From 1990 on, the London psychologist Max Velmans developed a novel approach to consciousness according to which an experience of an object is phenomenologically identical to an object as experienced. On the face of it I agree; but unlike Velmans I argue that the latter should be understood as comparable, not to a Kantian, but rather to a noematic.

This chapter explores Marcel’s relationship with German idealism, the impact idealism had on his existentialism, his philosophical evolution beyond idealist conceptions of objectivity and consciousness, and his own move towards the authentic “ethical self,” whose goal is a reciprocal, intersubjective relationship with others who are freely seeking the inner meaning of experience. It will argue that the authentic self is fundamentally personal because it is embodied, non-objective, and creates opportunities for others to existentially flourish. The continuing progress of the ethical, (...) authentic self in a world that threatens it establishes Marcel’s existentialism as way to flourish in the midst of absurdity, and so establishes it as more than a mere reaction to German idealism. (shrink)

Phenomenological sociology was founded at the beginning of 1930s by Alfred Schutz. His mundane phenomenology sought to combine impulses drawn from Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and Weber's action theory. It was made famous at the turn of 1960s and 1970s by Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Berger & Luckmann's social constructionism. This paper deals with the notable accomplishments of Schutz and his followers and then proceeds to a shared shortcoming, which is that the phenomenological approach is unable to understand meaning in any other (...) way but as actors's knowledge. Therefore, phenomenological sociologists are forced to describe the actor's interpretations of meaning as transparent to the actor him/herself, even if they sometimes make heroic attempts to escape the limitations of the phenomenological conception. The limitation is apparent in Husserl's and Schutz's definition of meaning as a “reflective intentional act”, Garfinkel's use of the term “accounting” to refer to a signifying effect, and the way Berger and Luckmann describe their social theory as “sociology of knowledge”. Today, similar confusions are present in Michael Polanyi's “tacit knowledge”and in Giddens' structuration theory. (shrink)

I examine various claims to the effect that Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis and other problems of higher set theory are ill-posed questions. The analysis takes into account the viability of the underlying philosophical views and recent mathematical developments.

The ancient theme of the metaphysical-theological extremes of being-human is revisited by asking about the condition for the readiness to engage in the form of violence which is nuclear war. Sartre’s analysis of the extreme form of anger which crosses a threshold resulting in a self-legitimating righteous indignation which admits of no superior mollifying standpoint is appropriated to account for the complacency with the institution of nuclear weapons. The god-like anti-God characteristics of extreme rage are put on ice but ready (...) to be thawed quickly in the three-quarter of a century old disposition to destroy the world in which all life that we know is lived. The parallels with the myth of Lucifer invite themselves. This raises the question of what there is in being-human which is the condition for the possibility of such Luciferian impulses. Features of being human explicated by Husserlian transcendental phenomenology serve as lures to the unique form of pride that here is called Luciferian. Here it is argued that these features can also be lures to a sense of pride, analogous to the ancient magnanimitas, as developed by Aquinas. (shrink)

This book is a rounded well-informed study of violence, especially from a hermeneutical and social-studies perspective. It is relevant to peace studies. It raises key issues about the phenomenology of the person, of violence, of the foundations of ethics. Although it tends to skirt normative phenomenological, eidetic as well as moral issues they are always insistently on the edge of the rich discussions philosophical-hermeneutical issues and contemporary writings on these matters.

The paper discusses Husserl’s notion of definiteness as presented in his Göttingen Mathematical Society Double Lecture of 1901 as a defense of two, in many cases incompatible, ideals, namely full characterizability of the domain, i.e., categoricity, and its syntactic completeness. These two ideals are manifest already in Husserl’s discussion of pure logic in the Prolegomena: The full characterizability is related to Husserl’s attempt to capture the interconnection of things, whereas syntactic completeness relates to the interconnection of truths. In the Prolegomena (...) Husserl argues that an ideally complete theory gives an independent norm for objectivity for logic and experiential sciences, hence the notion is central to his argument against psychologism. In the Double Lecture the former is captured by non-extendibility, that is, categoricity of the domain, from which, so Husserl assumes, syntactic completeness is thought to follow. In the so-called ‘mathematical manifolds’ the expressions of the theory are equations that are reducible to equations between elements of the theory. With such an equational reduction structure individual elements of the domain are given criteria of identity and hence they are fully determined. (shrink)

Defending the ancient thesis, that being and the true, or being and manifestation, are necessarily inseparable, is at the heart of transcendental phenomenology. The transcendental “reduction” disengages the basic “natural” naïve doxastic belief which permits the world to appear as essentially indifferent to the agency of manifestation. The massive work of transcendental phenomenology is showing the agency of manifestation of “absolute consciousness.” Yet the foundations of this agency of manifestation are pervaded by issues which, when addressed, reveal that the question (...) of a “second absolute” is basic and opens Husserlian phenomenology to metaphysical questions. This has to do not merely with the teleology of the agency of manifestation, i.e., the “whither” of the teleology of presencing, but also, in some sense, with the constituting “whence” of the transcendental I. Husserl argues for the teleology of truth pointing to both a divine subject as well as a divine entelechy. (shrink)

Richard Tieszen [Tieszen, R. (2005). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXX(1), 153–173.] has argued that the group-theoretical approach to modern geometry can be seen as a realization of Edmund Husserl’s view of eidetic intuition. In support of Tieszen’s claim, the present article discusses Husserl’s approach to geometry in 1886–1902. Husserl’s first detailed discussion of the concept of group and invariants under transformations takes place in his notes on Hilbert’s Memoir Ueber die Grundlagen der Geometrie that Hilbert wrote during the winter 1901–1902. (...) Husserl’s interest in the Memoir is a continuation of his long-standing concern about analytic geometry and in particular Riemann and Helmholtz’s approach to geometry. Husserl favored a non-metrical approach to geometry; thus the topological nature of Hilbert’s Memoir must have been intriguing to him. The task of phenomenology is to describe the givenness of this logos, hence Husserl needed to develop the notion of eidetic intuition. (shrink)

It is argued that traditional functional explanations of the incest taboo do not sufficiently supply causal conditions. It is widely acknowledged that the incest taboo, although universal among human societies, is largely a feature of human behavior. Husserl's investigations of intentionality are introduced to supply the particularly human element by which the taboo may be understood. So as to illumine the contrast between the conflicting intentionalities, a classical Aristotelian contrast between eros and parent/ child philia is drawn. Parent/child philia and (...) eros, although both requisite for the survival of the species, are shown to be crosspurposeful in several ways. Husserl's understanding of 'negation,' as it applies to affective and practical intentionalities, is reconsidered. It is thereby explained how parental/child affection and erotic love, are 'incompossible' and not only conflict, but 'nullify' and 'cancel out' each other, generating the 'taboo'. (shrink)

Resumen: El principal objetivo de este trabajo es pensar el concepto de meditación en la filosofía de Ortega y Gasset. La meditación es la esencia de la filosofía para Ortega. Meditar y filosofar son sinónimos. La filosofía no es mera teoría, sino que implica también práctica. El elemento teórico sólo tiene sentido cuando surge de la vida, pero ante todo la teoría sólo vale si vale para vivir. El ser humano para Ortega piensa porque vive, pero lo fundamental es que (...) piensa para vivir. Sólo los pensamientos que se alcanzan viviendo tienen valor para vivir. La meditación filosófica está siempre supeditada a la vida.The principal aim of this work is to think the concept of meditation in the Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy. For Ortega, meditation is the essence of philosophy. To meditate and to philosophize are synonymous. Philosophy isn’t simply theory, but it also implies practice. The theoretical element only makes sense when it arises from life, but above all theory only have value if it have value for life. For Ortega, human being thinks because he lives, but is fundamental that he thinks for life. Only thoughts reached by living have value for life. Philosophical meditation is always subordinated to life. (shrink)

The following investigation aims to determine the historical origins of the phenomenology of pain. According to my central thesis, these origins can be traced back to an enthralling discussion between Husserl and two of his most important teachers, Brentano and Stumpf. According to my reconstruction of this discussion, while Brentano defended the view that all feelings, including pain, are intentional experiences, and while Stumpf argued that pain is a non-intentional feeling-sensation, Husserl of the Logical Investigations provides compelling resources to resolve (...) the polemic between his teachers by showing how pain can be conceived as a pre-intentional experience. According to my argument, this largely forgotten discussion is of significance not only because it enriches our understanding of pain, but also because it modifies the phenomenological conception of consciousness. Thus in the concluding section, I show why the Husserlian resolution of the controversy between Brentano and Stumpf is of importance for our understanding of the central phenomenological theme—intentionality. (shrink)

This paper develops a phenomenological approach to the concept of pain, which highlights the main presuppositions that underlie pain research undertaken both in the natural and in the sociohistorical sciences. My argument is composed of four steps: only if pain is a stratified experience can it become a legitimate theme in both natural and sociohistorical sciences; the phenomenological method is supremely well suited to disclose the different strata of pain experience; the phenomenological account offered here identifies three fundamental levels that (...) make up the texture of pain experience: pain can be conceived as a prereflective experience, as an object of affective reflection, or as an object of cognitive reflection; and such a stratified account clarifies how pain can be a subject matter in the natural and sociohistorical sciences. Arguably, the natural and sociohistorical sciences address pain at different levels of its manifestation. While the natural sciences address pain as an object of cognitive reflection, sociohistorical sciences first and foremost deal with pain as a prereflective experience and as an object of affective reflection. (shrink)

This article presents Paul Ricoeur's ideas about translation in view of giving some guidelines for the interpretation of cultures. Ricoeur's `hermeneutics of the self', which stresses the creativity of capable human being, has its source in a conviction of the superabundance of sense over the abundance of nonsense. It is the problem of the transmission of meaning from one language to another, from one culture to another that gives impetus to his preoccupation with translation. Ricoeur's radical astonishment before the plurality (...) of languages and cultures and his deep conviction about `communication' among human beings made him realize the urgent `task of translation' that is accompanied by a `task of morning'. If translation is the paradigm of all exchanges, its practice can provide us some guidelines in the dialogue of cultures. First, one must courageously open oneself to the `test' of the Other, to welcome difference and respect it as unsurpassable. Second, one must wager on the possibility of an `equivalence without identity', to take a non-hierarchical view of cultures. Third, one must undertake the `task of mourning', to learn to narrate otherwise, to interpret otherwise. (shrink)

Este trabajo examina el diálogo entre neokantismo, fenomenología y hermenéutica en el conocido como Kriegsnotsemester impartido por Martin Heidegger en 1919, y lo hace a la luz de las posibilidades allí abiertas para una reformulación contemporánea de la filosofía trascendental. A tal fin se abordará el análisis de las aporías que entraña la filosofía del valor en Windelband y Rickert y cómo la respuesta del joven Heidegger descubre un nuevo «espacio de sentido» en el que se mueve gran parte de (...) la filosofía actual. Desde esa dimensión preteórica del sentido será posible dar con el modo de acceso adecuado a la filosofía como «ciencia originaria». (shrink)

In this paper, I review recent contributions of phenomenology to a variety of disciplines, including the cognitive sciences and psychiatry, and explore (1) controversies about phenomenological methods and naturalization; (2) relations between phenomenology and the enactive and extended mind approaches; and (3) the promise of phenomenology for addressing a number of controversial philosophical issues.

Hidden away in the remote corners of one of the largest parts of Husserl's Kˆrper, if we can use that word to translate Corpus, there is ein Leib , an animate body of text that reverberates not only with some of Husserl's other little known texts, but also with some of the most recent discoveries in neuroscience. These texts suggest a theory of intersubjectivity, or what psychologists term social cognition. Let me start with a proviso: whether Husserl ever fully settled (...) on this theory is completely open to interpretation. Accordingly, I will leave it to Husserlian scholars to determine whether this is a position that Husserl actually or ultimately embraces, either in the years 1906 through 1913 when he writes some of these texts, or later when he writes other related texts. The texts in question are from Husserl's early years and they are rather tentative and reactive in nature, since he was just beginning to think of these problems, and he was responding to proposals put forward by Lipps and Meinung. That's also why I claim that these texts suggest a theory of social cognition rather than anything like a pure phenomenology of intersubjectivity. Husserl was trying to work out ways to counter the theories of Lipps and Meinung, and his reflections, I think, should count as phenomenologically informed theory. (shrink)

What does it mean for an actor to empathize with the character she is playing? We review different theories of empathy and of acting. We then consider the notion of “twofoldness”, which has been used to characterize the observer or audience perspective on the relation between actor and character. This same kind of twofoldness or double attunement applies from the perspective of the actor herself who must, at certain points of preparation, distinguish between the character portrayed and her own portrayal (...) effected in her craft. We argue that this concept helps us to understand how the actor can empathize with her character. For the actor who must study and rehearse her character, empathy may begin with higher-order processes that provide a contextualized understanding of the character. This understanding eventually integrates with more basic empathic processes in her actual performance. (shrink)

There is a conspicuous tendency of humans to experience empathy and sympathy preferentially towards members of their own group, whereas empathetic feelings towards outgroup members or strangers are often reduced or even missing. This may culminate in a “dissociation of empathy”: a historical example are the cases of Nazi perpetrators who behaved as compassionate family men on the one hand, yet committed crimes of utter cruelty against Jews on the other. The paper aims at explaining such phenomena and at determining (...) the limits of empathy. To this purpose, it first distinguishes between two levels of empathy, namely primary or intercorporeal and extended or higher-level empathy. It then investigates the mutual interconnection of empathy and recognition, which may be regarded as a principle of extending empathy to others regardless of whether they belong to one’s own group or not. However, this principle is in conflict with ingroup conformism and outgroup biases that hamper the universal extension of empathy. Thus, a denial of recognition and exclusion of others from one’s ingroup usually results in a withdrawal or lack of extended empathy which then influences primary empathy as well. On this basis, and using the historical example of mass executions during the Holocaust, the paper investigates the mechanisms of exclusion which may lead to a withdrawal of recognition and finally to a dissociation of empathy. (shrink)

Although Wilhelm Dilthey and Franz Brentano apparently were pursuing roughly the same objective—to offer a description of our mental functions and of their relations to objects—and both called their respective research programs ‘descriptive psychology’, they seem to have used the term to refer to two different methods of psychological research. In this article, I compare analyses of these differences. Against the reading of Orth but also against a possible application of recent relativist accounts of the epistemology of peer disagreement to (...) this case, I argue that their apparent shared objective is not enough to support an understanding of their views as two alternatives within a given historical or scientific context, or as a mutual peer disagreement. I show that the impression of a shared objective can be explained away as stemming from the influence of their teacher Adolf Trendelenburg, and I stress that the case of introspection strongly suggests that an account in terms of peer disagreement is not plausible. Finally, I conclude that the opposition between two traditions, Austrian philosophy and historicism, might be better suited to account for the dispute and its apparent common historical context. (shrink)

Guillaume Fréchette | : Il est généralement admis dans la littérature analytique sur l’intuition que celle-ci est principalement, ou même fondamentalement, une attitude propositionnelle. Partant de là, elle est aussi souvent caractérisée comme une croyance que P, comme la formation d’une croyance sans inférence que P, comme une impression que P, comme une impression intellectuelle que P, comme l’attitude consistant à être poussé, mu par P. Dans tous les cas, la spécificité de l’intuition reposerait au moins en partie sur les (...) propriétés doxastiques qui la distingue d’autres attitudes propositionnelles, comme savoir que P ou douter que P.Cette caractérisation de l’intuition semble à première vue incommensurable avec le concept d’intuition discuté dans la tradition phénoménologique, où l’intuition est caractérisée comme ce type d’expérience qui rend les objets présents, et peut certes être caractérisée en termes d’attitude propositionnelle, mais ne l’est pas essentiellement.Dans ce qui suit, je soulève quelques problèmes auxquels fait face la conception de l’intuition comme attitude propositionnelle. Partant de là, j’aimerais suggérer qu’en amendant cette idée, on peut développer une théorie de l’intuition qui peut employer de manière fructueuse les ressources de la phénoménologie et de la philosophie analytique. Cette suggestion montre que l’incommensurabilité des conceptions analytiques et phénoménologiques de l’intuition est superficielle, plus superficielle que ne le laissent entendre ses défenseurs respectifs. | : It is generally acknowledged in the analytic literature on intuitions that these are generally, or even fundamentally, propositional attitudes. For this reason, intuitions are often characterized as beliefs that P, as seeming that P, as the intellectual seeming that P, or as the attitude of being pushed by P. In all cases, the specificity of intuitions would consist at least in part in the doxastic properties that distinguishes them from other propositional attitudes, such as knowing that P or doubting that P.At first glance, this characterization of intuitions seems incommensurable with the concept of intuition discussed in the phenomenological tradition, where intuition is characterized as the type of experience that make objects present to us. While intuitions in this sense may be characterized as propositional attitudes, it doesn’t imply that they fundamentally are propositional.In the following paper, I raise some problems which faces the conception of intuitions as propositional attitudes. I would suggest that amending this idea allows to develop a theory of intuition which can use fruitfully both the resources of phenomenology and analytic philosophy. As a consequence, the alleged incommensurability of analytical and phenomenological conceptions of intuitions appears to be more superficial than it is usually taken to be defenders of intuitions as propositional attitudes. (shrink)

What forms of consciousness can the subject have of her body in action? This is a recurrent issue in contemporary research on skilled movement and expertise, and according to a widespread view, the body makes itself inconspicuous in performance in favour of the object or goal that the activity is directed to. However, this attitude to consciousness in bodily performance seems unsatisfying for an understanding of skilled action, and the work of several researchers can be seen as responding to this (...) view: Montero, Legrand, Ravn and others in the philosophy of expertise and of dance have developed various notions of consciousness and cognition to account for the mindful processes at play in performance. Two related questions can be distinguished here: 1. Is there an inherent conflict between skilled action and at least more than marginal awareness of that action, or is it possible – and even desirable – to reflect on our own performance without considerably impeding on it? 2. What forms of consciousness pertaining to the body in action must we distinguish in order to answer the first question? This paper gives an overview of this discussion, focusing on the second issue, although the first will come into play in so far as it is linked with the latter question. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s analyses of bodily reflection and on dancers’ descriptions, I show that there is, in phenomenological terms, a bodily level of reflection: a fully conscious and exploratory activity that is led by the skilled body, and that is explicitly aimed at by many performers. (shrink)

Husserl’s philosophy of culture relies upon a person’s body being expressive of the person’s spirit, but Husserl’s analysis of expression in Logical Investigations is inadequate to explain this bodily expressiveness. This paper explains how Husserl’s use of “expression” shifts from LI to Ideas II and argues that this shift is explained by Husserl’s increased understanding of the pervasiveness of sense in subjective life and his increased appreciation for the unity of the person. I show how these two developments allow Husserl (...) to better describe the bodily expressiveness that is the source of culture. Husserl’s account of culture is thoroughly intentionalistic, but it does not emphasize thought at the expense of embodiment. Culture originates not in an abstract subjectivity, but by persons’ expressing themselves physically in the world. By seeing how Husserl develops his mature position on bodily expressiveness, we can better appreciate the meaningfulness and the bodily concreteness of cultural objects. (shrink)

Je prends ici comme prétexte la parution aux éditions Nijhoff des Leçons professées par E. Husserl durant le semestre d'été 1908 à Göttingen sur sa doctrine de la signification, Vorlesungen ueber Bedeutungslehre Sommersemester 1908 (1987), afin de faire le point sur les changements qui interviennent durant cette période concernant sa conception de la signification. L'importance du contenu de ces Leçons a déjà été signalée par quelques phénoménologues dont G. Küng (1973), R. Bernet (1979). D. W. Smith et R. McIntyre (1982) (...) et par Husserl (1968) lui-même dans une lettre à R. Ingarden. Il semble que ces Leçons marquent ce qu'on pourrait appeler un «tournant frégéen» dans la conception husserlienne de la signification et qu'elles préparent le sol sur lequel s'édifie la théorie de l'intentionalité des Idées directrices. (shrink)

Pour plusieurs raisons, Descartes s'impose à titre d'interlocuteur privilégié de la phénoménologie. Comme Descartes, Husserl poursuit un double objectif avec l'idée de philosophie première : 1) celui d'une science universelle dominant l'ensemble des sciences ; 2) celui de fournir à cette science universelle le fondement qui en justifie le statut. J'examine ici le deuxième objectif.

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)

Heidegger’s doubts concerning the concept of “empathy” are unequivocally proven not only by his general tendency to avoid it, but also by his sharp critique of this term, as presented in both Being and Time and the lectures from the Summer Semester 1925, History of the Concept of Time. However, the concept of empathy is used by Heidegger in a positive, albeit rather allusive fashion, in three consecutive lectures of his early Freiburg period: Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Phenomenology of Intuition (...) and Expression and The Phenomenology of Religious Life. The present paper analyzes these three passages of Heidegger’s early lectures in close detail, revealing their connection to the conceptions of empathy found in the works of both Dilthey and Scheler. Thus it aims to connect Heidegger’s rather idiosyncratic conception of intersubjectivity with some of the discussions on that topic in the phenomenological millieu of the early 1920s. (shrink)

Ever since the 1960s, media and communication studies have abounded in heated debates concerning the psychological and social effects of fictional media violence. Massive empirical research has first tried to tie film violence to cultivating either fear or aggressive tendencies among its viewership, while later research has focused on other media as well (television, video games). The present paper does not aim to settle the factual question of whether or not medial experiences indeed engender real emotional dispositions. Instead, it brings (...) into play the resources of genetic phenomenology in order to ask how the formation of such dispositions would be generally possible. Thus, it aims to further the discussion by overtly employing the framework of Husserl’s later genetic phenomenology to the field of emotional experience. By posing questions with regard to how fictional emotional experiences contribute to the formation of apperceptions and to the specificities of emotional sedimentation, it also points out some shortcomings in Husserl’s account by drawing from Freud’s dynamic theory of drives and emotions. (shrink)

In a late notation from 1932, Husserl emphasizes the fact that a broad concept of “apperception” should also include, alongside his usual examples, the apprehension of objects as bearers of an individual or inter-subjective past, specifically “indicated” with them; thus, he distinguishes between apperceptions “appresenting” a simultaneous content (co-presentations), anticipatory apperceptions pointing to future incidents, and retrospective apperceptions referring to “ad-memorized” ( hinzuerinnert , ad - memoriert ) features and events. The latter sort of apperceptions are involved not only in (...) our apprehension of historical traces and relics, but also in that of causal relations, familiar objects, and cultural objects in general. Following several later notations of Husserl concerning the topic of “apperceptions,” this paper outlines the specific intentional structure of retrospective or evocative apperceptions, analyzing their various possible forms. (shrink)

Este trabajo se centra en el papel que juega la afectividad en la conocida como transformación hermenéutica de la fenomenología llevada a cabo por el joven Martin Heidegger. Tras establecer en la introducción la estrecha vinculación que existe entre la afectividad y la facticidad, tomo como hilo conductor la noción de movilidad de la vida fáctica. En un primer momento explico la peculiar significación que adquiere este término en la filosofía del joven Heidegger. En segundo lugar me detengo a analizar (...) la doble “movilidad fundamental” del amor y el odio como la matriz intencional del curare en la interpretación heideggeriana de las Confesiones de San Agustín durante las lecciones del semestre de verano de 1921. En un tercer momento considero la doble movilidad del pathos y de la disposición afectiva en las lecciones de 1924,_ Conceptos fundamentales de la filosofía aristotélica_. Y, _finalmente_, explicito la “lógica del corazón” que subyace a la hermenéutica de la facticidad desde la confluencia de la tradición neotestamentaria del _affectus _ y la tradición griega del _pathos_. (shrink)

The contemporary realist turn in philosophy can be seen as a reaction to a merely constructivist understanding of being. The formulation of a realist ontology was already the central concern of Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy. Hartmann argues that in order to pose the ontological question critically, a realist analysis of the cognitive relation must precede posing the question of being. From the critical analysis, it follows that the cognitive relation is embedded in the relationship of being. Thus, the epistemic relation becomes (...) understandable in the sense of beings encountering and touching one another. In this respect, some proponents of the contemporary realist turn emphasize that there is a philosophically relevant experience of being that can be understood as resistance. Beyond this statement, Hartmann’s analysis of the encounter with being is able to take into account the fact that different kinds of being touch us differently. (shrink)

In his 1935 book Principles of Gestalt Psychology, Kurt Koffka stated that empirical research in perceptual psychology should begin with “a phenomenological analysis,” which in turn would put constraints on the “true theory.” In this paper, I take this statement as a point of departure to investigate in what sense Gestalt psychologists practiced a phenomenological analysis and how they saw it related to theory construction. I will contextualize the perceptual research in Gestalt psychology vis-a-vis Husserlian phenomenology on the one hand (...) and mainstream psychophysics on the other, and I will argue that Gestalt psychologists practiced a form of “frontloading” phenomenology: Instead of requiring experimental subjects to engage in experiential reflections, such reflections were—in a sense—already engrained in the experimental designs used by researchers. This type of phenomenology was decidedly anti-“introspectionist” and as such was compatible with some of Husserl’s basic commitments, while at the same time bearing a surprising resemblance with the methods employed by psychophysicists like E. Boring and S.S. Stevens. This latter point will prompt me to explore what the difference between Gestalt-psychology and psychophysics amounted to. My analysis will reveal some disagreements and misunderstandings, especially with regard to the notions of isomorphism and introspection. (shrink)

Many spiritual traditions employ certain mental techniques (meditation) which consist in inhibiting mental activity whilst nonetheless remaining fully conscious, which is supposed to lead to a realisation of one’s own true nature prior to habitual self-substantialisation. In this paper I propose that this practice can be understood as a special means of becoming aware of consciousness itself as such. To explain this claim I conduct some phenomenologically oriented considerations about the nature of consciousness qua presence and the problem of self-presence (...) of this presence. (shrink)

La idea de que la fenomenología de Husserl representa una suerte de filosofía reflexiva, basada en una metodología que desarrolla la tradición cartesiana, se ha convertido en una creencia ampliamente difundida en la literatura filosófica. Este énfasis puesto por Husserl en la reflexión fue arduamente criticado por Heidegger. Desde entonces resulta frecuente encontrarse con la afirmación de que Husserl y Heidegger desarrollan dos conceptos de fenomenología diferentes, incluso antagónicos. No se trata de seguir alimentando esta discusión historiográfica. Aquí, por una (...) parte, se muestra el complejo proceso de desarrollo de la fenomenología hermenéutica de Heidegger en el transcurso de sus primeras lecciones de Friburgo (1919-1923) y Marburgo (1924-1928) y, por otra, se sopesan algunas de las observaciones críticas de Heidegger a Husserl a la luz de evidencias textuales de la fenomenología husserliana, ignoradas no sólo por Heidegger, sino también por un sorprendente número de reconocidos especialistas en el campo de la filosofía, de las ciencias cognitivas y de la filosofía de la mente. (shrink)

I advance a phenomenology of forgetting based on Husserl’s accounts of time-consciousness and passive synthesis. This theory of forgetting is crucial for understanding the transcendental constitution of the past. I argue that without forgetting, neither memory nor retention suffice for a consciousness of the past as past, since both are irreducibly connected to the Living Present. After an initial survey of the challenges that confront a phenomenology of forgetting, I provide a descriptive analysis of forgetting as a complex process that (...) integrates an accomplishment of retention that Husserl called “temporal contraction” with an accomplishment of passive synthesis that Husserl called “affective fusion.” Temporal contraction is the accomplishment that creates a qualitative distinction between near-retentions and far-retentions. Affective fusion enables us to provide a positive phenomenological description of the withdrawal of egoic investment in intentional experiences. Taken together, these two syntheses generate a double concealment in which consciousness both forgets its object and forgets that it has forgotten it, thereby constituting it as part of the truly absent past. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate an underappreciated element of Husserl’s phenomenology of images: the consciousness of the depicted subject, which Husserl calls the Sujetintention, e.g. the awareness of the sitter of a portrait. Husserl claims that when a consciousness regards a figurative image, it is absorbed in the awareness of the depicted subject and yet this subject some how withholds its presence in the midst of its appearance in the image-object. Image-consciousness is an intuitive consciousness that intends a being that (...) is both ‘in’ and ‘beyond’ the image: the depicted subject haunts the image. Borrowing Richard Wollheim’s language, the aim of this study is to determine what it means for a consciousness to see a depicted-subject in an image-depiction, which happens on the basis of seeing an image-object in a material image-thing, like paint, canvas, ink, paper etc. Restricting myself to figurative images, I will argue against the view that the relation to the depicted subject is symbolic or signitive. I argue that the consciousness of the Sujet is quasi-perceptual, which allows for a better account of the depicted subject’s sense of absence. I develop this view on the basis of Husserl’s claims that the depicted subject is the bearer of norms inherent to intuitive appearances, which concern how the profiles and movements of an object ought to unfold, though they fail to do so for image-consciousness. This failure is not a mere privation for the image as a perceptual appearance but is inherent to its status as a mediated and artificial presence. (shrink)

eSports practice designates a unique set of activities tethered to competitive, virtual environments, or worlds. This correlation between eSports practitioner and virtual world, we argue, is inadequately accounted for solely in terms of something physical or intellectual. Instead, we favor a perspective on eSports practice to be analyzed as a perceptual and embodied phenomenon. In this article, we present the phenomenological approach and focus on the embodied sensations of eSports practitioners as they cope with and perceive within their virtual worlds. (...) By approaching eSports phenomenologically, we uncover ways in which its unique forms of virtual involvement overlap with as well as differentiate themselves from traditional structures of embodiment. (shrink)

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, older people in the Netherlands were framed as essentially vulnerable. In the public discourse, the figure of the “vulnerable senior” rose to unprecedented prominence. Taking a critical-phenomenological approach, we combine an empirical study with philosophical reflection, drawing on phenomenological and post-structuralist work on vulnerability and precarity to interpret quotes from daily newspapers and other media. This approach leads us to distinguish three forms of vulnerability: (1) vulnerability as discursive effect; (2) vulnerability as unrealizable; and (3) (...) vulnerability as creative appropriation. We conclude that the COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the entanglement of age and vulnerability and has led to novel social distinctions and labels. These labels harbor harmful stereotypes and are in constant need of critical evaluation. Still, the people who are affected by them are not passively dominated; rather, they exhibit a certain freedom in re-interpreting and challenging their situation. It is this attention to the entanglement of discourse and lived experience that situates our research in the broader field of critical phenomenology. (shrink)