Husserl and Continental Philosophers, Misc

[Heidegger’s account of the rise of mathematical natural science in confrontation with Husserl’s conception of mathematisation in “Krisis”].

The suffering of nonhuman animals has become a noted factor in deciding public policy and legislative change. Yet, despite this growing concern, skepticism toward such suffering is still surprisingly common. This paper analyzes the merits of the skeptical approach, both in its moderate and extreme forms. In the first part it is claimed that the type of criterion for verification concerning the mental states of other animals posed by skepticism is overly (and, in the case of extreme skepticism, illogically) demanding. (...) Resting on Wittgenstein and Husserl, it is argued that skepticism relies on a misguided epistemology and, thus, that key questions posed by it face the risk of absurdity. In the second part of the paper it is suggested that, instead of skepticism, empathy together with intersubjectivity be adopted. Edith Stein’s take on empathy, along with contemporary findings, are explored, and the claim is made that it is only via these two methods of understanding that the suffering of nonhuman animals can be perceived. (shrink)

Linguistic mood is a grammatical term as well as a morphological category of the verb. Due to its often philosophical implications it is challenging to find a definition or a common understanding of the notion; it has been proven historically and linguistically difficult to analyze. In this essay I aim to cast new light upon and interpret the concept of mood in extended, philosophical manners. The argument of the essay is that the traditional approach to the notion is done in (...) ways that omit fundamental aspects of it, as well as puts it into a framework that tries to explain it in ways through which it cannot fully be explained. Thus the thesis is that there is more to the notion than what meets the eye. The idea is to find this through the work of phenomenologists. Alongside a linguistic use, the word mood [Modus/mode] is also being used in philosophy, most notably within a phenomenological discourse. Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty all use the word. By going through a close-reading of the concept, I argue for the proximity between the linguistic and the phenomenological adaption of mood and show how they are ontologically related; the objective is to suggest that there is more common ground between them than the mere name. By concentrating on this term I want to further examine in what way a phenomenological understanding of language can challenge an overly narrow, one-dimensional understanding, which I see as a fault shared by the linguists. (shrink)

Prispevek raziskuje specifično funkcijo, ki jo mlademu Heideggru mora izpolnjevati hermenevtika faktičnega življenja. Najprej sledimo tistim avtorjem, ki so po Heideggrovem mnenju vzeli resno fenomen življenja. Nato opisujemo metodološko problematiko, ki vsebuje konkretni dostop do orginarne življenjske sfere. Nato preidemo na poglavitne razlike med Husserlovo refleksivno fenomenologijo in Heideggrovo hermenevtično fenomenologijo. Na koncu pokažemo nalogo formalno-naznačujoče hermenevtike s katerim je tesno povezana pojmovna artikulacijo poglavitni ontoloških struktur človeške tubiti.The present article tackles the specific function that the young Heidegger assigns a (...) hermeneutic of factical life. First I remember those authors that in Heidegger’s opinion have undertook seriously the phenomenon of life. Than I analyze the methodological problem of an appropriate access to the original sphere of live. In this point we can establish the basic differences between Husserl’s reflexive phenomenology and Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology. And finally I show how Heidegger understands hermeneutics as a conceptual articulation of the ontological structures of human being. (shrink)

Los trabajos reunidos en este volumen pertenecen a pensadoras y pensadores de varios países, todos ellos a su vez conocedores profundos tanto de la obra de Husserl como de la de los representantes máximos del movimiento fenomenológico -Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty. De lo sartículos hemos elegido seis para nuestro trabajo de presentación crítica.

This dissertation deals with Merleau-Ponty's critical transformation of Husserl's phenomenology through a rethinking of the concept of "nature," which Husserl, Merleau-Ponty argues, fails to integrate or explain successfully in his philosophical system. The first chapter reconstructs Husserl's "transcendental-phenomenological" project in Ideas I, while the second widens the investigation to cover the ontologically-centered Ideas II and III. In my third chapter, I chart what I call Merleau-Ponty's "organic appropriation" of Husserl and the unique hermeneutical challenges it poses. Here the ambiguity of (...) Ideas II, which both grounds subjectivity in the lived body and separates nature from "spirit", plays a crucial role. The fourth chapter concentrates on the Merleau-Ponty's later meditations on the ontology of nature and subjectivity, particularly in his recently translated Nature lectures of 1959-61. Finally, the fifth chapter compares and contrasts Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, in terms of both substance and method, through a detailed examination of their different notions of "paradox." I show how Merleau-Ponty's "paradoxical" thinking stems not from chance or mere temperament but a fundamental, systematic commitment to the self-contradictory nature of being and truth themselves. (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)

The paper contends that abstraction lies at the core of the philosophical and methodological rupture that occurred between Husserl and his mentor Franz Brentano. To accomplish this, it explores the notion of abstraction at work in these two thinkers’ methodological discussions through their respective claims regarding the structure of consciousness, and shows that how Husserl and Brentano analyze the structure of consciousness conditions and strictly delineates the nature and reach of their methods of inquiry. The paper pays close attention to (...) intentionality, founding (Fundierung), and qualitative modification (qualitative Modifikation) understood as principles of consciousness. While intentionality has been the topic of numerous discussions surrounding these two thinkers’ work, founding and qualitative modification have slipped under the radar despite the fact that they hold—as I intend to show—the key to shedding new light on their respective methods of inquiry. More specifically, the paper explicates the ways in which Brentano’s notion of founding (understood as a relationship between whole acts) and his failure to identify radical-qualitative modification as a principle of consciousness preclude him from offering a successful model for philosophical universalizing thought. It is my hope to show that Husserl’s rethinking of founding as a relationship between certain structural moments of acts along with his novel notion of qualitative modification ground his attempt to carve a new method of philosophical inquiry—albeit jejune and ambiguous at the time of the Investigations, yet nevertheless able to successfully negotiate the problems faced by his predecessor. (shrink)

In order to clarify the relationship among phenomenology, ontology and metaphysics I analyze Husserl’s and Thomas Aquinas’ influence on Edith Stein’s inquiry. One can discover that she succeeds in establishing a link between the phenomenological essential description of reality and the metaphysical one, particularly regarding the problem of ontology and the research on the human being, giving at last her personal and original contribution to these philosophical questions.

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)

In the study of the soul between psychology and phenomenology in Edith Stein works it becomes clearer that it is only phenomenology that really comes to gripswith the question of psychic causality by correlating the two moments and it is therefore only phenomenology that can respond to Hume’s objections while yetremaining on his selfsame terrain. It is very important to distinguish between psychology and phenomenology and also to clarify the relationship between psyche and consciousness; there is thus reproposed the distinction (...) already made by Husserl, who stressed that when one sets out to look for the causes that determine psychic life, they must not be sought in life feelings (Lebensgefühle) but rather in the „modes” of a life force (Lebenskraft) that is announced in them. All this is indicated here within limits because psychology in itself is undoubtedly not a science of the spirit, though the psychic states, on the other hand, will not be validly understood unless and until one arrives, as is demonstrated in the essay under consideration, at the motivation and therefore the spiritual sphere. We would say that our body is animated by a psyche and further enlivened by the spirit. (shrink)

Coupling the method of close textual analysis with a sensitivity to historical development and context, I explore "Speech and Phenomena," an important early essay in which Jacques Derrida confronts the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. After giving background exegesis on the methods, key concepts, and theories of language of each writer, I explore what Derrida has said about the strategy and techniques of deconstruction. From his remarks, I generate four approaches to reading deconstructive texts, each richer than the last, and each (...) having its own protocols and success-criteria. In addition to the more traditional, 'logocentric' reading as philosophy, deconstructions may be read as literary, therapeutic, skeptical, and transformational. The third approach emerges less from Derrida's own reflections and more from more from my interest in showing his continuity with the Western philosophical tradition. ;Pivotal to the argument in "Speech and Phenomena" is the Derridean deconstruction of internal time-consciousness. Derrida attempts to demonstrate that Husserl's view of time explicitly rules out but tacitly requires a temporality of the after-event, which constantly announces but defers any achievement of phenomenological presence. With this 'indicative' temporality as his tool of incision, Derrida collapses the system of distinctions by which Husserl opens the space of phenomenological enquiry. ;A careful study of the development of Husserl's thought reveals that Derrida's reading of The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness is overly static, that it addresses no theory of time-consciousness that Husserl ever held, and that it proceeds by ambiguity, conflation, and equivocation. I argue that, while it fails as philosophical argument, it succeeds as rhetorical critique. Further, it succeeds as skeptical juxtaposition, but ultimately fails to provide a transformational reading, and, therefore, itself becomes a metaphysics of absence. (shrink)

usserl, besides Dilthey and Heidegger, is one of the most important philosophers who had big influence on Gadamer and is the philosopher who is frequently referred to in his works. Gadamer’s encounter with Husserl, in spite of his greatness in the eyes of Gadamer, was always a hermeneutical one. Considering and criticizing Husselr’s phenomenology, Gadamer tries to discover his unspoken thoughts. Few scholars have even considered Gadamer and Husserl’s relationships, which among them much more are people who tried to trace (...) the influence of Husserl in Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. Instead, here, we will reveal and highlight the Gadamer’s critical views of the key concepts of Husserl's phenomenology such as subjectivity, pure perception, intersubjectivity, transcendental ego, and alter ego. We believe Gadamer practically remained loyal to his hermeneutical approach. Instead of just repeating the thoughts, he goes behind them and opens new horizons. (shrink)

For Virginia Woolf, the task of the novelist was to convey the nature of consciousness by recording the "atoms as they fall upon the mind." Her fascination with the workings of the mind itself and her belief that writing was a transcription of existence makes her work accessible to a phenomenological investigation. Using Edmund Husserl's doctrine of intentionality, which presupposes an intentional structure of consciousness as a link to the world, and Henri Bergson's notion of consciousness as duration where phases (...) of time interpenetrate, an exploration of Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and Between the Acts is provided. Both philosophers see the self as relational, as coming to be in the flow of mental time, and Woolf's depiction in character representation presents the self as a stream of temporal relations: past, present, and future. ;Since it is argued that time constitutes self in Woolf's work, Bergson and Georges Poulet offer crucial insight into the role of memory and imagination in moments of consciousness for her characters, particularly in moments of being. Woolf's moment of being, a convergence of past and present emotions and perceptions, creates the experience of eternity, and Karl Jaspers' thought provides philosophical grounding for this experience. Poulet augments the discussion by furnishing an understanding for the self-coherence achieved in the midst of the flux of consciousness. ;Borrowing from Paul Ricoeur, analysis is made of the tension between inner time consciousness and objective time. It is noted that the achievement of selfhood entails the integration of these two times, and using the concept of intersubjectivity developed by Schutz and Gurwitsch, further conditions for selfhood are presented. In each novel different character/selves embody either inner time or objective time. Connected by the narrator, these oppositions and their mutuality form one of the many patterns of coexisting contraries: intuition and fact, near and far, art and life, land and sea. ;Finally, this text argues that narrative is an essential feature of human reality and that unification of the self in phenomenological understanding and in Woolf's characters occurs in the telling of the self's story. The characters tell and listen to their own stories in order to withstand and overcome mutability. Orchestrating these individual tellings is the central mind who makes a pattern of these tales of time, indicating with the author, the complex nature of reality. In Between the Acts, this telling of stories culminates in a communal narrative. Woolf abandons the "I" for the "we," the individual moment of being for one of human communion, the self for community, and individual story for communal and historical narrative. (shrink)

O autor reexamina a crítica de Derrida à fenomenologia de Husserl de forma a mostrar como a sua coerência estrutural emerge não tanto de uma redução a uma doutrina particular, mas antes das exigências de uma concepção unitária, especificamente impostas pelas determinações epistemológicas e metafísicas da presença. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Desconstrução. Derrida. Fenomenologia. Husserl. Presença. Significado. ABSTRACT – The author reexamines Derrida’s critique of Husserl’s phenomenology, so as to show how its structural coherency arises not so much from the reduction to (...) a particular doctrine, but rather from the demands of a unitary conception, specifically from the demands imposed by the epistemological and metaphysical determinations of presence. KEY WORDS – Deconstruction. Derrida. Husserl. Meaning. Phenomenology. Presence. (shrink)

A simplistic image of twentieth century French philosophy sees Merleau-Ponty’s death in 1961 as the line that divides two irreconcilable moments in its history: existentialism and phenomenology, on the one hand, and structuralism on the other. The structuralist generation claimed to recapture the dimension of objectivity and impersonality, which the previous generation was supposedly incapable of. As a matter of fact, in 1962, Derrida’s edition of Husserl’s The Origin of Geometry was taken to be a turning point that announced the (...) structuralist revolution by introducing a reflection on the historicity and the materiality of impersonal idealities. And yet, the 1998 publication of Merleau-Ponty’s notes from his Collège de France lecture course on the same topic make manifest that he was already taking phenomenology in another direction. His 1959 reading of The Origin of Geometry shows how unexpectedly close the early Derrida is to the late Merleau-Ponty. By identifying the tension between archaeology and teleology as the basic problem of Husserlian phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida each disclose the fundamental importance of history and of writing. Comparing the two readings in their specific context not only brings about a more complex picture of the intellectual debates of the time, but also shows how, with Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of The Origin of Geometry, Derrida’s “différance” predates itself and receives another genealogy. (shrink)

A história intelectual do século XX tem sido escrita ao longo de um cenário que vê, na morte de Merleau-Ponty em 1961, a linha de divisória entre uma geração existencial e fenomenológica e o evento do estruturalismo imediatamente subsequente. A publicação das notas de leitura de Merleau-Ponty sobre o texto A origem da geometria, de Edmund Husserl, tem mostrado quão frágeis são os alicerces desta leitura simplificadora. Na verdade, enquanto a tradução e introdução de Derrida ao texto de Husserl, de (...) 1962, tornavam-se um texto fundamentador para a geração estruturalista, introduzindo uma reflexão sobre a historicidade e a materialidade da idealidade, foi apenas em 1998, com a publicação das notas da conferência de Merleau-Ponty no Collège de France, em 1959, sobre o mesmo tópico, que se tornou claro quão próximo está o primeiro Derrida do último Merleau-Ponty. Assim como Derrida, Merleau-Ponty identificou, na tensão husserliana entre arqueologia e teleologia, o problema básico da fenomenologia, introduzindo a questão da história e a do meio de transmissão cultural. Comparar tais leituras em seu contexto específico não apenas permite um retrato mais complexo dos debates intelectuais da época, mas também mostra como, com a interpretação de Merleau-Ponty sobre A origem da geometria, a "diferença" de Derrida antecede-se e admite outra genealogia.Idealidade. História. Mediador. Escritura. Origem. Diferença.The intellectual history of the 20th century has been written along a scenario which sees in Merleau-Ponty’s death in 1961 the partition line between an existential and phenomenological generation and the immediately subsequent event of structuralism. The publication of Merleau-Pontys lecture notes on Edmund Husserl’s Origin of geometry has shown how shaky the grounds of such a simplifying reading are. Indeed, while Derrida’s translation of and introduction to Husserl’s text from 1962 became a founding text for the structuralist generation, introducing a reflection about the historicity and the materiality of ideality, it was only in 1998, with the publication of Merleau-Ponty’s notes from the Collège de France lecture in 1959 on the same topic, that it became clear how close the early Derrida is to the late Merleau-Ponty. Just as Derrida, Merleau-Ponty had identified in Husserl’s tension between archaeology and teleology the basic problem of phenomenology, introducing the question of history and that of media of cultural transmission. Comparing both readings in their specific context not only brings about a more complex picture of the intellectual debates of the time, but also shows how, with Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of the Origin of geometry, Derrida’s “différance” predates itself and receives another genealogy.Ideality. History. Medium. Writing. Origin. Difference. (shrink)

This essay outlines the transformation of the ostensibly mundane example of two hands touching each other in Husserl’s Ideas II into the pivotal concept in Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of flesh and notion of embodied subjectivity. By focusing on the contexts in which the example appears in the works of Husserl and of Merleau-Ponty, it seeks to explicate Merleau-Ponty’s fascination with Husserl’s example, its role in the development of his own thought and in the conceptual shift in his late works on the (...) body. I explore the various stages in the metamorphosis of Husserl’s example of touching hands, originally used merely to differentiate the sense of touch from that of sight, into Merleau-Ponty’s radical concept of flesh that overturns “our idea of the thing and the world, and... results in an ontological rehabilitation of the sensible.”. (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)

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)

Corporeality and Being-in-the-world are concepts which belong to the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, respectively. Both concepts are indicative of the ontological priority of the spiritual world over the natural world. The principal issue to be dealt with in my investigation, therefore, is transcendental subjectivity and its conception of the body. My point of departure is Husserl's critique of naturalism and historicism in philosophy. Therein I begin with a presupposition of the natural attitude of these sciences; namely, that (...) the body, conceived as a material, physical object, is the vital nexus between consciousness and the world. From this naive supposition the investigation moves progressively through the analysis of corporeality as an organ of spirit and a manifestation of transcendental subjectivity to the primordial ground of this subjectivity in Dasein's Being-in-the-world. ;For Husserl there is in every act of consciousness an element that is irreducible to nature. In his assessment of the naturalistic tendency he demonstrates that spiritual/psychical phenomena cannot simply be reduced to mere epiphenomena of physical or material nature. On the contrary, nature is a correlate of consciousness and the natural world can have its meaning as existing reality only as the intentional meaning-product of transcendental subjectivity. Husserl therefore distinguishes a transcendental sphere from the merely psychological sphere of the natural and human sciences. ;In the transcendental sphere transcendental consciousness cannot be divorced from the idea of corporeality. The body which Husserl calls aesthesiological and an organ of spirit is a body in which an always abiding transcendental ego dwells. Here Husserl carries out Kant's Copernican Revolution and his intentional analysis of corporeality illuminates the manner of comportment of man's being alongside the world at the threshold of the lowest constitutive level of cognition in internal time-consciousness. A level Kant never reached. Corporeality, therefore, does not have its traditional connotation of a material entity existing within a presupposed spatial-temporal world matrix in accordance with the law of natural causality. ;The second part of my investigation examines Being-in-the-world as a possible manifestation of transcendental subjectivity. Intentionality only points to the priority of a transcendental subject over against its environment. It does not completely overcome the dichotomies of traditional philosophy. Intentionality has, however, a more primordial basis in a unified concept of Being which according to Heidegger is Dasein's Being-in-the-world. Being-in-the-world is the basis of transcendental subjectivity. This is indicated first through an examination of the intentional poles of Being-in-the-world--the Being of Dasein in its existential constitution and the Being of entities for Dasein. The clue to discovering the unified concept of Being which underlies intentionality is then shown to be the analysis of involvement. ;The second and primordial determinant that shows Dasein's Being-in-the-world to be the ground of transcendental subjectivity is its temporality. I have utilized Heidegger's critique of the three syntheses from Kant's Transcendental Deduction to demonstrate how for Heidegger the ontological priority of the spirit lies not in the intentional comportment of the transcendental subject but in the temporal way of Being of this subject. It is the ecstatic temporality of Dasein's understanding which makes possible the transcendence of Dasein; which transcendence, in turn, makes possible the intentional transcendences of the object and the subject as revealed in the temporality of involvement. ;In conclusion, upon the basis of a unified concept of Dasein's Being-in-the-world, the body as a material, physical entity in the natural attitude, is eclipsed. (shrink)

In the this article I try to show how an interaction between the phenomenological works of Enzo Paci and of Bernhard Waldenfels can lead to some interesting results concerning Husserl's search for a rigorous and apodictic ground for knowledge and for a universal science which involves the whole life of consciousness also in its intersubjective aspects. I do not try to compare the two thinkers, nor to assess the correctness of their interpretation of Husserl's thought, but to show through their (...) thoughts some remarks concerning problems which are still crucial in the philosophical and phenomenological debate. Paci's insistence on the practical and existential value of phenomenological reflection leads to constantly have to face the question “what is to be done?”, demanding in this way for an answering to the provocation of the Alien so well analysed by Waldenfels. Through such a process a common constitution does preserve from the lost of diversity and, at the same time, does not escape responsibility. (shrink)

En este documento, debato ampliamente sobre la fenomenología de la intersubjetividad presentada por Husserl y por Sartre, centrándome en los conceptos de empatía y ser-para-otros. Contrariamente a la opinión más común, rechazo la objeción de solipsista dirigida a Husserl y sostengo que es la descripción de Sartre la que da lugar a esa objeción, en la medida en que él describe la conciencia de otro sujeto como una forma de autoconocimiento como un "objeto" (para "otros"). Termino señalando algunas directrices para (...) convertir el análisis de Husserl de la aprehensión de otros sujetos en una fenomenología de la comunicación del más alto nivel. (shrink)

Michel Henry wishes to salvage Descartes?s first principle ?I think, I am? by claiming that there is no need to appeal to the world or others to make sense of the self. One of his main targets is Edmund Husserl, who claims that thought is necessarily intentional and thus necessarily about something that is other to thought. To show that this is not so, Henry draws on passages from Descartes?s texts which emphasize that we should not equate the cogito with (...) thinking but with sensation and imagination. This allows Henry to explore the notion that the self has its own form of manifestation. This paper questions Henry?s reading of Descartes and his critique of Husserl on two fronts. First, the passages Henry draws upon, if anything only confirm, rather than question Husserl?s claim that consciousness is intentional. Second, Henry believes that he can show that the life of the self is infinitely rich without having to appeal to other persons or, indeed, to the world. Yet, I wish to contend that Henry is mistaken: as Husserl has shown convincingly, a life without others and the world is not only impoverished and bereft of meaning, but remains entirely indeterminate. The self only manifests itself with respect to others and the world. (shrink)

It is a study of the phenomenological philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger. Through a critical discussion including practically all previously published English and German literature on the subject, the aim is to present a thorough and evenhanded account of the relation between the two. The book provides a detailed presentation of their respective projects and methods, and examines several of their key phenomenological analyses, centering on the phenomenon of being-in-the-world. It offers new perspectives on Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, e.g. concerning (...) the importance of Husserl's phenomenology of the body, the relationship between the Husserlian concept of "constitution" and Heidegger's notion of "transcendence", as well as in its argument that "being" designates the central phenomenon for both phenomenologists. Though the study sacrifices nothing in terms of argumentative rigor or interpretative detail, it is written in such a way as to be accessible and rewarding to non-specialists and specialists alike. (shrink)

The World Unclaimed argues that Heidegger's critique of modern epistemology in Being and Time is seriously flawed.

Il saggio muove da una ricostruzione storico-concettuale dell’interpretazione merleau-pontyana del manoscritto di Husserl Rovesciamento della dottrina copernicana nell’interpretazione della corrente visione del mondo, con cui Merleau-Ponty è in dialogo sin dalla Fenomenologia della percezione, per ripercorrere gli sviluppi del tema della Terra nell’avanzare della riflessione merleau-pontyana sul corpo-proprio, sull’organismo vivente, sulla dimensione carnale dell’essere. La proposta di un ritorno alla Terra, intesa come Boden irriducibile dell’esperienza, trova infatti il suo risvolto ontologico nell’idea di Spielraum, che già Husserl definiva come “ambito (...) di possibilità”, e che in Merleau-Ponty assume il senso di un margine di gioco sempre aperto nella carne. Boden e Spielraum, non a caso tematizzati da Merleau-Ponty in due corsi paralleli tenuti al Collège de France nell’anno 1959-1960, permettono una rivalutazione del vivente secondo un modello che, contro il riduzionismo meccanicista, privilegi la spontaneità e la contingenza, e aprono allo sviluppo dell’ontologia porosa che il filosofo andrà proponendo negli ultimi anni. Ricostruendo la funzione della riflessione sulla corporeità e sul rapporto del vivente al mondo-ambiente in questa maturazione, si argomenterà che la critica che Merleau-Ponty muove al dualismo empirismo-idealismo trovi nell’idea di Terra un momento chiave, che contribuisce ad orientarla in direzione di una filosofia della carne. Questo passaggio riconfigura la Natura stessa, pensata non già come un originario, ma in quanto ambito di possibilità processuale e transindividuale, come quel quasi-oggetto, come lo definiva, ancora, Husserl, che presenta un’irriducibile resistenza ad un pensiero di sorvolo, proprio in quanto è condizione del pensiero stesso e ancoraggio della vita tutta.This essay begins with a historico-conceptual reconstruction of the Merleau-Pontian interpretation of Husserl’s manuscript, “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature,” with which Merleau-Ponty is in dialogue from Phenomenology of Perception onward, and revisits the development of the theme of the Earth in the progression of Merleau-Ponty’s reflection on le corps propre, the living organism, and the carnal dimension of being. The proposal for a return to the Earth, taken as irreducible Boden of experience, indeed finds its ontological reverse side in the idea of Spielraum, which Husserl already defined as a “milieu of possibilities,” and which in Merleau-Ponty takes on the sense of a margin of play always open in the flesh. Boden and Spielraum, two notions that Merleau-Ponty does not thematize by chance in the two parallel courses given at the Collège de France over the years 1959-1960, enable a reassessment of the living being according to a model that, against mechanistic reductionism, privileges spontaneity and contingency, and opens to the development of the porous ontology that the philosopher would propose in his final years. Reconstructing the function of reflection on corporeality, and on the relationship of the living being with its milieu in the process, it will be argued that the criticism directed by Merleau-Ponty against the dualism of empiricism-idealism finds in the idea of the Earth a key moment that contributes to orienting him in the direction of a philosophy of the flesh. This passage reconfigures Nature itself, no longer conceived of as an originating, but as a milieu of processual and transindividual possibilities, like that quasi-object, as Husserl again defined it, that presents an irreducible resistance against high-altitude thinking, precisely as the condition of thought itself and the anchorage of all life.Cet essai commence avec une reconstruction historico-conceptuelle de l’interprétation merleau-pontienne du manuscrit de Husserl, Renversement de la doctrine copernicienne, avec lequel Merleau-Ponty est en dialogue depuis la Phénoménologie de la perception, et revisite les développement du thème de la Terre dans la progression de la réflexion merleau-pontienne sur le corps propre, sur l’organisme vivant, sur la dimension charnelle de l’être. La proposition d’un retour à la Terre, prise comme Boden irréductible de l’expérience, trouve en effet son envers ontologique dans l’idée de Spielraum, que Husserl déjà définissait comme « milieu de possibilités » et qui chez Merleau-Ponty prend le sens d’une marge de jeu toujours ouverte dans la chair. Boden et Spielraum, deux notions que Merleau-Ponty ne thématise pas par hasard dans les deux cours parallèles donnés au Collège de France au cours de l’année 1959-1960, permettent une réévaluation du vivant selon un modèle qui, contre le réductionnisme mécaniste, privilégie la spontanéité et la contingence, et ouvrent au développement de l’ontologie poreuse que le philosophe allait proposer dans les dernières années. Reconstruisant la fonction de la réflexion sur la corporéité et sur le rapport du vivant avec son milieu dans ce processus, on argumentera que la critique dirigée par Merleau-Ponty contre le dualisme empirisme-idéalisme trouve dans l’idée de la Terre un moment clé qui contribue à l’orienter en direction d’une philosophie de la chair. Ce passage reconfigure la Nature elle-même, pensée non pas déjà comme un originaire, mais en tant que milieu de possibilités processuelles et transindividuelles, en tant que quasi-objet, comme le définissait, encore, Husserl qui offrait une résistance irréductible contre une pensée de survol, précisément en tant que condition de la pensée elle-même et ancrage de toute la vie. (shrink)

This dissertation evaluates the contributions of Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein, and Emmanuel Levinas to a phenomenological description of empathy. Einfuhlung was introduced by Husserl in terms of analogical apperception and intersubjective transcendental constitution . ;Max Scheler described empathy in contrasting terms, noting the primary givenness of the emotions over cognition, which Husserl had stressed. In 1916, Edith Stein wrote On the Problem of Empathy, in which she retained Husserl's analogical model but modified it with Scheler's notion of the person as (...) ordor amoris. Co-emphasizing its ethical and epistemological importance, Stein's "reciprocal model" describes the constitution of the person in emotional experiences. She modified Husserl's model of transcendental monadology with Scheler's account that others are given prior to individuation. Edith Stein served as Husserl's assistant from 1916--1918 and edited his notes on intersubjectivity and social constitution theory. Her description of the relation between individual and community is developed in Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, published in Husserl's 1922 Jahrbuch. ;Martin Heidegger rejected Husserl's description of empathy in Being and Time. Arguing that the "They" [ das Man] is always already given in fallen Dasein's everydayness, Heidegger laid the groundwork for a more radical exposition of the Other than Husserl's cognitive and analogical analysis would allow, one that reduced empathy to a derivative or founded status. Emmanuel Levinas argues that Husserl's "arrow of intentionality" is not simply founded but in need of reversal. Whether the Other is constituted through analogical apperception or co-constituted in an emotive relationship , the result manifests an economy of sameness in terms of the ego-origin of constitution. As a foreign signification, the face speaks and commands me to respond. The infinite alterity of the wholly Other is the origin of ethics. ;Jacques Derrida notes that only a transcendental symmetry in the order of knowledge makes possible ethical asymmetry. Derrida's notion of "empathic antipathy" is similar to Edith Stein's notion of "solidarity," in that the genuinely moral significance of empathy lies in its other-directedness. The analogical imagination, of extreme importance to St. Thomas Aquinas, is thus vindicated by the phenomenology of empathy. (shrink)

This analysis of Herbert Marcuse’s appropriation of the argument concerning the “mathematization of nature” in Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology shows that Marcuse and Husserl both assume that the perception of real, concrete individuals in the lifeworld underlies formal scientific abstractions and that the critique of the latter requires a return to such qualitative perception. In contrast, I argue that no such return is possible and that real, concrete individuals are constituted by the relation between (...) a given perception and its horizon. In this manner, Marcuse’s social critique can be combined with Husserl’s theoretical-perceptual one, making possible an ecological critique. L’analyse de l’appropriation que fait Herbert Marcuse de l’argument concernant la « mathématisation de la nature » dans la Crise des sciences europe ennes et la phénoménologie transcendantale de Husserl démontre que Marcuse et Husserl assument tous les deux que la perception des individus réels concrets dans le monde de la vie sous-tend les abstractions scientifiques formelles et que la critique de ces dernières nécessite un retour à la perception qualificative. J’avance au contraire qu’un tel retour n’est pas possible et que les individus réels concrets sont constitués par la relation entre une perception donnée et son horizon. Nous pouvons alors combiner la critique sociale de Marcuse avec la critique théorico-perceptuelle de Husserl pour en faire une critique égologique. (shrink)

Scholarly discussions of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics tend to focus on his philosophy of painting. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to his philosophy of literature. However, he also draws significant conclusions from his work on literary expression. As I will argue, these reflections inform at least two important positions of his later thought. First, Merleau-Ponty’s account of “indirect” literary language led him to develop a hybrid view of phenomenological expression, on which expression is both creative and descriptive. Second, a (...) study of literature furnished him with the resources to develop a novel account of phenomenological “essences”, which holds that essences are revisable explanations of first-order experience. Both results have been overlooked by commentators. They demonstrate the systematic import of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of literature and language, and amount to a qualified extension of a basic Husserlian position. (shrink)

Since Husserl, the task of developing an account of intentionality and constitution has been central to the phenomenological enterprise. Some of Merleau-Ponty's descriptions of ‘the flesh’ suggest that he gives up on this task, or, more strongly, that the flesh is in principle incompatible with intentionality or constitution. I show that these remarks, as in Merleau-Ponty's earlier writings, refer to the classical, early Husserlian interpretations of these concepts, and argue that the concept of the flesh can plausibly be understood to (...) advance a refined account of intentionality and constitution. Instead of a first-personal, unidirectional act or embodied motor project, intentionality is a latent openness to things, where the roles of subject and object are reversible. Whereas the view of constitution as meaning-bestowal is untenable, the flesh has a constitutive role, which is supported by a ‘constitutional passivity’ from the subject. On this reading, Merleau-Ponty's later work aims to develop basic tenets of his earlier thought, albeit at a critical distance, an attempt he thought was continuous with the central problems that Husserl claimed a phenomenological philosophy must grapple with, even if Merleau-Ponty's answers to these problems are not Husserl's. (shrink)

Within the Husserlian phenomenological philosophical tradition, description and interpretation co-exist. However, teaching the practice of phenomenological psychological research requires careful articulation of the differences between a descriptive and an interpretive relationship to what is provided by qualitative data. If as researchers we neglect the epistemological foundations of our work or avoid working through difficult methodological issues, then our work invites dismissal as inadequate science, undermining the effort to strongly establish psychology along qualitative lines. The first article in this two-part discussion (...) provides a Husserlian investigation of the meaning of ‘method’ for psychology as a human science. This investigation is undertaken in the light of some researchers’ appropriations of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in the service of non-methodical praxes. The second article will address some implications of the attempt to structure qualitative psychological research along ‘Gadamerian’ lines, taking seriously the references to Gadamer’s work made by researchers such as Van Manen and Smith. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 11, Edition 1 May 2011, 69-85. (shrink)

Uno de los fenomenólogos de la nueva generación que sigue la línea de Husserl, Heidegger, Marion y Lévinas es Richard Kearney. Este filósofo irlandés, católico, propone una cuarta reducción fenomenológica, esto es, volver al eschaton enraizado en la existencia cotidiana: encontrar la voz y el rostro de lo más alto en lo más bajo. Es como la realización de aquella idea heideggeriana de que “Sólo aquello del mundo que es de poca monta llegará alguna vez a ser cosa.” . En (...) el lenguaje cotidiano, en la vida diaria, se encuentra una posibilidad de superar el escepticismo, la indiferencia y el hastío del mundo vuelto consumo y del hombre convertido en pieza del mercado. En el encuentro cara a cara se da la posibilidad de una revelación que hace de la relación con el otro, y especialmente con el extranjero, un maravillarse y nos implemente una duda, una sospecha y una desconfianza. (shrink)

Este trabajo constituye una presentación de la obra de Heidegger "Prolegómenos para una historia del concepto de tiempo", cuya traducción realicé y que ha sido publicada por la editorial Alianza. Los Prolegómenos constituyen el paso de la fenomenología husserliana a la fenomenología ontológica y un antecedente de Ser y tiempo. Se trata del paso a una fenomenolog{ia basada en la cuestión del ser, lo cual realiza Heidegger en estas lecciones mediante una apropiación de los tres descubrimientos para él fundamentales de (...) la fenomenología, a saber: 1) la intencionalidad, 2) la intuición categorial, 3) el a priori. This paper is a presentation of Heidegger's Prolegomena tu the history of the concept of time, whose translation, published by Alianza publishing house, is of my authorship. The Prolegomena constitutes the passage from Husserl's phenomenology to ontological phenomenology, preceding Being and time. It is de passage to a phenomenology based on the issue of being, which Heidegger, in the lessons, carries out by means of an appropiation of the three -to him- essential discoveries of phenomenology; namely, intentionality, categorical intuituion and a priori. (shrink)

Moritz Geiger developed an original phenomenological account of the splitting of the Ego in two papers, written in 1911 and 1913. Husserl read the 1911 paper as he was working on preliminary manuscripts to Ideas I. The first part of Husserl’s comments focused precisely on the splitting of the Ego. In this paper I will answer three questions: What is the historical-philosophical context of Geiger’s and Husserl’s discussion on the splitting of the ego? What are the phenomenological features of the (...) splitting of the ego? What is the relevance of Geiger’s account of the splitting of the ego, for the further development of Husserl’s phenomenology? Reading Geiger was, indeed, the first occasion in which Husserl started to develop his own phenomenological account of the splitting of the ego. This will prove itself to be crucial for his mature analyses on the phenomenological reduction, as Husserl will distinguish more clearly between reflection and splitting of the ego. (shrink)

The theory of intentionality is the most important core of the theoretical inheritance of E. Husserl’s phenomenology. Starting from this awareness, Levinas carries out a deep research within the phenomenology in order to see whether «intentionality exhausts modalities in which the thought is meaningful». This paper will try to show how the French-Lituan philosopher, going over the genetic phenomenology research which comes to a precategorial issue, can point out the «pre-intentional», or better the «non-intentional», the original «passivity» of conscience which (...) is not the negation of subjectivity, but instead the possibility of «giving» of transcendency. This «would not be a missed immanency», but would have in sociality – responsibility of the neighbour – the own spiritual excellency, which is the perfection of God. (shrink)

This dissertation concerns the possibility of a viable foundational philosophy in the phenomenologies of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Since a phenomenological foundation is an irruption out of, and a reaction against, the inability of modern science and the philosophy which supplies its presuppositions, to provide an adequate foundation, a critical examination of science is a necessary moment in the formulation of the sense, and the justification for a phenomenological foundation. We characterize the rigorous science of phenomenology as the attempt to grasp (...) an apriori science which is neither a construction nor an abstraction. In the return "to the things themselves," Husserl identifies and dispels the theoretical biases of modernity. Of equal importance, is the necessity of grounding the primacy of phenomena over the theoretical abstraction called science. We also examine Husserl's analysis and critique of the historical western telos and its aberrational form in the modern interpretation. We argue that a foundational quest is necessary from a meta-ethical point of view. ;In order to amplify and corroborate the Husserlian thesis, the historical thesis of Hugh Kearney concerning the metaphysical genesis of science and the structural thesis of Thomas Kuhn concerning the paradigmatic style of science are promoted. The presuppositions of Cartesianism are then elaborated and their subsequent influence, especially manifest in the problems of experimental psychology, is highlighted. ;A second criticism is developed concerning the problematics in the Husserlian foundation itself. Through our own investigations and the criticisms of Merleau-Ponty, we demonstrate that the essential weakness involves the unwarranted bifurcation of Form and Matter within the doctrine of intentionality. This erroneous separation of these moments assumes the dualistic subject/object dichotomy as manifest in the foundation. This ontological partitioning is overcome by Merleau-Ponty through uncovering the pre-conscious constitution of bodily intentionality. The lived-body is neither consciousness nor thing, but is the transcendental foundation prior to the consciousness versus thing conceptual abstraction. Finally, we demonstrate the importance of Merleau-Ponty's gestural theory of language in order to promote the most viable foundational philosophy of our time, the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Going back to the early texts of Merleau-Ponty, and in discussion with Husserls Ideas II, I argue that besides the fundamental theme of reversibility in Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invhible, there is another reversibility at work: an interior selfexperience of the body. I call it interoception. This interoception is structuralisticallydeveloped as a diacritical play in the fields of sensations, and is the basis of an interpretation of the notion of the flesh as a field of diacritical possibilities. These theses (...) enable us (i) to understand the common structure of speech and perception, (ii) to grasp the origin of the feeling some painters have, namely to be seen by nature, (iii) to throw light upon a concept of intersubjectivity which maintains the privilege of the subject. Finally (iv) the whole discussion determines Merleau-Ponty's place in the phenomenological discussion, widely separated from M. Henry, between Husserl and Sartre. (shrink)

Drawing upon Husserl and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological constitution of the Other through Einfülhung, I argue that the hierarchical distinction between higher and lower animals – which has been dismissed by Heidegger for being anthropocentric – must not be conceived as an objective distinction between “primitive” animals and “more evolved” ones, but rather corresponds to a phenomenological distinction between familiar and unfamiliar animals.