In this article, I analyze the evolution of Husserl's view on the normativity of logic and the corresponding changes in his phenomenological analysis of judgment. Initially, in the Prolegomena, Husserl claimed that the laws of pure logic are ideal and acquire normative status only as a result of application. Later, however, he revised this position and claimed that the same laws are at once ideal and normative. Sections 1 and 2 present textual evidence for attributing such a change of position (...) to Husserl, which is not generally acknowledged in the literature. Section 3 critically examines Husserl's early position, with specific attention to the model of instantiation. Sections 4–6 identify three key stages in the development of Husserl's theory of judgment that lead to the normative conception of pure logic: (1) the critique of the dissociation of ideal content and assertive force; (2) the rejection of the instantiation model of proposition and the development of a new account in terms of identification; (3) the genetic‐phenomenological interpretation of proposition and the elaboration of the three‐layer structure of pure logic. (shrink)

The paper provides a reconstruction of the notion of genetic phenomenology while trying to demonstrate that its elaboration leads Husserl to dismiss de facto the main motivation of his idealism—namely the idea that at the basis of constitution is an immanent and formless stuff shaped or animated by subjective acts. Indeed genetic analysis shows that the original stuff of constitution consists of sensuous contents structured according to a material lawfulness grounded on their peculiarity. By affecting the subject, such contents motivate (...) the performing of intentional acts and are the genuine motor of constitution. The genetic ground of apperceptions is thus material content. (shrink)

Husserl’s phenomenology of imagination embraces a cluster of different theories and approaches regarding the multi-faced phenomenon of imaginative experience. In this paper I consider one aspect that seems to be crucial to the understanding of a particular form of imagination that Husserl names pure phantasy. I argue that the phenomenon of Ego-splitting discloses the best way to elucidate the peculiarity of pure phantasy with respect to other forms of representative acts and to any simple form of act modification. First, I (...) unravel the phenomenological distinctions which, respectively, oppose phantasy to perception, on the one hand, and phantasy to other forms of the so-called “intuitive re-presentations”. Second, I introduce the difference between presentative and representative acts, arguing that this cannot help us to single out the defining feature of phantasy experiences. The third section draws again an important distinction between pure phantasy and neutrality modification, which allows me to finally determine an internal trait of phantasy experiences, which Husserl refers to as the “Ego-splitting”. In this way, I hope to contribute to a refined characterization of Husserl’s phenomenology of imagination. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has shed more light on the relationship between Husserl and Lotze. And Husserl indeed claims of Lotze that “his inspired interpretation of the Platonic doctrine of Forms […] put up a bright first light and determined all further studies” ( 2002a, 297). In this paper I will try to answer the question what exactly Husserl saw in this “bright light”—the answer being much more complicated than “Platonism.” As I will show, Lotze misreads Plato, but in interesting ways, and (...) Husserl in turn misreads Lotze. In other words, this paper is about a misreading of a misreading—yet one fundamental for the development of phenomenology in that Husserl’s engagement with Lotze enabled him (a) to expand and differentiate his own anti-reductionism in regard to ideal entities, leading him to two forms of what he calls “Platonism,” one of which even runs contrary to Lotze’s own account, and (b) to conceive of a method to gain truths about the material apriori. After a brief introduction, I will discuss (1) Lotze’s interpretation of Plato, (2) what Husserl took from it, and finally (3) Plato’s Platonism, to substantiate my claims 1. (shrink)

Many have deemed ineluctable the tension between Husserl’s transcendental eidetics and his Crisis method of historical reflection. In this paper, I argue that this tension is an apparent one. I contend that dissolving this tension and showing not only the possibility, but also the necessity of the successful collaboration between these two apparently irreconcilable methods guarantees the very freedom of inquiry Husserl so emphatically stressed. To make this case, I draw from Husserl’s synthetic analyses of type and concept constitution as (...) well as his later work on sedimentation and streaming-in and develop a richer modal taxonomy than the one Husserl proposed. I employ this taxonomy in an examination of the structures and conditions for the possibility of transcendental eidetic variation in order to show this method’s reliance on historically sedimented epistemic and normative resources. This reliance brings to light the necessity for a methodological critique, which is precisely what I take to be the work of teleological–historical reflection as Husserl comes to conceive it in the Crisis. (shrink)

El presente artículo compara las consideraciones de Hegel y Husserl sobre la intersubjetividad en relación a la normatividad. Para esto, en una primera parte se discute la descripción de la conciencia del yo y el otro en cada uno de los autores; en la segunda, sus conceptos de libertad; y en la tercera, sus conceptos de normatividad, teleología e historia.

Phenomenology is considered a philosophy of experience. But in the wake of French post-structuralism beginning in the 1970s, the concept of experience within phenomenology has fallen under heavy critique. Even today, in the context of feminist philosophy the phenomenological concept of experience has yet to recover from the poststructuralist critique. In this article, I will closely examine the poststructuralist critique of the concept of experience within the context of feminist theory. I will thereby refer first and foremost to the poststructuralist (...) theorist Joan Scott, and her influential text “'Experience'”. In my examination of the poststructuralist critique of experience, the leading question will be whether or not this critique, down to its details, can in fact be applied to phenomenology. My thesis is that phenomenology is able to withstand the poststructuralist critique of experience. Further, I will argue that post-structuralism and phenomenology have more in common as regards the concept of experience than is usually admitted. For several reasons, it seems - as I will maintain - that both poststructuralist feminism and phenomenology are equally interested in a strong concept of experience and thus do not promote doing away with the concept. (shrink)

A comprehensive and agreed-upon account of Husserl’s relation to Gottlob Frege does not yet exist. In this situation we encounter interpretations that allow systematic dogmas to reappear that should have long been vanquished—for instance, that the author of the Logical Investigations was not only decisively influenced by Frege, but also that he had already retracted his sharpest Frege-critique by 1891. The present essay contains a largely historical response to W. Künne’s new monograph on Frege that advocates such views. We will (...) concentrate on a small remark that turns out to reference a defining moment for any understanding of Husserl’s early philosophy. We shall argue that Husserl’s supposed self-criticism does not turn on the critique that he had earlier leveled at Frege’s Grundlagen der Arithmetik; rather, it has to do exclusively with his own earlier systematic positions on the grounding of arithmetic. In this context, an important particular of Husserl’s Philosophie der Arithmetik takes center stage: this book is a mosaic composed from old and new insights, a fact that becomes most evident in the two distinct concepts of “equivalence” that are founded there, which reflects Husserl’s transition from a theory of arithmetic based on the concept of number to one based on the parallelism between proper and symbolic (improper) presentations. This change involves a long historical development that goes back to a tradition marked by the work of Bolzano, Lotze, Brentano, and Stumpf, and it is closely tied to the problem of how to distinguish between the sense and the object of an act. Systematic neglect of the historical background of the Frege–Husserl relation has led to disputes over who owns the copyright to the sense/reference distinction, but it has obscured the very core of the original line of questioning. (shrink)

Eine vollständige Darstellung von Edmund Husserls Verhältnis zu Gottlob Frege steht noch aus, so dass es nicht verwundert, einige Missverständnisse, dieses Verhältnis betreffend, im Umlauf zu finden. Selbst scheinbar längst überwundene systematische Dogmen tauchen wieder auf, so z.B. die Auffassung, dass Husserl nicht nur entscheidend von Gottlob Frege beeinflusst wurde, sondern darüber hinaus auch seine schärfste Frege-Kritik 1891 zurückgenommen habe. Mein Beitrag enthält eine überwiegend historisch vorgehende Entgegnung auf solche fälschlich vertretenen Ansichten wie sie sich auch in dem neu erschienenen (...) und mit vielen dokumentarischen Belegen versehenen Frege-Kommentarbuch von W. Künne finden. Die wichtigsten Argumente, die in diesem Buch gegen Husserl gerichtet werden, stützen sich auf Stellen in Husserls Frühwerk, die zwar sehr aufschlussreich für die Beurteilung des philosophischen und menschlichen Habitus Husserls in den 1890er Jahre sind, nicht aber Künnes Thesen stützen oder gar beweisen können. Die als zurückgenommene Frege-Kritik verstandene Selbstkritik Husserls betrifft jedoch nach meinen Darlegungen gerade nicht die Kritik, die er an Freges Buch Grundlagen der Arithmetik geübt hatte, sondern seine eigene systematische Stellungnahme hinsichtlich der Begründung der Arithmetik. Ausgehend von dieser Einsicht werde ich auf ein wichtiges Spezifikum von Husserls Erstlingswerk (Philosophie der Arithmetik) aufmerksam machen, das voreiligen Interpretationen einen Riegel vorschiebt: Dieses Buch ist ein Mosaik aus Einsichten verschiedener Arbeits- und Denkperioden des Verfassers, die sich vor allem auch in dem zweifachen Begriff der Äquivalenz zeigen. Dies knüpft an einen langen geschichtlichen Entwicklungsprozess an, der in eine von Bolzano, Lotze, Brentano und Carl Stumpf geprägte Tradition zurückführt und das Problem der Unterscheidung zwischen Sinn und Gegenstand eines Aktes betrifft. (shrink)

Since the end of the last century, there has been several ambitious attempts to naturalize Husserlian phenomenology by way of mathematization. To justify themselves in view of Husserl’s adamant antinaturalism, many of these attempts appeal to the new physico-mathematical tools that were unknown in Husserl’s time and thus allegedly make his position outdated. This paper critically addresses these mathematization proposals and aims to show that Husserl had, in fact, sufficiently good arguments that make his antinaturalistic position sound even today. The (...) starting point of the discussion presented in this paper is the mathematization project introduced by Jean-Michel Roy, Jean Petitot, Bernard Pachoud, and Francisco Varela in their introduction to the book Naturalizing Phenomenology. This proposal was followed by a number of critiques but also by several alternative naturalization attempts clearly inspired by Roy et al.’s ambitious project. The review of some of Husserl’s important arguments often overlooked or misinterpreted by both the naturalization advocates and their critics leads the author of the paper to the twofold conclusion which, on the one hand, explores the deeper reasons for the impossibility of a physical and mathematical treatment of phenomenology, on the other hand, clarifies the sense in which such treatments are possible, namely by way of restriction of the variety of experiential aspects that undergo naturalization and substitution of the aspects amenable to the direct mathematization for the directly unmathematizable ones. In the fourth section of this paper, the author attempts to demonstrate that, contrary to widespread belief, Husserl’s arguments are not obsolete by the standards of the contemporary physico-mathematical approaches employed in the mathematization of phenomenology and indeed stand the test of time. (shrink)

The paper deals primarily with the standard question in what exactly, according to Husserl, consists the crisis of the European sciences. In the literature so far, there have been two tendencies on this question, one focusing on the loss of the sciences’ meaningfulness for life, the other emphasizing the inadequacy of their scientificity. Instead of arguing for one of these two options or for some sort of combination of both, another interpretation of this topic will be suggested. The focus will (...) be on Husserl’s notion of historicity and its connection with the concept of life-world. It will be argued that it is the historical detachment of sciences from ideas and consequently the sphere of meaning altogether which lies at the core of their ill state. On this basis, it will show that Husserl’s approach to science in Crisis is actually double. For one, it is an attempt to supplement science with a philosophical justification. The other is a historical de-construction of scientific objectivism as a misleading metaphysical claim concerning the lived world. This second, historical approach is developed exclusively in the Crisis. However, it does bring out questions leading to rethinking the meaning and goals of transcendental phenomenology itself. (shrink)

The notion of cognitive act is of importance for an epistemology that is apt for constructive type theory, and for epistemology in general. Instead of taking knowledge attributions as the primary use of the verb 'to know' that needs to be given an account of, and understanding a first-person knowledge claim as a special case of knowledge attribution, the account of knowledge that is given here understands first-person knowledge claims as the primary use of the verb 'to know'. This means (...) that a cognitive act is an act that counts as cognitive from a first-person point of view. The method of linguistic phenomenology is used to explain or elucidate our epistemic notions. One of the advantages of the theory is that an answer can be given to some of the problems in modern epistemology, such as the Gettier problem. (shrink)

The main goal of the present paper is to offer a preliminary study of the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. After a brief presentation of what Husserl means by the term “metaphysics”, the rest of our research will consist of a detailed commentary on §60 of the Cartesian Meditations. Our aim is to explain in what sense, according to Husserl, the “outcomes” of the phenomenological constitution of monadological intersubjectivity entail the solution to a traditional metaphysical problem, i.e., that (...) of the existence of just one real world. The present investigation does not pretend to be more than an introduction. Besides shedding some light on a specific text, it will pave the way for a future inquiry into the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. (shrink)

This article raises the question of whether there is one consistent theory of volitional acts in Husserl’s writings. The question arises because Husserl approaches volitional consciousness in his static and his genetic phenomenology rather differently. Static phenomenology understands acts of willing as complex, higher-order phenomena that are founded in both intellectual and emotional acts; while genetic phenomenology describes them as passively motivated phenomena that are implicitly predelineated in feelings, instincts, and drives, which always already include a characteristic element of striving. (...) Thus, according to genetic phenomenology, volitional acts are not founded on intellectual and emotional acts but rather influence those acts in their specific directedness. This article critically investigates four possible attempts to unite the two phenomenological approaches consistently and concludes that all these attempts are burdened with unsolved problems. It thus remains questionable whether Husserl has one consistent theory of volitional acts. (shrink)

The paths or ways to the transcendental reduction are a pivotal phenomenological notion in Husserl’s philosophy. The metaphor of path, in fact, alludes to the demonstrative proofs of transcendental phenomenology. Nonetheless, Husserlian scholarship has not yet been able to end the disputes surrounding this topic, and as a result, competing interpretations continue to prevail. Since existing theories about the paths have not yet been cataloged or analyzed in their global context, I intend to classify the main existing theories about the (...) paths and evaluate the trend established by Iso Kern. Thus, this paper answers the following questions: how many kinds of theories about the paths are there? And, how plausible is the trend and approach initiated by Kern? In order to evaluate each theory, I will compare the interpretation with its exemplary cases. The key contribution of this investigation is therefore twofold: to distinguish with unequivocal concepts the two main trends of hermeneutical theories in play and to evaluate the plausibility of the aforementioned Kernian one. The paper also attempts to show that the hermeneutical approach initiated by Kern has no contextual examples for its conceptual scheme and should consequently be abandoned in favor of an alternative solution. (shrink)

The paper addresses the methodological tensions between Husserl’s phenomenology and history by reinterpreting the Addendum III of the Krisis-work in view of genetic phenomenology. Thus, the paper starts out by retracing the traditional criticism against the unhistorical character of Husserl’s phenomenology as voiced by Heidegger, Adorno and others. Afterwards, it moves on to analyse the troubled relationship between static and genetic phenomenology, on the one hand, and between genetic phenomenology and empirical genesis, on the other hand. Finally, it arrives at (...) a step by step methodological reconstruction of Husserl’s considerations on the “origin of geometry”, which are regarded to be an application of the methods of genetic phenomenology to the field of history. (shrink)

Unser Beitrag versucht eine systematische Auslegung des Begriffs der „perzeptiven Phantasie , den Husserl in einigen Aufzeichnungen zum Bildbewusstsein anwendet. Dabei werden drei der wesentlichen Aspekte, die in der Husserl-Literatur das Thema Bild durchgehend bestimmen, einer gründlichen Analyse unterzogen: der Begriff des „Widerstreitbewusstseins , die Idee der „Neutralität und die Scheidung zwischen Impression und Reproduktion. Jedes dieser Themen spielt eine wesentliche Rolle in der husserlschen Auslegung des Bildbewusstseins. Dabei sind aber alle diese Themen, wie wir zeigen wollen, letztlich von einem (...) Einstellungsunterschied bestimmt, der im späteren Nachlass Husserls zwischen Erfahrung und Phantasie besteht. Ausgehend von Husserls Unterscheidung zweier Bedeutungsrichtungen des Begriffs „Phantasie – als „Reproduktion einerseits und als „Modus des Vollzugs andererseits – soll bewiesen werden, dass der Ausdruck „perzeptive Phantasie keineswegs den Beitrag von reproduktiven Akten zur Konstitution der Bildlichkeit betrifft, sondern eben die Tatsache, dass der Bildbetrachtung eine eigentümliche Einstellung, jene des „Als-ob , entspricht. (shrink)

The main goal of the present paper is to offer a preliminary study of the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. After a brief presentation of what Husserl means by the term “metaphysics”, the rest of our research will consist of a detailed commentary on §60 of the Cartesian Meditations. Our aim is to explain in what sense, according to Husserl, the “outcomes” of the phenomenological constitution of monadological intersubjectivity entail the solution to a traditional metaphysical problem, i.e., that (...) of the existence of just one real world. The present investigation does not pretend to be more than an introduction. Besides shedding some light on a specific text, it will pave the way for a future inquiry into the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. (shrink)

This dissertation combines two scientific disciplines and research fields, namely philosophy and psychopathology. Within such a wide field of investigation, two precise perspectives are to be adopted in this inquiry: stemming from the first field, the phenomenological perspective on subjectivity and intersubjectivity; stemming from the second, the psychopathological perspective on schizophrenia. The combination of philosophy and psychopathology has often proven fruitful. Moreover, the main motivation for such combined approach is justified by the strong belief that, when critically used, phenomenology offers (...) a viable method of studying the first-personal perspective of experience, including the experiences of people with mental disorders. Philosophical analysis can thereby be used as a means to evaluate the meaning and adequacy of psychopathological concepts and ideas. As a result, phenomenological psychopathology may help understand what is often claimed to be incomprehensible. Particularly for the understanding of schizophrenia, this is taken to be a valuable contribution. For more than twenty years now, the phenomenological approach to schizophrenia has developed a strong and influential hypothesis on the basic alterations of this disorder. Schizophrenia, it is claimed, is a disorder of subjectivity, and more specifically, a disorder of the minimal self. Simultaneously, and often in conjunction, philosophical research on the self has vastly proliferated. The vivid interaction between these two fields makes the phenomenology of schizophrenia a good example of effective interdisciplinary work. Within the philosophical debate on subjectivity, intersubjectivity, or the relation between self and other, is currently a key topic. However, this has not significantly influenced the psychopathology of schizophrenia yet. The initial and fundamental claim of this dissertation is indeed that a renewed evaluation and inclusion of intersubjectivity, next to subjectivity, is to increase the validity of the phenomenological approach to schizophrenia. This would allow the previous hypothesis on schizophrenia as minimal self disorder to be challenged, criticized, or complemented, which would accordingly increase the significance and its clinical value. What I will attempt to do in this dissertation is then to thoroughly evaluate the role of intersubjectivity in schizophrenia. It will hence become clear what this role and its significance are. Consequently, I will finally argue that the basic alterations of schizophrenia concern both subjectivity and intersubjectivity. My argument is developed in four chapters. In the first, I introduce the topic of the self, including the distinction between the minimal and the extended self. This chapter equally introduces schizophrenia as a psychiatric concept, and three different clinical approaches are discussed, among which the phenomenological approach in most detail. After the topics of the self and schizophrenia, I introduce intersubjectivity, notably from a developmental-psychological perspective. By way of status quaestionis, I recapitulate the current research on intersubjectivity and schizophrenia. It will become clear that this research is relatively scarce. I then conclude the chapter with a full formulation of the two research questions informing this dissertation, namely Is schizophrenia an intersubjectivity-disorder? and Which self-concept is suited to define schizophrenia as a self and intersubjectivity disorder? The second chapter examines the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. The exact delineation of what is meant here by intersubjectivity will allow the reader to acknowledge its extent and variety. This chapter is aimed to provide the necessary philosophical tools to analyse schizophrenia in the light of intersubjectivity. In the third chapter I turn to psychopathology. In the first section, I analyse the work of seven major psychopathologists on schizophrenia. The goal of this section is to look for elements of intersubjectivity in their accounts of schizophrenia. Many of these psychopathologists have been influential for the development of the current self-disorder hypothesis, and the investigation intends to show how some crucial intersubjective elements in their work have been neglected. In the second section of this chapter, I focus on the symptoms, signs, and phenomena of schizophrenia that relate to intersubjectivity. This chapter finally offers all the material needed to positively answer the first research question. In the fourth chapter, I bring together psychopathology and philosophy, and I attempt to answer the two research questions. Since Chapter 3 allows me to affirmatively answer the first question, I examine whether the current self-disorder hypothesis is adequate to integrate intersubjectivity disturbances. It will appear that it is not, and the first section of this chapter consequently deals with the question why intersubjectivity and its disturbances have been neglected until now. In the second section it will become clear that no different self-concept is required, but that schizophrenia primarily concerns a particular capacity or orientation of subjectivity. I introduce the concept of open subjectivity and thereby answer the second research question. By describing schizophrenia as a disturbance of open subjectivity, I am finally able to integrate both self-disturbances and intersubjectivity-disturbances into a coherent and unified theory. To conclude this dissertation, I summarize and recapitulate its major issues, questions, and results in Chapter 5. Both clinical implications and possible future research are also discussed here. (shrink)