The aim of this paper is to motivate the need for and then present the outline of an alternative explanation of what Dan Zahavi has dubbed “open intersubjectivity,” which captures the basic interpersonal character of perceptual experience as such. This is a notion whose roots lay in Husserl’s phenomenology. Accordingly, the paper begins by situating the notion of open intersubjectivity – as well as the broader idea of constituting intersubjectivity to which it belongs – within Husserl’s phenomenology as an approach (...) distinct from his more well-known account of empathy in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. I then recapitulate and criticize Zahavi’s phenomenological explanation of open intersubjectivity, arguing that his account hinges on a flawed phenomenology of perceptual experience. In the wake of that criticism, I supply an alternative phenomenological framework for explaining open intersubjectivity, appealing to the methodological principles of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and his theory of developmentally primitive affect. Those principles are put to work using the resources of recent studies of cognitive developmental and social cognition. From that literature, I discuss how infants learn about the world from others in secondary intersubjectivity through natural pedagogy. Lastly, the paper closes by showing how the discussion of infant development explains the phenomenon of open intersubjectivity and by highlighting the relatively moderate nature of this account compared to Zahavi’s. (shrink)

Interpreters generally agree that the Fifth Cartesian Meditation fails to achieve its task, but they do not agree on what that task is. In my essay, I attempt to formulate the question to which the Fifth Cartesian Meditation gives the answer. While it is usually assumed that the text poses a rather ambitious question, I suggest that the text asks, How is the Other given to me on the most basic level? The answer would be that the Other is given (...) as accessible in the mode of inaccessibility. Husserl’s failure to convey this question clearly seems rooted in ambiguities concerning the concepts of solipsism and the sphere of ownness. (shrink)

Der hohe Anspruch, mit dem die Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls als prima philosophia beginnt, zielt auf das Desiderat einer reinen Eidetik, die die Faktizität in den Bereich der intersubjektiv konstituierten Zweiten Philosophie verlegt. In diversen Passagen des Husserl’schen Werks zeichnen sich jedoch Brüche in dieser Architektonik ab, durch die hindurch etwas Faktisches vom Konstituierten ins Konstitutive hineinzusickern und sogar das transzendentale Ego mit den Fakta der Endlichkeit zu bedrohen scheint. Mithin gilt es zu klären, wie diese „Einblutungen des Faktischen“ phänomenologisch aufgeklärt (...) werden können, wenn solch eine Dynamik doch der Konstitutionsrichtung, die für diese Art zu philosophieren grundlegend ist, zuwiderläuft. Dabei führt die Suche nach den Spuren dieses eigentümlichen Zurückwirkens vom klar und deutlich erkennbaren Ausgangspunkt des cartesianischen Cogito hinab in das Dunkel der Hyle. Der Versuch, das Gefundene zu konzeptualisieren, bedient sich schließlich der Metapher einer Kapillarkraft, insofern nämlich dessen Einfluss keine eigene Aktivität bedeutet, sondern lediglich durch die Art und Weise, wie der transzendentale Schichtenbau konstituiert ist, zustande kommt. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to re-think the question of the world of persons with schizophrenia from the perspective of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler and that of the Japanese psychiatrist Bin Kimura. So far, no comparison between these two authors has been made, even though there are several convergences and evidence of Scheler’s indirect influence on Bin Kimura through Viktor von Weizsäcker. In recent years, Dan Zahavi, Louis Sass, and Josef Parnas have interpreted the modus vivendi of schizophrenic patients (...) in relation to a disturbance on the level of the “minimal self”. Subsequently, the discussion has highlighted the importance of disorders on the level of intercorporeality and intersubjectivity (Thomas Fuchs) and on the level of “existential feelings” (Matthew Ratcliffe). This paper argues that Max Scheler and Bin Kimura allow us to focus on an aspect which has been neglected so far: that of a “relational self” that relates to the very foundation of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality and that can thus be reborn in the encounter with the other and may position itself differently in the world. In Scheler’s perspective, the world of persons with schizophrenia is the result of an axiological disorder (valueception) that impairs contact with the primordial life impulse (Lebensdrang). As a consequence, they are incapable of attuning emotionally and socially with others: this prevents the singularity from being reborn in the encounter with the other and forces them to position themselves in their own solipsistic universe. Moving in a similar direction, Bin Kimura interprets the world of persons with schizophrenia as the result of a disorder of aida (one of the central concepts of Japanese culture that indicates the space of being in between). The disorder of aida compromises the basic relationship (Grundverhältnis in the sense of Viktor von Weizsäcker) and hinders what Bin Kimura calls festum, i.e. the birth of subjectivity, so that it is experienced by persons with schizophrenia only as ante festum. Starting from these two perspectives, I argue the existence of an axiological and anthropogenetic dimension of psychopathology. I begin with a discussion of Zahavi’s concept of minimal self and the thesis that reveals the disorders on this level of subjectivity as the origin of the world of persons with schizophrenia. I, then, analyze Max Scheler’s position and its historic importance for the emergence of phenomenological psychopathology. Thereafter, I introduce the concepts of “disorder of aida” (Bin Kimura) and “disorder of ordo amoris” (Max Scheler). Finally, I develop the concept of a “psychopathology of ordo amoris” by also comparing it with Ratcliffe’s thesis of “existential feelings”. (shrink)

El presente artículo desarrolla un análisis crítico de papel metodológico que desempeña la libre fantasía en Ideas I. Haciendo visible la estrecha relación entre las modalizaciones de conciencia y la estructura noético-noemática de los actos intencionales, se demostrará la necesaria complementariedad de los métodos de las reducciones eidética y fenomenológica para el proyecto de Husserl de una crítica fenomenológica del conocimiento. Con ello se busca poner de relieve que el rendimiento de la fantasía tuvo un impacto metodológico decisivo para la (...) conversión trascendental de la fenomenología. (shrink)

When it comes to understanding the nature of social cognition, we have— according to the standard view—a choice between the simulation theory, the theory-theory or some hybrid between the two. The aim of this paper is to argue that there are, in fact, other options available, and that one such option has been articulated by various think- ers belonging to the phenomenological tradition. More specifically, the paper will con- trast Lipps’ account of empathy—an account that has recently undergone something of (...) a revival in the hands of contemporary simulationists—with various accounts of empa- thy found in the phenomenological tradition. I discuss the way Lipps was criticized by Scheler, Stein and Husserl, and outline some of the core features of their, at times diver- gent, alternatives. I then proceed by considering how their basic take on empathy and social cognition was taken up and modified by Schutz—a thinker whose contribution to the analysis of interpersonal understanding has been unjustly neglected in recent years. (shrink)

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)

When it comes to understanding the nature of social cognition, we have—according to the standard view—a choice between the simulation theory, the theory-theory or some hybrid between the two. The aim of this paper is to argue that there are, in fact, other options available, and that one such option has been articulated by various thinkers belonging to the phenomenological tradition. More specifically, the paper will contrast Lipps' account of empathy—an account that has recently undergone something of a revival in (...) the hands of contemporary simulationists—with various accounts of empathy found in the phenomenological tradition. I discuss the way Lipps was criticized by Scheler, Stein and Husserl, and outline some of the core features of their, at times divergent, alternatives. I then proceed by considering how their basic take on empathy and social cognition was taken up and modified by Schutz—a thinker whose contribution to the analysis of interpersonal understanding has been unjustly neglected in recent years. (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)