Phänomenologische Forschungen 2003

This paper takes a renewed look at Husserl’s method of the phenomenological reduction. It interprets “the reduction” as shorthand for the meaning of Husserl’s entire phenomenology in its mature stage. In the same way, the method of reduction might have different manners of execution but they are nevertheless guided by a common intent. The text takes its starting point by considering the different metaphors Husserl uses – the “flatland creatures” and the reduction as akin to a religious conversion – and spells out their implications, which lead me to consider their metaphilosophical significance. In this way, this article attempts a metaphilosophical reading of the meaning of the reduction in Husserl, which is equal to considering the meaning philosophy has for Husserl in the most general terms. In this way, some unorthodox reflections are carried out that shed new light on central phenomenological concepts, such as vidence and eidetic variation, phenomenology as a form of transcendental idealism, and the notorious problem of the lifeworld. In this way, Husserl’s phenomenology is interpreted as a peculiar representative of Enlightenment philosophy that restitutes a special notion of responsibility.

Phänomenologie als Therapie: Thomas Fuchs: Zeit-Diagnosen. Philosophisch-Psychiatrische Essays; Feministische Phänomenologie in Nordamerika: Linda Fischer / Lester Embree (Hg.): Feminist Phenomenology; Lambert Wiesing: Phänomene im Bild; Kurt Wolf: Religionsphilosophie in Frankreich. Der "ganz Andere" und die personale Struktur der Welt; Ursula Stenger: Schöpferische Prozesse. Phänomenologisch-anthropologische Analysen zur Konstitution von Ich und Welt; Edmund Gusserl': Sobranie socinenij, tom III (1): Logiceskie issledovanija, tom II (1): Issledovanija po fenomenologii i teorii poznanija; Dermot Moran: Introduction to Phenomenology; Hugh. J. Silverman (Hg.): Philosophy and Desire; Ralf Becker: Sinn und Zeitlichkeit. Vergleichende Studien zum Problem der Konstituion von Sinn durch Zeit bei Usserl, Heidegger und Bloch

The concept of “natural attitude” as it was developed by Husserl in the Ideas I plays a key role in the phenomenological methodology. But was it in and for itself enough investigated? Heidegger’s critics and radical transformation of it is well known, unlike its treatment by the first generation of Husserl’s student. Adolf Reinach, for a short time leader of the realist phenomenology faithful to Husserl’s breakthroughs in the Logical Investigations, is one of the latter. Within a veiled debate with Husserl about possibilities and limits of transcendental idealism (e. g. a critical reception of Ideas I) he attempts a kind of rehabilitation of natural attitude by way of an original and thorough description of it. Still in a strictly phenomenological manner, it though privileges for strategic reasons the “variation” process over the “reduction” one. The result is a subtle reflection that helps us thinking lived experience exactly as we lived it and not how philosophy would have it.

Adorno describes Bergson and Husserl as the proper originators of philosophical modernity. What is characteristic of the initiatives these thinkers take is, according to him, an essay in breaking out both from the philosophical systems of idealism and from neo-Kantian formalism. It is shown in the present paper that Adorno’s own project to elaborate a negative dialectics can be understood as a continuation, or re-enactment, of this Ausbruchsversuch of his great predecessors. Moreover, in one of his lecture courses given in the early sixties of the last century, Adorno makes it clear that his main philosophical project is mediated by Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian ontology. On the other side, however, the justification of a negative dialectics relies, to a large extent, on a criticism of Bergsonian intuitionism, as well of Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian ontology. The upshot of these conflicting tendencies in Adorno’s later philosophical work is a tragic feature, which, in the present paper, is exhibited and highlighted on the ground of an enquiry into the idea of a spiritual experience put forward by Adorno in one of his lecture courses from the sixties, as well as in the Introduction to his main philosophical work Negative Dialectics.

The present study examines Adorno’s critique of Husserl and Heidegger by asking whether one can find a systematic equivalent for Adorno’s notion of a ,spiritual experience‘ in the works of the two phenomenological thinkers. This question is answered affirmatively. The first part summarizes Adorno’s critique of Husserl and Heidegger; the second analyzes the notion of ,spiritual experience‘ in Adorno’s negative dialectics; the third part explains in which sense one can speak of a ,spiritual experience‘ in Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenology; the final part describes the main differences of a ,spiritual experience‘ in negative dialectics and in phenomenology, i. e. on the one hand the originally epistemological approach of phenomenology and the originally practical approach of negative dialectics and on the other hand the attitude with regards towards metaphysics.

Emmanuel Levinas’ earliest development of thought is presented here as a phenomenological endeavor, i. e. in its relation to Husserl and Heidegger as well as in its own effort to give an appropriate philosophical account of ,things themselves‘. The latter task is shown to have a transcendental dimension as it is a self-awareness of conscious life in which the faithful analysis of concrete phenomena and the concept of this life itself have to be brought into attunement. The perspective of Levinas’ phenomenological gaze is then presented in these terms and shows two fairly distinct stages. Up to the mid-1930s Levinas appears as a follower of Martin Heidegger, when he advocates an appropriate approach to being in all its richness and therefore criticizes Husserl’s alleged intellectualism. Later, with a radicalized perspective, Levinas’ own philosophical project advocates an appropriate account of the problem of radical alterity beyond experience and phenomenology.He therefore criticizes both Husserl and Heidegger and remodels phenomenology so that it can adequately ,understand‘ radical alterity and at the same time confine itself before it.

Alles, was ist, ist entweder an einem Ort oder doch nicht ohne den Ort. (Archytas, zitiert nach Simplikios) Die Kraft des Ortes wird erstaunlich sein. (Aristoteles, Physik, Buch IV) Der Ort ist entweder ein besonderer, wenn man ihn mit Beziehung auf bestimmte Körper betrachtet, oder allgemein, soweit er sich auf das Ganze bezieht, wobei alle Veränderungen bezüglich irgendeines beliebigen Körpers in Rechnung gestellt sind. (Leibniz, Neue Abhandlungen über den menschliehen Verstand, Buch II) Der Raum ist eine Gemeinschaft benannter Orte. (Lévi-Strauss, Das wilde Denken)

The paper undertakes a comparison of the philosophies of Stanley Cavell and Emmanuel L_vinas, focusing on their interpretation of skepticism and the crucial role of the problem of the other or other minds in the works of both. The comparison proceeds in three major steps: first, differences in their respective interpretations of Descartes’ stance on the problem of other minds are discussed. In the second section, Cavell’s examination of the intelligibility of someone else’s pain and L_vinas’ questioning of the sense of suffering are juxtaposed. Finally, the author analyzes their respective treatment of skepticism. This results in the opening of an ethical dimension which grounds the dominating theoretical relationship towards the world and the other human being in epistemology and ontology. The periodical return and irrefutability of skepticism can thus be regarded not only as evidence of the inevitable limitation of knowledge, but as a consequence of the necessarily social or intersubjective structure of subjectivity itself.

Autonomy is associated with intellectual self-preservation and self-determination. Shame, on the contrary, bears a loss of approval, self-esteem and control. Being afflicted with shame, we suffer from social dependencies that by no means have been freely chosen. Moreover, undergoing various experiences of shame, our power of reflection turns out to be severly limited owing to emotional embarrassment. In both ways, shame seems to be bound to heteronomy. This situation strongly calls for conceptual clarification. For this purpose, we introduce a threestage model of self-determination which comprises i) autonomy as capability of decision-making relating to given sets of choices, ii) self-commitment in terms of setting and harmonizing goals, and iii) self-realization in compliance with some range of persistently approved goals. Accordingly, the presuppositions and distinctive marks of shame-experiences are made explicit. Within this framework, we explore the intricate relation between autonomy and shame by focusing on two questions: on what conditions could conventional behavior be considered as self-determined? How should one characterize the varying roles of actors that are involved in typical cases of shame-experiences? In this connection, we advance the thesis that the social dynamics of shame turns into ambiguous positions relating to motivation, intentional content,and actors’ roles.

In this article I explore the relationship between the self and the experience of shame. Drawing mainly on contributions fromthe classical phenomenological tradition, I seek to make sense of the idea that the self of shame is a globally involved self, leaving aside any mysterious connotations that the latter notion might involve. To this end, I suggest a distinction between a property- based and a structure-based account of the self of shame. According to the latter, the self of shame is typically experienced as globally involved to the extent that it reaches an acute sense of its own individuation as an irreducible self vis-_-vis others, that is, as a self whose particular situation in the world is not ascribable to another self.

Die Generationsgenossen Max Scheler und Ernst Cassirer haben vermutlich nie persönlichen Kontakt gehabt. Gleichwohl gibt es in ihren Texten beachtliche Verweise aufeinander, die eine thematische und methodische Vergleichbarkeit von Problemstellungen zeigen. Statt der Untersuchung von persönlichen wechselseitigen Beeinflussungen empfiehlt sich deshalb eine strukturelle philosophische Komparatistik. Scheler und Cassirer teilen die Würdigung des Ausdrucksphänomens als Wirklichkeitsparadigma. Von daher gelangen sie beide zu einer Konzeption von Kultur und Anthropologie (als Inbegriff von Wissensformen), in welcher der Befund der Krise eine konstitutive Rolle spielt. Am Thema der Metaphysik scheinen die beiden Autoren sich von einander zu trennen. Doch auch bei dem gegenüber Schelers Metaphysik höchst kritischen Cassirer lassen sich gleichwohl – gerade in der kulturanthropologischen Grundposition – metaphysische und religiöse Positionen ausmachen.

Edmund Husserl: Untersuchungen zur Urteilstheorie. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1893–1918); Ralf Becker: Der menschliche Standpunkt. Perspektiven und Formationen des Anthropomorphismus; Burt C. Hopkins: The Philosophy of Husserl; Gerald Hartung, Matthias Wunsch, Claudius Strube (Hg.): Von der Systemphilosophie zur systematischen Philosophie – Nicolai Hartmann