This paper treats of Husserl’s phenomenology of happiness or eudaimonia in five parts. In the first part, we argue that phenomenology of happiness is an important albeit relatively neglected area of research, and we show that Husserl engages in it. In the second part, we examine the relationship between phenomenological ethics and virtue ethics. In the third part, we identify and clarify essential aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology of happiness, namely, the nature of the question concerning happiness and the possibility of (...) a phenomenological answer, the power of the will, the role of vocation, the place of obligation, the significance of habituation, the necessity of selfreflection and self-criticism, the importance of sociability and solidarity, the impact of chance and destiny, and the specter of regret. In the fourth part, we establish the inextricable linkage between Husserl’s metaethics and his metaphysics. In the fi ft h part, we provide a provisional exploration of his conception of the connection between happiness and blessedness. We acknowledge that there is an extensive literature on Husserl’s phenomenological ethics, and our study has benefitted greatly from it, but we also suggest that our holistic approach critically clarifies his description of happiness, virtue, and blessedness by fully recognizing that his phenomenological metaethics is embedded in his phenomenological metaphysics. (shrink)

Addressing Walter Hopp’s original application of the distinction between agent-fallibility and method-fallibility to phenomenological inquiry concerning epistemic justification, I question whether these are the only two forms of fallibility that are useful or whether there are not also others that are needed. In doing so, I draw my inspiration from Husserl, who in the beginnings of his phenomenological investigations struggled with the distinction between noetic and noematic analyses. For example, in the Preface to the Second Edition of the Logical Investigations (...) he criticizes the First Investigation as having been “one-sidedly” noetically directed and as having thus neglected the noematic aspects of meaning (XVIII 13–14). Also, in an addendum to the Fifth Investigation he notes that in the transition from the First Edition to the Second he has learned to broaden the concept of “phenomenological content” to include not only the “real” ( reell ) contents (noetic, subjective) of consciousness but also the “intentional” (noematic, objective) (XIX/1 411). The fact that, in gradually moving from consciousness (noesis) to what consciousness is of (noema), Husserl struggled with this distinction is an indication of the immensity of the perplexing problems and potential solutions that Hopp has led the phenomenology of knowledge into by introducing his useful notions of agent-fallibility and method-fallibility. Like Husserl, he has focused mainly and mostly on the noetic issues; like Husserl as well, I will try to move step by step from the noetic area into the noematic. I conclude that Hopp’s approach has the potential to become seminal. (shrink)

This paper explores the close connection in early phenomenology between the problem of objectless presentations and the concept of intentional objects. It clarifies how this basic concept of Husserl’s early phenomenology emerged within the horizons of Bolzano’s logical objectivism, Brentano’s descriptive psychology, Frege’s mathematical logicism, Twardowski’s psychological representationalism, and Meinong’s object theory. It shows how in collaboration with these thinkers Husserl argued that a theory of intentionality is incomplete without a concept of the intentional object. It provides a brief history (...) of the concept of intentional objects in the philosophical logic of the nineteenth century that demonstrates its relevance to the problem of objectless presentations in the early phenomenology of the twentieth century. It suggests that Husserl accepts Bolzano’s objectivism and Frege’s logicism, rejects Brentano’s conception of immanent objects and Twardowski’s notion of representational pictures, and ignores Meinong’s theory of objects. Thus the paper employs the formation of Husserl’s concept of the intentional object to enhance the understanding of the historical and philosophical relationships between early phenomenology and contemporaneous philosophical movements. (shrink)

In The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl argues that the only way to respond to the scientific Krisis of which he speaks is with phenomenological reflections on the history, method, and task of philosophy. On the assumption that an accurate diagnosis of a malady is a necessary condition for an effective remedy, this paper aims to formulate a precise concept of the Krisis of the European sciences with which Husserl operates in this work. Thus it seeks (...) an answer to the question: What exactly, according to Husserl, is “the ‘crisis’ [Krisis] of the European sciences”? There are two different tendencies in the literature on this question. According to the traditional interpretation, the Krisis of the European sciences lies not in the inadequacy of their scientificity but in the loss of their meaningfulness for life. According to an innovative suggestion, the Krisis lies not in the loss of their meaningfulness for life but in the inadequacy of their scientificity. These readings are mutually exclusive because each claims that the other misidentifies the Krisis as something that it is not. The argument of this paper, however, is that, given the many different senses of Krisis in The Crisis, an adequate understanding of the Krisis that Husserl identifies requires not a disjunctive but an inclusive approach. Therefore the paper proposes that Husserl’s Krisis of the European sciences is both a crisis of their scientificity and a crisis of their meaningfulness for life. The relevance of this result to Husserl’s philosophical and historical sense-investigations in The Crisis—as well as to the present critical situation of philosophy—is self-evident. (shrink)

The history of the early phenomenological movement involves a tale of two schisms. The Great Phenomenological Schism originated between 1905 and 1913, as many of his contemporaries, for example, Pfänder, Scheler, Reinach, Stein, and Ingarden, rejected Husserl’s transformation of phenomenology from the descriptive psychology of his Logical Investigations into the transcendental idealism of his Ideas I. The Phenomenological-Existential Schism started between 1927 and 1933, as with Being and Time Heidegger moved away from Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of consciousness toward an ontological (...) analytic of existence. Yet these schisms were not unrelated developments. Closely following the documentary evidence to determine the exemplary nature of Heidegger’s critique of Husserl’s move into transcendental idealism, this essay establishes the inextricable linkage between the Great Phenomenological Schism and the Phenomenological-Existential Schism. (shrink)

Stein claims that Husserl’s transcendental idealism makes it impossible to clarify the transcendence of the world because it posits that consciousness constitutes being. Inspired by Aquinas, Stein counters that making thinking the measure of being deprives what is of its epistemological and ontological independence from and primacy over what thinks. She contends that this approach inverts the natural relationship between the mind and the world. Given the complicated relationship between them, however, the question is whether Stein’s argument that Husserl lacked (...) an adequate understanding of and appreciation for the phenomenon of transcendence is sound. In fact, Husserl’s treatments of “limit problems of phenomenology” in his manuscripts from 1908 to 1937, which were only recently published in Husserliana XLII, show that he undertook extensive investigations of metaphysical, metaethical, and religious and theological questions. Tragically, Stein was prevented from gaining an even remotely complete picture of Husserl’s work. In this paper, therefore, I examine Stein’s critique of Husserl’s transcendental idealism in light of the fuller evidence. (shrink)

It is generally acknowledged that there were two schisms in the early history of the phenomenological movement. The first, the Great Phenomenological Schism, started between 1905 and 1913, as many of his younger contemporaries, for example Pfänder, Scheler, Reinach, Stein, and Ingarden, rejected Husserl’s transformation of phenomenology from the descriptive psychology of the Logical Investigations into the transcendental idealism of Ideas I. The second, the Phenomenological-Existential Schism, happened between 1927 and 1933, as it emerged that with Being and Time Heidegger’s (...) philosophy had moved away from Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology of consciousness toward an ontological analytic of human existence as the way to an interpretation of the question of the meaning of Being. This paper is about neither the first schism per se nor the second schism per se but about the relationship between the two. It suggests that the first schism anticipated the second and the second recapitulated the first, so that, although the first could have occurred without the second, the second would not have happened as it did without the first. It also indicates that the second schism lies temporally much closer to the first schism than has been hitherto appreciated. Above all, the paper seeks an answer to this question: How do the Great Phenomenological Schism and the Phenomenological-Existential Schism illuminate one another philosophically? (shrink)

In key numbers of The Federalist Publius argues that the only good form of popular government is republican popular government and that the only good form of republican popular government is federal republican popular government. Essential to both arguments is the distinction between “democracy” and “republic”; By the former Publius means a form of popular government in which the citizens assemble in person and administer the affairs of government directly, so that such a society must be confined to a small (...) number of citizens and a little spot; by the latter he means a form of popular government in which the administration of the affairs of government is delegated to a certain number of citizens elected by the rest, that is, in which the scheme of representation takes place, so that such a society can be extended over a large number of citizens and a big country. Despite the great quantity of material which has been written on The Federalist, no one has ever doubted the validity of this distinction. But the present study shows, first, that--contrary to that which one universally supposes to be the case--the distinction which Publius tries to make is not a logically valid one; then, it proves that--again, contrary to that which one universally believes to be so--the really decisive distinction is not the one between “democracy” and “republic”, but rather the one between ‘bad republics’ and ‘good republics’; next, it demonstrates that--once again, contrary to that which one universally presupposes to be--it is Publius himself in The Federalist itself who says that that is how it is; and finally, it shows what consequences this original and therefore unique, but nonetheless correct understanding of The Federalist entails for Publius’ teaching on republicanism and, by implication, on federalism. Therefore, ‘the standard interpretation’ of The Federalist will never be the same again. (shrink)

This bilingual edition of Descartes' _Meditations on First Philosophy_ is aimed both specifically at serious students and professors of philosophy, and generally at anyone motivated by a strong philosophical interest.

_This book presents a coherent philosophy of signs without postulating objects to which they refer or meanings which they express._.

The goal of this paper is to show that Augustine’s Confessions, understood “sub specie dubitationis”, constitute a substantive argument for the philosophical position that may be described as “Augustinian skepticism”. The point is that, according to Augustine’s conversion narrative, what human beings can know becomes thematic only within the horizon of what they must believe, and therefore a doxic attitude other than rationality plays the primary and ultimate role in their quest for answers to questions about the meaning of life (...) and death. An explication of the text of the Confessions suggests that a failure to understand Augustinianskepticism makes it impossible to account for a long list of big philosophical topics in Augustine’s thought. (shrink)

According to the leading commentators and the author himself, Edmund Husserl's Formal and transcendental Logic is the most important work on phenomenological logic ever written. Nonetheless, it has, in general, gained far less attention than theLogical Investigations and the Ideas on a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. In particular, the argument of § 1 of the Logic, namely, that it is fruitful to start with the meanings of the expression “logos” in order to develop a genuinely transcendental logic, has received (...) virtually no consideration. This paper takes a step towards filling this empty space by analyzing and criticizing the argument of § 1 as a problem to which (a) solution(s) must be found: First, it offers an introduction to the problem per se, which is one of the relationship between speech and reason; second, it tries to bring the given senses of “logos” to a higher grade of conceptual clarity and distinctness than that in the text; third, it attempts to decide whether and how far these senses of the word can be documented according to principles of Classical philology; fourth, it endeavors to determine exactly the relationship between the meanings of “logos” in § 1 and the senses of “logic” in §§ 1–107; finally, it strives to show that, with respect to the account of the relationship between speech and reason provided by Husserl in the Logic, there is, at best, a conflict and, at worst, a contradiction between the strategy outlined in § 1 and the tactics adopted in § 2ff. Throughout, the paper reads Husserl's “descriptions” as ‘arguments’ for his positions, thereby avoiding any of the obscurity sometimes infecting work in “Continental philosophy”. (shrink)

Este ensaio examina a explicação de Husserl sobre o que afinal acontece quando ocorre a compreensão. Os tópicos de sua Primeira Investigação Lógica são familiares ao ponto de serem menosprezadas: distinções essenciais envolvendo atos conferidores de significação e preenchedores de significação e seus conteúdos, caracterizações dos atos conferidores de significação, a flutuação dos significados das palavras e a idealidade das unidades de significação, e os conteúdos fenomenológico e ideal das vivências de significação. Uma vez feitas as distinções essenciais, a investigação (...) abre um caminho direto. Ela conduz dos atos psiquicamente reais de significação e seus conteúdos subjetivamente flutuantes às significações logicamente ideais e seus conteúdos objetivamente constantes. Dado que aparentemente a estratégia de Husserl para lidar com expressões essencialmente ocasionais e suas significações aparentemente flutuantes pode funcionar para a Lógica pura, com sua necessidade de rigor de identidade e determinação de sentido, mas não, entretanto, para o discurso ordinário, parece que a Primeira Investigação Lógica não pode prover uma explicação sobre a compreensão. Contudo, este ensaio tenta mostrar que Husserl apresenta uma hermenêutica fundamental na Primeira Investigação Lógica e que ela se volta da linguística para a ontologia, ou de ‘meras palavras’ para as ‘coisas elas mesmas’.: This paper examines Husserl’s account of what then happens when understanding takes place. The topics of his First Logical Investigation are familiar to the point of contempt: essential distinctions involving meaning-conferring and meaning-fulfilling acts and their contents, characterizations of meaning-conferring acts, the fluctuation of word meanings and the ideality of meaning unities, and the phenomenological and ideal contents of the experiences of meaning. Once the essential distinctions have been made, the investigation clears a straight path. It leads from mentally real acts of meaning and their subjectively fluctuating contents to logically ideal meanings and their objectively constant contents. Because it appears that Husserl’s strategy for dealing with essentially occasional expressions and their apparently fluctuating meanings may work for pure logic, with its need for strictness of identity and determinacy of sense, but not for ordinary discourse, however, it seems that the First Logical Investigation cannot provide an account of understanding. Yet this paper attempts to show that Husserl presents a foundational hermeneutics in the First Logical Investigation and that it turns from linguistics to ontology, or from ‘mere words’ to ‘things themselves’. Keywords: Understanding. Hermeneutics. Phenomenology. Husserl. (shrink)

In key numbers of The Federalist Publius argues that the only good form of popular government is republican popular government and that the only good form of republican popular government is federal republican popular government. Essential to both arguments is the distinction between “democracy” and “republic”; By the former Publius means a form of popular government in which the citizens assemble in person and administer the affairs of government directly, so that such a society must be confined to a small (...) number of citizens and a little spot; by the latter he means a form of popular government in which the administration of the affairs of government is delegated to a certain number of citizens elected by the rest, that is, in which the scheme of representation takes place, so that such a society can be extended over a large number of citizens and a big country. Despite the great quantity of material which has been written on The Federalist, no one has ever doubted the validity of this distinction. But the present study shows, first, that--contrary to that which one universally supposes to be the case--the distinction which Publius tries to make is not a logically valid one; then, it proves that--again, contrary to that which one universally believes to be so--the really decisive distinction is not the one between “democracy” and “republic”, but rather the one between ‘bad republics’ and ‘good republics’; next, it demonstrates that--once again, contrary to that which one universally presupposes to be--it is Publius himself in The Federalist itself who says that that is how it is; and finally, it shows what consequences this original and therefore unique, but nonetheless correct understanding of The Federalist entails for Publius’ teaching on republicanism and, by implication, on federalism. Therefore, ‘the standard interpretation’ of The Federalist will never be the same again. (shrink)