Note: this assignment, due Mar. 8, is for students in Groups III and IV only.
Please respond to the following question in
approximately two pages (double spaced). (Needless to say this should
be your own original work.)
§43 of the Ideas is titled ``The
Clarification of a Fundamental Error.'' The ``fundamental error'' in
question is to think that we see only the appearances of ``physical
things,'' as opposed to seeing them the way they are in
themselves. (Recall that a ``physical thing'' [Ding] is
just an ordinary perceivable object, such as a tree.) According to
this erroneous view, ``God''--that is, a hypothetical subject
``possessing every possible adequate perception''--would,
unlike us, see physical things themselves. (Note, important for
understanding this: the entire first paragraph of §43 is a statement
of the erroneous view; Husserl only starts to speak for himself again
when he says ``But this view is a countersense.'') Why, according to
Husserl, is this an error? Why is it wrong to suppose, even
hypothetically, a subject which perceives physical things adequately?
How does a confusion between perception and symbolic representation
(or ``objectivation'': Vorstellung) lead people to commit
this error?