The referent of the transcendental and indexical “I” is present non-ascriptively and contrasts with “the personal I” which necessity is presenced as having properties. Each is unique but in different ways. The former is abstract and incomplete until taken as a personal I. The personal I is ontologically incomplete until it self-determines itself morally. The “absolute Ought” is the exemplary moral self-determination and it finds a special disclosure in “the truth of will.” Simmel's situation ethics is useful for making more (...) precise Husserl's ethical position. (shrink)

Transcendental Phenomenology of language wrestles with the relationship of language to mind’s manifestation of being. Of special interest is the sense in which language is, like one’s embodiment, a medium of manifestation. Not only does it permit sharing the world because words as worldly things embody meanings that can be the same for everyone; not only does speaking manifest to others the common world from the speaker’s perspective; but also speaking, as a meaning to say, may achieve the manifestation of (...) the world also for the speaker herself. This requires finding the right words to form true propositions in a well-formed sentences. The manifest telos of proposition-rendering sentences is adumbrated and founded in the infant’s elemental formation of simple phonemic identity syntheses and syntax. This instinctual dynamism is founded in what Husserl names “the idea of truth” which supports the thesis of a universal language instinct. (shrink)

Book 1 focused on transcendental-phenomenological ontology and distinguished the non-sortal from the propertied personal sense of ourselves. I can be aware of myself and refer to myself without it being necessary to think of any third-personal characteristic. Book 2 addresses the other richer sense of ourself when we respond to "Who are you?" where the answer might be in terms of an anguished question of identity or the ethical what sort of person am I? It might also be the normative (...) question of whom one ought to be. (shrink)

The editors, Thomas Nenon and Hans Rainer Sepp, of Husserl's Aufsdtze und Vortri~ge (1922-1937) (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989) have given us a fascinating present with quite a few surprises. I would like to take this occasion to thank them publicly for their able and selfless labors. Here we have Husserl attempting to address himself to a large philosophically untrained audience for funds of which he had dire need: he had two children getting married and the real value of his inflated German (...) annual income was worth $160.00. But, as he told a friend, what he was doing was as genuine philosophical work as what he would do for his Jahrbuch ffir Philosophie und phginomenologische Forschung. In many ways it is regrettable the work did not come to full fruition for the publication in the Jahrbuch because then the tensions and ambiguities we find here would have been perhaps less severe. (shrink)

Do the various ascriptions of “violence,” e.g., to rape, logical reasoning, racist legislation, unqualified statements, institutions of class and/or gender inequity, etc., mean something identically the same, something analogous, or equivocal and context-bound? This paper argues for both an analogous sense as well as an exemplary essence and finds support in Aristotle’s theory of anger as, as Sokolowski has put it, a form of moral annihilation, culminating in a level of rage that crosses a threshold. Here we adopt Sartre’s analysis (...) of the “threshold of violence” as indicating a basic “existential” possibility wherein persons may and do adopt a posture of anti-god. This has considerable symmetry with the mythic and theological figure in the Abrahamic religions who is called “Lucifer.” This personage, at a unique timeless moment, found himself empowered to assume the right to exercise an infinite will-act which tolerated no superior normative perspective. I argue that this mythic stance is a live option for persons. Further, modern day nation-state military preparedness, where nuclear weaponry is a major tool of foreign policy, is a way of putting on ice and holding in reserve, but button ready, the onto-logical madness of the Luciferian moment. (shrink)

This book is a rounded well-informed study of violence, especially from a hermeneutical and social-studies perspective. It is relevant to peace studies. It raises key issues about the phenomenology of the person, of violence, of the foundations of ethics. Although it tends to skirt normative phenomenological, eidetic as well as moral issues they are always insistently on the edge of the rich discussions philosophical-hermeneutical issues and contemporary writings on these matters.

Reflection is the basic attitude of transcendental phenomenology. However, as we shall see in this essay, prereflective experiencing may make a unique claim for philosophical foundations - albeit a claim which can only occur when mediated by reflection.

Both the sociological as well as biblical-theological concepts of secularism may make use of the phenomenological discussions of implicit horizonal knowledge as informing explicit forms of knowing. If secularism may mean the erosion of faith by way of appropriation of fundamental beliefs about oneself or the world, the deep secularism may mean an appropriation of beliefs which make faith itself appear reprehensible. But perhaps the deepest form of secularism is the existence of scientific, reductionist naturalism; this may take the forms (...) eliminativism or of identity theory. This ‘secularism’ is such that it makes knowing itself impossible. Its basic move is to reduce the transcendental conditions of the manifestation, description, or display of the world to physical causes. Its most startling thesis is that first-person experience itself is an illusion and this illusion is the source of the major lies and beliefs that are most harmful for the culture, e.g. religious faith and belief in immortality. Unfortunately for deep secularism, as scientistic reductionistic materialist naturalism, it self-destructs. (shrink)

The dialogue between Blondel and Husserl carried on by Maréchal and Duméry and other thinkers has been silent for almost fifty years. Yet Husserl's Nachlass provides reasons for deepening the dialogue, especially in the area of the basic Blondelian themes: the willing-will and the teleological and religious nature of consciousness. Nevertheless there are intriguing differences in their respective philosophical theologies.

The works of Dieter Henrich and Manfred Frank argue that consciousness is fundamentally a self-awareness antecedent to reflection. This essay picks up the suggestion that consciousness itself is a field or medium of manifestation. As such it is a “metafact,” the anonymity of which transcendental philosophy seeks to overcome. This is required because the “facts” of the light of the mind and the intelligibility of what the mind discloses elude philosophical investigation as long as the anonymity reigns. Clarifying self-consciousness illuminates (...) what essentially must elude normal categorial and predicative investigation which presuppose the light of the mind and intelligibility. The seemingly esoteric issue of the discovery of the primacy of the pre- or non-reflective self-presence at the foundation of first-person reference may be said to found metaphysics in so far as this requires evidence for the inseparability of being from manifestation. (shrink)

Defending the ancient thesis, that being and the true, or being and manifestation, are necessarily inseparable, is at the heart of transcendental phenomenology. The transcendental “reduction” disengages the basic “natural” naïve doxastic belief which permits the world to appear as essentially indifferent to the agency of manifestation. The massive work of transcendental phenomenology is showing the agency of manifestation of “absolute consciousness.” Yet the foundations of this agency of manifestation are pervaded by issues which, when addressed, reveal that the question (...) of a “second absolute” is basic and opens Husserlian phenomenology to metaphysical questions. This has to do not merely with the teleology of the agency of manifestation, i.e., the “whither” of the teleology of presencing, but also, in some sense, with the constituting “whence” of the transcendental I. Husserl argues for the teleology of truth pointing to both a divine subject as well as a divine entelechy. (shrink)

Here is a philosophical examination of some themes presented by Milan Kundera in The Art of the Novel, as well as in his novels Immortality and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The discussions of the first-personal perspectives of the novel’s author, both as appearing in and as contrasted with that of a character in the novel, as these unfold in implicit subtle comic, social-political contexts, prescind from these contexts and dwell instead on fictional renditions of the senses of personhood and (...) its individuality especially as embodied in the face and as implied in relations of love. Of special interest is Kundera’s thesis that the irreplaceable uniqueness of the individual is one of Europe’s finest illusions. (shrink)

The ancient theme of the metaphysical-theological extremes of being-human is revisited by asking about the condition for the readiness to engage in the form of violence which is nuclear war. Sartre’s analysis of the extreme form of anger which crosses a threshold resulting in a self-legitimating righteous indignation which admits of no superior mollifying standpoint is appropriated to account for the complacency with the institution of nuclear weapons. The god-like anti-God characteristics of extreme rage are put on ice but ready (...) to be thawed quickly in the three-quarter of a century old disposition to destroy the world in which all life that we know is lived. The parallels with the myth of Lucifer invite themselves. This raises the question of what there is in being-human which is the condition for the possibility of such Luciferian impulses. Features of being human explicated by Husserlian transcendental phenomenology serve as lures to the unique form of pride that here is called Luciferian. Here it is argued that these features can also be lures to a sense of pride, analogous to the ancient magnanimitas, as developed by Aquinas. (shrink)

Reference to persons with personal pronouns raises the issue of the primary referent and its nature. “I” does not refer to a property or cluster of properties. This contrasts with our identifying grasp of persons. A person is a radical singularity and thus stands in contrast to a kind or sortal term. The individuation of persons is not adequately grasped by “definite descriptions” or “eidetic singularities.” In spite of the seeming possibility of persons being wholly identical in terms of properties, (...) in other words, “doubles,” the core referent of reference to persons is not to what is individuated merely by mere numerical differences or spatial-temporal, and essential-eidetic determinations. Rather we have to do with a “non-sortal unique essence.” What “I” refers to is a self-individuating substance. This raises questions for the proper referent of “love.” What is it that love intends or loves if persons are basically radical singularities. What does one love and why does one love if whom one loves is most essentially non-sortal? The question of the ontological status of persons requires integrating the status of being transcendental I’s, and thus being non-temporal, non-spatial, non-sortal, simple substances and thus not homogenous with the experienced world. (shrink)

I can be aware of myself and refer to myself without it being necessary to think of any third-personal characteristics; indeed one may be aware of oneself without having to be aware of anything except oneself. This consideration raises issues in phenomenological ontology of identity, individuation, and substance.

This anthology applies phenomenological concepts and methods to issues of philosophical theology and philosophical theology and philosophy: the being and nature of God, and the divine modes of relatedness to nature, to society, and to the self. Essays in Phenomenological Theology contains previously unpublished papers by Iso Kern, J. N. Findlay, Charles Courtney, Thomas Prufer, Robert Williams, James Hart, Steven Laycock, and James Buchanan. It is the first volume to assemble an entire spectrum of phenomenological-theological ideas, including (...) those of neo-Platonic meditation, phenomenological neo-Thomism, Hegelian phenomenological dialectics, Husserlian transcendental reflection, and post-modern deconstructive iconoclasm. The book will be useful to philosophers and theologians seeking an enriched understanding of the rapidly-burgeoning discipline of phenomenological theology, and promises unexpected insights even to seasoned phenomenologists seeking to expand their horizons. (shrink)

Although a key aspect of the phenomenological movement is its contribution to value theory and value perception, there has been relatively little attention paid to these themes. This volume in part makes up for this lacuna by being the first anthology on value-theory in the phenomenological movement. It indicates the scope of the issues by discussing, e.g., the distinctive acts of valuing, openness to value, the objectivity of values, the summation and combination of values, the deconstruction of values, the value (...) of absence, and the value of nature. It also contains discussions of most of the major representative figures not only in their own right but also in relationship to one another: Von Ehrenfels, Brentano, Scheler, Hartmann, Husserl, Heidegger, Schutz, and Derrida. (shrink)

Nam-In Lee’s impressive study of “instinct” in Husserl1 gives a new sense to Husserl’s self-description of his work as a preoccupation with beginnings (see p. x) because it seeks not only to integrate the theme of instinct systematically into Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology but to demonstrate that it has a fundamental position. I believe the author has successfully demonstrated his contention that other students of Husserl who have treated the theme of instinct as a marginal consideration failed to see that Husserl’s (...) genetic phenomenology requires the theory of instinct as its fundamental ingredient (Urstück, 10). The theme of instinct therefore informs the sense of Husserl’s later understanding of transcendental subjectivity and monadology. The book is so packed with discussions that the inevitable omissions of a review run the risk of distorting the merits of the work. (shrink)

Steinbock, Anthony J. Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience . Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10743-009-9056-8 Authors James G. Hart, Indiana University Department of Religious Studies Sycamore Hall 230 Bloomington IN 47405-7005 USA Journal Husserl Studies Online ISSN 1572-8501 Print ISSN 0167-9848 Journal Volume Volume 25 Journal Issue Volume 25, Number 2.

In this rich little volume, Roderick Chisholm gives us a taste of the rich tapestry of Brentano's thought. Besides being an original analysis, which the reader expects from this thinker, this work is a contribution to Brentano scholarship.