Most students of philosophy, at one time or another, have worked through Descartes' Meditations and witnessed this reduction of the world to the res cogitans and consequent attempt to recover the real, or extra-mental, world through proofs for God's existence and divine veracity. Whatever our final assessment of the validity and soundness of these proofs may be, there can be no doubt that the judgment of history is that they fail, leaving Descartes' conception of the self forever confined to the (...) horizons of thought. Without the proofs for God's existence, Descartes becomes an idealist. Indeed, Kant labels him a "problematic idealist" for whom "there is only one empirical assertion that is indubitably certain, namely that 'I am'" (Critique of Pure Reason B274), suggesting that, as far as Kant is concerned, Descartes' attempt to prove the real existence of anything outside of his mind, including God, does not work. And Schopenhauer, just before claiming that "true philosophy must at all costs be idealistic," praises Descartes for finding the "only correct starting point ... of all philosophy" (World as Will and Representation II, 4). Husserl is so taken by this starting point that he will title one of his introductions to pure phenomenology, Cartesian Meditations, thus inviting his reader to repeat Descartes' Meditations, this time, without the proofs for God's existence and divine veracity. Due to the tradition in which he has been passed down to us, Descartes may be called not only the "father of modern philosophy," but also "the grandfather of transcendental phenomenology." Oddly enough, evidence for this claim is seen in the fact that, at least within contemporary continental circles, Heidegger's reworking of the Husserlian project gets conceived (wrongly, I think) as a simultaneous reworking of the Cartesian project.. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to analyze the way in which Edith Stein describes the human subject throughout her research, including her phenomenological phaseand the period of her Christian philosophy. In order to do this, I trace essential moments in Husserl’s philosophy, showing both Stein’s reliance upon Husserl andher originality. Both thinkers believe that an analysis of the human being can be carried out by examining consciousness and its lived experiences. Through suchan examination Stein arrives at the same conclusion (...) as Husserl, namely, that the human subject is formed of body, psyche, and spirit (Geist). Stein’s originalityconsists in a further development of the complexity of the human being. She maps this out, providing detailed analyses of the I, the soul, the spirit, and, ultimately,the person. She makes use of medieval philosophical anthropology, including that of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. (shrink)

Interpretation of the development of merleau-ponty's attitude toward phenomenological reflection. first, ``the phenomenology of perception'' is shown to be a critique of the transcendental idealism of husserl's works prior to the ``crisis''. second, ``the visible and the invisible'' is shown to be an imminent critique of the ``lifeworld phenomenology'' of the ``crisis'' and of ``the phenomenology of perception'', leading to the view that phenomenological reflection, like reflective philosophy in general, must be superseded by a new approach which would articulate our (...) truly immediate relation with the world. (shrink)

The majority of Polish phenomenologists never found Husserl’s transcendental idealism attractive. In this paper I investigate the source of this rather surprising realist attitude. True enough the founder of Polish phenomenology was Roman Ingarden - one of the most severe critics of Husserl’s transcendental idealism, so it is initially tempting to reduce the whole issue to this sociological fact. However, I argue that there must be something more about Ingarden’s intellectual background that immunized him against Husserl’s transcendental argumentation, and that (...) the same background made his students so sympathetic to his “naive” realism. My claim is thatthis “something” is Ingarden’s realist concept of truth that he learned (at least partially) from Tarski as opposed to Husserl’s epistemic construal that he took from Brentano. (shrink)

Ontology is doubtless the most important part of Roman Ingarden’s (1893-1970) philosophy. Contrary to Husserl, Ingarden always believed that any serious philosophical investigation must involve an ontological basis and he tried to formulate a solid ontological framework for his philosophy. There are several reasons why this ontology deserves our attention. For those who are interested in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, Ingarden’s ontology could be treated as an ingenious attempt to analyse the conceptual structure and hidden ontological assumptions of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. (...) For those who want to understand the immanent dialectics of the post-Brentanian development of the ontology of intentionality, Ingarden’s conception of the purely intentional object could be a very valuable tool. But Ingarden’s ontology has also independent value, and hence it is also interesting for those who pursue ontology for its own sake. In this paper, I will investigate the basic scheme of Ingarden’s ontology, including pure qualities, individual real objects, purely intentional objects and ideas. This schema will prove to be in many aspects generated by his phenomenological, i.e. descriptive and anti-reductionist, ideology. (shrink)

While phenomenologists have contributed to an understanding of the empirical origin and historical development of meaning and thought, they have, until recently, paid relatively little attention to significant problems surrounding meaning transmission, that is to say, problems in the process of education. Notably absent in phenomenological investigations has been the development of a fully thought-out phenomenology of education.’ While this task remains to be completed, it has certainly been well, if unexpectedly, begun. Surprisingly, many of the themes developed in Dewey’s (...) Experience and Nature parallel those of Husserl in The Crisis of European Sciences. These themes, spelled out below, appear as well in Dewey’s Democracy and Education. It is not our intention to rediscover Dewey as a closet phenomenologist. Instead, we hope to show how Dewey’s writings lend themselves to phenomenological understanding and reinterpretation....Our approach will be to compare Dewey and Husserl with regard to a number of shared themes that play a prominent role in their respective philosophies. Themes to be compared include: (1) the “life-world” or what Dewey calls everyday or existential experience: (2) the meaning “horizon”; (3) the origin of thought (or reflection) in everyday experience. One observation that will emerge in the course of our comparison is that Dewey frequently tends to go beyond Husserl in his departure from several key tenets currently popular in Anglo-American philosophy. (shrink)

This paper problematizes the analogy that Hubert Dreyfus has presented between phenomenology and cognitive science. It argues that Dreyfus presents Merleau-Ponty''s modification of Husserl''s phenomenology in a misleading way. He ignores the idea of philosophy as a radical interrogation and self-responsibility that stems from Husserl''s work and recurs in Merleau-Ponty''s Phenomenology of Perception. The paper focuses on Merleau-Ponty''s understanding of the phenomenological reduction. It shows that his critical idea was not to restrict the scope of Husserl''s reductions but to study (...) the conditions of possibility for the thetic acts. Merleau-Ponty argued, following Husserl''s texts, that the thetic acts rest on the basis of primordial pre-thetic experience. This layer of experience cannot, by its nature, be explicated or clarified, but it can be questioned and unveiled. This is the recurrent task of phenomenological philosophy, as Merleau-Ponty understands it. (shrink)

Plato’s allegory of the cave tells of the soul’s advance from ignorance to knowledge, leaving open the question of what this knowledge is and what its objects are. Heidegger’s 1947 analysis of the allegory is of course just one of many. However, as I argue in this paper, if we read that analysis in the context of Husserlian phenomenology, we find a remarkable congruence between the latter’s process of “eidetic reduction” and the ascent out of the cave. In §1, I (...) lay out the phenomenological concepts relevant to my interpretation of Heidegger’s text. In §2, I apply these to the allegory itself. In §3, I examine Heidegger’s critique of eidetic “truth” in the allegory, arguing that it equally applies to Husserl’s phenomenology. My paper shows both the utility and limits of a “phenomenological” approach toreading Plato’s theory of forms. (shrink)

The main aim of the paper is paraphrasing Heidegger's category of being in the theoretic framework of Fregean phenomenological semantics. The choice of Fregean phenomenological semantics as the tool of the paraphrase is justified by the fact that philosophy articulated in Sein und Zeit may be interpreted as the modification of Husserl's project of phenomenology which is treated, in turn, as generalisation of Frege's theory of sense and nominatum. So in the paper it is defended that Heidegger's category of being (...) stems from Frege's considerations devoted to basic semantic questions. In the first chapter there are specified in existentialistic language ten principles clarifying the notion of being. In the second part the principles are paraphrased in the phenomenological theory of noema (this category is understood in spirit of the so called Californian interpretation). This move allows us to show how the conception of being is the modification of Frege's and Husserl's semantics. In the last chapters there is reconstructed Heidegger's model of acts of reference. The formal tool of the reconstruction is Leśniewski's formal language (enriched by Ajdukiewicz) with indexes designating ways of existence and referential backgrounds. (shrink)

Historiography of science faces a preliminary question of strategy. A continuist conception of the history of science poses research problems different from those of a dynamic conception, which acknowledges that not only our theoretical knowledge but also the explananda themselves may change under the influence of new scientific insights. Whereas continuist historiography may advance our understanding of (the historical background of) current theoretical problems, dynamic historiography may also make a creative contribution to the progress of present-day research. This f act (...) is illustrated in a discussion of the various treatments of paradigmatic episodes in the history of philosophical psychology collected in the book under review, ranging from Socratic and Platonic sources of cognitivism, through medieval and modem views on mental language, representation and consciousness, to such 20th-century contributions as those of Husserl, Titchener, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Scheler subjects Husserl’s categorial intuition to a critique, which calls into question the very methodological procedure of phenomenology. Scheler’s divergence from Husserl with respect to whether sensory or categorial contents furnish the foundation of the act of intuition leads into a more significant divergence with respect to whether phenomenology should, primarily, be considered a form of science to which a specific methodology applies. Philosophical methods, according to Scheler, must presuppose, and not distract from, important preconditions of knowledge that pertain more (...) to the philosopher than to logical procedure. Accordingly, the phenomenological attitude serves as a foundation for, and is not the result of, the phenomenological method. (shrink)

Comparatively recent scholarship suggests that George Berkeley cannot be seen solely or even chiefly as a British empiricist who is reacting to the materialistic implications of Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding. C.J. McCracken has shown how Berkeley is influenced by Malebranche’s theses concerning the dependence of bodies on God, without himself doubting the evidence of the senses. McCracken also shows how Berkeley reconstructs and reapplies Malebranche’s fideism.1 Harry Bracken has argued, most notably, that Berkeley espouses certain theses that set him (...) out as an Irish Cartesian. Like Descartes, he takes the challenge of scepticism with regard to sense-experience seriously. He sees experience in general as made up of perceivers and the perceived, with the latter being ontologically dependent on minds. Minds are active and creative substances. They cannot be understood in materialist terms, and are in fact immaterial and immortal. The ultimate mind is God’s, and the divine intellect is responsible for the totality of ideas and notions in their existence, content and structure.2 In this essay I want to suggest, following my title, that Berkeley can also be regarded as a proto-phenomenologist. The term phenomenology will be understood chiefly, though not exclusively, in terms of the approach of Edmund Husserl. It has been argued in at least one study that Husserl’s transcendental philosophy is proximate to Berkeley’s supposed subjective idealism, for all of Husserl’s protestations to the contrary.3 A parallel is only drawn between the two at Berkeley’s expense. What I hope to show, by contrast, are the positive ways in which he anticipates ideas propounded by Husserl and other phenomenologists. In so doing I do not wish to fall into a hasty assimilation of the more recent thinkers to the earlier one, for there remain serious differences between them, most notably in the tasks they set themselves. (shrink)

While Hermann Lotze's philosophy was widely received all over the world, his views on abstraction and Platonic ideas are of particular interest because they were to a large extent adopted by one of the most eminent philosophers of the twentieth century, namely Edmund Husserl. In this paper these views are examined in three distinct aspects. The first of these aspects is to be found in Lotze's thesis that there is a mental process, prior to abstraction, whereby "first universals" are apprehended. (...) The second one lies in his view that there is yet a higher level of apprehension, as found in the process of abstraction itself. According to Lotze, abstraction is not to be identified with the mere removal of particular features, but rather the replacement of these with first universals, resulting in "general images" and ultimately concepts. In addition to Lotze's analysis of the cognition of universals, there is finally a third thesis (an ontological one) which is examined in this paper, namely that the universals are Platonic Ideas in the sense that they have "validity" (Geltung) independently of their corresponding particulars and also of the mind which grasps them. The three claims in question are examined here in detail. Also, an attempt is made to point out some of the connections between Lotze and Husserl on the topic under discussion. (shrink)

L’article passe en revue les références à Augustin dans l’œuvre de Husserl. Deux axes plus importants y sont dégagés : d’abord les célèbres réflexions sur le temps des Confessions, ensuite l’anti-scepticisme et la similitude entre les cogito augustinien et cartésien.

The article analyses the psychological aspects of “phantasy presentation” in Brentano’s lecture Ausgewählte Fragen aus Psychologie und Ästhetik dated 1885/1886. It focuses primarily on two major aspects of Brentano’s work: (1) the traditional understanding of phantasy presentation as intuitive presentation, and as fundamentally related to the perceptual presentation; (2) Brentano’s conception according to which phantasy presentations are “concepts with intuitive nucleus”. In this context, the text focuses on the following topics: the relation between the inauthentic presentations of the phantasy and (...) perceptual presentations; the relation between presentations with attributive unity and surrogate presentations in logic; and the relation between the intuitive and conceptual element in the constitution of phantasy presentations. The study argues that, despite the title of the lecture—Ausgewählte Fragen aus Psychologie und Ästhetik—Brentano’s analysis of phantasy presentation does not refer to the aesthetic function, but to the psychological function of this presentation. Furthermore, it argues that the psychological aspect of phantasy presentation represents one of the main aspects of Brentano’s work, subsequently used by Husserl in his studies to underline the differences between the perceptual and phantasy presentation. (shrink)

The translation of Being and time is in different ways connected with the understanding of Heidegger’s hermeneutical destruction of the basic philosophic concepts. The translator of Being and Time is further faced with complex theoretical questions, such as the relation between Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology. The article aims to recognize the importance of Husserl’s phenomenological investigations for the genesis of several central concepts in Being in Time.

The notion of empathy has more recently seen a considerable revival—notably (first) in connection with Quine's empathy model of radical interpretation, in contrast to which Davidson has developed his triangulation model, and (secondly) in the context of the debate between simulation theory vs. theory theory about propositional attitude ascription. So far, these debates have been carried on fairly independently of each other. This paper is an attempt to utilize the interpretation-theoretical discussion in order to argue for a moderate version of (...) simulation theory. To this end, Davidson's explanation of the radical interpretation scenario in terms of triangulation is reconstructed by comparison to some relevant ideas of Husserl's. (shrink)

The Snark is an intentional object. I examine the general philosophical characteristics of thoughts of objects from the perspective of Husserl's, hyle, noesis, and noema and show how this meets constraints of opacity, normativity, and possible existence as generated by a sensitive theory of intentionality. Husserl introduces terms which indicate the normative features of intentional content and attempts to forge a direct relationship between the norms he generates and the actual world object which a thought intends. I then attempt to (...) relate Husserl's account to Fregean insights about the sense and reference of a term. Neither Husserl nor Frege suggest plausible routes to a naturalistic account of intentionality and I turn to Wittgenstein to provide a naturalistic reading of the crucial terms involved in the analysis of intentional content. His account is normative in a way required by both Husserl and Frege and yet manages a kind of Aristotelian naturalism which avoids crude biologism. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl was one of the very first to experience the direct impact of challenging problems in set theory and his phenomenology first began to take shape while he was struggling to solve such problems. Here I study three difficulties associated with Frege's use of sets that Husserl explicitly addressed: reference to non-existent, impossible, imaginary objects; the introduction of extensions; and 'Russell's paradox'.I do so within the context of Husserl's struggle to overcome the shortcomings of set theory and to develop (...) his own theory of manifolds. I define certain issues involved and discuss how Husserl's theory of manifolds might confront them. In so doing I hope to help bring Husserl's theories about sets and manifolds out of the realm of abstract theorizing and prompt further exploration of uncharted philosophical territory rich in philosophical implications. (shrink)

Although Frege was eager to theoretically eliminate the judging subject from logic and mathematics, his system is permeated with notions that refer to subjective mental processes, such as grasping a thought, assuming, judging, and value. His semantic system depends on such notions, but since Frege in general shuns explaining them, his central conception of judgment and truth remains dark. In this paper it is proposed to fill out the gaps in Frege's explanations with the help of Husserl's phenomenological descriptions, especially (...) those of the sixth Logical Investigation. This leads to a comparison between Frege's notion of judgment and Husserl's "Evidenz", and finally also to a phenomenological classification of Frege's remarks on truth. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle never pursued research under Edmund Husserl. However, Ryle was indeed Husserl’s student in a broader sense, as much of his own work was deeply influenced by his studies of Husserl’s pre-World War I writings. While Ryle is the thinker whose name typically comes to mind in connection with the concern over category mistakes I argue that (1) Husserl deserves to be known for precisely this concern as well, and (2) the similarity between them is no accident. Developing this (...) reading of Ryle’s Husserlian pedigree forces a broader reevaluation of each of their roles in twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

This article discusses Jaakko Hintikka's interpretation of the aims and method of Husserl's phenomenology. I argue that Hintikka misrepresents Husserl's phenomenology on certain crucial points. More specifically, Hintikka misconstrues Husserl's notion of "immediate experience" and consequently fails to grasp the functions of the central methodological tools known as the "epoché" and the "phenomenological reduction." The result is that the conception of phenomenology he attributes to Husserl is very far from realizing the philosophical potential of Husserl's position. Hence if we want (...) a fruitful rapprochement between analytical philosophy and Continental phenomenology of the kind that is Hintikka's ultimate aim, then Hintikka's account of Husserl needs correcting on a number of crucial points. (shrink)

The transcendental aesthetic -- Arithmetic and the categories -- Remarks on pure natural science -- Two studies in the reception of Kant's philosophy of arithmetic: postscript to part I -- Some remarks on Frege's conception of extension -- Postscript to essay 5 -- Frege's correspondence: postscript to essay 6 -- Brentano on judgment and truth -- Husserl and the linguistic turn.

Sowohl in seiner Habilitationsschrift Das Wesen der Wahrheit nach der modernen Logik (1910) als auch in Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (1918) setzt Moritz Schhck sich kritisch mit der Phänomenologie Husserls auseinander. Im Zentrum der Kritik steht neben dem Anschauungsbegriff die Hypostasierung der logischen Bedeutungen. Es läßt sich zeigen, daß die Auseinandersetzung mit Husserl eine wesentliche Rolle in der Herausbildung der lingualistischen Bedeutungstheorie Schlicks spielt.

There is a Wittgensteinian use of "phenomenology" which is the grammar of the apriori possibility of facts, in contradistinction to an hermeneutical conception of language in the spirit of German phenomenology. Not only does Wittgenstein refer, as early as 1929, to such a "language" as opposed to a Husserlian "doctrine" of intuiting the phenomenal apriori, but he keeps using the term in a positive manner which does not allow us to declare that from the Tractatus to the early thirties Wittgenstein (...) shifted from a kind of ineffabilist phenomenalism to physicalism. Rather the author of the Philosophical Remarks aims at freeing "phenomenology" from the earlier assumption of an atomistic basis providing a "primary language". Yet, Wittgenstein says in the same period that there is and there is not any confrontation with the given. Two ways of speaking about the connection between language and reality according to what is to be understood by "verifying" a sentence make Wittgenstein remain the same from one conception to the other. (shrink)

Phenomenology and analytic philosophy were born out of the same historical problem—the growing crisis about how to characterize the proper methods and role of philosophy, given the increasing success and separation of the natural sciences. A common 18th and 19th century solution that reached its height with John Stuart Mill’s psychologism was to hold that the while natural science was concerned with “external, physical phenomena”, philosophy (along with math and logic) was concerned with “internal, mental phenomena”, and thus proceeded by (...) turning our observational gaze inward at the mind, rather than outward towards the world (Ryle 1971, 366). Both Husserlian phenomenology and early analytic philosophy grew from dissatisfaction with psychologism, and figures from both traditions developed relentless criticisms of psychologism, beginning with Brentano and G.E. Moore[i] and reaching its peak with Frege and Husserl. (shrink)

In his recent book The Stream of Consciousness, Dainton provides what must surely count as one of the most comprehensive discussions of time-consciousness in analytical philosophy. In the course of doing so, he also challenges Husserl's classical account in a number of ways. In the following contribution, I will compare Dainton's and Husserl's respective accounts. Such a comparison will not only make it evident why an analysis of time-consciousness is so important, but will also provide a neat opportunity to appraise (...) the contemporary relevance of Husserl's analysis. How does it measure up against one of the more recent analytical accounts? (shrink)

Eine vollständige Darstellung von Edmund Husserls Verhältnis zu Gottlob Frege steht noch aus, so dass es nicht verwundert, einige Missverständnisse, dieses Verhältnis betreffend, im Umlauf zu finden. Selbst scheinbar längst überwundene systematische Dogmen tauchen wieder auf, so z.B. die Auffassung, dass Husserl nicht nur entscheidend von Gottlob Frege beeinflusst wurde, sondern darüber hinaus auch seine schärfste Frege-Kritik 1891 zurückgenommen habe. Mein Beitrag enthält eine überwiegend historisch vorgehende Entgegnung auf solche fälschlich vertretenen Ansichten wie sie sich auch in dem neu erschienenen (...) und mit vielen dokumentarischen Belegen versehenen Frege-Kommentarbuch von W. Künne finden. Die wichtigsten Argumente, die in diesem Buch gegen Husserl gerichtet werden, stützen sich auf Stellen in Husserls Frühwerk, die zwar sehr aufschlussreich für die Beurteilung des philosophischen und menschlichen Habitus Husserls in den 1890er Jahre sind, nicht aber Künnes Thesen stützen oder gar beweisen können. Die als zurückgenommene Frege-Kritik verstandene Selbstkritik Husserls betrifft jedoch nach meinen Darlegungen gerade nicht die Kritik, die er an Freges Buch Grundlagen der Arithmetik geübt hatte, sondern seine eigene systematische Stellungnahme hinsichtlich der Begründung der Arithmetik. Ausgehend von dieser Einsicht werde ich auf ein wichtiges Spezifikum von Husserls Erstlingswerk ( Philosophie der Arithmetik ) aufmerksam machen, das voreiligen Interpretationen einen Riegel vorschiebt: Dieses Buch ist ein Mosaik aus Einsichten verschiedener Arbeits- und Denkperioden des Verfassers, die sich vor allem auch in dem zweifachen Begriff der Äquivalenz zeigen. Dies knüpft an einen langen geschichtlichen Entwicklungsprozess an, der in eine von Bolzano, Lotze, Brentano und Carl Stumpf geprägte Tradition zurückführt und das Problem der Unterscheidung zwischen Sinn und Gegenstand eines Aktes betrifft. (shrink)

This paper examines Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy of time in light of his critique and reconceptualization of Edmund Husserl’s early time-analyses. Drawing on The Visible and the Invisible and lecture courses, I elaborate Merleau-Ponty’s re-reading of Husserl’s time-analyses through the lens of Rudolf Bernet’s “Einleitung” to this work. My question is twofold: what becomes of the central Husserlian concepts of present and retention in Merleau-Ponty’s later work, and how do Husserl’s elisions, especially of the problem of forgetting, become generative moments (...) for Merleau-Ponty’s thought on time? The answer passes through the logic of institution as the “retrograde movement of the true” (Henri Bergson) and through unconsciousness as disarticulation of the perceptual field, as Merleau-Ponty attempts to detach Husserlian concepts from the philosophy of consciousness and rehabilitate them within an ontology of time. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to reconstruct Patočka’s effort to give a faithful account of the phenomena, without betraying these phenomena with an objectivistic theory of perception. Only by remaining close to the things themselves will we be able to understand them as an appeal, as a call, while understanding ourselves as a response to this call. On the basis of this “ontological rehabilitation of the sensible”, which reveals Patočka’s affinity with Merleau-Ponty as much as his departure from Husserl, (...) I will criticize the idealism of Husserlian phenomenology and reconsider the a priori of correlation in a different fashion. World and subject will then find a different articulation, grounded in the ontological couple of movement and feeling. The analysis will consist of three parts: in the first part I will introduce the problematic of the opposition between phenomenological and physical space; the second part will deal with the notion of movement; the third part will concentrate on Patočka’s new account of subjectivity, the a-subjective cogito, arising precisely from the fundamental coupling of κίνησις and πάθος. Embodiment, qua original phenomenon, will be constantly present in the background of this analysis. (shrink)

This essay studies the unfolding of Levinas' concept of transcendence from 1935 to his 1984 talk entitled "Transcendence and Intelligibility." I discuss how Levinas frames transcendence in light of enjoyment, shame, and nausea in his youthful project of a counter-ontology to Heidegger's Being and Time. In Levinas' essay, transcendence is the human urge to get out of being. I show the ways in which Levinas' early ontology is conditioned by historical circumstances, but I argue that its primary aim is formal (...) and phenomenological; it adumbrates formal structures of human existence. Levinas' 1940s ontology accentuates the dualism in being, between what amount to a light and a dark principle. This shift in emphasis ushers in a new focus for transcendence, which is now both sensuous and temporal, thanks to the promise of fecundity. Totality and Infinity (1961) pursues a similar onto-logic, while shifting the locus of transcendence to a non-sexuate other. The final great work, Otherwise than Being or beyond Essence (1974) offers a hermeneutic phenomenology of transcendence-in-immanence. It rethinks Husserl's focus on the transcendence of intentionality and its condition of possibility in the passive synthesis of complex temporality. If the 1974 strategy 'burrows beneath' the classical phenomenological syntheses, it also incorporates unsuspected influences from French psychology and phenomenology. This allows Levinas to develop a philosophical conception of transcendence that is neither Husserl's intentionality nor Heidegger's temporal ecstases, in what amounts to an original contribution to a phenomenology both hermeneutic and descriptive. (shrink)

In his paper on transcendental intersubjectivity in Husserl, which refers mainly to the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Schutz (1966a) marks out four stages in Husserl's argument and finds what are for him insurmountable problems in each stage. These stages are: (1) isolation of the primordial world of one's peculiar ownness by means of a further epoche; (2) apperception of the other via pairing; (3) constitution of objective, intersubjective Nature; (4) constitution of higher forms of community. Because of the problems Schutz encounters (...) in each of these stages, he concludes that Husserl's theory is unacceptable (Schutz, 1966a, p.82). Having already proved that it is unacceptable, he now explains why these problems arise in Husserl's theory. Intersubjectivity, says Schutz, is "a datum of the life-world," (1966a, p.82) not a transcendental problem. In other words, intersubjectivity must be dealt with as a problem of the life-world of the natural attitude, not a "problem of constitution which can be solved within the transcendental sphere." (Schutz, 1966a, p.82). There is no such thing as transcendental intersubjectivity, if by that is meant intersubjectivity of a plurality of transcendental egos. The role of transcendental phenomenology in the problem of intersubjectivity is to explicate within the transcendental reduction the sense: "intersubjectivity in the life-world." Husserl was diverted from this proper role of phenomenology--in his words, to "explicate the sense which this world has for us prior to all philosophy" (trans. and quoted by Schutz from "Cartesianische Meditationen, para. 62, in fine," in Schutz, 1966a, p.82)--because of the unobtrusive transformation of sense of his concept of constitution from that of explication and clarification to "creation," in the sense of providing an ontology of the lifeworld. The fact that phenomenology is in principle incapable of doing this lies behind the failure of Husserl's theory of intersubjectivity (Schutz, 1966a, pp.83-84). Unlike Schutz, I will deal with this general issue explicitly in the context of the stages in Husserl's argument and Schutz's objections. It seems to me that Husserl does remain within the sphere of clarification of sense, but to do explication and clarification of certain "senses" results inevitably in doing a kind of ontology. (shrink)