This volume provides a valuable discussion of Husserl's lifelong project of the critique of science which makes no attempt to conflate the pre-World War I ...

A clarification of Husserl's changing conceptions of imaginary consciousness ( phantasy ) and memory, especially at the level of auto-affective time-consciousness, suggests an interpretation of Freud's concept of the Unconscious. Phenomenology of consciousness can show how it is possible that consciousness can bring to present appearance something unconscious, that is, something foreign or absent to consciousness, without incorporating it into or subordinating it to the conscious present. This phenomenological analysis of Freud's concept of the Unconscious leads to a partial critique (...) of Freud's metapsychological determination of the Unconscious as a simple, internally unperceived representational consciousness. It also suggests an account of how a reproductive inner consciousness can free the subject from the experience of anxiety by allowing for possibilities of self-distanciation and symbolic self-representation that protect the subject from traumatic affection by and through its own instinctual drives. (shrink)

This article seeks to reconstruct and critically extend Jacques Derrida’s critique of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Derrida’s critique of Husserl is explored in three main areas: the phenomenology of language, the phenomenology of time, and the phenomenological constitution of ideal objects. In each case, Husserl’s analysis is shown to rest upon a one-sided determination of truth in terms of presence—whether it be the presence of expressive meaning to consciousness, the self-presence of the temporal instant, or the complete presence of an (...) ideal object through intuition. At every juncture, Derrida’s reasoning is deployed in order to demonstrate how presence is irreducibly bound up with absence and otherness and thus how the ideal of a phenomenological self-presence of consciousness is itself an abstraction from the contingency of history and our concrete embeddedness within a particular lifeworld. The article concludes with an appraisal of reason’s limits in a time of technological domination and the threat of global annihilation. Rather than a flight into irrationalism or skepticism, the author advocates a deepening of philosophical responsibility and an ethics of undecidability as essential for meeting the challenges of modernity. (shrink)

In the fall of 1957 the University of California Press expanded Arnheim’s 1933 book _Film_ by four essays and brought that landmark work back into print as _Film as Art._ Now nearly fifty years after that re-edition, the book continues to occupy an important place in the literature of film. Arnheim’s method, provocative in this age of technological wizardry, was to focus on the way art in film was derived from that medium’s early limitations: no sound, no color, no three-dimensional (...) depth. (shrink)

This article begins by presenting the two most important transformations that establish a genuine Husserlian approach to the imagination: the first lies in the grasping of imagination, despite its essential differences with perception and hallucination, as an intuitive, or sensuous consciousness ; the second lies in the insight that imagination, or better – phantasy –, requires no images, mental or otherwise. Further, the distinction between pure and perceptual phantasies and their respective fictional objects is drawn out. A comparison between pure (...) phantasy and memory, then leads to a closer look at the role of inner consciousness in pure phantasy and to a clarification of the ‘splitting of the subject’. The exploration of this split allows us to trace the role of the real-ego and the phantasy-ego in pure phantasy, which opens the exploration of phantasy as a consciousness of possibilities. This helps us gain clarity about the nature of both real and ideal possibilities and the respective modes of phantasy. Objects of phantasy also most easily lend themselves to an eidetic variation and to an insight into essences. Phenomenological essences concern the ideal possibility of real and ideal objects and of their experience. It is through their contribution to insight into the real and ideal conditions of possibility of different forms of intentional acts that acts of phantasy best show their potential for Husserl’s project of philosophy as a rigorous science. Imagination or fiction becomes, in his own words, the ‘vital element of phenomenology.’. (shrink)

Excerpt from Über die Echtheit der Platonischen Briefe Der erste Aufenthalt Platos in Syrakus fällt, wie sich mit Hilfe einer bisher übersehenen Angabe seines Biographen Olympiodor feststellen läfst, in den Frühsommer des Jahres 388. Damals war Plato, der nach dem Zeugnis seines Schülers Hermodor 427 geboren ist, in der Tat beinahe 40 Jahre alt Das anfänglich gute Verhältnis zum älteren Dionys konnte bei der Ver schiedenheit der Charaktere nicht lange bestehen; schon um die Mitte des Sommers 388, zur Zeit der (...) olympischen Spiele, finden wir Plato wieder in Hellas. Nach einer bekannten Erzählung hatte nämlich der Tyrann den smrtanischen Gesandten Pullis veranlafst, ihn auf seinem Schiffe mitzunehmen und in Ägina aus Land zu setzen, damit er dort als Kriegsgefangener fest genommen und auf dem Sklavenmarkt verkauft würde. Es wäre nämlich gerade Krieg zwischen Athen und Ägina gewesen (bis Sein Gastfreund Anniceris von Cyrene sei zufällig hinzu gekommen und habe ihn losgekauft Ausdrücklich bemerkt Olympiodor zu dieser Erzählung, Anniceris sei mit einem Viergespann nach Hellas gekommen, um an den olympischen Spielen Demnach fällt Platos erste sizilische Reise in das Olympiadenjahr 388. Die chronologische Zuverlässigkeit des Briefes tritt am deutlichsten darin hervor, dafs nun seine An gabe, Plato sei damals beinahe 40 Jahre alt gewesen, gerade mit der bestbezeugten Angabe über sein Geburtsjahr übereinstimmt. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Im ersten Teil des Anhangs zur Transzendentalen Dialektik entwickelt Kant einen Übergang zwischen dem logischen Gebrauch der Vernunft und den transzendentalen Prinzipien der Vernunft. Basierend auf methodologischen Überlegungen zur Chemie, zur physiologischen Anthropologie und zur Entwicklungsgeschichte astronomischer Grundannahmen versucht Kant, diese Prinzipien in ihrem transzendentalen Status zu rechtfertigen und ihre Kompatibilität mit anderen Teilen der Kritik der reinen Vernunft nachzuweisen. Ausgehend von diesen wissenschaftstheoretischen Beispielen wird für eine heuristisch- pragmatische Rechtfertigung der transzendentalen Prinzipien der Vernunft und eine ideelle Funktion der (...) durch diese Prinzipien gewonnenen Ideen argumentiert. Dabei lässt sich die enge Verbindung zwischen den transzendentalen Prinzipien des ersten Teils des Anhangs zur Transzendentalen Dialektik und Kants Konzept der rationalen Naturwissenschaft in den Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft nachweisen. (shrink)

In the fall of 1957 the University of California Press expanded Arnheim’s 1933 book _Film_ by four essays and brought that landmark work back into print as _Film as Art._ Now nearly fifty years after that re-edition, the book continues to occupy an important place in the literature of film. Arnheim’s method, provocative in this age of technological wizardry, was to focus on the way art in film was derived from that medium’s early limitations: no sound, no color, no three-dimensional (...) depth. (shrink)

Wittgenstein, possibly the most influential philosopher of the twentieth century, is often labelled a Neopositivist, a New-Kantian, even a Sceptic. Questions on Wittgenstein , first published in 1988, presents a selection of nine essays investigating a matter of vital philosophical importance: Wittgenstein’s relationship to his Austrian predecessors and peers. The intention throughout is to determine the precise contours of Wittgenstein’s own thought by situating it within its formative context. Although it remains of particular interest to Anglo-Saxon philosophers, special familiarity with (...) Austrian philosophy is required to appreciate the subtle and profound influence which this cultural and philosophical setting had on Wittgenstein’s intellectual development. Professor Haller has spent his career exploring these themes, and is one of the foremost authorities on both Wittgenstein and contemporary Austrian philosophy. Questions on Wittgenstein thus offers a unique insight into the twentieth-century tradition of Austrian philosophy, and its importance for Wittgenstein’s thought. (shrink)

In Matter and Memory, Bergson examines the relationship between perception and memory, the status of consciousness in its relation to the brain, and more generally, a possible conjunction of matter and mind. Our reading focuses in particular on his understanding of the evanescent presence of the present and of its debt vis-à-vis the "unconscious" consciousness of a "virtual" past. We wish to show that the Bergsonian version of a critique of "the metaphysics of presence" is, for all that, an offshoot (...) of a Platonic type of metaphysics. It is true that Bergson departs from traditional standpoints on the side of a self-sufficient and original present and a form of presence to which the transparency of consciousness would confer the character of immediate evidence. All the same, it can hardly be claimed that his rehabilitation of the past and the unconscious opens up new perspectives on how forgetting and death are bound up with the work of memory. (shrink)

Relying on Husserl as well as on the reflections by Merleau-Ponty on Cézanne, Henry on Kandinsky and Deleuze on Bacon, this essay sketches some basic problems that arise in a phenomenological account of non-figurative painting. An investigation of the distinction between phenomenological and pictorial perception, of the transposition of the painter’s mode of perception into a painted image, and of the expressive force of paintings inevitably confronts one with the enigma of the appearing of something invisible. The essay proceeds in (...) three steps. The first step describes pictorial perception in terms of a ‘seeing according to’. Such a mode of perception pays attention to visual ambiguities, to the ‘gaze of things’ and to the conditions of visibility that are ordinarily overlooked. The second step moves on to the issue of the transposition of a pictorial perception in a painted image. Deleuze’s account of “manipulated chance” proves to be very helpful here. In the final step, Henry’s and Deleuze’s emphasis on the painting’s expression of totally invisible ‘forces’ is discussed. (shrink)

In the judgment of many historians of contemporary philosophy as well as of analytic philosophers of different lines, there is no doubt about the truth of the statement that the philosophy of the Vienna Circle is dead. And since it is dead, some think that the only remaining task could be to find out the cause that led to the downfall of this proud philosophical movement.

Qu'est-ce qui, chez l'homme, retient ou empeche la fuite en avant d'une pulsion specifique? Une autre pulsion complementaire ou antagoniste? L'instance subjective d'un moi se pliant aux commandements du surmoi? L'ordre du corps vivant, de la raison ou du signifiant? Ou est-il pensable qu'une pulsion humaine se gouverne elle-meme en canalisant son energie excessive et en veillant a sa transformation ou a sa sublimation plutot que de se livrer a l'ivresse d'une repetition sterile?Ce livre aborde ces questions en envisageant les (...) pulsions humaines, en amont, depuis leur ancrage dans les forces de la nature ou les instincts animaux et, en aval, en vue de leur prolongement en desirs symboliquement structures. Dans une telle perspective, le questionnement psychanalytique de Freud et de Lacan rencontre tout naturellement les interrogations d'une philosophie de la nature, de la vie et de la culture. Inversement, une rehabilitation de l'energetique psychanalytique favorise la redecouverte d'une pensee philosophique, pour laquelle la dynamique des forces virtuelles prime sur la presence de substances statiques, et pour laquelle aucun acte effectif n'efface sa dette vis-a-vis d'un pouvoir-etre retenu ou d'un manque d'etre. De cette metaphysique dont le livre suit le cheminement d'Aristote a Husserl en passant par Leibniz et Schopenhauer, Nietzsche et la psychanalyse marquent aussi les limites, en projetant sur elle l'ombre du nihilisme des pulsions de mort. Au croisement des deux approches de la pulsion se dresse, a nouveau mais autrement, la question de la subjectivite. (shrink)

This collection makes available, in one place, the very best essays on the founding father of phenomenology, reprinting key writings on Husserl's thought from the past seventy years. It draws together a range of writings, many otherwise inaccessible, that have been recognized as seminal contributions not only to an understanding of this great philosopher but also to the development of his phenomenology. The four volumes are arranged as follows: Volume I Classic essays from Husserl's assistants, students and earlier interlocutors. Including (...) a selection of papers from such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Ricoeur and Levinas. Volume II Classic commentaries on Husserl's published works. Covering the Logical Investigations , Ideas I , Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness , and Formal and Transcendental Logic . Volumes III and IV Papers concentrating on particular aspects of Husserl's theory including: Husserl's account of mathematics and logic, his theory of science, the nature of phenomenological reduction, his account of perception and language, the theory of space and time, his phenomenology of imagination and empathy, the concept of the life-world and his epistemology. (shrink)

In The Philosophical Criticism, Alois Riehl developed a realistic interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism based on his theory of space and time. In doing so, more than 100 years ago, he formulated an interpretation of the relation between the thing in itself and appearances that is discussed in current research as the metaphysical „dual aspect“ interpretation, although it is rarely attributed to Riehl. To reconstruct Riehl’s position, the research results of comparative studies on Moritz Schlick are systematically extended and applied (...) to the current debate on Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

From the Introduction: The papers collected in this book are based on the assumption that art, as any other activity of the mind, is subject to psychology, accessible to understanding, and needed for any comprehensive survey of mental functioning. The author believes, furthermore, that the science of psychology is not limited to measurements under controlled laboratory conditions, but must comprise all attempts to obtain generalizations by means of facts as thoroughly established and concepts as well defined as the investigated situation (...) permits. Therefore the psychological findings offered or referred to in these papers range all the way from experiments in the perception of shape or observations on the art work of children to broad deliberations on the nature of images or of inspiration and contemplation. It is also assumed that every area of general psychology calls for applications to art. The study of perception applies to the effects of shape, color, movement, and expression in the visual arts. Motivation raises the question of what needs are fulfilled by the production and reception of art. The psychology of the normal and the disturbed personality searches the work of art for manifestations of individual attitudes. And social psychology relates the artist and his contribution to his fellow men. A systematic book on the psychology of art would have to survey relevant work in all of these areas. My papers undertake nothing of the kind. They are due to one man's outlook and interest, and they report on whatever happened to occur to him. They are presented together because they turn out to be concerned with a limited number of common themes. Often, but unintentionally, a hint in one paper is expanded to full exposition in another, and different applications of one and the same concept are found in different papers. I can only hope that the many overlappings will act as unifying reinforcements rather than as repetitions. These papers represent much of the output of the quarter of a century during which I have been privileged to live, study, and teach in the United States. To me, they are not so much the steps of a development as the gradual spelling-out of a position. For this reason, I have grouped them systematically, not chronologically. For the same reason, I did not hesitate to change the words I wrote years ago wherever I thought I could clarify their meaning. Removed from my original intimacy with the content, I approached the text as an unprepared reader, and when I stumbled, I tried to repair the road. In some instances, I recast whole sections, not in order to bring them up to date, but in the hope of saying better what I meant at the time. Some of the earlier papers led to my book, _Art and Visual Perception_, which was written in 1951 and first published in 1954- Sections of the articles on perceptual abstraction, on the Gestalt theory of expression, and on Henry Moore are incorporated in that book. Others continued where the book left off, for instance, the attempts to describe more explicitly the symbolism conveyed by visual form. The short piece on inspiration provided the substance for the introductory chapter on creativity in my more recent book, Picasso's Guernica. Finally, in rereading the material, I was surprised to find how many passages point to what is shaping up as my next task, namely, a presentation of visual thinking as the common and necessary way of productive problem solving in any human activity. Ten of the papers in this book were first published in the _Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism_. To mention this is to express my indebtedness to the only scholarly periodical in the United States devoted to the theory of art. In particular, Thomas Munro, its first editor, showed a great trust in the contribution of psychology. He made me feel at home among the philosophers, art historians, and literary critics whose lively propositions inhabit the hostel he founded and sustained. To him, as well as to my friends of the University of California Press, who are now publishing my fourth book, I wish to say that much of what I thought about in these years might not have been cast into final writing, had it not been for their sympathy, which encouraged the novice and keeps a critical eye on the more self-assured pro. There are a few scientific papers here, originally written for psychological journals but free, I hope, of the terminological incrustation that would hide their meaning from sight. There are essays for the educated friend of the arts. And there are speeches, intended to suggest practical consequences for art education, for the concerns of the artist, and for the function of art in our time. These public lectures are hardly the products of a missionary temperament. In fact, I marveled why anybody would go to a theorist for counsel, illumination, and reassurance in practical matters. However, when I responded to such requests I noticed, bewildered and delighted, that some of my findings pointed to tangible applications, which were taken to be useful. (shrink)

The concept of event provides the essential bridge from the realm of virtuality of the quantum state to real phenomena in space and time. We ask how much we can gather from existing theory about the localization of an event and point out that decoherence and coarse graining—though important—do not suffice for a consistent interpretation without the additional principle of random realization.

Rudolf Steiner, the often undervalued, multifaceted genius of modern times, contributed much to the regeneration of culture. In addition to his philosophical teachings, he provided ideas for the development of many practical activities including education--both general and special--agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, religion, and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms, and many other organizations based on his ideas. Steiner's original contribution to human knowledge was based on his ability to conduct spiritual research, the investigation of (...) metaphysical dimensions of existence. With his scientific and philosophical training, he brought a new systematic discipline to the field, allowing for conscious methods and comprehensive results. A natural seer from childhood, he cultivated his spiritual vision to a high degree, enabling him to speak with authority on previously veiled mysteries of life. Topics include: true human nature as a basis for medical practice; the science of knowing; the mission of reverence; the four temperaments; the bridge between universal spirituality and the physical; the constellation of the supersensible bodies; the invisible human within us: the pathology underlying therapy; cancer and mistletoe, and aspects of psychiatry; case history questions: diagnosis and therapy; anthroposophic medicine in practice: and three case histories. (shrink)

Rudolf Steiner, the often undervalued, multifaceted genius of modern times, contributed much to the regeneration of culture. In addition to his philosophical teachings, he provided ideas for the development of many practical activities including education--both general and special--agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, religion, and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms, and many other organizations based on his ideas. Steiner's original contribution to human knowledge was based on his ability to conduct spiritual research, the investigation of (...) metaphysical dimensions of existence. With his scientific and philosophical training, he brought a new systematic discipline to the field, allowing for conscious methods and comprehensive results. A natural seer from childhood, he cultivated his spiritual vision to a high degree, enabling him to speak with authority on previously veiled mysteries of life. Topics include: from pre-science to science; the origin of mathematics; the roots of physics and chemistry, and the urge to experiment; the boundaries of science; understanding organisms: Goethe's method; the quest for archetypal phenomena; light, darkness, and color; the rediscovery of the elements; the nature of warmth; the scale of nature; the function of the ethers in the physical; subnature; the nature of atoms; and the natural and spiritual sciences. (shrink)

From the Introduction: The papers collected in this book are based on the assumption that art, as any other activity of the mind, is subject to psychology, accessible to understanding, and needed for any comprehensive survey of mental functioning. The author believes, furthermore, that the science of psychology is not limited to measurements under controlled laboratory conditions, but must comprise all attempts to obtain generalizations by means of facts as thoroughly established and concepts as well defined as the investigated situation (...) permits. Therefore the psychological findings offered or referred to in these papers range all the way from experiments in the perception of shape or observations on the art work of children to broad deliberations on the nature of images or of inspiration and contemplation. It is also assumed that every area of general psychology calls for applications to art. The study of perception applies to the effects of shape, color, movement, and expression in the visual arts. Motivation raises the question of what needs are fulfilled by the production and reception of art. The psychology of the normal and the disturbed personality searches the work of art for manifestations of individual attitudes. And social psychology relates the artist and his contribution to his fellow men. A systematic book on the psychology of art would have to survey relevant work in all of these areas. My papers undertake nothing of the kind. They are due to one man's outlook and interest, and they report on whatever happened to occur to him. They are presented together because they turn out to be concerned with a limited number of common themes. Often, but unintentionally, a hint in one paper is expanded to full exposition in another, and different applications of one and the same concept are found in different papers. I can only hope that the many overlappings will act as unifying reinforcements rather than as repetitions. These papers represent much of the output of the quarter of a century during which I have been privileged to live, study, and teach in the United States. To me, they are not so much the steps of a development as the gradual spelling-out of a position. For this reason, I have grouped them systematically, not chronologically. For the same reason, I did not hesitate to change the words I wrote years ago wherever I thought I could clarify their meaning. Removed from my original intimacy with the content, I approached the text as an unprepared reader, and when I stumbled, I tried to repair the road. In some instances, I recast whole sections, not in order to bring them up to date, but in the hope of saying better what I meant at the time. Some of the earlier papers led to my book, _Art and Visual Perception_, which was written in 1951 and first published in 1954- Sections of the articles on perceptual abstraction, on the Gestalt theory of expression, and on Henry Moore are incorporated in that book. Others continued where the book left off, for instance, the attempts to describe more explicitly the symbolism conveyed by visual form. The short piece on inspiration provided the substance for the introductory chapter on creativity in my more recent book, Picasso's Guernica. Finally, in rereading the material, I was surprised to find how many passages point to what is shaping up as my next task, namely, a presentation of visual thinking as the common and necessary way of productive problem solving in any human activity. Ten of the papers in this book were first published in the _Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism_. To mention this is to express my indebtedness to the only scholarly periodical in the United States devoted to the theory of art. In particular, Thomas Munro, its first editor, showed a great trust in the contribution of psychology. He made me feel at home among the philosophers, art historians, and literary critics whose lively propositions inhabit the hostel he founded and sustained. To him, as well as to my friends of the University of California Press, who are now publishing my fourth book, I wish to say that much of what I thought about in these years might not have been cast into final writing, had it not been for their sympathy, which encouraged the novice and keeps a critical eye on the more self-assured pro. There are a few scientific papers here, originally written for psychological journals but free, I hope, of the terminological incrustation that would hide their meaning from sight. There are essays for the educated friend of the arts. And there are speeches, intended to suggest practical consequences for art education, for the concerns of the artist, and for the function of art in our time. These public lectures are hardly the products of a missionary temperament. In fact, I marveled why anybody would go to a theorist for counsel, illumination, and reassurance in practical matters. However, when I responded to such requests I noticed, bewildered and delighted, that some of my findings pointed to tangible applications, which were taken to be useful. (shrink)