Page 34 - Contribution To Phenomenology

REFLECTION ON THE CULTURAL DISCIPLINES 27

criticism properly culminate in greater enjoyment of literature among
readers, in getting more books sold, or in knowledge of what a text is
ontologically?
A place for valuing and values within phenomenology was shown at
least as early as the "Prolegomena" of the Logical Investigations, where
Husserl discusses logic as a normative as well as a theoretical and as a
practical discipline.^ This is a discussion of three types of proposition the
forms of which are of interest to formal logic. Logic as a theoretical
discipline would culminate in cognitive claims. It is not concerned with
what ought to be or with affecting events. Logic as a practical disciphne
has to do with how argument forms are involved in attempts to persuade.
Thus there is practical as well as theoretical logic.
As for logic as a normative discipline, "A warrior ought to be brave"
is the central example and Husserl interprets it as the assertion that "A
warrior who is brave is good," i.e., as a judgment in which a value is
grasped through the predicate term, a value judgment. This example can
of course be formalized with letters substituted for **warrior" and "brave."
While Husserl's analysis is about three types of propositional form, the
referents of propositions of these types of form can be seen to be
cognitive, practical, and evaluational matters distinguished in the way of
the present essay. Furthermore, while Husserl's analysis is itself cognitive,
culminating in cognitive expressions about three types of propositional
form, practical and axiotic expressions can also be distinguished according
to whether they participate in actions or evaluations, something that will
be returned to presently.
Of the three sorts of cultural disciplines distinguished in this section,
the axiotic is the least well understood by the present writer. Neverthe-
less, that there are these three species seems clear. Furthermore, it can
be wondered whether all actual and possible cultural practices can be
subsumed under the three species distinguished here, which might be
considered a philosophical concern because outside the scope of any
particular or species of cultural discipline but nevertheless relevant to
their ultimate intelligibility.

^ Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, translated by J. N. Findlay (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), "Prolegomena to Pure Logic," Chapters 1 and 2.