Husserl: Transcendental and Phenomenological Reduction

It was in his research manuscripts from 1905, also known as the Seefelder Blätter, where Edmund Husserl for the first time introduced the idea of the phenomenological reduction. The introduction of this idea, which he developed and refined years to come, marked the beginning not only of an important turn in Husserl’s philosophy toward transcendental phenomenology, but also the advent of a growing frustration and critique even among Husserl’s own students. The discussion about the ontological status of reality is otherwise (...) known as the realism–idealism controversy. One of the first critiques in a published form came from the Latvian philosopher and Husserl’s student in Freiburg, Theodor Celms, in his book Der phänomenologische Idealismus Husserls (1928). The current chapter will present a historically contextualized account of Celms’ contribution to the realism–idealism controversy, including his relationship with the phenomenological movement, main points of his critical interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism, and the following reception of his work. (shrink)

I propose in this text that Husserl’s response to his contemporaries, critics and immediate predecessors in Logical Investigations consists in the development of circular strategy. Husserl does not challenge psychologsim, empiricism or neo-Kantianism by immediately assuming a position of epistemological primacy over these philosophies. To the contrary, Husserl philosophically challenges these positions by enacting a circularity that already underlies them. Husserl’s critical distance from these theories implies a methodological proximity which enables him to advance his phenomenological project with constant backward (...) reference to the theories he challenges. Husserl’s circular philosophy transforms the themes it investigates and the theories it criticizes, transforming itself in that process. (shrink)

The basic entity in phenomenology is the phenomenon. Knowing the phenomenon is another issue. The phenomenon has been described as the real natural object or the appearance directly perceived in phenomenology and analytic philosophy of perception. Within both traditions, philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Russell and Wittgenstein have considered that perceptual experience demonstrates what a phenomenon is on the line between the mind and the external world. Therefore, conceptualizing the phenomenon is based on the perceptual evidence. However, if the (...) belief that perception is “theory-laden” is true, then perception can also be “philosophy-laden.” These philosophers have not noticed whether perceptual knowledge is independent of philosophies. If perceptual knowledge is not independent of philosophies, a philosopher’s background philosophy can influence what he or she claims to know about the phenomenon. For Husserl, experience is direct evidence of what exists. The textual evidence shows that Sartre rejects the distinction between appearance and reality based on the assumption of the phenomenon. By examining Husserl’s Ideas and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness I conclude that these philosophers’ philosophical languages influence their perceptual knowledge. Philosophical traditions affect the thoughts of perception. (shrink)

The evolution of Husserl’s thought did not follow a linear route. Time and again, crucial changes were taking place in its course. The content of fundamental concepts was shifting; successive discoveries of new thematics were happening; incessant expansions of the ever-under-rework teachings to new fields of application were being developed. The evaluation of Husserl’s work in its entirety becomes, thus, an extremely difficult task. The huge bulk of the writings, the multifariousness of their thematics, and the successive reforms and shifts (...) in it make the understanding of even the overall plan wherein the intermediate findings fall very difficult. One thing, though, is certain. In order to overcome all these obstacles to approaching Husserl’s work, we must first deepen our understanding of his method, the phenomenological method of philosophizing. Whatever is said in Husserl’s Phenomenology makes sense and has its value only to the extent that it is a result of ‘the’ phenomenological reduction. (shrink)

This book considers the prehistory of Husserl’s doctrine of phenomenological reduction. The focus is on Rudolf Eucken, who was world-renowned in his own time but is now the mostly forgotten late-idealistic philosopher. The prehistory clarifies how Husserl arrived at transcendental idealism in his most famous work, Ideas.

Husserl claimed that reduction is the true starting point of phenomenological research, but to figure out how this deed should actually be accomplished has turned out to be a very challenging task. In this study, I explicate how Husserl accomplished reduction during his series of lectures entitled The Idea of Phenomenology. He does not state it explicitly, but what actually happened on the last day of the lectures can be seen as consistent with his descriptions of reduction as an act. (...) Understood in this way, reduction is the model of how to do philosophy. The result of Husserl’s reduction is the correlation between appearance and “that which appears” or, to use Husserl’s later terminology, between noēsis and noēma. When this correlation is understood as an outcome of reduction and not as a result of an analysis, we, as readers of Husserl, will be in a better position to avoid natural attitude in our interpretations. (shrink)

The present volume is a sequel, apparently unforeseen, to the same author's Vom Gesichtspunkt der Phänomenologie: Husserl-Studien, and it continues and expands the treatment of themes developed in the earlier essays. VGP [I] is centered around the treatment of what is for Boehm Husserl's chief methodological technique, viz., the phenomenological reduction, and of several concepts related to the theory and performance of the reduction. Boehm maintains that the reduction, employed by Husserl in the service of establishing a philosophical theory, reveals (...) in its radical application, e.g., in the Krisis, that all objectivities are relative to a transcendental subjectivity, and constitutional analysis further reveals that some particular interest is an essential part of any experience; hence, according to Boehm, theories as purely objective and transcending all subjective interests are in principle impossible. Instead theories must be understood as objective only in the sense of intersubjective and as conditioned by historical and cultural circumstances, interests, and desires. This critical thesis lays the groundwork for the theses of the second volume. (shrink)

According to Husserl there is not only a negative meaning of scepticism, in which reason dissolves itself in an exasperated relativism, but also a completely opposite one, in which the idea of scepticism is a necessary transition for rational argumentation that reflects the actual ability of radically questioning those certainties that are fideistically interwoven in the relationship between life and scientific knowledge. It is therefore equally unquestionable that the objective of such scepticism is to seek, with untiring fatigue, solid, persuasive (...) terrain for one’s own argumentation that has the constant backdrop of revealing a new idea of subjectivity in its intrinsic tie with science and the common world of practical life. These two forms of scepticism, the anti-philosophical and the critical-rational therefore share an important trait: their unavoidable reference to subjectivity. However, whilst the discovery of the absolute intimacy of subjectivity with the world as a theatre of cognitive operations and of the creation of meaning fills the alleged fracture of a reality in itself that transcends the subject, it does not however eliminate the actual reasons of the concrete existence of the world and of the actual influence of such a reality on operations in the process of their creation. It is this that is the crucial question, the essential correlation between self and world, which progressively gains more and more importance in the evolution of Husserl’s notion of epoché and phenomenological reduction. A notion that corresponds to the critical exercise of reason, the necessary exercise of a scepticism that is never exhausted in itself as it never exhausts the view of the constantly changing meaning of the world in the wealth of its infinite essential traits. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Edmund Husserl strongly emphasized the importance of reduction to his phenomenology. For his followers, however, it has proved a formidable task to specify exactly how this intricate accomplishment that opens up the possibility for phenomenological research is to be performed. In this article, we study different approaches to gaining access to reduction and conclude by suggesting that we should read Husserliana itself as a set of accomplished reductions. In other words, our task is to pinpoint chapters where the movement (...) of reduction takes place. As an example of such a reading, I will point out events that come about in Husserl???s Idea of Phenomenology. R??SUM?? Husserl a fortement insist?? sur l???importance de la r??duction dans sa ph??nom??nologie. Pour ses disciples, cependant, s???est av??r????tre redoutable la t??che de pr??ciser comment doit??tre ex??cut??e cette r??alisation complexe qui ouvre la possibilit?? pour la recherche ph??nom??nologique. Dans cet article, nous??tudions les diff??rentes approches de la r??duction et nous concluons en sugg??rant que l???ouvrage Husserliana lui-m??me doit se lire comme un ensemble de r??ductions accomplies. Notre t??che consistera donc?? identifier les chapitres o?? a lieu ce mouvement de r??duction.?? titre d???exemple d???une telle lecture, j?????voquerai quelques-uns des??v??nements de L???id??e de la ph??nom??nologie de Husserl. (shrink)

The article traces out the history of the evolution in meaning of the phenomenological reduction in husserl's writings. The starting point is husserl's conviction that what is lacking most to philosophy as well as to science is a truly rigorous scientific method. Already in the "logical investigations" (1901) the phenomenological reduction is presented as the core of this method. But here this reduction is understood as a deliberate restriction or limitation of the mind to what is adequately perceived in an (...) "adequately fulfilling intuition" within the immanence of consciousness, Excluding any transcendence. In his lectures on "the idea of phenomenology" a significant expansion of the notion of reduction begins to appear. There is still the insistence on the absolutely given, But this now begins to include a certain "real transcendence" extending beyond the sphere of "real immanence to consciousness." this change appears first in his published works in the "ideas" of 1913. (shrink)

When talking about how cinema is affected by late-stage capitalism we have to look at the overall meaning of the film. But on occasion, these films incorporate stylistic but also temporal context. In this paper, I will use a traditional and contemporary phenomenological approach not just on the temporality aspect but the over the condition of cinema in late-stage capitalism. I will use Children Of Men to open up the ideas of how time within itself such as Heideggerian terms. Such (...) as the single shot sequences can not only reveal to us how time can be disjointed from the comprehensive understanding of personal time. Also the use of narrative as a vehicle for disclosing and the emergence of the true nature of the world and the state that it is in. Not just Being-in-the-world but the actualization of how late-stage capitalism brings about this disconnection with time and ontological narrative. Within this tension I will unpack it so we can see how time is both suffering from reification in the terms that Georg Lukács establishes and how being present-at-hand create a natural tension were capitalism exploits our own disjointed time but film is able to capture it in a manner that is not only presentable but it relates even though all experiences are unique in this fragmented reality. (shrink)

Phenomenological reduction as a philosophical conversion (periagoge) -/- Während Husserl in den Ideen I die Reduktion als eine neue „Methode“ des Denkens, d. h. als eine „epistemologische“ Reduktion versteht, schlägt Scheler eine Reduktion als eine „Tèchne“ der Umbildung vor, durch die der Mensch seiner exzentrischen Stellung in der Welt Gestalt zu geben sucht. Mich interessiert an diesem Zitat vor allem der Gebrauch des griechischen Terminus „Tèchne“. Was Scheler damit bezeichnet, hat offensichtlich nichts mit dem zu tun, was wir heute unter (...) dem Begriff der Technik verstehen. Er spricht eben von einer Kunst „des inneren Handelns“. Meines Erachtens verweist Scheler durch diesen griechischen Begriff auf Platons Gedanken. Für diese These kann man sich bereits auf eine Stelle aus der mittleren Phase im Denken Schelers stützen, in der er nämlich die phänomenologische Reduktion als den moralischen Akt darstellt, dem der „platonische Aufschwung“ (Vom Wesen der Philosophie, GW V, 67) zugrunde liegt. Es ist nun geradezu dieser „platonische Aufschwung“, der im Nachlass ausdrücklich als eine „Tèchne“ (Nachlass, GW XI, 118) beschrieben wird. Was heißt nun in diesem Kontext tèchne bei Platon? Schelers Gebrauch des griechischen Terminus tèchne für die Bezeichnung der phänomenologischen Reduktion erinnert sehr an die tèchne tês periagogês im Höhlengleichnis Platons, durch die die Gefangenen aus der Höhle hinausgehen können. Diese tèchne versteht Platon als einen Bildungsprozess des Menschen; er lernt dadurch, seinen Blick auf das Gute hin zu lenken, damit seine Seinsweise in der Welt zurechtgerückt werden könne. Es geht also um eine conversio oder Umkehrung der eigenen Positionalität in der Welt, die den Übergang vom Leben zum guten Leben zustande bringen kann. Diese tèchne ist grundlegend für das Verständnis der paideía bei Platon, die sich nicht mit einer bloßen Übertragung von Informationen begnügt, sondern vielmehr nach einer periagogé (Umkehrung) der ganzen Seele strebt. Es muss also – wie Sokrates sagt – eine besondere „Kunst der Umkehrung [tèchne tês periagogês]“ geben, die lehrt, auf welche Weise am leichtesten und wirksamsten die Seele umgewendet werden kann, und zwar unter Berücksichtigung dessen, dass sie bereits sehen kann, aber es alleine nicht schafft, das Gesicht zu wenden, „wohin es solle“ (Politeia, VII, 518 d). (shrink)

Wie bekannt hat Scheler den Begriff der "phänomenologischen Reduktion" ausdrücklich von Husserl übernommen1, dennoch behauptet in der letzten Schaffensperiode ebenso deutlich, den Terminus "Phänomenologie" vermeiden zu wollen, und tatsächlich verwendet er entweder den Ausdruck "phänomenologische Reduktion" in Anführungszeichen oder den Begriff "Techne der Reduktion". Die These, die ich zu entwickeln versuchen werde, ist, daß es bei Scheler nicht nur eine einzige Theorie der Reduktion gibt und daß, ebenso wie verschiedene Realitätstheorien zu unterscheiden sind, ebenso viele Versuche zu erkennen sind, die (...) das Thema der Reduktion behandeln. Diese Versuche sind in großen Zügen auf zwei "Varianten" zurückzuführen: Die erste Variante ist jene, die wir alle kennen und die Scheler selbst in seiner mittleren Schaffensperiode als "phänomenologische Reduktion" bezeichnet. Die zweite Variante der Reduktion wird von ihm nicht eindeutig bestimmt, und es ist auch schwierig, dafür eine Bezeichnung zu finden. Auf jeden Fall verbindet sie Scheler mit Begriffen wie Sublimierung, Ekstase, Askese, "moralischer Aufschwung", etc.. Um sie von der ersten Variante zu unterscheiden werde ich sie "kathartische Reduktion" nennen, wobei das Wort "Katharsis" im Sinne von Platon gemeint ist. (shrink)

This paper articulates a new understanding of Sartre’s philosophical methodology in his early publications up to and including Being and Nothingness. Through his critique of Husserl across these works, Sartre develops an original and sophisticated variety of transcendental phenomenology. He was attracted to Husserl’s philosophy for its promise to establish the foundations of empirical psychology but ultimately concluded that it could not fulfil this promise. Through the analyses that led him to this conclusion, Sartre formulated a new kind of phenomenological (...) reduction and a distinctive kind of transcendental argument to draw conclusions about mind-independent reality from phenomenological premises. His aims were to dissolve the traditional distinction between mind and world, to establish that the mind is accessible to empirical study, and to formulate the conceptual framework required to study the mind systematically. Sartre’s philosophy of psychology, therefore, drove the philosophical development of the methodological foundation of his philosophical project. (shrink)

Traditionally, phenomenology has understood the self in light of intentionality and hence the world. However, contemporary French phenomenology—as represented here by Jean-Luc Marion—contends that this view of subjectivity is open to challenge: our mode of existence is not simply one of “being-in the-world.” I develop this claim by examining Marion’s reformulation of the reduction. Here, the phenomenon of vanity is key. I first present Husserl’s and Heidegger’s own formulations of the reduction. Following Marion, I show that the blow of vanity (...) neutralizes both, by undercutting the respective questions to which they respond. For, in response to vanity’s own question—“What’s the use?”—neither the transcendental nor ontological reductions have a reply. Vanity consequently renders the Heideggerian distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity existentially moot. To establish this, I evaluate how existing interpretations of authenticity overlook the phenomenon of vanity. Phenomenology, I urge in conclusion, should shift its attention to the horizons opened by Marion’s erotic reduction. (shrink)

Is there intentionality in the inner most level of the soul? Do we have experience of what is unconscious? And, supposing that such an experience might exist, is it possible to perform reduction on it? In this regard the present paper aims to investigate, from a phenomenological point of view, the process of “raising awareness” of what is unconscious, trying to understand if there is a connection between this process and the methodological concept of “reduction” developed by Husserl. Particular attention (...) is paid to the specific type of reduction called “psychological reduction,” which, according to Husserl, provides access to the pure soul, the pure field of psychological experience. (shrink)

Derrida’s thought on “trace,” “différance,” “writing,” and “supplement” is always thought the breaking of logocentrism, the essence, the positive meaning, and the closure of the metaphysics of presence; this thinking is accordingly regarded the thinking with the fundamental structure of difference and openness. By tracking back to Saussure, Husserl and Levinas, this fundamental difference breaks the myth of ideal meaning as well as the illusion of the absolute open; its lack of ideality and absoluteness contains the fundamental difference within itself (...) and thus has the structure of open. However, from a broader perspective, I will re-ask the question “Whether or not Derrida’s ‘trace,’ ‘différance,’ ‘writing,’ and ‘supplement’ have a structure of open.” When the web of differences encompasses everything even its own “exit,” this “open” thus conceals and denies other modes of thinking. With the impossibility of going out of this mode of thinking, the structure of différance is closed. (shrink)

The issue of whether the phenomenology presented in Ideen I was a metaphysical realism or an idealism came to the fore almost immediately upon its publication. The present essay is an examination of the relation of Gustav Shpet, one of Husserl’s students from the Göttingen years, to this issue via his understanding of phenomenology and, particularly, of the phenomenological reduction, as shown principally in his early published writings. For Shpet, phenomenology employs essential intuition without regard to experiential intuition. If we (...) look on transcendental idealism as the label for this methodology, which disregards but does not deny either the empirical or its correlative species of intuition, then Shpet was such an idealist, all the while adhering to a metaphysical realism. In this way, Shpet could proclaim phenomenology to be the fundamental philosophical discipline without precluding the possibility of other philosophical disciplines insofar as they were conducted in relation to consciousness taken not as the “possession” of a human individual, but eidetically and thus not a “possession.”. (shrink)

Gallagher hardly refers to the central issue of the phenomenological reduction, and he perpetuates the historical blunder of Chisholm, misinterpreting Husserlian intentionality as linguistic intensionality. This misunderstanding opens the way to a “naturalization” of phenomenology, which misses the very method of the phenomenological reduction as well as the essential dimension of subjective lived experience.

In this paper, relying mainly on his "Preface for Germans" I describe Ortega's complaints about Husserl's transcendental reduction, his own "anti-idealistic" approach to phenomenology, and his alternative version of the reduction, a reduction to life. Similarities with the work of Michel Henry are noted, but not explored in detail. Mention is made of Graham Harmon's interpretation of Ortega in "Guerrilla Metaphysics," but only to set up my interpretation of Ortega.

In my paper I discuss Husserl’s standpoint on the existence of world. Addressing this issue the philosopher thinks of the kind of being, outer of consciousness, which is realized in the general thesis of natural attitude. The aim of phenomenological research is to reveal correlation of consciousness and the world, which according to Husserl, becomes transcendental constitution. In the course of explaining this correlation Husserl reveals that the existence of world might be recognized as a correlate of the general thesis (...) of natural attitude, which after phenomenological reduction becomes recognised as the constitutive achievement of consciousness. Transcendental idealism is interpreted in the paper as transcendental monism. Husserl not only questions the possibility of non-cognizable things-in-themselves, but also he uses some broad concept of transcendental subjectivity. The transcendental subjectivity is not opposed to the world, but it includes the world as the subjectivity’s correlate. Strictly speaking, the world is conceived as structure transcendental subjectivity, and the natural attitude might be taken as anonymous modus of transcendental life. (shrink)

The paper addresses the relation between transcendental-phenomenological reduction and neutral modification in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. According to Husserl, there is both essential kinship and fundamental difference between them. What makes them akin is that they both are characterised as disconnection or bracketing judgement about natural world. What differs them, however, is that neutral modification is a kind of transformation of conviction of existence of the world into neutral consciousness, which does not constitute the world, whereas the transcendental-phenomenological reduction disconnects the (...) world in a way which leads to uncovering the subjectivity that does constitute the world. Hence, the transcendental-phenomenological disconnection of the world does not mean its neutralisation, but rather recognition of being of the world as a result of constitutive performances of transcendental subjectivity. (shrink)

In the paper I present the Husserl’s idea of philosophy as a strict science which he understood as universal and ultimately justified knowledge, free from any prejudices coming from naturalistic attitude. The prejudice of such an attitude is a thesis of the existence of the world. By complying with this thesis unreflectively, one becomes immersed in the world, which means that in the natural attitude the transcendental character of subjectivity remains unconscious and anonymous. This anonymity might be razed by transcendental (...) reduction, which aims at getting the transcendental ego rid of self-forgetting. The subjectivity revealed this way is still, in its deepest aspects, anonymous as ultimately functioning ego, for being an epistemological absolute, it is a source of reflection and through reflection it cannot become acknowledged. I discuss some difficulties related to the second type of anonymity in relation to Husserl’s demand of phenomenology realising the idea of philosophy as strict a science. (shrink)

The paper discusses phenomenological reduction as the transformation of ego. Possibility of overcoming natural-objective attitudes leading to revealing of what is the first from which everything that is immediately given takes its sense, is what Husserl calls phenomenological reduction. This overcoming, which causes a movement from natural attitude to more primal orientation in the genetic sense, reveals the transcendental aspect of ego. Acknowledging the primacy of ego over other spheres of being, Husserl rehabilitates the value of subjectivity as transcendental sphere. (...) For it shows that from transcendental point of view it is something more than the change of attitude. Exclusion from the world with reduction leads to revealing its transcendental reverse seen from the perspective of the transformed ego, the ego which acknowledges its constitutive life. With the change in the attitude the peculiar transformation change of ego follows, so that ego in the transcendental-phenomenological attitude becomes unprejudiced spectator of their own intentional life. (shrink)

The paper presents Husserl’s conception of the transcendental reduction taken as a mode of revealing those constitutive achievements of consciousness which were covered in the natural attitude. This aspect of Husserl’s writings was pointed out by Ludwig Landgrebe, Paul Janssen and Shigeru Taguchi. Taking their works into account, the author focuses on reduction in terms of excluding the thesis of natural attitude. To exclude this thesis it is first of all necessary to reveal it and recognize as a thesis, for (...) in natural attitude it is fulfilled anonymously and remains covered. Reduction of the thesis of natural attitude leads to its reflective revealing, that is refraining from its anonymous, mindless fulfilment. It is through revealing the thesis, taken as an experience of consciousness, that we recognize that the reality needs to be understood as a correlate of the thesis, and ultimately: correlate of subjectivity which works as fulfilling the thesis. Hence, anonymously fulfilled in natural attitude, the thesis on the world’s existence is recognized, thanks to the reduction, as a constitutive achievement of consciousness. (shrink)

This book fills an important gap in previous Husserl scholarship by focusing on intersubjectivity and empathy (i.e., the experience of others as other subjects) and by addressing the related issues of validity, the degrees of evidence with which something can be experienced, and the different senses of 'objective' in Husserl's texts. Despite accusations by commentators that Husserl's is a solipsistic philosophy and that the epistemologies in Husserl's late and early works are contradictory, Hermberg shows that empathy, and thus other subjects, (...) are related to one's knowledge on the view offered in each of Husserl's Introductions to Phenomenology. Empathy is significantly related to knowledge in at least two ways, and Husserl's epistemology might, consequently, be called a social epistemology: (a) empathy helps to give evidence for validity and thus to solidify one's knowledge, and (b) it helps to broaden one's knowledge by giving access to what others have known. These roles of empathy are not at odds with one another; rather, both are at play in each of the Introductions (if even only implicitly) and, given his position in the earlier work, Husserl needed to expand the role of empathy as he did. Such a reliance on empathy, however, calls into question whether Husserl's is a transcendental philosophy in the sense Husserl claimed. (shrink)

The article presents the transcendental reduction as a type of questioning, and by so doing formulates the problem of the structure and motivation of reduction. Transcendental questioning is presented as a permanent formulation and reformulation of questions, which, it is argued, make it possible to overcome the naïveté of the natural attitude. However, the phenomenologist does not overcome naïveté in the sense of excluding it; instead, he is conscious of it. It is argued that one should understand transcendental questioning as (...) a practical activity that makes the phenomenologist responsible for knowledge by leading toward the essence, which seems to be “unquestionable.”. (shrink)

This study focuses on the essential difference between Kant’s and Husserl’s transcendental Idealism. In fact, Husserl describes in the «Cartesian Meditations» his own ontological thesis as a «transcendental idealism», in which all sorts of entities have to be constituted by an activity of the transcendental subjectivity, so that we have to regard pure consciousness as the ontological origin of all entities in the world. But this study is interested in the two opposite signications of the Kantian copernican inversion. On the (...) one hand, the Copernican inversion has the same sense as the phenomenological reduction, which implies that Husserl can’t agree with Kant’s presupposition of absolute things in themselves; on the second hand, it involves a relativistic and anthropologistic orientation, so that the aprioristic structures of given objects are founded on the universal structures of finite subjectivity, on pure forms and faculties of human consciousness. At the opposite, Husserl enounces a methodological prescription for any phenomenological elucidation: it is not allowed to presuppose in phenomenology any given faculty or given nature of transcendental subjectivity. This prescription has important consequences on which this study focuses. First the ontological difference between intuitus originarius and intuitus derivatus, in nite and nite type of intuition, doesn’t have any validity: the difference between factual and rational truths only depends on the essence of the truth itself, and doesn’t have its foundation on the ontological difference between creative and receptive sort of intuition. Secondly, this first thesis admits an immediate application on the level of subjective constitution of objects: the modality in which an object appears to the subjectivity doesn’t depend on the universal structure of finite subject, but is exclusively founded on the essence of the object itself, so that it is impossible to consider the aprioristic constitutive structure as a merely subjective structure. Thirdly, in this transcendental phenomenology everything has to be constituted by subjectivity: the aprioristic character of the pure forms of sensibility is not founded on the structure of finite subjectivity, but rather on the essential connection between sensual material and form; so that it is not allowed to presuppose any facticity of time and space; the pure forms of sensibility have to be constituted by a special type of synthesis that we have to elucidate in opposition to other types of higher levels. The profound signication of Husserl’s anticopernican inversion is that the field of transcendental phenomenology consists of the essential form of an eidos ego, which is «more objective than any objectivity», as Levinas said; and that transcendental phenomenology is completely dominated by the principium reddendae rationis. (shrink)

By extending Husserl’s own historico-critical study to include the conceptual mathematics of more contemporary times – specifically category theory and its emphatic development since the second half of the 20th century – this paper claims that the delineation between mathematics and philosophy must be completely revisited. It will be contended that Husserl’s phenomenological work was very much influenced by the discoveries and limitations of the formal mathematics being developed at Göttingen during his tenure there and that, subsequently, the rôle he (...) envisaged for his material a priori science is heavily dependent upon his conception of the definite manifold. Motivating these contentions is the idea of a mathematics which would go beyond the constraints of formal ontology and subsequently achieve coherence with the full sense of transcendental phenomenology. While this final point will be by no means proven within the confines of this paper it is hoped that the very fact of opening up for the possibility of such an idea will act as a supporting argument to the overriding thesis that the relationship between mathematics and phenomenology must be problematised. (shrink)

The first phase of Sartre’s philosophical publications is marked by an apparent ambivalence towards Husserl’s transcendental turn. Sartre accepts both major aspects of that turn, the phenomenological reduction and the use of transcendental argumentation. Yet his rejection of the transcendental ego that Husserl derives from this transcendental turn overlooks an obvious transcendental argument in favour of it. His books on emotion and imagination, moreover, make only very brief comments about the transcendental constitution of the world of experience. In each case, (...) these appear at the end of the book and can seem to contradict the book’s central analysis. The problem underlying these features of his works of phenomenological psychology is clarified and resolved, however, when Sartre articulates his own transcendental phenomenology and ontology in Being and Nothingness a decade after he first encountered the work of Husserl. This resolution raises a new problem that animates the next phase of his philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I will examine Husserl’s attempt to establish a ground for science with the so called transcendental reduction. This will entail both an identification of the problems that Husserl was attempting to solve as well as a careful analysis of Husserl’s account of his methodology. I will then examine how Derrida’s reading, which affirms the phenomenological project in many of its essential aspects, begins to signal a subtle yet ultimately radical disagreement. This disagreement will have lasting implications for (...) our understanding of the possibilities designated by the transcendental method in Husserl’s thinking. (shrink)

The present work is a systematic study of the nexus which holds together perception, motivation and existence in Husserl’s early writings—precisely those which are dated between 1898 and 1921. In Chapter I a historical and conceptual reconstruction of the genesis of what is termed ‘constitution problem’ is provided. After a thorough discussion about the distinction between real and intentional description, we elucidate the method of phenomenological reduction and show how the constitution problem relates to questions regarding transcendence and existence. Chapter (...) II is concerned with a detailed presentation of Husserlian phenomenology of visual perception. We present Husserl’s theory of intentionality in the light of Husserlian mereology: first, we argue that Husserl conceives of intentionality as a property which entails a relation; secondly, we debate his critique of the theory of immanent objects and his solution to the problem of non-existent objects. After examining the perceptual act in all its essential components (i.e. quality, matter and sensations), we discuss the notorious ‘content – apprehension’ schema and study the manuscripts in which Husserl develops the notion of ‘perceptional’. Themes like the relationship between fulfillment and disappointment and the distinguishability of veridical and non-veridical perceptions are also taken into account. In Chapter III we consider what differentiates the outer perception from other kinds of perception. After making clear what Husserl means by ‘inner perception’ we debate the opposition between immanent and transcendent perception, first by using identity/manifold analysis and then by means of whole/part analysis. In this context we reject Husserl’s account of reflection as a perceptual act on both exegetical and theoretical grounds. Furthermore, we explain how Husserl tries to refute the ‘image theory’ and how he addresses the issue of the hidden profiles. The study of the microstructure of the outer perception allows us to explain in which sense this kind of perception is to be conceived as necessarily inadequate. Chapter IV is largely devoted to an attempt at systematizing Husserl’s theory of kinaesthesia as it appears in the Dingvorlesung. This sheds light on the structure of motivation and on the role which this latter plays in the constitution of a mundane object. In Chapter V we scrutinize Husserl’s conception of the possibility/reality dichotomy. In particular, we distinguish an ontological analysis of possibility from a phenomenological one and investigate the diverse concepts of ‘possibility’ (e.g. ideal, real, independent, modal) developed by Husserl. Finally, we introduce and debate Husserl’s (so-called) ‘exhibition principle’ and try to point out its ambiguities. (shrink)

In his illuminating Aquinas Lecture Jacques Taminiaux offers a bold interpretation of certain contemporary European philosophers in terms of the way in which they react to and transform Husserl’s phenomenological reduction. He highlights issues relating to embodiment, personhood, and value. Taminiaux sketches Husserl’s emerging conception of the reduction and criticizes certain Cartesian assumptions that Husserl retains even after the reduction, and specifically the assumption that directly experienced mental acts and states are not given in adumbrations but present themselves as they (...) are. Heidegger too does not escape a certain Cartesian dualism with his privileging of the individual authentic self over and against the inauthentic das Man. Taminiaux portrayspost-Heideggerian philosophy as responding to failures or dualisms haunting Husserl’s reduction. Taminiaux is right to insist on the importance of the reduction in Husserl and also, despite appearances, in Heidegger, but it is not clear that the meditations of Arendt, Jonas, and Levinas can really be seen as responding to failures in the reduction. Furthermore, Taminiaux downplays the centrality of Husserl’s commitment to transcendental idealism and his representation of the epochē and reduction as ways of breaking through the natural attitude to reach the transcendental attitude of the non-participating spectator. (shrink)

The following issues are considered in the paper: The proper understanding of the ‘attempt to doubt’ recommended by Husserl in Ideas, Book I, as a point of departure on a way to the transcendental reduction. How intentional reference of an act of consciousness is possible and what it consists in, according to Husserl. A logical dependence between the characteristics of intentional reference and the standpoint of transcendental idealism in Husserl’s Ideas, Book I. How to understand Husserl’s claim that the intentional (...) object is equivalent to sense. I arrive at the conclusion that a fully consistent interpretation of Husserl’s declarations regarding the aforementioned issues does not seem to be possible; for one needs to modify Husserl’s standpoint in certain respects. These considerations will be carried on in an article titled ‘The Noema as Sense. The Problem of the Object of Consciousness in Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism’, forthcoming in Diametros. (shrink)

Investigo la relación filosófica entre Avenarius y Husserl en los años del curso Problemas fundamentales de la fenomenología en relación especial con el concepto natural de mundo. Primero, expongo brevemente los temas fenomenológicos fundamentales: el concepto natural de mundo, la reducción fenomenológica y la unidad del yo. En segundo lugar, sintetizo las ideas básicas de la obra Der menschliche Weltbegriff de Avenarius. En tercer lugar, discuto la coincidencia entre Avenarius y Husserl, poniendo énfasis en la reducción primordial, y planteo las (...) críticas de Husserl a Avenarius, destacando la postura unívoca de Avenarius en contraste con la postura fenomenológica de Husserl. I study the philosophical relationship between Avenarius and Husserl during the years where the later held the lectures The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, taking especially into account the natural concept of the world. First, I expound briefly the basic phenomenological topics of the lectures: the natural concept of the world, the phenomenological reduction and the ego's unity. Second, I tackle the basic ideas of Avenarius' Der menschliche Weltbegriff . Third, I discuss the coincidence between Avenarius and Husserl, paying special attention to the primordial reduction, and also the objections that Husserl made to Avenarius, making a contrast between Avenarius' univocal approach to being and Husserl's phenomenological account. (shrink)

When Edmund Husserl retired in 1928, ceding his chair at the University of Freiburg to his successor Martin Heidegger, he again began working intensively on synthesizing his philosophical efforts into a new “system of phenomenology.” This new presentation could, hopefully, displace his earlier presentation of 1913 in the Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Book I, a work with which he had become dissatisfied in the meantime.

How can phenomenology describe an object as "the political"? The article endeavours to show how it is possible to apprehend such a theme from a _transcendental<D> perspective. After going through the methodic difficulties of the Cartesian way, which involves an egology intersubjectively extended to the monadology, the essay analyzes the non-Cartesian ways. Indeed, both of them pave the way for a political based on a plural structure. The way through the life-world as well as the way through psychology succeed in (...) depicting the political, either as living sociality or as the play between ethical co-attitudes. In each case, the reduction operates in a specific manner, either as a pure Cartesian bracketing, as a retrocession to social originality or as a nonparticipating in the world-interests. Nevertheless, only the way through psychology reaches the political at a strict transcendental level, whereas the way through the life-world always runs the risk of falling back. (shrink)

This paper, after a brief historical introduction about the author analyses some features of phenomenological anthropology of Gerda Walther, taking especially into account his main work, Phenomenology of the Mystical, from the second edition of 1955 (trad. ital., 2008). In it, Walther presents a real treaty of the philosophical anthropology, as part of a preliminary analysis of the mystical phenomena to relate anthropological elements from a phenomenological analysis of the human being and the philosophical-religious problems of mystical experience and paranormal (...) experiences. In this work identifies, in addition to the influence of the Husserl’s method, the influx of Pfänder’s phenomenology, mainly in the use of metaphors to explain the formation of the human person. One of the fundamental theses of his anthropology is that every human being has an I-Center (Ichzentrum) with the features of self-consciousness and capability to will. In it, the author showed dependence of elaboration from Pfänder’s Comprehensive Psychology, but also of the phenomenology of Husserl, Scheler and Stein, in particular by its conception of “heart of me” (Einbettung des Ich) which denotes similarities with the “I-animic” of Stein, a concept derived from a review of “I-pure” of Husserl. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Husserl—Heidegger relationship is systematically misunderstood when framed in terms of a distinction between internalism and externalism. Both philosophers, it is argued, employ the phenomenological reduction to immanence as a fundamental methodological instrument. After first outlining the assumptions regarding inner and outer and the individual and the social from which recent epistemological interpretations of phenomenology begin, I turn to the question of Husserl's internalism. I argue that Husserl can only be understood as an internalist on the (...) assumption that immanence equates with internal. This, however, is not the case as can be seen once the reduction is understood not as setting aside the existence of the world, but rather a reflection on its meaning. Turning to Heidegger, I argue that his commitment to a form of the phenomenological reduction precludes him from being either a semantic or a social externalist. The place of authenticity and the first person perspective in his work derive from his phenomenological commitments, which can be seen in his accounts of discourse and language and of falling (Verfallen). I then go on to briefly outline a more plausible basis for understanding the difference between Husserl's and Heidegger's phenomenologies in terms of their respective emphases on logic and on poetics. (shrink)