This volume presents, for the first time in English, Husserl’s seminal 1923/24 lecture course First Philosophy together with a selection of material from the famous research manuscripts of the same time period. The lecture course is divided into two systematic, yet interrelated parts. It has long been recognized by scholars as among the most important of the many lecture courses he taught in his career. Indeed it was deemed as crucially important by Husserl himself, who composed it with a (...) view toward eventual publication. It is unsurprising, then, that First Philosophy is the only lecture course that is consistently counted among his major works. In addition to furnishing valuable insights into Husserl’s understanding of the history of philosophy, First Philosophy is his most sustained treatment of the phenomenological reduction, the central concept of his philosophical methodology. The selection of supplemental texts expands on the topics treated in the lectures, but also add other themes from Husserl’s vast oeuvre. The manuscript material is especially worthwhile, because in it, Husserl offers candid self-criticisms of his publicly enunciated words, and also makes forays into areas of his philosophy that he was loath to publicize, lest his words be misunderstood. As Husserl’s position as a key contributor to contemporary thought has, with the passage of time, become increasingly clear, the demand for access to his writings in English has steadily grown. This translation strives to meet this demand by providing English-speaking readers access to this central Husserlian text. It will be of interest to scholars of Husserl’s work, non-specialists, and students of phenomenology. (shrink)

Whenever the name Edmund Husserl appears in the context of nursing research, what correctly comes to mind is the phenomenological approach to qualitative methodology. Husserl is not only considered the founder of phenomenology, but his broad concept development also contributed to the demise of positivism and inspired fruitful approaches to the social sciences. In this spirit of inspiration, it must be expressed that Husserl's theory of wholes and parts, and particularly his differentiation of parts into ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’, is (...) very helpful in guiding the selection of research methods across the board in nursing science. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a frame of reference for nursing researchers to use in examining the essential nature of that which is being studied. This frame of reference is the Husserlian philosophy of ‘pieces’ and ‘moments’ in relation to the whole. ‘Pieces’ are independent parts of the whole that are subject to isolability in study, whereas ‘moments’ are nonindependent parts, which cannot be detached, presented, or studied apart from the whole. The intent is to propose this frame of reference as a philosophical base from which nursing researchers may better select among paradigms and methodological approaches in regard to the essential nature (‘pieces’ or ‘moments’) of that which they are researching. (shrink)

_Purpose._ This article discusses researching the nature and basic structure of acts of empathy. Such research first requires answering the question: are empathic acts intentional acts of our consciousness? If the answer to this question is affirmative, then there is a need to answer the following questions: what are the features of acts of empathy as intentional ones? And can such acts be qualified as opening a special and complex type of access (epistemic, social, and ethical) to "other minds"? _Theoretical (...) basis._ The research is based on the problems set by the phenomenological tradition and the developed analytical philosophy, which found their continuation in the philosophy of mind. With the tendency to naturalization, representatives of these areas have another common sphere in the research of mental reality. The changes that both traditions are undergoing can be observed in the transformation of fundamental theoretical concepts such as "intentionality". The linguistic turn gives impetus to the development of new theoretical approaches to the understanding of consciousness, which give preference to the research of language rather than the research in the structure of the Self. The change in methodological guidelines is due to a few factors. In particular, this is a noticeable progress in empirical sciences and the dominance of Behaviorism guidelines in psychology, as well as the fact that the Anglo-American tradition inherits several features intrinsic to British empiricism. Today, three main directions of understanding intentionality can be distinguished. Starting from Brentano and Husserl, we have a classical theory – mental intentionality (phenomenological). As part of analytical philosophy and philosophy of language, we can talk about linguistically interpreted intentionality. Sellars’ model of intentionality has a definite linguistic component. Also, a modern version that functions in the philosophy of consciousness: attempts to naturalize intentionality (this is, for example, the research of Galen Strawson and Daniel Dennett). _Originality._ The problem is studied not in the context of the phenomenological or analytical traditions in their isolation, but in a problematic-conceptual way, which allows us to reach a new level of generalization and reveal the theoretical advantages of combining both traditions. _Conclusions._ Empathic Acts can be defined as intentional within the classical phenomenological tradition. As intentional acts, they have their specificity in that they are directed to the "other mind" and can form the basis for the research of intersubjectivity. For the analytic tradition and early philosophy of consciousness, such statements are not obvious. However, discussions about the role of corporality and the problem concerning embodied cognition are becoming increasingly common today. In such discussions, empathy, as an element in the knowledge of others and a possibility for grounding the social sciences, seems more promising than attempts to make epistemic access to other minds possible on the basis of the argument by analogy or on the basis of the inference to the best explanation. (shrink)

This article discusses Jaakko Hintikka's interpretation of the aims and method of Husserl's phenomenology. I argue that Hintikka misrepresents Husserl's phenomenology on certain crucial points. More specifically, Hintikka misconstrues Husserl's notion of "immediate experience" and consequently fails to grasp the functions of the central methodological tools known as the "epoché" and the "phenomenological reduction." The result is that the conception of phenomenology he attributes to Husserl is very far from realizing the philosophical potential of Husserl's position. Hence if we want (...) a fruitful rapprochement between analytical philosophy and Continental phenomenology of the kind that is Hintikka's ultimate aim, then Hintikka's account of Husserl needs correcting on a number of crucial points. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis with particular regard to the problem of nihilism, and the philosophy of history that Edmund Husserl and Georg Lukacs argue is needed in its wake to restore reason's capacity to give order and direction to human life. I understand nihilism not merely as the theory that life is devoid of value, but rather as an historical crisis in the sense of autonomy that results from the separation of fact and value in the thoroughly rationalized (...) modern world. How, I ask, does Freud respond to this crisis? And how does his response stand in relationship to those offered by philosophers? Does psychoanalysis too provide a philosophy of history? ;To answer these questions, I first examine the development of psychoanalysis in response to the suffering of neurotics as a crisis in the authority of science to address human needs. I then explicate the problem of nihilism as it is registered by both Husserl and Lukacs, examine the philosophies of history that they each construct in response to it, and consider Freud's theory of civilization in relationship to them. ;By constructing philosophical methodologies to defend reason's teleology, I argue that both Husserl and Lukacs implicitly disavow the problem that they purport to address by presupposing the autonomy of reason, and treating the problem of nihilism as the result merely of a misconception concerning its place and function in the world. As late as 1923 Freud too presupposes reason's autonomy from the terror expressed in religion. However, with his subsequent recognition of the problem presented by the unconscious sense of guilt, Freud no longer treats the rational overcoming of illusion as an intrinsic good. He sees civilization too as radically ambivalent and revises his social theory as a critique of the discontent that immanently plagues it. Rather than a philosophy of history, I argue that Freud constructs a critique of the problem presented by the persistent demand for teleological orientation in a post-historical world. (shrink)

This book is a primer of contemporary philosophy of religion. It introduces in non-technical simplicity the four basic philosophical options which can inform a modern religious posture. The options are: process philosophy, phenomenology, language analysis, and existentialism. There is an introductory essay by the editor which describes the attitudes of Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, and Tillich toward philosophy and its relation to theology. Hartshorne's essay on process philosophy sets forth the bare bones of his bipolar theism and presents his case that (...) it is necessary for the creatures to contribute to the enrichment of God. The phenomenology article is written by Quentin Lauer, S.J. He deals briefly with Husserl's methodology and its applicability to the investigation of "religious consciousness." He describes four styles of phenomenology of religion represented by James, Van der Leeuw, Otto, and Scheler. He also discusses briefly Teilhard de Chardin. In the next essay, Frederick Ferré uses Socrates as his point of departure for showing the relevance of language analysis for policing religious discourse, both theistic and christological. He is skeptical, however, as to whether language analysis can be considered a resource for Christian thought. He points out that because it is in the Socratic tradition it can better serve as a midwife. John Macquarrie contributes the chapter on existentialism, showing its anthropocentrism and its reluctance to develop a doctrine of God. All the essays, originally the Alden-Tuthill lectures at Chicago Theological Seminary, raise provocative, important, and basic questions. They would serve well as an introductory text or as a catalyst for class discussion.—S. O. H. (shrink)

Purpose. To analyse the philosophical and psychological contexts of social expectations of personality, to form general scientific provisions, to reveal the properties, patterns of formation, development and functioning of social expectations as a process, result of reflection and construction of social reality. Theoretical basis of the study is based on the phenomenology of E. Husserl, the social constructivism philosophy of L. S. Vygotskiy, P. Berger, T. Luckmann, K. J. Gergen, ideas of constructive alternativeism of G. Kelly, psychology of social expectations (...) of a personality as the unity of the mental process, mental state and properties of expectations. Originality. Social expectations of personality are considered as philosophical and psychological dimensions of the study, presented by analysing expectations in social constructivism, externalizing, building a model of the expected future. The authors clarified some theoretical and methodological aspects of the study of patterns of social expectations in the reflection and construction of social reality. The role of social institutions in the formation of expectations is outlined. The poly-aspect of the investigated problems is shown. It is substantiated that formation, realization of social expectations in organization of interaction of personality and social environment is possible in the presence of subject, object and content of activity. Conclusions. Social expectations influence social behaviour and determine the behaviour of an individual, small contact group, community, or large mass of people. Social expectations are able to set specific requirements, norms, sanctions, ideals that participants of the process must follow or must not violate. The philosophical dimension of the study integrates the ontological, epistemological, axiological preconditions for the formation and realization of the social ideal, represented by the study of the expected future in the forms of utopia, eschatology and thanatology. Psychological dimension of the study has a sufficiently developed content orientation from the psychological content parameters of social expectations to the role of expectations in social institutions and various spheres of human life. Systematic, actionable, self-regulatory, and subjective approaches have constituted a verified system of interpreting the social expectations of personality as a process, a result of the reflection and construction of social reality. The topic of social expectations of personality is far from being completed, in our opinion it is promising to create a deeper philosophical concept of social expectations of the personality. The specific topics are of particular relevance in the context of socio-political uncertainty, domination of the mass consciousness, loss of national and cultural identity. (shrink)

Horst Ruthrof revisits Husserl's phenomenology of language and highlights his late writings as essential to understanding the full range of his ideas. Focusing on the idea of language as imaginable as well as the role of a speech community in constituting it, Ruthrof provides a powerful re-assessment of his methodological phenomenology. From the Logical Investigations to untranslated portions of his Nachlass, Ruthrof charts all the developments and amendments in his theorizations. Instead of emphasising the definition and meaning of words, Husserl's (...) later writings point to the variation produced by a community of speakers in the act of communicating. Essential to this linguistic meaning is the intersubjective character that Ruthrof argues is so emblematic of Husserl's position. Using his concepts of intimation, introjection, reciprocity, and voice further outlines a theory that is intersubjective and communal. Bringing his study up to the present day, Ruthrof discusses metal time travel, the evolution of language, and protosyntax in the context of Husserl's late writings, progressing a comprehensive new phenomenological ontology of language with wide-ranging implications for philosophy, linguistics, and cultural studies. (shrink)

Husserl’s extensive analyses of image consciousness (Bildbewusstsein) and of the imagination (Phantasie) offer insightful and detailed structural explications. However, despite this careful work, Husserl’s discussions fail to overcome the need to rely on a most problematic concept: mental images. The epistemological conundrums triggered by the conceptual framework of mental images are well known—we have only to remember the questions regarding knowledge acquisition that plagued British empiricism. Beyond these problems, however, a plethora of important questions arise from claiming that (...) mental images are structural moments of imaging and imagining. Any attempt to clarify the structure and conditions for the possibility of aesthetic experience must first provide an unambiguous account of pictorial depiction—a task unattainable through the mental images discourse. Similarly, exposing the import of the imagination for theoretical scientific inquiries (be they positive or eidetic) requires an initial explication of the structure of this consciousness; this explication, however, must address our ability to imagine non-spatially determined objects—something the conceptual framework of mental images utterly fails to accomplish. In this paper I argue against Husserl’s reliance on mental images in his phenomenological analyses of imaging and imagining and propose an alternative structural account for both. This account is free of this reliance and able to steer clear of its insidious implications for epistemology, aesthetics, and methodological reflections. By closely following the development of Husserl’s account I suggest alternative descriptions while building on Husserl’s important work. (shrink)

In a number of papers, Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre have claimed that Husserl is an internalist. In this paper, it is argued that their interpretation is based on two questionable assumptions: (1) that Husserl's noema should be interpreted along Fregean lines, and (2) that Husserl's transcendental methodology commits him to some form of methodological solipsism. Both of these assumptions are criticized on the basis of the most recent Husserl-research. It is shown that Husserl's concept of noema can be (...) interpreted in a manner that makes his theory far more congenial to a certain type of externalism, but ultimately it is argued that his phenomenological analysis of intentionality entails such a fundamental rethinking of the very relation between subjectivity and world that it hardly makes sense to designate it as being either internalist or externalist. (shrink)

This article accomplishes two goals. First, the paper clarifies Edmund Husserl’s investigation of the historical inception of the number system from his early works, Philosophy of Arithmetic and, “On the Logic of Signs (Semiotic)”. The article explores Husserl’s analysis of five historical developmental stages, which culminated in our ancestor’s ability to employ and enumerate with number signs. Second, the article reveals how Husserl’s conclusions about the history of the number system from his early works opens up a (...) fusion point with his investigations from his mature texts, The Crisis of the European Sciences and “The Origin of Geometry”. On the one hand, the essay shows that Husserl’s methodology was similar, as he sought in both his early and late writings to uncover the essence of the history of the formal sciences and was not executing mere intellectual history. On the other hand, the article discloses that Husserl’s insights from both time periods are strikingly analogous. Already in his early texts, Husserl saw that the sciences emerged from pre-theoretical experiences of the world and that the sciences are the result of a historical process, which involves the psychic activities of past individuals and the maintaining of discoveries over time by intersubjective communities. I conclude by showing how, in light of the analysis of this paper, we can rethink the evolution of Husserl’s philosophy. (shrink)

The present study seeks to accomplish three goals: to shed light on the problem of reason in Husserl’s co-inherited philosophical project, to elucidate his transcendental critique of reason, and to present Husserl's idea of reason in its distinctive features. A historical excursus first provides a frame to understand the necessity of a critique of reason, its proper subject-matter, and its function for the project of genuine philosophy. In particular, this historical reflection identifies the form that a critique must assume (...) in order to fulfil its philosophical-scientific task. The focus is then directed at Husserl's methodological recalibration of the problem of reason. Husserl's ‘prinzipielle Kritik’ is elucidated in his transcendental reassessment of the headings ‘reason’ and ‘unreason,’ and is thought in connection to the concept of Selbstbesinnung. Lastly, Husserl’s idea of reason is reconstructed in relation to, and in disambiguation from, the concepts of self-evidence, logos, synthesis, fulfilment, positing, etc. Reason, as teleological rule and structural form of transcendental subjectivity, is clarified in its dependence on, and irreducibility to, the problems of constitution and in light of the question of its objective/subjective character. (shrink)

With the diversification of philosophy, and the dismantling of stark divides in philosophical methodology in the West, the character of philosophy appears more indeterminate than ever—and demands fresh investigations not only into the character of philosophy, but also the concept of indeterminacy itself. The over-arching aim of this collection, which brings together a wide range of philosophical and inter-disciplinary perspectives, is to bring into focus the prominence and significance of indeterminacy as a common thread in recent Asian philosophy, continental (...) thought, and other philosophical approaches. The theme of indeterminacy can be traced throughout the history of both Western and Asian philosophy. Among the pre-Socratics, Anaximander stands out as recognizing (though not fully clarifying) its significance in his famous formulation of the first principle of philosophy as the apeiron—the indeterminate. In modern philosophy, indeterminacy appears time and again as a recurrent theme in post-Kantian idealism, phenomenology, and continental philosophy. This volume shines a spotlight on the way indeterminacy arises as an important theme for relatively neglected thinkers in the Western tradition, such as F.W.J. Schelling, and it offers fresh perspectives on the significance of indeterminacy for well-read thinkers such as Husserl and Hegel. What is more, this volume includes chapters that bring out the presence and importance of indeterminacy in the various schools of Chinese and Japanese philosophy (among others), such as in various forms of Daoist thinking and the Kyoto school, which cannot be underestimated. By bringing these schools of thought into dialogue with each other, we hope that the volume will enrich the thinking of all traditions, East, West, and beyond. (shrink)

I argue that Husserl’s concept of position-taking, Stellungnahme, is adequate to understand the idea of second nature as an issue of philosophical anthropology. I claim that the methodological focus must be the living subject that acts and lives among others, and that the notion of second nature must respond to precisely this fundamental active character of subjectivity. The appropriate concept should satisfy two additional desiderata. First, it should be able to develop alongside the biological, psychological, and social individual development. (...) Second, it should be able to underlie the vast diversity of human beings within and across communities. As possible candidates, I contrast position-taking with two types of habit-like concepts: instinct and habitus, on the one hand, and customary habits, on the other. I argue that position-taking represents the active aspect of the subject while the habit-like concepts are passive. A subject’s position-takings and ensuing comportments are tied together by motivations, which evince a certain consistency, and for this reason are expression of the subject’s identity. I conclude by nuancing the relation between Stellungnahme and passivity. Passivity is deemed necessary to action but subservient to it; position-taking is thought to be prior to passivity. (shrink)

The paper contends that abstraction lies at the core of the philosophical and methodological rupture that occurred between Husserl and his mentor Franz Brentano. To accomplish this, it explores the notion of abstraction at work in these two thinkers’ methodological discussions through their respective claims regarding the structure of consciousness, and shows that how Husserl and Brentano analyze the structure of consciousness conditions and strictly delineates the nature and reach of their methods of inquiry. The paper pays close attention to (...) intentionality, founding (Fundierung), and qualitative modification (qualitative Modifikation) understood as principles of consciousness. While intentionality has been the topic of numerous discussions surrounding these two thinkers’ work, founding and qualitative modification have slipped under the radar despite the fact that they hold—as I intend to show—the key to shedding new light on their respective methods of inquiry. More specifically, the paper explicates the ways in which Brentano’s notion of founding (understood as a relationship between whole acts) and his failure to identify radical-qualitative modification as a principle of consciousness preclude him from offering a successful model for philosophical universalizing thought. It is my hope to show that Husserl’s rethinking of founding as a relationship between certain structural moments of acts along with his novel notion of qualitative modification ground his attempt to carve a new method of philosophical inquiry—albeit jejune and ambiguous at the time of the Investigations, yet nevertheless able to successfully negotiate the problems faced by his predecessor. (shrink)

The question of the animal is one of the most intensely debated in the contemporary philosophical arena. The present article makes the case that Husserl’s phenomenological approach offers a stimulating and open-ended perspective on this discussion. The animal, indeed, is an instance of extreme otherness, which pushes phenomenology to its limits. The paper opens with an outline of the methodological issues raised by the question of the animal. It then examines what the animal—at this point, taken as a whole—and (...) the human being have in common and what Husserl sees as the main differences between them. A critical aspect here is the question of personhood. Finally, Sect. 3 traces Husserl’s progression from a general concept of animality to detailed and nuanced phenomenological descriptions of different animals and their intra- and inter-specific relationships. Husserl understands that the threshold that joins and divides human beings and animals is difficult to pin down, because there is more than one threshold: it is plural. (shrink)

This is a translation from Russian to English of Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky’s “Tpaнcцeндeнтaльнo-фeнoмeнoлoгичecкiй идeaлизмъ Гyccepля”, published in the émigré journal Пyть in 1939. In this article, Lossky presents and criticizes Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Like many successors of Husserl’s “Göttingen School,” Lossky interprets Husserl’s transcendental idealism as a Neo-Kantian idealism and he criticizes it on the ground that it leads to a form of solipsism. In light of his own epistemology and his metaphysical system, he also claims that, (...) although Husserl is more radical than Descartes in his methodological doubt, he is not radical enough, because his abstention from existential judgment with regard to the external world is itself an existential judgment. In this regard, Lossky affirms that his own critically-informed defense of naive realism is in fact more radical than Husserl’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

This paper tackles Husserl’s early analysis of alien experience and its relation to the methodological framework of the _Logical Investigations_ (LI). Since intersubjectivity first becomes a central theme for Husserl in his writings of 1905 (_Seefeld Blätter_), less attention is usually paid to his analysis of our experience of other minds in the LI. In this context, I attempt to highlight both the fundamental insights gained by Husserl in this analysis that will also remain key for his later accounts (...) of empathy, as well as the challenges alien experiences raises for the theoretical framework of LI. I begin by discussing the main relevant traits of the phenomenological project of LI as a preparatory endeavor for the elucidation of logical objectualities, and the radical way in which Husserl defines its domain, i.e., the sphere of immanent content. Then I analyse Husserl’s understanding of alien experience in terms of an indicative unity based on associative motivations. I argue that, in doing this, Husserl accounts for a non-inferential intuitive access to other minds and, at the same time, maintains their essential alienness. Finally, I show that this account rests on what I call an “intentional contamination” of Husserl’s reductive method of LI. (shrink)

The article analyses reflection as a methodology of Husserl's phenomenology. Husserl used reflection as a method in his research, but did not always specifically consider it when describing his own methodology. He paid much more attention to essential intuition, epoché (reduction) and intentional analysis. The author develops the thesis that reflection is inextricably linked with these methods and requires special study. The article discusses the specifics of reflexive analysis used in Husserl's phenomenology to study consciousness and solve problems (...) of cognition of the external world. The author takes into account its goals and objectives, which determine the terminological apparatus for fixing its results and are based on a certain understanding of the experience of consciousness. (shrink)

The paper aims to capture a form of naturalism that can be found “built-in” in phenomenology, namely the idea to take science or mathematics on its own, without postulating extraneous normative “molds” on it. The paper offers a detailed comparison of Penelope Maddy’s naturalism about mathematics and Husserl’s approach to mathematics in Formal and Transcendental Logic. It argues that Maddy’s naturalized methodology is similar to the approach in the first part of the book. However, in the second part (...) Husserl enters into a transcendental clarification of the evidences and presuppositions of the mathematicians’ work, thus “transcendentalizing” his otherwise naturalist approach to mathematics. The result is a moderately revisionist view that takes the existing mathematical practices seriously, calls for reflection on them, and eventually gives suggestions for revisions if needed. (shrink)

This collection examines the instrumental role of intersubjectivity in Husserl's philosophy and explores the potential for developing novel ways of addressing and resolving contemporary philosophical issues on that basis. This is the first time Iso Kern offers an extensive overview of this rich field of inquiry for an English-speaking audience. Guided by his overview, the remaining articles present new approaches to a range of topics and problems that go to the heart of its core theme of intersubjectivity and methodology. (...) Specific topics covered include intersubjectivity and empathy, intersubjectivity in meaning and communication, intersubjectivity pertaining to collective forms of intentionality and extended forms of embodiment, intersubjectivity as constitutive of normality, and, finally, the central role of intersubjectivity in the sciences. The authors' perspectives are strongly influenced by Husserl's own methodological concerns and problem awareness and are formed with a view to applicability in current debates - be it within general epistemology, analytic philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, meta-ethics or philosophy of science. With contributions written by leading Husserl scholars from across the Analytic and Continental traditions, Husserl's Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity is a clear and accessible resource for scholars and advanced students interested in Husserl's phenomenology and the relevance of intersubjectivity to philosophy, sociology, and psychology. (shrink)

In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens gives us an account of Mrs. Gargery going into a rage that is as remarkable for its brevity as for its insight. ‘I must remark of my sister,’ says Pip, ‘that passion was no excuse for her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages.’1 What is remarkable about this passage is its descriptive richness, (...) that way it shows how many of our emotional reactions involve something more than spontaneity in their actual performance. All this we glean readily and grasp as true from being with others; the genius of Dickens is to carry what is so close to us unto the page. I suspect that in his own wry manner, Husserl too would have liked this passage. He held out for a method of describing concrete lived phenomena that would neither underinterpret nor over-interpret. Such a description would avoid the twin and complementary sins of stripping meaning away from the appearances and putting strangeness into them. Presupposing too little is just as erroneous as too much, and Husserl was acutely aware that ‘in the apprehension of a man very much is already included.’2 When the descriptive imperative is to the fore, Husserl’s studies of the other are notable for their rejection of psychophysical dualism. But when the Cartesian exclusion of contingent certainty triumphs, he adopts a methodological dualism that decomposes the ordinary and unitary experience of the Other. The criticisms of his Cartesian derivation the Other are by now quite familiar, and I will only rehearse them where they intersect with the main theses of this paper. What I would first like to establish is that Husserl’s Cartesian approach to the Other - beginning in Logical Investigations and culminating in the derivation of the alter ego from the monadic sphere of ownness - clashes with the account of bracketing and reduction in Ideas I.. (shrink)

In this short study, I attempt to reconstruct the main conceptual components of Edmund Husserl’s concept of death following the leading clue of his late transcendental phenomenological methodology. First, I summarise his thoughts on death, from the point of view of “the natural attitude”, as an event in the world. Then, I try and explore the manifold senses of the limit phenomenon of death as a multidimensional transcendental phenomenological problem in all of its intersubjective-world constitutive, personal-primordial, and metaphysical-constructive (...) layers of meanings, respectively. By doing so, I also hope that the path we travel can serve the reader as an opportunity for a personal and reflective confrontation with death. (shrink)

In this study, the author develops an original reading of the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. This text, far from giving rise to a “transcendental solipsism”, as classical commentators claim, leads to a constitution of intersubjectivity on various levels . In its center, a “phenomenological construction” operates, i.e. a methodological piece that masters the genetic approach of intersubjectivity. Closely following the “almost mathematical” rigour of this crucial text of Husserl’s phenomenology, the author equally tackles the issue of the constitution of the (...) experience of the other and the truly intersubjective structure of transcendental subjectivity. The article concludes with the metaphysical results of the analysis of the experience of the other. (shrink)

After a review of his revisions of Husserl's methodology, Cairns's new version of the procedure of Abbauor unbuilding is followed from the Objective world down to the primordial world and then from there down to the phantom world within which sensa fields can be analyzed. Then the abstractive epochēs by which lower strata were reached are successively relaxed in the Aufbau or upbuilding procedure and, most interestingly, the sense “psychophysical thing” originally constituted within primordial automaticity is found to be (...) transferred automatically and with presumptive certainty to everything in the Objective world. Any differences between “animate” and “inanimate” things are only constituted at a higher level and pertain then to culture and not nature. (shrink)

Christian Lotz shows in this book that Husserl's Phenomenology and its key concept--subjectivity--is based on a concrete anthropological structure, such as self-affection and the bodily experience of the other. The analysis of the sensual sphere and the lived Body forces Husserl to an ongoing correction of his strong methodological assumptions. Subjectivity turns out to be an ambivalent phenomenon, as the subject is unable to fully present itself to itself, and therefore is forced to allow for a fundamental non-transparency in itself.

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)

The "Cartesian Meditations" translation is based primarily on the printed text, edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume of Husserliana: Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ISBN 90-247-0214-3. Most of Husserl's emendations, as given in the Appendix to that volume, have been treated as if they were part of the text. The others have been translated in footnotes. Secondary consideration has been given to a typescript (cited as "Typescript C") on which Husserl wrote in 1933: "Cartes. Meditationen (...) / Originaltext 1929 / E. Husserl / für Dorion Cairns". Its use of emphasis and quotation marks conforms more closely to Husserl’s practice, as exemplified in works published during his lifetime. In this respect the translation usually follows Typescript C. Moreover, some of the variant readings n this typescript are preferable and have been used as the basis for the translation. Where that is the case, the published text is given or translated in a foornote. The published text and Typescript C have been compared with the French translation by Gabrielle Pfeiffer and Emmanuel Levinas (Paris, Armand Collin, 1931). The use of emphasis and quotation marks in the French translation corresponds more closely to that in Typescript C than to that in the published text. Often, where the wording of the published text and that of Typescript C differ, the French translation indicates that it was based on a text that corresponded more closely to one or the other – usually to Typescript C. In such cases the French translation has been quoted or cited in a foornote. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates that two signature methodological concepts in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, the epoché and the phenomenological reduction, derive from his reflections on the history and significance of epistemological skepticism in the Western tradition. Drawing on his Lectures on Logic and Epistemology (Hua XXIV) from the Winter semester of 1906–07, it is argued that Husserl derives his conception of the fundamental task of transcendental philosophy from his reading of a novel skeptical challenge posed by David Hume’s philosophy—a kind of (...) skeptical challenge that Husserl did not recognize in his earlier treatments of Hume. On Husserl’s revised reading, Hume promotes a certain kind of philosophical “despair” (Verzweiflung) or, as it may be called today, “quietism” as the only possible response to the traditional problems of epistemology stemming back to the ancient skeptics. Husserl’s criticism of Hume’s quietism is presented. And Husserl’s reading of Descartes’s cogito as the first decisive uncovering of the limits of epistemological skepticism in the Western tradition is shown to be the source of two key elements of Husserl’s positive alternative to Humean epistemological quietism, which ultimately become the heart of a novel conception of critical transcendental philosophy. These two key elements are the phenomenological epoché and phenomenological reduction. Husserl’s arguments are presented for the claim that these are essential parts of any epistemological program that can answer traditional skeptical challenges. (shrink)

In the preceding pages, Husserl's objections to the content of Descartes'Meditations on First Philosophy have been reconstructed over the line ofargument in that work. The tone of his interpretation moved from ambivalence to outfight rejection. Husserl's ambivalence manifested itself intwo of the three meditations to which he pays significant attention. We sawthe much heralded methodological strategy of the First Meditation, uponclose examination, is not endorsed by Husserl, that he finds reason toprotest against the content of each individual skeptical argument and (...) seesthere in general a subjectivistic doctrine of consciousness already at work.Nevertheless, Husserl clearly wanted to preserve the essential intent of theCartesian method of doubt if not its letter, namely, the move toward callinginto question naive presuppositions about the world, raising the possibilityof its non-existence, thereby resuscitating sheer wonder about the world,and rendering it problematic in its relation to subjectivity. Historically, thisstrategy has precedent in the ancient Greek sophists, who, however unintentionally, Husserl claims were the first to manifest a transcendental im-pulse. Moving into the Second Meditation and the so-called discovery ofthe ego cogito, we found a stronger ambivalence on Husserl's part. Whileapplauding Descartes for uncovering the truth that lay hidden at the basis ofskepticism, the subsequent interpretation of the ego as soul and substantialentity clouds this inchoative insight into pure transcendental subjectivity.By the Third Meditation Husserl's ambivalence moved to out right rejection. There are a number of reasons why: the circularity of Descartes'theological theory of evidence ; the epistemologicalcommitment to a subjectivistic theory of consciousness; hisScheinprobleme along with the assumption of an objectivein-itself forever remote from intuition; the ontological commitment to twofinite substances; and the attempt to deductively redress the cognitiveschism created by these commitments through appeal to the principle ofcausality and the goodness of God. All these gave Husserl decisive occa-sion to take leave of the Cartesian path of meditation.A further reason why Husserl's meditations consistently break off in theThird Meditation is suggested by noticing the textual moment whereHusserl's silence begins. It is that moment where Descartes dips into theScholastic tradition for the concepts of objective and formal reality in orderto prove the existence of God. The problem, I suggest, is that here Des-cartes insufferably compromises his radicalness. More specifically, with theconcepts of objective and formal reality Descartes installs on the metaphysi-cal level the distinction between image and original already operative allalong in the earlier Meditations. Now, through the concepts of objective andformal reality, the image /original distinction is given ex-planatory power and raised to a truth so evident as to be beyond the reach ofmethodic doubt. The fact that this distinction is employed to deduce theexistence of God is not so much the phenomenological offense as themetaphysical naivete of positing a formal reality, an in itself, to account forthe very matters in question. (shrink)

The paper discusses motivation as the inner lawfulness of consciousness and a central methodological principle of genetic phenomenology, highlighting the problem of its ambiguous status oscillating between a historical-empirical and a transcendental account of consciousness. The focus on motivation allows for the practical character of intentionality to emerge, thus presenting genetic phenomenology as a more comprehensive approach to subjective life which takes into account its constitutive indeterminacy.

The text outlines some of the main theoretical-methodological procedures in Edmund Husserl's transcendental phenomenology. The first part offers a brief introduction to Husserl's general philosophical project. In the second part, the question of the phenomenological epoché is considered, as a first, negative procedure of the phenomenological reduction. A comparison is also made between the practice of epoché by Husserl and Descartes’ methodical doubt. The third part turns to the different types of reductions and examines the relationship between them.

This essay argues that phenomenology is uniquely suited to critique naturalism without lapsing into a romantic, anti-scientific, or dystopian view of modern science. This argument situates Husserl’s retrieval of the environmental relation in the Vienna Lecture between two alternative tendencies in contemporary ecological phenomenology: 1) the rejection of or indifference to the positive sciences, and 2) the adoption of naturalism in phenomenological methodology. On the one hand, the claim is that the phenomenological return to the environment should not (...) imply a rejection of methodological naturalism. On the other hand, while an ecological phenomenology is consistent with naturalistic investigation, there is nevertheless a heterogeneity between the two. In short, phenomenology need not become naturalized in order for it to be ecological. (shrink)

Many have deemed ineluctable the tension between Husserl’s transcendental eidetics and his Crisis method of historical reflection. In this paper, I argue that this tension is an apparent one. I contend that dissolving this tension and showing not only the possibility, but also the necessity of the successful collaboration between these two apparently irreconcilable methods guarantees the very freedom of inquiry Husserl so emphatically stressed. To make this case, I draw from Husserl’s synthetic analyses of type and concept (...) constitution as well as his later work on sedimentation and streaming-in and develop a richer modal taxonomy than the one Husserl proposed. I employ this taxonomy in an examination of the structures and conditions for the possibility of transcendental eidetic variation in order to show this method’s reliance on historically sedimented epistemic and normative resources. This reliance brings to light the necessity for a methodological critique, which is precisely what I take to be the work of teleological–historical reflection as Husserl comes to conceive it in the Crisis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Edmund Husserl’s Influence on Karl Jaspers’s Phenomenology”Jean Naudin (bio) and Jean-Michel Azorin (bio)Keywordsphenomenology, intentionality, intuition, empathy, ambiguitySchwartz and Wiggins’s paper clearly shows that Jaspers’s comprehensive psychiatry draws mainly from Husserl’s phenomenology. This thesis enters a current debate opened by Chris Walker and German Berrios about the influence of Husserlian philosophy on Jaspers’s work. This debate, which emerged at the end of the so-called decade of (...) the brain, could be considered perfectly obsolete. But its topicality relies on taking up the challenge of the scientific bases of comprehension in psychiatric experience. Wiggins and Schwartz perfectly achieve this aim by opposing a theory of seeing and a theory of thinking. Works such as Walker’s are grounded on thinking; they are works about theory. They are not works about experience, but rather epistemological or historical works. In contrast, Wiggins and Schwartz suggest to see, as Jaspers did, and not to think, following Husserl by grounding their psychopathology on intuition and presuppositionlessness. They emphasize Jaspers’s method of “making present” by doing a perfect analysis of the issues of translation of vergegenwärtigung as a co-experiencing of mental processes as if they were directly given. These main principles of direct-givenness, presuppositionlessness, and making present pull the Jaspersian concepts to the Husserlian phenomenological reduction and seem like the foremost principle in Husserlian phenomenology: the intuition of the thing in itself. Whereas Jaspers refuted the principle of eidetic reduction, Wiggins and Schwartz clearly show how much he grounded on the basis of the concept of intentionality, discovered and enlightened during Husserl’s life within the horizon of phenomenological reduction. Actually, it seems that the authors take the side of Jaspers to better support their own vision of psychiatric experience, which they more explicitly argued in Husserlian terms of the later period in some other papers (Schwartz and Wiggins 1985; Wiggins and Schwartz 1988, 1991; Wiggins, Schwartz, and Northoff 1990). However, they take care here to struggle exclusively with the epistemological field of their opponents, considering only Jaspers’s own writings and the Husserlian texts that were accessible to Jaspers when he wrote his psychopathology. There is no room for Kant in Jaspers’s main [End Page 37] principles, and this assumption must lead us to consider the horizon opened by Jaspers, that is, the horizon of a science of meaning essentially built on the lived experiences and the bracketing of any kind of a priori. In contrast to the slight influence of Kant, one idea that emerges is that of the straight impact of Dilthey on both Jaspers and Husserl. We perfectly agree with Wiggins and Schwartz that Jaspers, grounding both on Husserl and Dilthey, arrives at a methodological principle that is all his own, by considering both the connections of the life-stories and the objectivity of symptoms. In other words, we can find the originality and maybe the astonishing modernity of Jaspers in his perfect description of the balance between comprehension and observation, between empathy and its limits, that are obviously found in psychotic processes.We thus focused our comments on the following critiques to Jaspers, although they were already well argued in the brief conclusion of Wiggins and Schwartz: (a) the issue of empathy, (b) the limits of Jaspersian phenomenology, and (c) the merits of its genuine ambiguity.The Issue of Empathy. Indeed we have no reliable scientific mean to guarantee the correctness of our intuitions of the other’s mental life, and this problem might lead one to globally reject the method. The discussion of this problem, classical in the Continental literature since the twenties, led the Continental psychiatrists to unfortunately abandon their own traditions. And it is surprising for a Continental psychiatrist to see this debate coming back into the English-speaking literature. When we address the issue of empathy, we have no easy means to abandon folk psychology. Using philosophical slang weakens the attempt to enlighten its foundations instead of describing its values. The suspicion regarding empathy is partially legitimated by the prejudices of Jaspers himself. As psychiatrists, we have to carry on the Jaspersian research by progressively abandoning it and coming back... (shrink)

This article offers a thorough and critical reading of Husserl’s Thing and Space. This reading is principally motivated by the effort to methodologically design a phenomenological–topological approach to the research of lived sonic environments. In this book, Husserl lays foundations of phenomenological topology by understanding perceptions as places and defining, consequently, the space as a system of places. The critical reading starts with pointing out the ambiguity of location in Thing and Space, which consists mainly in the insufficient implementation (...) of the distinction between the location and the localization. Further investigations then reveal the roots of this ambiguity in both the preference of visual perception and the omission of subjective aspects of kinesthesia. The article critically examines Husserl’s notion of the appended localization that expresses the marginalization of acoustic experience. In conclusion, the article utilizes the critical findings to formulate the project of a place-based, medium-centered, and multi-sensory approach to sonic environments. (shrink)

This paper aims at offering a concise, yet systematic, presentation of the Husserlian method of “self-variation” in connection to eidetic variation sic et simpliciter. After a brief review of the different meanings of this method in Husserl’s writings, I will focus on the way in which Husserl employs it to bring the eidos “ego” to the fore. To this end, I will take into account the specific subject matter of self-variation by resorting to a twofold concept of essence as (...) well as to the formal-ontological notion of τóδε τι. The present investigation will have an almost exclusively methodological character, its purpose being to clarify a specific, yet still quite unexplored, tool of Husserl’s phenomenology. (shrink)

In Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology, Joseph J. Kockelmans provides the reader with a biographical sketch and an overview of the salient features of Husserl's thought. Kockelmans focuses on the essay for the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1928, Husserl's most Important effort to articulate the aims of phenomenology for a more general audience. Included are Husserl's text -- in the original German and in English translation on facing pages -- a synopsis, and an extensive commentary that relates Husserl's work as a whole to (...) the essay for the Encyclopedia. (shrink)