Husserl: Metaphysics

With the publication of the Husserliana series and Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe both nearing completion, a strikingly different picture of their work than was available to earlier generations is emerging. It has become quite clear that phenomenological philosophy is not a fixed “system” but an ongoing philosophical practice that has much to contribute to debates in contemporary philosophy generally. It would be impossible here to canvass all the “horizons” of phenomenology that this situation has opened up, so in this chapter I will (...) focus on one issue that Husserl considered to be a Grenzproblem of his phenomenology, namely, the relation between transcendental-phenomenological method (the “reduction”) and metaphysics. Section 1 presents an overview of my understanding of transcendental phenomenology as concerned specifically with clarifying issues of normatively structured meaning (Sinn). Section 2 argues that transcendental phenomenology is metaphysically neutral and considers an ambiguity in Husserl’s Ideas I that suggests the possibility that it is actually a metaphysical idealism – specifically, the claim that real things “depend” on consciousness for their existence. Section 3 takes up three accounts of this dependence-question and argues that only one of them takes full account of Husserl’s own views on metaphysics. Finally, in section 4, I argue that Husserl’s metaphysical “monadology” is based on dialectical arguments rather than on phenomenological evidence, and I suggest that it thus becomes the antinomical mirror-image of Theodore Sider’s metaphysical realism. (shrink)

Phenomenology tries to uncover the pre-linguistic foundation of logical operators, in order to show how our logical thinking is grounded in reality, and does not have a merely psychological value. If negation is grounded in the pre-predicative experience, though, it seems to follow that reality somehow contains something negative. It has been in order to avoid such consequence that Brentano has promoted a reform of ‘classical’ logic, which, among others, avoids negative terms. Husserl answered to such a reform with a (...) partial counter-reform that preserves a more classical understanding of logic. His logical and phenomenological investigations recognize the logical value of negation as such. However, such a recognition does not imply an ontological, or better ‘meontological’, commitment. This is possible precisely thanks to a more carefully phenomenological description of the formation and the structure of negative judgments. (shrink)

The present paper explores anew the question of Husserl’s metaphysics by contrasting H. Philipse and D. Zahavi’s respective position on the matter. I argue that these positions fall victim to opposing exegetical pitfalls. On the one hand, while I concur with Philipse’s general characterisation of Husserl as an ontological phenomenalist, I disagree that this implies Husserl was a subjective idealist similar to Berkeley. On the other hand, while Zahavi’s correlationist interpretation of Husserl avoids this subjective idealist interpretation, I argue that (...) it inadvertently succumbs to the realist alternative that construes the world as existing independently from subjectivity. The way out of this dilemma is to interpret Husserl as an experiential monist, where the phenomenal stream (Erlebnisstrom) is taken to be ontologically primary, by virtue of its antecedence over the subject-object or mind-world dichotomy. (shrink)

『논리연구』에서 후설이 탐구하는 범주적 직관은 단순히 감성적인 방식으로 이루어지지 않는 직관이다. 그리고 거기에서 등장하는 범주적 재현(Repräsentation) 이론은 범주적 직관이 재현이라는 이론이다. 『논리연구』에서 ‘재현’과 ‘파악(Auffassung)’은 외연이 같은 말이므로, 범주적 재현 이론은 범주적 직관이 파악이라는 이론이 된다. 그런데 20여년 후????논리연구????제2판 제2분책 서문에서 후설은 범주적 재현 이론을 더 이상 인정하지 않는다고 말한다. 하지만 후설이 실제로 이 이론을 포기하는가 하는 점은 논란의 여지가 있다. 나는 후설이 이 이론을 포기하지 않거나, 적어도 포기해서는 안 된다고 주장한다. 범주적 재현 이론은 『경험과 판단』 같은 후기의 저작에서도 채택되는 것처럼 (...) 보이며, 무엇보다도 범주적 직관을 이해하기 위하여 필수적이기 때문이다. 이 논문에서 나는 범주적 직관과 범주적 재현 이론을 자세하게 설명한 후, 범주적 재현 이론이 포기되거나 수정될 필요가 있다고 주장하는 투겐트하트(E. Tugendhat)와 로마(D. Lohmar)의 견해를 각각 비판한다. 이와 더불어 명확해지는 것은, 범주적 재현 이론을 통해 이해된 범주적 직관 개념이 선술어적 경험으로부터 술어적 인식의 발생을 규명하는 데 결정적인 역할을 한다는 점이다. (shrink)

The article discusses the features of Kant's project of descriptive metaphysics and its development in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. Kant's project of descriptive metaphysics can be seen in three senses: as a transcendental philosophy in General, which deals with the study of cognition, as a metaphysics of experience, aimed at studying the first principles of world experience, and as revealing the structure of our thinking about the world. All these variants of descriptive metaphysics were developed in Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. The author (...) pays special attention to the analysis of the phenomenological doctrine of consciousness, since in Husserl's approach one can see the development of the project of descriptive metaphysics in all three senses Husserl understands consciousness as cognizing consciousness, that is, as cognition; the phenomenological understanding of consciousness also includes a mode of thinking about the world; consciousness is considered by Husserl as a real everyday experience. (shrink)

This essay examines the debate that arose immediately following the publication of the first volume of Edmund Husserl's Ideas regarding the model of concept formation that Husserl sketches in that work. After a brief overview of the relevant passages from the Ideas, I take up essay-length responses to Husserl by August Messer, Theodor Elsenhans, and Heinrich Gustav Steinmann. Reflecting a variety of empiricist commitments, all three authors are skeptical that concepts can be expected to embody the essence of a corresponding (...) phenomenon. Subsequently, I review the responses to these critiques offered by Husserl, his then-assistant Edith Stein, and Paul Linke. For Linke, it is at least highly probable that certain concepts derive their content from an apprehension of essence. The empiricist alternative, he argues, is fatally unstable. Husserl and Stein, meanwhile, offer a more forceful defense of this position. Unless we allow that certain kinds of concepts can originate from a grasp of essence, they argue, we will be unable to explain how certain manifest cognitive accomplishments are possible. (shrink)

This article deals with the question of existence by considering the way in which phenomenology has faced this issue. To provide an argument against the ontological certainties typical of idealism and realism, I try to show the possibility of a subjective reduction of the question of existence and to highlight the way in which the concept of existence may be “undermined” by this reduction. A prominent place is given to the concept of infinity for radically reassessing the content and scope (...) of the concept of existence. I try to integrate some of the main themes of Husserlian phenomenology without being restrictively committed to it. I include some discussion of foundational mathematics and of quantum physics. (shrink)

Against the concept that objects are defined by their self-contained essence – “thing-in-themselves” – Husserl and Foucault claim they are defined by intersubjectivity or social institutions. I argue that biological and even physical (complex) systems can constitute the unity and meaning of objects.

In this text I argue that a phenomenological conception of reality cannot simply consider ‚reality’ to be a feature of the objects of our experience, nor can ‚reality’ be understood as a somehow subconscious experience of resistance, as Max Schelers notion of a „primary resistance“ tries to show. In opposition to these insufficient conceptions I suggest – following some husserlian inspirations – that the notion of ‚reality’ is to be understood as a elementary feature of our experience of objects – (...) not of the objects of our experience. Is this perspective accepted, a minimal ‚realism’ appears as a presupposition of the concept of intentionality. (shrink)

Husserl’s philosophy of mathematics, his metatheory, and his transcendental phenomenology have a sophisticated and systematic interrelation that remains relevant for questions of ontology today. It is well established that Husserl anticipated many aspects of model theory. I focus on this aspect of Husserl’s philosophy in order to argue that Thomasson’s recent pleonastic reconstruction of Husserl’s approach to essences is incompatible with Husserl’s philosophy as a whole. According to the pleonastic approach, Husserl can appeal to essences in the absence of a (...) positive metaphysical account of their nature. I show, using central results from recent model theory, that the pleonastic approach undermines Husserl’s approach to formalization and categoricity, an effect that will ripple out from Husserl’s philosophy of mathematics into Husserl’s metatheory and transcendental phenomenology. The result is that Husserl cannot appeal to formal essences without metaphysical commitments. However, the very observations Thomasson makes about the nature of eidetic intuition in Husserl lead to a general strategy for responding to the problem. The article thus illustrates that the pleonastic and the model-theoretic routes for making Husserl relevant to present-day ontology are competing approaches, but I conclude that Husserl scholars seeking to set Husserl’s present-day relevance into sharp relief could do worse than to emphasize the model-theoretic nature of Husserl’s enterprise. (shrink)

Husserl, as is well known, bases his study of appearing on subjective functions. He also makes appearing prior to being insofar phenomenology grants being to entities only to the point that they can appear. Both positions result in the paradox that he presents in the Crisis, where he asks: “How can human subjectivity, which is a part of the world, constitute the whole world, i.e., constitute it as its intentional product…? The subjective part of the world swallows up, so to (...) speak, the whole world including itself. What an absurdity!”. The paradox arises from Husserl’s taking being as presence and asserting that presence is established through constitution and, as such, is the work of subjectivity. In this article, I explore an alternative based on Aristotle's concept of functioning. This is a functioning that is prior to both subjects and objects, a functioning that is responsible for both being and appearing. The introduction of this concept, I argue, does not change Husserl’s description of the functioning of constitution. It does, however, add an ontological basis that prevents phenomenology from falling into this paradox.Husserl, como es bien sabido, basa su estudio del aparecer en funciones sujetivas. También presenta el aparecer como anterior al ser en tanto en cuanto la fenomenología le concede ser a las entidades sólo hasta el punto de que puedan aparecer. Ambas posiciones dan como resultado la paradoja que presenta en La crisis, donde pregunta: "¿Cómo puede la subjetividad humana, que es parte del mundo, constituir el mundo entero, es decir, constituirlo como su producto intencional...? La parte subjetiva del mundo se traga, por así decirlo, todo el mundo, incluido él mismo. ¡Qué absurdo!". La paradoja surge del hecho de que Husserl toma el ser como presencia y de que afirma que la presencia se establece a través de la constitución y que, como tal, es el trabajo de la subjetividad. En este artículo, exploro una alternativa basada en el concepto de funcionamiento de Aristóteles. Este es un funcionamiento que es anterior a ambos sujetos y objetos, un funcionamiento que es responsable de ser y aparecer. La introducción de este concepto, sostengo, no cambia la des-cripción de Husserl del funcionamiento de la constitución. Sin embargo, agrega una base ontológica que evita que la fenomenología caiga en esta paradoja. (shrink)

Can one hold both that universals exist in the strongest sense (i.e., neither in language nor in thought, nor in their instances) and that they exist contingently—and still make sense? Edmund Husserl thought so. In this paper I present a version of his view regimented in terms of modal logic cum possible-world semantics. Crucial to the picture is the distinction between two accessibility relations with different structural properties. These relations are cashed out in terms of two Husserlian notions of imagination: (...) world-bound and free. After briefly presenting the Husserlian framework—his intentionalism, idealism and how universals figure in them—I set up my modal machinery, model the target view, and show that, depending on the chosen accessibility relation, the necessary or the contingent existence of universals can be derived. Importantly, since for Husserl both relations are bona fide, both derivations are legitimate. In Husserl’s philosophy, then, there is room for both necessary and contingent universals. (shrink)

Phenomenologists have no taste for desert landscapes. The early phenomenologists—Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Roman Ingarden—adopt stratified views of reality on which spiritual objects like artifacts and persons are distinct from their underlying matter. Call this view “pluralism.” After describing Scheler, Ingarden, and Husserl's pluralism about goods, literary artworks, and images, respectively, I reconstruct a phenomenological case for pluralism from Husserl's work and defend it against an objection. The phenomenological method reveals a special subset of objects' essential properties: modes of (...) givenness. On Husserl's view, there are necessary correlations between types of objects and the types of intentional acts through which they are given. Spiritual objects, unlike their matter, can only be given in acts belonging to the “personalistic attitude,” which has a motivational and expressive structure. My broader claim is that Husserl's phenomenology is a sophisticated metametaphysical view about the methodology of first‐order metaphysical inquiry. (shrink)

In this article I address the idea that in Husserl’s eidetic ontology all possibilities are fixed ‘in advance’ so that actual objects and events—despite their contingency—can only ever unfold possibilities that are ‘permitted’ to them by their essences. I show how this view distorts Husserl’s ontology and argue that this distortion stems from a misconstrual of the relations between essences and facts, and between ideal and real possibilities. These ‘local’ misconstruals reflect, I contend, a ‘global’ misunderstanding that mistakes descriptive distinctions (...) for ‘real’ separations, and that remains indebted to a non-Husserlian understanding of the a priori–a posteriori-distinction. In support of this argument, I first lay out the relevant objection to Husserl’s eidetics as I understand it. Then, I clarify the relation between ideal and real possibilities in the context of Husserl’s eidetics as I see it. Finally, I make a general point about the status of Husserl’s ontological differentiations ‘in the midst of life,’ namely in how what they differentiate is effective and (tacitly) manifest ever only as one moment (amongst many) of the complex whole that is a concrete life of consciousness. I end with some remarks on what this might mean for future phenomenological research on the imagination. (shrink)

Husserl is known to have oriented many aspects of his extensive analyses of phantasy around a contrast to perception: what phantasy and perception have in common, for example, is their intuitiveness; yet, while in perception something is encountered ‘in the flesh,’ in phantasy this experience is modified by its ‘as if in the flesh’ character. However, both in the majority of Husserl’s reflections on phantasy and in much of the secondary literature on the topic, we find few further details concerning (...) the difference between both modes of intuitiveness: ‘in the flesh’ and ‘as if in the flesh.’ In this paper, I draw on sources from Husserl’s later work in order to get clarification on at least one important point of difference, namely the ways in which individuation and identity, that is, constitutions of individual and identical objects, clearly set apart phantasy from perception. As we will see, this requires an understanding of Husserl’s account of objective time, and of the constitution of individual identical objects with their unique positions in objective time. After an introductory discussion of the meaning and the conditions of individuation in the methodical framework of phenomenology, I will lay out the different levels of the constitution of objective time. In the second part of the paper, I will try to follow and explore one of Husserl’s arguments that contrasts the constitutional performances involved in the constitution of phantasy objects with the individuation of real objects in objective time. The textual basis for this discussion is to be found in Husserl’s last book, Experience and Judgement. In what follows, I will begin with a short discussion of the concepts of individuality, individuation, uniqueness and identity, and also ask why these issues may be of special interest for a phenomenologist who is investigating the phenomenon of phantasy. (shrink)

This dissertation engages critically with the metaphysical implications of the respective transcendentalisms of Husserl, Deleuze, and Kant in an attempt to disclose their largely untapped resources for a renewed consideration of the ability of science to grasp reality as it is in-itself. Chapter 1 examines the metaphysical implications of Husserl’s critique of natural scientific objectivity in his later transcendental philosophy in connection to his early formulations of phenomenological objectivity around the axis of the distinction between metaphysics as the science of (...) real Being and formal ontology as the science of Being in the most universal sense. I argue that Husserl’s phenomenological metaphysics constitutes a framework in which the ideal Being of the transcendental dimension of experience operates as the condition for the possibility of natural scientific objectivity. Chapter 2 scrutinizes Deleuze’s characterization of intensity as a transcendental concept rather than a scientific one against the background of his metaphysics of difference and his critique of the shortcomings of Kant’s transcendental idealism for addressing the transcendental conditions for the genesis of real experience. Through a reading of Deleuze’s metaphysics of difference and intensity in connection to his confinement of the creative productivity of scientific thought to a plane of reference, I argue that the creativity apropos to the scientific engagement with material reality necessitates that such creativity is conditioned by the same transcendental considerations operative in a metaphysics of difference at a broad scale. Against the backdrop of Husserl’s and Deleuze’s respective criticisms of the inadequacy of Kant’s transcendental idealism for articulating the material component of experience, Chapter 3 studies Kant’s later iv conception of ether as the simultaneously empirical and transcendental condition for the possibility and unity of experience. Through an examination of Kant’s renewed understanding of materiality as the necessary and sufficient condition for scientific objectivity in connection with the problematic objectivity of the transcendental ideas created by pure reason in Kant’s Critical philosophy, I suggest that Kant’s later articulation of materiality on transcendental grounds simultaneously addresses the objectivity and the creativity pertinent to the encounter of scientific Thought with material/physical reality. (shrink)

The current technoscientific progress has led to a sectorization in the philosophy of science. Today the philosophy of science isn't is informal interested in studying old problems about the general characteristics of scientific practice. The interest of the philosopher of science is the study of concepts, problems and riddles of particular disciplines. Then, within this progress of philosophy of science, neuroscientific research stands out, because it invades issues traditionally addressed by the humanities, such as the nature of consciousness, action, knowledge, (...) normativity, etc. As a result, the new area of interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy arises: neurophilosophy. This emerging area applies neuroscientific concepts to traditional philosophical questions, limiting their responses to neuroscientific revelations about nervous systems. Neurophilosophy research focuses on problems related to the indirect nature of mind and brain, computational or representative analysis of brain process, relationships between psychological and neuroscientific research, adequate adaptations of physical and philosophical concepts in neuroscience and the place of cognitive functions. Now, the temporal representation of conscious experience and the types of the neural architecture to represent objects in time have aroused scientific interest. Under these interests, we focus on the studies on the temporary triadic structure of phenomenological consciousness in Dan Lloyd and Rick Grush. From Grush’s studies, the importance of Kantian ideas for cognitive neuroscience emerges, due to the active way in which Kant conceived space and time as forms of intuition, within which the mind interprets its experience. Under this perspective, the theoretical arguments of Dennett-Kinsbourne and Eagleman-Sejnowski represent winks in the direction of Kant-Husserl within the neuroscientific goal while considering that the contents provided by the mind included space, objects and perception of causal relationships. Then, theories of cognitive neuroscience are beginning to suggest that these elements are also, as Kant argued, interpretative elaborations provided by mind / brain, and not only content received from outside. In other words, current cognitive neuroscientific theories try to pass from its Humean phase to a Kantian phase. So, the challenge has been to explain that these elements are provided by the mind and the world itself, and how they have the content they have come from. These are lacking in current studies. Filling this gap helps to involve the analysis of the scientist’s experience in his theoretical attitude. In this sense, an investigation under the Kantian-Husserlian approach that involves pure intuitions a priori with the experience of the scientific and neuroscientific concepts represents a ground-breaking. At present, a neurophilosophical study about this does not exist. In this sense, one feasible proposal for research would be based on the application of neuroscientific results of Moser-Britt to philosophical problems of foundational notions in relativistic physics: space, time, space-time, field, etc., under the Kantian-Husserlian approach, which allows to demonstrate the multidisciplinary link between neurophilosophy and physics. This represents a ground-breaking area in current interests in scientific research, with a positive impact in the field of neuroscience, and contributing to the study of abstraction emphasizing the importance of Kant’s Copernican turn and Husserl’s phenomenological ideas in the construction of physical theories. -/- . (shrink)

The problem of universals remains a philosophical theme not only in ontology but also in epistemology. In Husserl, there are particular universals, the noematic ‘X’, the identical, and universals stricto sensu, atemporal universal names. In this paper, I present the theme as it is analyzed by Husserl in Ideas I. In the first section, I describe the trajectory to the universals highlighting the parallelism between noese and noema. In the second section, I draw the reflection of this problem on the (...) philosophy of language which is also affected by the noeticnoematic correspondence. In the third and last section, I show how the investigation about the universals moves in the noematic sphere, and conclude defending the possibility of reaching the universal strict sense departing from the noematic ‘X’. (shrink)

The notion of mathesis universalis appears in many of Edmund Husserl’s works, where it corresponds essentially to “a universal a priori ontology”. This paper has two purposes; one, largely exegetical, of clarifying how Husserl elaborates on Leibniz’ concept of mathesis universalis and associated notions like symbolic thinking and symbolic knowledge filtering them through the lesson of the so called “bohemian Leibniz”, Bernard Bolzano; another, more properly philosophical, of examining the role that the universal mathesis is allowed to play, and the (...) space it occupies in Husserl’s intuition-based epistemology. (shrink)

Husserl, in his doctrine of categories, distinguishes what he calls regions from what he calls formal categories. The former are most general domains, while the latter are topic-neutral concepts that apply across all domains. Husserl’s understanding of these notions of category is here discussed in detail. It is, moreover, argued that similar notions of category may be recognized in Carnap’s Der logische Aufbau der Welt.

The main goal of the present paper is to offer a preliminary study of the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. After a brief presentation of what Husserl means by the term “metaphysics”, the rest of our research will consist of a detailed commentary on §60 of the Cartesian Meditations. Our aim is to explain in what sense, according to Husserl, the “outcomes” of the phenomenological constitution of monadological intersubjectivity entail the solution to a traditional metaphysical problem, i.e., that (...) of the existence of just one real world. The present investigation does not pretend to be more than an introduction. Besides shedding some light on a specific text, it will pave the way for a future inquiry into the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. (shrink)

This paper, through a realist reading of Husserlian phenomenology, aims to explain how the consciousness-sense has access to reality and, in general, to objectivity. There is a ‘strife’ between the essence of a thing and the specific concreteness in which it always becomes manifest, such that the identical object is indicated by changeable predicates, but at the same time always distinguishes itself from them. Language can express the evidence of the thing - which makes the determinable aspects of the thing (...) exist and which is inexpressible through definitions - only “for conjectures”, showing the difference between its own expression and the thing. And it can do this by analogy, the only device that exhibits the antinomic relationship between the object and its determinations, and, in the meantime, makes possible not so much their composition, but rather their transformation. Analogy, in fact, operating through a logic of contradiction, grasps, within each object, the tension between the element of permanence and the element of emergency; shows how the object is a unity-without-a-mixture of absolutely distinct forms; and so it comes to think about the relationship between the in-definable forms of the possible representations of the thing and the impossible expression of its singularity. (shrink)

Frege’s account, according to which the problem of how thoughts are apprehended should be a part of psychology, has led scholars to the idea that every consideration regarding subjectivity is absent in this author. From the latter follows a certain way of conceiving the relation between Frege and Husserl which establishes an absolute chasm between both authors regarding the topic mentioned. In the present contribution an extremely different view is defended, namely, that Frege plays an intermediate role between 19th century (...) Platonism and husserlian phenomenology. The main focus of the argument is the commitment between naturalism and idealism which characterizes Platonism before Frege and the beginning of its overcoming carried out by him. (shrink)

In his book Welt und Unendlichkeit, László Tengelyi has enquired into the possibility of a phenomenological metaphysics. Among the many issues addressed in his book, he thematized a real necessity of a non-apriori kind at Aristotle and Husserl, a necessity which he called „a necessity of the fact“. His research settled the basis for the present enquiry, which will examine the relationship between the absolute and the conditional necessity of a fact as well as the contingent or accidental features involved (...) therein at Aristotle and Husserl, insofar as facticity is concerned. I intend to show that although both authors share the view that worldly beings are characterized by their contingency, they differ as to their necessity: Aristotle attributes a contingent necessity to the factual being i.e. to reality, a necessity characterized by its being temporarily conditioned by actuality and which can therefore be defined as the ,conditional necessity of a fact‘. As to Husserl, transcendental phenomenology must, upon the basis of the eidetic method, determine the possibilities out of which the ego constitutes the factual world. He states the necessity of the fact as an eidetic necessity, which has to be grounded on eidetic laws. Later on, enquiries into a „metaphysics in new sense“ lead to a revision of the meaning of „fact“ and to an inversion of the order of foundation as well: the original givenness of the world, the primal I, intersubjectivity and historicity as primal and absolute facts carry the eidetic necessities. Accidental causes, on the other hand, account not only for the contingency of the real but, at Husserl, for the ego‘s ,essential openness‘ and its core of primal contingency. In this context, I shall argue that facticity paired with the accidental allows for the irruption of something new that overwhelms us – an event as Ereignis. (shrink)

This paper reviews the concept of ‘essence’ in Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas as found presented by Edith Stein in her Festschrift article, ‘Husserl’s Phenomenology and the Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas: Attempt at a Comparison,’ in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschung (1929, 370). The aim of the paper is to perform an analysis of Stein’s understanding of the principal similarities and differences in the understandings of essence found in the writings of Husserl and Aquinas, and primarily in (...) terms of the immediacy of the intuition or cognition of essences. I begin by a basic analysis of this commonality and difference with a focus on the interweaving of the following themes: essence and existence; essence and sensual knowledge; essence and its objective ground; essence as intuited, as actively acquired and as passively received; insight into essence, immediate and mediate knowledge. Despite certain misunderstanding arising between the phenomenological movement and the scholastic tradition in this sphere, Stein recognises a number of points of agreement, namely, 1) the beginnings of all knowledge in sense experience, 2) the intellectual ‘work’ (erarbeiten) that is required to achieve a clear vision of essences, and 3) the finally passive nature of the act of understanding. I critically analyse each of these enumerated points of agreement towards clarifying how Stein conceives of the possibility of using the phenomenological method for achieving an understanding of essences coherent with a Thomistic metaphysical worldview, and how she parses and explains the further disagreements over the question of the mediacy or immediacy of human knowledge of essences of different kinds. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss Barry Smith’s and Kevin Mulligan’s revision of Husserl’s phenomenology, starting from the fact that many Italian scholars seem to follow them in a sense, by dealing with phenomenology as a sort of a priori ontology. Therefore, I will first reconstruct Smith’s and Mulligan’s attempt and its objectives, then I will show how it is rooted in the school of Brentano and, in particular, in Husserl’s phenomenology. Finally, I will provide some arguments against this attempt (...) : first of all that it does not attain a better description of the world, secondly that phenomenology does the job of formal ontology better than the latter. (shrink)

Considering the importance of possible-world semantics for modal logic and for current debates in the philosophy of modality, a phenomenologist may want to ask whether it makes sense to speak of “possible worlds” in phenomenology. The answer will depend on how "possible worlds" are to be interpreted. As that latter question is the subject of the debate about possibilism and actualism in contemporary modal metaphysics, my aim in this paper is to get a better grip on the former question by (...) exploring a Husserlian stance towards this debate. I will argue that the phenomenologist’s way to deal with the problem of intentional reference to mere possibilia is analogous to the actualist’s idea of how “possible worlds” are to be interpreted. Nevertheless, I will be pointing to a decisive difference in the metaphilosophical preconditions of what I call "phenomenological actualism" and analytical versions of actualism. (shrink)

In The Human Place in the Cosmos Max Scheler argues the question of philosophical anthropology must address three problems: the difference between man and animal; the Cartesian problem of the mind and body; and the essence of spirit. In a recent issue of Human Studies, two articles by Cristian Ciocan and Christian Ferencz-Flatz addressed the first of these problems through investigations of Husserl’s Nachlass. In this paper, I respond primarily to Ciocan by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology and the implications this (...) has for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. By looking at Husserl’s published comments, we can see how the attempt to differentiate between man and animal is bound up with his understanding of spirituality. This allows an alternative way of understanding normality and abnormality which shifts emphasises away from how far we can empathise with the Other to emphasise what it means to be normal or abnormal. This will allow us to address an ambiguity of Husserl identified by Ferencz-Flatz. (shrink)

The concept of possibility has an essential function within Husserlian phenomenology. Firstly Husserlian phenomenology is an eidetical one, which is based on a subjective relation towards mere poss...

ABSTRACTDuring his philosophical life, Husserl sought to develop his phenomenology as a “science of true beginnings, or origins” that is metaphysically neutral. Nevertheless, according to Heidegger and Derrida, Husserl’s phenomenology remains a kind of metaphysics of presence in that it presupposes a metaphysical notion of “origin”. This paper attempts both to correct Heidegger and Derrida’s misunderstandings of Husserl’s notion of “origin” and to clarify the reason why Husserl’s phenomenology and its pursuit of “origin” is still a metaphysical project.

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)

My aim in this paper is to deal with E. Husserl’s and E. Stein’s analyses on the anthropological and metaphysical questions. To perform this task it is necessary to explain the meaning of the phenomenological method, first of all in Husserl and then in E. Stein, underscoring the novelty of their approach to the knowledge of human being, world and God. The essay is divided in four parts; two are dedicated to Husserl’s and Stein’s investigation on the human being and (...) two to their development of metaphysical themes. Regarding the first topic we discover a significant connection between the two thinkers, regarding the second one we notice that it is possible to find a metaphysical approach to reality even in Husserl and an original development of the theme in Stein’s analysis linked up with the medieval philosophy and theology. (shrink)

The main goal of the present paper is to offer a preliminary study of the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. After a brief presentation of what Husserl means by the term “metaphysics”, the rest of our research will consist of a detailed commentary on §60 of the Cartesian Meditations. Our aim is to explain in what sense, according to Husserl, the “outcomes” of the phenomenological constitution of monadological intersubjectivity entail the solution to a traditional metaphysical problem, i.e., that (...) of the existence of just one real world. The present investigation does not pretend to be more than an introduction. Besides shedding some light on a specific text, it will pave the way for a future inquiry into the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. (shrink)

Le présent ouvrage collectif contient les Actes d'un colloque international bilingue sur l'action, les attitudes et la décision que nous avons organisé en hommage à notre regretté collègue J.-Nicolas Kaufmann à Trois-Rivières du 3 au 5 octobre 2002. L'ouvrage présente et discute d'hypothèses, d'enjeux et de théories contemporaines sur l'action, les attitudes, la rationalité et la décision. La première partie intitulée Pensées, actions et engagements contient des contributions de John Searle, Daniel Vanderveken, Candida Jaci de Sousa Melo et Raimo Tuomela (...) traitant de problèmes généraux de la philosophie de l'esprit et de l'action. Dans la deuxième partie de l'ouvrage intitulée Phénoménologie, ontologie et philosophie de l'esprit, nous avons regroupé, autour d'un texte de Nicolas Kaufmann, quatre études qui traitent diversement de la contribution de la phénoménologie classique, principalement de la phénoménologie de Husserl, à des questions centrales de la philosophie contemporaine dans les domaines de la philosophie de l'esprit, de la théorie de l'action et de l'ontologie formelle. La troisième partie de l'ouvrage, Causalité et naturalisme, réunit trois contributions qui portent sur des questions centrales de la philosophie contemporaine. Daniel Laurier se penche sur la question de savoir si le normativisme sémantique est compatible avec le naturalisme sémantique, alors qu'André Leclerc et Wilson Mendonça s'intéressent à la notion de causalité mentale et examinent différents arguments qui contestent le bien-fondé de cette notion. La dernière partie de l'ouvrage intitulée Rationalité et décision réunit trois contributions logico philosophiques de Storrs McCall, Mathieu Marion et Michel Paquette qui traitent de la rationalité des agents lors de leurs prises de décision et délibérations. (shrink)

Les deux textes de Husserl que nous présentons ici en traduction, l’un daté vraisemblablement de 1932 et l’autre de septembre 1926, tournent autour du problème du monde et de son accès, de sa normalité ainsi que de ses variations possibles.

The debate between speculative realism and phenomenology has become quite heated over the past years. The matter of contention is the possibility of a metaphysics that can provide knowledge of reality as it is in itself. The speculative realists accuse phenomenology of denying this possibility, confining knowledge to the sphere of subjectivity. What has been overlooked in this debate is the similarity between the speculative project of Quentin Meillassoux and a Husserlian metaphysics. This article looks at these positions from a (...) reconciliatory point of view. After outlining the debate, conceding the problematic nature of realism for phenomenology to the speculative realists, it will be shown that there is a place for a realist metaphysics within phenomenology. After showing the similarities between Meillassoux’s philosophy and a phenomenological metaphysics, and the legitimacy of qualifying the latter as a speculative realism, the conclusion will reflect on the modal notions at play in them. (shrink)

La lógica es para Husserl una ciencia de la ciencia, una ciencia de lo que todas las ciencias tienen en común respecto de sus modos de validación. De este modo, la lógica trata por un lado con leyes universales relacionadas con la verdad, la deducción, la verificación y la falsación; y, por otro lado, con leyes relacionadas con la teoría como tal, y con lo que produce la unidad teorética. Ambos tipos de leyes se refieren por una parte a las (...) proposiciones de una teoría y por otra parte al dominio de objetos al que esas proposiciones se refieren. Este ensayo presenta una perspectiva sistemática del punto de vista husserliano sobre estos temas tal como él lo expone en sus Investigaciones Lógicas. Se muestra la manera en que su teoría de los significados lingüísticos en tanto especies de actos mentales, su ontología formal de la parte, el todo y la dependencia, su teoría de las categorías significativas, y su teoría de la intuición categorial combinada con su teoría de la ciencia conforman un todo singular. Finalmente, este trabajo explora la forma en que las ideas de Husserl sobre estos temas pueden ser reactivadas para resolver problemas en la filosofía del lenguaje, la lógica y la matemática de un modo que haga justicia al rol de la actividad mental en cada uno de estos dominios, evitando al mismo tiempo caer en los problemas del psicologismo. (shrink)

Western philosophy since Kant has been essentially operating within a Kantian anti-metaphysical paradigm. German-language philosophy, and a fortiori Husserl's phenomenology, is no exception to this. Here I argue that despite his putative eschewal of metaphysics in the phenomenological reduction or epoché Husserl deploys an ontological, even fundamental ontological, vocabulary and may be read as a metaphysician malgre lui. To the extent to which this interpretation is viable, one escape route from the critical paradigm would seem to be opened up.

e following essay is organized around eighteen theses concerning the relationship between freedom, responsibility and self- awareness that I believe are both correct and consistent with specic doctrines and the overall positions advanced in Husserl’s published writings. e eighteen theses are not meant to represent a deductive argument. Most of them are not unique to Husserl or phenomenological philosophy, but I’m not aware of any other thinker who has hat brought all of them together as does Husserl.

Zur Rationalität gehört die Logik, dis als insgesamt synthetisch angesehen wird, ferner der löckenlose faktische Zusammenhang. Löcken in Zusammenhang und unbeweisbare Axiome deuten auf Irrationalität hin. Unwissenschaftliche Rationalität entsteht durch spekulative Annahme von Axiomen. Widerspruchsfreiheit ist Bedingung der Realität und gilt auch im Irrationalen. Zum Erkennen gehören drei existentielle Fähigkeiten: Begriffe, Anschauungen und Einfühlung. Unterschiedliche Bewertung ist unzulässig. Überschreitung des Rationalen führt auch zur Metaphysik. Auf drei Vorschläge einer wissenschaflichen Metaphysik, die von H. Scholz, von Hegel und von Husserl wird (...) hingewiesen, von denen der letzte als beste Lösung agesehen wird. (shrink)

Clarifying the nature of possibility is crucial for an evaluation of the phenomenological approach to ontology. From a phenomenological perspective, it is ontological possibility, and not spatiotemporal existence, that has pre-eminent ontological status. Since the sphere of phenomenological being and the sphere of experienceability turn out to be overlapping, this makes room for two perspectives. We can confer foundational priority to the acts of consciousness over possibilities, or to pre-set possibilities over the activity of consciousness. Husserl’s position on this issue (...) seems to change over time. Ultimately, the establishment of a phenomenological perspective must involve a rejection of any hypostatization of pre-set possibilities, but not all implications of this theoretical step seem to be drawn in Husserl’s texts. This paper is devoted to an illustration of how the phenomenological notion of possibility should change when we reject the hypostatization of possibility, that is, when we reject the idea that all acts of consciousness are to be conceived as realizations of pre-set “ideal forms”. We examine this question, first, by trying to clarify the conceptual constellation of “possibility” in Husserl’s texts. This leads to an overall classification of the features of constituted possibilities. Then we distinguish such constituted possibilities from their constituting conditions, which outlines a different sense of “possibility”. In the last instance two “possibilizing” dimensions are shown to lie at the root of all ontic possibilities. This leads to a final suggestion on the nature of the relation between experience and possibility. Actual experiences create the room for possibility: they are possibilizations. In this sense, experience is to be taken as a generative sphere which goes beyond the customary boundary between epistemic and ontological. From this point of view all experience is to be conceived as emergence. (shrink)

Hedwig Conrad-Martius was honoured with the Bundesverdienstkreuz, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, on March 1st, 1958. What follows is her acceptance speech on that occasion. In this speech, Conrad-Martius not only gives an account of her biography as a phenomenologist who studied directly with Husserl, but also demonstrates that Husserl’s work is open to a peculiar form of subjective materialist interpretation that can explain his transcendental turn. The speech is an important document for those who (...) support the possibility of a Husserlian transcendental materialism. (shrink)

Résumé — Dans sa contribution, Dan Zahavi discute de la relation entre la phénoménologie et la métaphysique. La phénoménologie est-elle métaphysiquement neutre ou est-elle sans rapport métaphysique ? Est-elle une sorte de propédeutique vis-à-vis de la métaphysique ou la phénoménologie est-elle au contraire une forme de métaphysique, peut-être même le sommet d’une sorte particulière de métaphysique ? Alors que la position de Husserl dans les Logische Untersuchungen peut être décrite comme métaphysiquement neutre, Zahavi argumente que la phénoménologie transcendantale de Husserl (...) ne reste pas neutre ou indifférente à la question de la relation entre phénomène et réalité, et que par conséquent cela a nécessairement des implications métaphysiques.— In his contribution, Dan Zahavi discusses the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics. Is phenomenology metaphysically neutral, or is it without metaphysical bearings ? Is it a kind of propaedeutics to metaphysics, or is phenomenology, on the contrary, a form of metaphysics, perhaps even the culmination of a particular kind of metaphysics ? Whereas Husserl’s position in Logische Untersuchungen can be described as metaphysically neutral, Zahavi argues that Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology does not remain neutral or indifferent to the question of the relation between phenomena and reality, and that it therefore necessarily has metaphysical implications. (shrink)

This paper analyzes and compares the attempts at solving the paradox of non-existence put forward by Alexius Meinong and Edmund Husserl. It will be argued that Meinong’s solution is not convincing since he retreats from the field of predicate logic, in which the paradox arises, to a version of propositional logic. On the other hand, Husserl´s approach is more promising since he moves forward to an extension of predicate logic, in which judgments may be evaluated in relation to different contexts (...) or, in Husserl´s terminology, “spheres”. More precisely, to Husserl, existential judgments have to be interpreted as a kind of cross-sphere judgments, and thus existence fulfills a function loosely analogous to that of modal operators in possible-worlds semantics. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to make a case for Buddhist phenomenology. By Buddhist phenomenology, I mean a phenomenological interpretation of Yogācāra’s doctrine of consciousness. Yet, this interpretation will be vulnerable if I do not justify the way in which the anti-essentialistic Buddhist philosophy can countenance the Husserlian essence. I dub this problem of compatibility between Buddhist and phenomenology the ‘problem of essence’. Nevertheless, I argue that this problem will not jeopardize Buddhist phenomenology because: 1) Yogācārins, especially late Yogācārins represented (...) by Xuanzang do not articulate emptiness as a negation but as an affirmation of the existent; 2) Husserl’s phenomenological essence is not a substance that Yogācārins reject but the ideal sense that Yogācārins also stress. After resolving the problem of essence, I formulate Buddhist phenomenology as follows: on the epistemological level, it describes intentional acts of consciousness; on the meta-epistemological level, it entails transcendental idealism. (shrink)

I argue that Husserlian phenomenology is metaphysically neutral, in the sense of being compatible with multiple metaphysical frameworks. For example, though Husserl dismisses the concept of an unknowable thing in itself as “material nonsense”, I argue that the concept is coherent and that the existence of such things is compatible with Husserl’s phenomenology. I defend this metaphysical neutrality approach against a number of objections and consider some of its implications for Husserl interpretation.

Ever since Parmenides, one of philosophy's riddles has been how we are able to direct our thoughts to non-being. Erhard uses the problem of non-existence as the starting point for an analysis of Husserl's phenomenology. He examines Husserl's interpretation of judgments about non-being as judgments made "under assumption" and his analysis of "free fantasy." Erhard thus demonstrates that Husserl is compatible with today's non-relational theories.