When Husserl speaks of the so-called ?transcendental reduction? or ?phenomenological epoch?? many believe that he is eschewing the question of truth or existence. Two reasons are given for this: First, Husserl explicitly states that when we perform the reduction, we should no longer naively ?accept [the world] as it presents itself to me as factually existing? (Id I ?30, p. 53) and should suspend our judgement with regard to ?the positing of its actual being? (Id I ?88, p. 182). Second, (...) Husserl seems to have no problem in referring to an ?object? of thought even when we refer to non-existent, hallucinatory or indeed impossible objects. This seems to suggest that he is not interested in the question whether or not there is a corresponding ?ordinary? object. The paper seeks to question this and will show that his inquiry never loses sight of the questions of truth and existence but rather brings them into the foreground. (shrink)
There is a strong consensus among analytic philosophers that Husserl is an internalist and that his internalism must be understood in conjunction with his methodological solipsism. This paper focuses on Husserl's early work the, Logical Investigations , and explores whether such a reading is justified. It shows that Husserl is not a methodological solipsist: He neither believes that meaning can be reduced to the individual, nor does he assign an explanatory role for meaning to the subject. Explanatory priority is assigned (...) to objects which have an intrinsic property independently of any access or attitude we may have to them. Although not a methodological solipsist, there are nonetheless internalist elements to Husserl's thought: He believes that we can think of non-existent objects and his account of indexicals and demonstratives shows that there are two kinds of meaning: one is context independent and internally individuated, the other is partly determined by context and so externally individuated. The paper leaves it open whether this is sufficient to mark Husserl out as an internalist. However, even if he were considered as such, we can be sure of one thing, namely, that his internalism would not be a species of methodological solipsism. (shrink)
Does our responsibility extend to deeds that have been performed in our name? Is our modern understanding of responsibility in need of revision? Arendt holds that it is not necessary to revise our conception of responsibility since there are two forms of responsibility: a moral and a political one. Margalit, in turn, argues that our conception of responsibility is too narrow. We are not only morally responsible for the deeds we have performed or neglected to perform but also for the (...) deeds carried out in our name. I believe neither position to be entirely coherent: Arendt is mistaken to argue that collective responsibility is free from moral expressions and Margalit conflates political with moral responsibility and confuses guilt with shame. The article concludes that moral responsibility is distinct from collective responsibility, even though the former retains elements of the latter. (shrink)
This paper takes Zahavi’s view to task that every conscious experience involves a “minimal sense of self.” Zahavi bases his claim on the observation that experience, even on the pre-reflective level, is not only about the object, but also has a distinctive qualitative aspect which is indicative of the fact that it is for me. It has the quality of what he calls “for-meness” or “mineness.” Against this I argue that there are not two phenomena but only one. On the (...) pre-reflective level, experience is transparent. Conscious experience may well be reflexive but this does not imply that I additionally have a sense of what it is like for me to have that experience. I do not just happen to disagree with Zahavi’s account of pre-reflective experience but, more importantly, I am concerned that he imposes it onto his interpretation of Edmund Husserl. Zahavi claims that when Husserl argues that consciousness is necessarily a form of self-consciousness, he must be committed to the view that we necessarily have a sense of ownership. However, Husserl only claims that I am self-conscious but not that I am a self that owns its consciousness. Zahavi thus misses the novelty of Husserl’s position, namely that I do not need to have a sense of abiding ownership, to have experience. (shrink)
This article queries Winch's view that moral issues are particular, subjective, context-dependent and not open to generalizations. Drawing on examples from film and literature, Winch believes he can prove first, that the universalisability principle is idle and second, that morality is wrongly conceived as a guide to moral conduct. Yet, neither example proves his point. Quite the contrary, they show that we face moral dilemmas only when moral theory fails to provide an answer to moral problems. Therfore, it is not (...) the case, as Winch suggests, that moral issues have a force independent of moral theory. The article questions a general trend in contemporary moral theory that argues that abstract principles are inconsistent with the actual way we live our lives. Footnotes1 In memory of Irving Velody 1936–2000. (shrink)
Michel Henry wishes to salvage Descartes?s first principle ?I think, I am? by claiming that there is no need to appeal to the world or others to make sense of the self. One of his main targets is Edmund Husserl, who claims that thought is necessarily intentional and thus necessarily about something that is other to thought. To show that this is not so, Henry draws on passages from Descartes?s texts which emphasize that we should not equate the cogito with (...) thinking but with sensation and imagination. This allows Henry to explore the notion that the self has its own form of manifestation. This paper questions Henry?s reading of Descartes and his critique of Husserl on two fronts. First, the passages Henry draws upon, if anything only confirm, rather than question Husserl?s claim that consciousness is intentional. Second, Henry believes that he can show that the life of the self is infinitely rich without having to appeal to other persons or, indeed, to the world. Yet, I wish to contend that Henry is mistaken: as Husserl has shown convincingly, a life without others and the world is not only impoverished and bereft of meaning, but remains entirely indeterminate. The self only manifests itself with respect to others and the world. (shrink)
In recent years there has been a general attempt – inspired by P. F. Strawson – to naturalise Kant's notion of the transcendental self. The argument being that self-consciousness should refer to neither a kind of noumenal nor mental self but that the self-conscious subject must conceive of itself as an embodied entity, a person among persons that regards itself as an element of the objective order of the world. While Kant does not make room for the notion of an (...) embodied transcendental self, this is where we need to go as our bodily awareness is central both for self-knowledge and the possibility of cognition and thus a transcendental condition for knowledge claims. In this paper I should like to single out Quassim Cassam's work Self and World to see whether such a position is tenable. Cassam's main claim is that we can only become aware of ourselves as subjects if we are at the very same time aware of ourselves as objects located in the spatio-temporal world. We could not be self-conscious and ascribe experiences to ourselves unless we are also aware of ourselves as a physical object among other physical objects in the world. The central claim is that when we self-refer we do not refer to two distinct entities, one possessing only mental, and the other possessing only physical features, rather we refer to a subject that is both mental and physical at the very same time. Awareness of ourselves qua subject is just awareness of ourselves qua object. This paper will focus on this claim alone and will ask whether it is tenable. The answer will be negative. Drawing on the work of Edmund Husserl, I shall argue that there is an inherent flaw in Cassam's position which he has inherited from Gareth Evans’ depiction of the self. The contention will be that our awareness of ourselves qua subject is not compatible with the awareness of ourselves qua object. (shrink)
It is a study of the phenomenological philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger. Through a critical discussion including practically all previously published English and German literature on the subject, the aim is to present a thorough and evenhanded account of the relation between the two. The book provides a detailed presentation of their respective projects and methods, and examines several of their key phenomenological analyses, centering on the phenomenon of being-in-the-world. It offers new perspectives on Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, e.g. concerning (...) the importance of Husserl's phenomenology of the body, the relationship between the Husserlian concept of "constitution" and Heidegger's notion of "transcendence", as well as in its argument that "being" designates the central phenomenon for both phenomenologists. Though the study sacrifices nothing in terms of argumentative rigor or interpretative detail, it is written in such a way as to be accessible and rewarding to non-specialists and specialists alike. (shrink)
This paper asks whether we should still be haunted by scepticism about other minds. It draws on the writings of Cavell and Husserl to show that there is some truth in the Cartesian premise that has given rise to scepticism about other minds, namely, that our self-awareness is of a fundamentally different type from our awareness of objects and other subjects. While this leads Cavell to argue that there is a truth to scepticism, it proves the opposite to Husserl, viz. (...) that other minds scepticism is necessarily non-sensical. The paper shows why Husserl's position is more convincing than Cavell's. 1. (shrink)
This article explores the extent to which Heidegger promises a novel understanding of the concept of time. Heidegger believes that the tradition of philosophy was mistaken in interpreting time as a moveable image of eternity. We are told that this definition of time is intelligible only if we have eternity as a point of departure to understand the meaning of time. Yet, Heidegger believes that we are barred from such a viewpoint. We can only understand the phenomenon of time from (...) our mortal or finite vantage point. Contrary to the tradition of philosophy, Heidegger argues that time does not find its meaning in eternity, time finds its meaning in death. The article takes Heidegger's position to task. It argues that it is not evident why Heidegger's account of time should in any way be superior to the traditional conception of time. Drawing on the criticism raised by Lévinas and Blanchot, that death — like eternity — is never at our disposal to understand the phenomenon of time, it shows that although Heidegger is aware that death is never an event in our life, he nonetheless claims that it is the awareness of our finitude that informs our understanding of time. Yet if Heidegger does not see it as a problem that death is never at our disposal, then it becomes questionable whether Heidegger's initial critique launched against the tradition of philosophy still holds, because it is no longer evident why it matters that eternity, as a point of departure, is never at our disposal to understand the phenomenon of time. (shrink)
However, the book, with its promising title, is in many ways disappointing. You may have expected to find a rare discussion between Habermas and Derrida, but there is no dialogue at all. Instead we are presented with two separate fairly short interviews conducted by Giovanna Borradori in New York just after 9/11. The interview with Habermas comprises twenty pages and the one with Derrida fifty-two pages. The rest of the book is written by the interviewer Borradori herself, who compares and (...) contrasts Habermas’s and Derrida’s positions in a rather didactic fashion. Considering that both interviews are easy to follow, such detailed commentary seems rather superfluous, although it may be of help to readers who are not familiar with the thought of the two philosophers. (shrink)
In 'Time and Being' Heidegger claims that the task is to 'cease all overcoming and to leave metaphysics to itself'. This paper asks what it actually means to leave metaphysics to itself, and how we are meant to understand the difference between "leaving metaphysics to itself" and "overcoming metaphysics". To understand this distinction, the paper compares Heidegger's later position with those of Husserl and Wittgenstein and with his own earlier position expressed in Being and Time. While we find different interpretations (...) of what it means to leave metaphysics to itself, this paper shows that none of them, apart from Wittgenstein's, draw a clear distinction between leaving metaphysics to itself and overcoming metaphysics. Indeed, rather than leaving metaphysics to itself, Heidegger in 'Time and Being' comes to articulate a negative metaphysics. To avoid such a move, this paper draws on Wittgenstein to show how we can truly leave metaphysics to itself and cease all overcoming. (shrink)
P F Strawson advocates a descriptive metaphysics. Contrary to Kant, he believes that metaphysics should be ‘content to describe the actual structure of thought about the world’, there is no need of postulating a world that lies beyond our grasp. We neither need to refute nor accept scepticism since we can ignore it with good reasons. Yet this paper argues that Strawson fails to provide us with good reasons. He fails to realise that one cannot do metaphysics by construing its (...) claims as being merely descriptive of a conceptual scheme we find ourselves to possess without even purporting to establish the legitimacy of that scheme. The paper shows that it is possible to overcome this impasse if we endorse Kant's transcendental idealist position. The significance of Kant' position is that it not only allows us to describe our conceptual scheme but moreover that it acknowledges that the world may be (radically) otherwise without however instantiating the truth of scepticism (Published Online October 13 2005) Footnotes1 I am grateful to Steven Kupfer for his helpful comments and should like to thank the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for providing me with a year's fellowship which has made this study possible. (shrink)
