Interpretation Of Husserl Research Articles

Edith Stein über Species Sensibilis und Transzendentalen Idealismus

Abstract This paper offers an assessment of some of the central aspects of Edith Stein’s conception of intentional acts proposed in Potency and Act. Studies Towards a Philosophy of Being. Her account hinges upon a combination of Thomistic and Husserlian concepts. She borrows from Aquinas two conceptual pairs that are central to his metaphysics and theory of knowledge: the actuality-potency dichotomy; and the distinction between sensible and intelligible species. The distinction and relevant articulation between sensible and intelligible species provide Stein with the basis to present her own conception of intentionality (with special focus on perception): the sensible species is regarded as the correlate of the object’s Gestalt; by contrast, the intelligible species is mobilised to account for what Husserl labels noesis-noema correlation. But Stein’s ambition is also to inscribe her account of the species sensibilis within an overall (critical) interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism. This work was supported by the Czech Science Foundation, financing the project “Intentionality and Person in Medieval Philosophy and Phenomenology” (GAČR 21-08256S).

Merleau-Ponty and Derrida on Husserl’s Origin of Geometry

Abstract: A number of claims made by Derrida concerning Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of Husserl will be carefully considered and evaluated here. First, Derrida’s claim that Merleau-Ponty’s mis-interprets Husserl’s letter to Lévy-Bruhl will be challenged. Secondly, Derrida’s claim that his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology can be applied just as well to Merleau-Ponty’s will be challenged. Thirdly, it is a careful consideration of textual evidence that will be used to support these challenges. Finally, Merleau-Ponty’s late lectures will take us back to the Lévy-Bruhl letter and finally to Merleau-Ponty’s own phenomenology of language, one that integrates perception and language and yet that still privileges not eidetic essences or linguistic expression but perception as its primary term.

The Interpretation of Husserl’s Time-Consciousness in the Reconstruction of the Concept of Anthropic Time. Part Two

The purpose of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. Theoretical basis. The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). Originality. For the first time in the research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. Conclusions. According to Husserl, the structure of human time-consciousness is instantiated in three spheres of passivity: prerefleсtive cogito, embodiment, and intersubjectivity. Within the framework of the problem of phase differentiation of phenomenological time, an analysis of the potencies of consciousness in constituting the phases of time-consciousness, namely protentional and retentional potencies, has been proposed. In the context of the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time, several aspects of Husserl’s model of time-consciousness have been interpreted, including the paradoxical reconciliation of two quasi-incompatible ideas: the idea of the vagueness of the boundaries between temporal modes and the thesis of the formal capacity of preserving temporal units within their respective temporal phases. The property of multilevel complexity in the system of human temporality accounts for the diversity in the relationship of unique temporal units based on formal and content-related criteria ('temporal matryoshka').

Husserl and Disjunctivism: Reply to Bower

abstract: In a recent issue of the Journal of the History of Philosophy , Matt Bower argues forcefully against A. D. Smith's interpretation of Husserl as a disjunctivist. But I argue in this discussion note that the disjunctive reading of Husserl remains plausible. For it seems Husserl was committed to the idea that perceptions essentially have singular contents, while hallucinations do not.

The Interpretation of Husserl’s Time-Consciousness in the Reconstruction of the Concept of Anthropic Time. Part One

The purpose of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. Theoretical basis. The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). Originality. For the first time in research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. Conclusions. The comprehension of the Husserlian model of intentionality of consciousness through the "grasping-from-now" and the constitution of phases of phenomenological time through the component of "exiting-from-now" showed that solving the problem of phased-differentiation of phenomenological time leads to the observation of the impossibility of isolating the modes of past, present, and future as self-sufficient and unconditional. More accurate indications, based on the constitutive intentionality of consciousness on the "grasping-from-now" phases of time (as conventional), are as follows: a) the abilities of retention and recollection are the foundation for the constitution of the past and its connections to the present; b) the perception establishes the basis for the phase of the present itself; c) the possibilities of protention and anticipation (as forms of imagination) constitute the future and its connections to the present. By the concept of retention, Husserl fixes a certain primary memory (the present "now" of a past interval), which enables retaining the past in the present. The category of recollection or secondary memory is used by the philosopher to refer to the self-sufficient reproduction of past experiences (without being joined to present perception). The fundamental difference between recollection and retention is that the former re-presents a temporal interval, grasping its content and reproducing it as it was in the past, while in the latter, the perceived duration is presented as a fragment of time that has just passed. According to the German philosopher, the "grasping" of the present phase is performed by perception. Through the constitutive intentionality of consciousness, perception synthesizes the results of primary-actual activity and retentional holding of duration. The second part of the article will present solutions to the following research tasks: 1) analysis of the possibilities of protention and anticipation in constituting the future and its connections with the present; 2) understanding the possibility of using interpreted forms of Husser’s ideas in reconstructing the concept of anthropic time.

Husserl on How to Bridge the Gap Between Static and Genetic Analysis

The author argues that static and genetic phenomenological methods are complementary, rather than opposite, and by claiming this, the article presents a discussion with Derrida’s interpretation of Husserl’s philosophy. It is claimed that for an adequate understanding of the two forms of a phenomenological method, one has to take into consideration especially Husserl’s B III 10 signature manuscripts. By referring to the manuscripts, the author reconstructs the object, limits, presuppositions, aims and character of both ways of inquiry. Moreover, the author claims that the differentiation of the two forms of the phenomenological method steams from Husserl’s inquiries into the concept of consciousness as defined in Ideas I.

Neutral phantasies and possible emotions: A phenomenological perspective on aesthetic education

In this paper I draw from Husserl’s lectures on ethics and manuscripts on phantasy to clarify the role and the structure of aesthetic education within a phenomenological theory of value experience. First, I show that Husserl’s take on emotions as material contents of value experiences involves the problem of justifying the validity of the relation between factual emotional states and ideal values. I then suggest, on the basis of some of Husserl’s phenomenological arguments on phantasy, that this discrepancy can be bridged through the enjoyment of art – that is, through a process of aesthetic education. I will focus, as Husserl does, on theatrical art as a case study. My aim is to support the claim that artistic phantasy offers us the possibility of an education of emotions by helping us to progressively explore the eidetic structure of emotional states in their individuality, but regardless of their isolated here and now (that is, of their factual occasionality). The first part of the argument refers mainly to the last chapters of Husserl’s Einleitung in die Ethik (1920/1924). The second part focuses on a 1918 manuscript. I conclude by hinting at how the idea of a phenomenological aesthetic education could help providing a coherent interpretation of Husserl’s ethics, while also contributing to the ongoing debate about fictional objects.

The Constitution of the Human Person as Discovery and Awakening

Scholars strive, in their treatment of Stein’s work, to express both a phenomenological concept of the human person, characterized by conscious and free spiritual activity, and a metaphysical concept of the person, seen as an individual essence unfolding throughout life. In Stein’s work, the two concepts are not simply juxtaposed, nor is there a shift from one to the other. Stein integrates her phenomenological research into a metaphysical framework. In the present contribution, I endeavor to show that Stein’s interpretation of Husserl’s concept of constitution focuses on the question of whether this constitution is to be understood realistically or idealistically and on the question of the constituting subject. I shall argue that Stein’s interpretation of constitution is closely linked to the lived experience she calls already in her early writings “self-discovery” and “awakening.”

Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You

This paper examines how Sartre’s early phenomenological works were influenced by Emmanuel Levinas’s The Theory of Intuition in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Sartre embraced two key aspects of Levinas’s interpretation of Husserl: 1) that phenomenology is an ontological philosophy whose foundation is the doctrine of intentionality; and, 2) that consciousness’s being consists in intentionality, which entails that consciousness is non-substantial as well as pre-reflectively or non-thetically aware of itself. In addition to adopting these views, Sartre also became gripped by a methodological problem raised by Levinas. Namely, phenomenology reflects on consciousness, yet reflection modifies the consciousness it reflects on. I argue that Sartre responds to this problem by developing two of Levinas’s ideas: that reflection is a motivated act and that reflection must adequately grasp consciousness’s temporality.

Gustav Shpet\u2019s Transcendental Turn

Shpet’s interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology has caused puzzlement because of the lack of clarity with which he treats the transcendental turn in Appearance and Sense (1914). I suggest that we find a more comprehensive discussion on the topic in Shpet’s 1917 article, “Wisdom or Reason?” There, Shpet reacts to Husserl’s treatment of a cluster of problems related to the latter’s transition to transcendental idealism. I read “Wisdom or Reason?” not only in relation to Husserl’s Logos article of 1911, but also to his 1907 lecture series “The Idea of Phenomenology.” My analysis of Shpet’s phenomenology reveals that he followed through with the transcendental turn, although his philosophy developed in a direction different from Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Shpet postulates a collective consciousness, in which meaning-constitution takes place, and discovers the “word” as the foundation for any cognition. Shpet’s phenomenology remains ontological, as he considers language or culture as the “form of being” in which human beings live. In “Wisdom or Reason?,” Shpet argues that we can have direct knowledge of this meaningful reality: being is not “represented” but “presented” in a word. A certain compatibility thus exists between Shpet’s phenomenology of cultural reality and Husserl’s search for the absolute validity of knowledge.

Existentialism and Ecstasy: Colin Wilson’s Phenomenological Account of Peak Experiences

This paper critically examines the philosophical foundations of Colin Wilson’s New Existentialism. I will show how Wilson’s writings promoted a phenomenological strategy for understanding states of ecstatic affirmation within so-called ‘peak experiences’. Wilson subsequently attempted to use the life affirming insights bestowed by peak states to establish an ontological ground for values to serve as a foundation for his New Existentialism. Because of its psychological focus however, I argue that Wilson’s New Existentialism contains an ambivalent framework for establishing ontological categories, which leads his thought into theoretical difficulties. More precisely, Wilson’s strategy runs into problems in coherently integrating its explicitly psychological interpretation of Husserl’s theory of intentionality within a broader, and philosophically coherent, phenomenological framework. Wilson’s psychological reading of Husserl’s transcendental reduction, for example, manifests tensions in how it reconciles the empirical basis of acts of transcendence with an essentialist conception of the self as a transcendental ego. The above tensions, I argue, ultimately render the New Existentialism susceptible to criticism from a Husserlian-transcendental perspective. After outlining a Husserlian critique of Wilson’s position, I end the paper by suggesting how some of the central insights of the New Existentialism might help to bridge the gap that persists between pure phenomenological description and metaphysics.

What has Transparency to do with Husserlian Phenomenology?

This paper critically evaluates Amie Thomasson’s (2003; 2005; 2006) view of the conscious mind and the interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction that it adopts. In Thomasson’s view, the phenomenological method is not an introspectionist method, but rather a “transparent” or “extrospectionist” method for acquiring epistemically privileged self-knowledge. I argue that Thomasson’s reading of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction is correct. But the view of consciousness that she pairs with it—a view of consciousness as “transparent” in the sense that first-order, world-oriented experience is in no way given to itself—is not compatible with it. Rather, Thomasson’s view is, from a Husserlian vantage point, self-undermining in the same way that any genuinely skeptical view is self-undermining: it undermines the conditions of its own possibility. This is one of the motives Husserl has for developing a same-order view of self-consciousness as the complement to his transparent method for self-knowledge acquisition.

What Awakens the Alien experience: starting from the incorporation of the lived body

ABSTRACTHusserl's phenomenology of intersubjectivity is often thought to fall into solipsism and thus be a failed project. One of the typical symptoms is the so-called “paradox of incorporation”. The key to avoiding the paradox lies in finding the motives that lead to alien experiences. An important effort in this direction is to extend the so-called phenomenon of “double sensation” limited to the tactile realm to all perceptual realms. However, the legitimacy of the extension is based on the recognition of a pre-subjective, anonymous, and impersonal dimension, which exorcizes, but not answer the question. This article attempts to make a new interpretation of Husserl's fifth Cartesian Meditation. It focuses on the concept of “replacing” and argues that the motivational basis of alien experience is the desire for total naturalization.

Phenomenology’s Constitutive Paradox

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.

“Until the End of the World”: Eidetic Variation and Absolute Being of Consciousness—A Reconsideration

This paper suggests interpreting Husserl’s thesis of the “fictional destruction of the world” (gedankliche Destruktion der Welt) in the light of the eidetic method of variation. After having reconstructed Husserl’s argument and shown how it relies on the methodologically regimented joint venture of free fantasy and bounded concepts, the author concludes that (1) the a priori of a world, namely its empirical (more or less rational) style, is tantamount to the a priori of a world that can be possibly experienced by some conceivable form of consciousness. (2) If consciousness is a priori bound to transcendence, such transcendence is not necessarily supposed to be the transcendence of a world, for a non-world would be enough to entertain the intentional directedness. This twofold claim allows for a novel interpretation of Husserl’s principle of the asymmetry between world and consciousness.

Communicative Ethics and the Claims of Transcendental Phenomenology: Exploring the Foundations of Intersubjectivity

The Communicative ethics theories developed by Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel supports models of deliberative democracy that are broadly influential in many fields. A central claim of these theories is that the foundations of knowledge can be deduced from a transcendental analysis of the intersubjective exchange that occurs in logico-linguistic pragmatic discourse. For that reason, they have each been critical of the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and his followers (especially Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty), who look for foundations of knowledge in the pre- and extra-linguistic aspects of lived experiences. For Habermas and Apel, the phenomenological project is solipsistic. Nonetheless, Dan Zahavi’s interpretation of Husserl’s theory of transcendental intersubjectivity suggests that Husserlian phenomenology and communicative ethics are similar in that they agree that knowledge and meaning emerge in intersubjectivity (i.e., in interactions among individuals). They differ, however, in their claims about how intersubjectivity occurs. Zahavi shows how Husserl anticipated and defended against the claims of Habermas and Apel. For phenomenology, the lived experience of one person by another is a precondition to language and objective knowledge. This essay draws from several works in which Zahavi develops his reading of Husserl. It describes the epidemiological commitments of communicative ethics and Husserl’s defense of the phenomenological approach. This is a significant argument that holds implications for revising theories of deliberative democracy.

The Scope of Heidegger’s Hermeneutic Transformation in 1919 and Some Caveats Regarding His Interpretation of Husserl

The idea that Husserl’s phenomenology is a kind of reflective philosophy inspired by the Cartesian tradition has become a commonplace in the philosophical literature. Heidegger was one of the first thinkers who criticized the Husserlian emphasis on reflection and transcendental phenomenology. Since then it is easy to find the affirmation that Husserl and Heidegger developed two different, even antagonistic concepts of phenomenology. Here is not the place to continue embracing this discussion. Based on the complex development process of Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology in the course of his early lectures in Freiburg, the present paper weighs up some of Heidegger’s critical remarks regarding the reflective nature of Husserlian phenomenology in the light of important textual evidences ignored not only by Heidegger, but also by a surprising number of specialists in the fields of philosophy, cognitive sciences, and philosophy of mind.

The Creative Expression of the Sense of Experience

En este trabajo estudiamos la prioridad que Husserl otorga en sus primeras obras al sentido frente a la expresión, considerada improductiva. En sus últimos escritos, en cambio, la génesis del sentido es correlativa a la de la expresión y la comunicación intersubjetivas. De la mano de Merleau-Ponty, nos centraremos concretamente en el giro que supone El Origen de la Geometría de Husserl. No obstante, contextualizaremos en cada una de sus obras su reiterada interpretación de la intención husserliana de llevar la experiencia a la expresión de su sentido con el propósito de demostrar que nunca dejó de pensar con Husserl, tematizando incluso sus impensados. La concepción merleau-pontiana de la reducción incompleta, la intencionalidad operante y la fenomenología como interrogación así lo pondrá de manifiesto. Con ella, se abre, yendo más allá de Husserl, la posibilidad de una expresión creadora.

Sophie Loidolt: Anspruch und Rechtfertigung: Eine Theorie des Rechtlichen Denkens im Anschluss an die Phänomenologie Husserls

The lifeworld is saturated with claims, justifications, assertions, validities, values and reasons; it is, in a manifold of senses, the very domain of right. In this brilliantly argued book, Sophie Loidolt advances the compelling thesis that these structures of right and justification, broadly construed, not only shape lived experience, but are, as ‘‘fundamentale Weisen der Welterschliesung,’’ constitutive of subjectivity itself (p. 1). Loidolt takes as her point of departure the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and offers a detailed reconstruction of Husserl’s genetic analyses of theoretical evidence and justification found in his later writings, above all Experience and Judgment, as well as a thorough presentation of the main trends in the development of his ethical writings from 1908 to the end of his career. This project is not limited to reconstruction and interpretation of Husserl’s text, however, but has instead the goal of outlining a theory of ‘‘right thinking’’ (rechtliches Denken) on phenomenological grounds. A good part of this goal is achieved in the first part of the book, ‘‘Zur Genesis des rechtlichen Denkens bei Husserl,’’ which in turn divides into a discussion of Husserl’s conceptions of theoretical and practical reason. The second major part of the book, as the title ‘‘Horizonte von Kritik und Weiterfuhrung: Zur Genesis des rechtlichen Denkens bei Levinas und Apel’’ indicates, takes the principal results of the first part and further develops them in conjunction with a reflection on the phenomenology of alterity found in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, while also opening a dialogue with the transcendental pragmatics of Karl-Otto Apel. A key element of the theory of right that emerges from the first part is the Husserlian thesis of the pre-predicative origins of the basic sense of logical concepts such as modality, validity, and evidence (Chapter III). Modality here plays a particularly important role, and Loidolt specifically emphasizes the importance of a break with originary, passive doxa as the origin of the critical, and with that the

The Evidence of the Senses is no Evidence from the Senses

In the first part of this paper I suggest that Dogmatism about perceptual justification – the view that in the most basic cases, perceptual justification is immediate – commits to rejecting Evidentialism, as it commits, specifically, to accounting for the mechanics of perceptual justification otherwise than by maintaining that perceptual experiences justify by providing evidence. In the second part of the paper, by following W. Hopp’s recent interpretation of Husserl’s Sixth Logical Investigation, I suggest that Husserl’s theory of fulfilment provides the basis of the non-evidential account of the mechanics of perceptual justification needed to vindicate Dogmatism.