Alexander Pfänder and the New Science of Will

Abstract

The article proceeds from the point of view in the history of philosophy that is constantly looking for the context of great names and concepts usually associated with them. Thus anyone studying the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl should not ignore the fact that before “Logical Investigations” phenomenology was practiced by Munich psychologists, most notably Theodor Lipps, and the “Phenomenology of Willing”, a work by his apprentice Alexander Pfänder, may be considered the first work in phenomenology. Just to pose the question of whether this phenomenology meets the criteria of the philosophical discipline developed by Husserl is to take the path to a fuller historical picture. What makes Pfänder relevant today is the following distinctive feature of his philosophy. He tries to avoid traditional terminology and, based on ordinary language, builds his terminology in the process of writing. This affinity to the philosophy of ordinary language may be key to understanding the phenomenological movement as a whole. Philosophy was being pushed out of the psychological domain by new empirical methods and started looking for means of expression understandable to every man, be it an academic guru or an engineer. In this context phenomenology may well be a philosophical science in search of a new language to solve philosophy’s old tasks, sometimes by avoiding such sharp traditional oppositions as the ideal and the real, the mind and the body, etc. Pfänder’s approach had a profound influence on the Munich phenomenology and phenomenology in general, and his analysis of willing and motivation is unparalleled even now and may be helpful to anyone who still wonders about the subjective side of action.