A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOCICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY. (Vol. I: French; Vol. II: English) -/- Steven James Bartlett -/- Doctoral dissertation director: Paul Ricoeur, Université de Paris Other doctoral committee members: Jean Ladrière and Alphonse de Waehlens, Université Catholique de Louvain Defended publically at the Université Catholique de Louvain, January, 1971. -/- Universite de Paris X (France), 1971. 797pp. -/- The principal objective of the work is to construct an analytically precise methodology which can (...) serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread _conceptual fault_ or _misconstruction_, called a "projective misconstruction" or "projection" by the author. It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claims, and theories, (ii) has largely been undetected, and (iii), when remedied, leads to a less controversial and more rigorous elucidation of the transcendental preconditions of human knowledge than has traditionally been possible. The dissertation identifies, perhaps for the first time, a _projective_ variety of self-referential inconsistency, and proposes an innovative, self-reflexive approach to transcendental argument in a logical and phenomenological context. The strength of the approach lies, it is claimed, in the fact that a rejection of the approach is possible only on pain of self-referential inconsistency. The argument is developed in the following stages: A general introduction identifies the central theme of the work, defines the scope of applicability of the results reached, and sketches the direction of the studies that follow. The preliminary discussion culminates in a recognition of the need for a _critique of impure reason_. The body of the work is divided into two parts: Section I seeks to develop a methodology, on a purely formal basis, which is, on the one hand, capable of being used to study the transcendental foundations of the special sciences, including its own proper transcendental foundation. On the other hand, the methodology proposed is intended as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for dealing with _projective_ uses of concepts. The approach initiates an analysis of concepts from a perspective which views _knowledge as coordination_. Section I describes formal structures that possess the status of preconditions in such a coordinative account of knowledge. Special attention is given to the preconditions of _identifying reference_ to logical particulars. The first section attempts, then, to provide a self-referential, transcendental methodology which is essentially revisionary in that it is motivated by a concern for conceptual error-elimination. Phenomenology, considered in its unique capacity as a self-referential, transcendental discipline, is of special relevance to the study. Section II accordingly examines a group of concepts which come into question in connection with the central theme of _phenomenological constitution_. The "_de-projective methodology_" developed in Section I is applied to these concepts that have a foundational importance in transcendental phenomenology. A translation is, in effect, proposed from the language of consciousness to a language in which preconditions of referring are investigated. The result achieved is the elimination of self-defeating, projective concepts from a rigorous, phenomenological study of the constitutive foundations of science. The dissertation was presented in a two volume, double-language format for the convenience of French and English researchers. Each volume contains an analytical index. (shrink)

At the dawn of the modern era, philosophers reinterpreted their subject as the study of consciousness, pushing the body to the margins of philosophy. With the arrival of Husserlian thought in the late nineteenth century, the body was once again understood to be part of the transcendental field. And yet, despite the enormous influence of Husserl’s phenomenology, the role of "embodiment" in the broader philosophical landscape remains largely unresolved. In his ambitious debut book, _Phenomenology and Embodiment,_ Joona Taipale tackles the (...) Husserlian concept—also engaging the thought of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Michel Henry—with a comprehensive and systematic phenomenological investigation into the role of embodiment in the constitution of self-awareness, intersubjectivity, and objective reality. In doing so, he contributes a detailed clarification of the fundamental constitutive role of embodiment in the basic relations of subjectivity. (shrink)

Through the work of philosophers like Sellars, Davidson and McDowell, the question of how the mind is related to the world has gained new importance in contemporary analytic philosophy. This book demonstrates that Husserl's phenomenological analyses of the structure of consciousness can provide fruitful insights for developing an original approach to these questions.

It is commonly believed that Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), well known as the founder of phenomenology and as the teacher of Heidegger, was unable to free himself from the framework of a classical metaphysics of subjectivity. Supposedly, he never abandoned the view that the world and the Other are constituted by a pure transcendental subject, and his thinking in consequence remains Cartesian, idealistic, and solipsistic. The continuing publication of Husserl’s manuscripts has made it necessary to revise such an interpretation. Drawing upon (...) both Husserl’s published works and posthumous material, Husserl’s Phenomenology incorporates the results of the most recent Husserl research. It is divided into three parts, roughly following the chronological development of Husserl’s thought, from his early analyses of logic and intentionality, through his mature transcendental-philosophical analyses of reduction and constitution, to his late analyses of intersubjectivity and lifeworld. It can consequently serve as a concise and updated introduction to his thinking. (shrink)

The article is addressing one of the central but maybe the most ambiguous and multilayered concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology. Husserl’s insisting on a form of intentionality that implies not just conscious directedness towards objects, but also a constitutive function of mental acts, led to some serious accusations of his idealism and solipsism. Justification of such accusations depends exclusively on whether we understand constitution in an ontological sense, as a creative process which brings worldly entities into being, or in an (...) epistemological sense, as a process which enables us to identify and to interpret a particular givenness as something. In early stages of phenomenology, a so-called “hylomorphic” theory of constitution prevailed, which stated that object of our experience can be present for us only if some sense-data is formed in our intentional acts by a meaning-giving component. This theory proved to be unsatisfying when Husserl turned to a phenomenological description of temporal objects, discovering that not just objects, but also intentional acts have a distinct temporal structure. However, the analysis of temporal constitution reaches even further, because the idea of the “living present”, and its triadic structure of retention-primal impression-protention, holds the key to an explanation of horizon-intentionality, and offers the answer to an essential transcendental question: How is it possible for us to be aware of the world towards which all of our intentional life is directed, and from which all of the motivation for our actions originates? (shrink)

Friendship, as a unique form of social relationship, establishes a particular union among individual human beings which allows them to overcome diverse boundaries between individual subjects. Age, gender or cultural differences do not necessarily constitute an obstacle for establishing friendship and as a social phenomenon, it might even include the potential to exist independently of space and time. This analysis in the interface of social science and phenomenology focuses on the principles of construction and constitution of this specific form (...) of human encounter. In a “parallel action,” the perspective of social science focuses on concrete socio-historical constructions of friendship in different time periods. These findings are confronted with the description of principles of the subjective constitution of the phenomenon of “friendship” from a phenomenological perspective. The point of reference for the study is the real type of the symbolically established and excessively idealized form of friendship intended for eternity which was especially popular in eighteenth century Germany. Analogous to the method of phenomenological reduction, three different levels of protosociological reduction are developed for the exploration of the unique social phenomenon of friendship. (shrink)

A question of focus -- A unitary impulse : Husserl's confrontation with Dilthey -- The development of constitutive phenomenology -- The system of phenomenological philosophy -- Appendix 1: Husserl's publishing history -- Appendix 2: The Husserl Misch correspondence -- Appendix 3: Draft arrangements for Edmund Husserl's time investigations -- Appendix 4: Systems of phenomenological philosophy.

This article attempts to outline the contours of a transcendental phenomenology that would retain the intuition of a healthy realism. In this connection it is proposed to reinterpret the Husserlian notion of constitution, presenting constitution as a discover of reality. A distinction is made between strong and weak versions of constitution. It is constitution in the weak sense that combines, in our opinion, with the realist attitude. In order to achieve the above-mentioned goal (to present (...) class='Hi'>constitution as discovery), the Husserlian notion of object sense is clarified: it is excluded as a representative or substitute of an intentional object; object sense is seen as a mode of givenness, as а medium by means of which the object is implied or given. The idea of a meaningful discovery of reality is best matched by this treatment of object meaning. It is thus possible to combine the realist attitude with the idea of meaningful access to the real, thus avoiding, on the one hand, naive realism and, on the other hand, transcendental-idealist implications. The Husserlian notion of constitution is further related with the idea of forming interpretative schemes of understanding the world, which may include political agendas, scientific paradigms, systems of speculative metaphysics, and religious faith. It is emphasized that, although the rejection of interpretation is impossible, interpretive schemes must be reconciled with real facts and events in order to “fine-tune” reason and reality. Finally, a separation is undertaken with the conception of J.- L. Marion, which relies on the deflation of meaning in favor of the given as such, calling into question the status of man as a being who possesses reason, who discovers reality and constitutes its meaning. (shrink)

This article intends to research the passive/ active process of constitution in a way that shows the essential structures of passivity in consciousness (static phenomenology) and the active constitution through Ego’s acts (genetic phenomenology). However, as Husserl intends, according to Anthony Steinbock, this analysis will conduct to leading clues of constitution of meaning in a generative perspective, mainly in his future works. Although one is conscious of this static/genetic/generative phenomenology, I shall mainly concentrate on whether a true (...) judgment is possible. Henceforth, this work will pose some questions: Despite the fact that in passivity the essential structures of constitution face some modalization, whereby the livedexperience of otherwise springs forth, what kind of guarantee does it give for one’s judgments? And, if the Ego has its own way of givenness, in which it can actively intervene or be enticed somehow, how is it possibly a judicative certainty? These questions will be answered through the process of constitution itself. Therefore, this work will analyze the passive/ active structure of onstitution of meaning in experience, and how such experiences influence the judgment itself. The analysis will concentrate on the writings of Husserl from the 1920s and Husserliana XI, which were gathered in a single work by Anthony Steinbock. (shrink)

I provide a phenomenological response to Quentin Meillassoux’s “realist” criticism of phenomenology and I explore the resources and limits of phenomenology in its own attempt to grapple with the paradox Meillassoux believes sinks it: subjectivity has priority over the physical reality it constitutes despite the anteriority and posteriority of that physical reality to subjectivity. I first offer a corrective to Meillassoux’s interpretation of Husserl. Then, I turn to Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on the philosophy of nature, where he addresses the paradox (...) by interpreting Husserl in the light of Schelling. I argue throughout that the correct understanding of Husserl’s concept of constitution, and particularly, passive constitution, defangs this realist criticism of phenomenology and suggests phenomenology to be capable of a Naturphilosophie intimating pre-reflective being. The prime instance of this pre-reflective being is subjectivity’s entanglement with a reality that encompasses it. (shrink)

I provide a phenomenological response to Quentin Meillassoux’s “realist” criticism of phenomenology and I explore the resources and limits of phenomenology in its own attempt to grapple with the paradox Meillassoux believes sinks it: subjectivity has priority over the physical reality it constitutes despite the anteriority and posteriority of that physical reality to subjectivity. I first offer a corrective to Meillassoux’s interpretation of Husserl. Then, I turn to Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on the philosophy of nature, where he addresses the paradox (...) by interpreting Husserl in the light of Schelling. I argue throughout that the correct understanding of Husserl’s concept of constitution, and particularly, passive constitution, defangs this realist criticism of phenomenology and suggests phenomenology to be capable of a Naturphilosophie intimating pre-reflective being. The prime instance of this pre-reflective being is subjectivity’s entanglement with a reality that encompasses it. (shrink)

This paper explores Husserl's phenomenological description of the constitution of the alter ego within the sphere of transcendental subjectivity. It is important at the start to point out that the Other plays a crucial role in securing the intersubjective nature of the experienced world. Although Husserl goes on in the "Fifth Cartesian Meditation" to consider the constitution of an objective world common to all subjects and the establishment of a community of monads, my primary focus in this (...) paper will be the examination of the initial steps whereby the sense, "other ego," is constituted by the transcendental ego. My main task, then, will be to examine the reduction to the sphere of ownness, the appresentative transfer of sense from ego to alter ego, and the criterion of harmonious behavior. My primary criticisms will center around certain difficulties inherent in the attempt to uncover a primordial sphere of ownness and problems that arise from a shift in concern from the life-world (everyday) attitude to the attitude following the performance of the epoché. Part I of the paper will consist of a general discussion of Husserl's phenomenological project, Part II will be a detailed study of the alter ego, and Part III a general statement of problems and objections. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ : Au sein de l’œuvre de Levinas, se trouve un exposé sur la subjectivité fondé sur son compte de temporalité. A cet égard, Levinas est comme de nombreux phénoménologues. Cependant, pour mieux le comprendre de cette façon, nous devons d’abord reconcevoir ce que Levinas veut dire par “l’éthique”, pour voir la continuité essentiel de ses comptes de subjectivité et temporalité. En comprenant les continuités, entre et à l’intérieur de son sujet moral et sa temporalité futurelle, nous sommes capables de (...) redéfinir l’ envergure et le moyen de la phénoménologie, afin de suffisamment juger l’influence de Levinas dans cette discipline. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to focus our attention on the effect of technologies in the constitution of the objects in our world following a Husserlian approach. I will analyze the relation among the subject, technology and world in order to clarify how the technologies are deeply involved in the constitution of the perceived object by the modification of its content in its “richness” and its inner horizon. Indeed, some devices become instruments to better and sharpen the (...) subject’s perceiving skills and they are designed to create a sort of symbiosis with the perceiving subject by introducing themselves into the perceptual pole, classically constituted by the sole “naked” subject. The world becomes technologically embedded and a place where any kind of “nudity” is only an abstraction. (shrink)

Reflection is the basic attitude of transcendental phenomenology. However, as we shall see in this essay, prereflective experiencing may make a unique claim for philosophical foundations - albeit a claim which can only occur when mediated by reflection.

Basic, key concepts of semiotic are surveyed en route to establishing signs, units of signification, as always dealing in relations. These relations are triangular and mediate. Signs span and mediate between the internality and externality of things, thing being defined as a composite of subjectivity and objectivity. Because signs are relational and mediate, identicality is postulated as the limit of the sign. Identicality is aligned with things-in-themselves, which are assigned to meta-reality, to associate semiotic and metaphysic. Mind, thought, world, and (...) reality are conceptualized in such a way as to link signs with experience. Experience is explained as being founded in relations and practices between things. These relations and practices are formulated in significations. From these signification relations experience is founded, and through experience identities are situated and selves emerge. Holding experience as being formative of and fundamental to reality, it is concluded that reality is best described as being constituted in signs and ultimately bound by significations and relations between things. (shrink)

In the last decade of his life (from 1928 to 1938), Husserl sought to develop a new understanding of his transcendental phenomenology (in publications such as Cartesian Meditations, Formal and Transcendental Logic, and the Crisis) in order to combat misconceptions of phenomenology then current (chief among which was Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology as articulated in Being and Time). During this period, Husserl had an assistant and collaborator, Eugen Fink, who sought not only to be midwife to the birth of Husserl’s own (...) ideas but who also wanted to mediate between Husserl and Heidegger. As a result of the Fink- Husserl collaboration there appeared a rich flow of works that testify to the depth with which transcendental phenomenology had been rethought. Bruzina is the chief scholar of this material. This paper attempts both to disentangle the relationships between the phenomenologies of Husserrl, Heidegger, and Fink and to assess critically the value of Bruzina’s contribution. (shrink)

Sartre was strongly attracted by what he had heard about German phenomenology. Raymond Aron was spending a year at the French Institute in Berlin and studying Husserl simultaneously with preparing a historical thesis. When he came to Paris he spoke of Husserl to Sartre. We spent an evening together at the Bec de Gaz in the Rue Montparnasse. We ordered the speciality of the house, apricot cocktails; Aron said, pointing to his glass: "You see, my dear fellow, if you are (...) a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!" Sartre turned pale with emotion at this. Here was just the thing he had been longing to achieve for years-to describe objects just as he saw and touched them, and extract philosophy from the process. (Simone de Beauvoir, The Prime of Life, p. 112). (shrink)

En el presente artículo se abordará, desde una perspectiva fenomenológica, el problema que llevó a Sigmund Freud a transitar desde la fisiología a la psicopatología, terreno en el cual va a dar origen al psicoanálisis. Este problema consiste en la constitución “patológica” de la experiencia del cuerpo. En esta línea se argumentará a favor del papel principal que este asunto juega en el origen del psicoanálisis y se expondrá la manera en que el mismo tema puede ser abordado desde una (...) perspectiva fenomenológica, que trasciende la alternancia entre las aproximaciones fisiológicas y psicológicas. From a phenomenological perspective, this article will try to deal with the problematic issue that forced Sigmund Freud to move from the field of physiology to the field of the psycho-pathology, which gave birth to the discipline known as psychoanalysis. These range of problems, deal with the constitution of a “pathologic” experience of the body. On this issue, it will be argued on the essential role it has in the origin of psychoanalysis and it will be shown how this same issue can be understood from a phenomenological perspective, which will transcend the dichotomy between a physiological and psychological approach. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 2, pp 205 - 220 I investigate the phenomenological significance of Husserl’s appeal to the “numerical identity” of _irreality_ as it appears in recollected manifolds of lived-experience in his mature account of the transcendental constitution of transcendence and find it wanting. I show that what is at stake for Husserl in this appeal is the descriptive mark that exhibits the distinction between a unit of meaning as it is constituted in psychologically determined lived-experience (...) and as it is constituted in lived-experience that is determined transcendentally. In other words, I show that numerical identity functions for Husserl as the criterion that signals transcendental psychologism has been overcome. I then present the argument that it has not been overcome in Husserl’s investigations, because the collective unity characteristic of numerical unity is presupposed by those investigations rather than made evidentially manifest and articulated. (shrink)

Following kant, idealists establish the transcendental unity of the subject as the prior condition of experience of objects. this is necessarily all-inclusive and the finite self becomes one of its phenomena, which cannot be identified with the transcendental ego, nor yet be wholly divorced from it. this is the basis of kant's paralogism of reason. t h green, f h bradley and edmund husserl are all victims of this paralogism, each in his own way. green fails to avoid it by (...) identifying the transcendental subject with the divine spiritual principle; bradley, admitting the problem's insolubility, propounds an incoherent theory of finite centers of experience; and husserl's device of 'mundanization' proves illegitimate and ambiguous under inspection. (shrink)

This article adopts Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology to explore the complex relationship between patients and physicians. It delves into the coexistence of two distinct voices in the realm of medicine and health: the “voice of medicine” and the “voice of life-world.” Divided into three sections, the article emphasizes the importance of shifting from a scientific-medical attitude to a more personalistic approach in physician–patient interactions. This shift aims to prevent depersonalization and desubjectification. Additionally, it highlights the equal and irreducible nature of patients (...) while acknowledging the vital role physicians hold in the realm of illness. The article stresses the need for a balanced and equitable relationship between both parties, rooted in the shared life-world. Moreover, empathy is underscored as a crucial element in fostering meaningful dialogue, wherein understanding diverse perspectives and attitudes towards illness is paramount. The article argues that differences between patients and physicians are necessary for empathy, while shared similarities form its foundation. Ultimately, a harmonious relationship facilitates empathy and enables the constitution of a new sense of life for both patients and physicians. (shrink)

This is an interesting and ambitious book, bringing Husserl’s account of constitution to bear on the enduring problem of how mind and world are related. The study does not aim to be a contribution to Husserl scholarship, but rather to bring aspects of Husserlian phenomenology into dialog with more recent analytic work in philosophy of mind to make philosophical progress.

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception'' and “pairing'' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.'' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, (...) the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other'' in general and about the “stranger'' in particular. (shrink)

As is made plain in the critical apparatus and editorial matter appended to the original German publication of Hussed's Ideas II, I this is a text with a history. It underwent revision after revision, spanning almost 20 years in one of the most fertile periods of the philosopher's life. The book owes its form to the work of many hands, and its unity is one that has been imposed on it. Yet there is nothing here that cannot be traced back (...) to Hussed himself. Indeed, the final" clean copy" for publication, prepared by an assistant, was completely reviewed by the master three times and emended by him in detail on each occasion. Nevertheless, in the end the work was in fact not submitted for publication, and after Hussed's pen last touched the manuscript in 1928 it was set aside until posthumously edited and published by the Hussed-Archives in 1952. The story of the composition of Ideas II begins with the "pencil manuscript" of 1912. This is the ultimate textual source for both Ideas II and Ideas III. 2 It has been preserved as a folio of 84 sheets in very dense shorthand of the Gabelsberger system, written mostly with a pencil. It was composed by Hussed "in one stroke" immediately after the completion of I Edmund Husser!: Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch: Phiinomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Edited by Marly Biemel. The Hague: Martinus NijhofT, 1952 (Husserliana IV). (shrink)

A fruitful way to approach The Idea of Phenomenology is through Husserl’s claim that consciousness is not a bag, box, or any other kind of container. The bag conception, which dominated much of modern philosophy, is rooted in the idea that philosophy is restricted to investigating only what is really immanent to consciousness, such as acts and sensory contents. On this view, what Husserl called the riddle of transcendence can never be solved. The phenomenological reduction, as Husserl develops it (...) in The Idea of Phenomenology, opened up a new and broader sense of immanence that embraces the transcendent, making it possible both to solve the riddle and to escape the bag conception once and for all. The essay will discuss ways in which this new conception of immanence is tied to the key Husserlian themes of appearance, phenomenon, essence, seeing or intuiting, and constitution. (shrink)

Phenomenology and Embodiment. Husserl and the Constitution of Subjectivity is a surprising study, given that much has been written during the last decades on phenomenology and embodiment. Although its author, Joona Taipale, does not offer revolutionarily new insights into Husserl’s phenomenology , the book is an outstanding contribution to phenomenology in general, and to Husserlian phenomenology in particular. For although it covers a broad range of topics within the area of a phenomenology of embodiment, its author expertly brings together (...) a diverse range of aspects of his topic and weaves together many thematic threads in a lucidly written and coherent text. The study is superbly organized, as well as clearly laid out in its introduction and conclusion. And though partial aspects of Taipale’s topics have been addressed before, this is the first study, as far as I can see, that brings them all together within 240 pages. After a discussion of “small scale” issues, such .. (shrink)

A fruitful way to approach The Idea of Phenomenology is through Husserl’s claim that consciousness is not a bag, box, or any other kind of container. The bag conception, which dominated much of modern philosophy, is rooted in the idea that philosophy is restricted to investigating only what is really immanent to consciousness, such as acts and sensory contents. On this view, what Husserl called “the riddle of transcendence” can never be solved. The phenomenological reduction, as Husserl develops it (...) in The Idea of Phenomenology, opened up a new and broader sense of immanence that embraces the transcendent, making it possible both to solve the riddle and to escape the bag conception once and for all. The essay will discuss ways in which this new conception of immanence is tied to the key Husserlian themes of appearance, phenomenon, essence, seeing or intuiting, and constitution. (shrink)

To discover affects within Husserl’s texts designates a difficult investigation; it points to a theme of which these texts were forced to speak, even as they were explicitly speaking of regional ontologies and the foundations of sciences. For we may at first wonder: where can affection find a positive role in the rigor of a pure philosophy that seeks to account for its phenomena from within the immanence of consciousness? Does this not mean that the very passivity and foreignness of (...) affect will be overlooked; will it not be continually linked to a Vorstellung that issues as a ray of the pure ego? That is, will the phenomenological account of affect be reduced to the cognition of an object, as Emmanuel Levinas suggests? Yet there are affects in Husserl’s texts that maintain their autonomy and resist subsumption to an objectivating intentionality.We may see this in the Lectures On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time: in the longitudinal intentionality of retention, through which consciousness becomes aware of its elapsed phases without making them into objects—a passive synthesis that gives the flow of time-constituting consciousness the form of a continually deferred auto-affection.1We find it again as early as the fifth Logical Investigation, 2 providing us with the impetus to radicalize Husserlian phenomenology. (shrink)

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception'' and “pairing'' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.'' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, (...) the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other'' in general and about the “stranger'' in particular. (shrink)

In this chapter I look closely at the intentionality of consciousness from a naturalistic perspective. I begin with a consideration of Gurwitsch's suggestive ideas about the role of acts of consciousness in constituting both the objects and the subjects of consciousness. I turn next to a discussion of how these ideas relate to my own empirical approach to intentional relations seen from a developmental perspective. This is followed by a discussion of some recent ideas in philosophical cognitive science on the (...) intentionality of consciousness, both with respect to the objects and the subjects of consciousness. I show that these recent trends tend to naturalize intentionality and consciousness in directions compatible with the descriptive aspects of Gurwitsch's constitutive phenomenology. (shrink)

"The central task of phenomenology is to investigate the nature of consciousness and its relations to objects of various types. The present book introduces students and other readers to several foundational topics of phenomenological inquiry, and illustrates phenomenology's contemporary relevance. The main topics include consciousness, intentionality, perception, meaning, and knowledge. The book also contains critical assessments of Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method. It argues that knowledge is the most fundamental mode of consciousness, and that the central theses constitutive of (...) Husserl's "transcendental idealism" are compatible with metaphysical realism regarding the objects of thought, perception, and knowledge. Helpful tools include introductions that help the reader segue from the previous chapter to the new one, chapter conclusions, and suggested reading lists of primary and some key secondary sources. Key Features: Elucidates and engages with contemporary work in analytic epistemology and philosophy of mind. Provides clear prose explanations of the necessary distinctions and arguments required for understanding the subject. Places knowledge at the center of phenomenological inquiry"--. (shrink)