The present article intends to show that genetic phenomenology, as conceived by Edmund Husserl, implies an essential biological dimension. In his later research manuscripts, from the 1920s and 1930s, Husserl not only reflects on the conceivability of forms of intropathy regarding animal and plant bodies, based on dismantling reduction, but also on the embeddedness of the human monad in ontogenetic and phylogenetic generative becoming. On that basis, the article aims to locate the place of bio-generative phenomena within the field of (...) genetic analysis in the theories of monadic gradualism and of somatic anomalism. However, by taking into consideration that new attempts to approach biological generativity from a Husserlian perspective are only partly successful, the article ends with a delimitation of certain elements that require further elaboration, namely the investigation into the biological implications of monadology, the determination of forms of corporeal anomality, and the vindication of the notion of essential limit-phenomena. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The Uroboros of Consciousness: Between the Naturalisation of Phenomenology and the Phenomenologisation of Nature” by Sebastjan Vörös. Upshot: In my commentary, I focus on the main claim that naturalizing transcendental phenomenology should lead to a phenomenologisation of nature. I suggest that this could be spelled out in a non-idealistic correlationism of mind and nature and, more specifically, in a phenomenological investigation into living beings based on the analysis of the embodied mind/lived body.

Open peer commentary on the article “Towards a PL-Metaphysics of Perception: In Search of the Metaphysical Roots of Constructivism” by Konrad Werner. Upshot: My general concern is that transferring the analysis of perception to a metaphysical and even metametaphysical level is not very helpful when it comes to justifying a certain philosophical conceptualisation of perception. To this end, a phenomenological analysis is needed. Furthermore, I point to an ambiguity within Werner’s correlationist account of the mind-world relation - and to a (...) last resort for radical constructivism. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: As a reply to the criticism that anthropomorphism and modern science are incompatible, targeting Jonasian phenomenology and Varelian enactivism, I suggest considering the concept of modern anthropomorphism, which seems prima facie compatible with the pluralistic situation of today’s life sciences. My further claim is that the phenomenological method is intrinsically linked with this sort of anthropomorphism.

Max Scheler's Reformation of Philosophy of Religion The following contribution aims to show the relevance of Max Scheler's reflections on the relation of Christianity and modernity for the present situation. It interprets Scheler's philosophy of religion in terms of a principle of reformation that can be implicitly found in Scheler's critical assessment of the historical impact of Lutheran Protestantism. Scheler's principle of reformation provides four criteria: autonomy of the religious sphere, dialectics of life and spirit, community beyond religious denominations, and (...) metaphysical determination of the divine. On that basis, we will see that Scheler's "catholic” phenomenology of religion from 1921 only partly meets his own criteria, whereas his "post-catholic” metaphysics of panentheism, developed after 1922, is more suitable to meet these criteria. Two factors are crucial: First, the divine is characterized by a fundamental metaphysical tension between spirit and vital impulsion, which leads to transferring the responsibility of balancing this tension to the history of mankind. Second, the community that corresponds to this metaphysical conception is not delimited by religious denomination but is integrated by solidarity among all human and living beings instead. (shrink)