This collection is the final volume of a four book survey of the state of phenomenology fifty years after the death of Edmund Husserl. Its publication represents a landmark in the comprehensive treatment of contemporary phenomenology in all its vastness and richness. The diversity of the issues raised here is dazzling, but the main themes of Husserl's thought are all either explicitly treated, or else they underlie the ingenious approaches found here. Time, historicity, intentionality, eidos, meaning, possibility/reality, and teleology are (...) the main concerns of this collection devoted to studies in aesthetics, metaphysics and literary interpretation, written by such authors as, among others, R. Cobb-Stevens, C. Moreno Marquez, J. Swiecimski, Sitansu Ray and M. Kronegger. These original studies of phenomenological aesthetics and literary theory by scholars from all parts of the world were gathered by the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learn ing during the year 1988/89 during its assessment of the phenomeno logical movement, fifty years after Husserl's death. IX A -T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XXXVII, ix. (shrink)

The present attempt to introduce the general philosophical reader to the Phenomenological Movement by way of its history has itself a history which is pertinent to its objective. It may suitably be opened by the following excerpts from a review which Herbert W. Schneider of Columbia University, the Head of the Division for Internc.. tional Cultural Cooperation, Department of Cultural Activities of Unesco from 1953 to 56, wrote in 1950 from France: The influence of Husser! has revolutionized continental (...) philosophies, not because his philosophy has become dominant, but because any philosophy now seeks to accommodate itself to, and express itself in, phenomenological method. It is the sine qua non of critical respectability. In America, on the contrary, phenomenology is in its infancy. The aver age American student of philosophy, when he picks up a recent volume of philosophy published on the continent of Europe, must first learn the "tricks" of the phenomenological trade and then translate as best he can the real import of what is said into the kind of analysis with which he is familiar....... No doubt, American education will gradually take account of the spread of phenomenological method and terminology, but until it does, American readers of European philosophy have a severe handicap; and this applies not only to existentialism but to almost all current philosophicalliterature. (shrink)

From FRANZ BRENTANO's manuscripts for his Vienna lectures 1888/89. Photo by his son, Dr. John CM Brentano, Highland Park, Illinois...

This chapter surveys foundational concepts in the history of phenomenology for the purpose of highlighting their relevance for key contemporary issues in the philosophy of film. A central argument concerns phenomenology’s capacity for unraveling the ontology of film, given phenomenology’s emphasis on accounting for the ontology of phenomena through description based in first-person experience. On this ground, the chapter defends the claim that film’s ontology stems from the projective intentionality of the film viewer, where the communicative nature of embodied vision (...) also figures into play. The principal phenomenological frameworks taken up are those of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as the work of contemporary film scholar Vivian Sobchack. (shrink)

Monk’s ‘The Temptations of Phenomenology’ examines what the term ‘Phänomenologie’ meant for Wittgenstein. Contesting various other scholars, Monk claims that Wittgenstein’s relation to ‘Phänomenologie’ began and ended during 1929. Monk only partially touches on the question of Wittgenstein’s relation to the phenomenological movement during this time. Though Monk does not mention this, 1929 was also the year in which Ryle and Carnap turned their critical attention toward Heidegger. Wittgenstein also expressed his sympathy for Heidegger in 1929. Furthermore, though (...) in 1929 Wittgenstein agrees with the early Husserl on relating logic and science to phenomenology, it is not clear that they mean the same thing by either logic or phenomenology, or that they agree on what the relation between the two should be. (shrink)

In this article we will address the issue whether and in how far Anton Marty had a significant influence on the development of the phenomenological movement. As “the phenomenological movement” is not a clearly defined and circumscribed notion, we need to provide an appropriate context for any comparison. The phenomenological movement grew out of the School of Brentano and we take this larger whole as our starting point. Since Marty did not found his own (...) school or movement, but remained a Brentanist, it is quite difficult to identify a clear influence of Marty on the phenomenological movement that would not be intermingled with a general Brentanist background. A specifically Martian influence could perhaps mainly be found in the philosophy of language. We will look at Marty’s and Husserl’s shared background, mutual criticisms and common legacy in order to evaluate the significance of any influence there might have been. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 115 and on a "philosophie de 1'esprit." But he became increasingly interested also in a secular, but non-political, philosophy of religion, which might serve to unite his Platonic idealism and his theory of values. This he formulated in terms of a course of lectures on theodicy, a theodicy closer to Kant than to Leibniz (p. 204). He explained: Notre Th6odic& n'aura pour but ni d'&ablir, ni de (...) r6futer le panth6isme, mais de prouver qu'il exprime fid61ement le contenu de la conscience, et de nous faire sentir par 1~le besoin d'une croyance qui le ddpasse (p. 195). Without cosmology, without ecclesiasticism, it was God's own being that concerned him. "Au fond, comme le voulait Malebranche, nous voyons peut-&re Dieu en lui-m~me" (p. 196). "Dam le peu que j'ai fait, j'ai voulu rester fidble aux grandes pens&s de la philosophie &ernelle qui est la philosophie de l'esprit" (p. 216). HERBERTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont, Calilornia The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction. By Herbert Spiegelberg. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff [Phaenomenologica 5 and 6], 1960. 2 vols. Pp. xxxii + 735.) Professor Spiegelberg's historical introduction to the phenomenological movement is a critical as well as expository effort to trace the development of phenomenological philosophy, taking the work of Edmund Husserl as central to the entire enterprise but also giving serious consideration to his predecessors, associates, and successors. The result is not only an account of phenomenology but an introduction to phenomenological philosophizing. The reader is swiftly caught up in two currents: he may study the history of phenomenology through the chapters devoted to its major representatives, but he may also concern himself with the systematic problems which phenomenologists have encountered and articulated in their careers. The two, of course, are integral, and they are treated that way here. The emphasis, however, is on the phenomena. Even where the discussion is directed toward reporting the reports of others, the stress is still on the "things themselves." In this sense, the history presented here is not merely "about" phenomenology but itself within the horizon of phenomenological procedure. As history, it tells the story of phenomenology; as phenomenology, it reflects upon the phenomena which history recounts. This double stress is evident throughout the two volumes and underlies the purpose of the undertaking as described by the author: 116 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (I) to give a conspectus of the whole range of the Phenomenological Movement, not only of Husserl's part in it; (2) to help understand the background and the reasons for the phenomenological "teachings" in terms related to today's AngloAmerican philosophizing; (3) to take account of, and wherever possible to clarify or answer, the more significant misunderstandings and criticisms of phenomenology (p. xxvi). A quick survey of the contents of the work may be helpful before turning to critical considerations. In his introduction of Volume I, Professor Spiegelberg attempts to state the criteria in terms of which a philosopher is to be considered a "phenomenologist " and his contributions to be taken as part of the subject matter of a history of the phenomenological movement. First, there must be "explicit or implicit adoption by the would-be phenomenologist" of the methods of "direct intuition... as the source and final test of all knowledge, to be incorporated as faithfully as possible in descriptions" and "insight into essential structures as a genuine possibility and a need of philosophical knowledge." Second, there must be "conscious adherence, however qualified, to the Movement as such in full awareness of these methodical principles" (p. 6). The Movement itself is conceived of as a dynamic development from a commonly shared point of departure toward interrelated ends. Movement in this sense does not mean School. The operative criteria are selective enough, however, to enable the author to decide between genuine and pseudo phenomenologies. There then results the inclusion of those figures in the history of philosophy who have either prepared the way for phenomenology or who have carried out genuine phenomenological work. The first volume includes major chapters on Brentano and Stumpf, some ninety pages on Husserl himself, a sizeable section entitled "The Older Phenomenological Movement" which treats the G6ttingen Circle and the Munich Circle (including... (shrink)

The author's first-hand knowledge of phenomenology enables him to select advisedly from the vast stores of available material, and to present the thought of the major figures in the movement so that neither the differences nor dependencies are obscured. The history deals with both the French and German branches of phenomenology. There are also helpful examinations of contacts and affinities between the European phenomenologists and American philosophers such as James and Royce. Altogether a thorough and first rate piece of (...) scholarship.--S. M. W. (shrink)

The “life phenomenology” theme of the 35th International Human Science Research Conference challenged participants to consider pressing questions of life and of living with others of our own and other-than-human kinds. The theme was addressed by keynote speakers Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Ralph Acampora and David Abram who invoked a motile, affective and linguistic awareness of how we might dwell actively and ethically amongst human communities and with the many life forms we encounter in the wider, wilder world we have in common. (...) Conference participants were provoked to consider the following questions: “How might phenomenology have us recognize a primacy of movement and bring us in touch with the motions and gestures of the multiple lifeworlds of daily living? What worlds from ecology to technology privilege certain animations? What are the affects and effects of an enhanced phenomenological sensitivity? What senses, feelings, emotions and moods of self-affirmation and responsiveness to others sustain us in our daily lives? And to what extent might the descriptive, invocative, provocative language of phenomenology infuse the human sciences and engender a language for speaking directly of life?”. (shrink)

This introduction offers an overview of Else Voigtländer´s (1882-1946) life and thought and places her work within the early phenomenological tradition. It is argued that she should be regarded as a fully-fledged member of the Munich Circle. Voigtländer developed central concepts and themes that occupied other phenomenologists of that time and, though working outside the academy, with her writing she helped to forge a particular view of self-consciousness, affectivity, and the social self. the perception and reception of her philosophical (...) work are examined. After a first period of collegial exclusion, and a second period of historical oblivion, Voigtländer's work have been object of recent interest. It is high time that we acknowledge her as a philosopher of the twentieth century. By so doing, a new and more inclusive view on the genealogy of the phenomenological movement will emerge. (shrink)

This recent publication by Professor Spiegelberg comprises a companion volume to his comprehensive study, The Phenomenological Movement. It includes some of the detailed researches, spread out over a considerable period of time, which did not find their way into his extensive history of phenomenological philosophy. This is not to say that this current project simply gathers that which we had previously thrown away. Some of the included essays have already been published in other media. All of them (...) are important studies in their own right and provide a rich background of historical details and critical assessments that flesh out the context of the phenomenological movement. Hence, the essays deliver precisely what is promised in the title. (shrink)

The epistemological problems that are implicit in Marx’s theory on the “sensible world” indicate that Marx’s philosophy in fact contains within itself the topics of pure philosophy, but Marx did not involve himself in these topics. Through comparing with Husserl’s epistemological critique and Heidegger’s existentialism, we can clearly see that there are theoretical spaces in which we can develop Marx’s philosophy to the realm of pure philosophy, however, we must devote our creative efforts to the exploration of the spaces.

By his critical reflections on the crisis of modern civilization, Jan Patočka, phenomenologist of the Other Europe, incarnates the critical consciousness of the phenomenological movement. He was in fact one of the first European philosophers to have emphasized the necessity of abandoning the hitherto Eurocentric propositions of solution to the crisis when he explicitly raised the problems of a “Post-European humanity”. In advocating an understanding of the history of European humanity different from those of Husserl and Heidegger, Patočka (...) directs his philosophical reflections back to sketch a more profound phenomenology of the natural world insufficiently thematized in Husserl and absent in Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit. By virtue of its emphasis on the structural characteristics of movement, of praxis, and of the disclosure of the abyssal nature of human existence and of the original nothingness as the (non-)foundation of the phenomenal world, Patočka’s phenomenology of the natural world constitutes an opening towards the reception of Others and other cultures, in particular that of Chinese Taoist philosophy. (shrink)

The early phenomenologist József Somogyi was one of, if not the first to write a monograph specifically dedicated to the _history_ of the nascent phenomenological philosophy. The two letters written by him during his stay in Freiburg in WS 1923/24, which are hereby published and discussed for the first time, are, similarly, of interest first due to the rare, valuable insight they can provide – when combined with a detailed microhistorical reconstruction of the surrounding constellation – into the elaborate (...) structures of mid-1920s Freiburg phenomenology around Edmund Husserl (directly after Martin Heidegger’s departure to Marburg). Ranging from Husserl’s teaching style to interactions between phenomenology and Catholic thought and to preconditions of the extraordinary philosophical creativity that distinguished early phenomenology, they offer a snapshot that differs significantly from the established narratives of subsequent privileged members of the Phenomenological Movement. Somogyi’s letters thus exemplify the possibility of reclaiming the plurivocity and philosophical richness of the early Phenomenological Movement by virtue of democratizing the historiography, i.e., giving voice to neglected historical actors (often originating from the peripheries). What is at stake is, however, not merely a more nuanced historical understanding of a particular epoch of early phenomenology. Quite the contrary, as I am finally going to argue on the basis of an adjacent short episode from the reception history of Husserl’s (or Eugen Fink’s) selfinterpretation, Somogyi’s case also exemplifies the possibility of a transformation in our understanding of the history of phenomenology (inspired by the methodological revolutions which took place in other compartments of the historiography of philosophy): namely to make the intricate, simultaneously conceptual and historical phenomena of the history of phenomenology a genuine subject matter of contemporary phenomenological research. (shrink)

Phenomenology is a well‐founded qualitative methodology that is frequently used by nurse researchers and considered of value when addressing research questions in nursing practice and nurse education. However, at present, nurse researchers using phenomenology tend to divide phenomenological methodology into the descriptive and interpretive formats. The nursing literature suggests that there is a deep divide between researchers following the methodological underpinnings and basic precepts pertaining to these two camps. If we are to reach a clearer understanding of the theory (...) underlying phenomenological methods it would be more helpful if we started to recognise that there are also important associations between transcendental and interpretive phenomenology. One such association is that a paradigm of movement exists that is not unique to transcendental and interpretive phenomenology but is common to them, as well as being inherent within a variety of fields of study. If we consider the universality of such imagery, looking to examples through parallel texts, we can obtain insights into phenomenology and its transposition into a workable scientific method that can be of use to the nurse researcher. (shrink)

In ‘Wondering the world directly’, Erin Manning criticizes phenomenology by drawing upon Merleau-Ponty’s reflections on the problems of his own project and the criticisms of José Gil. Manning claims that phenomenology goes ‘wrong’ in its privileging of the subject and processes of intentionality: the ‘consciousness–object distinction’. While phenomenology on this understanding alone is inadequate to account for movement and the body, process philosophy has the ‘ability to create a field for experience that does not begin and end with a (...) human subject’. This article responds to Manning’s criticism by arguing that phenomenology never intended to perpetuate a concept of subject that fixes an inexorable gap between itself and objects. A historical assessment of subjectivity and intentionality in the work of five different authors, alongside critical points that address Manning’s misconstrual of phenomenology, leads to an understanding of movement that need not ‘outrun the subject’ or become a precarious limit to perceptual experience because of its primacy. (shrink)

This essay seeks to demonstrate that the practice of phenomenological philosophy entails a practice of social and political criticism. The original demand of phenomenology is that theoretical and scientific judgments must be based upon the giving of the ‘things themselves’ in self-evident intuition. The continuous radicalization of this demand is what characterizes phenomenological philosophy and determines a practice of social and political criticism which can be traced through four phases: 1. a critique of institutions through the method of (...) unbuilding (Abbau, Destruktion, déconstruction); 2. presencing, or coming into presence, that directs one’s attention to the social movements of one’s time through which that which is pressed-out of the social form manifests itself; 3. authentic being-with (Mitsein) in which the sociality of human life is brought to the limit-condition of human life in being-toward-death; 4. nothingness, or negation, in which that which withdraws in any manifestation is incapable of a Hegelian re-immanentization as negation of the negation and thus points to an ethical dimension outside of history. (shrink)

Critically evaluating and synthesizing all the previous research on the phenomenology of Czech philosopher Jan Patočka, the book brings a new voice into contemporary philosophical discussions. It elucidates the development of Patočka’s phenomenology and offers a critical appropriation of his work by connecting it with non-phenomenological approaches. The first half of the book offers a succinct, and systematizing, overview of Patočka’s phenomenology throughout its development to help readers appreciate the motives behind and grounds for its transformations. The second half (...) systematically explicates, critically examines and creatively develops Patočka’s concept of the movement of existence as the most promising part of his asubjective phenomenology. The book appeals to new readers of Patočka as well as his scholars, and to students and researchers of contemporary philosophy concerned with topics such as embodiment, personal identity, intersubjectivity, sociality, or historicity. By re-assessing Patočka’s philosophy of history and his civilizational analysis, it also helps to better articulate the question of the place of Europe in the post-European world. (shrink)

The role of intentions in motor planning is heavily weighted in classical psychological theories, but their role in generating eye movements, and our awareness of these oculomotor intentions, has not been investigated explicitly. In this study, the extent to which we monitor oculomotor intentions, i.e. the intentions to shift one’s gaze towards a specific location, and whether they can be expressed in conscious experience, is investigated. A forced-choice decision task was developed where a pair of faces moved systematically across a (...) screen. In some trials, the pair of faces moved additionally as soon as the participants attempted to gaze at one of the faces, preventing them from ever viewing it. The results of the experiment suggest that humans in general do not monitor their eye movement intentions in a way that allows for mismatches between planned gaze landing target and resulting gaze landing target to be consciously experienced during decision-making. (shrink)

Three methodologically distinctive empirical studies of the emotions carry forward Darwin's work on the emotions, vindicate Sperry's finding that the brain is an organ of and for movement, and implicitly affirm that affectivity is tied to the tactile-kinesthetic body. A phenomenological analysis of movement deepens these empirical findings by showing how the dynamic character of movement gives rise to kinetic qualia. Analysis of the qualitative structure of movement shows in turn how motion and emotion are (...) dynamically congruent. Three experiences of fear are presented--phenomenological, ethological, and literary--to demonstrate the dynamic congruency. Five implications follow from the analysis, including the implications that movement is not equivalent to behavior, experience is not physiological activity, and a brain is not a body. (shrink)