MOHANTY - 1984 - Philosophical Description and Descriptive Philosophy

Philosophical Description and Descriptive Philosophy
Author(s): J. N. MOHANTY
Source: Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 14 (1984), pp. 35-55
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24654401
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Philosophical Description and Descriptive Philosophy
J. Ν. MOHANTY
University of Oklahoma
That one of the tasks of philosophy is to describe was one of those

points where extremes seemed to meet in philosophy. I seek your
indulgence to quote two well-known passages from two philosophers of
very different persuasions:
"The primary method of mathematics is deduction; the

primary method of philosophy is descriptive generalisation."1
"Metaphysics is nothing but the description of the generalities
which apply to all the details of practice."2
"We must do away with all explanation, and description
alone must take its place."3 "Philosophy may in no way
interfere with the actual use of language; it can in the end only
describe it."4 (Wittgenstein)
A more recent author, P. F. Strawson, called his major work An Essay

in Descriptive Metaphysics, and assigned to it the task of describing the
actual structure of our thought about the world.5
It would be interesting to examine these and other philosophers who
claim to be employing the descriptive method, and to bring out the
different kinds of description which we find. A consequence of such an
inquiry would be to evaluate the claims of such philosophers to be
describing, and to distinguish between genuine philosophical description
and such description as only seems to be so. In this paper, I do not
35
36 J. Ν. Mohanty Philosophical Description and Descriptive Philosophy
propose to take up this vast problem. Instead of dealing with each such
philosopher and his method separately, I propose to consider certain
questions of vital importance to any conception of descriptive philosophy—
no matter whether such a philosophy remains a mere phenomenology or
claims to be a metaphysics. In his 1967 book Phenomenology and
Existence, Marvin Farber writes that "the question of the range and
varieties of description" is "at present still in need of scholarly
exploration."
More specifically, the questions with which I shall be concerned here
are the following:
1. How is philosophical description different from a description that
is not philosophical?
2. How is a genuine philosophical description different from a
philosophical statement which only purports to be descriptive but is not
really so?
3. How are the descriptive and the speculative components of a
philosophical doctrine, or of a system, related to each other?
These questions are intended to lead to a clarification of the meaning
and nature of description as a philosophical activity and to an appreciation
of its relation to that speculative endeavor which has traditionally been
regarded as the very core of philosophizing. I shall also, in the concluding
part of this paper, draw attention to the several different types of
description undertaken by different philosophers and shall add a few
critical comments with a view toward throwing some light on this method
of doing philosophy, as I understand it.
Some preliminary observations about the concept of description may
be in order at this stage. There does not seem to be complete unanimity
about what exactly is mean by 'description,' to say nothing of the question
of the possibility of a purely descriptive philosophy. Philosophers have
used the concept of description in many different ways, of which the
following are the most important:
i. Positivist pholosophers of science (notably Mach) have held the view
that the task of science is to describe sensory observations, and not to
interpret them. Scientific laws, according to Mach, are abridged
descriptions and allow us to make predictions. This predictive power is
gained by making our primitive descriptions more comprehensive and by
restricting the terms of description to the fewest possible common
elements. Mach was assuming a sort of one-to-one correlation among the
elements of description and elements of the phenomenon being described.
ii. In modem logic and epistemology, Russell has familiarised the
contrast between 'names' and 'descriptions.' Descriptive phrases or
sentences are about something, and ascribe properties to that which they
Research In Phenomenology Volume XIV 37
purport to be about. Names do not ascribe properties, but simply stand

for. G. E. Moore held a restricted version of this concept of description,
and regarded a description of a thing to consist of an inventory of intrinsic
properties (not non-natural value predicates) of the thing.
iii. In later-day positivistic literature, descriptive statements are re
garded as those which have a truth-value, and are contrasted with
emotive sentences, imperatives, and performatives, which are neither
true nor false.
iv. Based on their review of the ordinary uses of'describe,' Baier and
Toulmin contend that no sentence or passage by itself is a description,
but any sentence or passage may be used by a speaker to describe, given
suitable conditions. Thus, for example, according to Baier and Τoulmin,
a person may be said to be describing a thing or a person or a situation to
another; in other words, if there is no audience, there is no description. A
sentence may be a potential description inasmuch as it may be used by
some one to describe to an audience. Furthermore, according to Baier
and Toulmin, a fact is not described, but stated—though giving a
description may involve stating facts. Again, a description is neither true
nor false, though it may be adequate or inadequate, misleading or
reliable, useful or useless.
In the context of these varied, sometimes conflicting, uses of'description,'
it is, first of all, important for us to be clear as to the sense in which
philosophy is, or may be, descriptive. The sense in which Mach regards
scientific explanations to be descriptive approximates this sense inasmuch
as he requires a description to stay close to die given data; but his conception
of description is inadequate, first, in his requirement or assumption that
there be a one-to-one correlation between the elements of a description
and the elements of the phenomena; and second, in his preference for
narrowing down the basic terms of the description to the fewest possible
—in his case, the sensory elements. Description in philosophy needs to
stay close to the given, but it needs neither to picture the phenomena
being described nor to observe the sort of economy which consists in
having a minimum set of primitive terms.
In Russell's sense, any ascription of a property or properties to a thing
is a description, and his sense allows for a description to which nothing
corresponds in reality, i.e., one which is a description of nothing (this is
not the case with names, which, in order to be names, must name
something). This indeed is too wide a sense of description and too narrow
a sense of names. Names may be either positing or non-positing, as
Husserl convincingly argues in the Logical Investigations, but a
description must be description of something. Let us make it a
requirement that description must be description of something, and also
that not all ascriptions of properties to things are descriptive. Consequently

one may have to distinguish between statements (ascribing properties)
which are in intention descriptive (or potentially so), statements which
are in actuality descriptive, and those that are not descriptive at all even
if they ascribe properties to their objects. The last kind may include
statements such as 'The soul is immortal' and 'The world as a whole has
a beginning in time'—statements which by their nature cannot have that
intuitive backing which could render them descriptions in actuality.
However, statements which are capable of such intuitive backing may
not actually have it; in such cases we have to speak of them as being in
intention, but not in actuality, descriptive. Thus we can say that Moore's
inventory of intrinsic properties may or may not constitute a description,
depending upon whether the statement ascribing one of those properties
to the thing can or cannot be supported by intuition.
It is, I believe, rightly pointed out by Baier and Τoulmin that sentences
ascribing valuational—moral and aesthetic—predicates may be descrip
tive, and that the modern positivistic manner of classifying them as
'prescriptive' as opposed to 'descriptive' is based on deeply rooted, but
easily discernible, epistemological and ontological prejudices.
This discussion sought to emphasize the close connection between the
notion of description and the notion of intuitive backing. To say that a
statement is descriptive is to say that it is adequately backed by intuitive
experience, or, what is the same, that it is made on the basis of intuitive
experience—which is again the same as saying that the meaning
intention constituting the sentence is fulfilled more or less adequately in
intuition. We thus seem to arrive at the core of truth in the point made by
Baier and Toulmin that a sentence by itself is not descriptive; it is its use
that makes it so. A sentence, seemingly descriptive, may however have
been made by a person blindly. In that case, it is not descriptive. Thus, in
the strict sense one can describe only what one intuits. If ρ is a descriptive
statement, then there must be an intuition whose datum ρ purports to
describe. To say that a subject s intuits an object ο is to say that ο is given
to s. This of course is not to pre-judge what modes of intuition or givenness
are available. I have also, in what has been said, not clarified what is
meant by a descriptive statement; in other words, what the relation is
between a true descriptive statement and the fact it describes. However,
at this stage I would like to say a few words in connection with the
concept of the 'given.' There are certain conceptions of the given which I
want to set aside for my present purpose, rather dogmatically. It is, for
example, supposed that the given must be simple and not further
analysable; or, perhaps, that the given must be the content of my
immediate experience. We know now—as a result of much phenomeno
logical investigation—that the notions of 'simplicity,' 'content,' and

'immediacy' are hopelessly ambiguous, and that the given may be as well
complex and structured and may surely transcend consciousness.
Furthermore, one of the prejudices of traditional philosophers has been
to look upon contemplation and passive reception as the only sort of
attitude in which anything whatsoever could be given, if at all. It is thereby
forgotten that even our elementary perceptions involve bodily movements,
and that things and persons are given not to passive contemplation but to
an acting, manipulating, appreciating, and evaluating consciousness.
Again, many philosophers prefer to restrict the given only to what is
indubitable—a conception of the given which derives from the epistemo
logist's search for certainty. No mode of givenness is a guarantee against
the possibility of doubt as to whether what was claimed to be given was
really so; but the very possibility of such doubts presupposes cases where
a thing is truly given. Connected with these notions of the given is the
view that the given must be determinate and self-complete. Both the
sense-datum philosopher and the naive realist who believes that physical
objects are given tend to regard the given as something determinate and
self-complete. Both the psychological atomist and the Gestalt psychologist
work with the same assumption, though they differ regarding what those
entities are. What is important is that the indeterminate, the complex,
and the structured may be as much given as the determinate, the simple,
and the atomic.
Furthermore, what is described or sought to be described need not be
obvious, lying on the surface. The subject matter of a possible description
may in fact be hidden. It may be lying below the surface, and it may
require much reflection and analysis in order to uncover it. It follows that
the task of describing does not necessarily exclude the exercise of
thought, the practice of analysis, the activity of reflection. One may
indeed think, analyze, and reflect, not in order to construct an intellectual
system, but to render explicit phenomena which are, to begin with,
hidden and unrecognized.
As a part of these preliminary remarks, it may be added that, though
philosophers are not agreed as to what the activity of describing is or in
volves positively, there is considerable agreement regarding what it is
not. Thus, for example, a descriptive philosophy is not deductive.
Suzanne Bachelard regards this negative sense as being what Husserl
primarily meant to indicate by designating phenomenology as a descriptive
science. Thus she writes:
"We believe it possible to affirm that it is this negatively that

Husserl primarily meant to indicate by designating phenome
nology as a descriptive science; i.e., phenomenology is called

descriptive because it is not deductive."7
The descriptive philosopher insofar as he is describing is also not framing

hypotheses; nor is he confirming or disconfirming them. His purported
description may not be a good description; it may be laden with pre
conceptions. But in its intention it is not a hypothesis. Testing a
description and testing a hypothesis are very different processes. One of
the modes of testing a description or a purported description is to make
sure that there are no preconceptions that vitiate it This test surely does
not apply to a hypothesis. One of the tests that apply to hypotheses is
successful prediction; this surely does not apply to descriptions.
Description in philosophy is also not construction of interpretative
frameworks or theoretical models. It is also not what has been called a
'rational reconstruction of experience.' The criteria of intelligibility
which a speculative philosopher of any sort employs are systematic
coherence, translatability into an ideal language, applicability of a
theoretical model, and so on. For the descriptive philosopher, the
criterion of intelligibility is not something external to the experience
which is sought to be made intelligible, but is made explicit from within
the experience; it is, formally speaking, the possibility of a certain area of
experience to exhibit essential structures of its own to an enquiring mind
which has voluntarily agreed to lay aside all theoretical preconceptions.
There is another kind of philosophizing which the descriptive philosopher
qua descriptive philosopher does not intend to undertake. This is what
Merleau-Ponty calls 'analytic reflection'; it is the enquiry into the
conditions of the possibility of what is given. More of this, however, later
in this paper.
Ill
We may now ask: How is a descriptive philosophical statement to be

distinguished from a non-philosophical, ordinary descriptive statement?
"This wall before me is white, smooth and hard" may be regarded as a
good descriptive, but non-philosophical, statement So also the statement,
"The pain I am having now is localized, but is intense and throbbing. " As
contrasted with these, consider the following statements, which are both
descriptive and philosophical:
(i) "All outer perception is perspectival."

(ii) "All conscious states are of something."
Seeking to distinguish between these two groups of statements, we are at

once struck by the fact that the non-philosophical statements purport to
describe concrete particular events, things, places, situations, items of
experience or particular persons at some definite place or time; whereas
the philosophical statements purport to describe what, for lack of a better
expression, we may call essential relations, patterns, or structures. After
saying this, it is necessary to warn against certain likely misgivings.
First, no commitment is thereby made with regard to the ontological
status of the so-called essences. The characterization is entirely phe
nomenological and not ontological. What the philosophical statements
under consideration purport to describe are facts which hold good of a
specific type of case, and which are very different from facts about
singular events, things, places, or persons. The scientific law statements
which also purport to hold good of a specific type of case are neither
descriptive nor essential nor eidetic. If they are empirical generalizations,
they are not in their intention universal and necessary truths; a scientific
law, however, may be in its intention universal, but as Hempel tells us,
"whether a statement of universal form counts as a law will depend in
part upon the scientific theories accepted at the time."8 A scientific law
thus is imbedded in a theory, and a theory seeks to explain a class of
phenomena by construing those phenomena "as manifestations of
entities and processes that lie behind or beneath them, as it were."9 In
any case, scientific laws are not both essential and descriptive. They are
'theoretical' and explanatory—though they may be either probabilistic
or universal in form. However, a philosophical descriptive statement
claims to be universal in form without being theoretical in nature, i.e.,
without being imbedded in a theory; its purpose is not to explain but to
describe what can be or has been brought to giveness.
It has been said above that the essential character of philosophical
descriptions does not as such commit us to any particular ontological
theory of essences. But it would seem that it does rule out nominalism,
indeed any ontological theory for which only particulars are. Likewise,
to say that these eidetic statements are descriptive does entail that there
is an essential insight into, or an eidetic or intellectual intuition of, the
facts concerned. The idea of philosophical description would indeed
seem to stand or fall with that of such intuition.
IV
To the distinction proposed, in the above section, between philosophical

descriptions and non-philosophical descriptions it becomes necessary to
add another. Not any and every essence would seem to be the subject
matter for philosophical description. The essences, 'dog,' 'tree,' and
'dirt' surely are not Consider a tree, the one I see here before me as I look
out the window. Its description surely is not a philosophical task. Nor is it
a philosophical task to determine what precisely is the essence 'tree.' But
this tree is also a physical object an individual here before me, a Dies-da,
an object of outer perception, a subject of predications, a substance to
which various sensible properties may truly be ascribed, an effect of a
multitude of causal conditions belonging to 'nature' or the world as a
whole, a possible object of aesthetic enjoyment, etc. It is as any one of
these and a host of other things that this tree here before me enters into
philosophical discourse. The philosopher who adopts a descriptive
program may seek to describe the essence of being a physical object,
the essence of being a spatio-temporal individual, the essence of outer
perception, or any of the other essences involved. In doing any of these,
he would of course be, in a very oblique sense, also describing this tree.
What I am trying to bring out may be stated thus: individuals as met
with in pre-philosophical experience are not directly the subject matter of
philosophical description (though the modes of encounter are). The
material essences ('tree', 'dog,' 'man') are also not objects of philosophical
description—excepting the very general ones, those which may be called
categories. I am aware of the facts: (i) that it is difficult to draw a strict
line of demarcation between material essences and material categories;
and (ii) that some material essences, like those of values, do constitute
the subject matter of philosophical description, e.g., of what Scheler calls
a "material ethics of values." However, what is worth noticing in the
present context is the following: a real or ideal individual (this tree over
there; number '2'), by the very sense of its individuality, exists
independently of our consciousness of it, of its modes of givenness as
well as of any actual or possible mode of liguistically referring to it In the
case of the essences of these individuals, we may of course say that their
essences are; but the sense of their being is already quasi-ontological,
though still separable, by an act of abstraction, from the correlative
linguistic meaning and from the corresponding eidetic intuitions and
their possible fulfillment. As we move on from the material essences to
the categories, the sense of the being of the latter becomes less and less
ontological and exhibits far closer relationship with both language and
consciousness. This tree exists, no matter whether it is referred to by the
words "this tree" and no matter whether I or someone else perceives it or
not (This "no matter whether..." belongs to the sense of its existence as
a real individual. At the same time, its existence as a real individual
implies the possibility of identifiability, etc.) The essence 'tree,' on the
other hand, is, but is also the meaning of the common name 'tree' and is
the correlate of an act of idealisation exercised upon the appropriate
empirical type; however, it nevertheless is, so that it is conceivable that
the essence 'tree' is not referred to by any expression or that it belongs
really to a Platonic world of subsistent entities needing no act of idealiza
tion on the part of us human beings for its subsistence. The categories
'objectivity,' 'intentionality,' 'identity,' 'individuality,' 'universality,' on
the other hand, are essences which are such that only by an act of abstrac
tion of a more violent nature is it possible to regard them as independent
of language and consciousness. It is precisely with such entities that
philosophical description is concerned.
Keeping the above considerations in mind, we may venture the
following characterization: Philosophical description in the strict sense
is concerned with, or describes, facts—let us call these philosophical
facts—which are such that they can by their very nature be looked upon
from three different points of view. These facts may be regarded as
linguistic or meaning-structures; or again, they may be regarded as
ontological structures; or again, as structures of subjectivity or conscious
ness. Let me elucidate with the help of an example, which is but one of the
descriptive philosophical statements given above:
"All conscious states are of something."
This statement may be regarded as being about mental states and

processes themselves in the material mode of speech; or about the logic of
mental concepts, i.e., in the formal mode of speech; or also about how
conscious states are given to one who has them.
Another statement which seems to me to be a descriptive philosophical
statement is:
"There are universels as well as particulars."
Now this statement makes an ontological assertion that the world

consists of two radically different types of entities. It may be regarded
also in the formal mode of speech as being about language, namely, as the
thesis that a language, in order to be a language, must contain both
singular and general words and that neither a nominalistic language nor
a particular-free language is possible. Or again, one may construe the
statement as a statement about two radically different modes of
consciousness: sense perception and eidetic thought.
The point I would like to make then is this: The philosophical facts are
such that they not only admit of such alternative formulations but even
demand them in the sense that, for a complete, integral understanding of

their nature, it is necessary to keep this threefold possibility in mind.
Linguistic philosophers who hold that philosophical statements are
concerned with linguistic meanings and transcendental phenomenologists
who reduce such facts to noetic functions with their intentional correlates,
are both guilty, not of error, but of one-sidedness. Each of these
alternatives supplements the others and makes up for their inadequacies;
together they constitute the total nature of philosophical facts.
After having tried to distinguish in the preceding two sections between
ordinary, i.e., non-philosophical, descriptions and philosophical descrip
tions, we may now turn to the second question at hand, namely, How is a
genuine description in philosophy different from a philosophical state
ment which only purports to be descriptive but is not really so? Here
again I would proceed with an example of each.
As an example of a philosophical statement which only pretends to be
descriptive without really being so, let me quote the following from
Hume's First Inquiry:
"All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event

follows another; but we never can observe any tie between
them. They seem coryoined, never connected."10
In contrast to this, the following appears to be a genuinely descriptive

philosophical statement:
"There belongs to every external perception its reference

from the 'genuinely perceived' sides of the object of perception
to the sides 'also meant'—not yet perceived, but only
anticipated and at first, with a non-intuitional emptiness (as
the sides that are 'coming' now perceptually): a continuous
protention, which with each phase of the perception, has a
new sense."11
Why do I consider the first a pseudo-description but the second a good

description (i.e., as approximating the ideal of a good description)? It
seems to me that there is one way of exposing the pretensions of a
statement to be descriptive or of confirming the genuineness of its claim,
and this consists in asking: Does the alleged description conceal any
ontological or epistemological presupposition or not? A genuinely philo
sophical description should not be based on any such presupposition; it
should not be founded on any ontology or epistemology just because it
alone is able to found one.
Thus the Humean statement owes its seeming obviousness to the fact
that its presuppositions have an air of deceptiveness about them. For
example, the statement quoted above presupposes, among other things,
an atomistic psychology and a theory of meaning which has been laid
down by Hume in section II of the Enquiry, a theory which for its own
part pretends to be descriptive but is in fact a recommendation.
In contrast to this, the Husserlian statement exhibits a sustained effort
to delineate the actual process of external perception as given to the
perceiving consciousness without allowing scientific or any other
theoretical preconceptions to interfere. Contrast with it the sense-datum
theory of perception, a theory which no doubt purports to be faithful to
the given but whose conception of the given is vitiated by scientific,
psychological, and epistemological preconceptions. It presupposes, for
example, the reality of sensations which for its part is based on a
psychological atomism, a notion of psycho-physical causality, and the
constancy hypothesis, but which is not warranted by the evidence of
consciousness.
I need not emphasize how relevant and in fact necessary is the method
of phenomenological epoche for the very possibility of genuine description
in philosophy. It was Husserl's genius that he both revitalized the descrip
tive method for philosophy and brought to the forefront the method of
epoche, without which one cannot really get down to the job. The pre
conceptions have to be placed within brackets, beliefs suspended, before
philosophy can begin to confront phenomena as phenomena. This again
is not an instantaneous act of suspending belief in the world or of
directing one's glance towards the phenomena as phenomena, but
involves a strenuous effort at recognizing preconceptions as preconcep
tions, at unravelling sedimented interpretations, at getting at presupposi
tions which may pretend to be self-evident truths, and through such
processes aiming asymptotically at the pre-reflective experience.
It is no valid objection to say that this ideal can never be reached, and
that therefore no description in this sense can ever be possible. For we
can only lay down the task to be achieved and the path to be followed. But
to guarantee that any particular philosopher or any statement achieves
this task, fulfills the ideal, is not our present purpose. One may at best
distinguish between good and bad descriptions, between more or less
adequate ones. The situation is not unlike that in the natural sciences.
In a Beilage to the Second Volume of the Erste Philosophie (p. 477),
we find a note from Husserl which shows a clear awareness of the
problem with which we are faced. There is no other way, he warns us,
than beginning with a description based on naive evidence, and then
reflecting on it in order to satisfy ourselves regarding the presuppositions
which underlie that original description. Laying bare these presuppositions

would lead to a new level of description, through which the 'power'
( Tragweite) of that first description would come to light. In the final,
ideal description, of course, all naivety would be abolished and
overcome. It is worth noticing that Husserl never took for granted that
any of his descriptions fully conformed to this ideal. This is the reason
why, I suppose, the task of a descriptive philosopher would be endless.
However, the principle of freedom from presupposition is likely to be
misunderstood in one respect. Let s be an alleged descriptive statement
which, on closer scrutiny, is found to be based on a presupposition p. In
other words, if p, then s. Now it is not the case that the new implicative
statement, if p, then s, being presuppositionless, is itself descriptive.
Many metaphysical propositions may be seen to rest on epistemological,
logical and ontological presuppositions. But the proposition that, if these
presuppositions are made, such and such metaphysical propositions
follow, is not, just because it reflectively brings to light the presupposition,
descriptive. In the Logical Investigations, II, I, Husserl explains the
principle of freedom from presupposition as expressing "the strict
exclusion of all statements not permitting of a comprehensive phe
nomenological realization" (Findlay ed. p. 263). The statement 'If p,
then s' may rest on a purely deductive validation, and may lack intuitive
backing.
VI
I may now take up the question: How are the descriptive and the
speculative components of a philosophical system related to each other?
It may be possible to find in most philosophical systems some descriptive
core which not only furnishes the springboard for speculative flights but
itself gets transformed beyond recognition in the course of such flights.
Thus, for example, the Platonic two-world theory is surely based on the
mutual irreducibility of sense-perception and eidetic thought (of which
another transformation is the Kantian two-faculty theory). That Kant's
transcendental idealism contains a large descriptive core has recently
been shown by Strawson, but had been pointed out by Nicolai Hartmann
much earlier.12 One may try to do the same in connection with
Whitehead's grand system of metaphysics.
My concern now is to detect the various ways in which the descriptive
find is or may be used for speculative purposes, that is, the various modes
of speculative flight from the descriptive springboard. If we could find all
the various ways in which this is or can be done, we would have a
complete phenomenology of speculative thinking. But in the absence of

an a priori clue, one can be sure neither of the exhaustiveness nor of the
systematic character of such a list Kant first reduced all the various
speculative moves into one: the move from the conditioned to the
unconditioned. But then under the influence of his general architectonic,
especially of the threefold classification of inference, subdivided it into
three. We cannot here undertake such an a priori classification, but
would satisfy ourselves with the humbler task of isolating, by empirical
survey, a few striking speculative moves, such as the following:
1. Every descriptive finding pertains to a certain region of phenomena
Speculative philosophers sometimes generalize it to some other regions,
far beyond the limits within which it had originary intuitive support I will
give here two examples of how this is, or could possibly be, done.
Samuel Alexander held the view that mind enjoys itself and contemplates
its object, meaning thereby that every conscious state is of something and
at the same time involves immediately awareness that it is o/that something.
Now this undoubtedly contains a descriptive core which requires more
precise formulation. However, Alexander does not rest satisfied with
this, but ih the true spirit of a speculative philosopher proceeds to
generalize it to all regions of being. For this is what he writes: "... we
may say that any finite 'enjoys' itself and 'contemplates' lower finîtes.
Thus each level has its specific 'enjoyment' and what it 'contemplates' is
what from the case can be revealed to it, and so far forth as it can be
revealed."13
A similar extension may be given to Brentano's thesis about intention
ality. It may be held14 that insofar as anything at all—not excluding
material bodies and living organisms—refers beyond itself, it also
possesses mind; in other words, that the element of self-transcendence is
precisely its mind. From this it is but a short step to pan-psychism.
In both these examples, the descriptive concepts ('enjoyment,'
'contemplation,' and 'intentionality') have not only been extended far
beyond the legitimate domain of their validity, but the concepts
themselves have, in this process, gained an analogical extension of
meaning which ends up making the concept a speculative one.
2. The speculative metaphysician does not tolerate the existence of
gaps among phenomena, and therefore, in the interest of system,
proceeds to fill in such gaps. Thus, consider the descriptive thesis
regarding the radical distinction between sense-perception and eidetic
thought, between the acts and the objects given in them, between sensible
particulars and ideal essences, between the temporal flux of consciousness
and the non-temporal meaning intended in the acts of consciousness,
between act intentionalities and intentionalities other than acts. Not
satisfied with such dualisms, philosophers have tried to reduce the one to
the other by showing its origin—which involves filling in gaps, reducing
the heterogeneity of phenomena to a homogeneity, and denying discon
tinuity among phenomena. A recent example of such an attempt is to be
found in Ludwig Landgrebe's effort to 'supersede' {aufheben) the
distinction between facts and essences in the life of transcendental
subjectivity.15 Most varieties of monism, ontological or epistemological,
exhibit this sort of move.
3. The speculative metaphysician collects descriptive cases, and is
too eager to bring them under a generic concept Thus, starting with the
descriptive thesis that there are material bodies, living organisms, and
minds (constituting the real world), and the ideal entities, he seeks a
generic concept of Being common to all these. A descriptive philosopher,
on the other hand, would remain satisfied with a concept of Being which
is analogical and not generic. In order to make this point clearer, it is
necessary to explain briefly the distinction between generic concept and
analogical concept as I understand it here. If G is a generic concept with
a, b, c, and d as its instances, then of course a, b, c, and d are different Gs
(Plato and Aristotle are different men) insofar as each of them contains a
common generic property of manhood. But suppose Ν to be an
analogical concept of which u, v, w, and χ are instances; then it is not only
the case that u, v, w, and χ are different Ns, but they are as Ν different In
other words, they are radically different. Material bodies and minds are
not only different real entities, but are as real different Acts and noema
are not only different entities, but are as entities different. In such cases,
the search for generic concepts is futile and the imposition of one a
speculative construction.
Let us take another example. Intentional directedness is to be found
in mental states and in bodily behavior. The speculative philosopher
would search for the common source of both, or would regard the one as
an epiphenomenon of the other. He may regard bodily intentionality as
the basic intentionality, and conscious intentionality as its appearance.
Or he may regard conscius intentionality as the basic phenomenon and
intentionality as its bodily expression. The descriptive philosopher,
satisfied with the radical difference evidenced by phenomena, would
prefer to treat the concept of intentionality as an analogical concept such
that its various types are as intentionalies different and not merely different
intentionalities.
4. It has already been emphasized that philosophical facts are such
that they demand three alternative and yet mutually complementary
modes of description: the linguistic, the ontological, and the subjective.
Now philosophers, more often than not, largely under the influence of
their ontological and epistemological preconceptions, are prone to
accord recognition to only one of these modes of description. Examples

of these are (i) Platonic hypostatization of abstract entities, (ii) the thesis
that philosophy is concerned only with the analysis of language, and (iii)
the idealistic thesis that philosophy is concerned with pure consciousness
and its functions.
5. Speculative philosohers seek explanations. They ask, Why
should a fact be what it is? Or, in a more transcendental vein, they look
for the conditions of the possibility of things being what they are. Thus,
accepting the thesis of intentionality, they may go on to ask, What makes
this self-transcending reference possible? How is it possible that
consciousness should be able to refer to what is yet beyond itself? This
kind of question may lead, as it often does, to a monistic answer. It would
seem, for example, that consciousness can refer to what is yet beyond it
only if consciousness and object are not as different as they appear to be;
in other words, only if there is some kind of deep underlying unity
between them. There are various kinds of such monistic answers:
objective monism, subjective monism, absolute idealism, or Kant's
transcendental idealism.
I would like to draw particular attention to the fact that the Kantian
motif has come to be closely associated with descriptive philosophy—an
association which has always seemed to be both strange and deeply
suggestive. Whereas the inquiry into the possibility of a given phe
nomenon being what it is may lead to speculative constructions, it has
seemed to many that a Kantian approach to the problem, in fact a
Kantian formulation of the question, need not force us to abandon
descriptive philosophy. One finds this confidence not only in Husserl but
also in Strawson. Basic to this confidence is, I think, a distinction
between surface phenomena and deep lying phenomena, so that the
conditions we look for must be the deep lying phenomena which have to
be brought to the surface. The ultimate criteria of whether the conditions
discovered are descriptive or speculative are whether they are accepted
as hypotheses and whether they are capable of being given in intuition.
All the above features make the descriptive philosopher a tragic
philosopher, and the speculative metaphysician a happy one. A genuinely
descriptive philosophy is bound to be characterized by a tragic sense not
merely because everywhere phenomena exhibit discontinuity and some
times radical discontinuity and gaps which he would not fill in, but also
because he is haunted by the gulf that separates philosophic reflection
and unreflective experience, a gulf which he seeks to bridge not by
speculative constructions but by intermediary phenomena, though never
quite completely. His is thus a never-ending endeavor, an open system.
The speculative metaphysician, on the other hand, closesthe system in
which every item of experience finds its place, explanation, or rational
reconstruction either in an ideal language or with an ideal set of

categories. All conflicts are resolved to satisfaction, the tragedy of
reflection is once for all eliminated.
VII
Let me now draw your attention to the great variety of descriptive work
in philosophy. First, it is useful to bear in mind that to be a good
description, a statement need not represent the fact being described as a
photograph describes the original or as Wittgenstein used to take a
sentence to picture a fact. To describe is not to picture. Here again
Wittgenstein warns us well enough: "Thinking of a description as a
word-picture of the facts has something misleading about it ",6
Husserl, who laid so much emphasis on the descriptive method in
philosophy, did not quite discuss the problem of the logical relation in
which a descriptive statement stands to the fact being described. However,
he did explicitly reject the picture theory of meaning as also the
correspondence theory of truth. For him, I should think, a sentence is
truly descriptive if the meaning intention expressed in it is fulfilled in
appropriate intuition, where the intention and fulfilling experience
coincide. To restrict oneself to a descriptive method of philosophizing
means, for him, to restrict oneself to making assertions which are
supported by appropriate intuitive validation.
Now obviously, description in philosophy may be of various kinds. It
may be direct description, as, for example, Brentano's intentionality
thesis seems to be. It may be description by negation, which is an attempt
to focus on the distinctive peculiarity of a region of phenomena through a
series of negations rather than through some positive characterization. In
other words one may seek to describe an X by saying that X is not ρ, X is
not q, etc. Such descriptions, in order to be useful in uniquely identifying,
must make use of the premise, e.g., that p, q, r exhaust all characters save
one within the given universe of discourse.
One may also describe a thing by arranging phenomena with which
one is better acquainted or whose descriptions are already at hand in
such a manner that they all form a series which points toward the thing to
be described as its limit. Whitehead's method of extensive abstraction
may be regarded as description in this sense. It may be that when he is
seeking to define a point in terms of extensive connections, he is giving a
description in terms of elements which are themselves phenomena.
I am less sure of the descriptive character of classification. Nicolai
Hartmann, for example, builds up a phenomenological ontology by
classifying beings into several regions: the real, the ideal, and the hybrid.
It is necessary to be aware that, in this kind of descriptive venture, there
may be unrecognized presuppositions.
The most perplexing is the claim of Heidegger's method of hermeneutic
description. Heidegger calls it'Auslegung.' He writes: "the methodological
significance of phenomenological description is interpretation." This is
indeed a most puzzling statement, in view of the fact that one would
ordinarily regard interpretation as being opposed to description. Harald
Delius, in a brilliant paper,18 has questioned the validity of this
Heideggerian method as a phenomenological method, and I
endorse his conclusions in principle, where Delius writes:
"Interpretation may, if the alleged conditions should really

obtain, (i.e., where relations between phenomena and their,
also given, interprétants are themselves given) be the result of
a phenomenological research—to make it the aim of such
analysis however would be to negate its basic principle; and
to decide beforehand that all phenomenological description
is to be interpretation is to destroy the only means by which
the correctness of such a decision could have been tested:
phenomenology as purely descriptive analysis."19
This is indeed fair. However, in order for it to be adequate, I should

like to add the following remarks.
In so far as the method suggested by Heidegger does not confine itself
to what is prima facie given, to what is obvious, but tries to uncover what
is hidden and implicit, the methodological program still conforms to the
descriptive ideal. In the second place, some of these deep phenomena are
themselves interpretations or meanings conferred by man in the course of
his historical existence, on himself and on his world; and it may be that
human existence is meaning-conferring and interpreting. If that is so,
then its interpretations, insofar as they are uncovered, are themselves
phenomena and are amenable to description. Such a description would
be vertical, not horizontal; it would be analogous to what depth
psychology is in relation to surface psychology. Insofar as, therefore,
Auslegung is nothing but uncovering of the sedimented meanings and
interpretations, it is an integral part of the phenomenological method.
What is important is to remember that in such cases philosophy itself
cannot interpret; it can only unfold (enthiillen), it cannot change the
interpretations.20 Ricoeur finds in the method of Auslegung a method
which is "midway between a philosophy of construction and a philosophy
of description."241 find here nothing but description. That description
uncovers interpretations which are immanent to the phenomenon being

described does not alter the fact that what is being done is description.
There is, according to Ricoeur, at least one subject matter with regard
to which it is most true to say that phenomenology is hermeneutics.22
And this is in connection with the Ί am,' for the Ί am,' the Ego, is "a
question, not given," because the nature of Ί am' is forgotten. If what he
means is that the nature of the ego is one of those things which is most
laden with interpretations, man's self-interpretations, which have to be
uncovered and separated, thus permitting an exhibition of the original
phenomenon of the egological life, then I agree. But I do not see why the
method which all this requires is anything other than phenomenological
description with its components of reduction and epoche.
VIII
Finally, I would like to consider very briefly some typical objections to

the conception of a descriptive philosophy. First, there is the episte
mological point that there is in fact nothing that is given, so that there is
nothing that one could describe. There is also a moderate version of the
thesis, according to which, although human knowledge and experience
are based on the given, the given qua given cannot be described. Much of
the force of these two theses derives from constructing the notion of the
given in such a manner that nothing could be identified as the given. If the
given is construed as the absolutely simple, the bare sensation, the
ineffable moment of living experience, the unconceptualized bare
particular, the absolutely immanent inner psychic state, then the thesis
that the given, qua given, cannot be described would follow analytically.
But these conceptions of the given are not only based on epistemological
presuppositions; but also, upon questioning, they betray a certain
'prescriptive' character. In other words, the thesis, for example, that only
the simple, the not further analyzable, is given is not itself a descriptive
philosophical statement.
That pure description is not possible is defended on the following
grounds, among others:
a. It is held that description involves the use of language, and language
by its very nature involves interpretation. One way of elaborating this
contention would be thus: each language, by its inner structure, semantic
and syntactical requirements, as well as by its underlying 'metaphysics'
(I have in mind such a thesis as that of Benjamin Lee Whorf) imposes,
without the user's knowing it, a certain limitation, a certain point of view,
a perspective, which makes it impossible for any person to establish a
direct linkage with the immediacy of experience; and yet without such a
linkage, pure description is not possible.
b. It is also argued, in a rather Kantian spirit, that all description
involves conceptualization of the data, and all conceptualization is, to
some degree, interpretation. It involves interpretation in at least two very
different, though not entirely disconnected, senses: first, conceptualiza
tion means idealization; and second, concepts form a systematic frame
work, however implicitly, so that any conceptualization presupposes an
implicit or explicit system of concepts.
c. It is often pointed out, by phenomenologists, that all experience
including thinking and reflection—is perspectival, contextual, and
historically situated. The perceiver, the experiencer, the knower, and the
philosopher are not timeless, supra-historical, transcendental conscious
nesses but concrete, context-bound, historically conditioned persons.
The attitude of description therefore does not suit them. All intention is
also interpretation; all description has to be hermeneutics.
d. A particularly strong version of the argument stated immediately
above may restrict itself to the human sciences, where, as Charles Τ aylor
has recently well argued, there is no brute data identification, where the
data themselves are subjective meanings constituted by self-interpretations
by persons and communities. The human sciences therefore must be
hermeneutic and cannot be descriptive.
I would like to respond briefly to these arguments.
First, it may be pointed out that every language is no doubt
convention-laden, but not necessarily theory-laden. It is only a certain
view of language which opposes the given to its linguistic expression, and
assigns to the latter the function of interpreting, conceptualizing, and
idealizing the former. However, a more truly phenomenological approach to
language and experience may support the view that language itself serves
as a condition of the givenness of things in the precise manner in which
they are given, so that in perceptual judgments, for example, as Husserl
rightly emphasized, there is a sort of phenomenal identity of the
expression and the experience.
Secondly, by defending the conception of a descriptive philosophy, we
are not necessarily obliged to defend a positivistic conception of
knowledge according to which knowledge consists in bare reception of
data. There is no doubt that idealizations are involved in predicative
thinking, to say nothing of higher order reflections, scientific theory
building, etc. But the-conception of a phenomenological philosophy
requires that the phenomenologist himself, qua phenomenologist, refrain
from idealizing, for it is precisely the process of idealization involved in
thinking and in cognitive processes (as well as the noematic products of
such idealizations, i.e., the ideal noemata) that he may have to describe.
Likewise, it may be, and indeed seems very much to be, the case that
all perception, experience, thinking, and reflection are perspectival in
character. It is far from the truth that the perceiver qua perceiver, the
experiencer qua experiencer, the scientist qua scientist, is a transcendental
ego, a timeless supra-historical consciousness. However, the description
of this very essential structure of perspectivity, historicity, and contextuality
of the empirical subject requires that the descriptive philosopher, qua
descriptive philosopher, be neither an experiencer, perceiver, historical
agent, nor scientist, but a transcendentally purified meditating philosopher.
Thus all philosophical descriptions are to be from the point of view of the
transcendental ego; if this 'point of view' itself imposes a perspectivity, a
methodological presupposition, then that may be so indeed. The
descriptive philosopher as occupying the position of a transcendental ego
is not the same as an omniscient constituting consciousness. For the
descriptive philosopher, all truths are not transparent; he does not intuit
all that he has to describe, nor are all his descriptions supported by the
same degree of intuitive backing. However, he refrains from interpreting
inasmuch as he wants to catch hold of the process of interpretation and
idealization that is involved in human cognitive endeavor.
This would indicate the way I would like the point about the
hermeneutic character of the human sciences to be dealt with. There is no
doubt in my mind that, in a very important sense, the human sciences are
to be hermeneutic in character; but phenomenology is not a human
science, not one of the Geisteswissenschaften. In its effort to lay the
foundation and to clarify the basic concepts and activities of any science,
natural or human, phenomenology has to describe, bring to intuitive
clarity, the processes involved in their concept and theory formation.
This activity is descriptive, and not itself interpretive, as the activities of
those sciences surely are.
NOTES
'Whitehead, Α. Ν. Process and Reality, (New York: Harper Torch Books, 1941 ),
pp. 15-16.
tibid, p. 19.
'Wittgenstein, L Philosophical Investigations, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), p. 47.
'ibid, p. 49.
'Strawson, P. F. Individuals, An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics, (Anchor
Books, 1963), p. xiii.
'Farber, U. Phenomenology and Existence, (New York; Harper Torchbooks, 1967),

p. 37.
'Bachelard, S. A Study ofHusserl's Formal and Transcendental Logic, (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. xlvi.
'Hempel, Carl G. Philosophy of Natural Sciences, (Prentice-Hall Foundations of
Philosophy Series, 1966), p. 57.
Hbid, p. 70.
'"Hume, D. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.
"Husserl, Ε. Cartesian Meditations, E. Tr. by Dorion Caims, (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1960), p. 44.
"Hartmann, Ν. "Diesseits von Idealismus und Realismus, " (Kant-Studien, 29,
1924).
"Alexander, S. Space, Time and Deity, (New York: Dover, 1966), Vol. II, p. 104.
"Charles Hartshorne suggested such an extension of the domain of intentionality in
private conversation.
"Landgrebe suggests this in his various papers.
"Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations, p. 99.
"Heidegger, M. Sein und Zeit, p. 37.
"Delius, H. "Descriptive Interpretation," Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research XIII, (1952-53), pp. 305-323.
"ibid, p. 323.
20Ricoeur, P. Husserl An Analysis of His Phenomenology, Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, p. 140.
"ibid, p. 140.
"Ricoeur, P. "The Critique of Subjectivity" in Krings, M. (ed), Heidegger and the
Quest for Truth, (Chicago: Quadrangle Press, 1968), pp. 70-71.

MOHANTY - 1984 - Philosophical Description and Descriptive Philosophy

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Philosophical Description and Descriptive Philosophy

That one of the tasks of philosophy is to describe was one of those

"The primary method of mathematics is deduction; the

A more recent author, P. F. Strawson, called his major work An Essay

purport to be about. Names do not ascribe properties, but simply stand

that not all ascriptions of properties to things are descriptive. Consequently

logical investigation—that the notions of 'simplicity,' 'content,' and

"We believe it possible to affirm that it is this negatively that

nology as a descriptive science; i.e., phenomenology is called

The descriptive philosopher insofar as he is describing is also not framing

We may now ask: How is a descriptive philosophical statement to be

(i) "All outer perception is perspectival."

Seeking to distinguish between these two groups of statements, we are at

To the distinction proposed, in the above section, between philosophical

"All conscious states are of something."

This statement may be regarded as being about mental states and

"There are universels as well as particulars."

Now this statement makes an ontological assertion that the world

demand them in the sense that, for a complete, integral understanding of

"All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event

In contrast to this, the following appears to be a genuinely descriptive

"There belongs to every external perception its reference

Why do I consider the first a pseudo-description but the second a good

which underlie that original description. Laying bare these presuppositions

complete phenomenology of speculative thinking. But in the absence of

accord recognition to only one of these modes of description. Examples

reconstruction either in an ideal language or with an ideal set of

"Interpretation may, if the alleged conditions should really

This is indeed fair. However, in order for it to be adequate, I should

uncovers interpretations which are immanent to the phenomenon being

Finally, I would like to consider very briefly some typical objections to

'Farber, U. Phenomenology and Existence, (New York; Harper Torchbooks, 1967),

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