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170 PRIMAL CONSTITUTION

presuppositionless philosophy is, perhaps, to test continually all presuppo-

sitions against the evidence available in a reflection upon intentionalexperience and the grasp of the a priori, essential structures thereof. See

also ESSENTIAL INSIGHT; TRANSCENDENTAL REDUCTION.

PRIMAL CONSTITUTION. Primal or primordial constitution takes place

within the primal impression. Husserl often uses this expression to refer

to the consti tution assoc iated with the apprehension by primal

impression ofhyletic data.

PRIMAL IMPRESSION. Primal impression is the moment within themomentary phase of consciousness that intends the now-phase of

experience in subjective orphenomenal time and, by virtue of that, the

presently intended object. See also INNER TIME-CONSCIOUSNESS;

LIVING PRESENT; PRESENCE.

PRIMORDIAL. Husserl equivocates with the term primordial, although

the equivocation is necessary and essential. In particular, the term is used

to refer to the most original forms ofconstitution either within a phase of

experience or within a concrete experience. Hence, the term is used to

refer both to primal constitution within the living present or to the

constitution achieved by a perceptual objectifying act. See also PERCEP-

TION (Perzeption); PERCEPTION (Wahrnehmung).

PRINCIPLE OF PRINCIPLES. The principle of principles is the central

epistemological principle governing Husserls philosophy. The principle

states that intuition is what legitimizes cognition, that everything

intuitively presented is to be accepted as true as it presents itself and onlyso far as and in the manner in which it presents itself. This principle

underlies Husserls notion ofevidence and his conception ofreason as the

striving for evidence.

PROPOSITION. The proposition is the noematic sense(noematische Sinn)

of a judging act. The judging act is directed in the first place to the object

about which we judge and its determinations and relations. To be directed

to the object and its determinations and relations is, in general, to be

directed to a categorially formed complex, that is, a state of affairs. Thecategorial form is not available to simple perception but becomes

available in continued inspections of the object and the thoughtful

articulation and judging activity based thereon.

In judging, ones attention remains turned to the identical, objective

state of affairs rather than any logical reality called the judgmental content