but do not have to, occur in the content of an idea constituted by the given immediate μορϕή. However, the factual occurrence of concretizations of such qualities takes place only in ideas subordinated to a given general exact idea.”]
• 90 Insofar as we understand Hering correctly, he is speaking in this case of the “essence with core” [Wesen mit Kern]. (Cf. ib 502, 61-2.)
• 91 By a mediate morphe we understand, following Hering, the immediate morphe of some property of an object.
• 92 [The last two sentences replace “Both concepts of ‘essence’, ours and Hering’s, are needed in the course of investigations; we should simply become well-aware of the difference between these differing essences of an object. The essence-judgment that expounds the content of a particular exact idea has the same concepts in the subject- and predicate-terms as the judgment that explicates the essence of the corresponding individual object, with the sole difference that when we speak about essence, we are speaking about something just as individual as the object itself, whereas the corresponding essence-judgment intends an ideal correlate of the essence.”]
• 93 [Title in P: “Judgment About the Meaning-Content of a Simple Idea. Three Perspectives on Cognition and Three Cognitive Tasks”.]
• 94 [“banned from the realm of science” replaces “held in great contempt”]
• 95 [The last three sentences replace: “We have no interest here in whether this disparagingly intended declaration of Wundt’s, who was already well-advanced in age at the time, has in such a general formulation even the semblance of being correct, although we do not deny that there exist phenomenological ‘analyses’ the result of which, captured in a judgment, reads: A=A. What else!”]
• 96 [Cont. in P: “And it is at best simply proof of a complete lack of understanding of the essential state of affairs if this fact is exploited as an argument against the work of phenomenologists.”]
• 97 [“principles” replaces “other judgments”]
• 98 [“the operations set forth here” replaces “either of the operations adduced here, or even with both together”]
• 99 [This instance of “operations” and the immediately following replace “tasks”]
• 100 [The expression between dashes replaces “while caricaturing the characterizations listed above”]
• 101 [“We do not ... of importance” replaces “We do not especially wish to demonstrate here that only our characterization is the proper one, since the tasks enumerated in (a) - (c), above, also have their rationale; except that they should not all be identified, nor any one reduced to either of the others. After all, they all belong to one group of cognitive tasks, whereas the presupposition for them all is that”]
• 102 [“At the same ... irrelevant” replaces “It is however a matter for more advanced epistemological, and even metaphysical, perspectives”]
• 103 [It would seem that the German reelle is more appropriate at this spot.]
• 104 [“Abbilder” was added in G. It is not clear why Ingarden would use the term ‘Reflexe’ in this spot, since he consistently employed it in conjunction with relationships and schemata – not ideas and concepts.]
• 105 [In P, this sentence begins as follows: “Indeed, the descriptive conception relies not so much on identifying cognition with description, as on an excessive emphasis of the role of description. Yet regardless of how this dispute might end,”]
• 106 Cp. E. Husserl, LU II, Invest. VI. [Note added in G.]
• 107 [Cont. in P: “with the aid of means we have acquired along some other path”]
• 108 We are here interested in nothing other than pointing out what Hume once had in mind with his famous distinction between “sensations” and “ideas”; except that Hume, without sufficient grounds, restricted “sensations” to direct inner and outer experience (in the narrow sense distinguished by Husserl in Ideas, for example), and unjustifiably reduced outer experience to sensory impression [sinnliche Empfindung]. [The three terms given by Ingarden in quotes are in English. Note added in G.]
• 109 [This sentence replaces: “In particular, knowledge of elements, that is to say, of something that is absolutely simple, can be achieved solely in direct and intuitive cognition. (Of course, the unequivocal specification of the object – as already follows from our previous remarks – is at best an operation that relies on cognitive results acquired along some other path, an operation that, in the most favorable case, serves to initiate a further cognitive process, but is not in its essence that in which we acquire ‘knowledge’ about the object.) As I have already pointed out when discussing the difference between the real definition and the essence-judgment.”]
• 110 [“imperfect…content)” replaces “deprived of a genuine content”. All subsequent instances of the word ‘content’ in this Section will be (without comment) translations of Inhalt.]
• 111 [Cont. in P: “(say, ‘redness’)”]
• 112 [Cont. in P: “of the intention”]
• 113 [Cont. in P: “indirect”]
• 114 [Cont. in P: “qualitative”]
• 115 [Cont. in P: “(Husserl speaks here of Erfüllung der Bedeutungsintention [fulfillment of the meaning-intention], cf. numerous passages in LU II, and especially the whole of Invest. VI.)”.]
• 116 [“initially empty” replaces “conceptual”]
• 117 [Cont. in P: “, when an absolutely simple element is at issue,”]
• 118 118 [Cont. in P: “To be sure, someone who only listens to such a judgment, and has on both sides of it concepts devoid of genuine content, will not derive any benefit from it; but whoever approaches it on the basis of phenomenological analysis – i.e. a method whose objective is to elicit in the investigator acts of direct and intuitive cognition – his knowledge, after having acquired such cognition, will be richer than when, e.g. about ‘redness’ he knew only that it is a color appearing in a concretization at such and such a location of the pure solar spectrum, but had never seen it.”]
• 119 [Cont. in P: “(the words ‘see’, ‘look’, and the like, obviously in a figurative sense in the majority of cases!)”]
• 120 [The last three sentences of the paragraph replace “A second difficulty consists of acquiring methodical means needed to elicit the relevant cognitive act in the other (not, as in the remaining cognitive tasks, for communicating the finished cognitive result to others, since that result – insofar as an intuitive and direct cognition of absolutely simple elements is involved – is not amenable to being “communicated” in the strict sense of this word).”]
• 121 [“and to attentively ... distinctness” replaces “to carry out a neutralization of the belief in reality (inherent in every perception), as well as a neutralization of object-pertaining structures [ struktur przedmiotowych = gegenständlichen Strukturen] and of the momentum individuationis, and by discerning intuitively the qualitative moment itself we shall attain to a cognition of the corresponding ideal quality”]
• 122 Compare Schapp 1910, 33.
• 123 [Cont. in P: “, especially in philosophy – and this in two respects:”]
• 124 [Cont. in P: “(what would be gained from all that direct and intuitive cognizing if we were unable to conceptualize its results!)”]
• 125 [“unresolvable consequences” replaces “absurd consequences”]
• 126 [In the remainder of this section Gehalt will be rendered by ‘content’, except once in the text and once in a footnote – to be indicated.]
• 127 [“one of the most important objectives” replaces “one of the objectives (the most important at that, and – in my judgement – the only proper one)”]
• 128 [“of X” replaces “of the ‘object’, more precisely: of the idea, designated by the concept occupying the place of variable X”]
• 129 [Cont. in P: “given the fact that the question under discussion is frequently employed inappropriately,”]
• 130 [This sentence replaces “It is also for this reason that, whenever asking this question, we ought to inform our interlocutor about the purpose of our doing so.”]
• 131 [“wording” replaces “content [ treść = Inhalt]”, both here and in the two sentences below.]
• 132 [“an idea’s content” replaces “a given idea’s essence (essence in Hering’s broader sense)”]
• 133 [“first-hand” replaces “intuitive”]
• 134 [“in some other manner” replaces “by some concept that grasps it differently”]
• 135 [Cont. in P: “, and therefore that the very problem does not de facto exist at all”]
• 136 [“thus far” replaces “in chapters III and V”] 137 [Cont. in P: “. This in turn implies that”]
• 137 [Presuppositions (7-9) added in G]