The aim of the article is to define and investigate an interpretative framework for the philosophy of Leopold Blaustein, a student of Twardowski in Lwów and Husserl in Freiburg im Breisgau. The author defends the thesis that it is justified to refer to Blaustein’s philosophy not as phenomenology sensu stricto, but as a phenomenologically-oriented descriptive psychology related but not equivalent to the project expounded by Husserl in the first edition of Logische Untersuchungen as well as in his project of phenomenological (...) psychology. The article traces Blaustein’s critique of Husserl’s phenomenological methods, putting it in the historical context of the discussion with Ingarden. Next, the author juxtaposes Blaustein’s understanding of psychology with Husserl’s project of 1925, which makes it possible to identify not only the differences between the two projects, but also their similarities. The article also raises questions about the scope of descriptive-psychological analyses. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology seeks a priori knowledge of essences and eidetic laws pertaining to conscious experience and its objects. Husserl believes that such eidetic knowledge has a higher epistemic status than the inherently fallible empirical knowledge, but a closer reading of his work shows that even eidetic claims are subject to error and open to modification. In this article, I develop a self-correcting account of Husserl’s method of eidetic variation, arguing that eidetic variation plays a critical role in both (...) challenging and improving upon the eidetic results in phenomenology. More specifically, I argue that the self-correcting account of eidetic variation 1) is consistent with Husserl’s own formulations of his eidetic methodology and epistemic principles; 2) captures the dual epistemic function of eidetic variation as means for both testing and intuitively validating eidetic claims; and 3) offers methodological support for contemporary attempts to integrate eidetic variation with non-eidetic methods and resources. To substantiate these claims, I first contrast the self-correcting account with the falsificationist interpretations of eidetic variation. Then, I turn to three applications of eidetic variation in order to examine how eidetic phenomenology could draw from real-life deviations, artificial variations, and critical–historical reflection. The goal is to lay the methodological groundwork for a self-correcting and integrative account of eidetic variation and illustrate its usefulness in research practice. (shrink)

The phenomenological notion of attitude has gained new traction in recent years, as it proliferates beyond its initial distinction between natural and phenomenological attitudes, notably to describe multiple meanings to critique and reflection. In this paper, I present an account of the concept of an ethical attitude in Husserlian phenomenology. First, I argue that the ethical attitude is best understood as a practical orientation toward personal life as a whole: someone strives to become the best possible person through self-reflection, self-variation, (...) the renewal of values and ends, and resolve. Second, I interpret Husserl’s accounts of the ethical reduction and the practical neutrality modification through the notion of the ethical attitude. This allows me to elaborate on questions of motivation for striving to be a good person, even if the world seems inhospitable to that effort. The question of the motivation for the ethical attitude reveals that Husserl grappled with existential and theological issues, including the valuelessness of existence, the problem of contingency, and the idea of God. Ultimately, interpreting Husserl’s ethical writings through the notion of the ethical attitude brings together several aspects of his ethics, thereby clarifying the many senses of critique and reflection at play in ethical and social life. (shrink)