Basic Problems Of Phenomenology Research Articles

Rethinking Husserl’s lifeworld: The many faces of the world in Heidegger’s early Freiburg lecture courses

This paper examines the concept of the world elaborated by Heidegger in the early Freiburg lecture courses of the years 1919 to 1923, in which he proposes a renewed conception of phenomenology through a comparison with Husserlian phenomenology. First, I show that although the theme of the lifeworld became central only in late Husserlian works, especially in The Crisis of European Sciences, Husserl began to deal with this concept before 1920, anticipating some fundamental issues of the Crisis, as it results from the lectures of 1919 on Natur und Geist. Husserl had addressed the concept of the world already in the lectures of 1910/11, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and, subsequently, in the second book of Ideas, which was published posthumously, but which was known to the young Heidegger. Then, I discuss the way in which Heidegger revisited the issue of the world in the early Freiburg lecture courses by means of a critique of Husserl’s analysis, focusing on perceptual experience as “environmental experience” and on the “world-character” of life. Particular emphasis is placed on the distinction between “environing-world,” “with-world,” and “self-world,” which Heidegger introduces in the lectures of 1919–1920. Finally, I point out that the Heideggerian rethinking of the concept of lifeworld is closely connected to the recognition of the immanent historicity of life, while Husserl only later takes into account the historicity of the lifeworld.

On the Way to Salvation: A Reading of Shinran's Tariki in the Light of Heidegger's Gelassenheit

On the Way to Salvation:A Reading of Shinran's Tariki in the Light of Heidegger's Gelassenheit Tony See (bio) The relationship between Heidegger's thought and East Asian philosophies has been the subject of much discussion in recent years. While these discussions are diverse and varied, they may be classified into three approaches (Ma and van Brakel 2006). The first approach is characterized by the study of how Heidegger's philosophy may have influenced East Asian philosophers, or how Heidegger's philosophy may have been influenced by East Asian philosophers. Reinhard May's work on Heidegger's "hidden sources" is a good example of the latter approach (May 1996). The second approach is characterized by scholarly observations that there are congruences between Heidegger's philosophy and East Asian thought. This is usually done by drawing analogies between the two. A good example of this is Joan Stambaugh's "Heidegger, Taoism, and the Question of Metaphysics" (1987). The third approach addresses the relevance and critical importance of Heidegger's philosophy in initiating intercultural dialogue (Ma 2005). It is sometimes characterized by a sense of pessimism with regard to whether such projects can be meaningful at all, for the linguistic and philosophical distances that have to be bridged is great. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel, for instance, argue that while Heidegger was genuinely interested in East–West dialogue, he questioned whether such dialogues can be meaningful, since the philosophical barriers between the two seem to be insurmountable. I believe that a more significant reason why such dialogues seem to be impossible is that we are already engulfed in an age of planetary Ge-stell, or enframing. Scholars in East Asia are likely to have been trained in Western-style academies and to possess modern subjectivities, and hence their access to East Asian thought is likely to be enframed by Western categories. To be sure, this does not mean that it is impossible to have a dialogue, but rather that any meaningful dialogue demands a high degree of self-reflexivity so that we may avoid imposing our prejudices and presuppositions on the Other. This paper adopts the second approach and is interested in the resonances between Heidegger's philosophy and the philosophy of Shinran. [End Page 169] The choice of engaging in a comparative study of Heidegger and Shin-ran may seem odd, given that the two thinkers come from vastly different philosophical backgrounds. However, a closer examination of their ideas reveals something in common, namely, what constitutes the right mode of comportment and what sort of experience we can expect. While there are scholarly studies in this area, such comparative East–West studies, which have become more and more important in recent years given the rise of intolerance, they remain a small minority in the field of Heidegger studies. This is why Dennis Hirota's "Shinran and Heidegger on Dwelling: Reading Shinran as a Phenomenology of Shinjin" (2014) is a welcome contribution to this area and deserves more scholarly attention. In this paper we will examine Heidegger's concept of Gelassenheit and temporality and their relationship with Shinran's idea of tariki and its relation to salvation. Gelassenheit is usually translated as "letting be" in modern scholarship. This refers to a comportment of no longer trying to overcome but to be in a relationship of "letting be" with Western metaphysics. This comportment of "letting be" resonates with Shinran's well-known recommendation to give up on "self-power" (jiriki) and to turn toward "other-power" (tariki) for salvation. For Heidegger, when we turn away from "overcoming" to "letting be" we begin to enter a different dimension of time, which he calls "temporality." In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1988), Heidegger already analyzed this experience of temporality in terms of an intensive awareness of one's present existence which encompasses the past and the future. Shinran likewise describes a new temporal experience when we place our faith in the saving power of Amida Buddha. To be sure, Shinran did not use the same terminology as Heidegger, nor should we presume that he referred to the same phenomenon, but he does describe this new dimension of time as being fundamentally distinct...

A Reading of Heidegger’s Reading of Immanuel Kant’s Critique Of Pure Reason

This paper intends to argue over these subsequent ideas: first, that Heidegger’s employment of ‘retrieval’, ‘repetition’, or ‘thinking dialogue’ in his interpretation of Kant’s first Critique is, following Macann, quite hazardous and destructive but only on the surface. Heidegger's hermeneutical privilege to employ a specific interpretive frame in reading Kant seems to violate hermeneutics' fundamental maxim. This hermeneutic maxim is the inevitability of multiple interpretations. This can be seen in how Heidegger treated Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, where he announces that he “understand him (Kant) better than he (Kant) understood himself.” At first glance, his declaration exudes a kind of intellectual arrogance. However, I will show this is not so. Secondly, I will argue, based on the question of Heidegger’s appropriation of Kant’s ideas in his philosophical project, that he partly appropriated Kant but in a violent manner. As evident in his interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason, Heidegger goes beyond Kant and forces the latter to speak through his text on the issues Heidegger thought to be in Kant. This raises the question of whether Heidegger properly situated and appropriated Kant in his text or not.
 References
 
 Dahlstrom, Daniel. “The Critique of Pure Reason and Continental Philosophy.” In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Edited by Paul Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
 Frede, Dorothea. “The question of being Heidegger’s project.” In Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Edited by Charles B. Guignon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
 Grene, Marjorie. Martin Heidegger. London: Bowes & Bowes, 1957.
 Guignon, Charles B. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Edited by Charles B. Guignon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
 Heidegger, Martin. Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Parvis Emad and Kenneth Maly. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997.
 Heidegger, Martin. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, 5th edition. Translated by Richard Taft. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997.
 Heidegger, Martin. Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1982.
 Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Q. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
 Kenny, Anthony. “The Philosopher’s History and the History of Philosophy.” In Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy. Edited by Tom Sorell and G.A.J. Rogers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.
 Longuenesse, Béatrice. Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Translated by Charles T. Wolfe. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1998.
 Macann, Christopher. “Heidegger’s Kant Interpretation.” In Critical Heidegger. Edited by Christopher Macann. London/New York: Routledge, 1996.
 Moreiras, Alberto. “Heidegger, Kant, and the Problem of Transcendence.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy vol. xxiv, no. 1 (1986): 81-93.
 Nelson, Eric S. “Heidegger’s Failure to Overcome Transcendental Philosophy.” In Transcendental Inquiry. Edited by Halla Kim & Steven Hoeltzel. MacMillan: Palgrave, 2016.
 Sherover, Charles. Heidegger, Kant and Time. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971.
 Stoljar, Daniel. Philosophical Progress: In Defence of a Reasonable Optimism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
 Taft, Richard. “Translator’s Introduction to the 4th Edition.” In Martin Heidegger. Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, 5th edition enlarged. Translated by Richard Taft Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997.
 Weatherston, Martin. Heidegger’s Interpretation of Kant: Categories, Imagination and Temporality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

The basic problems of phenomenology and being and time: The issue of research methods and ontological difference

The piece considers the relation and connection existing between Heidegger?s main work Being and Time and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1927), above all when considering their complementary regarding methods of research confirmed as hermaneutic-phenomenological. This attempt to clear the mentioned relations is intended to show how methodical approaches presented in both Heidegger?s works are aimed to reveal ontological difference, which as a sense of being contain the key of understanding his philosophy.

Adorno Contra Transcendental Idealism: A Critique of Husserl’s Notion of Objectivity

The work intends to reconstruct Theodor Adorno’s critique of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental idealism. The intended goal of Husserl’s phenomenology was to continue the Cartesian project of attaining certitude, and in the process, dismantle the alleged arbitrary division between subject and object. Despite sharing the latter’s goal of effecting a radical turn against traditional epistemology, Adorno, however, criticizes Husserl’s idealist position. The latter’s position asserts that objectivity is laden not only within the object, but is also reliant within the internal structures of consciousness, and its relation with the object. By virtue of the a priori, and transcendent nature of the Husserlian eidos, Adorno asserts that this idealism merely posits an abstract “philosophical First” that reveals nothing concrete about the object itself. Consequently, instead of taking a revolutionary approach, as Husserl would have it, it instead becomes an affirmation of the totalitarian nature of the classical notion of subjectivity. The paper will demonstrate how the abstract and dominating nature of Husserl’s philosophy fashions objectivity as its necessary instrument. Objectivity for Husserl only occurs once the transcendental subject exhausts the horizons of meaning of an object thereby implying the necessity of the subject’s participation in the creation of meaning for an object. Following this, I will demonstrate Adorno’s critique of objectivity in the backdrop of his confrontation of the crisis of philosophy, vis-à-vis his own proposed materialist dialectic method.
 References
 Primary Sources
 Books
 Adorno, Theodor. Against Epistemology: A Metacritique. Translated by Willis Domingo Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
 __________. Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords. Translated by Henry W. Pickford with an Introduction by Lydia Goehr. New York: Colombia University Press, 2005.
 Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. Translated by Dorion Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1977.
 __________. Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Volume I. Translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952.
 __________. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology: From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910-1911. Translated by Ingo Farin and James Hart. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006.
 __________. The Idea of Phenomenology. Translated and with an introduction by Lee Hardy. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.
 Essays
 Adorno, Theodor. “A Metacritique of Epistemology.” Telos 38 (Winter 1978-79): 77- 103.
 __________. “Husserl and the Problem of Idealism.” The Journal of Philosophy 37, no. 1 (1940): 5-18.
 __________. “Subject and Object” in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords. Translated by Henry W. Pickford and an Introduction by Lydia Goehr. New York: Colombia University Press, 2005.
 __________ “The Actuality of Philosophy.” Telos 1997, no. 31 (1997): 120-133.
 __________ “The Idea of Natural History,” Telos, no. 60 (1984), 111-124.
 Secondary Sources
 Books
 Bryers, Damian. Intentionality and Transcendence: Closure and Openness in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
 Cambridge University Press. The Cambridge Companion to Husserl. Edited by Berry Smith and David Woodruff Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
 Drummord, John. Historical Dictionary of Husserl’s Philosophy. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2007.
 Gordon, Peter E. Adorno and Existence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.
 Hermberg, Kevin. Husserl’s Phenomenology: Knowledge, Objectivity and Others. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006.
 Jarvis, Simon. Adorno: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 1998.
 Zahavi, Dan. Husserl’s Phenomenology. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
 Articles
 Aoyagi, Masafumi. “Phenomenological Antinomy and Holistic Idea: Adorno’s Husserl- Studies and Influences from Cornelius.” Investigaciones Fenomenologicas 4, no. 2 (2013): 23-38.
 Dallmayr, Fred. “Phenomenology and Critical Theory: Adorno*.” Cultural Hermeneutics 3 (1976): 367-405.
 Follesdal, Dagfinn. “Noema and Meaning in Husserl.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50, Supplement (1990): 263-271.
 Gibson, W.R. Boyce. “The Problem of Real and Ideal in the Phenomenology of Husserl.” Mind 34, no. 135 (1925): 311-333.3
 McIntyre, Ronald and Smith, David Woodruff. “Husserl’s Identification of Meaning and Noema.” The Monist 59, no. 1, The Philosophy of Husserl (1975): 115-132.
 Molts, Andreas. “Adorno and the Myth of Subjectivity.” Contempts 3 (2002): 109-121.
 Soffer, W. “Husserl’s Neo-Cartesianism.” Research in Phenomenology 11 (1981): 141- 158.

Re-Introducing Heidegger

Heidegger is so well known that another introduction might seem to be superfluous. The author has dared it nonetheless because approaching Heidegger from his work on language offers us a different perspective – and, what the writer believes, is a more nuanced appreciation of this landmark in contemporary philosophy.
 The kehre has been exaggerated, to the author’s mind, and while the author does acknowledge that there is room for distinguishing between an earlier and a later Heidegger, he has been more keen about the continuity in Heidegger’s thought.
 References
 Martin Heidegger, On the Way to Language, Peter D. Hertz, trans HarperSan Francisco, 1982
 ________________, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Albert Hofstadter, trans. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982
 _________________, The Essence of Reasons, Terrence Malick, trans. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969
 __________________, Being and Time, Macquarrie and Robinson, trans. New York: Harper and Row, 1962
 __________________, Introduction to Metaphysics, James Manheim, trans New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984
 ___________________, Time and Being, Joan Stambaugh, trans. New York: Harper and Row, 1972
 __________________, What is Called Thinking? J. Glenn Gray, trans New York: Perennial Library, 1968
 __________________, “Only a God Can Save Us; The Spiegel Interview (1966) in Der Spiegel No. 23 (1976), 193 – 219, online edition at www.ditext.com/heidegger/inteview.html

Correction to: The Intensity of Lived-Experience in Martin Heidegger’s Basic Problems of Phenomenology (WS 1919/1920): A Comparison to Being and Time

Correction to: The Intensity of Lived-Experience in Martin Heidegger’s Basic Problems of Phenomenology (WS 1919/1920): A Comparison to Being and Time

The Intensity of Lived-Experience in Martin Heidegger’s Basic Problems of Phenomenology (WS 1919/2020): A Comparison to Being and Time

The following essay compares and contrasts Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time with an earlier lecture course that he delivered in the Winter Semester of 1919/2020 entitled Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Heidegger says explicitly that the pre-phenomenal basis for his analysis in Being and Time is “entities” in their equipmental totality. He calls these the “preliminary theme” for his analysis of Dasein. While the analytic of Dasein is the first step in posing the question of Being, the pre-phenomenal basis for the analytic of Dasein is, he says, “entitities” or “equipment”. I argue that this can lead to certain misunderstandings, especially when he talks about nature and human relationships. In Basic Problems, Heidegger’s focus is not on “entities” or “equipment” but rather on experiences. In this earlier work, he is trying to develop a language that can capture the intensity of lived-experience, suggesting an experiential vibrancy to Dasein that is implicit but not thematized in Being and Time. I aim to show that while Heidegger turns away from the term “life” in Being and Time, his understanding of Dasein can still draw on the intensity and immediacy of experience so prominent in this early lecture course.

From Kant to Heidegger. On the path from self-consciousness to self-understanding

ABSTRACTIn this article I explore the idea that Heidegger's lectures on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology are of particular importance to our understanding of the relationship between Heidegger and Kant. These lectures can be read as a “historical” commentary on Being and Time. Of course, Heidegger does not present himself as a historian of philosophy, but acts as a philosophical reader of Kant in order to expound the principal ideas of his own philosophy. My central claim is that it is through Kant's philosophy of self-consciousness that Heidegger attempts to provide us with a better understanding of his own conception of self-understanding.

The element of intersubjectivity. Heidegger’s early conception of empathy

Heidegger’s doubts concerning the concept of “empathy” are unequivocally proven not only by his general tendency to avoid it, but also by his sharp critique of this term, as presented in both Being and Time and the lectures from the Summer Semester 1925, History of the Concept of Time. However, the concept of empathy is used by Heidegger in a positive, albeit rather allusive fashion, in three consecutive lectures of his early Freiburg period: Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Winter Semester 1919/20), Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression (Summer Semester 1920) and The Phenomenology of Religious Life (Winter Semester 1920/21). The present paper analyzes these three passages of Heidegger’s early lectures in close detail, revealing their connection to the conceptions of empathy found in the works of both Dilthey and Scheler. Thus it aims to connect Heidegger’s rather idiosyncratic conception of intersubjectivity with some of the discussions on that topic in the phenomenological millieu of the early 1920s.

The Intensity of Lived-Experience in Basic Problems of Phenomenology

The Intensity of Lived-Experience in Basic Problems of Phenomenology

Edmund Husserl, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology: From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910–1911. Translated by Ingo Farin and James G. Hart

Edmund Husserl, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology: From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910–1911. Translated by Ingo Farin and James G. Hart

Das erzählte Selbst. Ein alternativer Entwurf von Authentizität in Heideggers frühen Freiburger Vorlesungen

This essay discusses Heidegger’s interpretation of autobiographical narration in his lecture on Basic Problems of Phenomenology (WS 1919/20) as an alternative conception of authenticity. A focused comparison between Heidegger’s early understanding of the ‘narrated self’ and the analysis of the call of conscience in Being and Time shows that the most problematic aspects of Heidegger’s later idea of authenticity result from a distinct isolation of the authentic self, which is specific for his conception of authenticity since the mid-twenties. At last, the article intends to demonstrate that Heidegger’s early idea of an original self-understanding is close to current philosophical theories which assume a holistic idea of authenticity and point out a strong relation between authenticity and narrativity.

The Role of <i>Techne</i> in the Authenticity-Inauthenticity Distinction

n this paper I propose to do the following: I will discuss the notions of intentionality and self-understanding of Dasein as developed in Heidegger’s Basic Problems of Phenomenology. In doing so, I will try to show the interrelation of Dasein’s always being intentionally directed towards something and its self-interpretation. As we will see, the everyday world has, for Heidegger, a character of “equipmental contexture.” This means that Dasein returns to itself from out of things, equipment, tools, or—quite differently—the work of art. In a word, Dasein is mirrored back toward itself from the things made, from the products of techne.1 From this will follow the important distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity. There is a sense in which the following pairings could be discerned: tools or pieces of equipment link up with inauthenticity, while the work of art links up with authenticity. I will say more on the subject of tools a bit later in the essay. Both kinds of things are things insofar as they are entrenched in techne. The common root seems almost inexplicable in the light of the vast difference between tools and the artwork. Moreover, both Dasein and techne seem to have another equally enigmatic common root: that of temporality. Temporality is the essential bond between Dasein and the double sense of techne, which suggests the double-sidedness of temporality itself. It is precisely this doublesidedness that I would like to have as the backdrop to my discussion as a whole. Finally, I will turn to a few pages of Heidegger’s Being and Time and Bernard Stiegler’s book Technics and Time I in order to complicate this notion of the two senses of temporality, the owned and disowned, originary and everyday, and its relation to work and techne. The overarching question here will be: Can the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity be sustained? By way of stage-setting, it is important to say a few words about the overarching theme of Section Fifteen of the Basic Problems, entitled “The fundamental problem of the multiplicity of ways of being and of the unity of

The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910-11 (review)

Reviewed by: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910–11 Bob Sandmeyer Edmund Husserl . The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. From the Lectures, Winter Semester, 1910–11. Translated by Ingo Farin and James G. Hart. Edmund Husserl Collected Works, Volume 12. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006. Pp. xi + 179. Cloth, $119.00. Husserl's seminal lectures on the phenomenological reduction and transcendental theory of empathy have finally been translated into English. Known by the title of the course, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology presents some of Husserl's most important innovations in the theory of the phenomenological reduction. In fact, he referred to these lectures more often than any other, and with good reason. They pre-delineate many themes in his mature work, e.g., the phenomenology of intersubjectivity and of empathy, the relation between phenomenology and pure psychology, the lived body as null-point of experience, the life-world as a universal problem for philosophy, the problem of the absolute character of phenomenological givenness, and so on. As the translators suggest in their wonderful preface, these lectures are one of the best available introductions to Husserl's philosophy. Along with his earlier 1907 lectures, The Idea of Phenomenology, The Basic Problems form the core conception of Husserl's theory of the phenomenological reduction. Yet the latter treads on ground inadequately explicated in the former. A dominant theme in The Basic Problems is the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. This extension to intersubjectivity in the later lectures rests on a recapitulation—or, perhaps better, a clarification—of the eidetic focus of phenomenology in the earlier 1907 lectures. As such, The Basic Problems institutes a shift of concentration by Husserl to the wholeness of individual consciousness. This shift arises from his efforts to integrate into his analyses an adequate description of the temporality of the flowing life of consciousness. Indeed, temporality is perhaps the most dominant thread running through The Basic Problems. When we look specifically at The Basic Problems, we find not merely that the phenomenological reduction is extended to the field of intersubjectivity. More fundamentally, the reduction as articulated in these lectures is a reduction to the singularity of temporal consciousness, i.e., the whole unified stream of consciousness, from whose basis the field of inter-subjective objectivity is, itself, constituted. Where Husserl sought to advance his phenomenology as a genuinely critical philosophy in the 1907 lectures, he is really working on another plane in The Basic Problems. The earlier is an introduction to phenomenology, and so seeks to articulate what phenomenology is. In The Basic Problems, Husserl seeks, on the contrary, to identify the fundamental problem or cluster of problems with which phenomenology deals. He discloses this to be the problem of the formal structuring principle of the noetic-noematic correlation; and this is temporality, i.e., phenomenological, time. Husserl's major innovation here is to offer a phenomenological description of the plurality of I-monads—all belonging to the same time—which does not deflate to a plurality of temporalities. In The Basic Problems, Husserl seeks to uncover the full limit of the purely self-given. The science of phenomenology, whose subject matter is appearance, itself, cannot concern itself solely with the abstract now-point of any cogito flowing off in consciousness. The analyses of the temporal structure of consciousness indicate that cogitative phenomena necessarily endure in the streaming life of consciousness. Any singular now-point is, thus, but an abstraction from this more fundamental frame of the flowing unity of a singular consciousness—a consciousness in which the intentive moments all hang together. Thus, absolute living consciousness—intending itself in empathy with a community of other monads—is disclosed in these analyses to be the basis from which it becomes at all possible to abstract an immediate perceptual now-point. This translation is excellent in every respect. The present work contains the extant transcripts of Husserl's 1910/11 lecture course, along with thirteen appendices. These include his preparatory notes, early revisions and supplements, and later statements of clarification. The Basic Problems not only illustrates the transcendental orientation of Husserl's early work, but also highlights the debt he owes to the work of Wilhelm Dilthey. Though...

Find Uses for Used-Up Words

Although a fairly recent development in intellectual history, the notion of [Weltanschauung] continues to appear with ever increasing frequency in the contemporary world. Over the past several decades, the idea of has been used to characterize the areas of science,1 religion,2 ecology,3 and sociology,4 as well as such philosophical sub-disciplines as the philosophy of education,5 process philosophy,6 and philosophical counseling.7 Moreover, several colleges and universities now offer degrees in Worldview Studies, and many more use the language of in their educational mission statements.8 Anything that can be used to describe aspects of human existence that range from religious be lief to information technology (and applied to such varied thinkers as Herman Dooyeweerd and Richard Rorty), can certainly be said to be global in its scope and pervasive in its application. Worldviews are admittedly products of culture, ethnicity, and position in society, but they are also much deeper than that-they are the ways in which one takes up her/his culture, ethnicity, and social position.9 increased occurrence and importance of what I want to call the rhetoric of worldviews is characterized by dualistic thinking (e.g., good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, us vs. them). Further, this rhetoric demands essential decisions-embrace the ecological or contribute to the ruin of the earth; accept the Christian or remain separated from God; affirm the scientific or remain in ignorance. This demand for decision serves to polarize and solidify various worldviews as even more antagonistically poised. We might, to borrow from Richard Rorty, claim that the contemporary rhetoric of takes the form of a final vocabulary which excludes other voices and closes off criticism.10 Interestingly, the contemporary usage of the language of both inherits the meaning of the philosophical elaboration of worldview as developed by such thinkers as Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Jaspers, and Husserl, while simultaneously contesting this elaboration on its most elemental points. That is, the contemporary political usage of language insists on objectivity as well as universality, which are precisely antithetical to the very essence of worldview(s) as intrinsically subjective and multiple.11 Thus, a tension has developed in the space of public discourse between the rhetoric of worldview's historical heritage and the philosophical background of that history. Despite the increased prevalence of the rhetoric of worldviews, and due in large part to the work of Martin Heidegger, the idea of worldviews has gone out of vogue in contemporary continental philosophy. Heidegger's critique of can be seen throughout his authorship, but more extended considerations can be found in Basic Problems of Phenomenology (1927), The Age of the World Picture (1938), and his Beitrage ( 1936).'2 While recognizing the important reasons for Heidegger's resistance to this rhetoric, simply rejecting it far too often leads to rejecting those areas of philosophy and culture that continue to deploy it. In order to foster a productive exchange of ideas across traditional philosophical, political, and religious lines, we need to rethink the use of the rhetoric of worldviews while allowing Heidegger's critique of it to continue to resound. We should ask, then, is there a value in maintaining the language of even if the philosophical content of this language is contested? Should we be thinking after in light of Heidegger's insights, or rather should we be thinking after Heidegger?13 I want to offer a provisional14 thesis that the second avenue is the most profitable as well as the most efficacious for the future of both political and religious discourse. true value of the rhetoric of worldviews lies precisely in using it as a performative method for enacting the philosophical rejection of this rhetoric as philosophical. …

Dimensions of Print

Dimensions of Print

Philosophy, World-View, and the Possibility of Ethics in the Basic Problems of Phenomenology

Philosophy, World-View, and the Possibility of Ethics in the Basic Problems of Phenomenology

Reassessing Heidegger on Existentia

This paper presents an immanent critique of Heidegger's consignment of existentia to the metaphysical category of Vorhandenheit. Past scholarship has been by and large uncritical of this tenet of Heidegger, thereby thwarting a potentially fruitful dialogue betwee, continental thinkers and those sympathetic to medieval ontology. The paper (1) argues that the account in «Basic problems of phenomenology» is marred by essentialism and thus overlooks a depth-dimension in existentia; (2) examines key passages in the 1941 «Nietzsche» lectures where Heidegger appears to flirt with the possibility of a more primordial sense of existentia; and (3) reads the 1936 text «The origin of the work of art» as providing further evidence for reading Heidegger's ontology as a phenomenological recovery of the existential contingency of beings.

Geography of China: Environment, Resources, Population, and Development (review)

Reviews 297 licentious, and rarely consort with virtue/goodness." From the context, Confucius' critique is not against language but against the rhetorical misuse of language. As Zhang himselfpoints out later, Confucius is not against language as a mode ofinstruction (although precept and example are stressed): "As a great pedagogue, however, Confucius knew only too well that teaching was impossible without the employment ofwords, even though words might confuse and mislead diose who were being taught" (p. 31). Confucius was wary ofwords being misused; the Taoists were wary of all words. These very minor defects aside, The Tao and the Logos is an intellectual disquisition very much worth reading. There is nothing remotely like it available, and it is much needed. It is likely to become one of the seminal works on comparative poetics in this decade. Eugene Eoyang Indiana University NOTE 5 1. Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems ofPhenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). 2. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 1-20. Songqiao Zhao. Geography ofChina: Environment, Resources, Population, and Development. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1994. 332 pp. Among scholars in various disciplines of the social sciences in the West contributing to the understanding of contemporary Chinese society, geographers probably rank among the lowest on the totem pole. There are two reasons for this lesser role: first, only about a score of geographers outside China would consider themselves serious scholars on China and publish books and articles regularly on the country; second, China has been a closed country for field-workers from abroad, including geographers who would like to do field surveys. ConsequenAy, there is a dearth of good geographic studies on China, particularly those that are suitable for use as texts for upper-division undergraduates. Against this background, this new publication by Songqiao Zhao is most wel-© 1994 by University come. Zhao is well qualified to author such a book, as he did his advanced studies of Hawai ? Press in geography in the United States in the 1940s and has been a senior geographer with the Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for more than 298 China Review International: Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 1994 forty-five years. He was fhe head of fhe Division of Physical Geography in that institute and was in charge of major research projects in China, including desert research in Xinjiang and agricultural reclamation studies in Northeast China. As the discipline in China has been strongly inAuenced by Soviet geography in the 1950s, it has been best known for research in physical geography, with human and economic geography relatively undeveloped. This tendency is also reAected in the volume by Zhao. The most significant contribution of the book is the author's extensive employment of published works by Chinese geographers, mostly in Chinese. Much of this research is introduced here for fhe first time in English. Included in the references are Tan Qixiang's work on the historical geography of China, Zhu Zhenda's work on desertification in China and its control measures, Liu Dongsheng's work on loess in the middle course of the Yellow River, Zhong Gongfu's work on traditional ecosystems in Chinese agriculture, Li Wenyan and Lu Dadao's work on China's industrial development, and Ye Shunzan's work on the urbanization of China. Many of these names are new to geographers outside China although they are well known in their own country. The volume is composed of two parts. Part 1 is a general survey of the country in eleven chapters, covering physical features, natural resources, historical background, agricultural development, industry, transportation and foreign trade, population, urban development, environmental problems and natural hazards, and the land-food-population system. While most of these topics are concerns of traditional geography, the chapter on the land-food-population system relates the projected population for the year 2025 with food production trends in terms of land resources and management, constituting an innovative contribution. In the chapter on historical background, much information on cultural evolution and geographical shift as revealed by archaeological discoveries over the past forty-five years has been brought...