Page 279 - Contribution To Phenomenology

272 JAMES G. HART

some sense of an object is given.^^ These apperceiving acts would be an
interweaving or "inter-laminating" of the individual-intersubjective and
traditional apperceptions.
Basic for this theme is the central difficulty of Husserl's theory of
values: the relation between the emotive and intellectual or cognitive
realms.^^ It is clear that judgments aim at truth. Their home is insight
and evidence "in the issues themselves." The realm of judgments is much
broader than the realm of natural things because it includes ideal objects,
cultural objects, and the whole range of acts, including emotive acts.
Religious objects, contents, and acts of religious judgments themselves can
be the theme of judgments.
When one judges about values one is not in an evaluating or
appreciating attitude but rather in the attitude of one judging. Now, of
course one can, in one's judging, be determined by motives of the heart
(Gemiit). For example the motives of the heart can weaken the premises
of a judgment as when one is moved not to attend to the premises or
to regard them as of lesser weight. In everyday life a judgment is not an
isolated formation but is interwoven with other immediate and mediate
contexts of judgment which function in any particular judgment.
Husserl speaks of a disturbing and uncomfortable ambiguity with which
we are confronted when we think about how judgment plays a role in
perception. When we see something a judgement can be in play but
often so is belief and this plays a role in determining the judgment. Even
in acts of seeing involving self-validating, self-evident matters or filled
intentions belief-motivations are often in play regarding the intended
object or in the structuring of the empty intention and therefore in
determining the judgment as referring to a filling of the empty intention.
A central question for the philosophical phenomenology of rehgion is
whether the heart (Gemiit) and the will, analogous to beliefs, can
produce something like "grounds" or motives for judgments. Can they
provide motives in the fuller sense that they move me to judge in a
certain way because I "place value" on the judgment? (A V 21, 7b)

11 See Vorlesungen uber Ethik und Werlehre (1908-1914), ed. Ullrich Melle,
Hua XXVIII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988). Also my "Axiology as the Form of Purity
of Heart: A Reading of Husserliana XXVIII," Philosophy Today (1990), 34, 206-221.
" See Hua XXVIII and also my "Axiology as the Form of Purity of Heart."
The discussion which follows is taken from A V 21, 5a ff.