The aim of the article is to define and investigate an interpretative framework for the philosophy of Leopold Blaustein, a student of Twardowski in Lwów (Lvov, Lviv) and Husserl in Freiburg im Breisgau. The author defends the thesis that it is justified to refer to Blaustein’s philosophy not as phenomenology sensu stricto, but as a phenomenologically-oriented descriptive psychology related but not

In this paper I examine the structure of hope and trust from a phenomenological perspective in order to analyze the kinds of beliefs, valuings, and practical dispositions involved in them. I claim that there are some basic aspects of the social world that would be inconceivable without the feeling components of these attitudes. However, since these attitudes are only rational in as far as they involve

The present essay, here published for the first time, is part of a group of four texts on the history of the early phenomenological movement that Theodor Conrad wrote right after World War II. One of these texts known as “Conrads Bericht” was edited by Eberhard Avé-Lallemant and Karl Schuhmann and published in Husserl Studies in 1992. The four original typescripts are preserved in the archive of the

In this paper, I compare the original version of the enactive view—autopoietic enactivism—with Husserl’s phenomenology, regarding the issue of the relationship between consciousness and nature. I refer to this issue as the “problem of naturalism.” I show how the idea of the co-determination of subject and object of cognition, which is at the heart of autopoietic enactivism, is close to the phenomenological

This paper demonstrates that two signature methodological concepts in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, the epoché and the phenomenological reduction, derive from his reflections on the history and significance of epistemological skepticism in the Western tradition. Drawing on his Lectures on Logic and Epistemology (Hua XXIV) from the Winter semester of 1906–07, it is argued that Husserl derives

Husserl’s official account of essence is modal. It is also, I submit, incompatible with the role that essence is supposed to play, especially relative to necessity, in his overall philosophy. In the Husserlian framework, essence should rather be treated as a non-modal notion. The point, while not generally acknowledged, has been made before (by Kevin Mulligan for one); yet the arguments given for it

Edmund Husserl often characterizes essences and eidetic laws in normative terms. Many of his statements to this effect are however highly puzzling as they appear at odds with Husserl’s general understanding of normativity. In this paper I focus on this puzzle and I argue that we can reconcile most of the apparent tensions between these two dimensions of Husserl’s philosophical thought. In the first

I argue that Husserl’s account of passive synthesis can be developed into a phenomenology of peripheral experience. Peripheral experiences are not defined by their location in visual space but by their phenomenal and intentional character, by what these experiences are like and how they present things in the world. Further, I argue that peripheral experience is of a piece with our most basic background

Husserl’s philosophy of mathematics, his metatheory, and his transcendental phenomenology have a sophisticated and systematic interrelation that remains relevant for questions of ontology today. It is well established that Husserl anticipated many aspects of model theory. I focus on this aspect of Husserl’s philosophy in order to argue that Thomasson’s recent pleonastic reconstruction of Husserl’s

In this article I address the idea that in Husserl’s eidetic ontology all possibilities are fixed ‘in advance’ so that actual objects and events—despite their contingency—can only ever unfold possibilities that are ‘permitted’ to them by their essences. I show how this view distorts Husserl’s ontology and argue that this distortion stems from a misconstrual of the relations between essences and facts

Two disciplines have greatly contributed to a new understanding of phantasy and imagination in contemporary thought: phenomenology and psychoanalysis. These two different approaches to Phantasie developed almost simultaneously at the beginning of the twentieth century. The examination of Phantasie can focus on the concrete form of the phantasm as a unique object formation—or better, as scene. The attention

The aim of this paper is understand Husserl’s “Platonism” through an understanding of how the method of eidetic variation and a phenomenological conception of essences reformulates by means of a conceptual and historical translation Plato’s doctrine of essences. In arguing that a theory of essences and method for the discovery of essences proves indispensable to a proper conception of phenomenology

Husserl is known to have oriented many aspects of his extensive analyses of phantasy around a contrast to perception: what phantasy and perception have in common, for example, is their intuitiveness; yet, while in perception something is encountered ‘in the flesh,’ in phantasy this experience is modified by its ‘as if in the flesh’ character. However, both in the majority of Husserl’s reflections on

The paper contends that transcendental phenomenology is a form of radical immanent critique able to explicate the necessary structures of meaning-constitution as well as evaluate our present situation through the historically traditionalized layers of concrete, lived experience. In order to make this case, the paper examines the critical dimension of phenomenology through the lens of one of its core

The present paper provides the first presentation of Jean Hering’s dissertation Lotzes Lehre vom Apriori (1914) in light of Husserl’s assessment of Lotze’s theory of knowledge in the Logik. After a preliminary discussion of some of the main aspects of Husserl’s dismissal of both the metaphysical presuppositions and the absurd consequence of Lotze’s stance on knowledge, the case will be made for considering

This article begins by presenting the two most important transformations that establish a genuine Husserlian approach to the imagination: the first lies in the grasping of imagination, despite its essential differences with perception and hallucination, as an intuitive, or sensuous consciousness (thereby contrasting it with signification); the second lies in the insight that imagination, or better

This paper aims at offering a concise, yet systematic, presentation of the Husserlian method of “self-variation” in connection to eidetic variation sic et simpliciter. After a brief review of the different meanings of this method in Husserl’s writings, I will focus on the way in which Husserl employs it to bring the eidos “ego” to the fore. To this end, I will take into account the specific subject

In order to appreciate the rich implications of the transcendental reduction, one has to distinguish the different contexts where it acquires different meanings. The present paper focuses on a particular epistemological context and clarifies the contribution of the reduction within this context. The contribution consists in the formulation and solution of the problem of exhibiting the evidence supporting

Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny (Language and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of language. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1999) argue that the pure causal theory of reference faces a problem, which they call the qua-problem. They propose to invoke intentional states to cope with it. Martin Kusch (A sceptical guide to meaning and rules. Acumen, Chesham, 2006), however, argues that, because Devitt

This paper aims at a phenomenological analysis of trust. We argue that trust has a transcendental dimension in that it functions as a condition of possibility of the basic ego-world relation. Tacit for the most part in ordinary experience, it comes forth in its problematicity in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. People experiencing psychic disturbances lose trust in the continuity and the mineness

The question of the animal is one of the most intensely debated in the contemporary philosophical arena. The present article makes the case that Husserl’s phenomenological approach offers a stimulating and open-ended perspective on this discussion. The animal, indeed, is an instance of extreme otherness, which pushes phenomenology to its limits. The paper opens with an outline of the methodological

Object-hood is central to Husserl’s work, yet he employs several different notions of object-hood without clarifying the differences; his work thus offers rich and nuanced reflections on object-hood, but in a theoretically underdeveloped, at times even paradoxical, form. This paper aims to develop Husserl’s theory of objects systematically. In order to achieve this I distinguish five object-concepts

This paper approaches Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness from a mereological perspective. Taking as inspiration Bergson’s idea that pure durée is a multiplicity of interpenetration, I will show, from within Husserlian phenomenology, that the absolute flow can indeed be described as a whole of interpenetrating parts. This mereological perspective will inform my re-consideration of the much-discussed

Hubert Dreyfus once noted that it would be difficult to ascertain whether Edmund Husserl had a computational theory of mind. I provide evidence that he had one. Both Steven Pinker and Steven Horst think that the computational theory of mind must have two components: a representational-symbolic component and a causal component. Bearing this in mind, we proceed to a close-reading of the sections of “On

The life-world is a central topic of Husserl’s phenomenology. He addresses this issue in some of the works published during his lifetime and attempts to analyze the life-world extensively in many of his works and posthumously published research manuscripts. The life-world is one of the topics that have been discussed most extensively in phenomenology. However, there are many misunderstandings of Husserl’s

This paper examines the evolution of Edmund Husserl’s theory of perceptual occlusion. This task is accomplished in two stages. First, I elucidate Husserl’s conclusion, from his 1901 Logical Investigations , that the occluded parts of perceptual objects are intended by partial signitive acts. I focus on two doctrines of that account. I examine Husserl’s insight that signitive intentions are composed

While it seems obvious that the embodied self is both a subject of experience and an object in the world, it is not clear how, or even whether, both of these senses of self can refer to the same self. According to Husserl, the relation between these two senses of self is beset by the “paradox of human subjectivity.” Following Husserl’s lead, scholars have attempted to resolve the paradox of subjectivity

Die Phanomenologie Husserls ist nicht nur als ein metaphysikkritisches Unternehmen, sondern als eine kritische Wiederaufnahme aristotelischer Themen aufzufassen. Denn die Frage nach dem Sinn des Seins fuhrt Husserl anfanglich dazu, eine transzendentale Phanomenologie als eidetische Wissenschaft zu entwerfen, welche die aristotelische Ontologie auf formale (a priori) und materiale Regionen erweitert

In his genetic phenomenology, Husserl introduces types, pre-predicative frames of experience that guide the perception and cognition of objects. In this essay, I argue that there are two types that are functionally almost identical to Kant’s schemata. To support this conclusion, I first present an interpretation of Kant’s discussion of schemata. I argue that we must see schemata as pure, a priori cognitions

I develop a phenomenological critique to Husserl’s metaphysics, by showing that – contrary to what the majority of critical literature claims – metaphysical questions (God, teleology, meaning of existence) are alien to phenomenology. Husserl engages with the discussion of these topics only because of ideological-existential motives, and, when he deals with that problems, he does not use the phenomenological

Whether Husserl is a conceptualist has been heatedly debated among contemporary Husserl scholars. The present article intends to join the debate by asking the question of how, in the Husserlian context, intuitive acts fulfill signitive ones. On the one hand, those who take Husserl to be a conceptualist hold the content-identity theory, arguing that intuitive act and signitive act have the same content

The present essay offers a first, systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s understanding of Socrates’ philosophical position in the Ideengeschichte with a special focus on the Socratic method. Our goal is twofold. On the one hand, we aim to provide a clear presentation of the way in which Husserl himself conceives of the “beginning” of Western philosophy by tackling the specifically Socratic contribution

The anticipation of the typical under the assumption of the non-occurrence of the atypical is the experiential schema governing the individuation of ordinary enduring objects and their properties. Against this background, a primitive form of “if-and-only-if” consciousness is implicit in our everyday perceptual intentions. The thematization of the fact that perception operates under this proto-tentative

Abstract“Apprehension” (Auffassung) is a key term in Husserl’s phenomenology of perceptual consciousness. However, its modes of operation have not yet been closely analyzed. Apprehension has its own principles and foundations. According to Husserl, the principles of apprehension are 1) contiguity, 2) equality and 3) similarity, and each of them expresses a specific kind of qualitative connection between

According to Husserl’s so-called Exhibition Principle (Prinzip der Ausweisbarkeit; henceforth: EP), the propositions “x exists” and “The exhibition of x’s existence is possible” are equivalent. The overall aim of this paper is to debate EP. First, I raise the question whether EP can properly be said to be a principle. Second, I give a general formulation of EP. Third, I examine specific formulations

The present study attempts to reconstruct Husserl’s account of empirical illusion and hallucination and disclose the significance of sense-deception in Husserl’s phenomenology. By clarifying the relation between the “leibhaftige presence” and “existence” of perceived objects, I shall be able to contend that illusion and hallucination are nullified, invalid perceptions. Non-existence or in-actuality

The term “clear and distinct” is used by both Descartes and Husserl when they talk about the truth of an idea and the evidence of judgment. Although the words “clear” and “distinct” are juxtaposed with the conjunction “and,” this does not mean that their status is equal. If the concept of “evidence” can be used to characterize the hierarchical relationship between them, then we can say that, for Descartes

In this paper I argue that the almost forgotten early dissertation of the phenomenologist Hans Reiner (1896–1991) Freiheit, Wollen und Aktivität. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen in Richtung auf das Problem der Willensfreiheit (1927) engages with what I call the unity problem of activity. This problem concerns the question whether there is a structure in virtue of which all instances of (at least pre-reflectively

Dallas Willard’s contribution to phenomenology is presented in terms of his articles on, and translations into English of, Edmund Husserl’s early philosophical writings (i.e., those in the decade prior to Husserl’s 1900 publication Logical Investigations), which single-handedly prevented them from falling into oblivion, both literally and philosophically. Willard’s account of Husserl’s “negative critique”

In the original publication of an article the name “Idhe” occurs incorrectly including in the very beginning, in the title of the review. Now the correct name has been published in this correction.

The issue of whether the phenomenology presented in Ideen I was a metaphysical realism or an idealism came to the fore almost immediately upon its publication. The present essay is an examination of the relation of Gustav Shpet, one of Husserl’s students from the Göttingen years, to this issue via his understanding of phenomenology and, particularly, of the phenomenological reduction, as shown principally

This paper explicates Husserl’s usage of what he calls “radical Besinnung” in Formale und transzendentale Logik (1929). Husserl introduces radical Besinnung as his method in the introduction to FTL. Radical Besinnung aims at criticizing the practice of formal sciences by means of transcendental phenomenological clarification of its aims and presuppositions. By showing how Husserl applies this method

In the Logical Investigations, Husserl argues that “sign” is an ambiguous word because it refers to two essentially different signitive functions: indication and expression. Indications work in an evidential way, providing information through a direct association of the sign and the presence of an object or state of affairs. Expressions (when used to transmit knowledge) work in a non-evidential way

The aim of this paper is twofold. The first is an interpretative one as I wish to provide a detailed account of Husserl’s conception of experiential justification. Here Ideas I and Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge: Lectures 1906/07 will be my main resources. My second aim is to demonstrate the currency and relevance of Husserl’s conception. This means two things: Firstly, I will show that

In this paper, I wish to explore whether and how emotions build on a state of being motivated that is linked to character and requires the positive contribution of habit. Drawing on phenomenological accounts of motivation (most notably Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s), I argue that the relation between emotions and character depends on the institution of an emotional space, which is responsible for our

The notions of perceptual normativity and optimality have generated much discussion in the last decade or so in the literature on Merleau-Ponty. Husserl’s position on the topic has been far less extensively investigated. Surprisingly, however, Husserl wrote a great deal about the question of perceptual optimality. Not only are there a considerable number of important passages scattered throughout the

Husserl’s Logical Grammar is intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together. Meanings are thus understood as structured contents and classified into formal categories to the effect that the logical properties of expressions reflect their g

Event semantics is concerned with the formal structure of sentences which appear to describe an event of some kind, e.g. ‘Brutus kills Caesar,’ or ‘My tooth fell out.’ Phenomenologists should be interested in work in this field, if they hope to rescue Husserl’s phenomenology of judgment from its narrow focus on copular judgments of the form ‘S is p.’ An adequate phenomenology of judgment must ultimately

The main goal of the present paper is to offer a preliminary study of the relations between phenomenology and metaphysics in Husserl. After a brief presentation of what Husserl means by the term “metaphysics”, the rest of our research will consist of a detailed commentary on §60 of the Cartesian Meditations (Metaphysische Ergebnisse unserer Auslegung der Fremderfahrung). Our aim is to explain in what

Recently, a number of neuroscientists and philosophers have taken the so-called predictive coding approach to support a form of radical neuro-representationalism, according to which the content of our conscious experiences is a neural construct, a brain-generated simulation. There is remarkable similarity between this account and ideas found in and developed by German neo-Kantians in the mid-nineteenth

Claude Romano (2012) and Andrea Staiti (2015) have recently discussed Husserl’s account of perception in relation to debates in current analytic philosophy between so-called “conjunctivists” and “disjunctivists”. Romano and Staiti offer strikingly different accounts of the nature of illusion and hallucination, and opposing readings of Husserl. Romano thinks hallucinations and illusions are fleeting

Foundationalism and coherentism are two fundamentally opposed basic epistemological views about the structure of justification. Interestingly enough, there is no consensus on how to interpret Husserl. While interpreting Husserl as a foundationalist was the standard view in early Husserl scholarship, things have changed considerably as prominent commentators like Christian Beyer, John Drummond, Dagfinn

Husserl famously retracted his early portrayal, in Logische Untersuchungen, of phenomenology as empirical psychology. Previous scholarship has typically understood this transcendental turn in light of the Ideen’s revised conception of the ἐποχή, and its distinction between noesa and noemata. This essay thematizes the evolution of the concept of mental acts in Husserl’s work as a way of understanding

Evidence is a central theme in Husserl´s transcendental phenomenology. This article investigates not only the theoretical aspects of evidence, but also tries to develop prolegomena for a phenomenological theory of moral evidence and moral truth. Nevertheless, this endeavor is based upon the theoretical insights of Husserl: the importance of intersubjectivity and the relevance of time, which are reviewed

In The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Husserl argues that the only way to respond to the scientific Krisis of which he speaks is with phenomenological reflections on the history, method, and task of philosophy. On the assumption that an accurate diagnosis of a malady is a necessary condition for an effective remedy, this paper aims to formulate a precise concept of

This paper accomplishes two tasks. First, I examine in detail Edmund Husserl’s earliest philosophy of surrogates, as it is found in his 1890 “On the Logic of Signs (Semiotic)”. I analyze his psychological and logical investigations of surrogates, where the former is concerned with explaining how these signs function and the latter with how they do so reliably. His differentiation of surrogates on the

The paths or ways to the transcendental reduction are a pivotal phenomenological notion in Husserl’s philosophy. The metaphor of path, in fact, alludes to the demonstrative proofs of transcendental phenomenology. Nonetheless, Husserlian scholarship has not yet been able to end the disputes surrounding this topic, and as a result, competing interpretations continue to prevail. Since existing theories

The paper addresses the methodological tensions between Husserl’s phenomenology and history by reinterpreting the Addendum III of the Krisis-work in view of genetic phenomenology. Thus, the paper starts out by retracing the traditional criticism against the unhistorical character of Husserl’s phenomenology as voiced by Heidegger, Adorno and others. Afterwards, it moves on to analyse the troubled relationship

Don Ihde has recently launched a sweeping attack against Husserl’s late philosophy of science. Ihde takes particular exception to Husserl’s portrayal of Galileo and to the results Husserl draws from his understanding of Galilean science. Ihde’s main point is that Husserl paints an overly intellectualistic picture of the “father of modern science”, neglecting Galileo’s engagement with scientific instruments

I defend a Husserlian account of self-consciousness against representationalist accounts: higher-order representationalism and self-representationalism. Of these, self-representationalism is the harder to refute since, unlike higher-order representationalism, it does not incur a regress of self-conscious acts. However, it incurs a regress of intentional contents. I consider, and reject, five strategies