Husserl: Crisis

The main objective of this article is to explain the subjective-relative aspect as being the essential constituent of the structure of the lifeworld in the Husserl’s work Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. To this end, it will be analyzed, in a first moment, what consist the crisis of European sciences diagnosed by Husserl and how the process of mathematization of nature took place, which configures the objectivist scientific orientation. Finally, it will be possible to analyze the subjective-relative (...) structure of the lifeworld understood as the soil of immediate intuition experience. (shrink)

Husserl’s early picture of explanation in the sciences has never been completely provided. This lack represents an oversight, which we here redress. In contrast to currently accepted interpretations, we demonstrate that Husserl does not adhere to the much maligned deductive-nomological (DN) model of scientific explanation. Instead, via a close reading of early Husserlian texts, we reveal that he presents a unificationist account of scientific explanation. By doing so, we disclose that Husserl’s philosophy of scientific explanation is no mere anachronism. It (...) is, instead, tenable and relevant. We discuss how Husserl and other contemporary thinkers draw theoretical inspiration from the same source—namely, Bernard Bolzano. Husserl’s theory of scientific explanation shares a common language and discusses the same themes as, for example, Phillip Kitcher and Kit Fine. To advance our novel reading, we discuss Husserl’s investigations of grounding, inter-lawful explanation, intra-mathematical explanation, and scientific unification. (shrink)

Shedding new light on the theme of "crisis" in Husserl's phenomenology, this book reflects on the experience of awakening to one's own naïveté. Beginning from everyday examples, Knies examines how this awakening makes us culpable for not having noticed what was noticeable. He goes on to apply this examination to fundamental issues in phenomenology, arguing that the appropriation of naïve life has a different structure from the reflection on pre-reflective life. Husserl's work on the "crisis" is presented as an attempt (...) to integrate this appropriation into a systematic transcendental philosophy. Crisis and Husserlian Phenomenology brings Husserl into dialogue with other key thinkers in Continental philosophy such as Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida. It is suitable for students and scholars alike, especially those interested in subjectivity, responsibility and the philosophy of history. (shrink)

The main topic of this paper is the mind-body problem. The author analyzes it in the context of Hus- serlian phenomenology. The key texts for the analysis and interpretation are Descartes’ magnum opus “Meditations on the First Philosophy” and Husserl’ last work “The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology”. The author claims that already in Descartes’ text instead of one mind-body problem, one can find two: the ontological mind-body problem (mind-brain relation) and conceptual one (“mind” and “body” as concepts). (...) In Descartes’ “Meditations”, the ontological level is explicit, while the conceptual level is implicit. In Husserl’s “Crisis”, on the other hand, the situation is different: the conceptual level of the problem (as the opposition between transcendental phenom- enology and natural sciences) is explicit, while the ontological level is implicit. Nevertheless, it seems that Husserl has answers to both the “traditional” as well as the “conceptual” mind-body problems. (shrink)

The main topic of this paper is the mind-body problem. The author analyzes it in the context of Hus- serlian phenomenology. The key texts for the analysis and interpretation are Descartes’ magnum opus “Meditations on the First Philosophy” and Husserl’ last work “The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology”. The author claims that already in Descartes’ text instead of one mind-body problem, one can find two: the ontological mind-body problem (mind-brain relation) and conceptual one (“mind” and “body” as concepts). (...) In Descartes’ “Meditations”, the ontological level is explicit, while the conceptual level is implicit. In Husserl’s “Crisis”, on the other hand, the situation is different: the conceptual level of the problem (as the opposition between transcendental phenomenology and natural sciences) is explicit, while the ontological level is implicit. Nevertheless, it seems that Husserl has answers to both the “traditional” as well as the “conceptual” mind-body problems. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss whether and to what extent Husserl’s Crisis can help us to understand the challenges of Europe’s current crisis. The paper identifies both the problematic aspects of Husserl’s analysis and its fruitful components. In this connection, special attention is paid to three themes: the relationship between philosophical thought and Europe’s crisis, the emergence of a phenomenological philosophy of history, and the political scope of the life-world. These themes are discussed with particular reference to (...) the connection between Husserl’s philosophy of subjectivity and his conception of history. (shrink)

The paper addresses the methodological tensions between Husserl’s phenomenology and history by reinterpreting the Addendum III of the Krisis-work in view of genetic phenomenology. Thus, the paper starts out by retracing the traditional criticism against the unhistorical character of Husserl’s phenomenology as voiced by Heidegger, Adorno and others. Afterwards, it moves on to analyse the troubled relationship between static and genetic phenomenology, on the one hand, and between genetic phenomenology and empirical genesis, on the other hand. Finally, it arrives at (...) a step by step methodological reconstruction of Husserl’s considerations on the “origin of geometry”, which are regarded to be an application of the methods of genetic phenomenology to the field of history. (shrink)

The main goal of my inquiry is to lay out the proximity between Patočka’s and Ricœur’s readings of Husserl’s Krisis and to stress the role played by the concept of the life-world in the unfolding of their original philosophical undertakings. In the first part, I show the importance both Patočka and Ricœur assignedto the Husserlian project of an “ontology of the life-world”. In the second part, I expose the criticism these two authors addressed to Husserl’s understanding of the life-world and, (...) more precisely, to the idea that the exploration of the life-world is merely another way of gaining access to transcendental subjectivity. In the last part, I show how the concrete descriptions of the life-world given by Patočka and Ricœur depart massively from the Husserlian perspective. (shrink)

Many have deemed ineluctable the tension between Husserl’s transcendental eidetics and his Crisis method of historical reflection. In this paper, I argue that this tension is an apparent one. I contend that dissolving this tension and showing not only the possibility, but also the necessity of the successful collaboration between these two apparently irreconcilable methods guarantees the very freedom of inquiry Husserl so emphatically stressed. To make this case, I draw from Husserl’s synthetic analyses of type and concept constitution as (...) well as his later work on sedimentation and streaming-in and develop a richer modal taxonomy than the one Husserl proposed. I employ this taxonomy in an examination of the structures and conditions for the possibility of transcendental eidetic variation in order to show this method’s reliance on historically sedimented epistemic and normative resources. This reliance brings to light the necessity for a methodological critique, which is precisely what I take to be the work of teleological–historical reflection as Husserl comes to conceive it in the Crisis. (shrink)

Ïntroductory remarks to the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology Special Issue "Phenomenology and the Idea of Europe".

The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology has long occupied a position amongst Edmund Husserl’s writings of almost singular renown and influence. It is easy to see why this should be so. The Crisis offered the reading public its first glimpse of a new Husserl, or at least one strikingly different in tone, mode of presentation, and thematic emphasis from the Husserl of Ideas I or Cartesian Meditations. In a seeming reversal of the Augustinian dictum that Husserl used to (...) close Cartesian Meditations,“Noli foras ire, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas.” The Crisis looks outward rather than within, toward the body, history, the intersubjective community, and an analysis of the life-world, arguably Husserl’s most enduring philosophical contribution and the one with which The Crisis is most closely associated. And these concerns are framed against a backdrop o .. (shrink)

There are many interpretations of the birth of modern science. Most of them are, nevertheless, confined to the analysis of certain historical episodes or technical details, while leaving the very notion of mathematization unanalyzed. In my opinion this is due to a lack of a proper philosophical framework which would show the process of mathematization as something radically new. Most historians assume that the world is just like it is depicted by science. Thus they are not aware of the radical (...) novelty of the mathematization of nature and focus their attention on the details of this process. Phenomenology by its radical questioning of the traditional interpretations of reality provides an ideal means for the reconstruction of the process of mathematization of nature and the birth of mathematical natural science. In a series of papers I tried to show the power of Husserl 's concept of mathematization by filling in the historical details into his interpretation. In the present article I want to compare Husserl 's approach with the approach of Heidegger. I believe that by comparing these two phenomenological theories of mathematization the advantages of Husserl 's approach will come to the fore. _German_ Es gibt mehrere Interpretationen der Entstehung der modernen Wissenschaft. Die meisten von ihnen beschränken sich allerdings auf die Analyse bestimmter historischer Episoden oder technischer Details, während der Begriff der Mathematisierung unanalysiert bleibt. Meiner Meinung nach ist dies auf das Fehlen eines richtigen philosophischen Rahmens zurückzuführen, der den Prozess der Mathematisierung als etwas radikal Neues zeigen würde. Die meisten Historiker gehen davon aus, dass die Welt so ist, wie sie von der Wissenschaft dargestellt wird. So verkennen sie die Radikalität der Mathematisierung der Natur und konzentrieren ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf die Details dieses Prozesses. Die Phänomenologie bietet dank ihrer radikalen Kritik der traditionellen Interpretationen der Realität ein ideales Mittel für die Rekonstruktion des Prozesses der Mathematisierung der Natur und der Geburt der mathematischen Naturwissenschaft. In einer Reihe von Arbeiten habe ich versucht, die Stärke der Husserlschen Interpretation der Mathematisierung zu zeigen, indem ich die historischen Details in seine Interpretation einfügte. Im vorliegenden Artikel möchte ich Husserls Ansatz mit dem Ansatz von Heidegger vergleichen. Durch diesen Vergleich der beiden phänomenologischen Theorien der Mathematisierung der Natur werden die Vorteile von Husserls Ansatz in den Vordergrund treten. (shrink)

This paper places Husserl’s mature work, The Crisis of the European Sciences, in the context of his engagement with – and critique of – experimental psychology at the time. I begin by showing (a) that Husserl accorded psychology a crucial role in his philosophy, i.e., that of providing a scientific analysis of subjectivity, and (b) that he viewed contemporary psychology – due to its naturalism – as having failed to pursue this goal in the appropriate manner. I then provide an (...) analysis of Husserl’s views about naturalism and scientific philosophy. Some central themes of the Crisis are traced back to Husserl’s earlier work and to his relationship with his teacher, Franz Brentano, with whom he disagreed about the status of “inner perception” as the proper scientific method for a phenomenological analysis. The paper then shows that Husserl was well aware of at least one publication about the crisis of psychology (Bühler’s 1927 book), and it teases out some aspects of the complicated relationship between Husserl and members of the Würzburg School of thought psychology: The latter had drawn on Husserl’s writings, but Husserl felt that they had misunderstood his central thesis. I conclude by placing Husserl’s work in the wider context of scientific, cultural, and political crisis-discourses at the time. (shrink)

In seiner letzten Schrift unternimmt Husserl den Versuch, auf dem Wege einer teleologisch-historischen Besinnung auf die Ursprünge unserer kritischen wissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Situation die Notwendigkeit einer transzendentalphänomenologischen Umwendung der Philosophie zu begründen. Er geht von seinem Begriff der "Lebenswelt" aus und entwickelt eine auf diesen Zentralbegriff seiner Spätphilosophie gegründete eigenständige Einleitung in die transzendentale Phänomenologie.

Machine generated contents note: Preface; Introduction: Husserl's life and writings; 1. Husserl's Crisis: an unfinished masterpiece; 2. Galileo's revolution and the origins of modern science; 3. The Crisis in psychology; 4. Rethinking tradition: Husserl on history; 5. Husserl's problematical concept of the life-world; 6. Phenomenology as transcendental philosophy; 7. The ongoing influence of Husserl's Crisis.

Husserl’s Crisis argues that early modern science, exemplified in Galileo, separates the Lifeworld from a world of science by forgetting its origins in bodily perception on the one side, and the practices which found the science on the other. This essay argues that, rather, by overemphasizing mathematization and underemphasizing instruments or technologies which mediate perception, Husserl creates the division he describes. Positively, through the embodied use of instruments science remains thoroughly immersed in the Lifeworld.

I argue that the teleological-historical reflections of the Crisis are an effort to clarify what Husserl calls the ultimate presuppositions of phenomenology. I begin by describing the kind of presuppositions revealed in natural-attitude and phenomenological reflection. I then consider how the ultimate presuppositions become problematic for Husserl. After clarifying the distinction between these presuppositions and those already handled by the reduction, I consider the appropriateness of the new reflections Husserl undertakes in order to address them.

This article critically reviews an outstanding collection of new essays addressing Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences. In Science and the Life-World (Stanford, 2010), David Hyder and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger bring together an impressive range of first-rate philosophers and historians. The collection explicates key concepts in Husserl’s often obscure work, compares Husserl’s phenomenology of science to the parallel tradition of historical epistemology, and provocatively challenges Husserl’s views on science. The explications are uniformly clear and helpful, the comparative work intriguing, and the (...) criticisms interesting but uneven. The article also elaborates on Husserl’s phenomenological method as it relates to the historiography of science, and compares his views on mathematical idealisation to more recent work in the analytical tradition. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays on Husserl's _Crisis of European Sciences_ by leading philosophers of science and scholars of Husserl. Published and ignored under the Nazi dictatorship, Husserl's last work has never received the attention its author's prominence demands. In the _Crisis_, Husserl considers the gap that has grown between the "life-world" of everyday human experience and the world of mathematical science. He argues that the two have become disconnected because we misunderstand our own scientific past—we confuse mathematical (...) idealities with concrete reality and thereby undermine the validity of our immediate experience. The philosopher's foundational work in the theory of intentionality is relevant to contemporary discussions of _qualia_, naive science, and the fact-value distinction. The scholars included in this volume consider Husserl's diagnosis of this "crisis" and his proposed solution. Topics addressed include Husserl's late philosophy, the relation between scientific and everyday objects and "worlds," the history of Greek and Galilean science, the philosophy of history, and Husserl's influence on Foucault. (shrink)

This work seeks to elucidate the possibility of Krisis, Husserl's last work, as a history of philosophy written in a phenomenological key. Our conclusion due to a dialogue between Krisis and Philosophy as Rigorous Science shows a paradox and dependence. The transcendental history is possible only by the way through the historical science of the historians. If, with the criticism to historicism it is possible the transcendental history, this one needs also the factual history for its constitution. If, it is (...) not factual, it depends on the factual to raise itself towards the transcendental and, at the end, conducts to the dissolution of the transcendental due to the undeniable mediation of a preceding tradition. Krisis depends on Philosophy a Rigorous Science, if it is seen as a historical work. (shrink)

[Heidegger’s account of the rise of mathematical natural science in confrontation with Husserl’s conception of mathematisation in “Krisis”].

Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology has always been a challenge to its readers, interpreters and reviewers. Written during the last few years of the author’s life, it is unfinished and somewhat fragmentary, more a book project than a book. This circumstance alone may lend itself to a wide variety of interpretations; but the content and form of the work are also puzzling and unexpected when compared with Husserl’s earlier work. The history of its publication adds to (...) the puzzle. About a hundred pages appeared while Husserl was still alive, but in an obscure and inaccessible journal. Husserl’s death in 1938, and then the upheaval of war, intervened. Unpublished parts of the text were known and discussed by a few insiders for years before the much-anticipated posthumous Husserliana publication appeared in 1954. (shrink)

Goethe belongs to the phenomenological tradition for a number of reasons: He shared Husserl's deep mistrust of the mathematization of the natural world and the ensuing loss of the qualitative dimension of human existence; he understood that the phenomenological observer must free him/herself from sedimented cultural prejudices, a process which Husserl called the epoche; he experienced and articulated the new and surprising fullness of the world as it reveals itself to the patient and participatory phenomenological observer. Goethe's phenomenological sensibilities and (...) insights become more apparent when his work is brought into dialogue with Husserl's thinking. In turn Goethe challenges Husserlian phenomenology to a more careful investigation of the natural world and human participation within its order. Both Goethe and Husserl are searching for a science of the qualitative dimension of being. (shrink)

Taking as its point of departure Edmund Husserl's 1935-36 text The Crisis of European Sciences, this essay attempts to develop a new conception of reason by means of a thoroughgoing critique of some ideas often used to support and define it. Because the notion of "enlightenment" has been tied since the time of Kant to a certain coming of age of reason or rationality, the "enlightenment" to come must at once draw upon the resources of this reason and open reason (...) to some of the aporias it has traditionally rejected. Reducible neither to a simple irrationalism nor to a mere mode of calculative thought, such reason must ultimately challenge, it is argued, not only the sovereignty and identity of the subject but the very concepts of sovereignty and identity. Only such a renewed thinking of reason or of what is reasonable, the essay suggests, can help us diagnose, analyze, and help treat some of the aporias posed by a whole host of contemporary issues, from cloning to the erosion of the nation-state to globalization and terrorism. Only in this way can we at once "save the honor of reason" - to use a phrase that runs throughout the essay - and help reorient the reason of politics, of the sciences, and, indeed, of philosophy along the lines of a more fundamental and urgent ethical imperative. (shrink)

»Svet življenja« je geslo, v okrožju katerega je fenomenologija Edmunda Husserla, ki je bila v 20-ih letih komajda opažena, dospela do svojega poznega in nepričakovanega slovesa. Vtis imam, da ta tema vse do danes ni izgubila svoje aktualnosti. Pojem »svet življenja« tako slej kot prej označuje osrednji problem, s katerim se konfrontira filozofska refleksija. Vendar se sedanja življenjskosvetna problematika ne prekriva s teoretskimi vpraševanji, zaradi katerih je vzvratna pot k svetu življenja postala zanimiva za Husserla. Danes nam namreč skrbi ne (...) zadaja toliko kriza evropskih znanosti kot evropski svet življenja sam. “Lifeworld” is the motto in the framework of which the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, hardly noticed in the 20s, reached its belated and unexpected reputation. My impression is that, up to this very day, this topic still hasn’t lost its relevance. The notion of lifeworld thus primarily denotes the central problem confronted by the philosophical reflection. However, the present lifeworld issues do not overlap with theoretical questions which aroused the attention of Husserl to look back to the lifeworld. For today we are not so much concerned about the crisis of European sciences but rather about the European lifeworld as such. (shrink)

Two of Husserl’s most important, though fragmentary texts from the final phase of his thought, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology and “The Origin of Geometry as an Intentional-Historical Problem,” focus on the themes of history and the life-world. It is well known that prior to these works Husserl sought to establish transcendental phenomenology as both a factually and an historically pure eidetic science. Thus the interpreter of the whole of Husserl’s thought is faced with the question of (...) whether his later focus on history and the life-world represents a significant departure from his previous thought. In what follows, I shall defend the thesis that it does not. Specifically, I shall argue that the completion of Husserl’s project of realizing the goal of First Philosophy in transcendental phenomenology renders necessary the turn both to history and to the life-world. In connection with this, I shall argue further that the peculiar phenomenological character of this necessity demands that the ‘concepts’ of history and life-world operative in Husserl’s last texts are taken to be inseparably rooted in a more original phenomenon. Husserl conceives this more original phenomenon as the crisis situation of the exemplars of European humanity, the philosophers, who, as the “functionaries of mankind” are faced with the “breakdown” situation of our time, with the “breakdown” of science itself. (shrink)

Številka 45-46 revije Phainomena z naslovom „Evropsko sporazumevanje – filozofsko razumevanje združuje filozofsko refleksijo o evropskosti s hermenevtičnimi in fenomenološkimi študijami o temah, ki so temeljito opredelile evropski duh v prejšnjem stoletju. Na podlagi tega je mogoče oblikovati vprašanje o filozofsko smislu evropskosti danes in o možnosti prihodnjega evropskega sporazumevanja. Osnovo za to diskusijo najdemo v Husserlovem delu Kriza evropskih znanosti in transcendentalna fenomenologija. .The 45-46 issue of the philosophical journal Phainomena, “European Coming to an Understanding – Philosophical Understanding”, is (...) a collection of philosophical reflections on Europe introducing a number of hermeneutic and phenomenological studies of the topics which fundamentally determined the spirit of Europe of the 20th century. On this basis, it is possible to pose questions about the philosophical meaning of Europe today and of the possibility of the future European coming to an understanding. The fundamental work of this enterprise is Husserl’s work Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. (shrink)

Die erste rumänische Übersetzung eines Teils der Krisis-Abhandlung erscheint in diesem Band und wird durch einige kurze Überlegungen eingeführt. In seinem letzten Buch, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, stellt Edmund Husserl wichtige Fragen der Phänomenologie dar, die unter Stichwort „Krise der Wissenschaften” stehen, u.a. das zentrale Problem über der Sinn der Wissenschaftlichkeit moderner Wissenschaften. Ich möchte im Folgenden einiger Grundfragen nachgehen, die die Rezeption dieses Textes erleichtern könnten: Hinweise auf die Redaktion des Husserlschen Textes und auf (...) den Ort und die Funktion der Krisis-Meditationen im Kontext der phänomenologischen Untersuchungen. (shrink)

The importance of Edmund Husserl's concept of the lifeworld, especially as it appears in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, is widely acknowledged. Yet there is also wide agreement among Husserl scholars that his treatment of the lifeworld is marred by deep faults. When you find and tap these faults Husserl's presentation of the lifeworld falls to pieces, thereby revealing distinct, incommensurable concepts. The main thrust of my dissertation is to challenge this commonly held opinion. Limiting my analysis (...) to the Crisis alone, I argue that Husserl's treatment of the lifeworld is consistent and coherent. In order to make this argument, as well as to understand it, it is imperative that one pay special attention to the contexts in which Husserl discusses the theme of the lifeworld. The failure to do this accounts for much of the confusion about the lifeworld found in the secondary literature. Therefore I try to bring order and clarity to the theme by offering a careful exposition of the contexts of Husserl's discussions of the lifeworld. ;To make sense of Husserl's treatment of the lifeworld in the Crisis it is imperative to understand the "problem of the lifeworld" in Part III A as the apex of the argument for the necessity of a transcendental-phenomenology reorientation of philosophy. The lifeworld is meant to appear riddled with paradoxes at this stage. Only the properly executed transcendental epoche and reduction makes possible a science of the lifeworld that resolves these paradoxes. The lifeworld is a transcendental phenomenon, i.e., the system of object-poles of intentionality, which itself is nothing other than transcendental subjectivity. The lifeworld is the pregiven-given, passive-active, particular-universal, familiar-unfamiliar, known-unknown, actual-potential, determinate-indeterminate, individual-communal, spatiotemporal-spiritual, lifeless-living, intuitive-unintuitive, one-many, unchanging-changing intersubjective-relative totality of things in their world-horizon. (shrink)

Philosophy and the Disdain for History: Reflections on Husserl's Ergiinzungsband to the Crisis GAIL SOFFER HUSSERL'S RECENTLY PUBLISHED Erganzungsband to the Cr/s/s' is a highly inti- mate statement, almost a confession, of hope and despair at the end of a philosophical life, a compendium of urgent, world-historical tasks not yet laid to rest. Above all, it abounds in reflections on history. In these, two things are poignantly clear: the late Husserl is completely convinced that history is of the utmost importance (...) to philosophy; he is not certain why. On a superfi- cial interpretation, the reason may seem obvious: Husserl's philosophical proj- ect is founded on the ideal of presuppositionless rational insight, and hence is Cartesian and ahistorical in its essence. The turn to history is to something external, and an implicit admission of the limitations of phenomenology itself, its inability to address the most pressing and meaningful problems of human existence: the crisis in European society and values, the ultimate significance of a man's life, work, and death. For those who would seek external motives for Husserl's turn to history, material is not lacking in this volume. There are moving philosophical discussions -- set in the atemporal phenomenological present tense -- of nationalism, of territoriality and the search for Lebensraum, of racism and xenophobia, of the forced emigration of families to a "no man's land. '' There is an attack on.. (shrink)

For all these reasons, it is helpful to have a volume such as the one under review, which gives the historical and textual background for Crisis. Ably edited by Reinhold N. Smid, who has been associated with the Husserl Archives at Cologne for many years, the volume contains papers from the period 1934-37, just before Husserl's death in 1938. Crisis itself was published in its present form only posthumously in 1954, but its first two parts appeared in the journal Philosophia, (...) published in Belgrade, in 1936. The idea of composing this work came to Husserl after he gave two lectures in Prague on 14-15 November 1935. The lectures provided the nucleus for Crisis, and the typescript for them is published in thirty-three pages of this volume. It is interesting to note that the title for the typescript is "Psychology in the Crisis of European Science." Although psychology is extensively treated in Crisis, the issue of that science is not one of the themes that commentators usually discuss. It is helpful to see how central psychology was in Husserl's later thought. The point is that he must distinguish the philosophical study of man from the empirical psychological study if he is to avoid taking philosophy as merely a partial science and if he is not to betray the special mode of being of transcendental subjectivity. The study of man must not be carried out according to the "objectivist" methods of modern science. (shrink)

This dissertation demonstrates that the life-world, as understood within existential phenomenology, will prove fruitful for theological method. Reading Edmund Husserl's The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology in light of and with the help of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I introduce phenomenology as "seeing" and as "radical," and develop an understanding of consciousness in terms of intentionality, correlativity and constitution. This sets the stage for presenting an understanding of the life-world, followed by a discussion of the epoche. I then explore how (...) this understanding of the life-world intersects with theological method. ;Chapters three and four give examples of this way of doing theology. A reading of David Tracy's Blessed Rage for Order, The Analogical Imagination, and Plurality and Ambiguity provides a basis for exploring specific ways in which a life-world perspective might contribute to theology. A commentary of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Verbum, illustrates reading from within a phenomenological attitude, attentive to the disclosure of the life-world. ;Chapter five presents a multi-layered self-critique. First, I compare my reading of Dei Verbum with the now classic Vorgrimler commentary on this text. I then compare my way of relating theology and phenomenology to the work of Steven Laycock and James Hart, and to the work of Edward Farley, showing how my approach differs from theirs. Finally, in an internal self-critique, I examine my own traditions and presuppositions. ;Chapter six presents the life-world as a paradigm candidate, briefly indicating what this might mean for: the saying of "is" and "as"; interpretation and description; truth and relativism; locating meaning; evaluating positions and perspectives; and a nonfoundationalist approach to reality. I conclude by stressing the need for radical respect for and appreciation of difference and otherness, the importance of dialogue, and the primacy of love, which, taken together suggest an asceticism of the theologian. (shrink)

There is a common concern in some of the writings of Husserl and Gadamer. It is the concern to defend the legitimacy and dignity of the "human sciences." They argue from the methodological standpoint that the method of the natural sciences leaves out the relationship between the object of inquiry and the inquirer. This relationship plays a key role in "understanding," which is the concem of the human sciences. In explicating it, Husserl and Gadamer stress the role of the community (...) and the lifeworld as the context of understanding. Parallels to Husserl's and Gadamer's ideas can be found in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Husserl argues in the Crisis that the prevalent tradition of positive science in his time had a philosophical core, called by him "Galilean science", that mistook the quest for objective theory with the quest for truth. Husserl is here referring to Gottingen science of the Golden Years. For Husserl, theory "grows" out of the "soil" of the prescientific, that is, pretheoretical, life-world. Scientific truth finally is to be sought not in theory but rather in the pragmatic-perceptual praxes of measurement. Husserl (...) is faulted for taking measuring processes to be "infinitely perfectible". The dependence of new scientific phenomena on the existence of prior "prescientific" inductive praxis is analyzed, also Husserl's residual objectivism and failure to appreciate the hermeneutic character of measurement. Though not a scientific (theory-)realist, neither was he an instrumentalist, but he was a scientific (phenomena-)realist. (shrink)