Phenomenological Critique Research Articles

Религиоведческое наследие Жака Ваарденбурга: критический анализ

The article discusses the legacy of a Dutch scholar of religion J. Waardenburg. Waardenburg criticizes the classical phenomenology of religion for its theological orientation, its idea of religion as sui generis phenomenon, its construction of a system of religious phenomena, its departure from the principles of philosophical phenomenology. The project of Waardenburg’s Neophenomenology is based on social and anthropological studies of religion with special emphasis on the cultural anthropology of C. Geertz. The methodology proposed by Waardenburg is rooted in the philosophy of M. Heidegger and hermeneutics of H-G. Gadamer. Waardenburg proposes to return to the apparatus of philosophical phenomenology, focusing on the process of intention. It seems that the main problem of the neophenomenological project is its applicability. In the writings of Waardenburg we see a lot of criticism of classical phenomenology, much less guidance on the principles of neophenomenological research and lack of specific research program. Waardenburg uses the same empathy, because religious scholar should reconstruct the intention of believers with the help of his own imagination. It seems that such a path is much more subjective than the project of classical phenomenology of religion, since the declared intentionality rests not even on the intuition and personal religious experience, as it was in classical phenomenology, but in the practice of actor’s game. The article also examines his book “Religion and religion...”, in which the principles of the new project ought to be shown, but on the contrary, religion is defined there as separate and independent sphere and universal phenomenon with a set of essential characteristics.

Dissensus, Irony, Dialectic

Dissensus, Irony, Dialectic

ПОТЕНЦІАЛ І МЕЖІ ФІЛОСОФСЬКОЇ АНТРОПОЛОГІЇ ЯК МЕТОДОЛОГІЇ ОБҐРУНТУВАННЯ МНОЖИННОЇ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ ОСОБИСТОСТІ

Philosophical anthropology proceeds from understanding the essence of man as a fundamentally open, unfinished entity in its formation. But it was just such a formation that the representatives of philosophical anthropology understood differently: some saw certain stages, stages of such formation, some distinguished certain classification types, and only in recent decades more and more anthropologists have drawn attention to multiple identities as anthropological characteristics of man. Anthropology, in this case, seeks objective, mainly natural, grounds for such a plurality: the splitting of subjectivity, for example, should not appear as an accursedness of chance, a psychiatric anomaly, but on the contrary - as a hidden mechanism, which gives the appearance of singularity to the surface of consciousness. Such a fundamentality of the anthropological approach is determined by most of its advantages, but it is precisely it that explains certain limits and even, in a sense, shortcomings, to identify which called philosophical anthropology - in any case, as the basic theory and methodology of the study of multiple identity of the individual.Life is heterogeneous, and therefore identity can not be homogeneous - as long as it is the identity of the living person, and not its image, created by the researchers as a certain codified version of the interpretation of this personality.Modern anthropologists, such as the French researchers Philippe Descola and Jean-Marie Schaeffer, focus on the specificity, certainty of human existence more than on its openness, uncertainty. For Descola the question is in defining of certain types of sociality that create the preconditions for the formation of different types of human identity. While Schaeffer goes much further and criticizes the metaphysical foundations of the monologue definition of human nature as the false in its basis, it is the false thesis of the exclusivity of man among all living forms.Deskola sees basic natural certainty of human peculiarities, but only takes into account existing and past versions of human identity. Future versions of human identity should also be taken into account, but this is somewhat problematic on a biological basis. Biology can only capture new versions of personality identity, but it is unlikely that they can be foreseen. However, everything that can be said about human identity has once arisen, that is, it just never existed. If Schaeffer’s critique of metaphysics and phenomenology is perfect in its orientation to the present and the past, then it clearly breaks down about the future. However, in the future, one can hardly expect the negation of most of the existing biological characteristics of a person – rather, we should talk about their very gradual, piecemeal improvement.Returning to the original contrasting theories of personality and the theory of social systems, it can be argued that theories of personality, which tend to humanitarian, interpretive interpretation of values, are closer to transcendentalist version of philosophical anthropology; however, the naturalistic version represented by Schaeffer, corresponds to the functional demands of social system theories and more rigid and invariant approaches of social sciences. Despite all the achievements of the natural sciences, one shouldn’t forget that they only realize the possibilities of actually proving counter-factual values that humanities give them. Thus, dehumanization of modern science does not appear as a world trend, but only as another challenge to the humanities. They have experienced a great number of such challenges – and giving each time new impetus for the development of natural sciences.Contradiction of transcendental and naturalistic approaches within the framework of philosophical anthropology should be regarded as somewhat conditional. In particular, both approaches provide sufficient grounds for substantiating the multiple identity of the individual. However, each of these approaches emphasizes the other aspect of the multiple identity of the individual: the transcendental one – the ability to create new versions of the identity of the person in the future, and the naturalistic one – on the classification, combinatorial opportunity to consider multiple identities in its actual diversity.

The Analogia Entis as a Standard of Catholic Engagement: Erich Przywara's Critique of Phenomenology and Dialectical Theology

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to the twentieth‐century Jesuit, Erich Przywara (1889‐1972), who was arguably the most brilliant and prolific Catholic philosopher, theologian, cultural and literary critic of the 1920s and 1930s, but is known today more by association with his friend Edith Stein or his protégé Hans Urs von Balthasar than for anything he wrote. Rather than focusing on any single work, however, this article focuses on his early understanding of the analogia entis as a synthesis of the teaching of Augustine, Thomas, and the IV Lateran Council, and on his subsequent deployment of the analogia entis as a Catholic standard in response to the dialectical theology of the early Barth and the phenomenology of Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger, respectively. Looking back to Vatican I and anticipating Vatican II, it is clear that Przywara was in the vanguard of the Catholic Church’s engagement with the modern world. What remains to be considered today, aside from his immense contribution to modern theology, is the merit of his responses to Barth and Heidegger at this time, e.g., his claim that dialectical theology, instead of being a corrective to modernity, was only a symptom of its fundamental imbalance, and that phenomenology, rather than overcoming or displacing a Catholic metaphysics of the analogia entis, is fulfilled in the ontological openness signified by it.

방법론적 맹신에 대한 도전 －사회과학 연구방법론의 규격성에 대한 현상학적 비판－

방법론적 맹신에 대한 도전 －사회과학 연구방법론의 규격성에 대한 현상학적 비판－

Jaspers en discusión con el pensamiento de su época

Jaspers, using Weber as a model, makes a negative critique of Phenomenology, Neo-Kantism and modern Human Sciences, althoug he admires the discipline and clarity of thought of the two first philosophic movements.

O pensamento crítico de Foucault: crítica da fenomenologia e do estruturalismo em Les Mots et les Choses

Este texto pretende situar Les mots et les choses (MC) no pensamento crítico de Foucault. Para tanto, três eixos de análise são apresentados. Um eixo contextual, que apresenta duas tendências da tradição filosófica francesa com a qual a obra se articula. Um eixo temático, que avalia a crítica à fenomenologia e ao estruturalismo em MC. Um eixo crítico, que considera que Foucault atribui à crítica uma experiência-limite. Assim, MC propõe um pensamento crítico à medida que atribui um diagnóstico do presente que expressa o ethos filosófico da atualidade: pensar acerca de nós mesmos novamente.

Theatre, Science, and the Popular: Two Contemporary Examples From Scandinavia

This article explores relations between theatre, science, and the popular, which have largely been overlooked by Nordic theatre studies. The aim here is to introduce and understand the variety of ways theatre may communicate science to the public, the point of departure informed by the historical development of the relations between the three concepts and Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological critique of modern science. The two analytical examples are Swedish Charlotte Engelkes’ and Peder Bjurman’s Svarta hål – en kvantfysisk vaudeville (2014) and Danish Hotel Pro Forma’s adult per­formance for children Kosmos+ En Big Bang forestilling om universets vidundre (2014).History of science reveals complex combinations of science and the popular in theatri­cal events that raises the question if the audience’s understanding of the scientific sub­ject matter itself always was – or has to be – the purpose of the popular science perfor­mance, or if it rather was – and is – about spurring interest by inspiring sentiments of wonder and reflection on science’s impact on life and outlooks. Newer conceptual devel­opments also suggest that it is not always the case that theatre is a tool for sci­ence popularisation, as a specific genre science theatre, but that scientific information and concepts are artistically interpreted by theatre, and not always in ways affirmative of the science. This later variant is called science-in-theatre. The two genres are demon­strated through the analyses of Svarta hål and Kosmos+, the claim being that the first was an ambiguous exposition of science, i.e. science-in-theatre, whereas the second established an artistically visionary affirmation, as regular science theatre.

Tomistyczna krytyka ontologii fenomenologicznej

Celem artykułu jest prezentacja i rekonstrukcja argumentów sformułowanych przez tomistów egzystencjalnych przeciwko ontologii uprawianej przez fenomenologów. Całość dyskusji zaprezentowano na ogólnym tle krytyki fenomenologii jako sposobu uprawiania filozofii. W artykule zaprezentowano najważniejsze argumenty, następnie oceniono ich wartość merytoryczną, biorąc pod uwagę kontekst historyczny, przedmiotowy i metodologiczny. Zwrócono uwagę na wartość tej dyskusji dla kształtowania dialogu filozoficznego między tomizmem a fenomenologią oraz na aktualność podejmowanej problematyki. Dialog ten u niektórych tomistów doprowadził do nowego przemyślenia szeregu kwestii metafizyki tomistycznej (np. struktury bytu intencjonalnego). Wskazano również, że współcześnie tomizm i ontologia fenomenologiczna mają wspólnego przeciwnika jakim jest naturalizm w różnych wariantach. W związku z tym rekomendowano, że między tomizmem a ontologią fenomenologiczną powinna zachodzić głębsza współpraca, gdyż tylko wtedy będzie można podjąć sensowną debatę z naturalizmem, który sięgając nawet po środki administracyjne stara się wprost wyeliminować tak metafizykę klasyczną, jak i fenomenologię.

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.

Criticism of Gehlen’s Theory of Instinct-Reduction and Phenomenological Clarification of the Concept of Instinct as the Genetic Origin of Embodied Consciousness

Abstract In the past 20 years, the concept of instinct has been discussed in respect to various disciplines such as evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, linguistics, ethics, aesthetics, and phenomenology, etc. However, the meaning of instinct still remains unclarified in many respects. In order to overcome this situation, it is necessary to elucidate the genuine meaning of instinct so that the discussion of instinct in these disciplines can be carried out systematically. The objective of this paper is to establish the genuine concept of instinct on the basis of a phenomenological criticism of A. Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction. Moreover, it seeks to show that this concept is the genetic origin of the embodied consciousness. According to Gehlen, instinct is defined as Instinkthandlung. However, this definition of instinct is problematic in the formal logical sense, since the definiendum (the instinct) is already included in the definiens (Instinkthandlung). Moreover, it faces different kinds of serious material problems. Criticizing Gehlen’s theory of instinct systematically, I will show that instinct should be redefined as “the innate living force that urges a species of living being to pursue a certain kind of object,” and I will attempt to clarify this definition of instinct in a more detailed manner by offering 11 points. Thereafter, I will argue that Gehlen’s theory of instinct-reduction has to be replaced by the theory of instinct-enlargement in human beings. Finally, I will point out that the genuine concept of instinct is nothing other than the genetic origin of the embodied consciousness.

‘This Is the View When I Walk into My House’

This article argues for the utility of phenomenology in accounting for the manner in which spatial methods yield insights into the everyday lived experiences of young people that are not as easily accessible through more traditional qualitative methods such as interviewing. Spatial methods, defined as methods that focus on the everyday spatial experiences of young people and methods that ask youth to position themselves in space, have been used by the author in a variety of research projects, and also incorporate certain visual methods. Phenomenological concepts such as the spatial perspective, the web of relations and opaque subjectivity are helpful in understanding not only that these methods work well but why they are so effective. The article also addresses Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of phenomenology, responding to his concern that phenomenology might be susceptible to ignoring or overlooking the social and political contexts that shape experiences.

Movement, Gesture, and Space in Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim

Phenomenological criticism has recently enabled readings of Conrad that consider more closely the writer's reference to the physical body in the text. This essay adds to discussions of Conrad's visual and epistemological strategies the exploration of physical presence, gesture, and movement. By reading Conrad's use of individual gesture and passages of movement in Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim in the context of contemporary innovations in theatrical dance in the period, the essay examines how Conrad's skepticism about language prompts him to use the silent action of his characters to express moments of affective intensity and to suggest the spatialization of time by the body.

The Opacity of Bodily Symptoms: Anonymous Meaning in Psychopathology

The Opacity of Bodily SymptomsAnonymous Meaning in Psychopathology René Rosfort (bio) Keywords Body, phenomenology, ontology, biology, emotions Through an original combination of phenomenology and psychoanalysis, Ingerslev and Legrand (2016) argue convincingly for a complex theoretical framework for making sense of bodily symptoms in psychopathology. The argument is particularly interesting because it manages to show how the theoretical efforts to arrive at a better understanding of bodily symptoms are connected closely with the ethical demand involved in the dialogical situation of therapy. The framework thus operates on two interconnected levels, on the one hand ensuring a more careful clinical differentiation of bodily symptoms and, on the other, encouraging the clinician to adopt a responsive stance that allows for those symptoms to be recognized as subjects of communication. This is a much welcomed contribution to the understanding of the vital role of the body in mental suffering, and to the ethical problem involved in not being attentive to the complexity of bodily communication in therapy. It is, of course, not possible to address all the subtle aspects of this rich article, so I will focus on the distinction between the ‘meaning’ and the ‘meaningfulness’ of bodily manifestations that is fundamental to the argument, but—in my view—not sufficiently articulated. I argue that the phenomenological approach to the ‘meaningful’ body advocated in the article needs to deal more carefully with the question of the ontology of the body. A phenomenological approach to the body is an appropriate methodological choice for a psychopathological investigation of bodily symptoms. Phenomenology focusses on and articulates the subjective, experiential features of bodily symptoms, whereas a biological approach to bodily symptoms normally employs an instrumental use of the experiential aspect to arrive at the objective, ontological features of those symptoms (what they are rather than how they are experienced). In this sense, phenomenology serves the important purpose of making us aware that bodily symptoms are expressions of a self-aware human being who experiences and acts as “a bodily-subject-in-the-world” (Legrand, 2011, p. 209; Zahavi, 1999, pp. 92–97), and as such these symptoms cannot be interpreted on a par with the biological manifestations of nonhuman organisms. The biology of the human body is complicated by the fact that humans are aware of their bodily functioning, and this awareness is part of the constitution and dynamics of the body. This complexity is at [End Page 69] the heart of the phenomenological critique of the ontological (pre)conceptions of the body at work in biological explanations of bodily symptoms (Ratcliffe, 2009, pp. 225–228; Zahavi, 2010, pp. 5–7). We cannot simply adopt an observational stance that cuts through the personal character of bodily symptoms, that is, the experiential features, to arrive at a (preconceived) ontological explanation of the anonymous functions of those symptoms. This is what the authors convincingly argue for when insisting on the expressive and communicative features of bodily symptoms rather than operating with ‘an identified meaning,’ for example, a biological meaning of these symptoms in terms of distant evolutionary or proximate neuroscientific explanations (e.g., Murphy, 2008; Wakefield, 2007). And in a time dominated by naturalistic ambitions in psychiatry in the form of neuroscientific and evolutionary investigations into mental suffering, this insistence on a phenomenological approach to psychopathology that allows us to systematically take into account the (phenomenologically) ‘meaningful’ experience of symptoms, rather than merely focusing on the (ontological) ‘meaning’ of the symptoms, is more necessary than ever. The insistence on phenomenology comes at a cost, however. The phenomenological perspective advocated in the article enables us to interpret bodily symptoms as meaningful. This meaningfulness is then further differentiated by distinguishing impersonal expressive bodily manifestations from the more personal, intersubjective character of communicative body language. This latter distinction between impersonal and personal aspects of bodily manifestations is an important recognition of the limits to the idea of bodily familiarity (i.e., my bodily experience is that which makes the world familiar to me) at work in some phenomenological accounts of the body (Ingerslev, 2013). The problem is, however, that the phenomenological notion of meaningfulness is not able to assess, let alone provide us with theoretical tools to explore, the complexity...

An introduction to Scheler’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity

The phenomenological reflection of „deception“ and „self-deception“ occupies a central place in Max Scheler’s whole phenomenological period. In contrast with „self-givenness“, „deception“ essentially means an inappropriate way of givenness, and „self-deception“ indicates an inappropriate way of givenness of the „self“. Based on the further criticisms and reflections on F. Brentano’s and E. Husserl’s related thoughts, Scheler distinguished „self-perception“ from „inner perception“, and attributed the primordial position to the „inner perception of the other“ via criticizing the „deception of self-perception“. He then obtained an account of a truly primary way of grasping the other, namely, the primary „self-givenness“ of „the other’s person“. This contributes to the possibility of Scheler’s „phenomenology of intersubjectivity“. In this paper, I will argue that Scheler’s phenomenological criticism of „self-deception“ and his phenomenological analysis of „inner perception of the other“ function as an „introduction“ to his „phenomenology of intersubjectivity“.

Phenomenology, Physiognomy, and the “Radio Voice”

The publication of Current of Music affords a reassessment of Theodor W. Adorno's years at the Princeton Radio Research Project. Although his encounter with the culture industry was made vivid and palpable during these years, this article reads Current of Music as a prolongation of his earlier concerns with a critique of Husserlian phenomenology and an analysis of Wagnerian phantasmagoria. I argue that Adorno's method for radio research is phenomenological, modified to accommodate dialectics. This modified phenomenology, renamed “physiognomy,” aims to expose phantasmagoria, the occultation of the means of production, masked in Husserlian phenomenology by its static categories and reductions. Given the prominent role of physiognomy as a form of social critique in Adorno's later writings, Current of Music offers a unique opportunity to see the concept at work in its earliest formation.

Whither with the Will? : A Phenomenological Critique of Free Will, Ethicality and the Idea of the Animal

Whither with the Will? : A Phenomenological Critique of Free Will, Ethicality and the Idea of the Animal

Sociology as a Naïve Science: Alfred Schütz and the Phenomenological Theory of Attitudes

Alfred Schutz is often credited with providing sociology with a firm ground derived from phenomenology of science and justifying it as a science operating within natural attitude. Although his project of social science draws extensively on Edmund Husserl’s theory of attitudes, it would be incorrect to assume that Schutz shares with the founder of phenomenology his conception of science. This paper compares Husserl’s and Schutz’s views on the structure and meaning of science and traces the roots of their radical divergence. Whereas Husserl increasingly emphasises the importance of phenomenological reduction for the genuine human science, Schutz eventually rejects reduction and restricts the social science to a specific system of relevancies within the reality of the lifeworld. This paper presents the argument that Schutz’s conception eliminates the possibility of a phenomenological justification of social science, as it implies that there are no rationally justifiable grounds to pursue science. In this way, Schutz’s views substantially differ from the phenomenological theory of science and become open to the phenomenological critique of naivety.

Against the Sartrean Background: Ricoeur’s Lectures on Imagination

The paper addresses Ricoeur’s critique of Sartre in light of Ricoeur’s unpublished Lectures on Imagination. I argue that Ricoeur’s critique is twofold: hermeneutical and phenomenological. The hermeneutical critique relies on two central claims, namely, that Sartre fails to distinguish productive and reproductive imagination and that this distinction is language-based. I argue that neither claim is justified. The phenomenological critique casts doubts on Sartre’s sharp distinction between the real and the imaginary. It relies on Ricoeur’s phenomenology of painting, which offers an alternative way to distinguish productive and reproductive imagination. In place of a conclusion, I inquire into the reasons why Ricoeur, who considers imagination a theme of central philosophical importance, never wrote a separate book on imagination. I maintain that the reasons are methodological: the phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches to imagination are irreconcilable since the first one relies on the primacy of pre-predicative experience, while the second one is based on the primacy of language.

Husserlian Phenomenology and Colaizzi's Method of Data Analysis: Exemplar in Qualitative Nursing Inquiry Using Nursing As Caring Theory

Abstract This paper discusses qualitative nursing inquiry from the perspective of Husserl's phenomenology, Colaizzi's method of data analysis, and Boykin and Schoenhofer's theory of Nursing As Caring. Another important purpose of the paper is to clarify in understandable terms distinctions between descriptive and interpretative phenomenology. There are four sections: Overview of Phenomenology, Critique of Husserl's Phenomenology, Colaizzi's Method of Data Analysis, and an exemplar of application using the study of the lived experience of commercial sex workers. Discussion of the research is grounded in the assumptions of Boykin and Schoenhofer's theory of Nursing As Caring and guided by a conceptual model to facilitate translation to practice.