How do we understand other minds? The current debate uses the iridescent term “empathy” to explain our quite different mindreading capacities. Since no alternatives seemed to be available the discussion has been mostly in a deadlock between “simulation theory” and “theory theory”. Only recently the relevance of phenomenological findings on the issue has been brought forward. In this paper Husserl’s two concepts of “Einfühlung”, as developed in the second volume of his Ideas, are set against the background of the latest (...) discussion. Husserl’s explanation of empathy in terms of analogical experience highlights the transcendental role of empathy in the context of constitution. At the same time it may solve some of the many riddles left by the recent debate. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement among philosophers that we refer to, think or talk about non-existent objects in much the same way as we refer to, think or talk about other objects. This paper explores the case of objects of fiction in the perspective of Husserlian philosophical phenomenology. In this perspective, everything objective is dealt with as object of some consciousness and as presenting itself in subjective modes. Within the scope of this paper, the focus of the descriptive analysis will be (...) on showing in some detail how conscious experiences of intentionally referring to something fictive in pre-linguistic intuitive acts of imagining something are to be articulated with regard to the object of consciousness, i.e. noematically, and with regard to the intentional act, i.e. noetically. Special attention will be given to the reflective finding of some consciousness being intentionally implied and thereby modified in the very performance of an intentional act of representifying (vergegenwärtigen) something in fiction and to the question of identity and individuation of objects in fiction. It will be argued that modifications occurring in representificational consciousness, which Husserl called ‘as-if’ or ‘quasi’ modifications, provide the key for understanding the phenomenology of fictional intentionality and reference. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl’s ultimate aim was to give an overall philosophical explanation of the totality of Being. In this endeavour, the term “absolute” was crucial for him. In this paper, I aim to clarify the most important ways in which Husserl used this notion. I attempt to show that, despite his rather divergent usages, eventually three fundamental meanings and coordinated levels of the “absolute” can be differentiated in his thought: the epistemological, the ontological, and the theological or metaphysical level. According to (...) Husserl, we can approach this ultimate level of the Absolute, through the method of phenomenological construction. A closer reading of Husserl’s texts shows that his conception of the absolute was astonishingly modern. The main features of the conception—on all three levels—were non-foundationalism, contextualism, openness, and circularity. Each level mutually founds and determines the others. It is a non-foundational Absolute, the moments of which constitute an organic and open totality which is essentially processual. In my interpretation, this theory opens a fruitful working area, which has enormous philosophical potential and is surprisingly up-to-date. (shrink)

An influential interpretation of phenomenology construes Husserl's project as an attempt to generalize the Fregean notion of sense- an attempt to extend Frege's analysis of the structure of meaningful expressions to a more general account of the structure of meaning in experience . Michael Dummett has articulated a broadly Fregean critique of this Husserlian program, arguing that the project is misguided and retrograde-a relapse into the psychologism and idealism that Frege sought to avoid. A defense of Husserl is offered, based (...) in part on key elements of the theory of meaning articulated in his Logical Investigations . But the main aim is neither to acquit nor to convict Husserl of Dummett's charges; rather it is to use the exchange to investigate some of the philosophical commitments of a broadly Husserlian phenomenology. If we are to understand how Husserl avoids psychologism then we must come to terms with the paradoxical idea of an anti-psychologistic investigation of consciousness (an anti-psychologistic psychology). If we are to understand his complex stance toward idealism then we must not only understand the grounds for his rejection of subjective idealism but also be attuned to the other forms of idealism to which his project is committed. In the course of investigating these matters the author considers how Husserl can reply to the charge of explanatory vacuity, and shows that Frege himself recognizes the legitimacy of something like the Husserlian project. (shrink)

The main aim of this article is to offer a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s theory of minimal mind and his ideas pertaining to the lowest level of consciousness in living beings. In this context, the term ‘minimal mind’ refers to the mental sphere and capacities of the simplest conceivable subject. This topic is of significant contemporary interest for philosophy of mind and empirical research into the origins of consciousness. I contend that Husserl’s reflections on minimal mind offer a fruitful contribution (...) to this ongoing debate. For Husserl, the embodied character of subjectivity, or consciousness, is essential for understanding minimal mind. In his view, there is an a priori necessary constitutive connection between the subjective and objective aspects of the body, between _Leib_ and _Körper_, and this connection is especially important for exploring minimal mind from a phenomenological perspective. Thematically, the essay has three main parts. In Sect. 2, I present an overview of how minimal mind is framed in contemporary philosophy of mind and empirical research. I then analyse Husserl’s conception of embodiment with regard to the problem of minimal mind in Sect. 3. Finally, I present a more detailed investigation into Husserl’s account of minimal mind, highlighting features from his descriptions of animal mind and consciousness in early infancy (Sects. 4 and 5 ). (shrink)

In this paper I examine the structure of hope and trust from a phenomenological perspective in order to analyze the kinds of beliefs, valuings, and practical dispositions involved in them. I claim that there are some basic aspects of the social world that would be inconceivable without the feeling components of these attitudes. However, since these attitudes are only rational in as far as they involve rational beliefs, valuings, and practical assumptions, a complex theory of reason that deals with these (...) three domains is necessary to understand what is at stake in them. Accordingly, I attempt to sketch central aspects of the Husserlian pluralistic conception of reason and highlight the way in which, when they are rational, the valuings involved both in hope and trust open new possibilities to act in rational or meaningful ways. This leads me to stress the role of the feelings involved in these attitudes, for I claim that such valuings or axiological assessments are based on them. I argue that hope allows us to act rationally in the face of uncertainty and what lies beyond our control. In the final part I elaborate on the idea that trust is founded on hope. I examine what happens when hope is expressed and how being found trustworthy by others implies being capable of establishing all kinds of social relationships, including relationships in which the trusted one is dominated. This opens the possibility of raising ethical questions concerning trusting and responding to the trust of others. (shrink)

After a brief outline of the topic of non-language thinking in mathematics the central phenomenological tool in this concern is established, i.e. the eidetic method. The special form of eidetic method in mathematical proving is implicit variation and this procedure entails three rules that are established in a simple geometrical example. Then the difficulties and the merits of analogical thinking in mathematics are discussed in different aspects. On the background of a new phenomenological understanding of the performance of non-language thinking (...) in mathematics the well-known theses of B. L. van der Waerden that mathematical thinking to a great extent proceeds without the use of language is discussed in a new light. (shrink)

Departing from modal logic, Jean-Yves Girard, as a logician interested in philosophy, presented a distinction between essentialism and existentialism in logic. Carlos Lobo reflected about the Girard’s concept to reinterpret the Husserlian Platonism in regard of the status of logical modalities. We start rescuing the notion of modal logic in the Edmund Husserl’s works, especially Formal and Transcendental Logic and First Philosophy. Developing this reflexion, we propose a new contribution to this discussion, reinterpreting the platonic influence in the Husserlian notions (...) of eidos and science, light of some readings of Lee Hardy and Johanna M. Tito. As a conclusion of this dialogue between Husserl and Girard, the method of eidetic variation is presented as a tool to review the idea of science, in a manner consistent with the phenomenological approach. (shrink)

This article argues against the concept of a priori and essence as they have been traditionally thematized in the course of the old metaphysical-idealist tradition. Specifically, I argue against the existence of an ontological a priori, often endowed with metaphysical-platonic connotations, by attempting to “relocate” it in the subjective sphere and thus reduce it to the being and modes of being of a transcendental subjectivity. To do so, I will be appealing to a phenomenological, Husserlian approach, while pointing to a (...) possible connection with the Kantian views on the matter and also taking into account certain views in the secondary literature. Since a substantial part of my position is associated with the notion of a constituting, transcendental subjectivity further reducible to the origin of inner temporality, I intend to show that the objectivity constraints put in this way on the conception of the transcendental a priori may ultimately lead to a “destruction” of its traditional ontological sense. Given that in transcendental phenomenology the concept of a priori “appears” both in the constituting and the constituted level, I aim to show that it is precisely in this context that the a priori cannot rid itself of the vestiges of factuality brought in by means of the very constitutive, subjective processes implying ipso facto the question of the role of the constituting origin of temporality. (shrink)

The concept of depth is central to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and informed not only his philosophy of perception but also his thinking about psychology, art and politics. This article traces the ways the notion of depth appears in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking in these fields, contrasting it with Husserl’s own phenomenological investigations. The article starts with a comparison of the function of perception in Husserl’s phenomenology and then proceeds with an analysis of how the issue of depth reappears in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, (...) phenomenology of art and political philosophy. I argue that while Husserl’s approach to phenomenology led him to analyses of aesthetics stemming from works of art as random examples, and to non-participation in politics, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology leads to the opposite approach, inviting concrete criticism in art and active participation in politics. It is argued that Merleau-Ponty’s approach is more philosophically consistent. The choice of particular works of art, and the particular political engagements, can retrospectively clarify the transcendental phenomenological investigations themselves. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper reconstructs and defends a Husserlian transcendental conception of intentionality. Initially, naturalistic conception of intentionality seems attractive, however, a naturalistic understanding conceals the true meaning of the puzzle and the nature of intentionality. Following Kant and primarily Husserl, this paper tries to determine the conditions a transcendental conception of intentionality must satisfy in order to be qualified as “transcendental”. Additionally, following Husserl, this paper argues that the alternative transcendental conception is not only possible, hence plausible; but also necessary, in (...) the sense that a thorough understanding of intentionality can only be achieved if a transcendental conception is adopted. (shrink)

Technology always provides a new perception of the world. However, it is not clear when technology produces “mere” new informations and when it provides something more such as a production of new objects in our world which start to “live” around us. The aim of this paper is to study how technology shapes our surrounding world. The questions which we are going to answer are: Is it really adding new objects to our world? If yes, does every technology have this (...) potentiality? We are going to tackle the problem using a phenomenological and post-phenomenological approach focussing our attention on the perceptual level. Using Husserl’s philosophy we will study how technology are deeply involved in our perception and, thanks to post-phenomenology and its concept of “embodiment relations,” we will be able to determine which kind of technologies have the potentiality to change our surrounding world introducing and producing new objects in it. (shrink)

This work focuses on augmented reality glasses and its aim is to analyse the knock-on effects on our everyday world and ourselves yielded by this kind of technology. Augmented reality is going to be the most diffused technology in our everyday life in the near future, especially augmented reality mounted on glasses. This near future is not only possible, but it seems inevitable following the vertiginous development of AR. There are numerous kinds of different prototypes that are going to come (...) out next year. Therefore, a study on how these modifications yield knock-on effects on the constitution of the object and subject is mandatory. This work tackles the topic starting from a phenomenological and post-phenomenological point of view and it analyses the modification yielded by such technology from a perceptual point of view using the analysis of the horizons of the object made by Husserl. We need this analysis because it is not only the hypothetical future that may never come, but it is the likely future very close to us that is putting pressure on us. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse teledildonics from a phenomenological perspective in order to show the possible effects they will have on ourselves and on our society. The new way of using digital technologies is to merge digital activities with our everyday praxes, and there are already devices which enable subjects to be digitally connected in every moment of their lives. Even the most intimate ones are becoming mediated by devices such as teledildonics which digitally provide a tactual (...) stimulation allowing users to have sexual intercourse through them. The efforts made in order to provide such an intertwinement of our everyday lives and digital technologies are evident, but the effects produced by them are not clear at all. This paper will analyse these technologies from a phenomenological perspective in order to understand their effects on the constitution of the subjects and on our society at the intimate level. (shrink)

This essay attempts to approach the dispute over the conceptualist or non-conceptualist interpretation of Husserl’s conception of intentional experience from a specific question: Is the intuitive act essentially a carrier of meaning? In the sixth Investigation, Husserl apparently tries to show that intuition is no carrier of meaning and therefore must be unified with a meaning-conferring act in order to be meaningful. But it seems to me that the brief arguments given by Husserl here are far from conclusive and that (...) there are passages in the Logical Investigations which suggest otherwise. I will try to demonstrate that the sense conferred by the interpretation in perception is not different from linguistic meaning, and therefore perception is actually a synthetic act of fulfillment and is always meaningful. The conceptualist reading is no less convincing and no less susceptible to objections than the non-conceptualist one. (shrink)

In Speech and Phenomena and other works, Derrida criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology and attempts to pave the way to his deconstructive philosophy. The starting point of his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology is his assessment of the latter’s phenomenology of language developed in the Logical Investigations. Derrida claims that Husserl’s phenomenology of language in the Logical Investigations and the subsequent works is guided by the premise of the metaphysics of presence. The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it (...) aims to show that Derrida’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of language is off the mark and, on the other hand, it aims to reveal that the phenomenology of language goes far beyond the scope of the Derridian deconstructive philosophy of language. (shrink)

I present empirical evidence suggesting that an infant first becomes aware of herself as the focal center of a caregiver's attending. Yet that does not account for her awareness of herself as agent. To address this question, I bring in research on neonatal imitation, as well as studies demonstrating the existence of a neural system in which parts of the same brain areas are activated when observing another's action and when executing a similar one. Applying these findings, I consider gestural (...) exchanges between infant and caregiver, such as reciprocal smiles and imitative vocalizations. Lacking self-awareness at first, the infant is unaware of her own agency. By returning her unwitting gesture, the caregiver singles out for her—thanks to neural matching—the gesture's kinesthesis. Moreover, the caregiver's smile, imitative vocalization, or other gesture is the form that focusing takes. The kinesthesis of the infant's gesture, in being singled out, is experienced by the infant as what the caregiver is focusing on. It is experienced as being within the focal center. In this way, the infant becomes aware of herself as a bodily entity acting toward the caregiver. Exchanges that involve matching are at first essential, I argue, in making the infant present to herself in action. Matching will cease to be necessary, but self-awareness continues to depend fundamentally on others until the acquisition of language, when the child becomes capable of talking to herself as if she were the caregiver. (shrink)

The paper inquires Husserl’s immanent teleology of conscious life, conceived as a Teleologie der «tiefen» Assoziationen. The associative genesis entails synthetical processes in the primordial-associative field, driven by the general concept of interest. The resulting syntheses ground the various forms of judgments, both judgments on experience and predicative ones in general. Since the theory’s foundation relies on pre-predicative experience, then it must encompass its teleological dimension and, in this sense, the concept of evidence – pivotal in the theory – mirrors (...) the result of the synthesis of fulfilment. This latter, in turn, is driven in an asymptotic path towards a teleological idea of adequacy. This account expresses the complementary mirroring that characterizes the relationship between judging and teleology, without the need to separate teleology from reason. In order to highlight the significance of this framing, the paper is closed by a brief comparison with R. Millikan’s teleosemantic theory, whose concept of teleology is shown as flawed by the general concerns proper to naturalism. (shrink)

In his paper, “The Dorsal Stream and the Visual Horizon,” Michael Madary argues that “dorsal stream processing plays a main role in the spatiotemporal limits of visual perception, in what Husserl identified as the visual horizon” (Madary 2011, p. 424). Madary regards himself as thereby providing a theoretical framework “sensitive to basic Husserlian phenomenology” (Madary 2011). In particular, Madary draws connections between perceptual anticipations and the experience of the indeterminate spatial margins, on the one hand, and the Husserlian spatiotemporal visual (...) horizons, on the other. I argue that Madary’s arguments, for a Husserlian view of the two visual systems, are not convincing. When the notion of visual horizon is adequately understood as a constitutive notion, there will be reason to regard the connections between dorsal processing and the Husserlian spatiotemporal horizons as tenuous at best. (shrink)

It is often emphasised that persons diagnosed with borderline personality disorder show difficulties in understanding their own psychological states. In this article, I argue that from a phenomenological perspective, BPD can be understood as an existential modality in which the embodied self is profoundly saturated by an alienness regarding the person’s own affects and responses. However, the balance of familiarity and alienness is not static, but can be cultivated through, e.g., psychotherapy. Following this line of thought, I present the idea (...) that narrativising experiences can play an important role in processes of appropriating such embodied self-alienness. Importantly, the notion of narrative used is that of a scalar conception of narrativity as a variable quality of experience that comes in degrees. From this perspective, narrative appropriation is a process of gradually attributing the quality of narrativity to experiences, thereby familiarising the moods, affects, and responses that otherwise govern ‘from behind’. Finally, I propose that the idea of a narrative appropriation of embodied self-alienness is also relevant to the much-debated question of personal responsibility in BPD, particularly as this question plays out in psychotherapeutic contexts where a narrative self-appropriation may facilitate an increase in sense of autonomy and reduce emotions of guilt and shame. (shrink)

This paper proposes a possible reconstruction and philosophical-logical clarification of Gödel's idea of causality as the philosophical fundamental concept. The results are based on Gödel's published and non-published texts (including Max Phil notebooks), and are established on the ground of interconnections of Gödel's dispersed remarks on causality, as well as on the ground of his general philosophical views. The paper is logically informal but is connected with already achieved results in the formalization of a causal account of Gödel's onto-theological theory. (...) Gödel's main causal concepts are analysed (will, force, enjoyment, God, time and space, life, form, matter). Special attention is paid to a possible causal account of some of Gödel's logical concepts (assertion, privation, affirmation, negation, whole, part, general, particular, subject, predicate, necessary, possible, implication), as well as of logical antinomies. The problem of mechanical and non-mechanical procedures in the work with and on concepts is addressed in terms of Gödel's causal view. (shrink)

Lecture notes from Husserl's logic lectures published during the last 20 years offer a much better insight into his doctrine of the forms of meaning than does the fourth Logical Investigation or any other work published during Husserl's lifetime. This paper provides a detailed reconstruction, based on all the sources now available, of Husserl's system of logical grammar. After having explained the notion of meaning that Husserl assumes in his later logic lectures as well as the notion of form of (...) meaning as it features in ‘doctrine of the forms of meaning’, I present a system of rules that describes all the various forms of meaning that Husserl singles out in his lectures. (shrink)

An act’s form of apprehension determines whether it is a perception, an imagination, or a signitive act. It must be distinguished from the act’s quality, which determines whether the act is, for instance, assertoric, merely entertaining, wishing, or doubting. The notion of form of apprehension is explained by recourse to the so-called content-apprehension model ; it is characteristic of the Logical Investigations that in it all objectifying acts are analyzed in terms of that model. The distinction between intuitive and signitive (...) acts is made, and the notion of saturation is described, by recourse to the notion of form of apprehension. (shrink)

Propositional attitudes are often classified as non-phenomenal mental states. I argue that there is no good reason for doing so. The unwillingness to view propositional attitudes as being essentially phenomenal stems from a biased notion of phenomenality, from not paying sufficient attention to the idioms in which propositional attitudes are usually reported, from overlooking the considerable degree to which different intentional modes can be said to be phenomenologically continuous, and from not considering the possibility that propositional attitudes may be transparent, (...) just like sensations and emotions are commonly held to be: there may be no appropriate way of describing their phenomenal character apart from describing the properties and objects they represent. (shrink)

Phenomenological descriptions are supposed to be revelatory and coincide with the self-showing of the things themselves. These features of phenomenological descriptions lead to the peculiar character of their expression, which has the effect of making them difficult to communicate. That is, the problem with communicating the findings of phenomenological researches is a consequence of the descriptive nature of the endeavor and the disclosive character of phenomenological descriptions. In the Logical Investigations Edmund Husserl recognized that the problem has three facets: how (...) does one state the findings of phenomenological researches, how can one effectively communicate these findings, and how can these communications be persuasive? In this essay I elaborate on these problems and then show that Heidegger’s method of formal indication was designed to solve these problems just as Husserl understood them. We can thus take formal indication as a model for dealing with these problems—and for informing phenomenological discourse—because it solves them with a single strategy. (shrink)

This article describes the phenomenon of knowledge building in online environments. Knowledge building is a process within a community, which leads to the development of knowledge. In order to analyze this process, we will look into the ways in which individuals interact with the collective as a whole. For this purpose, the psychic and social systems, which are involved here are regarded as meaning-based systems in the sense of Luhmann’s systems theory—open to the environment, but operatively closed. The respective modes (...) of operation of psychic and social systems will be examined, and “structural coupling” between these systems described. Another characteristic of knowledge-building communities is self-organization, which is described here in the sense of autopoiesis. A pivotal task, which knowledge-building communities have to tackle, is to handle complexity and reach common understanding. These aspects will also be described using conceptualizations of Luhmann’s systems theory, illustrated by many examples. (shrink)

Taking his point of departure from William James and, by implication, Franz Brentano, Alfred Schutz made explicit the multifaceted experience of sub-universes as a phenomenon for phenomenological clarification on an entirely different foundation from James, Brentano and Husserl. The rethinking of Brentano, James and Husserl makes the phenomenon explicit in such a way that a vast new domain of phenomenological investigation is opened up.

Hermeneutic phenomenology is a research method used in qualitative research in the fields of education and other human sciences, for example nursing science. It is a widely used method example in Scandinavia, and Van Manen is well known for his hermeneutic phenomenological method. In many studies the hermeneutic phenomenological method is inarticulate or ambiguous. Researchers generally lack a common understanding of what this method actually is. One reason for that is that the expression “hermeneutic phenomenological method” is contradiction in terms. (...) Hermeneutics and phenomenology have their own distinct history. Hermeneutics and phenomenology as philosophical disciplines have their own distinct aims and orientations. Hermeneutic is orientated to historical and relative meanings. Phenomenology in Husserlian sense is orientated to universal and absolute essences. Martin Heidegger connects hermeneutics and phenomenology in very sophisticated manner as hermeneutical phenomenology and he provides a very specific definition of his brand of phenomenology. For Heidegger, hermeneutical phenomenology is the research of the meaning of the Being as a fundamental ontology. However, this kind of phenomenology is of no use for educational qualitative research. (shrink)

I argue that Hubert Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background as well as his anti-representationalism rest on introspection. I denote with ‘introspection’ the methodological malpractice of formulating ontological statements about the conditions of possibility of phenomena merely based on descriptions. In order to illustrate the insufficiencies of Dreyfus’ methodological strategy in particular and introspection in general, I show that Heidegger, to whom Dreyfus constantly refers as the foundation of his own work, derives ontological statements (...) about the conditions of possibility of phenomena not merely from descriptions, but also from analyses. I further show that deriving ontological statements directly from descriptions entails implausible results. I do so by discussing representative cases. Based on these general methodological considerations, I show that Dreyfus’ work on action, skill and understanding is introspective. First, I demonstrate that Dreyfus’ influential claim that rules and representations do not govern skillful actions is the result of introspection, because it is merely founded on the absence of rules and representations in representative descriptions of skillful actions. Second, I show that Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background is also based on introspection. These ontological structures are merely reifications of descriptions and are not further substantiated by analyses. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze constitution embodiment, a particular conception of embodiment. Proponents of constitution embodiment claim that the body is a condition of the constitution of entities. Constitution embodiment is popular with phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition, including research projects such as Enactivism and Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Unfortunately, PEC’s use of constitution embodiment is neither clear nor coherent; in particular, PEC uses the concept of constitution embodiment so that a major inconsistency is entailed. PEC conceives of the body in a (...) transcendental sense as a condition of the constitution of entities, and, in an ontic sense, as a scientifically describable entity. Yet, a condition of the constitution of entities cannot be itself an entity—rather, it is the very condition of the possibility of an entity. This inconsistency entails further problems, among them PEC’s misguided focus on the location of the embodied mind. In order to correct these mistakes, I develop a conception of constitution embodiment based on the work of Heidegger, Husserl and to a lesser degree Merleau-Ponty. This has two purposes. First, it provides the conceptual groundwork to secure the status of PEC as a consistent and coherent research project and to clarify PEC’s conception of the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In that spirit, my approach provides further guidelines for fruitful research alliances between PEC and other research programs such as Grounded Cognition and identifies current research alliances, such as those with Radical Enactivism, as undesirable. Second, my account provides an elaborate concept of constitution embodiment that can function as the basis for more sophisticated work in the future. (shrink)

In this paper I trace Husserl’s transformation of his notion of phantasy from its strong leanings towards empiricism into a transcendental phenomenology of imagination. Rejecting the view that this account is only more incompatible with contemporary neuroscientific research, I instead claim that the transcendental suspension of naturalistic (or scientific) pretensions precisely enables cooperation between the two distinct realms of phenomenology and science. In particular, a transcendental account of phantasy can disclose the specific accomplishments of imagination without prematurely deciding upon a (...) particular scientific paradigm for its experimental investigation; a decision that is best left to the sciences themselves. (shrink)

Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) offers an ‘infra-language’ of the social that allows one to trace social relations very dynamically, while at the same time dissolving human agency, thus providing a flat and de-centred way into sociology. However, ANT struggles with its theoretical design that may lead us to reduce agency to causation and to conceptualize actor-networks as homogeneous ontologies of force. This article proposes to regard ANT’s inability to conceptualize reflexivity and the interrelatedness of different ontologies as the fundamental problem of the (...) theory. Drawing on Günther, it offers an ‘infra-language’ of reflexive relations while maintaining ANT’s de-centred approach. This would enable us to conceptualize actor-networks as non-homogeneous, dynamic and connecting different societal rationales while maintaining the main strengths of ANT. (shrink)

In this article I consider whether and how Husserl’s transcendental phenomenological method can initiate a phenomenological way of life. The impetus for this investigation originates in a set of manuscripts written in 1926 (published in Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion) where Husserl suggests that the consistent commitment to and performance of phenomenological reflection can change one’s life to the point where a simple return to the life lived before this reflection is no longer possible. Husserl identifies this point of no return with (...) becoming a transcendental idealist. I propose a way of understanding Husserl’s claim that transcendental idealism makes a simple return to life before phenomenological reflection impossible. I then suggest that a phenomenological way of life is characterized by an epistemic modesty that follows from Husserl’s transcendental idealism and consider whether and how such a phenomenological way of life is a life worth living. (shrink)

Au terme des Prolégomènes, Husserl formule son idée de la logique pure en la structurant sur deux niveaux: l'un, supérieur, de la logique formelle fondé transcendantalement et d'un point de vue épistémologique par l'autre, inférieur, d'une morphologie des catégories. Seul le second de ces deux niveaux est traité dans les Recherches logiques, tandis que les travaux théoriques en logique formelle menés par Husserl à la même époque en paraissent plutôt indépendants. Cet article est consacré à ces travaux tels que recueillis (...) dans les appendices VI-X du volume 12 des Husserliana. Mettant en évidence la théorie de la signification qui les sous-tend par le biais d'une analyse de la question dite de l'extension des systèmes d'axiomes et de sa résolution au moyen d'une notion de complétude, son objectif est d'expliciter les modalités de l'intégration de la logique formelle dans l'idée husserlienne de la logique pure au tournant du xx siècle.When formulating his idea of pure logic in the Prole.. (shrink)

In phenomenology the body is often referred to as the lived body which makes the world familiar to me. In this paper, however, I discuss bodily self-consciousness in terms of self-distance. Self-distance is the suggestion that bodily self-consciousness consist in a reflective stance where you conceive of your body as a physical thing, an object in the world as well as the subject of bodily experiences. I argue that we are bodily self-conscious because we experience our own body in more (...) than one way and that these ways are not derivative of one another or hierarchically ordered. This latter claim conflicts with certain phenomenological readings of how the body is experienced, one of which I will refer to and discuss as the Familiarity Objection to my idea of self-distance. I end the paper with a discussion of why we need the conception of experienced objectification that is entailed in the notion of self-distance to account for both pathological and non-pathological bodily self-experiences. The notion of self-distance improves our understanding of how the body plays a central role in psychosis for the experience of distorted inter-subjective relations. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of phenomenological interpretation of Cartesian idea of evidence. The author demonstrates that implicit but constitutive characteristic of evidence is a property of excessiveness. The analysis of its conceptual versions and methodological representations in Husserl, Marion and Derrida’s philosophies deconstructs some stereotype interpretations of evidence as an attribute of I-centric philosophical systems and also as a carrier of qualities of fullness and presence. The author claims that excessiveness of evidence has two main aspects: (1) non-belonging (...) to the system assured by this very evidence and (2) tendency to self-surpassing (hyperbolization). The excessiveness of evidence is shown in particular with regard to the system of thinking governed by the “truth-falsehood” opposition. The author brings to light a trend to the increasing of degrees of evidence as a consequence of phenomenological critique and deconstruction as methodological hyperbolizations of Cartesian doubt. The common ground between Marionian and Derridian critiques of Husserl’s conception of evidence is found that is inconsistency between the principle of fulfillment of intention and the unrealizable regulative of the “Idea in Kantian sense” as two main ways of representation of evidence idea in Husserlian phenomenology. It is shown that in accordance with the paradigm of possibility as the common denominator of phenomenological attitude in general the very same criticized evidence becomes assimilated in Marion’s conception of “saturated phenomena” (a principle of hyperbolical givenness) and in Derridian deconstruction (hyperbolicity-excessiveness as heterogeneity and impossibility within the framework of his critique of presence). The author uncovers the essential connection between the idea of evidence and basic elements of deconstructive discourse, such as the metaphorical concept of secret and the quasi-concept différance. (shrink)

The validity of Husserl’s early apprehension/content of apprehension schema (_Auffassung/Auffassungsinhalt Schema_) of intentionality has long been a subject of dispute. In the case of phantasy (_Phantasie_), commentators often assert that the talk of “non-intentional content,” i.e. the phantasm, is abandoned in Husserl’s mature phenomenology of phantasy, and his subsequent theory of reproductive consciousness aims precisely to replace the previous schema. Against the current dismissive stance in the literature, this paper argues for the centrality of the concept of phantasm in the (...) phenomenology of phantasy. This is achieved in three steps. First, I argue for a functional interpretation of the schema, which maintains that it is not an empirical-genetic account of how non-intentional “sense-data” is transformed into presentations of intentional objects, but a structural exposition of the essential moments of objectifying consciousness. Second, I revisit Husserl’s theory of reproductive consciousness, arguing that in reproduction, what is reproduced is not only the noetic experience but also the hyletic substrate. Hence, the theory of reproductive consciousness, far from calling for an abandonment of the concept of phantasm, instead clarifies this concept and its function in phantasy. To fortify the point that the phantasm is crucial for the phenomenology of phantasy, I examine two features of phantasy, namely the perspectivalness of phantasized objects and the experience of my phantasy Ego being the “zero point of orientation” in phantasy, arguing that these two essential features can only be accounted for by appealing to the concept of phantasm. (shrink)

It’s a familiar fact that there is something it is like to see red, eat chocolate or feel pain. More recently philosophers have insisted that in addition to this objectual phenomenology there is something it is like for me to eat chocolate, and this for-me-ness is no less there than the chocolatishness. Recognizing this subjective feature of consciousness helps shape certain theories of consciousness, introspection and the self. Though it does this heavy philosophical work, and it is supposed to be (...) relatively obvious to anyone who introspects, it is rather difficult to see just what this phenomenal me-ness is supposed to be; indeed, many philosophers deny it exists. In this paper we try to provide a clear sense of what phenomenal me-ness involves, and then then consider some arguments for the existence of phenomenal me-ness experience as well as some accounts of what gives rise to it. In the end, we argue that the plausible senses of me-ness are a good deal thinner than what often seems to be claimed. (shrink)

If Husserl is correct, phenomenological inquiry produces knowledge with an extremely high level of epistemic warrant or justification. However, there are several good reasons to think that we are highly fallible at carrying out phenomenological inquiries. It is extremely difficult to engage in phenomenological investigations, and there are very few substantive phenomenological claims that command a widespread consensus. In what follows, I introduce a distinction between method-fallibility and agent-fallibility, and use it to argue that the fact that we are fallible (...) phenomenologists does not undermine Husserl’s claims concerning the epistemic value of phenomenological inquiry. I will also defend my account against both internalist and externalist objections. (shrink)