Page 301 - Contribution To Phenomenology

294 JAMES G, HART

To this Husserl immediately adds: "But here I have neglected all motives
for the question of God; and the question arises whether compelling
motives do not here arise?" And it is clear that they do in other
passages (e.g., Hua VIII, 258); and in other places reUgion is praised as
securing steadfast a belief in teleology, come what may. I will come back
to this.
Another text, more sanguine and Jamesian in spirit, argues that in the
absence of evidence that any attempt at ameUorization is bound to fail,
and so long as a case can be made that the pursuit of what is great and
beautful can be successful, a creative self-displacing into a horizon
nurturing hope is in order:

I will do best to overestimate the probabilities and to act as if I was
certain that fate was not essentially hostile to humanity and as if I could
be certain that through persevering I could ultimately attain something
so good that I could be satisfied with my perseverance. What is
theoretically reprehensible, i.e., the overestimation of probabilities or of
what is only slightly likely at the expense of empirical certainty, is
practically good and required in the practical situation (F I 24, 88b).

Perhaps the most sustained meditation on these matters is Beilage V of
Hua VIII. Here again we find the thesis that what holds open the world
within which action and theory is founded is not itself the fruit of a prior
achieved evidence but both a passive-synthetic faith and trust as well as
an active faith in reason. This latter is coincident with a poetic-pragmatic
postulate which holds open the beauty of the Idea (of the Grood and
True) and sustains the will to strive for this ideal. In terms of phenomen-
ological detail the horizon which is coincident with the hopeful will must
be pervaded by real possibility, i.e., be evident as determinable. If the
horizon is pre-delineated with doom, the real possibiUty of the futural
horizon is closed; it, although lacking the determinateness of focal objects
functions as determinate and one does not experience actuality sur-
rounded by determinability and therefore one's "I-can," one's elemental
sense of will and freedom, the correlate of the determinable horizon, is
lamed. The life of blessedness requires progression in the creation of
values and one can only so Uve as long as the future offers a promise.
But if that promise is not forthcoming, then what?