JAMES W.

G A R R I S O N

HUSSERL, GALILEO, AND THE PROCESSES OF

IDEALIZATION

ABSTRACT. This essay is concerned with the processes of idealization as described by

Husserl in his last work, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology. Central as the processes of idealization are to Husserl's reflections on the
origin of natural scientific knowledge and his attempt to reground that knowledge in the
"forgotten meaning-fundament of natural science," they have not always been well
understood. One reason for this is the lack of concrete historical examples. The main
purpose of this paper is to correct this deficit. The paper is comprised of four sections.
The first distinguishes two separate processes of idealization, one ascending from the
life-world and the other descending and applying to it. The interaction of the two is then
considered. The second section takes up Husserl's own discussion of Galileo's employ-
ment of idealization in his original mathematization of nature. The third section examines
Galileo's analysis of freefall as a historical example of the processes of idealization. Here
it is seen that the evidence clearly justifies Husserl's claims regarding the role of
idealization in the origins of modern natural science. The conclusion employs the insights
gained in the previous sections to exhibit the importance of understanding the processes
of idealization as propaedeutic to the appreciation of the role and importance of the
phenomenological methods of epoch6 and reduction to restoring lost layers of meaning
by nullifying the idealizations which cover the life world.

H u s s e r l i n t r o d u c e d the c o n c e p t of i d e a l i z a t i o n at least as early as 1901,1

b u t n o t u n t i l his last work, The Crisis of European Sciences and
Transcendental Phenomenology, 2 did he b e g i n to explicate it as a n issue
of m a j o r p h i l o s o p h i c a l i m p o r t a n c e . I n the Crisis, H u s s e r l p r o m o t e s the
processes of i d e a l i z a t i o n as requisite to a p r o p e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the
a c q u i s i t i o n a n d a p p l i c a t i o n of the scientific p r i n c i p l e s w h i c h c o n s t i t u t e
a n d d e t e r m i n e scientific e x p e r i e n c e .
A n u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the processes of i d e a l i z a t i o n is essential to
H u s s e r l ' s reflections o n the o r i g i n of n a t u r a l scientific k n o w l e d g e a n d
his a t t e m p t to r e g r o u n d that k n o w l e d g e i n the " f o r g o t t e n m e a n i n g -
f u n d a m e n t of n a t u r a l s c i e n c e " - the life-world. 3 I n spite of its i m -
p o r t a n c e , H u s s e r l ' s c o n c e p t of i d e a l i z a t i o n has n o t always b e e n well
u n d e r s t o o d . T h e r e are m a n y r e a s o n s for this; in p a r t i c u l a r , the lack of a
c o n c r e t e e x a m p l e of the process. H e r e I shall e x a m i n e H u s s e r l ' s t h e o r y
of idealization, t h e n illustrate it with a n i n s t a n c e d r a w n f r o m the history
of s c i e n c e ; n a m e l y , G a l i l e o ' s analysis of freefall.

Synthese 66 (1986) 329-338.

O 1986 by D. Reidel Publishing Company
330 JAMES W. GARRISON

1. THE PROCESSES OF IDEALIZATION

The processes of idealization have two distinct directions: one ascend-

ing from the life-world, the other descending and applying to it. The
ascending movement will be referred to as idealization1, the descending
movement as idealization2. An understanding of these processes can be
gained by considering Husserl's description of them as they operate in
the origin and application of geometry.
Pure geometrical figures are not found in experience, although they
originate there. Idealizationl is the method whereby reason constructs
pure geometrical figures out of that change and alteration which
characterizes subjective experience, 4 and it is possible because reason
finds experience commensurable with it. 5 Commensurability arises out
of our awareness of vague inexact shapes in everyday experience, an
awareness not to be confused with the cognition of "geometrical-ideal
bodies." Although indeterminate, and lacking rigorous self-identity,
the proto-geometrical objects found within the life-world display a
characteristic typicality and habituality which produce "an open
horizon of conceivable improvement to be further pursued."6 This
"improvement" is an improvement towards exactness.
The method employed to pursue these improvements is measure-
ment. By repeating the process of measurement upon the vague,
proto-geometrical types found within everyday experience, it is possible
to approximate exact "limit-shapes. ''7 So long as reason concerns itself
solely with practical matters such as surveying or architecture, the exact
limit is never obtained. Here reason is content with "a practically
perfect acquaintance with the things. ''8 Only when it becomes occupied
with theoretical concerns is reason led to construct perfectly self-
identical figures for "objective" knowledge. 9 Such exact limits, un-
obtainable within the realm of mundane experience, are acquired by
extrapolating beyond any actual series of empirical measurements to an
ideal limiting shape toward which a particular infinite series of potential
measurements is conceived as tending. Thus it becomes possible to
determine the exact, self-identical, universal forms of pure geometrical
figures.
Our experience of bodies in the life-world also presents us with a
habituality which, like typicality, is vague and inexact. These bodies
have a "character [i.e., habit] of belonging together.., simultaneously
and successively.''1° After reason has constructed ideal geometrical
 THE PROCESSES OF IDEALIZATION 331

figures, these previously vague habitualities are transformed into

necessary interdependencies. For example, though three perfectly
straight lines do not necessarily belong together, if they are brought
together so as to enclose a space, they must form a triangle in which the
sum of the three interior angles is 180 °. Although this is a necessary
aspect of triangularity, it is nonetheless a matter of discovery obtained
only by exploring the horizons presented by the figure.
What can be said about idealization2-the application of these
idealities to the life-world? First, idealization2 assumes some degree of
completion of idealization1 and usually proceeds in ignorance of that
process. Whereas the first process of idealization terminates its upward
movement with the objective, self-identical, universal forms of
geometry, the second descends "from the world of idealities to the
empirically intuited world. ''11
The idealities which are assumed by the second process of idealiza-
tion serve as a priori "guides" in the further determination of those vague
and inexact empirical entities within the manifold of intuition. In
idealization2 the pure geometrical forms are applied prescriptively as the
necessary a priori forms of all possible geometrical experience. The
vague, more or less self-identical entities of everyday experience are
geometrically determinable to precisely the degree that they "parti-
cipate" in the pure geometrical forms which they motivate. The method
by which reason determines these entities is, again, the method of
measurement. This time the measurements are "guided" by the pure
geometrical figures toward which empirical shapes approximate. 12
By establishing pure mathematics as a guide to the "practical art of
measurement" it becomes possible to determine life-world objects with
increasing precision. By pursuing the infinite horizons of possible
perfectings, the world of "doxa" may be drawn ever closer to the world
of "epistrme". Hence, Husserl writes: " . . . ideal geometry, estranged
from the world, becomes "applied" geometry and thus becomes in a
certain respect a general method of knowing the real. ''~3 Husserl points
out that the success of idealization2 in transforming one isolated aspect
of experience-the shape-aspect-into an objective world of self-
identical objects gives rise to the question: "Must not something similar
be possible for the concrete world a s suchg. ''14 The "concrete world," or
"plena," means those properties that fill in "res extensa, the spatiotem-
poral skeleton" of the perceived world. ~5 Such properties include
colors, sounds, and smells. 16
332 JAMES W. GARRISON

Galileo's achievement was to "transform" this manifold of intuitive

experience into a mathematical manifold.

2. GALILEO'S MATHEMATIZATION OF NATURE

Galileo was guided in his attempt to transform intuitive nature into a

mathematical manifold by the pure geometrical forms obtained by
idealization1 and found applicable to the manifold of experience in
idealization2.
Although guided by these pure geometric forms, Galileo was unable
to directly achieve the mathematization of the intuited world. This is
because, as Husserl notes, "We have not two but only one geometry,
i.e., one of shapes without having a second for plena. ''17 But an indirect
correlation between geometry and plena is possible. It proceeds by
measuring physical magnitudes, i.e., plena, by their physical
dimensions-mass, space, and time, just as we measure geometrical
magnitudes by geometrical dimensions- length, depth, and width. The
former are then correlated with the latter to achieve an indirect
mathematization of plena.
The method of measurement was gradually generalized to include
certain aspects of the concrete world. However, not all aspects of plena,
for example, colors, sounds, and smells are measurable. Here the
prescriptive aspect provided by the pure, universal forms asserts itself.
Those aspects of the world which were not measurable were declared
subjective and, for that reason, secondary. Only those aspects of
experience which were measurable were claimed to be objectively real.
'To be,' for Galilean science, means 'to be measurable.'
In the practice of Galilean science the method of measuring plena is
refined by the experimental method. This method accomplishes the
indirect mathematization of nature and transforms the manifold of
experience into a mathematical manifold. It is the world of experiments
that, for the natural philosopher, replaces the lived world. Indeed, the
world of the natural philosopher is the world of experiments, and this
world is thoroughly geometrical. The degree to which the process of
experimentation is prefigured and guided by geometry has not been
generally understood, even by Husserl. A physical experiment is an
instantiation of a physical theorem in precisely the same way as a
geometrical figure drawn in the dust is an instantiation of a geometrical
theorem. Though both are vague and inexact, they are infinitely
 THE PROCESSES OF IDEALIZATION 333

perfectible; indeed, they are already more perfect than the inexact
entities actually encountered in nature. Both instantiations are used for
the same purpose, to carry out the analytical reduction of the problems
to be solved.
The experimental method, guided by the ideal-shapes of pure
geometry, enabled Galilean science to transform the intuitive manifold
of experience into a mathematical manifold. Let us see how, in one
instance, this was achieved.

3. THE GALILEAN ANALYSIS OF FREEFALL

The Galilean analysis of freefall is comprised of a series of tightly

interwoven experiments. Galileo's strategy was to refute the widely
accepted common sense view of the Aristotelians who held that the
velocity of freefall was determined by the ratio of the heaviness of the
falling object to the resistance of the medium. This was accomplished
by a judicious combination of actual and "thought" experiments. 18
Having dispensed with the Aristotelian viewpoint, Galileo proceeded
with his own positive research program.
Galileo had to first deal with the fact that in our vague, inexact
experience of the life-world, "moveables" of different heaviness do
indeed descend with different speeds. To avoid this difficulty, Galileo
removed "all accidental and external impediments. ''19 This ascending
process of idealization is carried out by application of the experimental
method. Galileo begins by " . . . noting what happened with moveables
of different heaviness placed in mediums of different resistances.. 2'. 20
Through this series of experiments, Galileo recognized a curious
habituality; " . . . I found that the inequality of speeds is always greater
in the more resistant mediums, as compared with those more yield-
ing. ''21 Galileo was led from this observation of life-world typology to
press "again and again" toward more precise ideal horizons. He thus
argued, on the basis of further observations:
• . . moveables of different weight differ less and less in speed as they are situated in more
and more yielding mediums; and that finally, despite extreme difference in weight, their
diversity of speed in the most tenuous medium of all (though not void) is found to be very
small and almost unobservable . . . . 22

From these observations, Galileo extrapolates beyond all possible

experience, arriving at an ideal limiting-case. This extrapolation
334 JAMES W. GARRISON

towards an ideal is expressed by Galileo when he writes: " . . . in the void

all speeds would be entirely equal. ''23
Hence, the ideal limiting-case is "freefall with no resistance,"-
freefall in a vacuum. Like the ideal limiting-shape, the ideal limiting-
case is found nowhere in nature, although the idea for it originates
there. The construction of the ideal limiting-case is fully analogous to
the construction of the ideal limiting-shape; indeed, we can now note
how the ideal-case is guided and prefigured by such shapes.
The ideal limiting-case is the physical concomitant of pure
geometrical idealities. Consider the following graphical representation
of the extrapolation that leads to the ideal case for freefall.

~o

Mr

0
2xs

Fig. 1.

In figure 1, Mr equals the resistance of the medium and As is the

difference in speed for two similarly shaped moveables of different
heaviness. The crosses indicate the actual empirical measurements;
As = ~ when one body descends and the other does not. The solid line is
interpolated from experimental measurements. The dots depict an
extrapolation of the geometrical curve beYond the limits of the series of
experiments• Since the void is only an ideal and exists nowhere in the
empirical manifold, Mr never equals '0'.
Figure 1 visually represents the correlation of the experimental
measurements with geometrical shapes. If we were to fill in some
numbers between 0 and ~ thereby obtaining a Cartesian coordinate
 THE PROCESSES OF IDEALIZATION 335

plane, the geometric signification would recede into the background

and, by the employment of analytic geometry, the relation could be
expressed as an algebraic formula expressing a causal interdepen-
dency24 such as: As = F(Mr) where (F) is some function.
The pure, universal, "natural" law expressed by this equation
becomes prescriptive for experience. With such prescription the direc-
tion of idealization changes. Each experimental measurement of a
falling body is now viewed as an empirical modification of the ideal
limiting-case of freefall in a void. The task of the natural philosopher
now becomes the application of the functional law towards a further
determination of factual nature. Guided by the formula, the natural
philosopher can now articulate the "causes" underlying the manifold
variations characterizing the lived-world experiences of freefall. This
variation from the ideal limiting-case, as it occurs in the actual
empirical manifold, now becomes problematical for the scientist. To
account for such empirical variation, Galileo introduced the "buoyancy
effect" and the "friction effect. ''25 These and many other effects must
be taken into account for every actual case of freefall in the emprical
world.
This process of introducing empirical contingencies into the natural
scientific determination of the world helps account for the totality of
empirical variations and establishes an open horizon for continuous
research and discovery. The Galilean scientist believed that exploring
these horizons would enable him to systematically restore all aspects of
life-world experience save that of secondary qualities. For the Galilean
scientist, however, this represents no loss, since such secondary quali-
ties "reside only in the consciousness" and hence "do not really
e x i s t . ''26

4. CONCLUSION

Galileo's extrapolation from actual measurements to an ideal limiting-

case is, with one important difference, the concomitant in Galilean
science to idealization1. The Galilean experimental method naively and
without question assumes the prior achievement of a pure geometry.27
The experimental method in Galilean natural science is not an ascent
from the life-world but rather the geometrically prefigured world of
experiments substituted for it.
Once in possession of his ideal limiting-case, Galileo applied the
336 JAMES W. GARRISON

geometrically generated ideal-formulae back upon experience in a

prescriptive manner. He thereby arrived at further and more precise
determinations within the intuitive world. This corresponds to what I
have called idealization2 - the determining movement from pure ideals
to the world of experience. By utilizing "natural" laws prescriptively,
the Galilean scientist acquires the power of the Apollonian Oracle at
Delphi, for, as Husserl notes:
. . . if one has the formulae, one already possesses, in advance, the practically desired
prediction of what is to be expected with empirical certainty in the intuitively given world
of concretely actual life . . . . 2~

By means of natural laws, the vague habituality of the life-world is

transformed into a rigorous causal nexus expressing the Galilean
concept of world unity• Beyond the capacity to predict future
phenomena, the Galilean scientist also acquires the ability to describe
events with exact precision and to "explain the world" by referring it to
the pure ideal formulae which are now thought to determine it.
That " . . . a universal inductivity obtains in the intuitively given
world...,,29 is, as Husserl notes, "natural science's fundamental hypo-
thesis. ''3° Further, this hypothesis has a verificational character, that is
"related to an infinite historical process of approximation. ''31 Galileo,
by his "primal establishment of the new natural science ''32 sets the task
of all future practitioners of the method. The task is to explore the
infinite horizons of possibilities for further measurement and the
formulation of ever more complete and general scientific laws. 33
In the concluding part of section 9 of the Crisis, Husserl pauses to
characterize his historical exposition of the establishment of Galilean
science. Husserl traces the crisis in modern European science, which is,
simultaneously, a crisis in the meaning of science for humanity, to its
Galilean beginnings• From this perspective, Husserl identifies what he
sees as the cause of the crisis; it is,
• . . the surreptitious substitution of the mathematically substructed world of idealities for
the only real world, the one that is actually given through perception, that is ever
experienced and e x p e r i e n c e a b l e - our everyday life-worldY

The modern natural philosopher inherits this substitution• The result is

that he has forgotten that the life-world is the "meaning fundament of
natural science ''35 and his formulae are thereby usurped of their
meaning.
By investigating the processes of idealization, especially as it pro-
 THE PROCESSES OF IDEALIZATIONS 337

c e e d s in t h e n a t u r a l s c i e n c e s , H u s s e r l t h i n k s it is p o s s i b l e to r e s t o r e t h e
l o s t " l a y e r s " o f m e a n i n g . T h r o u g h t h e p h e n o m e n o l o g i c a l m e t h o d s of
e p o c h 6 a n d r e d u c t i o n , it b e c o m e s p o s s i b l e to n u l l i f y t h e i d e a l s w h i c h
c o v e r t h e l i f e - w o r l d a n d , s h o u l d w e d e s i r e , b e g i n t h e p r o c e s s e s of
i d e a l i z a t i o n a g a i n . 36 I n this w a y t h e m e a n i n g - f u n d a m e n t for natural
s c i e n t i f i c f o r m u l a e will b e r e l a t e d , o n c e m o r e , to t h o s e f o r m u l a e . It has
b e e n t h e i n t e n t i o n of this p a p e r to c o n t r i b u t e to t h e m e a n i n g r e s t o r a t i o n
of n a t u r a l s c i e n c e b y c l a r i f y i n g o n e e x e m p l a r y i n s t a n c e of t h e p r o c e s s e s
of i d e a l i z a t i o n w h i c h is c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of t h e e n t i r e t y o f n a t u r a l s c i e n c e .

NOTES

i Edmund Husserl: 1970, Logical Investigations, transl, by J.N. Findlay, Humanities

Press, New York, pp. 450-l.
2 Edmund Husserl: 1970, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology, transl, by David Carr, Northwestern University Press, Evanston.
s Crisis, p. 48.
4 Ibid., pp. 301 and 343.
5 This commensurability arises from the fact that for Husserl prepredicative experience
exhibits within itself protological characteristics such as typicality and habituality. With
this insight Husserl is able to avoid such artificial devices as a schematism to relate pure
concepts to experience. Hence it is difficult to see why J.N. Mohanty, for instance, is led
to conclude that a "certain phenomenological discontinuity has to be recognized as being
ultimate" in the relation between reason and experience. See J.N. Mohanty: 1969,
Edmund Husserl's Theory of Meaning, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, p. 145.
6 Crisis, p. 25.
7 Ibid., p. 26.
8 Ibid., p. 344. (Italics mine.)
~ Ibid., pp. 27-8.
"~ Ibid., p. 30 (Italics mine.)
i i ibid., p. 32.
12 Ibid., p. 32.
13 Ibid., p. 33.
a4 Ibid., p. 33.
15 Galileo generally employs thought experiments in the role of refutation. See Thomas
Kuhn's 'A Function for Thought Experiments' in his The Essential Tension, T h e
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977, pp. 240-265.
16 Crisis, p. 30.
17 Ibid., p. 34.
18 Galileo Galilei: 1974, Two,New Sciences (hereafter referred to as the Discorsi) transl.
by Stillman Drake, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, p. 72.
19 Discorsi, p. 77.
211 Ibid., p. 72.
zl Ibid., p. 72.
22 Ibid., p. 76.
338 J A M E S W. G A R R I S O N

23 Ibid., p. 76.
24 Ill analytic geometry the claim that formulae represent shapes may be taken literally;
for example,

( x - h) 2 + ( y - k) 2 = r 2

is the function for a circle of radius r with its center at the point (h, k) on the Cartesian
coordinate plane.
25 The terms "friction effect" and "buoyancy effect" are borrowed from Stephen
Gaukroger's Explanatory Structures, Harvester Press, Hassosks, 1978. It is Gaukroger's
analysis of freefall, borrowed in turn from M. Clavlion, that I use in this paper. Further, it
is Gaukroger who calls attention to the important role played by the concept of
extrapolation in Galileo's thinking.
26 Stillman Drake: 1957, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, Doubleday and Co., Inc.,
Garden City, p. 274.
27 As Husserl writes: "For Galileo, then, this [preestablished geometry] was given - and
of course he, quite understandably, did not feel the need to go into the manner in which
the accomplishment of idealization originally arose...".
Crisis, p. 29.
2x Ibid., p. 43.
29 Ibid., pp. 38-9.
30 Ibid., p: 41.
31 Ibid., 42.
32 Ibid., p. 73.
33 Today this vision is expressed by the quest for a general unified theory which would
unite three of the four forces currently postulated by physics as underlying all natural
scientific experience.
34 Crisis, pp. 48-9.
35 Ibid., p. 48.
36 I have in mind here Hnsserl's notion of the Ideenkleid; the garb of ideas which cloaks
the world. As Hussed conceived it, the Ideenkleid covers nature with "naturalistic"
mathematical formulae. With these formulae, it is possible to not only predict but to
explain the world by reference to the formulae which cover it. In the philosophy of
science the Ideenkleid is expressed by the "Covering Law" model of scientific explana-
tion. By reflecting upon the processes of idealization as we have in this paper it is thus also
possible to clarify and better understand the significance of deductive-nomological
explanation in the sciences.

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