Brentano’s views on psychology influenced the way philosophy was made at the beginning of the 20th century. But did this influence spread as far as to give place to Freud’s revolutionary discovery of the psychoanalytical unconscious? There are reasons to believe that Brentano had a profound influence on Freud. An attentive analysis of Freud’s vocabulary as well as his arguments against “philosophical” objections supports this point rather convincingly. However, Freud was not a philosopher and Brentano’s historical influence does not suffice (...) to transform the Freudian unconscious in a philosophical concept. It is the purpose of this paper to sketch a way to make a philosophical use of Freud’s unconscious by reconstructing the dialogue between Brentano and Freud on a conceptual level. Despite the explicit critique of the unconscious that we find in Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, I show that Freud never truly opposed Brentano. He rather took Brentano’s descriptive psychology a step further: he introduced a dynamic component to the analysis of the psyche that is complementary to Brentano’s descriptive psychology and could be considered a type of genetic psychology. (shrink)

This paper aims to show how Husserl’s concept of intentionality detaches itself from the background of a thorough and recurrent argument that Husserl makes against psychologism. Noting that the concept of intentionality was first recovered by Brentano’s psychology, it seemed to us important to show how Husserl’s intentionality, as it is conceived in the Logical Investigations, distinguishes itself from the “intentional inexistence” that Brentano describes in his Psychology from an Empirical Stand­point. Showing which parts of Brentano’s psychology were rejected and (...) which were maintained in Husserl’s theory is indeed the first concern of those who intend to study the phenomenological concept of intentionality. (shrink)

En 1894 Twardowski et Husserl exposent leurs positions divergentes concernant les objets intentionnels tels qu’ils sont introduits par la psychologie brentanienne. Alors que, selon Twardowski, ces objets sont en un certain sens immanents à l’acte de la conscience, Husserl insiste sur le fait que ce n’est rien d’autre que l’objet réel lui-même qui devient intentionnel en tant que visé par un tel acte. Derrière cette controverse se cache, d’ailleurs, la question cruciale de savoir comment penser le passage de la conscience (...) au monde, dont la réponse se trouve dans le concept d’intentionnalité. (shrink)

Adrian Paul Iliescu, Solitude and the Birth of Modernity Ed. Cris, Bucuresti, 1999, 120 p.

Two theories of subjectivity are born with the twentieth century: Husserlian phenomenology and Freudian psychoanalysis. Though sharing the same object, their paths never cross. In order to understand their relation, we have to uncover their common source: nineteenth century philosophical psychology.

Le problème central des Recherches logiques est de déterminer le rapport entre deux types d’actes : les actes de signification et les actes d’in­tuition (perception et imagination), donc entre d’un part des actes dont les objets sont de l’ordre du langage et, d’autre part, les actes qui « accèdent » à la réalité, dans lesquels l’objet réel est présent lui-même. Ce rapport est introduit dans la I re R echerche logique sous le nom de « remplissement » mais sa vraie (...) nature deviendra claire seulement dans la VI e R echerche logique . Le remplissement sera alors la synthèse d’un acte de signification et d’un acte d’intuition visant un même objet. Ce modèle d’une intention vide qui se remplit par la suite pose cependant certains problèmes. Premièrement, les significations peuvent-elles jouer le rôle d’objets et, si oui, quelle est la nature de ceux-ci ? Deuxièmement, peut-on vraiment isoler des intentions de signification, dont l’objet ne serait ni réel (comme dans la perception) ni même possible (comme dans l’imagination), mais d’une tout autre nature ? Puisqu’une imagination peut aussi jouer le rôle d’intuition remplissante, toute intention de signification doit se remplir (aboutir à un objet réel ou, au moins, possible), sans quoi elle ne serait pas une signification du tout, elle n’aurait aucun sens. Enfin, si nous acceptons cette thèse de l’universalité du remplissement, ou au moins de sa possibilité, comment penser le cas des objets idéaux, dont le remplissement ne va pas de soi ? (shrink)

Les objectifs des Recherches logiques 1 s?inscrivent dans le contexte plus large d?une controverse concernant la possibilité d?une connaissance indépendante du sujet connaissant. Il s?agit de ce qui a été connu par la suite sous le nom de « critique du psychologisme ». Husserl veut montrer dans les Recherches logiques que la façon dont on ordonne les objets dans la connaissance, selon des relations porteuses de valeur de vérité, ne surgit pas de l?expérience particulière que l?on en fait. La connaissance (...) n?est pas la création d?un sujet, ni d?une culture : elle a, au contraire, un caractère absolu. C?est précisément pour soutenir cette position que Husserl introduit un nouveau concept d?intentionnalité qui se distingue des autres concepts présents à l?époque, notamment dans l?école de Franz Brentano, par trois points essentiels. Premièrement, une des conditions essentielles de l?inten­tionnalité husserlienne est que l?objet intentionnel soit transcendant, c?est-à-dire qu?il ne dépende pas de la production effective de l?acte. Deuxième­ment, le contenu (la teneur) de l?acte doit être conçu(e), à la suite de Bolzano, sous la forme d?une signification idéale, toujours identique dans tous les actes du même type, et non pas sous celle d?une image surgissant dans le psychique du sujet individuel, vouée à être chaque fois différente, en fonction de l?expérience personnelle de ce sujet. Et. (shrink)

Ce travail porte sur la question du remplissement des visées d’objets idéaux. Dans la VI e Recherche logique Husserl soulève cette question en introduisant un nouveau concept : le concept d’intuition catégoriale. La connaissance des objets idéaux passe selon Husserl par un remplissement qui se réalise au moyen d’une intuition particulière, dans laquelle l’objet idéal se donne en personne, et qui s’oppose à l’intuition sensible. Dans quelle mesure une telle intuition est-elle possible ? Qu’est-ce qui est à proprement parler intuitionné (...) en elle et comment cette intuition se rapporte-t-elle aux intuitions sensibles ? Telles sont les principales questions que je soulèverai dans cette étude. Ce travail me permettra ensuite de formuler un diagnostic sur les tensions qui persistent dans les Recherches logiques , et qui ne seront résolues que par la réduction transcendantale. (shrink)

Dans sa Psychologie du point de vue empirique Brentano fonde le caractère scientifique de la psychologie sur le geste qui délimite le domaine particulier de cette science aux seuls phénomènes psychiques, en excluant les phénomènes physiques. La distinction entre ces deux types de phénomènes devient ainsi essentielle pour le projet brentanien d’une psychologie scientifique. L’objectif de ce travail est de montrer d’une part que la critique que Husserl fait à la fin de ses Recherches logiques de la distinction brentanienne entre (...) phénomènes psychiques et phénomènes physiques ne tient pas compte entièrement de la finesse de la théorie brentanienne des phénomènes physiques. Il s’agira cependant, par la suite de montrer les difficultés qui découlent précisément de cette conception brentanienne complexe des phénomènes physiques, en particulier ceux qui se présentent sous la forme des sensations. Nous montrerons que la théorie brentanienne des sensations à l’époque de sa Psychologie donne à ces phénomènes un caractère double, à la fois physique et psychique, et met ainsi en danger le projet même de délimiter définitivement le domaine de la psychologie aux seuls phénomènes psychiques. (shrink)

Le concept d?intentionnalité, on le sait bien, n?a pas été inventé par Edmund Husserl. Non seulement il s?agit d?un concept médiéval, mais son utilisation moderne est l?initiative de Franz Brentano et non pas de Husserl. Toute étude sérieuse qui a la prétention d?expliquer l?intentionnalité husser­lienne doit donc, avant tout, se donner la tâche d?expliquer en quoi consiste l?originalité du concept husserlien d?intentionnalité. En d?autres termes, si nous voulons comprendre ce qu?est, pour Husserl, l?intention­nalité, nous devons tout d?abord nous demander en (...) quoi elle diffère de l?intentionnalité brentanienne. Or, le concept d?intentionnalité intervient chez Brentano d?une ma­nière stratégique : il est le trait caractéristique des phénomènes psychiques, qui, en s?opposant aux phénomènes physiques, constituent le domaine propre de la psychologie 1 . L?intentionnalité n?est donc pas considé­rée par Brentano pour elle-même. Elle est un instrument utilisé pour délimiter le domaine de la psychologie, dont Brentano veut faire une science de plein droit. Dans ce contexte, l?intentionnalité est un des deux traits définitoires des phénomènes psychiques : chaque phénomène psychique a un objet propre, sans quoi il ne serait pas véritablement ce phénomène psychique déterminé. Donc, l?inten­tionnalité est le rapport à l?objet propre à tout acte psychique et qui manque aux phénomènes. (shrink)

L’objectif de Bolzano, dans la Wissenschaftslehre, est d’exposer les conditions générales de la constitution du domaine des sciences particulières comme découpage à l’intérieur du domaine plus général des vérités en soi. Ce qui intéresse plus précisément Bolzano, c’est la manière dont chacune de ces sciences particulières doit se rapporter à son domaine. Dans cette perspective, le concept de représentation...

J. Derrida, J. Habermas, Le “concept” de 11 septembre, Dialogues à New York (octobre – décembre 2001) avec Giovanna Borradori Paris: Galilée, 2004.

Un sujet peu exploré dans la phénoménologie husserlienne est encore à ce jour le champ des émotions, longtemps minoré. Or la publication du volume des Husserliana 'Sentiment et valeur' montre que-les émotions sont un thème qui préoccupa Husserl durant toute sa vie. La raison de cette invisibilité est moins son manque d'importance aux yeux du phénoménologue que la difficulté de lui trouver une place cohérente. Si les actes cognitifs (perceptifs, judicatifs, mémoriels, imaginatifs) représentent souvent le cas d'étude privilégié eu égard (...) à la visée de connaissance qui y apparaît en majeur, les affects (émotions, volitions, valeurs) obéissent à une autre logique ou, du moins, à une logique plus complexe : non seulement descriptive, mais aussi génétique-dynamique. Ce qui se joue avec les émotions est moins la connaissance d'un objet que les tensions, les satisfactions et les déceptions propres aux processus vécus des forces psychiques et de leurs valeurs pour le sujet. Un tel défi est ici relevé. On identifie les lieux où les émotions entrent en scène en esthétique, dans la pragmatique de l'action et en philosophie de l'esprit, en lien avec sciences cognitives et phénoménologie. Dès lors se profile une ligne directrice nouvelle autour de la complexité de la dynamique émotionnelle et de l'obsolescence conséquente du clivage cognition-émotion"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Luca M. Possati, Jean Grondin, Paul Ricoeur ; Aurore Dumont, François Dosse et Catherine Goldenstein, Paul Ricoeur: penser la mémoire ; Paul-Gabriel Sandu, Gert-Jan van der Heiden, The Truth of Language. Heidegger, Ricoeur and Derrida on Disclosure and Displacement ; Paul Marinescu, Marc-Antoine Vallée, Gadamer et Ricoeur. La conception herméneutiquedu langage ; Witold Płotka, Saulius Geniusas, Th e Origins of the Horizon in Husserl’s Phenomenology ; Delia Popa, Annabelle Dufourcq, La dimension imaginaire du réel dans la philosophie de Husserl ; (...) Maria GyemantDenis Seron, Ce que voir veut dire. Essai sur la perception ; Christian Ferencz-Flatz, Hans Friesen, Christian Lotz, Jakob Meier, Markus Wolf, Ding und Verdinglichung. Technik- und Sozialphilosophie nach Heidegger und der Kritischen Th eorie ; Bogdan MincăLarisa Cercel, John Stanley, Unterwegs zu einer hermeneutischen Übersetzungswissenschaft. Radegundis Stolze zu ihrem 60. Geburtstag ; Denisa Butnaru Johann Michel, Sociologie du soi. Essai d’herméneutique appliquée ; Ovidiu Stanciu, Jan Patočka, Aristote, ses devanciers, ses successeurs. Trad. fr. Erika Abrams ; Mădălina Diaconu, Emmanuel Alloa, Das durchscheinende Bild. Konturen einer medialen, Phänomenologie. (shrink)

Razón, poesía, historia.--La cuestión del estoicismo español.--El querer.

Dibujar el pensamiento de Seneca es dibujar su figura viva, trazar el esquema de su persona. Seneca es un mediador que para alzarse sobre nosotros necesita de nuestra necesidad, pues solo apoyado en nuestra indigencia tiene sentido. Maria Zambrano lleva a cabo un lucido estudio de la figura y significacion del pensador cordobes y presenta una seleccion de sus escritos.

Context: The use of first-person micro-phenomenological interviews and their productive interaction with third-person physiological data is a challenging and pressing issue in order to offer an effective and fruitful application of Varela’s neurophenomenological hypothesis. Problem: We aim at offering a generative method of analysis of first-person micro-phenomenological interviews using third-person physiological data. Our challenge is to describe this generative first-person analysis with the third-person physiological framework rather than put Varela’s hypothesis into practice in a generative way (as we did in (...) another paper. Method: The present contribution is a first pioneering study as far as the exposition of such an interactive generative methodology is concerned. It is also a new issue insofar as it deals with a case study, surprise in depression, that has not been thoroughly dealt with so far, either in philosophy or in psychopathology. Results: We show that the analysis of first-person data is an intrinsic generative one, insofar as new refined categories and multifarious circular micro- and macro-processes were discovered in the very process of analyzing. They provide the initial structural generic third-person description of surprise inherited both from philosophical phenomenological a priori categories and from the experimental startle setting with a refined micro-segmentation of the dynamic of the experience. Implications: Our article could be of interest to neurophenomenologists looking for an effective application and to researchers in quest of a method of analysis of first-person data. The present limitations are due to the still preliminary data-results we need to complete. Constructivist content: The article is directly linked to Varela’s neurophenomenological program and aims at extending and reforming it with a cardio-phenomenological approach. Keywords: First-person micro-phenomenological interviews, surprise, generative analysis of first-person data, depression, cardio-phenomenology, generative categories. (shrink)

Spectroscopy is a scientific topic at the interface between Chemistry and Physics, which is taught at high school level in relation with its fundamental applications in Analytical Chemistry. In the first part of the paper, the topic of spectroscopy is analyzed having in mind the well-known Johnstone’s triangle of chemistry education, putting in evidence the way spectroscopy is usually taught at the three levels of chemical knowledge: macroscopic/phenomenological, sub-microscopic/molecular and symbolic ones. Among these three levels, following Johnstone’s recommendations the macroscopic (...) one is the most useful for high school students who learn spectroscopy for the first time. Starting from these premises, in the second part of the paper, we propose a didactic sequence which is inspired by the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments from the first spectroscopes invented by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen in 1860 to the UV–vis spectrophotometers which became common since the 1960s. The idea behind our research is to analyze the conceptual advancements through the history of spectroscopy and to identify the key episodes/experiments and spectroscopic instruments. For each of them, a didactic activity, typically an experiment, is then proposed underlining the relevant aspects from the chemistry education point of view. The present paper is the occasion to reflect on the potentialities of an historical approach combined with a laboratorial one, and to discuss the role of historical instruments and related technological improvements to teach spectroscopy. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam is one of the world’s leading philosophers. His highly original and often provocative ideas have set the agenda for a variety of debates in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. His now famous philosophical thought experiments, such as the ‘Twin earth’ and ‘the brains in the vat’ have become part of the established canon in philosophy and cognitive science. _Reading Putnam_ is an outstanding overview and assessment of Hilary Putnam’s work by a team of (...) international contributors, and includes replies by Putnam himself. Divided into clear sections, it contains chapters on key aspects of Putnam’s large body of writing, including: Scientific realism and the changes that Putnam’s thought has undergone on this topic analyticity and ontology, including the important interconnections between the views of Putnam and Quine Putnam’s arguments concerning externalist views of meaning and reference, questions of conceptual relativity, and his preoccupation with ethics through a denial of the fact–value dichotomy Putnam’s developing views on perception. Offering an excellent survey of Putnam’s work, _Reading Putnam_ is essential for those studying philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science, as well as for anyone interested in contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

In the literature, the pragmatic dimension of metaphors has been clearly acknowledged. Metaphors are regarded as having different possible uses, especially pursuing persuasion. However, an analysis of the specific conversational purposes that they can be aimed at achieving in a dialogue and their adequacy thereto is still missing. In this chapter, we will address this issue focusing on the classical distinction between the explanatory and persuasive uses of metaphors, which is, however, complex to draw at an analytical level and often (...) blurred and controversial also from a theoretical point of view. Building on the analysis of explanation in different theories and fields of study, we show how it can be conceived as characterized by a cognitive and a pragmatic dimension, where the transference of understanding is used pragmatically for different dialogical goals - such as informing, making a joint decision, and most importantly persuading. In this sense, the cognitive effects of understanding are not incompatible with a persuasive dialogical purpose. This theoretical proposal will be applied to examples drawn from the medical context, to show how a pragmatic approach to explanation can account for the complexity of the cases that can be found in actual dialogical contexts. (shrink)

To discuss what was the attitude of the Romanian society towards the increasing economic, social and political role of the Jews throughout history is one of the aims of this paper. Serban Papacostea, the outstanding specialist in mediaeval history, makes use of the syntagm “hostile tolerance”, which specified the general attitude towards the Jews of the Orthodox mediaeval world of Byzantine origin. Tolerance - defined the unlimited opportunity for Jews to be accepted, settle, move and act freely within the Romanian (...) principalities, all the way to the status of possessing properties in Moldavia and Wallachia. There were, however, mixed feelings of hostility manifest at three distinct levels: mental, juridical and political. As for the mentalities, both popular and high brow education as well as prejudices held the Jews guilty for the death of Christ. Even if physically the Jewish presence in Romania has become symbolical, the history of the Jews, the traditions of the Jewish culture and spirituality, the imprint of the Jewish contribution on the emergence and development of the Romanian society will remain the perennial values of a historiography aspiring to fulfill its duty, forever preserved in the conscience of generations to come. (shrink)

(1996). Religious denomination and national renaissance: The Transylvanian Romanians in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 756-761.

Upshot: Thanks to the commentaries we have been able to further clarify the situation of generative first-person analysis in the general framework of neurophenomenology and more specifically of cardio-phenomenology as its extension and reformulation. We have also provided more detailed information about the way phenomenology as transcendental philosophy is genuinely operating as a practice in cardio-phenomenology and has a central function regarding the creation of categories and their suspensive questioning thanks to the epoché method. We have also drawn great benefits (...) from the questions about how micro-phenomenology allows a refinement of descriptive categories and the way new categories are generated, and we have been able to provide some answers about different scales of newness in the generative process. (shrink)

_Jane and Louise Wilson_ With Essays by Jeremy Millar and Claire Doherty London: Ellipsis, 2000 ISBN 1-84166-027-2 84 pp., inc. 120 b/w photograph.

Drawing on recent findings, this study examines whether valence concordant electromyography (EMG) responses can be explained as an unconditional effect of mere stimulus processing or as somatosensory simulation driven by task-dependent processing strategies. While facial EMG over the Corrugator supercilii and the Zygomaticus major was measured, each participant performed two tasks with pictures of album covers. One task was an affective evaluation task and the other was to attribute the album covers to one of five decades. The Embodied Emotion Account (...) predicts that valence concordant EMG is more likely to occur if the task necessitates a somatosensory simulation of the evaluative meaning of stimuli. Results support this prediction with regard to Corrugator supercilii in that valence concordant EMG activity was only present in the affective evaluation task but not in the non-evaluative task. Results for the Zygomaticus major were ambiguous. Our findings are in line with the view that EMG activity is an embodied part of the evaluation process and not a mere physical outcome. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotive (or expressive) meaning of words commonly referred to as “loaded” or “emotive,” which include slurs, derogative or pejorative words, and ethical terms. We claim that emotive meaning can be reinterpreted from a pragmatic and argumentative perspective, which can account for distinct aspects of ethical terms, including the possibility of being modified and its cancellability. Emotive meaning is explained as a defeasible and automatic or automatized evaluative and intended inference commonly associated with the use of specific (...) terms, which can be represented and assessed considering its logical structure and its defeasibility conditions. This automatic inference is conceived as part of the connotation of an ethical term, and is not necessarily stable. By means of quasi-definitions, it is possible to modify the emotive meaning while maintaining the descriptive one, automaticizing the inferences drawn from an ethical word. Through examples drawn from the recent US presidential campaign, we show how re-contextualization and emotive contexts can affect emotive meaning. (shrink)

Scholars have long been intrigued by the Buddha's defining action (karma) as intention. This book explores systematically how intention, agency, and moral psychology were interpreted in all branches of early Theravada thought, paying special attention to the thought of the 5th-century commentator Buddhaghosa.

: The coloniality of power is understood by Anibal Quijano as at the constituting crux of the global capitalist system of power. What is characteristic of global, Eurocentered, capitalist power is that it is organized around two axes that Quijano terms "the coloniality of power" and "modernity." The coloniality of power introduces the basic and universal social classification of the population of the planet in terms of the idea of race, a replacing of relations of superiority and inferiority established through (...) domination with naturalized understandings of inferiority and superiority. In this essay, Lugones introduces a systemic understanding of gender constituted by colonial/modernity in terms of multiple relations of power. This gender system has a light and a dark side that depict relations, and beings in relation as deeply different and thus as calling for very different patterns of violent abuse. Lugones argues that gender itself is a colonial introduction, a violent introduction consistently and contemporarily used to destroy peoples, cosmologies, and communities as the building ground of the "civilized" West. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

The coloniality of power is understood by Anibal Quijano as at the constituting crux of the global capitalist system of power. What is characteristic of global, Eurocentered, capitalist power is that it is organized around two axes that Quijano terms “the coloniality of power” and “modernity.” The coloniality of power introduces the basic and universal social classification of the population of the planet in terms of the idea of race, a replacing of relations of superiority and inferiority established through domination (...) with naturalized understandings of inferiority and superiority. In this essay, Lugones introduces a systemic understanding of gender constituted by colonial/modernity in terms of multiple relations of power. This gender system has a light and a dark side that depict relations, and beings in relation as deeply different and thus as calling for very different patterns of violent abuse. Lugones argues that gender itself is a colonial introduction, a violent introduction consistently and contemporarily used to destroy peoples, cosmologies, and communities as the building ground of the “civilized” West. (shrink)

The coloniality of power is understood by Anibal Quijano as at the constituting crux of the global capitalist system of power. What is characteristic of global, Eurocentered, capitalist power is that it is organized around two axes that Quijano terms “the coloniality of power” and “modernity.” The coloniality of power introduces the basic and universal social classification of the population of the planet in terms of the idea of race, a replacing of relations of superiority and inferiority established through domination (...) with naturalized understandings of inferiority and superiority. In this essay, Lugones introduces a systemic understanding of gender constituted by colonial/modernity in terms of multiple relations of power. This gender system has a light and a dark side that depict relations, and beings in relation as deeply different and thus as calling for very different patterns of violent abuse. Lugones argues that gender itself is a colonial introduction, a violent introduction consistently and contemporarily used to destroy peoples, cosmologies, and communities as the building ground of the “civilized” West. (shrink)