Husserl and Continental Philosophers, Misc

According to some phenomenological accounts of intersubjectivity, self-awareness precedes and makes possible our understanding of others. Consequently, an "egological account of consciousness" is a precondition for a viable theory of intersubjectivity.1 While Edmund Husserl embraces this assumption of the primacy of self-awareness, Jan Patočka seems to elaborate the opposite stance. As Patočka puts it, in the "contact and in the mirror of the other we encounter ourselves, for the first time."2 Is self-awareness a precondition for an intersubjective encounter, or is (...) it the other way around? Husserl and Patočka seem to espouse exactly opposite claims.Nevertheless, the picture I draw here is more nuanced. On the one... (shrink)

Riassunto: La fenomenologia, in virtù del suo stesso nome, pare rivendicare un diritto di prelazione sui fenomeni. È sufficiente, tuttavia, uno sguardo panoramico sulla storia della filosofia o, più generalmente, delle scienze per rilevare il vasto impiego che si va affermando, senza fenomenologia, del concetto di fenomeno. In cosa consisterebbe allora la specificità della comprensione fenomenologica dei “fenomeni”? Per rispondere a questa domanda, riconsidereremo il dibattito tra Edmund Husserl autore delle Logische Untersuchungen e Paul Natorp, filosofo neokantiano di Marburgo, le (...) cui tesi presentano un duplice interesse: l’avere, per un verso, sollecitato lo stesso Husserl a una precisazione della proposta fenomenologica; l’aver, per l’altro, anticipato alcuni tra gli argomenti di maggior rilievo nell’ambito delle scienze cognitive in merito ai vari tentativi di naturalizzazione della coscienza. Parole chiave: Fenomeno; Intenzionalità; Oggetto; Edmund Husserl; Paul Natorp Phenomena With or Without Phenomenology. An Open Dialogue: Phenomenology, by its very name, seems to invoke a priority claim on the study of phenomena. Yet a glance at the history of philosophy or, more generally, the sciences, suffices to demonstrate how widely the concept of “phenomena” has been used outside phenomenology. So, what exactly is unique to the phenomenological understanding of phenomena? In order to formulate a possible answer, we reactivate the debate between the Husserl of the Logische Untersuchungen and Paul Natorp, a neo-Kantian philosopher from Marburg. This debate is of interest on two fronts: first, because Natorp’s criticism directly forced Husserl to clarify his views on phenomenology; second, because the debate anticipated some of the most important arguments on naturalizing consciousness in the cognitive sciences. Keywords: Phenomenon; Intentionality; Object; Edmund Husserl; Paul Natorp. (shrink)

Reinach est connu pour défendre une théorie a priori du droit civil. Cette position, qui se dit inspirée de Husserl, est usuellement qualifiée de « platonisme » dans la littérature secondaire. Elle se comprend comme intuition des essences, projet de phénoménologie eidétique que Reinach fait remonter à Platon. Une position qui est rejetée par Reinach en philosophie du droit est le « psychologisme », thèse tendant à expliquer le droit par référence à la psyché. L’hostilité de Reinach à l’égard du (...) psychologisme semble être une hostilité à l’égard de lui-même : en tant qu’élève de Lipps, Reinach avait écrit une thèse sur la notion de causalité en droit pénal, dans laquelle il faisait jouer à la psychologie un rôle fondateur pour le droit. Dans mon exposé, je retracerai l’évolution de Reinach sur ces questions, en repartant de sa thèse et des travaux de Lipps sur lesquels elle se base pour la comparer aux écrits reinachiens plus tardifs et leur rapport tant à Platon qu’à Husserl. (shrink)

This article compares the concept of the living body in Edmund Husserl’s Ideas II with that of the French phenomenologist Michel Henry. It locates in their descriptions of the I Can a basic difference in the way they understand the roles that impressionality, affectivity, and perception play in the phenomenological method. It then examines Henry’s concept of “auto-affection” and argues that the “strong” and “weak” senses of auto-affection must be understood in terms of what Henry, following Kierkegaard, calls the “dialectic (...) of pathos.” Henry finally distinguishes three degrees of passivity—of sensibility with regard to the world, of flesh with regard to itself, and of flesh with regard to incarnation. In the shift from the second to the third, we see a shift from a concept of givenness to a concept of “givenness from above.” It is here that the article locates the presence of a “transcendence” in Henry’s work, which in turn helps to clarify how he understands the boundary between phenomenology and theology. Keywords: phenomenology, transcendence, affectivity, body, flesh, givenness, Michel Henry, Edmund Husserl, incarnation, impressionality. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the possibility of reading the description of promise presented by Reinach in The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law under the light of Husserl’s Ideas I. In order to present my argument, first, I briefly present the phenomenological method proposed by Husserl in Ideas I highlighting eidetic reduction. Second, I present the Reinachian description of social acts emphasizing the act of promising. Third, and finally, I try to demonstrate that the Reinachian description of the social (...) act of promising is the description of a universal and necessary relation, a synthetic and a priori statement and corresponds to the idea of promise. (shrink)

I explore the critical significance of the phenomenological notion of intuition. I argue that there is no meaning that is originally formal-conceptual. The meanings of concepts function as symbolic approximations to original nonconceptual, intuitive givens. However, the meaning content originally intuitively given in lived experience has a tendency to be lost in pursuit of universalizability and communicability of conceptual content. Over time, conceptual approximations lose their reference to the experience that had given them their meaning in the first place. The (...) loss of an experiential reference makes for a vacuous set of concepts, giving way to ideologies, by which I mean the conscious prejudicial support for a set of ideas without the experiential, intuitive context that is necessary to see the value of those ideas. A critical phenomenology is a critique of ideological views by descriptively recovering the intuitive content whereby concepts can be adequately reevaluated. -/- This main aim of this work is to establish the methodological features of critical phenomenology by responding to the objections made against phenomenology and intuition by Frankfurt School critical theorists. Scheler’s phenomenology is used as a way forward due to his far-reaching critique of reason and emphasis on the phenomenological intuition of value. -/- Chapter 1 considers three Frankfurt School objections of Husserlian phenomenology, as (1) immanentist (Adorno), (2) idealist (Adorno), and (3) normatively empty (Habermas). Each fail to discern the subtle features of nonidentity with respect to Husserl’s notions of apperception and adumbrated phenomena. -/- Chapter 2 shows how Scheler’s original view of the phenomenological attitude makes more explicit Husserl’s subtle dialectical elements. Adequate and inadequate givenness is interpreted with respect to one’s intentional orientation and the moral attitudes carried within the world, influencing the content of the given. -/- Chapter 3 confronts the popular charge of idealism. Reality is a problem for phenomenology only to conscious modes of givenness. But through ecstatic modes of givenness (in resistances) Scheler’s phenomenology achieves an existential ground that is crucial for phenomenology to engage actually existing social structures and factors. -/- Chapter 4 concerns the charge that phenomenology is normatively empty. That Scheler had developed a theory of value is not enough to rebut the charge but his view of value-givenness as an attitude informed by the act of loving, opens an awareness of the values disclosed by that attitude. -/- Chapter 5 shows that Scheler’s sociology of knowledge, in contrast to Karl Mannheim’s interpretation, provides a unified picture of the interdependency of spirit and life needed for the realization of values in the world and society. -/- Chapter 6 suggests a way of framing a phenomenological critique of ideology. Scheler points to the attitudinal factors of loving and hating to disclose systemic devaluation and overvaluation. This awareness arises (1) from noticing how individual valuation reflects social valuation, and (2) by being attuned to how one’s own intuitions contradict prevailing social valuation and thought, thereby opening a space for a critique of those patterns. (shrink)

La problématique de la réduction procède de l’exigence méthodologique de l’absence de présupposition : la position même de la subjectivité transcendantale comme acteur de la réduction constitue pourtant elle-même un présupposé irréductible de la démarche de Husserl. La radicalité imposerait alors une réduction, non pas décidée par le sujet, mais subie par lui : c’est là le sens de la maladie telle qu’elle fut pensée par Nietzsche. La maladie est en effet l’événement par lequel la chair subjective se manifeste d’elle-même, (...) dans des phénomènes pathologiques, et se manifeste comme le sol et l’origine de tout sens et de toute valeur. La maladie circonscrit ainsi le sujet dans la sphère d’immanence de ses vécus, où l’essence même de l’être se révèle comme pathos : elle met en oeuvre ce qu’il faut nommer une réduction pathologique. C’est à partir de cette épreuve que Nietzsche peut alors montrer que la métaphysique est « pathologiquement déterminée », pour enfin en montrer le caractère pathogène, c’est-à-dire nihiliste. The issue of phenomenological reduction proceeds from the methodological requirement of the absence of presupposition : however, transcendental subjectivity as an actor of the reduction constitutes a presupposition that is inherent to Husserl’s approach. Radicality would then impose a reduction the subject submits to, not a reduction the subject chooses. That is how disease was considered by Nietzsche. Indeed, disease is the event through which subjective flesh shows itself from itself, in pathological phenomena, and shows itself as the ground and origin of any sense and value. Disease encloses the subject in the sphere of his immanent lived-experiences, where the essence of being reveals itself as pathos : it operates what is to be called a pathological reduction. From this ordeal Nietzsche shows then that metaphysics is “pathologically determined”, and he discloses its pathogenic, i.e. nihilist, character. (shrink)

This chapter offers a reassessment of the relationship between Kant, the Kantian tradition, and phenomenology, here focusing mainly on Husserl and Heidegger. Part of this reassessment concerns those philosophers who, during the lives of Husserl and Heidegger, sought to defend an updated version of Kant’s philosophy, the neo-Kantians. The chapter shows where the phenomenologists were able to benefit from some of the insights on the part of Kant and the neo-Kantians, but also clearly points to the differences. The aim of (...) this chapter is to offer a fair evaluation of the relation of the main phenomenologists to Kant and to what was at the time the most powerful philosophical movement in Europe. (shrink)

A critical assessment of Merleau-Ponty’s conception of phenomenology highlights singular differences between Husserl’s phenomenological methodology and existential analysis, between epistemology and ontology, and between essential and individualistic perspectives. When we duly follow the rigorous phenomenological methodology described by Husserl, we are confronted with the challenge of making the familiar strange and with the challenge of languaging experience. In making the familiar strange, we do not immediately have words to describe what is present, but must let the experience of the strange (...) resonate for some time, and even then, must return to it many times over to pinpoint its aspects, character, or quality in descriptively exacting ways. Moreover as Husserl points out, language can seduce us into thinking we know when we do not know. The methodology thus highlights the import of being true to the truths of experience, and in doing so, authenticates the basic value of a phenomenological methodology to the human sciences. (shrink)

The present volume may be regarded as a sound introduction to Gramsci's philosophy. The work focuses primarily upon the Prison Notebooks from which Nemeth attempts to reveal Gramsci's "formidable epistemology" which is presumably phenomenological in character. According to Nemeth, "Gramsci's great originality within the Marxist tradition lies in his adumbration of a transcendental, indeed a phenomenological perspective". It seems highly peculiar that Husserl's ideas should be appropriated in a study that highlights a distinctive Italian philosophy of praxis. Nemeth's numerous references (...) to phenomenology, which are made in an attempt to demonstrate Gramsci's "absolute historicism," fail to reveal both the meaning of phenomenology per se and the significance of relating the Husserlian method of thought to Gramsci's revolutionary conception of action. That the thought of the Prison Notebooks "can only maintain its raison d'être by drawing ever closer to Husserlian phenomenology" remains a mere assertion. (shrink)

In the first of these volumes Schuhmann attempts to collect all available materials dealing with the relationship between Husserl and Pfänder. He dates their first meeting as taking place in May, 1904, and traces further meetings and communications. He examines in detail the notes Husserl made in his copies of Pfänder’s works, and describes manuscripts which Husserl wrote about them. Finally he examines manuscripts which Husserl composed about Pfänder’s work in general, and in this section he describes in detail the (...) famous meeting of Husserl with Pfänder and Daubert, another philosopher from Munich, at Seefeld in August-September, 1905. Under pressure of their criticism, Husserl is said to have come to the conception of the transcendental reduction at this time; he also changed his understanding of sensation, perception, and the transcendent object, and likewise came to see the necessity of admitting an ego in his phenomenology. This meeting then becomes the turning point between the philosophy of his Logical Investigations and that which emerged, after years of reflection, in Ideas I. Schuhmann studies the "Seefeld manuscripts" in this connection. He closes with an extensive bibliography of Pfänder’s works and writings about him. He reports that Husserl’s main criticism of Pfänder and of the Munich school was that they never moved from psychology into transcendental philosophy; however Schuhmann uses this conflict between Husserl and the others as a sign of the necessity that phenomenology has to be straining against a natural, mundane attitude, a necessity of being both mundane and "reduced," psychological and phenomenological. He uses this argument to verify his conception of what philosophy is. (shrink)

One of the basic reasons for Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s critique of Edmund Husserl’s Wesenschau is represented by what has been defined as the “ambiguity” of the perceiver-perceived relationship, which is the theme of the “phenomenology of perception” developed by the French philosopher. Such ambiguity is in effect constitutive of fundamental perceptive-cognitive relationships; and—in the mature thought of Merleau-Ponty—it also extends, from an ontological point of view, to the “chair du monde” in which being and non-being, visible and invisible, are but two (...) sides of the same “reality.” In this contribution we try to highlight the ambiguous characteristics of corporeal intentionality which render it incompatible with visual perception. And we propose both the necessity and the possibility of eliminating this incompatibility with a new phenomenological approach, which is also consistent with scientific “visualisation.”. (shrink)

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE and Maurice Merleau-Ponty share the composite position of acknowledging the influence of Husserl on their work and of claiming to fulfill Husserl’s intentions, yet of criticizing Husserl for having failed to live up to his own intentions. This is the outer form of their explicit criticism of Husserl. Their work itself constitutes an implicit criticism of Husserl, while it gives us some indication of the direction that Husserl’s continued researches might have taken.

Fink attempts to give an introduction to the problem of Being and appearance in the light of the philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger. There is very little in this volume which is new; Fink's work is hampered by prolixity and by a difficult language which is opaque in spite of attempts to be poetic.--K. H.

Ludwig Binswanger was one of the pioneers in the approach of the psychiatric psychopathology and the phenomenological philosophy field. A panoramic historiographical review of the author reveals the methodological development of his phenomenological work in three phases of distinct philosophical inspirations. The first one is the Husserlian phase with the application of the concept of intentionality of consciousness; the second one is the Daseinsanalytic of the Heiddeguerian inspiration phase, followed by the last phase, which is the return to Husserlian thought (...) in his late writings. The present study will focus on the analysis of dialogues and the articulations between the phases of Binswanger’s thinking, proposing the hypothesis of a continuous axis in the methodological itinerary of his work, with the objective of creating a scientific epistemological framework for the field of psychiatry. (shrink)

This investigation sets for itself the task of a critical reconsideration of the concept of intentionality in the descriptive psychology of Brentano and in the phenomenology of Husserl. The author focuses his attention on two problems: that of the ontological basis under an idea of “intentionale Inexistenz” of Brentano and that of the constitution of an individual thing in phenomenology of Husserl. The analysis discloses methodical and metaphysical assumptions of intentional analyses of Brentano and of Husserl.

To seek to elucidate Husserl's phenomenology by contrasting it with that of the Munich phenomenologist Johannes Daubert is to betray an intention to explain something well-known by reference to something that is wholly obscure. Thus most philosophers are somehow aware of Edmund Husserl. But Johannes Daubert?

The philosophical press, in the United States as well as abroad, has not given the thought of the Polish philosopher, Roman Ingarden, the recognition that it rightly deserves. It is because of this state of affairs that Volume IV of Analecta Husserliana comes to us as a scholarly contribution in a time of need. The singular merit of this volume is that it not only makes available some noteworthy critical and constructive analyses by Ingarden but also offers a series of (...) systematic studies of various facets of Ingarden’s philosophy by his chief interpreters and critics. The first selection in Volume IV is part of the Oslo Lectures, given by Ingarden in 1967, and here made public for the first time in its original German transcription. In these very important lectures Ingarden distills the results of his many years of critical reflection on the possibilities and limits of Husserl’s program of phenomenological research. The general topic of these lectures is: "The Problem of Husserlian Reduction". However, as the discussion proceeds it is not only problems attendant to the celebrated reduction that come under critical review but indeed the whole gamut of Husserlian motifs from intentionality to inter-subjectivity. (shrink)

Zaner's "contributions" are expository, critical, and original, in that order of extension. The major part of the text is taken up with an exposition and criticism of the theories of embodiment of Marcel, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, with a strong emphasis on the unacknowledged borrowings of the latter two from Marcel-and, to a less obvious, but equally as important extent, of all three from Bergson. "Embodiment" is taken as a technical term referring to the on-going process by which consciousness relates itself (...) to the world in and through its body. Zaner is sharply critical of what he regards as the ontological bias of each of the three men whose theory of embodiment he examines; for while he is willing to admit the central importance of this problem to philosophy as a whole, he regards an ontological handling of it as a subversion of the ontological neutrality of the phenomenological methods developed by Husserl. The original section of the book outlines a program for a "descriptive-explicative analysis" of the phenomenon of embodiment along basically Husserlian lines, and is extremely suggestive, though highly condensed. An extensive appendix includes the original texts of the major passages cited throughout the book.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Thevenaz both follows and opposes Husserl. Like Husserl, he takes the Cartesian cogito as his starting point, but he substitutes greater emphasis on the subjective for Husserl's transcendentalism. He rejects the intentional analysis not as too subjectivistic but as too objectivistic. At the time of his premature death in 1955 his magnum opus on Protestant philosophy was not completed. The present memorial volumes, collect some of his published articles. The second volume has a complete bibliography. --R. G. S.

This paper is an attempt to solve a key problem of phenomenology. The problem is given with the double role of the revealing capacity for which phenomena are present. On the one hand, this capacity must be prior to all phenomena, because it allows phenomena to show themselves and thus to be what they essentially are. On the other hand, the revealing capacity must be situated in the midst of phenomena; it must belong to the phenomenal world in order to (...) have access to it. This problem has been discussed in different versions by Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty, but in every version it remains aporetic. The problem can be solved by conceiving the capacity, which reveals phenomena, as spatial. The paper shows how the essential priority of the revealing capacity as well as its situatedness in the midst of phenomena has spatial character. Phenomenology thus is spatial thinking. (shrink)

Patočka has never developed the political and historical concept of dissidence. But trying to sketch its phenomenological foundation in the writings of the Czech philosopher, who experienced human liberty as an act of dissidence, could be an original way in qualifying his alternative idea of the modern subjectivity in phenomenology: between finitude and autonomy. The first part of the article presents the radical criticism aimed by Patočka to the transcendental subjectivism of Husserl, and thinks the requirement of a split between (...) autofoundation and autonomy. Then, it is analysed the articulation between the movement of life and the movement of existence, in which lies the very idea of dissidence. In a third and final part, one shows to what extent the dissident subjectivity fully reveals itself in the political life. (shrink)

Structure and Diversity deals with Scheler’s writings highlighting his arguments against relativism, his ethics, his philosophy of religion, the late Scheler’s adoption of Buddhism, and his social-political philosophy. Kelly argues that Scheler is influenced by Husserl in his conviction of the realm of essences that is revealed through “phenomenologically reduced cognitive acts”. Both philosophers apply the “natural standpoint.” However, Scheler argues to go beyond Husserl’s phenomenology of objects by means of his account of “structural and material essences that condition human (...) consciousness”. Consciousness is necessarily individual and situated within a “milieu.” Phenomenology can use perceptions to elucidate “meaning-elements” that form a unified realm of essence. (shrink)

Eighteen of Gurwitsch's papers, all previously published between 1929 and 1961; nine of the papers appear in English for the first time. With the exception of the mainly expository "The Last Work of Edmund Husserl," in which Gurwitsch limns the structure of Husserl's Krisis, all of the papers are serious forays into "constitutive" as distinguished from "existential" phenomenology. At times Gurwitsch goes about his business historically, engaging Descartes, Kant, a good deal of Hume, James, and, of course, Husserl in dialogue. (...) In almost half of the papers Gestalt psychology, the psychological and biological work of Gelb and Goldstein, and the distinctively psychological work of James are the focus. The dominant theme of all the studies is consciousness and an exploration of the logical rather than existential problematic of intentionality. Gurwitsch wishes his work to be assessed as part of the Husserlian program of radically founding in the constituting consciousness all the systematized noematic fruits, i.e., sciences, of this same consciousness.. He is, however, a self-confessed heretic from the strict Husserlian point of view, having abandoned the doctrines of hyletic data, and, more interestingly, the egological root of consciousness.—E. A. R. (shrink)

In accordance with the general title, Ricœur's main concern is to develop a philosophy of the will. The overall character of this philosophy is quickly ascertained: as the Introduction makes abundantly clear, Ricœur's thought is firmly rooted in phenomenology. Indeed one might wish to regard this partisanship as Ricœur's motive for choosing the will as his central topic: could his work be an attempt to cope with a problem that has to date resisted satisfactory phenomenological treatment? Husserl's phenomenology is geared (...) to a theoretical, receptive, and perceptual type of subject, and doubts arise as to the practicability of his methodological devices when extended to the will. Although, for a philosopher like Ricœur, Husserl's phenomenological discipline of inspection and description remains an indispensable asset of philosophical method, it seems that, in studying the will, we cannot practice phenomenological reduction, since this would eliminate what is constitutive for willing: an Other opposed to me, something not reducible to mere meaning as posited by consciousness. When Husserl tries to account for willing, he accordingly transforms the phenomenon into an account of value predicates correlated to acts of the subject. (shrink)

Gurwitsch's concern in this book is with the doing of phenomenology rather than the explication of what other phenomenologists have done. His analyses of Husserl's views, with whom he appears to be in close agreement, are in the service of the concrete phenomenological analyses Gurwitsch himself undertakes. His remarks on William James serve as a further corroboration of the interest practicing phenomenologists are taking in James' thought and the phenomenological strains which run through it. What emerges in Gurwitsch's own thought (...) is a view of consciousness and its objects which parallels in large measure Husserl's middle period investigations, in particular those appearing in the Ideen. Gurwitsch's work is to be praised as an attempt to introduce concrete and sometimes original phenomenological insights into the American philosophical scene.—S. A. E. (shrink)

The “Freiburg Encounter” begins with a short history painting the picture of Aron Gurwitsch’s factual encounters during the time of his doctoral studies in 1920s Germany. These encounters included exposure to Gestalt theory as well as Husserlian phenomenology, both of which would make a major impact on him. The point is to show how such encounters can shape the thought of an individual who can then go on to shape regional movements. The bulk of the essay concentrates on Gurwitsch’s encounter (...) with Edmund Husserl, the development of his field theory of consciousness, and the manner in which such can be understood as an advancement of Husserlian phenomenology through modifications of consciousness in particular. Close attention is paid to Husserl’s texts available to Gurwitsch at the time and the ways in which Husserl had anticipated such a theory. These approaches are closely compared and it is ultimately shown how Gurwitsch’s critique of the searchlight theory of attention marks his field theory as a genuine advancement. The essay finishes with Gurwitsch emigrating to the United States, describing the encounters he has there, and outlining his tremendous impact on North American phenomenology. (shrink)

This third and final volume of the collected papers of the late Alfred Schutz contains for the most part the author's evaluation of later Husserlian thought. As in the first and second volumes, Schutz attempts to show the relevance of phenomenology to social experiences. All the papers in this volume were originally published between 1953-1958, except that in which Schutz compares James' "stream of thought" with Husserl's "stream of consciousness." The sequence of papers that follow the James article is: "Husserl's (...) Ideals, Vol. II," in which Schutz describes Husserl's attempt at a phenomenological analysis of the constitution of nature, beginning with inanimate objects, proceeding to "nature in a second and enlarged sense", and concluding with the region of Geist. "Husserl's Ideas, Vol. III": a brief paper analyzing the Husserlian ambition of a phenomenology which affords a fundamental method of grounding all knowledge. "The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl," in which Schutz pinpoints the problem well: since it is impossible to experience another person's original mental content, how can "another psychophysical ego be constituted in my ego?" How can solipsism be avoided? How can phenomenology be applied to the social sciences? Schutz concludes that with his notion of "pairing" in his Cartesian Meditations Husserl does not succeed in constituting a transcendental intersubjectivity through the conscious operations of a transcendental ego. "Type and Eidos in Husserl's Late Philosophy": the phenomenological look at the problem of universals. "Some Structures of the Life-World": a consideration of the Lebenswelt with an eye toward establishing the relevance to social sciences. The last two papers deal with the philosophy of Max Scheler.—J. J. R. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the strategy of circularity employed by Kant and Husserl in their treatment of categoriality. I focus on the relation between transcendental and metaphysical deductions in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and on the problem of “epistemic foundationalism” and categoriality in Husserl’s Sixth Logical Investigation. I propose that the strategy of circularity is manifested through the peculiar self-enclosure of the categories of transcendental deduction vis-à-vis metaphysical deduction (Kant) and categorial intuition vis-à-vis sensuous intuition (Husserl). Although it (...) is usually regarded as a deficient and damaging occurrence in argumentation, circularity appears to be a crucial component in the analysis of both thinkers. The analytical realms recognized by both these thinkers, are acknowledged as continually dependent upon the self-evidential “contingency” of the realms they are supposed to hierarchically overarch. The strict separation between the transcendental and phenomenological realms and their addressees appears to be founded on mutual circularity, where the relation between investigator and investigated extends beyond their separation and reconciliation. Both Kant and Husserl, through the circular relationship with empiricism-rationalism and psychologism radically re-articulated the logic-ontology and founding-founded polarities. (shrink)

The chapter contains a brief intellectual biography of Herbert Spiegelberg, building on his numerous autobiographical remarks. It provides a survey of Spiegelberg’s early life and works and his German period, focusing more extensively on his American period. The chapter considers in some detail three important themes in Spiegelberg’s works. First, Spiegelberg’s role in spreading and developing the phenomenological method in the United States through the organization of his workshops, based on ideas from his teachers Reinach and Pfänder to phenomenologize “co-subjectively”. (...) Second, his life-long concern with the development of a phenomenological ethics and the detailed development of the core notion of “deontic state of affairs” (Sollverhalt). Last but not least, his monumental contribution to the historiography of phenomenology with his The Phenomenological Movement. The chapter takes a critical look at the early controversies with Farber on the idea of a phenomenological “movement” in order to clarify and qualify Spiegelberg’s own conception of phenomenology. The chapter is meant as a companion piece to the translation of Karl Schuhmann’s unpublished article “Phenomenological Ontology in the Work of Herbert Spiegelberg: Ideas and Ontic and Deontic States of Affairs” which will appear in the second volume. (shrink)

The article exposes Husserl’s theory of time and provides its detailed comparison with theories of time of I. Kant and F. Brentano. The author first examines the general principles of the phenomenological theory of consciousness, and then analyzes the time concept of F. Brentano and Husserl’s criticism of these ideas, and eventually makes a comparison of Husserl’s and Kant’s theories of time. The author is inclined to conclude that progress in the interpretation of the time made by Husserl, is largely (...) external, based on unacceptable epistemological principles. Critique of these principles the author plans to carry out in one of the next issues of the magazine. (shrink)

The article discusses research work of Heinrich Hofmann, who has completed doctoral studies in mathematics under Karl Weierstrass in Berlin. His first book "Philosophy of Arithmetic: Psychological and Logical Investigations With Supplementary Texts From 1887-1901" contains his thesis "In the Concept of Number: Psychological Analyses" completed in the guidance of Weierstrass.

Based on the dispute between Protagoras and Socrates on the origin of ethics, one can ask the question of whether the principle of ethics is reason orfeeling/emotion, or whether ethics is grounded on reason or feeling/emotion. The development of Kant’s thoughts on ethics shows the tension between reason and feeling/emotion. In Kant’s final critical ethics, he held to a principle of “rational a priori.” On the one hand, this is presented as the rational a priori principle being the binding principle (...) of judgment. On the other hand, it is presented as the doctrine of “rational fact” as the ultimate argument of his ethics. Husserl believed that Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori totally disregarded the a priori essential laws of feeling. Like Husserl, Scheler criticized Kant’s doctrine of a rational a priori, and therefore developed his own theory of an “emotional a priori”. Both of them focused their critiques on the grounding level of ethics. Scheler, however, did not follow Husserl all the way, but criticized him and reflected on his thoughts. At last, he revealed the primary status of a phenomenological material ethics of value. (shrink)

When summarizing the findings of his 1896 Matter and Memory, Bergson claims: “That every reality has... a relation with consciousness—this is what we concede to idealism.” Yet Bergson’s 1896 text presents the theory of “pure perception,” which, since it accounts for perception according to the brain’s mechanical transmissions, apparently leaves no room for subjective consciousness. Bergson’s theory of pure perception would appear to render his idealistic concession absurd. In this paper, I attempt to defend Bergson’s idealistic concession. I argue that (...) Bergson’s account of cerebral transmissions at the level of pure perception necessarily entails a theory of temporality, an appeal to a theory of time-consciousness that justifies his idealistic concession. (shrink)

L’auteur esquisse une présentation de la théorie reinachienne des diverses modalités de l’intentionalité. Il se concentre sur celle que Reinach nomme « meinen ». Il montre comment celle-ci dérive de la phénoménologie husserlienne du signifier , mais aussi comment les deux concepts divergent. Il insiste sur l’originalité du concept reinachien de « penser » , qui est élaboré précisément dans le contexte de la phénoménologie du meinen et qui porte la théorie phénoménologique de l’intentionalité à ses propres limites.The author gives (...) a sketch of Reinach’s theory of the various modalities of intentionality. He focuses on the one that Reinach calls « meaning » . He shows how it stems from the Husserlian phenomenology of Bedeuten, but also how far both diverge. He stresses the originality of Reinach’s concept of « thinking » , which is devised in the context of the phenomenology of Meinen and which takes the phenomenological theory of intentionality to its own limitations. (shrink)

This paper offers a further look at Husserl’s late thought on the transcendental subject and the Husserl–Heidegger relationship. It attempts a reconstruction of how Husserl hoped to assert his own thoughts on subjectivity vis-à-vis Heidegger, while also pointing out where Husserl did not reach the new level that Heidegger attained. In his late manuscripts, Husserl employs the term ‘transcendental person’ to describe the transcendental ego in its fullest ‘concretion’. I maintain that although this concept is a consistent development of Husserl’s (...) earlier analyses of constitution, Husserl was also defending himself against Heidegger, who criticized him for framing the subject in terms of transcendental ego rather than as Dasein. Husserl was convinced that he could successfully respond to Heidegger’s critique, but he did not grasp that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology was an immanent development, rather than a scathing criticism, of his own phenomenology. (shrink)

This paper examines Derrida's critique of Husserl's notion of pure presence. Husserl's theory of temporality in _The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness supports a philosophy of pure presence, but Husserl's notion of presence is not, as Derrida would have it, one which "reject(s) the 'after-event' of the becoming conscious of an 'unconscious content' which is the structure of temporality implied through-out Freud's texts". Husserl's notion of presence is, rather, transcendental, hyletic and unconscious. Dissemination, characterized by a lack of stable meaning, (...) nonorigin, and departure from the rules of logic, is constituted by the relation of transcendental presence to the mundane. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Discovering existence with Husserl by Emmanuel Levinas, translated by Richard A. Cohen and Michael B. Smith. The work of Emmanuel Levinas represents one of the most innovative and influential expositions of twentieth-century phenomenology. His thought represents a radically new interpretation of the phenomenological project, the meaning of ethics, and the role of ontology and metaphysics in our discussion of the Other and the Good. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard''s thought as he gropes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bachelard''s emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly phenomenological in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Bachelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following features of (Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to embracket the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, (...) the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this paper aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard''s metaphysical concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical break from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What results in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and object-ness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard''s new poetics results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of the general epistemology of the new scientific spirit on to/across his aesthetics. (shrink)

This article examines the presuppositions underlying Derrida's criticisms of Husserl's theory of expression, and philosophy of language generally. I argue that Derrida's claim that indication (and so the sign-function) is present at the heart of phenomenological "expression" is based on an unwarranted substitution of a Hegelian structure of reflection for Husserl's own phenomenological concept of reflection and evidence. I then criticize a different sort of unclarity in Husserl's analysis of the noetic and noematic relations between "expressive" (linguistic) and "preexpressive" sense. (...) The positions of John Caputo, Claude Evans, and Robert Sokolowski on these issues are discussed and evaluated. (shrink)

The article show that the purpose of the final elaboration of Merleau-Ponty is thus to find a new idea of philosophy in which both Hegelian and Husserlian phenomenology can converge. But this tension in no way constitutes an element of rupture in the theoretical continuity of the Merleau-Pontian philosophy.