Paul Natorp

German neo-Kantian philosopher (1854–1924), with Cohen the head of the Marburg school. In this corpus he is the named opponent of Investigation V's chapter on consciousness (husserl-1901-logical-investigations-vol2) — and, through the second edition's reversal, the opponent who in substance won.

Key Points

  • The pure-ego doctrine Husserl attacks (Inv V §8, from Natorp's Einleitung in die Psychologie nach kritischer Methode): consciousness is "relation to the ego"; the ego is no content among contents, "not… an object, but… something opposed to all objects," a "basic fact" that "can be no further described."
  • Husserl's 1901 rejoinder: the doctrine self-undermines — to assert the ego as basic fact is already to objectify it ("given in direct intuition" or nothing); and phenomenological analysis finds only "the empirical ego and its empirical relations," no residual centre: "I must frankly confess… that I am quite unable to find this ego." The reduced ego is "simply identical with [the] interconnected unity" of its experiences (§4).
  • The recantation: the 2nd edition reverses in three layers of notes — the position "I no longer endorse" (in-text note); the Ideas disowns it (endnote 5); adequate self-evidence of the "I am" requires the pure ego (endnote 6); and, at endnote 8, against his own "unable to find": "I have since managed to find it, i.e. have learnt not to be led astray from a pure grasp of the given through corrupt forms of ego-metaphysic." The Husserl–Natorp exchange is thus a documented hinge of the transcendental turn (see intentionality, edmund-husserl).
  • Endorsed on activities: Husserl sides with Natorp against the "mythology of activities" — acts are intentional experiences, not doings (Inv V §13 + endnote 15).
  • In Volume I, Natorp appears as an ally on the non-normativity of logical principles (Prolegomena endnotes to §§41, 45).

Connections

  • is the opponent of the 1901 no-ego doctrine on intentionality — and the beneficiary of its 1913 recantation.
  • is a middle term between Kant and Husserl's transcendental turn — the Marburg reading of apperception is the proximate form in which the pure-ego question reached the Investigations (cf. immanuel-kant).
  • contrasts with franz-brentano — the two poles Investigation V steers between: Brentano's psychology without a pure ego, Natorp's ego without describable content.

Open Questions

  • Heidegger's 1962 Protokoll names Husserl's turn to transcendental phenomenology as occurring "under Natorp/Neukantianism" (heidegger-1962-protokoll-zeit-und-sein via edmund-husserl) — the §8-and-notes complex is the primary-text exhibit for that influence-claim; a Natorp-side source would let it be tested from both ends.

Sources