Transcendental Subjectivity Research Articles

Kant’s Transcendental-Psychological Approach to Metaphysics

ABSTRACT The paper reinterprets Kant’s Copernican revolution as a transcendental-psychological transformation in the approach to metaphysics. It tackles the prevalent scholarly view that Kant’s theory of the faculty of cognition appears incompatible with his broader metaphysical framework of transcendental idealism, primarily due to difficulties in integrating cognitive faculties such as sensibility and understanding within the dichotomy of appearances and things in themselves. The paper proposes that Kant’s transcendental psychology is neither a metaphysical-rational doctrine of the noumenal mind, nor an empirical-naturalized study of the phenomenal mind. Instead, it presents a theory centered on the transcendental subject as an abstract entity, positing it as the hypothetical bearer of the cognitive functions necessary for all potential finite cognizers, with humans exemplifying a particular empirical realization. While empirical realizations of cognitive functions manifest through temporal-causal mechanisms, their transcendental grounds consist of abstract functional structures defined by unschematized categories. These transcendental functions, which determine the necessary conditions for objective cognition, also inherently define the fundamental structure of all possible objects of cognition. Kant’s metaphysical inquiry into the structure of reality is thus conducted through an examination of the faculty of cognition, showcasing a revolutionary transcendental-psychological approach to metaphysics.

W. SHAKESPEARE’S “HAMLET” IN CONTEXT OF E. LEVINAS’S PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT OF MAN: DISCOVERING ‘THE OTHER’ AS A MEANINGFUL SUBTEXT OF THE TRAGEDY

The article concentrates on the study of the relationship between literary-artistic and philosophical discourses in the process of verbalizing universal cultural meanings of existence and building a holistic concept of man as an uppermost task of creation and re-creation (interpretation) of a literary work through the example of W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet”. The article aims to interpret W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet” in the context of ideas of the French thinker E. Levinas, one of the founders of the philosophy of dialogue. The tasks of the study are to characterize the significance of the dialogical vision of personality for the contemporary interpretation of the classics of world literature, to reveal the importance of dialogue between artistic and philosophical discourses while cognizing the human being in his interaction with the world and to consider the system of images in W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet” with regard to the philosophy of the Other, developed in E. Levinas’s works “Time and the Other” and “Humanism of the Other”. The main research methods include culture-historical and hermeneutic methods applied in addition to the fundamental ideas of the philosophy of dialogue. The article deals with the tragedy “Hamlet” by W. Shakespeare as a prototext for E. Levinas’s philosophical work “Time and the Other”. Shakespearean reminiscences are characterized as important in terms of the development of the Levinasian concept of man. According to Levinas, the essence of the person is revealed in the dialogical interaction with the Other, which allows one to go beyond the present as captivity, discover the connections with the future in which the subject no longer exists, and achieve the eventful fullness of being, which leads to harmony and opens the way to the transcendental subject and eternity. The system of images in W. Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet” allows one to associate the title character with different variants of the Other, which become significant for him as he fulfils the Ghost’s will. The unfolding of the action can be interpreted as such that it features the establishment of dialogical interaction between the father and the son in its meaningful subtext. At the level of events, the achieved interaction is seen as the fullness of the characters’ personal existence (above all, that of Hamlet and the Ghost), which manifests itself in overcoming the boundary between life and death, restoring the normal course of history and asserting the necessity for the superiority of good over evil. Horatio, the actor (i.e. the First Player), and jester Yorick (an offstage character in the prince’s memories), each of whom represents the conditions necessary for genuine dialogical interaction (belonging to a tradition, empathy, carnival freedom and, therefore, the familiarity of contact with another person), become significant variants of the Other to Hamlet, metonymically equivalent to his father the king.

Existence Within and Beyond the Bounds of Mere Reason: The Confrontation Between Schelling and Hegel

In the multi-faceted trajectory of post-Kantian thought, Schelling—both the person and his philosophy—has always been a controversial figure. Popular historical accounts focus on his precocious interventions as part of the ‘Jena set’, initially building on Fichte's philosophy of the ‘I’, but quickly coming to challenge his predecessor's philosophical dominance. In the crucial period of the late 1790s, Schelling's most notable intervention was to develop a philosophy of nature alongside the Kantian and Fichtean theories of transcendental subjectivity, which caught the attention of Goethe and led to his appointment, at the age of twenty-three, as professor of philosophy at the University of Jena. But Schelling's life and philosophical work continued well beyond this well-documented period, culminating in a late system in which he developed key ideas surrounding freedom, existence, modality and the history of human consciousness that all revolved around a distinction between what he called negative and positive philosophy. This distinction, and his insistence on the need for the development of the latter mode of philosophy, came to challenge some of the core assumptions of the largely rationalist German idealist project and it remains, to this day, perhaps the most powerful alternative to the Hegelian system that rose to dominance already within Schelling's own lifetime, but also well beyond it.

Sentire – l’io. Annotazioni su dimensione estetica e corporeità in Kaulbach e Kant

Moving from Kaulbach interpretation of the third Critique, the paper proposes some considerations on the relationship between the aesthetical dimension and subjectivity in Kant. My aim, in so doing, is twofold. On the one hand, indeed, I want to reevaluate Kaulbach confrontation with Kant within the Kantian Studies. On the other, I aim to prove that every cognitive interpretation of the critique (such as Kaulbach’s) fails to understand Kant’s concept of transcendental subject. To do this, the paper articulates in three steps. A first, on Kaulbach’s book Ästhetische Welterkenntnis bei Kant. A second, looking for a definition of subjectivity by Kaulbach in an article of 1963. A third, finally, on the evolution of Kant’s thought between the Dissertatio of 1770 and the second edition of the first Critique.

Sohn-Rethel’s Unity of the Critique of Society and the Critique of Epistemology, and his Theoretical Blind Spot: Measure

Abstract Sohn-Rethel’s great idea was to ‘socialise’ Kant’s transcendental subject by combining it with Marx’s commodity-form. In so doing, he took on three challenges simultaneously: a) the timeless validity of modern natural science; b) the social genesis of empirically pure forms of cognition; and c) socialisation occurring through a purely social synthesis. However, Sohn-Rethel construed Marx’s value-form analysis as an empirical exchange of commodities and held that such exchange performs a real abstraction – in this way, he laboured under the very semblance that money engenders at the surface of society by virtue of its function qua means of exchange. This semblance can be rendered transparent by, on the one hand, explaining value in terms of capitalist valorisation rather than as a product of abstraction, and, on the other, developing money as the measure and form of this valorisation.

TRANSCENDENTALISM, NATURALISM AND ONTOLOGY

The opposition between transcendentalism and naturalism plays a key role in discussions about consciousness at the confluence of phenomenology and analytical philosophy. Associated with it is a whole range of research programs. However, the opposition between transcendentalism and naturalism in these programs is, as a rule, operational and not thematic in nature and presupposes that 1) Transcendentalism and naturalism as traditions are initially alien to each other; 2) The domain of their opposition is ontology. The article attempts to problematize these premises based on one historical circumstance. Turning to the texts of Kant, the founder of transcendental philosophy, I intend to show that transcendentalism, which was first substantiated in them, is a version of naturalistic ontology, that is, a peculiarly interpreted naturalism that identifies nature with its natural scientific model and excludes constituting subjectivity from ontology. It is built not on the naturalization of phenomenology, but on the transcendentalization of natural science. Reinterpreting the experimental method in the spirit of the Copernican turn, Kant substantiates the apodictic nature and lack of alternative to the ontology of nature by turning nature into a correlate of consciousness and strictly limiting the principles of mathematical natural science to the boundaries of the phenomenal world. As a result, the true theme of philosophy—the thing in itself and transcendental subjectivity itself—is taken beyond the boundaries of ontology. The thematization of the naturalistic origins of transcendentalism and the removal of transcendental consciousness beyond the boundaries of ontology, carried out within its framework, thus reveals the problematic nature of these premises. The article also demonstrates that, despite significant differences in the understanding of transcendental philosophy and ontology between Kant and Husserl, the identified motives—the naturalistic nature of the ontological foundation and the meta-ontological character of transcendental subjectivity—remain of fundamental importance for the founder of phenomenology. This allows us to conclude that ontology is not the original domain of confrontation between transcendentalism and naturalism and to substantiate the compatibilist thesis according to which transcendentalism is compatible with ontological naturalism.

Растения философов: Интеллектуальный гербарий (Травинки Лейбница (глава 7), Тюльпан Канта (глава 8))

The seventh chapter is dedicated to Gottfried Leibniz. In a letter to the English philosopher Samuel Clark, Leibniz recalls the episode in the park in connection with his famous principle of the identity of the indistinguishable, or simply "Leibniz's law". The futile search for two exactly identical leaves or blades of grass highlights a metaphysical principle that extends to the smallest elements of nature. If there are not two exactly the same, then they all bear the stamp of uniqueness and individuality, ultimately going back to the wisdom of the Creator. The ethical implications of this ontological axiom are obvious: to destroy a leaf, let alone a whole plant, means to get rid of something that will never appear again in exactly the same form. If there are many species of plants and if each species includes a myriad of subspecies, it is because they all must exist to actualize the infinite possibilities of Divine self-expression. The loss of biological diversity diminishes the richness of manifestations that God finds in the world. From the real park, the philosopher leads us into an allegorical garden depicting his understanding of matter. In paragraph 67 of Monadology, he urges us to imagine every part of matter like a garden full of plants and a pond full of fish. But every branch of a plant, every member of an animal, every drop of its juices is again the same garden or the same pond. Each part of matter, accordingly, is a garden within a garden within a garden — and so on ad infinitum. Thus, it can be said that the plant, as its capabilities become more relevant, expresses (a) the world, (b) God's vegetable view of (a), and (c) essence. As a non-verbal sign, it is oversaturated with meaning, it is entrusted to bear the weight of theological and metaphysical entities partially revealed through it. One can only welcome the philosopher's bold assumption that a plant is not a passive object available for manipulation by humans and animals, but a subject endowed with the ability to act. However, the weak point of this statement lies in the double comparison of animals with humans and plants with animals. The standard that all other living beings must meet is hopelessly anthropocentric, since it implies that animals are less perfect people, and plants are less perfect animals. Thus, an ancient metaphysical prejudice creeps into the philosophical system, which boldly put forward the vegetative idea of infinite matter and the expressive uniqueness of each leaf and each blade of grass. The eighth chapter deals with Immanuel Kant. In his penchant for abstraction, Kant reduces flowers to specimens of pure color, and tulips seem to him the purest of all. Its simple form does not distract us from the beauty of its pure color, and in this it perfectly matches the asceticism of Kant's philosophy and the austere splendor of his aesthetic thought. Kant views tulips as examples of completeness «belonging to no purpose», where by «purpose» he means those practical tasks associated with economic activity in the broad sense of the word. The meaning and essence of the tulip varies according to the field in which we encounter it: as a natural object of study and scientific inquiry, as a useful object of our practical interest, or as an alluring embodiment of the beautiful. In his personal writings of the 1760s, Kant defends the thesis that a plant is possible only in accordance with an idea, defining the latter as the a priori cognition of the understanding by which an object becomes possible. If the material aspects of human existence, according to Kant, do not deserve respect, then even less do non-human animals and plants, which have no share in the rationality of transcendental subjects. There is only one possibility of placing plants and animals under the umbrella of Kantian respect, and it has to do with human self-respect. Kant does not abandon the idea that flowers are vital links in the chain of plant reproduction by which the genus is preserved. In flowers, and in aesthetics in general, Kant sees a utopian prefiguration of human freedom. When he calls flowers «free beauty», he means their liberation from both natural necessity and conceptual understanding.

Empathy in Phenomenological Psychology and Psychotherapy

This study aims to focuses on the problem of access to other minds within phenomenological psychotherapy. The problem is that the Other is at the same time a phenomenon that is constituted by my consciousness and a transcendental subject located in objective reality. The author begins with the materials of the 1925 summer course of lectures given by Husserl in Freiburg, which set out the essence of the “new psychology” project. The new psychology should become an alternative to the natural-scientific approach, and should refer to direct individual experience. Therefore, it has intentional life as an object, refusing excessive theorizing about the psychological phenomena. The psychologist reveals the universal pre-experimental structures of consciousness through intuition, working with a priori forms. Empathy (German: Einfüllung) plays an important role in the work of a psychologist and psychotherapist. Husserl developed his concept of empathy through a rethinking of the theory of empathy by T. Lipps and understood it not as a mirror process, but as a projecting assimilation. Functional commonality allows you to create a bridge between the perceiving subject and the one who is perceived. Husserl’s concept of empathy became the basis for developing a number of productive therapeutic approaches. At the end of the article, two examples of such approaches are given: the phenomenological psychiatry of K. Jaspers and the method of subverbal communication of E. Gendelin.

The Nondiscursive Aesthetics of Music, Lyric Poetry, and Tragedy

Abstract: Is it possible to speak about the unspeakable as it is represented in music, lyric poetry, and tragedy? The answer is yes, if we adopt a purely aesthetic perspective. The answer is no, if we adopt the perspective of the transcendental subject as the metaphysical source of music, lyric poetry, and tragedy. In this paper, I conceptualize the nondiscursivity of music, lyric poetry, and Attic tragedy in the philosophical aesthetics of Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. I also make a few incidental remarks to Plato's Socrates and Aristotle as well as the Theban plays by Sophocles.

Kantian Motives in Work of Ludwig Wittgenstein

It is proved that the basic framework of the premises and reasoning of Wittgenstein's “Tractatus Logico-philosophicus” corresponds quite well to the transcendental method (as formulated by H. Cohen). Whereas Kant’s philosophy proceeds from the fact of existence of mathematics and mathematised natural science and investigates their conditions of possibility, Wittgenstein proceeds from the fact that propositions of language describe reality and reveals the conditions of possibility of such descriptions. Kant, answering the question about the conditions of possibility of the named sciences, comes to the idea of the transcendental subject and the distinction between the world of phenomena and the thing in itself. Wittgenstein's investigation of the conditions of possibility that the world is described by propositions leads to the assertion that both the world and language are together in logical space. The latter constitutes the a priori and transcendental condition of the possibility that language “reaches out” to reality. For both the theories - in the “Critique of Pure Reason” and in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” - the idea of the boundary is important. In the “Critique of Pure Reason” it is the boundary of possible experience and cognition, while in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” it is the boundary of what can be thought and expressed by meaningful propositions. Related to the different definitions of the boundary is the difference in the treatment of mathematised natural science. For “The Critique of Pure Reason” was created in the era of unconditional acceptance of Newtonian mechanics. And the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” was created at the time of the crisis of the Newtonian paradigm and its replacement by other notions of time and space. However, the idea of boundary, which is present in both doctrines, determines closeness in the attitude towards metaphysics between the author of “The Critique of Pure Reason” and the author of “The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus”. The study also shows that Wittgenstein did not follow logicism in his philosophy of mathematics. For him, both mathematical objects and propositions of logic are constructions. The conviction about the constructive character of mathematical and logical objects shows an affinity with the Kantian tradition in the philosophy of mathematics.

КОНЦЕПТ ОСОБИСТОСТІ В ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГІЧНІЙ ФІЛОСОФІЇ ЕДИТ ШТАЙН І ФІЛОСОФСЬКІЙ АНТРОПОЛОГІЇ МАКСА ШЕЛЕРА: ПОРІВНЯЛЬНИЙ АНАЛІЗ

The article provides a comparative analysis of the concept of personality in Edith Stein's phenomenological philosophy and Max Scheler's philosophical anthropology. Both German philosophers considered the concept of personality from different positions, in some points there is a certain similarity, but their approaches have their own characteristics. Philosophers recognized the importance of individuality and social context for understanding (defining) personality. Stein considered the individual from the standpoint of the phenomenological method, and emphasized the uniqueness and inimitability of each specific individual, with his "intimate" way of existence. For Scheler, man is a metaphysical being, he as a person is filled with joy because of his higher, cosmic destiny, the Author of which is God. Man (personality) occupies a unique place in the universe, and all evolution is directed to the "center of the spirit" or "self-possessed energetic self", that is, the self-personality. Personality, for Stein and Scheler, is the ability to make mature decisions, to be responsible, to have a clear and critical mind. It should be emphasized that Stein and Scheler, in their reflections on personality, reject the phenomenological-transcendental reduction as presented in the Husserlian tradition. For Husserl, the transcendental subject is not separated from world experience. It is essentially connected with the world and its intersubjectivity. The transcendental dimension of personality requires a lively consideration of well-known existential topics, such as: social and spiritual responsibility. The approach of the philosopher is marked by the analysis of experience and consciousness, in particular, she paid attention to special intentionality in the formation of personal experience. Max Scheler considered intentionality not in the traditional Husserlinian phenomenology, but personality in the context of the cultural and social environment, paying attention to the above-mentioned factors on the generation and development of personality. The German philosopher interpreted personality as a "reasonable body", the unity of body and mind, where physical manifestations and actions affect mental processes, and mental activity affects the physical state, taking into account physical, mental and social aspects. Thus, E. Stein improved the analysis of consciousness and experience, and M. Scheler focused on the social context and the interaction between the individual and the environment

Non-adaequatio: Negative Dialectics in-between Kant and Hegel

The aim of this article is to frame Adorno’s concept of ‘nonidentity’ in the context of German idealism, namely, the philosophies of Kant and Hegel. The thesis to be defended is that “Secularization of Metaphysics” entails relinquishing, as well as prolongation of the German idealist tradition. The argument is developed in the following steps: 1) the constitution of an autonomous transcendental subject is shown to be rooted in the idea of Enlightenment; 2) by reconstructing Adorno’s conception of truth as non-adaequatio, I claim that Adorno’s philosophy is conducted from the perspective of the end of philosophy; 3) the sociohistorical character of the concept of ‘nonidentity’ is discussed in relation to Adorno’s understanding of history; 4) the concept of ‘nonidentity’ is discussed as implying a continuation of the Kantian project on a metacritical level; 5) Adorno’s critique of Kant is reconstructed in the context of Hegel’s Faith and Knowledge.

KANT AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF PURE REASON: AN ANALOGY WITH A CHEMICAL EXPERIMENT

This paper defends a constructive interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason, which is built in analogy with an experimental construction that Kant believes to characteristic of chemistry. I also argue for a way to reconcile the methodological perspective of the constructivist method with that of transcendental reflection. I therefore provide a constructive explanation for what Kant describes as being pure reason and the argument of the transcendental deduction. I propose to frame the different perspectives in such a way that the experimental construction is the ratio cognoscendi of pure reason, while pure reason is the ratio essendi of the experimental construction. O’Neill (1989, 2015) is one of the most important scholars that have argued for a constructivist reading of the Critique of pure reason (CPR). In this paper I develop and explore new aspects of this line of interpretation. One of the main criticisms raised against constructivist readings of Kant’s philosophy is an alleged commitment to subjectivism or voluntarism (cf. Kleingeld & Willaschek 2019). This concern led some scholars to rename their position as constitutivist instead (Korsgaard 2009; Sensen 2013, 2017; Formosa 2011). Constitutivism, is intended to be a sort of constructivism capable of avoiding voluntarism. However, it becomes difficult, sometimes, to differentiate between the constitutivist and foundationalist positions, which are based on transcendental reflection and imply a sort of realist perspective on reason. The same preoccupation applies to the constructivist interpretation of the CPR. In order to deal with this issue, the following questions must be addressed: how can constructivism justify the necessity and universality of transcendental principles of pure reason without compromising the normative and procedural aspects of the construction? How to reconcile arguments based on the analysis of representations and faculties with a constructivist procedure? Or even, how may transcendental reflection, as a view of the possibility of a priori cognition, be rendered compatible with a constructive procedure? This paper is divided into three sections, followed by brief final remarks. The first section outlines the main characteristics of constructivism and relates them to Kant’s positions about the nature of philosophy and its method. The second part argues for a type of experimental constructivism that might serve as a guiding analogy to understand the method underlying the CPR. Thirdly, I will show how the transcendental subject and pure reason are derived from this experimental construction. The conclusion briefly points out some advantages of this position.

Selfhood and alterity: schizophrenic experience between Blankenburg and Tatossian.

This paper presents a critical comparison between two phenomenological accounts of schizophrenic experience: on the one side, Blankenburg's seminal work on the basal disturbance (Grundstörung) of schizophrenia as loss of natural self-evidence (Natürlichen Selbstverständlichkeit); on the other side, Tatossian's insight, briefly elaborated in a lecture presented in Heidelberg in 1994 and largely forgotten by the relevant literature. Whereas the former mainly develops an intersubjective reading of schizophrenia, the latter suggests an intrasubjective understanding. Indeed, for Blankenburg, schizophrenic experience can be broadly characterized as a progressive impoverishment of our rootedness in the social world, leading to derealization and depersonalization. In this respect, Tatossian takes schizophrenic autism not as the effect of a loss of originary sociality but as the result of a deeper disproportion. For Tatossian, schizophrenia is characterized, ultimately, by a basic self-disorder or alteration that consists in the breakdown of the twofold dimension of transcendental subjectivity, encompassing both constituting consciousness and phenomenologizing onlooker. In this sense, his interpretation of schizophrenic disorders is closer to the ipseity-disturbance model. I show that while Blankenburg and Tatossian share a dialectical understanding of schizophrenia by pointing to basic modifications of the "transcendental organization" of experience, their divergence originates from a different reading of the phenomenological epoché. Except for the clinical perspective, the point of contention between Blankenburg and Tatossian seems to concern their use of internal resources of the Husserlian phenomenology. By presenting the philosophical presuppositions of their analyses, I discuss two key figures of phenomenological psychopathology by showing how their debate on the meaning of schizophrenic experience can be reframed by looking at the relationship between transcendental subjectivity and intersubjectivity in Husserl's phenomenology.

Tagore's Subject Consciousness: Perspectives on Divinity

As a pioneer of cross-cultural dialogue between the East and the West, Tagore's creation of a subject consciousness is of great significance to the understanding of Asian civilisation, but it has not received due attention in academic circles. His construction of subjectivity reflects the characteristics of Asian civilization. Under the influence of the thought of Brahma, humanity is the spiritual subject in the relationship with nature and the divine. Tagore's transcendent subject is different from the West's subject which is completely defined by apposition with the object. As a force of reflection, the subject consciousness infiltrates Tagore's thinking on the relationship between Eastern and Western civilisation from the perspective of cosmopolitanism using the Asian philosophies of the relationship among nature, others and even the self. Tagore's construction of subjectivity is of great significance for communication and mutual learning between Eastern and Western civilisation.

Эгологическое исследование феномена субъективного пространства

Abstract. The article presents a phenomenological analysis of the space of transcendental subjectivity. The relevance of this study is to form an idea of the internal spatial structures of the pure I. The purpose of this study is to identify the complex nature of self-consciousness. To achieve this goal, the egological analysis was based on a mereological approach, which prepares the consideration of the space of pure consciousness from the point of view of the whole, composed of parts. The application of spatial categories to the pure Self is based on the expansion of the proximity space. The results obtained indicate the need to create an egology of space in order to study the nature of spatial vision. The proposed research focuses not on the variety of available spaces, but on the process in which their formation takes place in subjective spatial vision. The influence of the subjective factor on the understanding of space is demonstrated by the example of mathematics. The mathematical notion of “proximity space” is subjected to a phenomenological extension, which reveals the phenomenon of spatiality of the pure I, or the inner space of the subject, which reflects the hierarchy of preferences or evaluations. The primary spatial structure of pure consciousness is revealed, which is the division of pure I into two parts. The splitting of the Self into two constituent parts and its representation in the form of a spatial model with its top and bottom is funded by a deeper phenomenon — subjective spatiality. This structure can serve as a foundation for the subsequent correlative study of objective and subjective factors influencing the formation of various egological structures. Based on the analysis, a conclusion is made about the essential relationship of the pure I and the inner space. The importance of this conclusion is supported by an analysis of Husserl’s works, in which he touches upon the issues of the spatiality of transcendental subjectivity. The scientific novelty of the proposed work is that the distinction between absolute and relative intimacy is introduced into egological research. Only within the framework of relative intimacy is it possible to observe and systematically investigate the pure I. In the absolute position it remains anonymous because of its extreme intimacy.

JUAN DAVID GARCÍA BACCA’S READING OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHENOMENOLOGY. FROM INTENTIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO DEATH-FIGHTING CONSCIOUSNESS

The Navarre-Venezuelan philosopher Juan David García Bacca is one of the most notable and original figures of Spanish-speaking thought, although his work has not yet received the attention it deserves. One of the pillars of his philosophy consists of what he calls a transfinite anthropology that considers man as an entity that strives to enhance his being. This anthropological approach is based on a phenomenology of nature that emphasizes the becoming and the transformations that man effects in the world. In this philosophical context, García Bacca soon became interested in the work of Husserl, Scheler y Heidegger. This article deals with the way in which García Bacca describes and values Husserl’s descriptions of intentional consciousness. The problem that García Bacca poses to transcendental phenomenology concerns neither the reality of pure consciousness nor its objective scope. García Bacca is interested in finding out if there is a potentiation of the being of consciousness superior to or deeper than the self-reflection proper to the transcendental attitude. He discovers this potentiation in the notion of an “agonic consciousness” that resists the representation of its annihilation, and whose philosophical antecedent is found in the work of Miguel de Unamuno. Without sharing all of García Bacca’s interpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, the author of the article considers that it nevertheless raises relevant questions concerning the facticity and necessity proper to the transcendental subject.

Space and Time

The genesis of space and time is investigated within the rotational-monadic paradigm. It is established that the essence of the phenomenon of space is revealed through the dialectical synthesis of its two aspects — ideal and material, where the material aspect is represented by the metaphysical construct of protomonad. It is shown that basic physical distinctions such as motion, mass, gravitation find a meaningful hermeneutic through the material aspect of space, which has a purely discrete structure, while the contradiction about finitude — infinity is resolved by juxtaposing metaphysical and ontic spaces, where the Universe is represented as an “egg”. The analysis of temporality is preceded by remarks on the relational and substantive concepts of time, consideration of the discreteness-continuity dilemma, and criticism of the absolutization of discreteness in the temporality representation. It is argued that discreteness and continuity are combined dialectical oppositions through which the temporal reality is actualized, where continuity is hidden from observation in the metaphysical world and discreteness is manifested explicitly in the physical world. Three dimensions of time — Present, Past and Future — are discussed, as a result of which it is stated that in the primary way time is found as an attribute of consciousness and only in the secondary way it correlates with phenomenological reality. New differentiations of time are revealed: interval Present, embracing as a universum other moduses of the Present, and two- component time in the form of cyclic and linear components which allow us to make a justified positive conclusion about the existence of transcendental subjectivity, being the basis of absolute temporality.

The Paradox of Death and Subjectivity

In this paper I examine the paradox of human subjectivity in light of the tension between two forms of approaching subjectivity (as transcendental subject or as empirical being) along with two other paradoxes that, I will argue, are also the expression of the larger tension between first-personal and third-personal accounts of experience. One is the “crazy paradox” Merleau-Ponty points to in his analyses of Husserl’s reflection on the notion of Earth as ground in the text “The originary ark, the Earth, does not move”. The other is the paradox of death, that consists of the contradictory understanding of my own death as being certain yet unconstitutable. I present a brief description of Husserl’s developments on death and argue that its peculiarities present a challenge for the phenomenological method as a whole, and for the distinction between transcendental subjectivity and the empirical human being; then I offer a preliminary analysis of the Merleau-Pontian diagnosis of Husserl’s philosophy as well as Merleau-Ponty’s own way out of the paradox, and point out some of its insufficiencies.

К истокам «спора о Софии»: Е. Н. Трубецкой как критик софиологии

The recent growth in research interest in sophology forces us to revisit the criticisms of this teaching that were voiced during the so-called "Paris controversy". The failure of the critique of Father Sergius Bulgakov's sophology by the latter is becoming more and more evident. The criticism of Bulgakov's theology by theologians is becoming increasingly obvious. In particular, the sources of the doctrine were incorrectly identified, and the accusations of heresy made on behalf of some hierarchs of the Russian Church made it impossible to continue the polemic. It now seems that sophology was the moment of a crisis of philosophy in Russian theology. In order to make the critique of sophology more substantive, a revision of the accusations that have been made against Bulgakov's teaching is necessary. The article proposes a return to the first stage of the critique of sophology, which has not been continued due to historical circumstances. As early as 1918 E.N. Trubetskoy wrote that Bulgakov's main mistake was the Gnostic understanding of Sofia. According to Trubetskoy, introducing the qualities of subjectivity and psychologism into Sofia leads to a similarity with the demiurge from Plato's dialogue "Timaeus". The analysis of Trubetskoy's criticism shows that the real reason for this accusation was his rejection of the version of the solution to the transcendental problem of religion which Bulgakov proposed in 'The Everlasting Light'. Here Bulgakov, based on his Philosophy of Economy, develops the concept of Sofia in connection with the concept of the transcendental subject in Kant's philosophy and points out the fundamental connection of the above problematics with Kant's third critique. From Trubetskoy's point of view, a Christian resolution of the "problem of Sofia" is possible only by identifying Sofia with Plato's world of divine ideas. By the Christian doctrine of Wisdom he understands his own interpretation of Platonic idealism. An analysis of Trubetskoy's sophiological ideas leads to the conclusion that they incorporate both the views and intuitions of V.S. Soloviev and many of Bulgakov's ideas and are not original.