Husserl (a mathematician by education) remained a few famous and notable philosophical “slogans” along with his innovative doctrine of phenomenology directed to transcend “reality” in a more general essence underlying both “body” and “mind” (after Descartes) and called sometimes “ontology” (terminologically following his notorious assistant Heidegger). Then, Husserl’s tradition can be tracked as an idea for philosophy to be reinterpreted in a way to be both generalized and mathenatizable in the final analysis. The paper offers a pattern borrowed from the (...) theory of information and quantum information (therefore relating philosophy to both mathematics and physics) to formalize logically a few key concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology such as “epoché” “eidetic, phenomenological, and transcendental reductions” as well as the identification of “phenomenological, transcendental, and psychological reductions” in a way allowing for that identification to be continued to “eidetic reduction” (and thus to mathematics). The approach is tested by an independent and earlier idea of Husserl, “logical arithmetic” (parallelly implemented in mathematics by Whitehead and Russell’s Principia) as what “Hilbert arithmetic” generalizing Peano arithmetics is interpreted. A basic conclusion states for the unification of philosophy, mathematics, and physics in their foundations and fundamentals to be the Husserl tradition both tracked to its origin (in the being itself after Heidegger or after Husserl’s “zu Sache selbst”) and embodied in the development of human cognition in the third millennium. (shrink)

os artículos de Husserl en la revista japonesa Kaizo contienen muchas claves sugerentes e importantes sobre su filosofía práctica. Su visión de las “formas de vida” humanas y sobre todo su concepción de la “forma de vida ética” muestran su preocupación por el significado de la fenomenología para la vida y para la búsqueda de la responsabilidad. Husserl articula el problema ético sobre la base de su concepción de la “esencia” del ser humano y la lucha o el afán de (...) la vida como lucha por una vida ética pura. (shrink)

PDF with introduction and front and back materials. Abstract: A provocative examination of the consequences of Levinas’s and Adorno’s thought for contemporary ethics and political philosophy. This book unfolds a dialogue between Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, using their thought to address contemporary environmental and social-political situations. Eric S. Nelson explores the “non-identity thinking” of Adorno and the “ethics of the Other” of Levinas with regard to three areas of concern: the ethical position of nature and “inhuman” material others (...) such as environments and animals; the bonds and tensions between ethics and religion and the formation of the self through the dynamic of violence and liberation expressed in religious discourses; and the problematic uses and limitations of liberal and republican discourses of equality, liberty, tolerance, and their presupposition of the private individual self and autonomous subject. Thinking with and beyond Levinas and Adorno, this work examines the possibility of an anarchic hospitality and solidarity between material others and sensuous embodied life. -/- “This is an extremely impressive, original, and thorough treatment of two key twentieth-century thinkers and their applicability to the most pressing social and political issues of our time.” — Jeffrey A. Bernstein, author of Leo Strauss on the Borders of Judaism, Philosophy, and History -/- “This book is an excellent and timely contribution to political and environmental philosophy, located around a nuanced historical and philosophical approach to Levinas and Adorno. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with these figures or with the current moment.” — Martin Shuster, author of Autonomy after Auschwitz: Adorno, German Idealism, and Modernity. (shrink)

The paper justifies the following theses: The totality can found time if the latter is axiomatically represented by its “arrow” as a well-ordering. Time can found choice and thus information in turn. Quantum information and its units, the quantum bits, can be interpreted as their generalization as to infinity and underlying the physical world as well as the ultimate substance of the world both subjective and objective. Thus a pathway of interpretation between the totality via time, order, choice, and information (...) to the substance of the world is constructed. The article is based only on the well-known facts and definitions and is with no premises in this sense. Nevertheless it is naturally situated among works and ideas of Husserl and Heidegger, linked to the foundation of mathematics by the axiom of choice, to the philosophy of quantum mechanics and information. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological theory of intersubjectivity. It turns out that any such theory requires a conceptualisation of the relation between the bodily subject and the objective reality that takes historicity seriously.

This dissertation explores and argues for the import of the imagination (Phantasie) in Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method of inquiry. It contends that Husserl's extensive analyses of the imagination influenced how he came to conceive the phenomenological method throughout the main stages of his philosophical career. The work clarifies Husserl's complex method of investigation by considering the role of the imagination in his main methodological apparatuses: the phenomenological, eidetic, and transcendental reductions, and eidetic variation - all of which remained ambiguous despite (...) his extensive programmatic discussions. The work illuminates and clarifies aspects of the Husserlian phenomenological method never before explored. -/- In order to clarify Husserl's eidetic method of inquiry, I propose a new way of thinking about the imagination - as direct intuitive presentation (eigentliche anschauliche Vorstellung) and as horizonal-nexic level of consciousness exhibiting the neutrality, freedom, and possibility as its essential features. Following Husserl's studies of the imagination, I propose a three-level model of consciousness (realizing, imagining, and eidetic) and explore the dynamic flexibility of each level (as horizon within which acts such as judgments or memories can unfold). This model of consciousness allows for a rethinking of the sources and conditions for the possibility of eidetic phenomenological inquiry - topics Husserl was mostly silent about. -/- Through a rethinking of the model of consciousness, I propose a tight and substantial relationship between the natural (everyday) and artificial (methodological, theoretical) attitudes. I argue that the structure and systems of possibilities pertaining to the artificial attitude - i.e., our actual as well as possible methodological tools - are structurally and well as informationally bound to the structure and system of possibilities pertaining to the natural attitude. In order to explore the nature of the relationship between these two attitudes I argue that we must take a closer look at the structure and abilities of imagining consciousness - the sole nexic-horizonal level that can function both naturally and artificially. This insight regarding the nature of consciousness clarifies Husserl's transcendental idealism in its intimate connection to the everyday. Understanding Husserl's philosophical stance is thus purged of all possibility of mistakenly labeling it as entailing immanent detachment, solipsism, or Platonic idealism. (shrink)

Abstract: Brentano’s conception of scientific philosophy had a strong influence on his students and on the intellectual atmosphere of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. The aim of this article is to expose Brentano’s conception and to contrast his views with that of two traditions he is said to have considerably influenced: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. I will shed light on the question of how and to what extent Brentano’s conception of philosophy as a rigorous science has had an impact (...) on these two traditions. The discussion will show that both took their liberties in the interpretation of the thesis, a move that allowed them to liberate themselves from Brentano’s inheritance and to fully develop their own philosophical positions. (shrink)

This paper seeks to re-assess Dilthey’s descriptive psychology in light of the charge of “psychologism”. The paper has two goals. First, I seek to give a fine-grained reconstruction of Dilthey’s foundational project. I provide a systematic account of how Dilthey sought to ground the knowledge claims of the human sciences in inner experience. I place special emphasis on Dilthey’s concept of “articulation” which mediates between inner experience and psychological knowledge, as well as between individual psychology and knowledge about the socio-historical (...) world. Second, I re-assess the allegedly “psychologistic” aspects of Dilthey’s philosophy. I reconstruct how Dilthey’s critics Husserl, Windelband and Rickert understood psychologism, highlight commonalities between them and explain why Dilthey’s approach seemed “psychologistic” from their perspective. At the same time, I show that Dilthey’s philosophical thinking goes against the very presuppositions that the “psychologism”-charges are usually based upon. The paper concludes with some reflections on the transition from Dilthey's descriptive psychology to his mature hermeneutics. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning and value of the criticism that Stumpf address to Husserl's phenomenology in Ideas I. My presentation is divided into four parts: I briefly describe the relationship between Stumpf and the young Husserl during his stay in Halle (1886-1901); then I will comment Stumpf's remarks on the definition of Husserl's phenomenology as descriptive psychology in his Logical Investigations; in the third part, I examine Husserl's notice in section 86 of Ideas I (...) where he compares his own terminology to that of Stumpf; finally I comment on Stumpf's criticism of Husserl's phenomenology in his last book Erkenntnislehre. (shrink)

Historians of philosophy commonly regard as antipodal Bertrand Russell and Edmund Husserl, the founding fathers of analytic philosophy and phenomenology. This paper, however, establishes that during a formative phase in both of their careers Russell and Husserl shared a range of seminal ideas. In particular, the essay adduces clear cases of family resemblance between Husserl’s and Russell’s philosophy during their middle period, which spanned the years 1905 through 1918. The paper thus challenges the received view of Husserl’s relation to early (...) analytic philosophy and this by pursuing two strategies of exposition. One involves comparing Husserl with Russell, and not, as has been the usual practice, with Frege. The other, which follows the first, foregrounds Husserl’s thinking vis-à-vis Russell’s from 1905 onward, a move that constitutes a break with what has become the standard approach of emphasising the relatedness of Husserl of the Logical Investigations (1900/1) to analytic philosophy. Moreover, this approach discloses two chief grounds of relatedness between the middle Husserl and the middle Russell. One is their shared interest in exploring philosophical “fundamentals”. The second consists of common elements shared by their epistemologies and philosophies of mind. (shrink)

The paper questions the scientific rather than ideological problem of an eventual biological successor of the mankind. The concept of superhumans is usually linked to Nietzsche or to Heidegger’s criticism or even to the ideology of Nazism. However, the superhuman can be also viewed as that biological species who will originate from humans eventually in the course of evolution.While the society is reached a natural limitation of globalism, technics depends on the amount of utilized energy, and the mind is restricted (...) by its carrier, i.e. by the brain, it is language which seems to be the frontier of any future development of humans or superhumans. Language is a symbolization of the world and thus doubling in an ideal or virtual world fruitful for creativity and the modeling of the former. Consequently, the gap between the material and the ideal world is both produced by and productive for language. (shrink)

The article presents edmund Husserl’s idea of transcendental phenomenology in the perspec‐ tive of the project of science. this aspect of Husserl’s writings was pointed out by, for example, rudolf Bernet, man ed Brelage, Iso Kern, eduard marbach, eugen Fink, Ludwig Landgrebe, and roman Ingarden. the main aim, realised in the article is to prove the main hypothesis claiming that transcendental phenomenology is closely connected with Husserl’s conception of philosophy, the idea of philosophy as a science (eidetic and transcendental). the (...) project of transcendental science and knowledge is also connected with Husserl’s conception of transcen‐ dental reduction taken as a mode of revealing those constitutive achievements of consciousness which were covered in the natural attitude. In the paper, I focus on presenting the most im‐ portant points (epistemological, methodological, and transcendental) connected with Husserl’s evolution of phenomenology in the perspective of the project of science. (shrink)

Dieser Aufsatz möchte den Beitrag der Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls zur Debatte über die Fundierung der Geisteswissenschaft in groben Zügen enthüllen. Zunächst wird eine schematische Zusammenfassung der aus der deutschen Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts stammenden Debatte über die Fundierung der Geisteswissenschaften dargeboten. Dies soll dazu dienen, den philosophisch-historischen Hintergrund, in den Husserls Denkmotiv über die Beziehung zwischen Phänomenologie und Geisteswissenschaften eingebunden ist, zu begreifen. Danach wird Husserls Beitrag in dieser Debatte abgewägt, wobei im Besonderen die neuen Begriffe und Denkmotive, die von (...) ihm in die Diskussion eingefügt wurden, nämlich der der regionalen Ontologie und der der personalistischen Einstellung, betrachtet werden. Dieser zweite und letzte Teil schließt mit einer Erörterung des von Husserl angegebenen Vorrangs der Geisteswissenschaften und des Geistes als ihr Korrelat, vor den Naturwissenschaften ab. (shrink)

This chapter explores Edmund Husserl’s ground-breaking discussion of the “natural attitude” (die natürliche Einstellung) in Ideen I (1913) in relation to his conception of the “life-world” (Lebenswelt), a term that emerges in his writings around 1917 and becomes perhaps the most prominent theme of Krisis (1936 and 1954). I contend that the parallels between the “natural surrounding world” (natürliche Umwelt) of Ideen I and the “life-world” of Krisis have not been sufficiently explored by commentators. It also examines the relation between (...) Husserl’s critique of the scientific world-view and the Vienna Circle’s advocacy of the scientific world-view in the late 1920s. (shrink)

Ernst Mach's atomistic theory of sensation faces problems in doing justice to our ability to perceive and remember complex phenomena such as melodies and shapes. Christian von Ehrenfels attempted to solve these problems with his theory of "Gestalt qualities", which he sees as entities depending one-sidedly on the corresponding simple objects of sensation. We explore the theory of dependence relations advanced by Ehrenfels and show how it relates to the views on the objects of perception advanced by Husserl and by (...) the Gestalt psychologists. (shrink)

The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state.--The concept of essence.--The affirmative character of culture.--Philosophy and critical theory.--On hedonism.--Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber.--Love mystified; a critique of Norman O. Brown and a reply to Herbert Marcuse by Norman O. Brown.--Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society.

An influential interpretation of phenomenology construes Husserl's project as an attempt to generalize the Fregean notion of sense- an attempt to extend Frege's analysis of the structure of meaningful expressions to a more general account of the structure of meaning in experience . Michael Dummett has articulated a broadly Fregean critique of this Husserlian program, arguing that the project is misguided and retrograde-a relapse into the psychologism and idealism that Frege sought to avoid. A defense of Husserl is offered, based (...) in part on key elements of the theory of meaning articulated in his Logical Investigations . But the main aim is neither to acquit nor to convict Husserl of Dummett's charges; rather it is to use the exchange to investigate some of the philosophical commitments of a broadly Husserlian phenomenology. If we are to understand how Husserl avoids psychologism then we must come to terms with the paradoxical idea of an anti-psychologistic investigation of consciousness (an anti-psychologistic psychology). If we are to understand his complex stance toward idealism then we must not only understand the grounds for his rejection of subjective idealism but also be attuned to the other forms of idealism to which his project is committed. In the course of investigating these matters the author considers how Husserl can reply to the charge of explanatory vacuity, and shows that Frege himself recognizes the legitimacy of something like the Husserlian project. (shrink)

In the 1930s Otto Selz developed a novel approach to the psychology of perception which he called “synthetic psychology of wholes”. This “synthetic psychology” is based on a phenomenological description of the structural relationships between elementary items building up integral wholes. The present article deals with Selz’s account of spatial cognition within this general framework. Selz Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 114, 351–362 argues that his approach to spatial cognition delivers answers to the long-discussed question of the epistemological status of the laws (...) of geometry. More specifically he tries to derive the Euclidean axioms from the structural laws valid for phenomenal space. After a brief description of the discussion of the status of geometry in the 1920s/1930, the present article explains Selz’s understanding of “phenomenology”. Section 4 then deals with Selz’s attempt to derive the Euclidean laws from the structural phenomenological laws of space. Selz’s attempted derivation suffers from some formal shortcomings, which however can be repaired. The question arises, though, whether the necessary improvements do not rely upon more intricate geometric intuitions and thus render Selz’s attempt to base geometry upon the phenomenology of spatial cognition circular. (shrink)

rentano’s theory of inner perception, evidence and truth upsets some widespread assumptions in contemporary philosophy. It rests on an unusual notion of inner perception and on a nominal theory of judgement; it attributes a central role to evidence in epistemology and treats mental states as being intrinsically true. The present contribution aims first at presenting and elucidating some of Brentano’s views on these matters. In some crucial points Brentano’s position will be modified and hopefully en- hanced in a way that (...) is compatible with the overall picture.1 Considerable space will be devoted to the examination of some of the most important objections that have been or might be raised against the position presented on Brentano’s behalf. If by far not invulnerable, the position un- der scrutiny should hopefully appear more challenging than what it is often taken to be. (shrink)

Addressing Walter Hopp’s original application of the distinction between agent-fallibility and method-fallibility to phenomenological inquiry concerning epistemic justification, I question whether these are the only two forms of fallibility that are useful or whether there are not also others that are needed. In doing so, I draw my inspiration from Husserl, who in the beginnings of his phenomenological investigations struggled with the distinction between noetic and noematic analyses. For example, in the Preface to the Second Edition of the Logical Investigations (...) he criticizes the First Investigation as having been “one-sidedly” noetically directed and as having thus neglected the noematic aspects of meaning (XVIII 13–14). Also, in an addendum to the Fifth Investigation he notes that in the transition from the First Edition to the Second he has learned to broaden the concept of “phenomenological content” to include not only the “real” ( reell ) contents (noetic, subjective) of consciousness but also the “intentional” (noematic, objective) (XIX/1 411). The fact that, in gradually moving from consciousness (noesis) to what consciousness is of (noema), Husserl struggled with this distinction is an indication of the immensity of the perplexing problems and potential solutions that Hopp has led the phenomenology of knowledge into by introducing his useful notions of agent-fallibility and method-fallibility. Like Husserl, he has focused mainly and mostly on the noetic issues; like Husserl as well, I will try to move step by step from the noetic area into the noematic. I conclude that Hopp’s approach has the potential to become seminal. (shrink)

Resumen: El principal objetivo de este trabajo es pensar el concepto de meditación en la filosofía de Ortega y Gasset. La meditación es la esencia de la filosofía para Ortega. Meditar y filosofar son sinónimos. La filosofía no es mera teoría, sino que implica también práctica. El elemento teórico sólo tiene sentido cuando surge de la vida, pero ante todo la teoría sólo vale si vale para vivir. El ser humano para Ortega piensa porque vive, pero lo fundamental es que (...) piensa para vivir. Sólo los pensamientos que se alcanzan viviendo tienen valor para vivir. La meditación filosófica está siempre supeditada a la vida.The principal aim of this work is to think the concept of meditation in the Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy. For Ortega, meditation is the essence of philosophy. To meditate and to philosophize are synonymous. Philosophy isn’t simply theory, but it also implies practice. The theoretical element only makes sense when it arises from life, but above all theory only have value if it have value for life. For Ortega, human being thinks because he lives, but is fundamental that he thinks for life. Only thoughts reached by living have value for life. Philosophical meditation is always subordinated to life. (shrink)

This paper aims to address the relevance of the natural sciences for transcendental phenomenology, that is, the issue of naturalism. The first section distinguishes three varieties of naturalism and corresponding forms of naturalization: an ontological one, a methodological one, and an epistemological one. In light of these distinctions, in the second section, I examine the main projects aiming to “naturalize phenomenology”: neurophenomenology, front-loaded phenomenology, and formalized approaches to phenomenology. The third section then considers the commitments of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology with (...) respect to the three varieties of naturalism previously discussed. I argue that Husserl rejected strong and weak forms of epistemological naturalism, strong methodological naturalism, and ontological naturalism. The fourth section presents the argument that Husserl endorsed a weak, conditional form of methodological naturalism. This point is illustrated with Husserl’s proposal of “somatology,” a natural science apt to study the corporeality of the lived body. The final section addresses the complementarity and respective limits of the transcendental phenomenological and the natural scientific frameworks. I argue that, on Husserl’s account, the function of transcendental phenomenology with respect to the natural sciences is to provide them with an epistemological foundation and an ontological clarification. I suggest that certain natural sciences can be understood, within the transcendental phenomenological framework, as “sciences of constitution,” that is, as sciences investigating the contribution of real structures acting as conditions of possibility for the occurrence of certain kinds of comprehensive unities in lived experience. (shrink)

Review of Apostolescu, I... The Subject of Phenomenology: Rereading Husserl. Cham: Springer Nature.

Este ensayo presenta una visión de conjunto del modo en el cual el «giro» (Kehre) hacia el pensamiento ontohistórico, a medidados de los años ’30, impacta sobre la concepción aleteiológica que, siguiendo a E. Lask y E. Husserl, Heidegger elabora desde comienzos de los años ‘20 hasta Sein und Zeit. Sobre esa base, se ofrece también un intento de caracterización de la reformulación eventualista-kairológica de la aleteiología presentada en Beiträge zur Philosophie. La caracterización propuesta se lleva a cabo con arreglo (...) a la distinción entre un nivel metahistórico de consideración, que corresponde al intento de pensar el seren su verdad en términos de la noción de «acontecimiento» (Ereignis), y un nivel propiamente histórico de consideración, que corresponde a la «hermenéutica de los dos comienzos». El pensar que medita históricamente el ser en su verdad sólo puede ser fiel a la intrínseca movilidad del ser mismo, si se ejerce en y desde la quietud de la contención, como temple animímico fundamental. (shrink)

The problem of rationality today means the problem of the inner unreasonableness of reasonableness in the sense of its inner limit. Even the humanistic revolution of the Renaissance gradually led to the replacement of the power of omnipotent faith by faith in the omnipotence of power. It is this general orientation towards power and the cult of power, this new belief in power, that revealed itself more and more sharply in the course of European history and eventually led to extreme (...) forms of expression in the world wars and catastrophes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The activity of free reasonableness has resulted in a host of unreasonable consequences: we have reason to suggest that reasonableness perhaps contains its own negation. Most philosophers of the twentieth century supposed that today it is impossible to think as in former times; it is already impossible to imagine reality as the structure which alone has a basis. The modern pluralistic world cannot be interpreted in a single rationalistic way as the only possible way, which would lead to the world’s being be united on a single principle for the sake of final truth. The philosophical world of the twentieth century “shivers” because of the fluctuation its own foundation, which was recently the symbol of its firmness and absoluteness. The article offers an analysis of a foundation of this kind, viz. evidence. The tradition of this concept leads us to Descartes and back to the three main versions of transcendentalism: Kant’s, Husserl’s and Heidegger’s. The author finally comes to the conclusion that the appearance of overcoming the metaphysical approach in the twentieth century is replaced by a transcendental and dialectical “game” around metaphysical concepts. (shrink)

In order to properly distinguish between pastoral and psychotherapeutic counseling, one must clarify both the interpretive presuppositions underlying each of these professional practices and their respective societal contexts. As a common ground for both kinds of practice, at least insofar as they maintain a distance from the usual medical-scientific model of therapeutic intervention, an ontology of playing is recommended. More precisely, in order for counseling to truly come “into play,” any latent neo-pastoral power discourses must be critically exposed. Psychoanalytic counseling (...) is characterized by rules of abstinence and neutrality as well as by attention to unconscious dynamics, especially those of transference and countertransference. Pastoral counseling, even when it takes place outside of the Ignatian exercises, can still orient itself toward the Ignatian model of spiritual accompaniment, thus requiring a discernment of spirits and a reference to transcendence. Both pastoral and psychotherapeutic counseling can profit from each other. Both must be evaluated in terms of whether, in the course of an authentic communication, they succeed in proposing what truly profits the person seeking advice. All of this applies with special urgency to bioethical decision making and conflict resolution: Persons seeking pastoral advice desire an authentic exposition of the values of the Gospel and their church community in order to reach a well-founded conclusion in conscience. Other persons (or even the same ones) seeking psychotherapeutic help in a bioethical conflict situation desire an empathetic mirroring back of the biographic background framing their decision and of possible psychic consequences that may ensue from their acting accordingly. (shrink)

Ya la ironía socrática dijo que la filosofía no progresaba porque se ocupaba siempre de los mismos asuntos; el saber filosófico, asediado por la cuestión de su legitimidad, muestra su capacidad regenerativa volviendo siempre sobre sus fundamentos histórico-conceptuales. De ahí que quien intente defi..

The paper aims to capture a form of naturalism that can be found “built-in” in phenomenology, namely the idea to take science or mathematics on its own, without postulating extraneous normative “molds” on it. The paper offers a detailed comparison of Penelope Maddy’s naturalism about mathematics and Husserl’s approach to mathematics in Formal and Transcendental Logic. It argues that Maddy’s naturalized methodology is similar to the approach in the first part of the book. However, in the second part Husserl enters (...) into a transcendental clarification of the evidences and presuppositions of the mathematicians’ work, thus “transcendentalizing” his otherwise naturalist approach to mathematics. The result is a moderately revisionist view that takes the existing mathematical practices seriously, calls for reflection on them, and eventually gives suggestions for revisions if needed. (shrink)

Whether or not Merleau-Ponty’s version of phenomenology should be considered a form of ‘transcendental’ philosophy is open to debate. Although the Phenomenology of Perception presents his position as a transcendental one, many of its features—such as its exploitation of empirical science—might lead to doubt that it can be. This paper considers whether Merleau-Ponty meets what I call the ‘transcendentalist challenge’ of defining and grounding claims of a distinctive transcendental kind. It begins by highlighting three features—the absolute ego, the pure phenomenal (...) field, and the reduction—that Husserl had used to justify claims of a specifically transcendental kind within a phenomenological framework. It then examines how Merleau-Ponty modifies each of these features to focus on the lived body and a factically conditioned phenomenal field, while remaining ambivalent about the reduction. Finally, it assesses whether Merleau-Ponty’s modified position can still legitimately be considered transcendental. I argue that—despite his own rhetoric—this modified position shapes the modality of Merleau-Ponty’s claims in such a way that his phenomenology cannot meet the transcendentalist challenge and therefore should not be considered ‘transcendental.’. (shrink)

This paper places Husserl’s mature work, The Crisis of the European Sciences, in the context of his engagement with – and critique of – experimental psychology at the time. I begin by showing (a) that Husserl accorded psychology a crucial role in his philosophy, i.e., that of providing a scientific analysis of subjectivity, and (b) that he viewed contemporary psychology – due to its naturalism – as having failed to pursue this goal in the appropriate manner. I then provide an (...) analysis of Husserl’s views about naturalism and scientific philosophy. Some central themes of the Crisis are traced back to Husserl’s earlier work and to his relationship with his teacher, Franz Brentano, with whom he disagreed about the status of “inner perception” as the proper scientific method for a phenomenological analysis. The paper then shows that Husserl was well aware of at least one publication about the crisis of psychology (Bühler’s 1927 book), and it teases out some aspects of the complicated relationship between Husserl and members of the Würzburg School of thought psychology: The latter had drawn on Husserl’s writings, but Husserl felt that they had misunderstood his central thesis. I conclude by placing Husserl’s work in the wider context of scientific, cultural, and political crisis-discourses at the time. (shrink)

Se trata de examinar el significado —o los significados— del concepto del sujeto del que se sirve Husserl en los diversos niveles y perspectivas en que aparece en su obra, para hacer ver el sentido último que esta noción central alcan-za a tener en la fenomenología, así como su función en el desarrollo de los concep-tos principales de esta filosofía. El enfoque crítico que se adopta para abordar esta cuestión se sitúa en la posición de Husserl para apuntar, a partir (...) de ahí, hacia una posición dialéctica.The aim is to examine the meaning —or meanings— of the concept of subject just as it appears on the different levels and perspectives in Husserl’s work in order to see the utmost sense that this basic notion reaches in phenomenology as well as its function in the development of the main concepts of this philosophy. The critical approach assumed in this discussion places itself in Husserl’s position to point out from there towards a dialectical position. (shrink)

Examines the role of experience within Adorno’s philosophy of language and epistemology.

As a contribution towards clearing the ground for a new phenomenological evaluation of the essence of science, in this paper I present a critique of Heidegger''s argument in Being and Time for the priority of Zuhandenheit to Vorhandenheit. I argue that Heidegger''s notion of presence-at-hand is incoherent, conflating Husserl and Descartes, and that this general analysis has serious phenomenological flaws. Contrary to Heidegger, I maintain that there is a form of exploratory, theoretical activity including causal inquiry which is prior to (...) the type of practical activity entailed by readiness-to-hand. Consideration of this exploratory activity points us in the direction of an alternate conception of the genesis and essence of theory. (shrink)

The results of applying Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) show that the nature of the solution and improvement in the problem situation involves some ambiguity. This is due to SSM’s theoretical inadequacy in extending multiple conceptual models to an agreed-upon human activity system. In fact, one of the most important and controversial issues in soft operations research is to ensure how the solution has been obtained and to secure whether the conditions under which the solution has been obtained were satisfied. This (...) article presents the necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving human activity systems as a solution to one of the widely-used methodologies of soft operations research, i.e. Soft Systems Methodology. Similarly, with the aim of reaching a better understanding of the nature of the solution provided by SSM, the soft solution is compared through an example with that of hard systems methodology. (shrink)

O presente ensaio procura compreender a concepção husserliana da história a partir de conceitos tais como Urstiftung, Wiedererinnerung e Nachstiftung. Tentar-se-á, não só perceber as razões subjacentes à concepção teleológica da história, presente no livro da Crise (e nos textos que Ihe andam associados) e na Conferência de Viena de 1935, bem como o tipo de concepção do tempo histórico que é correlativa dela, mas também, sobretudo, detectar a possibilidade - a partir dos textos mesmos de Husserl - de uma (...) outra concepção, mais apta a exprimir a novidade e a contingência. (shrink)