Phenomenology Of Language Research Articles

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 VARIETY OF INVARIANCE IN FORMAL AND REGIONAL ONTOLOGIES

The paper examines the invariance principles proposed by the analytical and phenomenological traditions for demarcating the boundaries of formal and regional ontologies. The principle of invariance with respect to isomorphic transformations, generalizing Alfred Tarski’s criterion for logical concepts, is extended to formal ontology as the theory of manifolds in its phenomenological interpretation. Isomorphism types, which are abstract individuals of the highest order, hypostases of forms of all possible ontologies, are considered as model-theoretical analogs of manifolds. The correlativity of the phenomenological principles of demarcation of ontological regions and the criterion of invariance with respect to isomorphic transformations is demonstrated, leading to the convergence of logic and formal mathematics in both traditions and, at the same time, to the exclusion of geometry from formal ontology. Particular attention is paid to the discussion of the analytical and phenomenological traditions of the synthetic (material) a priori and the contribution that Wittgenstein’s doctrine on internal relations at different stages of its evolution makes to this discussion. The paper reveals the basis for later Wittgenstein’s criticism of his earlier project of creating a phenomenological language for expressing internal regional relations (such as the colours exclusion). The paper shows how Wittgenstein’s doubts about the possibility of an ideal notation based on the dichotomy of the logical and phenomenological led him to the study of invariants arising in language games. These invariants are not determined by the special properties of the categorical objects of formal ontology or the structures of regional subject matter, but are stable equilibria generated by the “consensus of actions.” New perspectives are outlined that are opened for logic and phenomenology by switching focus from the invariants of ontological structures to the invariants of structured interactions of various agents.

Life as Metaphor in Derrida and Fink

This article explains how Derrida’s notion of an originary or generalised metaphoricity can be understood in terms of the analyses presented in Voice and Phenomenon (1967) in response to Eugen Fink’s question of a ‘transcendental logos’ and of the paradoxical ontological status of phenomenological language. Tracing Fink’s impact on Derrida, as well as the key differences between them, the article shows that underlying Derrida’s reappropriation of the phenomenological concept of ‘life’ is an expansion of indicative relations—which in Husserl typify the function of signs within intersubjective communication and modes of judgement characterised by the non-presence of the intended object—to a general feature of the ‘living present’. While for Fink the indicative or metaphorical nature of the transcendental concept of ‘life’ does not threaten the founding unity it serves to name, for Derrida it is this very unity which is undermined by the proliferation of indication at the core of temporal experience.

From the Human Logos to the Divine Logos: The Anthropological Implications of the Christian Logos-Flesh in Klaus Hemmerle

The concept of logos takes on a new and interesting connotation through Christian revelation. The logos—word, discourse, reason—becomes human-divine flesh. Moreover, God, who is Word, needs human words to explain and reveal himself to human beings. In so doing, God lowers himself to the human level, thus becoming manipulable, but at the same time, he makes human words and, consequently, human beings greater and of higher dignity. As a result, the human person becomes the giver of language to the one who allows him to speak. In this paper, I will highlight the consequences of a logos becoming flesh for anthropology, following the line of thought of Klaus Hemmerle. In particular, I will focus on Hemmerle’s trinitarian perspective and his phenomenology of language as a means for explaining Christian revelation.

Difference and presence: Derrida and Husserl’s phenomenology of language, time, history, and scientific rationality

Difference and presence: Derrida and Husserl’s phenomenology of language, time, history, and scientific rationality

Figurative Speech as Phenomenological Problem

This article aims to investigate the nature and role of linguistic “images” in Husserl’s philosophy. At first, I will explain the idea of rigorous language emerging in relevant pages of Ideas I as well as the challenges that linguistic “images” pose to it. I will then examine the nature of linguistic “images,” relying on the reflections collected in Husserliana XXIII to show their nature of intuitive-imaginative syntheses. Finally, I will focus on the role that such “images” play in phenomenologizing. Taking decisive cues from Fink and Adorno, I will show the figurative essence of Husserl’s operative concepts and the productivity of “conceptual constellations” in phenomenology. The main contention of this article is that the rigor of phenomenological language essentially relies on a peculiar imaginative experience.

Nathan J. Chambers. Reconsidering Creation Ex Nihilo in Genesis 1

Nathan J. Chambers. <i>Reconsidering Creation Ex Nihilo in Genesis 1</i>

HUSSERL’S LANGUAGE OF NEUTRALITY

Husserl intended the phenomenological method as a new beginning for philosophy. The epoché, the key notion of this method, entails a modification of attitude such that it can completely cancel and disempower all that might be given to us and that might be used for philosophical inquiry. In Ideas I, in particular, this is addressed as the “neutrality modification,” and defined as a universal modification of consciousness that permeates the phenomenological attitude. Neutralization, along with the method, is described by relying on what Husserl calls the “language of neutrality,” which is actually spoken while investigating in the phenomenological attitude, enacted in the descriptions, and also discloses a series of rather peculiar acts that must be performed in order to obtain the phenomenological attitude. This paper discusses the phenomenological language of neutrality, first presenting what “neutrality” means, as well as illustrating the essential expressions of this peculiar language (such as “to put out of action,” “to bracket,” “to suspend,” and so on), then situating it in the context of phenomenological analyses, particularly as regards those devoted to phantasy experiences. Finally, going back to early interpretations of Husserl’s transcendental philosophy, notably the critical readings provided by Levinas and Fink, some key features of the method of epoché are pointed out, suggesting that the study of the specific neutrality involved in the latter can contribute to answering the question of what kind of act epoché is, and if it can even be considered an act at all.

Taking time for new ideas: learning qualitative research methods in higher sports education

ABSTRACT Even though qualitative research methods are considered important and have become more commonplace in research related to the sport sciences, there is little insight into the efforts made by sport science students to learn qualitative research methods. In this article, the authors use a course on qualitative methods inspired by a phenomenological approach to higher education in sport as a case study to examine students’ learning efforts. The data is based on qualitative interviews conducted with six students. Analysis of the interviews reveals the challenges in learning to think from a phenomenological perspective in an institutional context that emphasises quantitative methods. The study shows that it is challenging for students to shift from a linear, cause-and-effect approach to a more social, inter-body and subjective approach to learning and knowledge production. This becomes apparent both in the students’ views on the framework of the course and in their responses to teacher feedback. Our research indicates that the students’ previously established learning methods involved receiving unambiguous instructions and definitions from their teachers, but that they had not been taught to include themselves in the meaning-making process. Since phenomenological language has not yet become an embodied part of the students’ academic language, their experiences of the course are marked by preconceived ideas about teaching and research. The students’ experiences provide feedback on the quality of teaching and indicate that teachers are not sufficiently aware of how unfamiliar students are with the ideas and perspectives they are teaching, and that students need (more) time to fully understand these.

Givenness, Saturation, and the Self: A Phenomenology of Christian Initiation

Phenomenology holds great promise yet underdeveloped potential for ritual studies and liturgical theology. As phenomenology has indeed taken a “theological turn” and the contentiousness of such an approach abates, questions remain as to what insights, concepts, and language phenomenology can offer to deepen our understanding of Christian ritual practices. Specifically with respect to rituals of initiation, does phenomenology open new avenues of appreciation for the sacrament of baptism, to enrich and to deepen the faithful’s experience of these rituals? This article considers insights afforded by a phenomenological approach to the sacrament, in particular with regard to adult baptism and the catechumenate in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), the rite of reception and sacramental initiation into the Roman Catholic Church. Considered through such lenses, a phenomenology of baptism promises to open new avenues of ritual understanding, theological appreciation, and depth of prayer. Drawing primarily from the work of Jean-Luc Marion, this article also considers prominent critiques of his work to articulate a phenomenology of baptism as an experience of givenness and reception, of identity formation within and through an ecclesial community, and of prayerful preparation for Christian neophytes.

The Lived-Body: A Moving-Feeling Experience

ABSTRACT This article presents a developmental and somatic approach to the process of contacting and posits how a fuller understanding of movement progressions illuminates that one exists only in relation to the other. Six Fundamental Movements, described in the infant–parent relationship as primary motor-affective supports for contact making, provide a phenomenological language for subverbal interactions throughout life. A family case vignette of mother and son demonstrates the way in which the integration of these six movements as diagnosis and treatment enables the practitioner to make a discovery: how early historic kinetic-kinesthetic relational themes constitute and are constituted by the present, and can be felt and seen through movement.

Bewitching Oxymorons and Illusions of Harmony

Wittgenstein’s account of how language bewitches one’s intelligence is a singular achievement in the phenomenology of language. In section 426 of Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein famously claims that the meaning of a word is to be found in the “actual use” of it, and he contrasts this understanding with the projection of a picture:&#x0D; A picture is conjured up which seems to fix the sense unambiguously. The actual use, compared with that suggested by the picture, seems like something muddied. ... [T]he form of expression we use seems to have been designed for a god, who knows what we cannot know; he sees the whole of each of those infinite series and he sees into human consciousness. (Wittgenstein, 1953, section 426)

ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE CONTEXT OF WITTGENSTEIN’S MANUSCRIPTS FROM 1929–1933

The article treats Ludwig Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts where he formulates the problem of impossibility of “phenomenological language” defined by him as the “description of immediate sensual perception without any hypothetical supplementation.” One may find this phase of his philosophy (1929–1933) a bit paradoxical because the philosopher claims this phase, from the very beginning, to have been overcome; we deal here with philosophical self-criticism. The Lewis Carroll’s paradox is considered in terms of analogy to this criticized project of “phenomenological language”—the paradox of a ridiculously exact map which coincides with the mapped area. We open up new possibilities for comparison between the Wittgensteinian project of the “primal language” and Husserlian, Heideggerian and Finkian projects of “phenomenological language.”

TECHNO-TELEPATHY &amp; SILENT SUBVOCAL SPEECH-RECOGNITION ROBOTICS: DO ANDROIDS READ OF ELECTRIC THOUGHTS?

The primary focus of this project is the silent and subvocal speech-recognition interface unveiled in 2018 as an ambulatory device wearable on the neck that detects a myoelectrical signature by electrodes worn on the surface of the face, throat, and neck. These emerge from an alleged “intending to speak” by the wearer silently-saying-something-to-oneself. This inner voice is believed to occur while one reads in silence or mentally talks to oneself. The artifice does not require spoken sounds, opening the mouth, or any explicit or external movement of the lips. The essay then considers such subvocal “speech” as a mode of writing or saying and the interior of the mouth or oral cavity as its writing surface. It briefly revisits discussions of telepathy to recontextualize Heidegger’s warning against enframing language exclusively within calculative technics and physiology, which he suggests is detrimental to Mundarten (mouth-modes of regional dialects). It closes in reconsideration of Husserl’s phenomenology of language and meaning in Ideas as it might apply to subvocal speech-recognition interfaces. It suggests ways by which the electrophysiology that the device detects and deciphers (as an alleged intention of a presumed natural language unspoken vocally or aloud) might supplement Husserl’s insinuation of the Leiblichkeit of language through a self-stamping extraction of an extension of meaning.

Form, meaning, and reference in natural language: A phenomenological account of proper names

In my book Eigenname und Bedeutung (1996), I started from the observation that modern theories of proper names fail to do justice to the specific and complex semantic nature of proper names. Since the 1960’s and 1970’s, theorizing about proper names has been dominated largely by scholars working in the traditions of analytic philosophy and logic, in particular John R. Searle and Saul Kripke. I argued, however, that the highly specific kind of meaning typical of proper names should be studied within a theory more in touch with general linguistics proper. The main philosophical (especially referential) and logical (especially formal) accounts start from the assumption that a proper name is “backed up” by encyclopaedic information held by speakers of the referents (Searle), or that a proper name is a meaningless, yet rigidly designating sign (Kripke). In contrast to these views, I argue that a general linguistic definition of the proper name has to focus not only on logical and philosophical issues, but also on the specifically linguistic semantic function of the proper name as a “part of speech” in actual utterances. This approach has nothing to do with pragmatics or discourse analysis, but aims at describing proper names and appellative nouns as categories of speech in language use, bringing into play a functional focus on proper names that has largely been lacking in definitions of the proper name so far. An outline of a semantic theory of proper names is then proposed based on some aspects of a “phenomenology of language and linguistics” as found in the work of Edmund Husserl and Eugenio Coseriu. Roughly speaking, Husserl represents the general epistemological implications of the paper and Coseriu its specifically linguistic aspects.

Husserl, the Differend and Kafka's the Trial

Kafka’s The Trial is remarkable, amongst other reasons, for the description of the dissolution of K’s confused and painful life-world.1 Not unlike Elaine Scarry’s account of the phenomenon of torture in The Body in Pain,2 K slowly loses his familiar language through which he speaks and writes in his daily social relations with others. K still speaks the words which represent the concepts with which he is familiar. And yet, his relationships with others become monologic. There seems to be no other who, unlike in his past private and professional life, can respond to his words in a manner with which K can understand. The others do respond. But they respond by emplanting meanings into K’s words, meanings which only possess value within the discourses of self-styled legal experts and officials who act in K’s name. The experts and officials take their own meanings as authoritative. K fails to gain access to their meanings. The question, posed by Husserl’s phenomenology of language, is “why?”.

Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1–11

Reading Genesis Well: Navigating History, Poetry, Science, and Truth in Genesis 1–11

Język teorii naukowych wyjaśniających procesy społeczne. Wprowadzenie w problematykę

W artykule weryfikowano dwie hipotezy. Znaleziono argumenty na rzecz wycofania się z klasyfikacji języka danych wskazującej język behawioralny i fenomenologiczny, na rzecz wyodrębnienia języka nomotetycznego i idiograficznego jako kryterium naukoznawczej analizy teorii. Znaczenie tej drugiej klasyfikacji jest zgodne z praktyką analityczną, jaką stosował Madsen – twórca pojęć języka behawioralnego i fenomenologicznego. Bardziej skupiał się na kwestii obiektywizmu versus subiektywizmu i analizy uogólniającej versus indywidualizującej niż na tym, czego można było się spodziewać po oryginalnym znaczeniu pojęć języka fenomenologicznego i behawioralnego. Drugi wątek analityczny tego tekstu doprowadził do ustalenia, że ograniczenie języka danych do warstwy opisowej teorii – jak chciał Madsen – jest nieuprawnioną redukcją. A co za tym idzie wskazano potrzebę opracowania nowych klasyfikacji języka teorii dla jej wszystkich warstw.

Schizophrenia, language, and the phenomenological interview

This paper reviews various perspectives regarding the relationship between language and experience, including the challenges of using verbal descriptions to access subjective experience in psychiatric interviews (in both clinical and research settings). Schizophrenia is a specific case in which the experience of language may be altered, posing unique challenges in the context of the interview. The phenomenology of language in schizophrenia is briefly presented, with discussion of related alterations in interpersonal orientation, attention and context, underlying experience, and attitudes toward language. It is suggested that some of the challenges posed by language, particularly in schizophrenia, may be addressed through the use of semi-structured, phenomenologically-informed interviews like the EASE: Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience and the EAWE: Examination of Anomalous World Experience. Guidelines for the administration of these interviews are presented to assist with eliciting descriptions of subjective experience with a higher degree of detail and accuracy.

Function as Use. Wittgenstein's Practical Turn in the Early Manuscripts

The idea that the function of language is its use is commonly ascribed to the Later Wittgenstein. In this paper, I argue that there is textual evidence already coming from the early manuscripts (Ms) proving that Wittgenstein's philosophical development is culminating in the idea of function as use around 1929–30. I interpret a passage from Ms‐107 in order to show that Wittgenstein's practical turn has sources in different stages of his philosophical development, each of which is dominated by different ideas: the idea of a picture theory; the idea of a phenomenological language and the idea of function as use.