"1. How are we to understand the fact that the 'in itself' of the objectivity… in knowledge falls within our 'grasp' and thus becomes subjective?

Answer: The objectivity as it is when unknown, and thus 'in itself,' is not changed by entering into the knowledge relation. Rather, through the fulfilling synthesis it becomes directly related to the meanings directed upon it, and in that sense only does it 'become subjective.' It is 'possessed' by the act and mind. But it does not take on the nature of the mental, any more than a ball loses its nature and takes on that of the bat or the person who hits it.

2. What does it mean to say that the object is both 'in itself' and is 'given' in knowledge?

Answer: It is to say that the direct union of the act with the object in the peculiar context of knowledge does not turn the object into something other than what it is outside of that context.

3. How can the Ideality of the universal, in the form of concepts or laws, enter the flux of real psychical experiences and turn into a knowledge possession of the one thinking?

Answer: Here we have two distinct cases to consider. Of course those 'universals' that make up theory (LI 229 and 232) can 'enter' into knowing in the manner of every type of objectivity that is fully given, as signitive or 'inauthentic' representations of them progressively give way, in the appropriate manner, up to the point where they are given in pure intuition. All said under 1 and 2 applies to them. However, those universals which are concepts and theories are also present (as concepts and propositions) in appropriate thought acts as their properties (LI 329-31).³¹ They are the intentions or meanings of those acts 'ideally conceived.' In those acts they are 'possessed' as the instance possesses its nature or 'species' through exemplification or predication. The singular cases from which the concepts and propositions that make up theory are 'abstracted' to become objects of eidetic insight are events of conceptualization and judgment that wholly fall within the ontologically immanent sphere. This perhaps confers upon such universals some significant advantage in becoming epistemically immanent, or the objects of knowledge in the full sense. But it does not, on his analysis of universals, detract from their objectivity, from their independence in existence and nature. And that is what Husserl is really asking about with this third question. The universal/instance relation does not modify the universal any more than the object/knowledge relation modifies the object.

4. What does the adaequatio rei et intellectus involved in knowing signify?

Answer: It signifies that the components of the object and the intentionalities of meanings involved in the knowledge synthesis are set into direct relation with each other, each meaning being paired intuitively to an objective component and conversely" (Smith and Woodruff Smith 1999:161-162).

Smith, Barry, and David Woodruff Smith
1999[1995] The Cambridge Companion to Husserl. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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