relational meaning, the formal categories make possible the performance of mathematical operations.
2. Theory of the formal-ontological (mathesis universalis), through which a theoretical region is posited as separate.
3. Phenomenology of the formal (original consideration of the formal itself and explication of the relational meaning within its enactment).
If such a formal-ontological determination is posited [angesetzt wird] as “generality,” does this prejudice philosophy? Insofar as the formal-ontological determinations are formal, they do not prejudice. Thus it is fitting to lead philosophy back to them. If we ask whether the formal-ontological prejudices philosophy, this question makes sense only if one accepts the thesis that philosophy is not an attitude. In the background is for us the thesis: that philosophy is not theoretical science, thus also the formal-ontological study can be the final one, determining the constitutive-phenomenological. For under this presupposition, the accepted formal-ontological grasp of the object is prejudicing.
What is phenomenology? What is phenomenon? Here this can be itself indicated only formally. Each experience—as experiencing, and what is experienced—can “be taken in the phenomenon,” that is to say, one can ask:
1. After the original “what,” that is experienced therein (content).
2. After the original “how,” in which it is experienced (relation).
3. After the original “how,” in which the relational meaning is enacted (enactment).
But these three directions of sense (content-, relational-, enactment-sense) do not simply coexist. “Phenomenon” is the totality of sense in these three directions. “Phenomenology” is explication of this totality of sense; it gives the “λόγος” of the phenomena, “λόγος” in the sense of “verbum internum” (not in the sense of logicalization).
Now does the formal-ontological determination prejudice this task of phenomenology? One could say that a formal-ontological determinateness says nothing about the ‘what’ of that which it determines, and thus does not prejudice anything. But exactly because the formal determination is entirely indifferent as to content, it is fatal for the relational- and enactment-aspect of the phenomenon—because it prescribes, or at least contributes to prescribing, a theoretical relational meaning. It hides the enactment-character [das Vollzugsmäßige]—which is possibly still more fatal—and turns one-sidedly to the content. A glance at the history of philosophy shows that formal determination of the objective entirely dominates philosophy. How can this prejudice, this pre-judgment, be prevented? This is just what the formal indication achieves. It belongs to the phenomenological explication itself as a methodical moment. Why is it called “formal”? The formal is something relational. The indication