This paper argues that through the conceptual distinctions between ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ in The Idea of Phenomenology and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, a proper understanding of transcendental idealism and ‘transcendence in immanence’ can avoid any metaphysical commitments of internalism or externalism, and reconfigure the debate on internalism and externalism by providing an alternative option. There are two interpretations towards whether Husserl is an internalist. The first one is that Husserl is an internalist as he employs the reduction method in (...) order to ‘returns to the inner mind’. The second interpretation, which is most welcomed by Husserlians, refutes the internalistic interpretation of Husserl and argues that neither internalism nor externalism can faithfully understand Husserl’s phenomenology because Husserl’s phenomenology does not tie to any tradition metaphysical commitment. Although I share this view, but an important text, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology is neglected by the previous debates. In the text, it does not only reexamine the two levels of ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ in The Idea of Phenomenology, but also introduces one more level of ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’. I shall argue that by the reconsideration of the three levels of immanence and transcendence, Husserl does not disconnect ‘transcendence’, so he cannot simply be employed into internalism, on the one hand; his phenomenology provides an alternative option rather than internalism or externalism. (shrink)

I argue that Jan Patočka’s phenomenology can be understood as a kind of questioning philosophy that preserves the work and thought of Edmund Husserl by holding it in hindsight. Following Martin Heidegger’s lead to take up Husserl’s phenomenological questions more than Husserl’s answers, Patočka further develops Heidegger’s strategy with the addition of heresy: the philosophical process of distinguishing traditional questions from their answers in such a way as to preserve both, the original wonder sourced in questioning as well as the (...) specific answers that compose tradition. As excellent answers can tend to eclipse the powerful dynamism of original questions, heretical philosophy is revealed to be Patočka’s way to take up, modify, and enact Husserl’s motto “to the [questions] themselves!” In this way, Patočka’s further develops phenomenology while at the same time throwing a thinker back onto phenomenology’s central questions. (shrink)

This article explores Jan Patočka’s notion of “asubjective phenomenology,” which the Czech philosopher elaborated in the mature phase of his thought. More specifically, it proposes to analyze that notion in light of Patočka’s interpretation of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations, in which he identifies the original, though implicit, possibility of a phenomenology independent of a subjective foundation. In the first part of the paper, the author offers an interpretation of Husserls’ concept of “theory in general” as the original model of the (...) Patočkan phenomenal field, which, just like the logical dimension thematized by Husserl in the Prolegomena to Pure Logic, is independent of both objective structures and subjective conditions. It is reasonable to assume that the absence, in Logical Investigations, of “transcendental consciousness,” inspired Patočka in conceiving the manifestation of the object as a thing’s “showing-itself.” This idea is advanced in the second part of the article. Lastly, the final section of the article discusses the concept of “representative” (the sensory content of the intentional act representation) as the second and most significant seed of “asubjective phenomenology” that can be retraced in Husserl’s Logical Investigations. (shrink)

Locke claims that a person’s identity over time consists in the unity of consciousness, not in the sameness of the body. Similarly, the phenomenological approach refuses to see the criteria of identity as residing in some externally observable bodily features. Nevertheless, it does not accept the idea that personal identity has to consist either in consciousness or in the body. We are self-aware as bodily beings. After providing a brief reassessment of Locke and the post-Lockean discussion, the article draws on (...) phenomenological arguments that show the body as lived, that is, lived as one’s own body, but also possibly as “other” or “strange.” Against what has been claimed in recent writing, especially in literature on Merleau-Ponty, the author argues that the “mineness” of the body and its “alterity” are not two mutually exclusive features. In the final part of the article, the author suggests that the becoming strange of one’s own body may legitimately be considered as a prominent experience of what it means to be a person. (shrink)

This paper argues that through the conceptual distinctions between 'immanence' and 'transcendence' in The Idea of Phenomenology and The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, a proper understanding of transcendental idealism and 'transcendence in immanence' can avoid any metaphysical commitments of internalism or externalism, and reconfigure the debate on internalism and externalism by providing an alternative option. There are two interpretations towards whether Husserl is an internalist. The first one is that Husserl is an internalist as he employs the reduction method in (...) order to 'returns to the inner mind'. The second interpretation, which is most welcomed by Husserlians, refutes the internalistic interpretation of Husserl and argues that neither internalism nor externalism can faithfully understand Husserl's phenomenology because Husserl's phenomenology does not tie to any tradition metaphysical commitment. Although I share this view, but an important text, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology is neglected by the previous debates. In the text, it does not only reexamine the two levels of 'immanence' and 'transcendence' in The Idea of Phenomenology, but also introduces one more level of 'immanence' and 'transcendence'. I shall argue that by the reconsideration of the three levels of immanence and transcendence, Husserl does not disconnect 'transcendence', so he cannot simply be employed into internalism, on the one hand; his phenomenology provides an alternative option rather than internalism or externalism. (shrink)

This peer-reviewed paper investigates the dominant underlying approach to aesthetic experience and conscious experience more generally – that is, a neo-Kantian phenomenological approach. In essence, I argue that such approaches are based on a petitio principii in relation to what I call the 'principle of appearing qua appearing' – a principle that, I suggest, underlies the dominant approach to aesthetic perception. So, the ramifications of this argument are that we ought to question the dominance of the phenomenological approach to experience, (...) and reassess our concepts of the aesthetic mode of perception in this light. The paper makes a specific contribution to knowledge in this field in that it identifies a weakness in the dominant arguments relevant to our understanding of conscious experience, and clears the path for views of conscious experience that emerge in cognitive science. The paper has been delivered at a number of major conferences, and is used as a course text at the American University of Berlin. (shrink)