This book presents the major philosophical doctrines of phenomenology in a clear, lively style with an abundance of examples. The book examines such phenomena as perception, pictures, imagination, memory, language, and reference, and shows how human thinking arises from experience. It also studies personal identity as established through time and discusses the nature of philosophy. In addition to providing a new interpretation of the correspondence theory of truth, the author also explains how phenomenology differs from both modern and postmodern forms (...) of thinking. (shrink)

In tracing the formation of Husserl's concept of constitution, we hope to further the understanding of what he considers a philosophical explanation. ...

In this book, Robert Sokolowski argues that being a person means to be involved with truth. He shows that human reason is established by syntactic composition in language, pictures, and actions and that we understand things when they are presented to us through syntax. Sokolowski highlights the role of the spoken word in human reason and examines the bodily and neurological basis for human experience. Drawing on Husserl and Aristotle, as well as Aquinas and Henry James, Sokolowski here employs phenomenology (...) in a highly original way in order to clarify what we are as human agents. (shrink)

The structure and key elements of Husserl's philosophy are analyzed in this chronological examination of his doctrines. Bibliogs.

In this essay, we will discuss what Husserl mean when he says that immanent objects are “constituted” by inner temporality. Our discussion will amount to a study of how sensations and intentions come to be in out subjectivity, and how we are conscious of them; Husserl’s opinion on these points will be taken from his Lectures on the Phenomenology of Inner Time Consciousness.

Identifies what is most radically distinctive about Christian belief. Addressed to a non-technical audience, the book helps the reader examine the most basic questions concerning Christian faith.

IN THIS ESSAY, WE WILL USE ARISTOTLE to bring out some important features of friendship and of moral action in general; we will show that friendship is the highest kind of moral excellence. We will then make use of phenomenology to determine the kinds of intelligence that provide the substance of both moral conduct and friendship. Moral action and friendship are defined by special kinds of rational form, and it will be our goal to describe these forms.

Husserl’s Idea of Phenomenology is his first systematic attempt to show how phenomenology differs from natural science and in particular psychology. He does this by the phenomenological reduction. One of his achievements is to show that the formal structures of intentionality are more akin to logic than to psychology. I claim that Husserl’s argument can be made more intuitive if we consider phenomenology to be the study of truth rather than knowledge, and if we see the reduction as primarily a (...) modification in our vocabulary and discourse and not as simply a change in attitude. I briefly compare Husserl’s concept of philosophy with those of Plato and Kant. (shrink)

The author considers the phenomenon of honor (timē) by examining Aristotle’s description of it and its role in ethical and political life. His study of honor leads him to two related phenomena, anger (orgē) and belittlement or contempt (oligōria); examining them helps him define honor more precisely. With his examination of honor the author shows how densely interwoven Aristotle’s ethical theory is; he illuminates such diverse things as the human good, political life and friendship, virtue, vice, incontinence, flattery, wealth and (...) pleasure; he shows how the metaphysical principles of dunamis and energeia are at work in human affairs; he treats the passion of anger as well as the moral attitude of contempt that provokes it, and he situates both within the study of rhetoric. (shrink)

A plurality of axiomatic systems can be interpreted as referring to one and the same mathematical object. In this paper we examine the relationship between axiomatic systems and their models, the relationships among the various axiomatic systems that refer to the same model, and the role of an intelligent user of an axiomatic system. We ask whether these relationships and this role can themselves be formalized.

Distinctions are set in obscurity and imagination. Distinctions are not made anywhere and anytime, nor are they made in no place and at no time; they are made in a situation in which they are called for. Distinctions push against an obscurity that needs the distinction in question. In the story about Jack and the doctor, the obscurity against which the distinction is made is included as part of the story; in the quotation from Chaucer the obscurity that provides the (...) setting for the distinction is not mentioned—although you would find it if you were to read the Wife of Bath’s tale—but it is easy for us to imagine a setting in which the distinction between counseling and commandment ought to be made. When we entertain a distinction, such as "counseling is not commandment," "ignorance is not negligence," or "medical data is not medical care," we always experience or imagine an obscurity against which the distinction arises. When we think philosophically about executing distinctions, we must pay attention to the obscurity that lets the distinction occur. (shrink)

Robert Sokolowski, a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, has taught philosophy at The Catholic University of America since 1963. He has written six books and numerous articles dealing with phenomenology, philosophy and Christian faith, moral philosophy, and issues in contemporary science. He has been an auxiliary chaplain at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., since 1976 and was named monsignor in 1993.

QUOTATION is not merely repetition, even though it involves repeating what someone else has said. Quotation is repeating something as having been stated by another. The difference is one of presentational or intentional form. There may be no difference in the words being repeated, but they are repeated differently: it is as though we no longer saw an object directly but now only in a mirror.

M. ROUBACH. Being and Number in Heidegger's Thought. Translation from the Hebrew by Nessa Olshansky-Ashtar. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. viii + 139 pp. £65.0...

Sokolowski, R. The presence of judgment.--Eley, L. Logik und Welt.--Seebohm, T. M. Zur Phänomenologie kognitiver Leistungen im Umgang mit formalen Sprachen.--Holenstein, E. Die Grenzen der phänomenologischen Reduktion in der Phonologie.--Asemissen, H. U. Das System der Sinne.--Waldenfels, B. Die Verschränkung von Innen und Aussen im Verhalten.--Kockelmans, J. J. Hermeneutic Phenomenology and the science of history.--Kisiel, T. Hermeneutic models for natural science.

FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE says that a word is composed of two parts, a sound-image and a concept: "The linguistic sign unites not a thing and a name, but a concept and an acoustic image." The sound-image signifies the concept: the sound-image is the signifier, the concept is the signified. De Saussure is only one of a large company of thinkers who describe words in this way. Most philosophical and semiotic analyses of words claim that words have two components, a dimension (...) of sounds and a dimension of concepts. (shrink)