The article shows the affinity of Simmel's formal sociology with Husserl's notion of eidetic science. This thesis is demonstrated by the corroboration of Simmel's revision of neo-Kantian epistemology for sociology with Husserl's phenomenology, and the parallel discussion of Simmel and Husserl concerning cognitive levels and exact and morphological eide. Simmel's analysis of dyads is explored as an exemplar of his eidetic insights. An important consequence of this demonstration is the vindication establishing the scientific legitimacy of Simmel's methodology regarding the sociology (...) of the forms of association. Woven throughout is discussion concerning the doctrine of the complementarity of eidetic and empirical science. Simmel's methodology is shown to have been ahead of its time through conjoining these two modes of scientific investigation. (shrink)

A persistent criticism of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is that it begs the question of its own possibiIity as science. In this essay I propose a reading of Husserl which addresses this question and attempts to show that the phenomenological ideal of freedom from all presuppositions, that is, the ideal of radical methodological autonomy, is not dogmatically assumed as valid but rests on a conception of philosophy which, although not explicitly formulated by Husserl, nevertheless informs his thinking on questions of (...) method and, ultimately, the nature of science. According to this conception, phiIosophy, phenomenological or otherwise, is not sui generis the ground of is own possibiIity but is derived from the logic of experience itself and so is immanent to conscious, intentional life in all of its manifold occupations and interests. That is, experience ultimately fulfills itself not in the accumulation of objective facts but in its continued faithfulness to the idea of a more perfect knowledge. Thus, in the end, I hope to show that the question of the status and possibiIity of phenomenological philosophy is not of interest to phenomenologists alone but addresses the enterprise of philosophy itself. (shrink)

The title question should be construed as an epistemological and not ontological one. Omitting the difficult problems of the ontology of intentionality we will ask, if all, what is needed to explain the phenomenon of meaningful use of words, could be found “in our private head” interpreted as a sphere of specific privileged access, the sphere that is in the relevant epistemological sense subjective, private or non public. There are many “mentalistic” theories of meaning that force us to the answer: (...) “yes”. According to these theories our words are meaningful in virtue of some intentions of the speaker. And our intentions consist in having some mental states that should be in the relevant sense subjective or private. (Searle, Chisholm) But there are also the philosophers (Kripke, Putnam) who claim to have the evidence to the contrary. They argue that the meanings of our words could not be “in the head”, because of two important reasons. (i) Very often we don’t know exactly the meanings of the words that we use meaningfully. Furthermore, our “semantical self-knowledge” is principally corrigible by other people, and hence our access to the meanings we use could be by no means privileged. And secondly (ii) we can imagine a situation in which two subjects with the same mental intention use the same word with the very different meanings. We will investigate our question on the ground of the Ingarden’s philosophy. As we will see, his answer turns out to be in an interesting sense: “yes and no”. (shrink)

A blindfolded clairvoyant walks into a room and immediately knows how it is arranged. You walk in and immediately see how it is arranged. Though both of you represent the room as being arranged in the same way, you have different experiences. Your experience doesn’t just represent that the room is arranged a certain way; it also visually presents the very items in the room that make that representation true. Call the felt aspect of your experience made salient by this (...) contrast its presentational phenomenology. Many philosophers have observed that perceptual experiences have presentational phenomenology. In this paper I explore its nature, scope, and significance. I argue that in addition to perceptual experiences, presentational phenomenology can be found in intuitive, introspective, imaginative, and recollective experiences. I also argue that presentational phenomenology is epistemologically significant: it plays a central role in explaining why the experiences that have it justify beliefs and give us knowledge. (shrink)

John Henry Newman has rightly been hailed as a giant in the Catholic intellectual tradition. His contributions to theology, literature, and education have been studied at length; however, his contribution to philosophy has not received appropriate attention. This essay 1) explores Newman’s unique philosophical insights in terms of the phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl; 2) analyzes the transcendental approach of certain British scientists—notably Ronald Knox and Charles Darwin; and 3) discusses how Newman might be considered a phenomenologist.

So far as philosophizing is concerned with another's thoughts, it is criticizing. No true philosopher, as such, merely accepts or merely reproduces, another's thoughts. The true philosopher starts anew — independently, solitarily. But his understanding of the work done by others can make his own philosophizing surer and quicker. He must see for himself. But sometimes he can more easily avoid the pitfalls that others have discovered and marked. Thus, in the social history of philosophizing there can be not only (...) mere repetition and mere novelty, but also progress. Even the less able philosopher may improve on the results of a more able predecessor. (shrink)

This article locates Weyl''s philosophy of mathematics and its relationship to his philosophy of science within the epistemological and ontological framework of Husserl''s phenomenology as expressed in the Logical Investigations and Ideas. This interpretation permits a unified reading of Weyl''s scattered philosophical comments in The Continuum and Space-Time-Matter. But the article also indicates that Weyl employed Poincaré''s predicativist concerns to modify Husserl''s semantics and trim Husserl''s ontology. Using Poincaré''s razor to shave Husserl''s beard leads to limitations on the least upper (...) bound theorem in the foundations of analysis and Dirichlet''s principle in the foundations of physics. Finally, the article opens the possibility of reading Weyl as a systematic thinker, that he follows Husserl''s so-called transcendental turn in the Ideas. This permits an even more unified reading of Weyl''s scattered philosophical comments. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that popular entertainment can be understood in terms of Husserl’s concepts of epochē, reduction and constitution, and, conversely, that epochē, reduction and constitution can be explicated in terms of popular entertainment. To this end I use Husserl’s concepts to explicate and reflect upon the psychological and ethical effects of an exemplary instance of entertainment, the renowned Star Trek episode entitled “The Measure of a Man.” The importance of such an exercise is twofold: (1) to demonstrate, (...) once again, the fecundity of the methodological procedures Husserl bequeathed to us; more than any other philosopher, he tapped into the fundamental manners in which we lose, make and remake the meanings of our lives; and (2) to demonstrate how popular entertainment, similarly, plays a central role in the making and remaking of the meanings of our lives. If my zig-zag procedure between Husserl’s philosophy and popular entertainment is productive and cogent, in addition to elucidating Husserl’s philosophy, it will demonstrate the reality-generating potency and the constitutive power of entertainment in the contemporary world. Entertainment, via ourselves, has become the primary producer of the meanings via which consciousness constitutes the world. (shrink)

What better introduction to the world of philosophy than through the lives of its most prominent citizens. In The Philosophers, we are introduced to twenty-eight of the greatest thinkers in Western civilization, ranging from Aristotle and Plato to Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Sartre. An illustrious team of scholars takes us on a concise and illuminating tour of some of the most brilliant minds and enduring ideas in history. Here is Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Plato's cave of shadows, Schopenhauer's vision of reality as (...) blind, striving Will, Hegel's idea of the World Spirit, Bentham's principle of the Greatest Happiness, Mill's contributions to our understanding of liberty, William James's theory of the stream of consciousness, Husserl's phenomenology, and much more. Readers will find thoughtful discussions of everything from Kant's categorical imperative, to the Christian philosophies of Augustine, Aquinas, and Kierkegaard, to the materialism of Hobbes or Marx, to the modern--and quite different--philosophical systems of Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Each article is illustrated with a portrait of the philosopher, the contributors provide lists for further reading, and the volume includes a chronological table that gives valuable historical context. Here then is an authoritative and engaging guide to the ideas of the most notable philosophers, ranging from antiquity to the present day. The Philosophers shows how these great thinkers wrestled with the central problems of the human condition--with important questions of free will, morality, and the limits of logic and reason--as it illuminates their legacy for our time. (shrink)

Both Alexius Meinong and Edmund Husserl wrote about relations in their early works, in periods in which they were still influenced by Franz Brentano. However, besides the split between Brentano and Meinong, the latter also accused Husserl of plagiarism with respect to the theory of relations. Examining Meinong’s and Husserl’s early works and the Brentanist framework they were written in, we will try to assess their similarities and differences. As they shared other sources besides Brentano, we will consider very carefully (...) whether we should speak at all of influence or plagiarism. Despite Meinong’s accusations it seems that both he and Husserl took over some elements from Brentano and, partially through him, from John Stuart Mill, who appears to be the most probable source on relations. (shrink)

This essay argues that phenomenology is uniquely suited to critique naturalism without lapsing into a romantic, anti-scientific, or dystopian view of modern science. This argument situates Husserl’s retrieval of the environmental relation in the Vienna Lecture between two alternative tendencies in contemporary ecological phenomenology: 1) the rejection of or indifference to the positive sciences, and 2) the adoption of naturalism in phenomenological methodology. On the one hand, the claim is that the phenomenological return to the environment should not imply a (...) rejection of methodological naturalism. On the other hand, while an ecological phenomenology is consistent with naturalistic investigation, there is nevertheless a heterogeneity between the two. In short, phenomenology need not become naturalized in order for it to be ecological. (shrink)

In spite of their opposite methods, Fichte's deductive process and Husserl's reduction cope with the same challenge: they aim to explain how the sensible world is dependent on reflixivity. As perception is generally linked with natural existence, and pure passivity, the deepest significance of transcendental thought in those philosophies consists in equalizing phenomenon and reflexion. In the heart of bodily life, some spiritual theme has to be found. Fichte defines action as the quantification of freedom, and freedom is effectively achieved (...) in the sensible world. Human perception reveals freedom altogether in corporal movements as in the surrounding world (Umwelt). The Fichtean theory of acknowledgment assumes this goal. In the same way, Husserl's reduction explains how significance proceeds from the body (Leib). The Husserlian analysis of kinesthesis and the radical experience of the hand touching the other hand both introduce to the status of pre-reflection. However the complete resolution of the question is given by Fichte: Intelligibility may exist in the sensible world as the metaphysical concept of phenomenon (Erscheinung) in the last Fichtean philosophy expresses the idea of the Absolute pervading the sensible. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl gave his famous London Lectures (in German) in June 1922 where he says his purpose is to explain “transcendental sociological [intersubjective] phenomenology having reference to a manifest multiplicity of conscious subjects communicating with one another”. This effective definitionof semiotic phenomenology as Communicology was reported in English (1923) by Charles K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in the first book on the topic titled The Meaning of Meaning. This groundwork was in full development by 1939 with the first detailed (...) use of Husserl’s phenomenology to explicate human communication, i.e., the publication of Wilbur Marshal Urban’s Language and Reality. My paper addresses Urban’s use of Husserl’s philosophy toboth explicate the phenomenological method and to explore the constitutive elements of human communication and culture. Urban makes use of the workon language and culture by his famous colleagues at Yale University (USA): Edward Sapir (the linguist), Benjamin Lee Whorf (Sapir’s graduate student),and Ernst Cassirer. My own teacher at the University of New Mexico (USA) was Hubert Griggs Alexander, a doctoral student under Urban and a classmateof Whorf. The interdisciplinary focus on Culture and Communicology by Professors Cassirer, Sapir, Urban, and their doctoral students, Alexander and Whorf are collectively known as the “Yale School of Communicology.” Typical empirical examples of theoretical points are provided in the footnotes. (shrink)