Starting from the experience of the Other, phenomenology takes otherness as something which withdraws from my own experience and exceeds the limits of our common orders. Radical otherness is something extraordinary, arising in my own body, situated between us and striking us before we look for it. Psychiatry confronts us with a peculiar sort of pathological otherness which in ethnopsychiatry is doubled to an otherness of a higher degree. We encounter the anomalies of other orders as if we were dipping (...) into the Other’s shadow. This brings up many questions. How is the pathic related to the pathological, the normal to the abnormal? How can psychiatry take account of the intercultural Other without sacrificing its otherness to universal points of view? How is the unconsciousness of our own culture connected with that of other cultures? To what extent does intercultural otherness affect our intracultural otherness? Is there an alternative to the extremes of fundamentalism and globalism, which tend either to repress otherness or to level it? (shrink)

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)

La fenomenología husserliana es concebida desde el principio como un intento de superar la metafísica tradicional. El presente estudio intenta comprender el sentido y alcance de esta superación mediante un viaje al interior del proyecto filosófico de Husserl. En su itinerario intelectual dos conceptos son fundamentales: la reducción y la pregunta por el origen. En estas coordenadas la fenomenología es presentada como una filosofía que restituiría el sentido ori-ginario de la metafísica y de todo el proyecto científico.From the beginning Husserl’s (...) Phenomenology is conceived as an attempt to overcome the traditional metaphysics. The present study tries to understand the meaning and scope of this overcoming by an incursion into the interior of the philosophical project of Husserl. In his intellectual itinerary two concepts are fundamental: the reduction and the question of the origin. In these coordinates Phenomenology is presented as a philosophy that would restore the original meaning of metaphysics and the entire scientific project. (shrink)

Based upon a brief outline of existential-phenomenological ontology we present a theoretical and practical understanding of humanbeing, which is suited for a methodologically reflected approach to qualitative research. We present the phenomenological distinction between threedimensions of corporeal intentionality(structural, generative and dialectic intentionality) that form elementary events and structures of meaning. Various aspects of human being are better scrutinized with these concepts of intentionality, such as the association of individual being or collective being (e.g. groups) with the less differentiated anonymity of (...) human being. The aim of our framework is to support the qualitative researcher in grasping the experience of the human life in closer accord with how this being actually unfolds and is lived. Application of the presented framework is illuminated with empirical examples from educational, health and psychological contexts. Finally, we discuss the methodological implications that our approach has for qualitative investigations of human being. (shrink)

This investigation explores the methodological implications of choosing an unusual example for phenomenological description (here, a bodily awareness practice allowing spontaneous bodily shifts to occur at the leading edge of the living present); for example, the matters themselves are not pregiven, but must first be brought into view. Only after preliminary clarifications not only of the practice concerned, but also of the very notions of the “body” and of “protentionality” is it possible to provide both static and genetic descriptions of (...) the phenomena in question, leading to concluding meditations on the differences between an “integrating” consciousness engaged in a project of knowing and an “improvisational” consciousness open to radical transformation. In the end, however, the Urzeitigung in which what is protended is simply “more time” holds good as the invariant governing the deep structure of both of these styles of consciousness. (shrink)

Alexei Krioukovs Studie widmet sich einem der sowohl interessantesten als auch in theoretischer Hinsicht schwierigsten Themen der zeitgenossischen Philosophie: dem Problem der Intersubjektivität. In praktischem Sinn handelt es sich dabei um die Beziehung zwischen Menschen (Subjekten). Was alltäglich nicht zu beweisen ist, bildet auf theoretischer Ebene ein grundsätzliches Problem: Wer sind die Subjekte der Intersubjektivität? Auf welche Weise, mit welchem Recht und mit welcher Methode kann man einen Bezug zwischen diesen Subjekten rechtfertigen? Alexei Krioukov geht detailliert auf diese Fragen ein (...) und diskutiert sie ausführlich anhand der Theorien von Husserl und Sartre. (shrink)

Waldenfelsovo fenomenološko razumijevanje moderne zasnovano je na razumijevanju stranog kao bitnog određenja moderne. Strano je ovdje odrednica mišljenja koja se eksplicira u kulturnim i društvenim odnosima te ga stoga treba interpretirati upravo u njegovom fenomenalnom realitetu. Kultura i politika u tom značenju više su od pukog imena za skupni naziv značenja i opravdanja djelovanja. One postaju izraz smisaonog konteksta u kojem se iščitava odnos spram stranog kao referentnog mjesta za razumijevanje samog značenja moderne, njene unutarnje diferenciranosti, tokova koji je određuju (...) i karakteristika koje se uspostavljaju u individualnim odrednicama što obilježavaju njenu povijest. Strano se, u cjelini svojega određenja, zasniva iz tjelesnosti kao realiteta njegovog postojanja. U cjelini uzevši, moderna se, smatra Waldenfels, razumijeva u njenoj postranjenosti , u njenom odnošenju spram stranog koje na koncu rezultira i postranjenjem moderne u cijelosti. Ona kao takva nije zastranila, nego po-stranila, i sama se priklonila stranosti kao vlastitom identitetu, u kojem je čvrsto uspostavljen i filozofijski diskurs na kojem se taj identitet brani. Odnos spram tjelesnosti, koji se postulira u modernoj teoriji, u tom smislu je konzekvenca odnosa spram stranog. Zato se problem transformacije filozofije ne nalazi u novom razumijevanju umstvenosti, nego u diskursu nove racionalnosti, fenomenološkom mišljenju partikulariteta okrenutom kritici obuhvatnosti metafizike subjektiviteta i bilo kojeg oblika umstvenih pretpostavki realiteta. Waldenfelsova interpretacija moderne proistječe iz cjelovitog uvida u kontinuitet mišljenja koje je određuje i iskazuje se kroz njegovo sažimanje u ključnim problemima koji određuju njene tokove. U tom smislu fenomenološki diskurs njegove filozofije dobiva svojevrsno značenje ishodišta filozofijskog mišljenja na prijelazu stoljeća.Waldenfels’ phenomenological understanding of modernity is based on the understanding of “the foreign” as an essential definition of modernity. “The foreign” here is the characteristic of thinking explicated in cultural and social relationships, which should therefore be interpreted precisely in its phenomenal reality. Culture and politics in this context are more then a mere names for a collection of meanings and justifications of action. They become the expression of a meaningful context from which one can read-off the relation to “the foreign” as the reference point forunderstanding the very meaning of modernity, its inner differentiation, the streams that determine it and the characteristics that are established in the individual determinants that denote its history. “The foreign” as a whole is grounded in corporality as the reality of its existence. Waldenfels maintains that modernity, taken as a whole, is understood in its orientation towards the foreign, in its relationship with the foreign that, eventually, results in the entire modernity being oriented towards the foreign. Modernity as such did not go astray, but it became oriented towards the foreign, it decided itself to accept some sort of “the foreign” as its identity, in which the philosophical discourse is established for its defence. The relationship towards corporality, postulated in this sense in modern theory, is a consequence of the relationship towards “the foreign”. That is why the problem of transformation of philosophy is not found in the new understanding of the mind, but in the discourse of new rationality, of phenomenological thinking of the particularity oriented towards the critique of the encompassing metaphysics of subjectivity and towards all sorts of rational assumptions bout the reality. Waldenfels’ interpretation of the modernity follows from the integrative insight into continuity of the thinking that determines it, and it is expressed by his summarisation of the crucial problems that determine its paths. It is in this sense that the phenomenological discourse is established, signifying the starting point of philosophical thinking at the turn of the century. (shrink)

This thesis wrestles with the normativity of language, its usage and its practices while questioning the signifié-signifiant reality. A structural reading of language designs its translational practices within the source-target framework, thereby essentialising its relationship en passant: everything has meaning as long as we accept the hidden framework of a universal language. Therefore, language outlined as a system of signs is a product of transcendental considerations and consequently it renders practice into a hermeticrealm in which the distinction between eidos and (...) eidolon, right and wrong, familiar and unfamiliar, grammar and gibberish makes perfect sense and in which the translation from A to B is simply a matter of transferring identities. Linguistic power neutralises through its transcendental conditioning ephemera in life and world. We will discover that a phenomenological reading of language is open to layers which questions the dialectic setting of linguistic knowledge production. Phenomenology proposes to study life-world relationships by reducing the power of dialectical denomination to the power of gazing or to the lenses of ambiguity. Theorising language and translational practices within the phenomenological realm follows the concept of being oriented towards body-life-world while laying bare the phenomenon language. This revealing method supersedes empirical considerations since phenomenological methodology questions permanently our very own positioning. Hence, the transfer from A to B will be challenged by possibilities which are temporary: it is about a transfer zone featuring A as A’ to B or A’ in B / C. However, the phenomenological possibility reveals that the price for ephemera is tamed by the condition of its possibilities: indeed, the aporia of linguistic identity in polyvalence requires not only phenomenological brackets but also a transcendental backup. Chapter I and II study the translational practice of language and phenomenology by explaining its analysis via dynamised transcendental conditions. The disillusion of the phenomenological inquiry will be yield by radicalising phenomenological reading of language towards a phenomenographical practice of language. Chapter III goes to the extremes in exposing a language without content. The introduction of the trickster figure Narcissistgrotesque Face will be the anti-metaphor in which the grotesque line up forces us to learn bearing A with B and in which the non-content materiality of linguistic practices resemble le bas matérialisme. Not explanation, understanding and rendering things plausible is the movens for language but it is all about the spur of its enactment, its style and its story telling that renders translational practice visible. Chapter III is a performative practice in which we turn the text into texture. Translation happens then when your are perplex and the translational void enacts you and me. (shrink)

Socratic Philosophizing is an open process of thinking that follows a net of methods. Martens develops his Five Finger Model in accordance with Socrates and the history of philosophy. Philosophizing within the community of inquiry is characterized by attitudes of curiosity, openness, and the willingness to make oneself understandable as well as to understand the other person in return. There are five core philosophical methods that assist in making such philosophizing successful: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Analysis, Dialectics and Speculation. These five methods (...) are understood as reflective operations which are learned in an elementary way and practiced step-by-step: to be able to describe something exactly, to understand oneself and others, to clarify in a conceptual and argumentative way how something is understood), to ask and to disagree,, to fantasize how something could be understood. Marten’s Five Finger Model builds on these methods in order to help children build broader and distinct questions through philosophizing. To illustrate this we will present an interactive game that can be used to introduce the teaching themes of Who am I?, Partnership, Tolerance, and Foreign Cultures. The game is called “Distance and Closeness.” The game was evaluated afterward using the framework of the five finger method. (shrink)