2nd Research Summer School in Genetic Phenomenology

Martina Properzi

2nd Research Summer School in Genetic Phenomenology, E. Husserl‘s Limit Problems of Phenomenology. The Unconscious, Instincts, Metaphysics and Ethics, Warsaw 2nd – 6th September 2019.

Martina Properzi

The second edition of the Research Summer School in Genetic Phenomenology has been successfully concluded. As in the first edition (2018), the Research Summer School took place in the suggestive location of Warsaw during the month of September, being hosted by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology/Graduate School of Social Research of the Polish Academy of Science (IFiS GSSR PAN). The organisation of the event was in partnership with other academic and non-academic institutions (Husserl-Archive of Cologne, University of Cologne, Charles-University of Prague, International Network-Genetic Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Fundacia Filozofia na Rzecz Dialogu, and EuroPhilosophie). This year too, the scientific direction was assigned to J. Brudzińska (IFiS GSSR PAN, Husserl-Archive of Cologne) in cooperation with K. Novotny (Charles University, Prague) and A. Pugliese (University of Palermo).

The structure of the previous edition has been re-proposed, with morning lectures held by renowned experts and afternoons text-laboratories, research classes, and poster sessions where the effective participation of international scholars and advanced PhD students was amplified. Both the activities were aimed at analysing and discussing Husserl’s texts with the comparison of different sensibilities on associated research topics. The program included also a panel on psychoanalysis and phenomenology headed by H. Weiß – this marks a slight difference from the first edition where a master class on the book Force-pulsion-désir: une autre philosophie de la psychanalyse (Engl. transl.: Force, Drive, Desire. A Philosophy of Psychoanalysis (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy), Northwestern University Press, Evanston (IL) 2019) was held by the author, R. Bernet. Beyond scientific activities, two enjoyable events were organised both located in the centre of the city, namely a Chopin concert at Nowy Świat Muzyki-Chopin Salon and a social dinner at the Legendarna Restaurancja Kameralna.

The limit problems of phenomenology were the focus of the second edition of the Research Summer School that was concentrated on Husserl’s pioneering genetic exploration of unconscious, instincts, and (un)traditional speculative and ethical topics as limit-phenomena. Phenomenologically speaking, liminality is a meta-experience where the boundaries of the (inter)subjective living experience and hence of descriptive analyses/constitutions are disclosed. In so doing, it provides the phenomenologist with the opportunity to address the systematic nexuses between different phenomenological dimensions (e.g. static and genetic phenomenology) and research areas (e.g. phenomenology and psychoanalysis) as methodological issues (e.g. can descriptively/constitutionally and/or empirically sub-liminal phenomena be accessible through a motivational analysis?). The distinction and mutual relation of the material, systematic, and methodological aspects within Husserl’s perspective on liminal can be seen as the key idea running through the activities performed during the second edition of the Research Summer School.

In particular, liminal materiality was at the core of the afternoons text-laboratories led by K. Novotny and A. Pugliese, which were focused on selected passages of Husserliana XLII (Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der Instinkte. Metaphysik. Späte Ethik (Texte aus dem Nachlass 1908 – 1937), R. Sowa, T. Vongehr (Eds.), Springer, New York (NY) 2014) dedicated to the phenomenology of unconscious and instincts in addition to monadology and ethics. The associated research topics were discussed in eight research classes (metaphysics; medical humanities and psychopathology; existential Husserl; ethics; phenomenology and psychoanalysis; constitution, teleology, intersubjectivity; the unconscious; psychoanalysis and French phenomenology) and two poster sessions. The systematic and methodological aspects were mainly treated in the morning lectures starting from in-depth reconstructions of both Husserl’s analysis of the limit-phenomena of self-preservation (R. Walton), birth, death, and sleep (J. Mensch), self and unconscious experience (Brudzińska) and his discovery of the boundaries of affectivity (L. Rodemeyer) and presentification (S. Micali) together with the existential facet of the sense-bestowal (G. Heffernan).

The selected subject matter in combination with the established networked organisation and open structure represent the strongest points of the second edition of the Research Summer School. Its role in advancing the interpretation of Husserl’s contribution to genetic phenomenology and the dissemination thereof towards a wide-ranging academic audience has been consolidated to the extent that the upcoming 2020 event will be accordingly very well received.

Report by: Martina Properzi (Department of Philosophy, Pontifical Lateran University of Rome, address: St. Ponte d’Oddi n. 13, Ponte d’Oddi (PG), 06125, Italy; e-mail: martinaproperzi@alice.it; Tel: 328 1277560; ORCID: 0000-0001-6198-3977)

Der Philosoph Georg Simmel: Internationale Konferenz an der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal, 25-27 September 2018

Andrea Mina

Der Philosoph Georg Simmel

Internationale Konferenz an der Bergischen Universität Wuppertal, 25-27 September 2018

Georg Simmel is one of those thinkers whose intellectual activity cannot be confined to a single disciplinary field. His interests, which touched upon numerous areas of knowledge, allowed him to make multiple contributions to the development of the human sciences of the twentieth century. His vast influence on the younger generations of philosophers, his penetrating analyses of society, and his peculiar style of writing made him a classic of contemporary thought. On the occasion of the centenary of his death, an international conference was organised in Wuppertal by Gerald Hartung (Professor of Cultural Philosophy and Aesthetics), Heike Koenig and Tim-Florian Goslar (Research Associates).

In the opening speech, Hartung clarified that the main aim of the convention was to «(re)discover the philosopher Georg Simmel beyond the many research areas and disciplinary identities which he was attributed». These words dismiss the trend towards specialisation that prevails among the current studies on Simmel. Because of such trend, Hartung noted, Simmel’s thought has been fragmented in single facets (e.g. his sociology, aesthetics, ethics), which are studied separately as if Simmel’s theoretical interests were incompatible with each other. In contrast, the speakers were asked to adopt an interdisciplinary approach and consider if – and in which terms – it is possible to talk about Simmel’s systematic legacy. Thus, the conference brought together scholars from various geographical and disciplinary backgrounds, who offered different perspectives to shed light on the overall significance of his work.

Many speakers underlined Simmel’s confrontation with the contradictions intrinsic to modern culture. For instance, Hartung pointed out that Simmel assigned to philosophy the task to address the main tension of modernity – namely the tension between individual and universal, i.e. between the subjective need of giving meaning to one’s own existence and the impersonal objectivity of socio-cultural institutions. Along the same lines, Denis Thouard (CNRS-Paris) investigated «Simmel’s philosophical intention», and suggested that Simmel primarily aimed at renewing contemporary philosophy. In Simmel’s view, German academic philosophers had become unable to cope with the problem of modern life. According to Thouard, Simmel followed two directions in his effort towards renewal: first, he criticised the academic language for being too abstract and restrictive, and instead, promoted a heuristic use of analogies; second, he adopted a relativistic point of view as a more suitable perspective to face the complexity of societies at the turn of the century.

Following Thouard’s contribution, questions were raised on how Simmel’s relativism should be interpreted, particularly as regards its ethical consequences. According to Georg Lohmann (University of Magdeburg), Simmel’s radical individualism is inevitably incompatible with moral philosophy. On the other hand, Gregor Fitzi (University of Potsdam) and Austin Harrington (University of Leeds) argued that Simmel’s social theory entails an ambitious redefinition of personal responsibility in an ethical framework grounded on the «individual law» [individuelles Gesetz] instead of dogmatic impositions. While the contributions of Lohmann, Fitzi and Harrington focused on the social and ethical implications of Simmel’s relativism, Johannes Steizinger (University of Vienna) investigated its epistemological meaning. According to Steizinger, Simmel’s relativistic position was a consistent response to the value crisis perceived in the late nineteenth century’s philosophy: in contrast with conservative solutions to this crisis (e.g. Windelband’s construction of a system of absolute values), Simmel tried to show how our communal understanding of the world and of society relies on historically originated and culturally limited values. History and culture are the main forces that shape our experience, and—as Tim-Florian Goslar (University of Wuppertal) noted—Simmel consistently explored their meaning through a transcendental investigation. In this respect Simmel was inspired by Kant, although his notion of historical apriori exceeded the Kantian system.

In his paper Goslar also suggested that Simmel’s effort to investigate history and culture is what granted thematic unity to his work. Likewise, in order to appreciate Simmel’s unitary intent, other contributions focused on his appeal to a «philosophical culture» [philosophische Kultur]. Elizabeth Goodstein (Emory College, Atlanta) identified this concept as a form of interdisciplinarity which does not imply competition between different sets of knowledge, but aims at their cooperation under the guidance of philosophy. Heike Koenig (University of Wuppertal) stressed the relevance of Simmel’s philosophical culture for pedagogy: Simmel considered culture as a unitary picture enriched by multiple perspectives, and presented it as an instrument to reinforce our personal identity despite the societal fragmentation. Antonio Calcagno (King’s University College, London – Canada) similarly delved into Simmel’s concept of personal identity. By comparing Simmel’s view on this topic with social theories of the early phenomenological school (in particular with Edith Stein’s), Calcagno tried to show how Simmel’s account of the self as a dynamic and “unfinished” entity offers a more convincing explanation of the relation between the individual and society.

A last group of contributions shed light on some ways that Simmel influenced European philosophy and human sciences. Gérard Raulet (University of Paris-Sorbonne) reconstructed Walter Benjamin’s reading of Simmel’s concept of «Nervosität» as characteristic of modern cities. Nicole C. Karafyllis (University of Braunschweig), instead, started by pointing out that Simmel’s troubled academic career prevented him from creating a stable circle of disciples. But despite this fact—Karafyllis claimed—Simmel’s notoriety extended beyond the classrooms to wider intellectual circles. This allowed Karafyllis to identify Simmel’s influence in the work of the sociologist Hermann Schmalenbach and the pedagogue Willy Moog, although they never actually studied under Simmel’s tutorship. Olivier Agard (University of Paris-Sorbonne) examined the early reception of Simmel in France both in philosophy and sociology, and showed that the relationship between Simmel and French intellectuals, such as Émile Durkheim and Henri Bergson, was one of mutual influence.

The primary outcome of the conference was the reassessment of Simmel’s relevance both for a historical perspective and for present-day philosophy. On this basis, Hartung suggested that the end of the convention should be seen more as the starting point of a communal research program, rather than as its conclusion.

The papers that were presented during the conference—not all of which were included in this report—will be published in the Fall 2019 issue of the series Kulturphilosophische Studien by the Karl Alber Verlag (Freiburg).

Report by: Andrea Mina (PhD Student in Philosophy at the FINO Consortium, Italy)

The Normal and the Abnormal: The 43rd Annual Meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle

Talia Welsh

The Normal and the Abnormal: The 43rd Annual Meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle
November 8th-10th, 2018
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

On November 8th-10th, 2018, the Department of Philosophy & Religion with generous financial support from the Vice-Chancellor of Research and the Graduate School, the College of Arts & Sciences, and the Honors College held the 43rd Annual Meeting of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Professor Talia Welsh of UTC directed the conference with support from Gail Weiss (George Washington University), the General Secretary of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle, and David Morris, (Concordia University) the Associate General Secretary.

The conference featured two keynotes lectures, twenty-two papers (selected by peer-review process), and the 2018 Martin Dillon award for graduate work in Merleau-Ponty scholarship. All the sessions were plenary resulting in an ongoing strong discussion throughout the conference. We had one keynote by Jenny Slatman, Professor of Medical Humanities of Tilburg University and one keynote and magic performance, surely a first at a philosophy conference, by Lawrence Hass, retired Professor of Philosophy of Austin College and current Dean of McBride’s Magic & Mystery School, Las Vegas. We also enjoyed a stellar performance by retired professor of Mississippi State University, and current musician, Rachel McCann.

The presenters came from eight countries world-wide, with twelve professors, one independent scholar, and ten post-docs or graduate students presenting their papers. We had a variety of departments represented including philosophy, art, magic, music, psychology, medicine, and feminist studies. The conference was attended by 48 people with additional UTC students and faculty.

Thursday, November 8th had the following presentations:

Neal DeRoo, King’s University Alberta: “Merleau-Ponty and Ab/Normal Phenomenology: The Husserlian Roots of Merleau-Ponty’s Account of Expression.”

Jan Puc, Czech Academy of Science: “Neither Bad Habit nor Bad Faith. The Ambiguity of the Unconscious in early Merleau-Ponty.”

Peter Antich, University of Kentucky: “Hallucination and Perceptual Faith.”

Adam Blair, Stony Brook University: “Ground Without Figure: A Phenomenology  of Peripheral Sightedness.”

Chiara Palermo, Université de Strasbourg: “Reflecting memory. Trauma and history in Kader Attia’s work.”

Lin Ma, Renmin University: “On the Topology of Chiasma, Chiasme, and Reversibility: Merleau-Ponty’s Later Ontology.”

Gail Weiss, George Washington University: “Living Between-Worlds: Decolonizing and De-Pathologizing Multiple Worlds of Sense.”

Alia Al-Saji, McGill University: “Decolonizing Phenomenology: Merleau-Ponty, ‘Primitive’ Peoples, and Prepersonal Life.”

Jenny Slatman of Tilburg University gave the keynote presentation, “Toward a Phenomenology of Abnormal Embodiment?” in the late afternoon discussing how Merleau-Ponty’s work does not use the term “abnormal” but rather pathological. She explored work in Kurt Goldstein and statistics to explore concepts of normality, abnormality, and pathology.

In the evening of the first day, we enjoyed a reception with accompanying music played by Rachel McCann & Carnal Echo at the Bessie Smith Hall.

Friday, November 9th had the following presentations:

Jennifer Bradley, Duquesne University: “Figures with No Ground: an exploration of the (dis)orienting Perceptual Experiences in Autism through the lens of Merleau-Ponty.”

Jennifer Wang, Villanova University: “(Ab)normality as Spectrum: Merleau-Ponty, Post-Kleinians, and Lacan on Childhood Autism.”

Claus Halberg, University of Bergen: “Transgendering the Merleau-Pontian Body: Not Necessarily an Easy Task.”

Matthew Rukgaber, Eastern Connecticut State University: “A Phenomenological, Sociotechnical Systems Approach to Shame and Disability.”

Randall Johnson, Psychiatry-Private Practice: “Dark Pedagogies: Unlearning Whiteness as Transparency.”

James Rakoczi, King’s College London: “Moving Without Movement.”

Gabrielle Jackson, Stony Brook University: “What Does the Pathological Reveal About the Normal? Merleau-Ponty and Neuropsychology.”

Joel Michael Reynolds, University of Massachusetts Lowell: “Health and Other Reveries.”

At the conclusion of the day Friday, we were delighted by a lecture on the history and philosophy of magic, its connection to Merleau-Ponty, and a magic show entitled “What Is Magic? The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Art Form” by Lawrence Hass, Dean of the McBride Magic & Mystery School.

The final day of the conference, Saturday, November 10th, we had the following presentations and the business lunch:

Whitney Howell, La Salle University: “The Insight of Dispossession: Merleau-Ponty on the Spatial Level.”

Hannah Venable, University of Dallas: “The Need for Merleau-Ponty in Foucault’ Account of the Abnormal.”

Jan Halak, Palacky University: “Living Body as an Institution: Merleau-Ponty on Experiential Norms.”

Maria Cristina Murano, Linkoeping University/Children’s Mercy Kansas City: “A Socio-Phenomenological Understanding of Short Stature.”

Christine Wieseler, University of Louisville: “The Desexualization of Disabled People as Existential Harm and the Importance of Temporal Ambiguity.”

Noel Kirsch, School of the Art Institute of Chicago: “Plasticity of Perception: Towards a phenomenology of PTSD.”

Prior to the conference banquet at the Bessie Smith Hall, we were pleased to end with the winner of the 2018 Martin Dillon Memorial Award–Rawb Leon-Carlyle, Penn State, who spoke on “Wild Red: Synesthesia, Deuteranomaly, and Euclidean Color Space”

The Martin Dillon award was started to honor the contributions to Merleau-Ponty scholarship and the International Merleau-Ponty Circle of Martin Dillon and award a graduate student a $500 travel award.

More information about the IMPC, including next year’s conference at Fordham University in New York City, can be found at

https://www.merleauponty.org/circle/

Report by Talia Welsh (The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)

International Conference – Humboldt Kolleg – “Cassirer’s Children” – Turin – February 8.-9. 2018

Elena Paola Carola Alessiato

It is well know that Friedrich Nietzsche was decided not to have heirs or disciples. Ironically, he was one of the most influential thinkers in history. The history of philosophical thought is actually made up by legacies – sometimes also by kinship. This was the idea underlying the title of the intellectual historian Richard Wolin’s book “Heidegger’s Children”. The book, published in 2001 and reissued in 2015, meant this kinship provocatively and of course not in a biological sense. Following this provocation, a conference on the topic “Cassirer’s Children” has been organized in Turin on February 8 and 9, 2018 by Sebastian Luft, Professor of Philosophy at the Marquette University (Milwaukee), and Massimo Ferrari, Professor of the History of Philosophy in Turin University. The conference, financially supported by the Humboldt Foundation in the frame of its Alumni Program and organized in collaboration with the Philosophy Department of the University of Turin, offered Cassirer’s scholars from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, USA and Canada the opportunity to gather in Turin.

The speakers took seriously the provocation about the kinship. Many of them confronted the question about the different possibilities of describing the relationships of intellectuals and thinkers from the 20th Century with Ernst Cassirer: rebellious or “turbulent” children? Legitimate or not? Outspoken or “hidden” heirs? At the end a variegated portrait emerged, focusing on an important segment of 20th century philosophy not only from Germany but also from the USA, Italy and Japan.

As the title suggested, the conference aimed at reconstructing the influence exerted by Cassirer directly or indirectly. At the same time, the assumed personality-based criterion allows building a discipline-based map of the philosophical science in the 20th Century, in which Cassirer’s trails are detected. So, for instance, Rudolf Makkreel and Muriel Van Vliet explored the implications of Cassirer’s thought for aesthetics. More precisely, the first one investigated the meaning and function of arts, particularly of music, and their connection with myth and symbols, according the interpretation of Susanne Langer, an American philosopher 21 years younger than Cassirer, but strongly influenced – clearly acknowledged by her – by his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. The name of Langer appears also in the second paper, devoted to the “turbulent child” of art history, i.e. Edgar Wind, whose intuitions regarding the cognitive status of art and art history and the possible contamination between mathematics and art are sketched. Van Vliet’s conclusion is fruitful: «Who is the master, who is the pupil? Who is the son, who is the father? Cassirer, Panofsky and Warburg find with Wind a son who inspires them as much as he was inspired by them. Wind presented himself at the same time as a classic, as wise child and as an innovator, a turbulent child».

Following the discipline-based criterion it is possible to remark that anthropology attracted the attention of two other speakers. The anthropology of the American scholar and University Professor Clifford Geertz, who was influenced by Susanne Langer and Talcott Parsons, is in the center of Sebastian Luft’s talk. The paper was organized in a symmetrical way: if the first part elucidates Geertz’ understanding of anthropology in its proximity to philosophy, the second part, devoted to Cassirer’s position on anthropology, describes in detail the relationship between culture and nature but also the dangers and limits regarding the connection between experience and thought, culture and philosophy of culture. The conclusion at which the paper arrives is that the link between Cassirer’s philosophy and anthropology is to be depicted in the terms of a sibling relationship. A critical assessment about the philosophical anthropology of Hans Blumenberg in his “Auseinandersetzung” with Cassirer is delivered by Andrea Staiti. If, on the one hand, Enno Rudolph practices the reconstruction of intellectual relationships to Cassirer as an opportunity to provide an ambitious outline of the 20. Century philosophy – his reference names in his frame are Nelson Goodman, Pierre Bourdieu and Jürgen Habermas –, then Massimo Ferrari, on the other hand, detected the traces of Cassirer within the history of science and the development of scientific thought. On the basis of Cassirer’s monumental work on the Problem of Knowledge in modern science and philosophy and of Individuum and Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, the contributes and remarks of Émile Meyerson, Léon Brunschvicg, Edwin Arthur Burtt, Alexander Koyré, Raymond Klibansky and Paul Oskar Kristeller are taken into consideration and critically connected with each other. The history of science is at the core of two other papers as well, although they focus on the philosophy of one single thinker, Arthur Pap. David Stump identifies the “Neo-Kantian elements in Pap’s Philosophy”, while Thomas Mormann puts in connection Pap’ necessity and his functional A Priori with Cassirer’s critical determinism. In his view the intellectual link between Pap and Cassirer, both German and both emigrated to the USA, allows one to contrast the pessimistic assessment affirming that the clash between “the analytic” and “the continental tradition” has become irreconcilable.

From Germany to the USA – and beyond. The geographical extension of Cassirer’s influence is enriched by two other contributions. Saverio Ricci emphasized the implications of Cassirer’s understanding of culture and cultures for the Italian tradition of historiography and historical thought applied in philosophy. Reference point of his presentation is Eugenio Garin. Away from Europe, Steve Lofts presents Cassirer’s family in Japan. His detailed and well informed paper about “the influence of the Marburg’ School and Cassirer on the foundations of Japanese philosophy” gave the opportunity to make the acquaintance with a series of Japanese intellectuals and thinkers belonging to the Kyoto School and normally unknown or neglected by our West oriented studies.

In the end, the conference offered the chance to Cassirer’s scholars spread all over the world to meet each other, just at the moment when Cassirer’s philosophy and scholarship experience a rediscovery and a veritable renaissance.

Report by Elena Paola Carola Alessiato (Università degli Studi di Torino/University of Turin – Italy)

Husserl in a New Generation. A conference presented by the Department of Philosophy, Kent State University, September 15-17, 2017

Gina Zavota, Deborah Barnbaum

On September 15-17, 2017, the Department of Philosophy at Kent State University held the Husserl in a New Generation conference in Kent, Ohio, USA. The lead organizers were Professor Deborah Barnbaum and Associate Professor Gina Zavota, both of Kent State University. This was the second in a series of “In a New Generation” conferences hosted by Kent State University’s Department of Philosophy; the first, Sellars in a New Generation, took place in May 2015. The aim of this conference was to revisit Husserl’s most significant contributions to a wide range of philosophical subfields, highlighting both their relevance to the questions that philosophy faces today and the important role they have played in the evolution of a wide range of academic disciplines.

The conference featured two invited keynote presentations and five additional invited talks, as well as three faculty papers and seven graduate student papers selected through anonymous peer review. As a result, the conference showcased the work of both eminent and emerging Husserl scholars at all stages of their careers.

The first day of the conference consisted of a graduate workshop where six graduate students presented their research. In the morning session, Justin Reppert, from Fordham University, showed how Husserl’s multiplicity theory [Mannigfaltigkeitslehre] can offer insight into a variety of important questions in the philosophy of mathematics in “Husserlian Contributions to the Epistemology of Mathematics.” Andrew Barrette, from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, discussed Husserl’s treatment of questioning in “The Socio-Historical Emergence and Operation of Questioning in Edmund Husserl’s Work,” in order to lay the groundwork for a larger project in which he will demonstrate that questioning is an essential moment in the history of reason. Anthony Celi, from Duquesne University, argued in “Logic and the Epoché: Questioning the Necessity and Possibility of Bracketing Logic in Husserl’s Ideas I” that Husserl’s reduction of logic in Ideas I is neither necessary for arriving at the phenomenological attitude nor even a legitimate possibility within a larger philosophical context.

In the afternoon session, Mohsen Saber, participating via Skype from the University of Tehran (Iran), explained in “Finitude and/or Infinitude? Husserl on the Teleology of Perception” that the teleological process of perception can be characterized both as finite and as infinite. Emanuela Carta, from Roma Tre University (Italy), argued that Husserl’s notion of pure essence [eidos] plays a functional role in his phenomenology and does not rule out the possibility of other types of analysis that are not eidetic. Colin Bodayle from Duquesne University closed out the day’s presentations with “Husserl on Object Collision,” in which he discussed the ways in which Husserl, Heidegger, Hume, and Graham Harman approach the question of how and whether inanimate objects can “touch” or encounter each other. Most of the main program presenters, as well as many other attendees, were in the audience during the graduate workshop, making for particularly rich and productive discussions after each of the presentations.

The main program spanned the second and third days of the conference and featured a total of eleven speakers.

Rudolf Bernet, Emeritus Professor, KU Leuven (Belgium)

“Husserl on Imagining What is Unreal, Quasi-Real, Possibly Real, and Irreal”

The second day of the Husserl in a New Generation conference began with the first keynote talk, given by Emeritus Professor Rudolf Bernet. In his talk Bernet explored the essential difference in imagination between intentional acts of pure phantasy and acts which represent an object by means of an image or a sign. The pure phantasy of an unreal or quasi-real intentional object, he argued, can be further distinguished from perceptive phantasies and from the act of remembering the real object of an actual past perception. The opposition between what is real and what is unreal in phantasy loses further significance, Bernet argued, when one moves to the consideration of how imagination relates to the objects of a possibly actual experience. Imagined unreal objects can, indeed, become real objects which lend themselves to an actual perception. However, it is because they are not taken to really exist that objects of phantasy most easily lend themselves to an eidetic variation and to an insight into the essential constituents or ‘essence’ of a certain type of object and of their intentional experience. It is through their contribution to an insight into the real and ideal conditions of possibility of different forms of intentional acts that acts of phantasy best show their potential for Husserl’s entire philosophical project. Imagination or fiction becomes, in Husserl’s own words, the “vital element of phenomenology.”

Sara Heinämaa, Professor, Academy of Finland, University of Jyväskylä (Finland)

“Variants of Bodily Subjects: Embodiment, Expression and Empathy”

In the second presentation of the morning session Professor Heinämaa explored Husserl’s distinction between two attitudes, the naturalistic and the personalistic, for the purpose of clarifying the embodied character of human beings and animals. She argued that we have to distinguish between several different senses of the lived body [Leib] in order to understand how human beings can relate to themselves and to one another. These senses are not free-floating formations but are constituted in complicated dependency relations. By explicating the relevant relations of dependency, she demonstrated that the human being (and the animal) as a psychophysical system is a dependent formation that rests on several more fundamental sense achievements, the most important of which include (i) the human being as an embodied person, (ii) the living being as another self, and (iii) the self as a bodily agent. By distinguishing these senses and studying their relations, Heinämaa argued that Husserlian phenomenology offers us powerful conceptual tools that allow us to understand the different ways in which human beings can relate to one another and to living beings more generally.

 Anthony Steinbock, Professor, Southern Illinois University – Carbondale

“The Modality and Modalizations of the Absolute Ought in Husserl”

The morning session concluded with Professor Steinbock’s exploration of the distinctiveness of the modality of the absolute ought in Husserl. To make his point, he first distinguished in Husserl the ought-modality in the practical, praxical , and personal spheres. He then addressed in detail the absolute (personal) ought as the manner in which the absolute value of the person is revealed and the modality peculiar to vocation, and he examined the call as loving. The absolute ought, he explained, is a revelatory givenness that is not a ‘must,’ a ‘shall,’ or a wish. It is also a dimension of freedom and is the insistence of the call to love, which constitutes me as a person in a loving community. Furthermore, it is given temporally as urgency and as ‘for always’ from the perspective of our finite existence. Steinbock concluded by suggesting five ways in which the experience of the absolute ought is susceptible to modalization. While only hinted at by Husserl, these moralizations could be organized in such a way as to provide further insight into Husserl’s notion of the absolute ought.

H.A. Nethery IV, Assistant Professor, Florida Southern College

“Yancy, Husserl, and Racism at the Level of Passive Synthesis”

Professor Nethery’s talk, the first of the afternoon session, examined the influence of Husserlian phenomenology on the work of George Yancy. Yancy argues that the field of experience for white folks is always already racialized, and mobilized through what he calls the white gaze. Yancy often recognizes that his work is phenomenological, and, as such, Nethery suggested that it would be useful to highlight the ways in which Husserlian phenomenology influences his work. Specifically, he argued that Husserl’s theories of internal time consciousness and passive synthesis are implicit within Yancy’s concept of the white gaze. He did not argue that Yancy’s work can be reduced to Husserl’s but rather showed the importance of Husserlian phenomenology within critical race theory and the fight against anti-black racism. He began with a brief analysis of the white gaze and the racialized field of perception for white folks using Yancy’s now famous elevator example. He then turned to the structures of internal time consciousness and passive synthesis and showed how the black body is constituted within white experience as delinquent through these structures. He concluded with a reading of the elevator example through the work done in the previous section of his talk in order to “fill out,” as it were, Yancy’s own initial descriptions.

Lanei Rodemeyer, Associate Professor, Duquesne University

“Affectivity and Perceiving Other Subjects: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Essential Role of Affectivity in Basic Empathy”

In her presentation, Professor Rodemeyer argued that while contemporary discussions of empathy often address our ability to experience the emotions of others, for Husserl (and certain other phenomenologists), an important aspect of the question of empathy entails our fundamental experience of other subjects as other consciousnesses. The notion of ‘affectivity’ is understood as an important component of perception at the level of passive synthesis by Husserl, she explained, but it can also be seen as an essential component of empathy. Although empathy is not the same activity of consciousness as perception, they overlap each other in important ways, especially through the structures of apperception and association. Given these connections, as well as Husserl’s discussions of affectivity, awakening, and animation or governance in many of his analyses of empathy, she maintained that affectivity is arguably an essential component of our basic experience of empathy — even if the term is not mentioned in Husserl’s most famous analyses of intersubjectivity in Cartesian Meditations.

Ellie Anderson, Visiting Assistant Professor, Pitzer College

“Irreducible Otherness: Ethical Implications of Intersubjectivity in Husserl, Derrida, and Stein”

Professor Anderson’s talk explored Derrida’s defense of Husserl contra Levinas on the question of the relation to the other. She argued that this defense indicates a preservation of the first-person perspective in deconstruction that has largely gone unnoticed. Moreover, it suggests the ways that Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity in the Cartesian Meditations provides a basis for ethical concerns of preserving the otherness of other beings. After exploring Derrida’s affirmation of Husserl, she turned to the ethical implications for the distinction between self and other that Husserl upholds in his writings on intersubjectivity. Taking Husserl’s approach in tandem with Edith Stein’s phenomenology of empathy, she showed how it is crucial to both of these views that the distinction between self and other be preserved. From a phenomenological perspective, there is no direct experience of foreign consciousness. Moreover, the intersubjective relation is, for Husserl and Stein, fundamentally embodied and affective — a notion that obviates stale accusations that Husserl is not a philosopher of the body. As a result, Anderson claimed, both Stein’s and Husserl’s approaches to intersubjectivity remain highly relevant in light of contemporary inquiries into empathy, and Derrida’s affirmation of Husserl’s view suggests the relevance of analogical appresentation for contemporary poststructuralism and response ethics.

 Donn Welton, Professor Emeritus, Stony Brook University

“The Actional Roots of Husserl’s Transcendental Theory of Perceptual Intentionality”

The final day of the Husserl in a New Generation conference began with the second keynote talk, given by Professor Emeritus Donn Welton of Stony Brook University. Welton’s presentation addressed two main issues essential to any unified theory of intentionality with transcendental ambitions. First, he asked whether Husserl’s “first” phenomenology of the structure of intentionality calls, from within itself, for a “second” on which it rests — one that nests the bodily movement essential to our experience of the world in our bodily actions in the world. Utilizing Husserl’s development of a genetic phenomenology and his account of intentionality, Welton argued that a deep transformation within Husserl’s theory of perception takes place with his “genetic” turn during the 1920s. Moving to the second issue, Welton asked whether there is a way in which the lived-body [Leib] can be transposed from a factual condition, introduced to account for shifts in point-of-view and the spatial configuration of objects, to a transcendental condition that characterizes the very being of intentional consciousness itself. In response, he outlined the expansion that takes place within the notion of the body once it is viewed as an agent of perceptual action, and not just a center of movement and orientation.

Gina Zavota, Associate Professor, Kent State University

“Escaping the Correlationist Circle: A Husserlian Approach to Meillassoux’s Ancestral Statements”

Professor Zavota began by noting that phenomenology is often characterized as a form of antirealist, idealist philosophy, with Husserl’s thought put forth as a particularly extreme example of these tendencies. In After Finitude, for example, Quentin Meillassoux identifies Husserl as an adherent of what he calls ‘correlationism,’ or the view that the world and the rational subject are mutually constitutive and cannot be known in isolation from each other. One significant problem with correlationism, according to Meillassoux, is that it offers no satisfactory way of interpreting ‘ancestral’ statements: those statements which refer to a time prior to the existence of humans and thus prior to any possible correlative relationship between being and thought. Zavota argued that Husserl does not fit Meillassoux’s definition of a correlationist, and that his thought is, at the very least, compatible with some forms of realism. Furthermore, by examining the Crisis and the unfinished text “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature: The Originary Ark, the Earth, Does Not Move,” Zavota showed that Husserlian phenomenology does, in fact, allow us to attribute meaning to ancestral statements and thus escapes what Meillassoux sees as a fatal flaw of correlationist philosophies.

Denis Džanić, University of Vienna (Austria)

“Husserl, Externalism, and Compensatory Individual Representationalism”

Denis Džanić, a graduate student from the University of Vienna, won the conference award for the best submission by a graduate student, and thus his presentation was included on the main program. After being presented with the award, Džanić gave his talk, in which he addressed the question of where Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology fits into the distinction between ‘internalism’ and ‘externalism.’ To do so, he used Tyler Burge’s critique of Husserl as presented in Origins of Objectivity. In that work, Burge reads Husserl against the backdrop of his notion of ‘Compensatory Individual Representationalism’, of which he takes Husserl to be a paradigmatic representative. Džanić stated that Burge’s analysis is emblematic of the strongly internalist reading of Husserl, which he maintained is principally uninformed and misguided. First, he argued that Husserl was not an individualist in Burge’s sense of the word, and hence not an internalist. More generally, he claimed that, while this in itself does not entail that Husserl was an externalist, his later phenomenology was founded on ontological and epistemological commitments fully compatible with a broad and systematic externalism.

 Walter Hopp, Associate Professor, Boston University

“Metaphysical, Epistemic, and Transcendental Idealism”

The afternoon session of the third day began with Associate Professor Walter Hopp’s discussion of transcendental idealism and metaphysical realism. Hopp acknowledged that there are several textual and philosophical reasons to think that Husserl’s brand of transcendental idealism is incompatible with metaphysical realism about the natural world. However, he claimed, one major difficulty with this interpretation is that metaphysical anti-realism stands in tension with two other claims that enjoy significantly stronger phenomenological support. The first is that the natural world presents itself to us, in both thought and perception, as metaphysically real and largely independent, in both its existence and its nature, of our consciousness of it. Second, in accordance with Husserl’s “principle of all principles” (Ideas I, §24) this fact provides us with excellent and perhaps conclusive reasons to take the natural world to be metaphysically real. To solve this tension, Hopp suggested an interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism that draws from several existing realist interpretations and that is consistent with metaphysical realism.

Chad Kidd, Assistant Professor, The City College of New York (CUNY)

“Re-examining Husserl’s Non-Conceptualism in the Logical Investigations

In the final presentation of the conference, Assistant Professor Chad Kidd began by acknowledging the recent trend in Husserl scholarship that takes the Logical Investigations (LI) as advancing an inconsistent, self-contradictory view about content of perceptual experience. Within the confines of the same work, these commentators claim, Husserl advances both conceptualist and non-conceptualist views about perceptual content. In his talk Kidd argued that LI presents a consistent view of the content of perceptual experience, which can easily be misread as inconsistent, since it combines a conceptualist view of perceptual content (or matter) with a nonconceptualist view of perceptual acts. Furthermore, the charge of inconsistency rests on a misreading of the passages in LI (specifically, in LI VI §4) where these commentators locate the core argument for nonconceptualism about perceptual content. Kidd took Husserl to be advancing a distinction between two varieties of non-conceptualism about perception, brought to prominence in recent literature by Richard Heck’s writings about non-conceptual content. One of these varieties concerns the nature of perceptual content, the other the nature of the perceptual act. Kidd argued that after certain important changes to Heck’s formulation are made, it can serve as part of a characterization of Husserl’s view of the nature of perceptual experience that exonerates it of the charge of inconsistency.

The Husserl in a New Generation conference attracted over 100 participants and attendees from throughout the United States and Europe, and from several different academic disciplines. Many commented that the event provided a unique opportunity to learn about new directions in Husserl scholarship in a welcoming, engaged, and philosophically pluralistic environment. Attendees also spoke of the openness of the participants to discussion and the exchange of ideas, and of the spirit of true collegiality that characterized the meeting. As the organizers, we are deeply grateful to all who were involved with the Husserl in a New Generation conference, and for the opportunity to explore the landscape of contemporary Husserl scholarship.

For videos of all of the main program presentations, please visit https://www.kent.edu/philosophy/husserl.

Report by Gina Zavota and Deborah Barnbaum

Cologne-Leuven Summer School of Phenomenology 2017: A Summary

Andrew Krema

The 10th annual Cologne-Leuven Summer School of Phenomenology – the world’s only summer school devoted solely to Husserlian phenomenology – convened from July 31 – August 4, 2017 at the University of Cologne. This year’s theme was “Phenomenology and its Methods,” and the session topics included intentional analysis, description, constitutional analysis, eidetic methodology, reductive methods, genetic analysis of human consciousness, the relation between experimental and phenomenological methods, and method in phenomenology and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften).

The daily program consisted of two lectures in the morning and an afternoon session of either a discussion on a foundational text on Husserlian methodology or graduate student project presentations. The lecturers and text discussion leaders were professors and doctoral students from Romania, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Mexico.

Christian Ferencz-Flatz (Bucharest/Cologne), “Das Experiment bei Husserl”

In the first lecture of the Summer School on Husserl’s notion of “experiment,” Christian Ferencz-Flatz delves into Husserl’s understanding of the relationship between phenomenology and experiments. Husserl’s Ideen III is one of the few texts that touches upon experiments without fully rejecting their validity for phenomenological analyses. Ferencz-Flatz highlights four relevant points from this text. First, the difference between an inductive method of experiment and eidetic variation is that the single cases that are considered in eidetic variation are connected to reality but they can also be created by phantasy. It is the imagined cases of some type that push the logical limits of the object being varied allowing us to gain knowledge of its essence. Second, experience plays a larger role in grounding the eidetic analyses of certain kinds of experiencing. One example is memory: a better starting point would be in this case an actual memory and not a fantasy of a memory. Third, Husserl suggests experiments could supplement challenging investigations in which first-person experience or imagined first-person experience is not accessible (e.g. experiencing anger). Fourth, Ferencz-Flatz suggests that Husserl’s concept of experiment is not the same as normal scientific experiments requiring an intersubjective consensus because that is not important for phenomenology; rather, what is important is that any and every subject comes to the same eidetic insights.

Although it is unclear as to whether or to what extent Husserl supports empirical experiments, perhaps he is keener on thought experiments in these passages of Ideen III. One early interpretation of Husserl by Siegfried Kracauer understood Husserl’s eidetic variation to be a kind of thought experiment and even contemporary phenomenologists use thought experiments in their work. In Husserl, we see cases like the early form of what would be later called the primordial reduction in the fifth Cartesian Meditation or the annihilation of the world (Weltvernichtung) scenario in Ideen I as closely resembling thought experiments. Nonetheless, there are two important differences between these examples from Husserl and traditional thought experiments. First, Husserl’s scenarios are set within the context of phenomenological variation; in other words, Husserl cannot just freely think of any conceivable scenario, rather he is bound by eidetic variation to the realm of possibility i.e. concrete experiences like a dream or delusion. The second difference is that Husserl is bent on proving the possibility of these scenarios. It is thus clear that the main difference between Husserlian variations and thought experiments is the fact that the variations are bound to the experiential realm.

Phenomenology finds itself in a strange paradox in which it depends upon empiricism, and at the same time is eidetically independent of experience. This latter position has made it difficult to dialogue with other sciences and areas of philosophy. Ferencz-Flatz believes that relating phenomenology to and weakening its stark differences with other sciences and areas of philosophy is justified and appropriate.

Dieter Lohmar (Cologne), “Intentionality and Description in Phenomenology”

Dieter Lohmar’s first talk on Monday focused on the central topic of intentionality in phenomenology. His starting point was Husserl’s distinction between the reell and intentional content of consciousness, which is to be seen in perception. In the example of perceiving a red billiard ball, we perceive it to be smooth, colored, and round. The ball however does not appear as a homogenously single-toned red ball, rather this red ball reflects light and our perceiving ignores this reflecting as part of the ball itself. Thus, we want to examine our own constitutive activity in perception, and this examination requires a “reduction” in which the subject takes a step back from the “ready-made” world to examine how it is we come to constitute or interpret an object – in other words, how we give it sense. The interpretation of sense objects is called “apperception” and should be understood as a synthesis and not as a causal affair. The synthetic character of apperception is apparent in the example of perceiving a car driving past me: I hear the roaring engine come and then see it coming towards me quickly as it seems to increase in size as it approaches while I at the same time also have a toothache. The object guides this activity: we discriminate parts of sensibility and this choice is guided by the idea of the object. In this example, I discriminate the toothache from the car experience. Time consciousness is also an essential structure in apperception as I anticipate a fast car coming from behind me upon hearing the sound. Previous knowledge also plays a role in my apperceiving an object: when I perceive a lemon, I not only see its shape and color, but I also image its smell and bitter taste. These are examples of Husserl’s goal to manifest the fundamental “rules” that govern perception. In order to bring these “rules” of cognition to light, all presuppositions must be suspended, even presuppositions of the existence of objects. In phenomenology, we start with what is given, sense perception, not an object existing in the world. We then let it constitute itself.

Apperceptions can modify themselves based on their givenness. For example, this ‘A’ (that is written on the chalk board) could be apperceived as a letter, as a drawing of a tent, or as a chalk mark. Depending on many factors, this symbol could be apperceived as one of these, but then it could be modified when one realizes the letter is actually a sketch of a tent. These examples do not suggest a causal theory of perception because the change in apperception is due to sensibilities and an order of relevance based on i.e. the context. Phenomenology is concerned with how an object is given and interpreted. Lohmar concluded his talk on intentionality by stressing the mistake of presuming the world “in itself” and the world as it appears. Husserl instructs us to analyze our own knowledge and how the world appears to us.

Jagna Brudzinska (Cologne/Warsaw), “Intentionalgenetische Analyse”

Jagna Brudzinska’s talk on Tuesday built upon Lohmar’s Monday lecture by going further in depth into the analysis of intentionality from the genetic perspective. She began by highlighting time as the key factor that differentiates static from genetic approaches. In static phenomenology, we descriptively analyze single conscious acts of interpreting an intuitively given object; however, the temporality (Zeitlichkeit) is left out. A temporally dynamic analysis of consciousness would allow for us to reveal the structure of motivation in pre-predicative experience, which is historically determined while it also determines experience. By thematizing the whole stream of consciousness as a single contiguity of time, we have access to the temporal succession of experiences and can view the associations of one to another. Prior experience “sediments” itself as self-knowledge in consciousness, which plays an essential role in interpreting the present and future. A genetic analysis allows us to analyze processes of becoming, dynamics of individuation, horizonedness (Horizonthaftigkeit) and teleological motivation processes of development. Thus, a whole new dimension can be considered in passive genesis. Brudzinska’s ultimate claim in the lecture is that genetic phenomenology is not supplemental but essential for establishing the absolute foundation of knowledge.

 

D. Lohmar, “Searching for Evidence”

In this talk on the topic of evidence, Lohmar began with Hume’s concept of belief as the conviction of the existence of a given state of affairs that was felt by the mind. Hume’s concept of belief inspired Husserl’s understanding of evidence in terms of a performance of the mind in which we presence the intelligible object. The kind of evidence that can be gained is dependent upon the mode of givenness of the object. For example, there is a notable difference between signitive, pictorial, and intuitive intentionality with respect to their mode of evidence. A signitive intention (a sign in a system of signs) cannot deliver any adequate evidence. A picture represents a characteristic of the object but is not sufficient in acquiring evidence of the pictorialized object. Eventually, direct perception serves as evidence, though there is an optimality in viewing that object, e.g. if I walk too close when viewing a house, I can only see a small portion of the whole. Adequate evidence of external things is therefore impossible to obtain, but it constantly leads our perceptual dynamics as a regulative idea.

Lohmar then moves to distinguish different kinds of evidence. The first distinction is between adequate and inadequate evidence. Adequate evidence is the self-givenness of all aspects of the object. No three dimensional object can give itself adequately because every thing always has a back side that is absent from the view. Husserl struggles to say that in the reflective attitude, objects of “inner perception” can give themselves fully. Another kind of evidence is apodictic evidence (i.e. impossibility to think the opposite). In Logical Investigations, Husserl claims that logical principles would belong to this kind of evidence, but in Formal and Transcendental Logic, he revokes this claim and says that it is more complicated. There are thus three aspects to be considered by a phenomenology of evidence: (1) the kind of object you intend (of cognition, imagination, real, etc.); (2) the style of gaining evidence belonging to these kinds of objects; (3) the degree to which you are able to achieve evidence for this special object.

 

 D. Lohmar, “Categorial Intuition”

On Wednesday, Dieter Lohmar continued his discussion of evidence by discussing its relation to categorial intuition. Categorial intuition is for Husserl a developed form of cognition. When I begin to shift my intention from one object to another, I begin to cognize identities and general typicalities. For instance, I cognize the fruity smell belonging to lemons, and if I expect to encounter a certain acquaintance with a certain set of characteristics and the man who taps me on the shoulder does not fit my expectations, I naturally act surprised and confused because the type is not fulfilled. A further fundamental aspect of categorial intuition that appears in the late Husserlian genetic analyses of judgment in Experience and Judgment (1939) is the so-called “explication.” This process alludes to the fact that I first perceive the object as a whole and then concentrate on a certain aspect without losing the intentional reference to the object as such. The many aspects or sides are related to the object by means of what Husserl calls a synthesis of coincidence. This form of association of the contents of experience is made by the subject, but the result of the synthesis is absolutely dependent upon reality: the object shows itself and its inner characters and the subject passively follows its lead. The moments of the objects that the subject may focus on vary based on interests or contextual factors. Language is not necessary for cognition understood as categorial intuition; this is demonstrated by animals, which, according to Lohmar, show a form of immediate and non-discursive kind of cognition very similar to ours.

 

D. Lohmar, “Eidetic Method”

Lohmar concluded Wednesday with a lecture on Husserl’s method to discuss essences. For Husserl, the intuition of essences belongs to how we experience the world and our consciousness thereof. The result of seeing essences is however a priori. In seeing variance, we gain a priori knowledge, i.e. when we vary all possibilities of a kind – not just our own sensible experiences of this given thing, but also our phantasies of it that stretch the realm of possibilities to its limit – we are able to gain a priori knowledge about this object. Not all essences of objects, however, can be intuited by this method. Cultural objects, for example, cannot be successfully varied by this method because one culture could have a rather different understanding of some object than another. God or virtue could be included in examples in which different cultures have notions that are totally different and could not be varied. Eidetic variation instead grasps for eidetic structures of experience. How is it that we carry out this method so that the result is valid for all cases? Eidetic intuition is not a kind of induction in which we think of 100,000 cases and then come to a general rule. The principle of eidetic variation rests on the synthesis of coincidence: it is seeing what remains the same among all the differences. The type plays an important role by guiding the variations: through types, we can regulate our variations of trees to things that fit the type, “tree,” and the type will guide and eliminate things not befitting to it. Types are limited to our own experience and can be adjusted to our own empirical knowledge. Thus, through this type-led variation, we have an experience of the “a priori” – a rather misleading Husserlian term for which he means non-empirical necessity.

 

Marco Cavallaro (Cologne), “Method in Phenomenology and the Human Sciences”

Thursday’s first presentation was given by Marco Cavallaro on phenomenology’s connection to the human sciences. The background of this topic, as Cavallaro explained, is a discussion on the nature of descriptive psychology between Wilhelm Dilthey and Husserl. It was Dilthey who claimed that in order to understand the systems of culture, a thorough study of the human soul is required. He proposed a descriptive psychology – as opposed to an explanatory psychology that uses natural scientific methods to explain psychical facts – whose goal is to understand the presentation of components and continua found uniformly throughout all developed modes of human psychic life in which these components form a unique nexus that is neither added nor deduced, but concretely lived. This descriptive psychology is, according to Husserl, a kind of empirical science. Instead, Husserl wanted to develop a “pure” psychology in which the psychical is separated from the physical allowing the psychical a priori to be disclosed. In order to carry out this science, the ego must undergo a twofold reduction (transcendental and eidetic) in which we go back to the eidetic structures of subjective (and intersubjective) experiencing. Pure psychology serves three functions: the foundation of empirical psychology, the foundation of the human sciences, and as a propaedeutic to transcendental phenomenology. Both phenomenology and the human sciences overlap in their subject matter (i.e. understanding the other, foreign cultural objects, social habits, and classificatory types). Their methods also conflate insofar as they both seek universal structures that are valid for every person regardless of culture. Cavallaro concluded by praising and presenting the theses of Phillippe Descola’s Beyond Nature and Culture (2005), which offers a foundational approach to anthropology akin to the Husserlian one.

 

Lohmar, “Reductive Methods”

“A phenomenologist must not accept transcendental phenomenology, but you miss something in life if you don’t do it once,” Prof. Lohmar said at the beginning of his final lecture of the week. Husserl’s transcendental turn was made known in 1913 upon the publishing of his Ideen I, which was considered a return to Kantian philosophy. Transcendental phenomenology thematizes the thetic characteristic of the given object. In so doing, we try to see the real form of evidence that lets us take up reality. Yet to investigate how it is that we claim something to be real, we cannot start with the claim that the thing is indeed real. Thus, a reduction is necessary in which both the thetic quality – whether something is given as truly there, or doubtful or probable – and the matter of the object, which tells us what we are seeing, have to be bracketed or ignored. Instead of the real, we focus just on the phenomenological content. The reduction hinders the subject from prejudging and allows for one to see how steps are taken towards completing a certain act.

In Husserl’s work, there are many other reductions, one of which is the primordial reduction. The setting of this reduction is, “How does it come to be that I have the tendency to interpret a body appearing as a human subject?” This reduction differs from the transcendental because it does not bracket everything, only that which is necessary to eliminate the presuppositions in how we perceive others. On our way to the “primordial island,” cultural sense is totally lost, yet language and emotions are difficult to eliminate. There is much debate as to whether or to what extend this reduction is successful. Nonetheless, Professor Lohmar instructed the participants that even if “it may turn out to be impossible… it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try!”

Alice Pugliese (Palermo), “Analysis of Motivation in Genetic Phenomenology”

Alice Pugliese began her presentation on the last day of the Summer School with a question based on observations that were suggested throughout the week; namely, could motivation provide a ground for the idealistic and transcendental philosophy of subjective life, even if motivation is considered by many other sciences to be to be an empirical and experience-related element? The intentional and constitutive flow of consciousness is a motivated process. This means that motivation has “lawfulness” i.e. it shows regularities, similarities and uniformities, it always holds a direction, and it is strongly influenced by past experience. One common misconception is that motivation is always causal, yet only apodictic motivation is causal. Motivation often appears in the form of association: for example, A reminds me of B. New experiences will modify and transform past experiences by adjusting or rewriting our experiential history. This account of motivation suggests a low-level teleology: an object’s value is immediately given in our experience of that thing e.g. I apperceive the ice cream immediately as “tasty.” Motivation is an interplay between passivity and activity: it is not just from our being affected that moves us to practical action, but practical action also leads us to be affected. Pugliese concluded by listing Husserl’s three levels of motivation: (1) thematic motivation that guides thinking or imagination; (2) passive motivation that implicitly guides kinesthesia; (3) Drives (Triebe) that are the deepest and also a non-thematic form of motivation providing orientation.

 

Thiemo Breyer (Cologne), “Phenomenological Psychology”

The final lecture of Summer School 2017 was given by Thiemo Breyer on Husserl’s phenomenological psychology. In the first part, he gave a historical overview of Husserl’s relation to psychology. From early on, Husserl was in contact with the leading psychologists and was concerned with psychology’s connection to mathematics and philosophy. Husserl began his philosophical career using descriptive psychological terms and methods but gradually shifted towards more logical terms and methods. In his phenomenological psychology, Husserl wants to establish a new a priori psychology, which was not meant to replace empirical psychology, but to serve as the basis for other sciences such as the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften). This new psychology is an eidetic science that makes analytic distinctions between different elements of consciousness, which is an artificial procedure existing in abstraction. In phenomenological psychology, we take many single concrete experiences and abstract a general experience of what it means to have e.g. a perception, or a fantasy etc. Husserl compares the science to geometry because they both abstract from concrete things (for psychology, experiences and for geometry, imperfect everyday circles and squares) to the ideal. The difference between this science and geometry is that phenomenological psychology can be falsified by encountering something contradictory in the life world or a fantasy of some type of experience, whereas in geometry, factual occurrence does not falsify the ideal nature of some figure.

Phenomenological psychology is the science of the ego and everything that makes up the personal “I”. Husserl sets up three “spheres” of psychic experiences: cognition/theoretical reason (Verstand); emotion and axiological reason (Gemüt); and volition or practical reason (Wille). Each category is comprised of different faculties or factors: under cognition is perception, memory, fantasy, and judgment; under emotion is affect, feeling, mood, Stimmung, atmosphere, and evaluation; and under the will are drives (Triebe), conative, motivations, deliberations, action. The order of the categories (i.e. cognition, then emotion and then will) shows the direction of the “foundational relationship.” Breyer concluded the talk by noting phenomenology’s accomplishments and impact on the various fields related to psychology such as psychopathology, Gestalt psychology, and embodied cognitive science.

The only way to conclude this summary is to share Dieter Lohmar’s parting words to the participants: “Stay true to Husserl!”

Reviewed by: R. Andrew Krema (Cologne)

For more information on the Husserl Archive at the University of Cologne, go to:

http://www.husserl.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/

[:en]Current Debates in Phenomenology & Overcoming the Continental-Analytic Divide (Held March 31-April 1, 2017, at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, USA)[:]

Michael Gutierrez

https://doi.org/10.19079/pr.2017.6.gut

[:en]

On March 31-April 1, 2017, Marquette University (USA) hosted faculty and graduate students in attendance for the conference “Current Debates In Phenomenology & Overcoming the Continental-Analytic Divide.” The two-day event examined the philosophical inheritance of the Divide and how it impacts work in phenomenology today. Sebastian Luft (Marquette University), and graduate students Jered Janes (MU), Clark Wolf (MU), and Ben Martin (LUC), served as lead organizers. The spring conference grew out of the ongoing inter-university series of seminars and workshops jointly organized by phenomenology research groups at Marquette University and Loyola University Chicago. The event was made possible by through the generous support of The American Friends of Humboldt, the philosophy department of Marquette University, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).

The conference included three faculty keynote lectures, six papers presented by graduate students from Marquette University and Loyola University Chicago, and a concluding panel discussion. Papers and lectured varied in their approaches to the main theme of the conference; some addressed the Continental-Analytic Divide directly, while others attempted to occupy a space for philosophical thought beyond the presuppositions of the Divide. James Dodd (The New School) delivered the first keynote lecture, titled “The Promise of an Asubjective Phenomenology.” The lecture offered a close and careful engagement with the thought of Jan Patočka. What philosophical resources does the Czech thinker provide to develop an asubjective phenomenology? Dodd argued that an asubjective phenomenology is not a non-subjective phenomenology. The classical influence of Husserlian phenomenological subjectivity endures in Patočka’s thinking, but is reoriented around the dichotomy of “inwardness/periphery” rather than “subject/object.” Such reorientation invites a rethinking of topics within phenomenology, including embodiment, the role of literature for phenomenology, the constitution of self and others, and the purported self-transparency of consciousness. Dodd tied together the several strands of Patočka’s rethinking into a Patočkian proposal for a revision of Husserl’s principle of all principles and a counterproposal for a “non-objectival” form of clarity available in reflection.

 The second keynote lecture, titled “Realism and the Ontological Question,” was delivered by Paul Livingston (University of New Mexico). Livingston took up a selection of arguments from his book The Logic of Being: Realism, Truth, and Time (2017). His primary aim in the lecture was to treat ontological questions, drawn from Heideggerian discourse, in a manner compatible with a realist ontology. Livingston took up a Lacanian meditation on formalization, and its limits, as the basis for proposing a kind of meta-formal realism. Livingston’s meta-formalism proposed a realist stance premised on “the experience of formalization whereby it problematically captures and decomposes its own limits.” He distinguished meta-formal realism from empirical realism, metaphysical realism, and correspondence realism. On the contrary, he argued, the meta-formal realist position treats questions about the basic sense and meaning of our formalization of the real, rather than dealing with entities, or domains of entities. Livingston situated his discussion with a historical reflection on different orientations of realist thought. The concepts of coherence and consistency came to the fore as disjunctive indicators of post-Cantorian orientations of realism. Either the orientation is complete without being consistent, the “paradoxico-critical” orientation (ex. Derrida, Late Wittgenstein). Or the orientation is consistent without being complete, the “generic” orientation (ex. Badiou, Gödel). Livingston developed the historical reflection into an appraisal of the meaning of being and truth in Heidegger’s philosophy and presented truth as a phenomenon arising out of the paradoxical structure of the ontological difference. The lecture concluded with a realist interpretation of the temporality of Dasein in Heidegger’s Being and Time, taking up the structures of ecstasis, reflexivity, and auto-affectivity as purely formal structures without underlying dependence on a constituting agency or subject. The realist interpretation mobilizes the paradoxical structure of the ontological difference to open up the possibilities of the experience of time both as time of the individual Dasein and time as “world” or “public” time.

The third keynote, titled “Culture as Second Nature,” was delivered by Sebastian Luft (Marquette University). The lecture took as its point of departure the interpretation of the philosophy of Ernst Cassirer offered by Clarence Smith Howe, translator of an English edition of Cassirer’s The Logic of the Humanities (1961) [Zur Logik der Kulturwissenschaften (1942)]. In Howe’s introduction, he interprets Cassirer’s philosophy as a kind of naturalism, albeit a “culturalistic” naturalism. The interpretive claim, so argued Luft, seems to be at odds with more conventional interpretations of Cassirer as first and foremost a philosopher of culture. However, Howe’s claim is adopted by Luft as an opportunity to set up a confrontation between Cassirer’s symbolic idealism, in which the experience of nature is culturally mediated, and John McDowell’s version of naturalism, which arises out of his rejection of “bald” or “naive” naturalism. After reviewing the basic commitments of Cassirer and McDowell with respect to the experience of nature, Luft introduced Howe’s notion of “idealistic naturalism” (or culturalistic naturalism) as a mediating link between the naturalism of Cassirer and McDowell. In a concluding comparison of the two thinkers, Luft argued that Cassirer’s position was preferable to McDowell’s insofar as the former thinker allows “cultural intelligence” to have a wider purchase than mere ratiocination. That is, our human nature finds expression in cultural refuges — such as art and language — that are bound up with, but not reducible to, the rationality of McDowell’s space of reason.

The graduate student papers were presented in the mornings and afternoons, over the course of the two-day conference. Pete Burgess (Marquette University) explored different accounts of mental causation in “Are Acts and States Incompatible?: Mapping Versus Explaining Consciousness.” Justin Nordin (Loyola University Chicago) addressed the topic of moral normativity in “A Levinasian Approach to Moral Obligation.” Amelia Rhys (LUC) used philosophical resources in the work of Michel Foucault to treat a topical issue in bioethics in “The Contribution of Foucault’s Analysis of the Clinical Gaze to a Trans-Affirming Bioethics.” Daniel Adsett (MU) engaged Donald Davidson’s triangulation argument with respect to norms for speech and communication in “Coherence, Totality, and the Rational Subject.” Kyoungnam Park (LUC) provided a phenomenology of sensation and intuition in “Duration and Sense Impressions.” Gregory Trotter (MU) marked the intersection of phenomenology and psychoanalysis in “Fantasy and Freedom in Sartre and Psychoanalysis.”

The conference concluded with a brief presentation, given by Sebastian Luft, on funding opportunities available for academics interested in study in Germany, as well as a panel discussion. The panel discussion, titled “The Analytic-Continental Divide Today,” scheduled to include Andrew Cutrofello (Loyola University Chicago), James Dodd (The New School), Hanne Jacobs (Loyola University Chicago — absent), Paul Livingston (University of New Mexico), and Sebastian Luft (Marquette University), took up again the central theme of the conference in light of the discussion of the present and previous day. The panel participants were given an opportunity to present brief opening remarks before the discussion was opened to the general audience. Among the topics discussed: what is the nature of the Continental-Analytic divide? Is it a historical, political, sociological, etc., phenomenon? What strategies can be used to overcome the divide? What professional interests are invested in preserving the divide? What can we learn from an antinomarian reading of the divide? What is the future of philosophy beyond the divide? Can we project ourselves beyond the divide, or are we beyond the divide already?

Reviewed by: Michael Gutierrez (Loyola University Chicago), PhD student in philosophy and co-organizer of the phenomenology research group at Loyola.

[:]

[:en]The Transcendental in Question. Echoes of the symposium held at the University of Lorraine, Metz, November 16-18, 2016[:]

Phenomenological Reviews

https://doi.org/10.19079/pr.2017.1.mee

[:en]

Should we still be thinking transcendentally? In other words, is it possible to consider any object of contemporary research without being concerned about the conditions that make knowledge possible? Since this issue was at the center of our debates, this presentation will not be an itemized description of all the papers, but rather an attempt to summarize the major issues that arose at the conference.

Through the wide range of talks, we were able to notice just how impossible it has become to situate an objective approach to the subject implementing it. However, the chosen transcendental forms vary widely from one author to another. Yet, many of the authors who presented at this colloquium affirm the need to maintain a transcendental attitude that is not confined to the Kantian reading grid. A striking example of this comes from passages in Kantian formal theory and Husserlian material theory.

The epistemological dichotomy between understanding and sensibility can be abandoned without diverging from the transcendental habitus. This abandonment of the formal preconceptions may also redefine the empirical domain into a place of experimentation that constantly modifies the conditional framework that defines experience itself. Scientific research is a good illustration of this. It is even possible, according to the paper read by Jean Ladrière, that existence can be described in terms of transcendental factuality. Indeed, if meaning can emerge through what is occurring, we will be removed from a strictly Kantian framework.

However, even when we read Poincaré or Husserl, Schopenhauer or Deleuze, one point remains: the subject of the work—regardless of whether it accepts the notion of subject on a theoretical plane — freely explores multiple hypotheses or fictitious variations. This “as if”  game enables one either to identify its object more effectively, if it keeps a theoretical attitude, or to enter into its actions more effectively, if it takes on an existential attitude. The exploratory exercise, fruitful in mathematics, logic as well as ethics, requires a willingness to distance one’s self from the immediate facticity of the data.

Generally, thought refers to a given phenomenon only because it is always capable of embracing a wider field of possibilities. This field can then be classified between feasible and non-feasible possibilities, and among the feasible ones, between those that either are or are not ultimately realized. Hence the notion of a double transcendentality through which the very notion of reality is questioned. Indeed, for all authors, something comes forward and is revealed in one way or another. This does not have to be evidenced, because were it not, there would not only be nothing to say about it, and no one to discuss it. It is from that point onward, some identify external phenomena—those that can be touched and manipulated—to reality, and others, conversely, reject this identification.

For some authors, the real, unlike the possible, is “effective” and this “effectivity” is centered in front of the subject seeking it. Among these, some purport that this “effective reality”, present before me, contains in itself numerous possibilities which are only waiting to be activated. Now, though the human mind is a space to gain awareness into the matter, and not bring a newness that things would not hold in themselves. This attitude is already transcendental insofar as the subject already contemplates the real as that which can arise by other means than how it has arisen there. Therefore, it considers its conditions of possibility, hence, the realist Etienne Gilson’s exposé as to the inability for anyone to any longer speak of the real other than in a transcendental way. For other authors, regarding the reserve of possibilities already given, identifying the objective that is effective with reality is by no means self-evident.

Since the life of consciousness has been revealed as more effective than any objectification, what the former calls real could conceivably become relativized by the mind beholding it. Put another way, it is possible, in this case, that this so-called real is only a division made by the subject, or that this relation subject-object is somehow abolished in favor of structures that should be deciphered. Here, too, the act of deciphering emanates from an “active I” (ego) which considers all structures on the basis of structural variants. In short, from one attitude to its opposite, one does not come out of the transcendental.

If we were to conclude with one word summarizing the contribution of this conference, we could say that it has brought to light a “broadened transcendentality”. This transcendentality was present in the philosophies which we studied, regardless of their orientation concerning the notion of reality. We certainly do not think we have exhausted the subject.

Yves Meessen (translation by Aaron Taylor). Co-organizer of the symposium with Anthony Feneuil and Christophe Bouriau

 [:]

[:en]International Conference Phenomenology and Practice: The 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe (September 8-10, 2016, Gdańsk, Poland)[:de]International Conference Phenomenology and Practice: The 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement In Central and Eastern Europe (September 8-10, 2016, Gdańsk, Poland)[:]

Jakub Buźniak

https://doi.org/10.19079/pr.2016.11.buz

[:en]

In September 8-10, 2016 University of Gdańsk (Poland) organized the international conference entitled Phenomenology and Practice. The 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe. The conference was organized by a committee, including Krystyna Bębenek, Jakub Buźniak, Łukasz Depiński, Dobrosław Mańkowski, Witold Płotka (chair), Aleksandra Szulc, Martyna Zimmermann-Pepol (secretary) and Jagoda Żołędzka, in cooperation with the Polish Association of Phenomenology. The conference was a continuation of a previous international conference on Horizons Beyond Borders which took place in Budapest (June 17-19, 2015). The Gdańsk conference schedule encompassed 25 speakers from 11 countries (including Belgium, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, USA and Italy).

All of the conference attendees had the opportunity to participate in four keynote lectures. During the first day, two of the lectures were presented. The conference was opened with a keynote speech by Carlos Lobo (College International de Philosophie, France). The opening lecture was entitled Idealization of Practice and Idealization in Practice. Or how one can be an Idealist in Ethics without being an Intellectualist. During his talk Lobo reconstructed Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of practical philosophy. Husserl believed that each theory of practical philosophy must meet the following three primary conditions. Firstly, such theory must concern all aspects of a normative dimension of human life, including comprehending them from the perspective of the individual as well as from the community. Secondly, the theory cannot include any characteristics of a naturalistic theory. And thirdly, it should point out the sources of normative and axiological diversity among societies. In order to justify his thesis, Husserl used the parallelization method. This method follows from the phenomenological method of eidetic variation and description after a transcendental reduction. In Lobo’s opinion, an important aspect of Husserl’s thesis was that the axio-normative sphere is an ideal entity. However, Lobo claimed that idealisation (the thesis that the practical sphere is based on ideal entities) is ambiguous. Firstly, it means that all cognitive activities are based on discovering the ideas. Secondly, it means that these ideas can motivate a human being to do something, or to have different feelings.  

The second key speaker – Dalius Jonkus (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) – presented a lecture on The Primacy of Intuition in Phenomenology: Critical Realism or Transcendental Idealism? His talk was focused on the phenomenological concept of intuition presented by Vasili SesemanJonkus acknowledged that the concept of intuition plays a crucial role in the phenomenological tradition. Husserl, for instance, believed that cognition begins and ends with intuition. He also believed that a possibility of intuitional knowledge indicates an important aspect of the human mind, namely openness of consciousness. Martin Heidegger, however, questioned the possibility of pure intuition. He believed that direct knowledge is mediated by language and thus, it requires interpretation. Alike Heidegger, Seseman questioned the concept of pure intuition. Jonkus, however, believes that Sesemman questioned the possibility of pure intuition, because he wanted to transform it and give it a new meaning that would be close to the concept of understanding comparable to the hermeneutic tradition (as inspired by Heidegger). In the end, Jonkus concluded that Seseman’s understanding of intuition allows us to acknowledge phenomenology as a form of critical realism.

During the next day of the conference Natalia Artemenko (State University of St. Petersburg, Russia) presented a keynote lecture entitled Špet’s Project of Hermeneutic Phenomenology. She began her talk with a presentation on the history of the phenomenological movement in Russia. She emphasized that Gustav Špet’s work and his book Apperance and Sense (Javlenie i smysl, 1914) played an important role in Eastern Europe. In his work Špet presented the concept of constitution inspired by Husserl, however, he reinterpreted it. From Špet’s perspective a constitution of human existence was directly connected with historical and ethno-cultural dimensions. Artemenko also pointed out that if one looks from a wider perspective, it is easier to see that the intellectual evolution of Špet and Heidegger is comparable. In the early stage of their philosophical developments they were both highly influenced by Husserl’s ideas. They had noticed a need for a modification of the methods and intellectual tools used by Husserl, and they both had followed the exact same way in order to resolve issues related to phenomenology. Ever since, this method of interpretation is called hermeneutics.

During the last day of the conference, Michael Gubser (James Madison University, United States) presented the last keynote lecture entitled The Definitive No: Phenomenology and Czechoslovak Dissidence in the 1970s. Gubser examined the relations between phenomenology and Czechoslovak dissidence movements, particularly the Charter 77. Gubser noticed that this document was developed to fulfill a need to create a new ethical society which could be independent from both the western liberal trends, and communist ideology. This was inspired by Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences where he had critically evaluated European culture. The creators of Charter 77 were deeply influenced by phenomenology. Their studies on this subject enabled them to understand a true nature of the communist system, as well as the spiritual condition of Europe in the XX century. In addition, it is worth mentioning that Jan Patočka was the first spokesman of Charter 77. Gubster claimed that as stated by participants of this initiative (i.e. Vaclav Havel), the language of phenomenology and the phenomenological atmosphere enabled Charter 77 signatories to express their hopes and fears.

In addition to the keynote lectures, papers (divided into seven different parallel sections) were presented at the conference. On the first day, conference speakers presented papers divided into three sections. Michal Zvarík (Trnava University, Slovakia) opened a presentation with the paper entitled Polemos and Meaning. On the Actuality of Patočka’s Undestanding of Polis. After that, Peter McDowell (Charles Darwin University, Australia) gave a speech entitled Beyond Ressentiment: Lukács’ Critique of Scheler’s Phenomenology. The last paper of this section was Martyna Zimmerman-Pepol’s (University of Gdańsk, Poland) talk on Czesław Znamierowski’s Social Ontology: On How to Put Phenomenology Into Practice.

Two other sections Phenomenology and Medicine, and Reinterpreting Phenomenology took place simultaneously. The first section was opened by Anna Alichniewicz (Medical University in Łódź, Poland) with a talk on Phenomenology of Embodiment in Medicine. The second presentation in this section – Medical Ethics as ”Ethics of Relations”  – was presented by Katsiaryna Yancheuskaya (European Humanities University, Lithuania). Māra Grīnfelde (University of Latvia & Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia) presented a talk on Phenomenology of Body and its Implications for Medical Practice. During the Reinterpreting Phenomenology section, the first talk was given by Andrei Patkul (St. Petersburg State University, Russia) on The Phenomenological Interpretation of Act in Alexei Chernyakov. The next speaker – Uldis Vēgners (University of Latvia & Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia) – gave a talk on The Practical Dimension of Time. After that Daniel Roland Sobota (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) presented a paper on Towards a Poor Phenomenology: J. Grotowski’s Philosophy of Theater.

On the following day, the next two sections were organized – Action and Practice and Phenomenology and Its Other. In addition, a book session on the new (5 (1), 2016) issue of the Horizon Studies in Phenomenology was organized. The issue is dedicated to the tradition and perspectives of the phenomenological movement in Central and Eastern Europe.

The session on Action and Practice started with Simona Bertolini’s (University of Parma, Italy) speech on Roman Ingarden: Phenomenology and Ontology of PracticeThe next paper – From Praxis to Focal Practices: Karel Kosík’s Heideggerian Marxism – was presented by Ivan Landa (Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic). Discussions on this section were finished with Michał Piekarski’s (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland) talk entitled Blindness to Normativity and Morphology. The case of Husserl and Wittgenstein. The next section – Phenomenology and Its Other – was opened by Cezary Woźniak (Jagielloński University, Poland) with his lecture on Discovering the Plane of Immanence with Phenomenology followed by Georgy Chernavin’s (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia) talk on The Entselbstverständlichung: on the Phenomenological Practice of Self-Transformation. Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj (Jagiellonian University, Poland) was the next speaker in this section, and she presented a lecture entitled Eco-phenomenology, Heidegger, and Postenvironmentalism. Discussions in this section ended with Petr Prášek’s (Charles University & Université Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Czech Republic & France) speech entitled On the Possibility of a “Phenomenological Ethics” in Contemporary French Phenomenology.

The last day of the conference discussions focused on two sections Beyond Theory and Confrontations and Discussions. The opening lecture of the first one was done by Marek Pokropski (Warsaw University, Poland) with his speech entitled Leopold Blaustein’s Phenomenology. The next speech was given by Liisa Bourgeot (University of Helsinki, Finland); she presented a paper on Gustav Šhpet’s Phenomenology of Meaning (in the Context of Husserl’s Revisions of Logical Investigations). Discussions on the Confrontations and Discussions section began with Wing-Keung CHIK’s (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium) lecture entitled Estrangement, Freedom and Life: The Estrangement of life and Freedom from the Phenomenological Perspective. After CHIK, Tomasz Kąkol (University of Gdańsk, Poland) presented a speech on On Empathy. E. Stein and R. Ingarden vs Cognitive Psychology. The last paper of the conference was given by Witold Płotka (University of Gdańsk, Poland) who presented a talk on A “Practical Turn” of Phenomenology in Poland: Ingarden, Wojtyła, Tischner.

This year the Phenomenology and Practice conference was the second conference focused on exploring traditions and perspectives of the phenomenological movement in Central and Eastern Europe. The conference discussions, as well as examinations that were conducted by the participants have proven that phenomenology is still an interesting area of research. Presented papers did not focus merely on examining traditional problems and questions, but, more importantly, they aimed at questioning important conditions for postmodern culture. Postmodern culture itself involves human fascination with technical developments and the scientistic approach, but at the same time it still questions the existing norms and values which seem to be objective. In today’s world of axiological confusion, a conference on practical aspects of life seems to be very important and valuable. In order to overcome this axiological confusion, it is important to return to the things themselves and their rigorous description. This, as one can expect, will allow the suspension of many, if not all, of the existing prejudices that are embedded in the modern minds of western people.

To conclude, it is worth noting that the next conference regarding the phenomenological tradition in Central and Eastern Europe is planned to take place in 2017 in Ryga.

Reviewed by: Jakub Buźniak (Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism, University of Gdańsk, Poland)


An original version of the report will be published in the Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology 6(1) 2017.

[:de]

International Conference Phenomenology and Practice: The 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement In Central and Eastern Europe (September 8-10, 2016, Gdańsk, Poland)[1]

In September 8-10, 2016 University of Gdańsk (Poland) organized the international conference entitled Phenomenology and Practice. The 2nd Conference on Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe. The conference was organized by a committee, including Krystyna Bębenek, Jakub Buźniak, Łukasz Depiński, Dobrosław Mańkowski, Witold Płotka (chair), Aleksandra Szulc, Martyna Zimmermann-Pepol (secretary) and Jagoda Żołędzka, in cooperation with the Polish Association of Phenomenology. The conference was a continuation of a previous international conference on Horizons Beyond Borders which took place in Budapest (June 17-19, 2015). The Gdańsk conference schedule encompassed 25 speakers from 11 countries (including Belgium, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, USA and Italy).

All of the conference attendees had the opportunity to participate in four keynote lectures. During the first day, two of the lectures were presented. The conference was opened with a keynote speech by Carlos Lobo (College International de Philosophie, France). The opening lecture was entitled Idealization of Practice and Idealization in Practice. Or how one can be an Idealist in Ethics without being an Intellectualist. During his talk Lobo reconstructed Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of practical philosophy. Husserl believed that each theory of practical philosophy must meet the following three primary conditions. Firstly, such theory must concern all aspects of a normative dimension of human life, including comprehending them from the perspective of the individual as well as from the community. Secondly, the theory cannot include any characteristics of a naturalistic theory. And thirdly, it should point out the sources of normative and axiological diversity among societies. In order to justify his thesis, Husserl used the parallelization method. This method follows from the phenomenological method of eidetic variation and description after a transcendental reduction. In Lobo’s opinion, an important aspect of Husserl’s thesis was that the axio-normative sphere is an ideal entity. However, Lobo claimed that idealisation (the thesis that the practical sphere is based on ideal entities) is ambiguous. Firstly, it means that all cognitive activities are based on discovering the ideas. Secondly, it means that these ideas can motivate a human being to do something, or to have different feelings.  

The second key speaker – Dalius Jonkus (Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania) – presented a lecture on The Primacy of Intuition in Phenomenology: Critical Realism or Transcendental Idealism? His talk was focused on the phenomenological concept of intuition presented by Vasili SesemanJonkus acknowledged that the concept of intuition plays a crucial role in the phenomenological tradition. Husserl, for instance, believed that cognition begins and ends with intuition. He also believed that a possibility of intuitional knowledge indicates an important aspect of the human mind, namely openness of consciousness. Martin Heidegger, however, questioned the possibility of pure intuition. He believed that direct knowledge is mediated by language and thus, it requires interpretation. Alike Heidegger, Seseman questioned the concept of pure intuition. Jonkus, however, believes that Sesemman questioned the possibility of pure intuition, because he wanted to transform it and give it a new meaning that would be close to the concept of understanding comparable to the hermeneutic tradition (as inspired by Heidegger). In the end, Jonkus concluded that Seseman’s understanding of intuition allows us to acknowledge phenomenology as a form of critical realism.

During the next day of the conference Natalia Artemenko (State University of St. Petersburg, Russia) presented a keynote lecture entitled Špet’s Project of Hermeneutic Phenomenology. She began her talk with a presentation on the history of the phenomenological movement in Russia. She emphasized that Gustav Špet’s work and his book Apperance and Sense (Javlenie i smysl, 1914) played an important role in Eastern Europe. In his work Špet presented the concept of constitution inspired by Husserl, however, he reinterpreted it. From Špet’s perspective a constitution of human existence was directly connected with historical and ethno-cultural dimensions. Artemenko also pointed out that if one looks from a wider perspective, it is easier to see that the intellectual evolution of Špet and Heidegger is comparable. In the early stage of their philosophical developments they were both highly influenced by Husserl’s ideas. They had noticed a need for a modification of the methods and intellectual tools used by Husserl, and they both had followed the exact same way in order to resolve issues related to phenomenology. Ever since, this method of interpretation is called hermeneutics.

During the last day of the conference, Michael Gubser (James Madison University, United States) presented the last keynote lecture entitled The Definitive No: Phenomenology and Czechoslovak Dissidence in the 1970s. Gubser examined the relations between phenomenology and Czechoslovak dissidence movements, particularly the Charter 77. Gubser noticed that this document was developed to fulfill a need to create a new ethical society which could be independent from both the western liberal trends, and communist ideology. This was inspired by Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences where he had critically evaluated European culture. The creators of Charter 77 were deeply influenced by phenomenology. Their studies on this subject enabled them to understand a true nature of the communist system, as well as the spiritual condition of Europe in the XX century. In addition, it is worth mentioning that Jan Patočka was the first spokesman of Charter 77. Gubster claimed that as stated by participants of this initiative (i.e. Vaclav Havel), the language of phenomenology and the phenomenological atmosphere enabled Charter 77 signatories to express their hopes and fears.

In addition to the keynote lectures, papers (divided into seven different parallel sections) were presented at the conference. On the first day, conference speakers presented papers divided into three sections. Michal Zvarík (Trnava University, Slovakia) opened a presentation with the paper entitled Polemos and Meaning. On the Actuality of Patočka’s Undestanding of Polis. After that, Peter McDowell (Charles Darwin University, Australia) gave a speech entitled Beyond Ressentiment: Lukács’ Critique of Scheler’s Phenomenology. The last paper of this section was Martyna Zimmerman-Pepol’s (University of Gdańsk, Poland) talk on Czesław Znamierowski’s Social Ontology: On How to Put Phenomenology Into Practice.

Two other sections Phenomenology and Medicine, and Reinterpreting Phenomenology took place simultaneously. The first section was opened by Anna Alichniewicz (Medical University in Łódź, Poland) with a talk on Phenomenology of Embodiment in Medicine. The second presentation in this section – Medical Ethics as ”Ethics of Relations”  – was presented by Katsiaryna Yancheuskaya (European Humanities University, Lithuania). Māra Grīnfelde (University of Latvia & Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia) presented a talk on Phenomenology of Body and its Implications for Medical Practice. During the Reinterpreting Phenomenology section, the first talk was given by Andrei Patkul (St. Petersburg State University, Russia) on The Phenomenological Interpretation of Act in Alexei Chernyakov. The next speaker – Uldis Vēgners (University of Latvia & Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia) – gave a talk on The Practical Dimension of Time. After that Daniel Roland Sobota (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) presented a paper on Towards a Poor Phenomenology: J. Grotowski’s Philosophy of Theater.

On the following day, the next two sections were organized – Action and Practice and Phenomenology and Its Other. In addition, a book session on the new (5 (1), 2016) issue of the Horizon Studies in Phenomenology was organized. The issue is dedicated to the tradition and perspectives of the phenomenological movement in Central and Eastern Europe.

The session on Action and Practice started with Simon Bertolini’s (University of Parma, Italy) speech on Roman Ingarden: Phenomenology and Ontology of PracticeThe next paper – From Praxis to Focal Practices: Karel Kosík’s Heideggerian Marxism – was presented by Ivan Landa (Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic). Discussions on this section were finished with Michał Piekarski’s (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland) talk entitled Blindness to Normativity and Morphology. The case of Husserl and Wittgenstein. The next section – Phenomenology and Its Other – was opened by Cezary Woźniak (Jagielloński University, Poland) with his lecture on Discovering the Plane of Immanence with Phenomenology followed by Georgy Chernavin’s (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia) talk on The Entselbstverständlichung: on the Phenomenological Practice of Self-Transformation. Magdalena Hoły-Łuczaj (Jagiellonian University, Poland) was the next speaker in this section, and she presented a lecture entitled Eco-phenomenology, Heidegger, and Postenvironmentalism. Discussions in this section ended with Petr Prášek’s (Charles University & Université Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Czech Republic & France) speech entitled On the Possibility of a “Phenomenological Ethics” in Contemporary French Phenomenology.

The last day of the conference discussions focused on two sections Beyond Theory and Confrontations and Discussions. The opening lecture of the first one was done by Marek Pokropski (Warsaw University, Poland) with his speech entitled Leopold Blaustein’s Phenomenology. The next speech was given by Liisa Bourgeot (University of Helsinki, Finland); she presented a paper on Gustav Šhpet’s Phenomenology of Meaning (in the Context of Husserl’s Revisions of Logical Investigations). Discussions on the Confrontations and Discussions section began with Wing-Keung CHIK’s (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium) lecture entitled Estrangement, Freedom and Life: The Estrangement of life and Freedom from the Phenomenological Perspective. After CHIK, Tomasz Kąkol (University of Gdańsk, Poland) presented a speech on On Empathy. E. Stein and R. Ingarden vs Cognitive Psychology. The last paper of the conference was given by Witold Płotka (University of Gdańsk, Poland) who presented a talk on A “Practical Turn” of Phenomenology in Poland: Ingarden, Wojtyła, Tischner.

This year the Phenomenology and Practice conference was the second conference focused on exploring traditions and perspectives of the phenomenological movement in Central and Eastern Europe. The conference discussions, as well as examinations that were conducted by the participants have proven that phenomenology is still an interesting area of research. Presented papers did not focus merely on examining traditional problems and questions, but, more importantly, they aimed at questioning important conditions for postmodern culture. Postmodern culture itself involves human fascination with technical developments and the scientistic approach, but at the same time it still questions the existing norms and values which seem to be objective. In today’s world of axiological confusion, a conference on practical aspects of life seems to be very important and valuable. In order to overcome this axiological confusion, it is important to return to the things themselves and their rigorous description. This, as one can expect, will allow the suspension of many, if not all, of the existing prejudices that are embedded in the modern minds of western people.

To conclude, it is worth noting that the next conference regarding the phenomenological tradition in Central and Eastern Europe is planned to take place in 2017 in Ryga.

Reviewed by: Jakub Buźniak (Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism, University of Gdańsk, Poland)


[1] An original version of the report will be published in the Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology 6(1) 2017.

[:]

[:en]Cologne-Leuven Summer School of Phenomenology 2016 “Genetic Phenomenology”: A Report[:]

Marco Cavallaro

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Since 2008 the Cologne-Leuven Summer School for phenomenology has been a hallmark within the landscape of the phenomenological summer schools of philosophy. Moreover, it is the only school which deals specifically with Edmund Husserl, and, as such, it is a must for anybody interested in the founder of the phenomenological movement.

This year’s topic was genetic phenomenology. Related issues, such as pre-predicative experience, the lived body, the relation of phenomenology to psychology, the access to other persons, intersubjective constitution, history, phantasy and the life-world, were also touched upon by a series of presentations carried out by internationally renowned Husserl scholars.

In the morning sessions, professors and post-graduates presented accessible lectures which unraveled particular topics related to Husserl’s thought. The afternoon sessions were devoted to either textual discussions or presentations by graduate students.

Dieter Lohmar (Cologne, Germany): “Static and Genetic Phenomenology”

Dieter Lohmar’s talk during the first day of the summer school focused on the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. His aim was to show the continuity rather than the discontinuity between these two methods of phenomenological investigation. Lohmar stressed the fact that, thanks to the new critical edition of Ideas II, we can now place the date of the beginning of the genetic phenomenology between 1912 and 1915, i.e. the time when Husserl was working on his drafts of the publication of Ideas II. According to Lohmar, both different topics as well as different methods distinguish genetic from static phenomenology. Static phenomenology takes into account the structure of isolated complex acts, whereas it does not investigate the dynamics of the experiential history, which is rather a characteristic topic for the late genetic phenomenology.

It is possible to mention at least two paradigms or dogmas that broadly characterize static phenomenology. Phenomenology generally starts as an investigation of the essential structures of consciousness. From the point of view of static phenomenology, we can pursue this investigation only by focusing on singular acts (Lohmar baptizes this trait, the “one-act-paradigm” of static phenomenology). Furthermore, static phenomenology relies on the so-called “one-way-foundation-paradigm” related to the general direction of constitutive effects: doing phenomenology, we have to start from the lowest levels of constitution and then work from the bottom up. In the Logical Investigations, Husserl understands the relation between acts primarily in terms of the notion of “foundation” (Fundierung). For instance, the act of feeling is regarded as a complex whole made out of two different acts. The founding act is an act intending a single object: in order to feel something, we need first to have a consciousness of the particular object of our feeling. On the other hand, the founded act is the feeling itself. High level objectivities like states of affair, essences are also grounded on a given cluster of simple acts. From this perspective, however, there is no room for a consideration of the constitutive effects that go the other way around, i.e. from the higher back to the lower levels of constitution. According to Lohmar, the latter is namely more a concern for genetic phenomenology, which focuses on the history of experience and the temporal succession and intertwining of multiple acts.

Diverse topics can be solved or addressed only by going into the genetic history of experience – for instance, the phenomena of language, consciousness, and especially the constitution of experiential “types”.

Types are regarded by Husserl as a product of the process that brings about the sedimentation of experience. They function actively in guiding and determining our perceptual as well as our practical life. Lohmar points out that any sedimented experience does not rest calmly and unknown in an alleged obscure soil, as the metaphor of sedimentation at first glance suggests; rather it influences our further perceptual and practical life. In fact, the term “sedimentation” should not be misunderstood: It does not imply that experiences are simply stocked and rest calm without effecting the life of consciousness; quite the opposite, they determine in a crucial way our experience of the present and likewise our expectations towards the future.

A characteristic example of genetic analysis is given by the experiential, pre-predicative origin of the sense of negation set forth in Experience and Judgment (cf. EU § 21). Husserl’s level of investigation here is well before full-blown cognition, that is, before the sphere of predicative judgment. The sense of negation needing to be addressed in the first place by the genetic phenomenologist belongs to the pre-predicative perceptual dynamics itself. Consider the perception of a tomato. At the beginning, I can just see the front-side of the tomato and notice that it is red. I am therefore motivated to make the experiential judgment that the tomato is red. However, I may afterwards turn the tomato in my hands and see the other side: I then realize that the other side is green. It is still one and the same tomato, but it is an unripe tomato that can no longer be considered fully red: my expectations on the level of perception have been disappointed, or more precisely, my expectation concerning the redness of the tomato was frustrated. This points to the fact that we have usual expectations concerning certain types of objects, but these expectations may undergo a complete or partial delusion. This experience of delusion is illustrated by Husserl with the model of a “fight” (Kampf) between evidences. A kind of evidence is already there before actual perception takes place: It is the evidence of expectation that I already have before I am going to directly perceive the object itself or the currently unperceived side of the object. The evidence of expectation “fights” with the evidence of perception. Yet, after the fight, the looser is still there, i.e. the evidence of anticipation is still alive and forceful, but its force undergoes now a modulation. Thus, a negation of the type “S is not p” is, in Lohmar’s own words, an “historiographic information”. I believed this object be red, but it revealed itself to be green. This information is sedimented in my experience, as “we are historical creatures”: everything that I experience speaks about what I was expecting before and, in this way, it speaks about me, my subjective view and attachment to the world with all its practical expectations, desires, values, etc.

Andrea Staiti (Cologne, Germany/Boston, USA): “The Late Conception of the Eidetic Method”

Andrea Staiti’s lecture focused on a further aspect of Husserl’s phenomenological method, namely eidetics. In the first part of his talk, Staiti investigated the notion of essence within Ideas I. Although Ideas offer the first substantial presentation of the notion of essence, anticipations of this method can be found in the Logical Investigations, for instance in the Second Investigation where Husserl introduces the concept of species or in the Sixth Investigation with the reference to the phenomenological structure of categorial intuition. In Ideas I, however, Husserl explicitly puts forth his theory of essences. Staiti noticed that the backdrop of the introduction of essences in Ideas I is “wissenschaftstheoretisch”. Husserl is introducing here a new kind of sciences, the so called Wesenswissenschaften as opposed to the Tatsachenwissenschaften. Essences fundamentally are the object of investigation for the first type of sciences, to which phenomenology also belongs.

In this way, Husserl is contrasting the idea that philosophy should be considered solely as a second order discipline that is a mere appendage of the empirical sciences. According to this view, philosophy does not have a subject matter, but is rather a reflection on the procedure of other sciences. This is the (Neo-Kantian) picture that Husserl precisely seeks to overcome in Ideas I.

The second part of Staiti’s talk dealt with the method of eidetic variation in Experience and Judgment. In this work, Husserl undertakes an analysis of the condition of possibility for experiencing and cognizing generalities. Staiti maintained that generality is already an ingredient of our direct experience of things, not a byproduct of intellectual procedures. We do in fact encounter a sort of generality in experience. However, this kind of generality is not the same generality of concepts or essences. This is a line of thought that goes back to Hermann Lotze, who introduces for the first time the notion of “first generality” (erste Allgemeinheit). Both Lotze and Husserl argue that this generality is grounded in the experience of similarity or syntheses of coincidence (Deckungssynthese): passive syntheses of associations which are at work in every experience without any active engagement or performance (Leistung) on the side of the subject. Anything we experience evokes certain expectations related to a generality called “type”. Types are, thus, a result of the fundamental cumulative aspect of our experience.

Staiti introduced then a fundamental distinction within the realm of generalities between essences, empirical concepts, and types. Empirical concepts, unlike types, do not depend on experience. An empirical concept opens up the extension of the type to infinity. It is not bound to that which I have seen. Differently from essences, however, empirical concepts are tied to the contingency of the world, since the method of attaining them does not get rid of the aspect of contingency and thus bounds the validity of the concept to the existence of the world. In order to purify our concepts, we need a different method, i.e. the method of free variation. This method enables us to discover, as Staiti put it, “what is not negotiable in the properties of an object in order for the object to count as that particular object”. This also means that we do not harvest essences which are already given in perception, but eidetic intuition or experience of essences is a process through which we try to get clear of our cognitive commitments. Staiti ultimately noticed a fundamental difference between type and stereotype. The latter may be characterized in terms of an upshot of the petrification of types. Experiential types, then, are intrinsically fluid and open to change and rectification on the basis of further experience.

Christian Ferentz-Flatz (Cologne, Germany/Bucharest, Romania): “Geschichte in der Sicht der genetischen Phänomenologie”

Christian Ferentz-FlaTZ’s talk developed in three sections. In the first part, he engaged with the objection concerning the absence of the historical dimension within the Husserlian phenomenology. This absence has been first justified with Husserl’s own critique of historicism in the Logos article of 1911, where Husserl was contraposing its biased method to the radical method of phenomenology based on direct intuition and the grasping of essences. This led many interpreters to consider phenomenology and history as fundamentally incompatible. The transcendental standpoint Husserl develops from the years in Göttingen onwards has also been regarded as a departure from the dimensions of historicity and facticity towards a focusing of the performances of a pure I completely bereft of any content and consequently of history. Furthermore, the eidetic method has been alleged to abstract from the dimension of history due to its prevailing interest on timeless eidetic truths (cf. especially Adorno’s critique of Husserl).

Especially two authors, Lembeck and Landgrebe, sought to provide an answer to this everlasting objection. They both pinpoint to the founding function that phenomenology, due to its eidetic method, can provide with respect to historical sciences.

Heidegger, on the other hand, sets forth with his own conception of phenomenology developed in lectures during the Twenties a new understanding of the relationship between systematic method and historicity. According to him, historicity does not necessarily imply the loss of objective, systematic knowledge. This is possible, however, only by adopting a hermeneutic standpoint, which Heidegger fundamentally misses in Husserl’s own methodology.

In the second part of the talk, Ferentz-Flatz considered a series of sources in which Husserl himself poses the question of historicity and its relationship to the phenomenological method. For example, in a letter to Cornelius from 1906 Husserl draws a distinction that he did not mention in the Logical Investigations: namely, the distinction between causal-explanatory psychology (kausal-erklärende Psychologie) and genetic psychology. The first type of psychology provides causal explanations by making reference to transcendent causes, whereby the second type opens up the possibility of a genetic consideration of experience which is not based upon external causation. Thus, Ferentz-Flatz concludes that a new concept of genesis begins to take hold in Husserl already during the 1910s.

The very breakthrough of the genetic phenomenology is however firstly documented in the appendix XLV of Husserliana XIII, which is dated 1916-17. Here Husserl provides four different meanings of the term “originality” (Ursprünglichkeit): 1) original givenness as opposed to indirect givenness, 2) founding as opposed to founded, 3) prior as opposed to posterior (temporal succession), 4) unmodified as opposed to modified (reproductive modification).

In Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929), Husserl will apply the genetic method in order to clarify the origin of judgments. This implies the consideration of the history of sense (Sinngeschichte) that pertains to each judgment as such as well as to each form of judgment. Further, Experience and Judgment (1939) purports to follow a similar undertaking, whereby the Cartesian Meditations contain a treatment of the experience of others that does not completely get rid of genetic explanations. Especially in this case, as Ferentz-Flatz underlined, Husserl makes a methodical use of the concept of genesis: he simulates a “fictive genesis” in order to discover new layers of experience – as when in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation one is requested to abstract from others and from any intentional implication that refers to others in order to discover a primordial sphere from which to begin the phenomenological analyses of the intersubjective experience. In this sense, a parallelism between genetic phenomenology and developmental psychology becomes evident. This is, however, only a parallelism, Ferentz-Flatz points out, since psychology has to do with empirical laws of the succession of stages of development, whereas phenomenology is concerned with eidetic laws of succession that strive for being universally valid.

The third and last section of Ferentz-Flatz‘s talk was devoted to a clarification of the third appendix of Husserl’s Crisis. His reading of the Husserlian reconstruction of the origin of geometry points to the fact that we are confronting here not a historical investigation devoted to rendering the objective truth about how things really happened. On the contrary, Husserl is here rather keen to show how things should have developed, how geometry should be born of conscious accomplishments. Genesis in this sense does not refer to the factual, objective history. As Rudolf Bernet points out in his preface to the German edition of the introduction to Husserl’s appendix written by Derrida, the history of consciousness has nothing to do with the factual history.

Emanuele Caminada (Cologne, Germany): “Lebenswelt in Ideen II”

Emanuele Caminada tackled the problem of tracing the historical genesis of the problem of the lifeworld in Husserl from Ideas II onward as well as engaged with its late systematic account in Husserl’s philosophy. At the core of Husserl’s idea there is the constitutive function of attitudes (Einstellungen). In Ideas II, Husserl distinguishes between the phenomenological attitude, the naïve attitude, the naturalistic attitude, the personalistic attitude, and the so called “geisteswissenschaftliche Einstellung”, i.e. the attitude proper to the humanities. Caminada characterized the notion of attitude in general as a form of perspectivity, a habit, a mindset.

Phenomenology defines itself in the first place as an attitude, namely the phenomenological attitude. In order to perform phenomenological analyses, one is required to adopt a new attitude that allow her to grasp phenomena in their richness beyond any scientific bias and prejudices. The natural attitude and the naturalistic are, according to Caminada, “absolute attitudes”: they provide us with a complete vision of the world. On the other hand, the attitude of the humanities and the personalistic attitude are attentive to the role that the fundamental correlation between subject and the world plays in every experience; these latter two are thus more committed to a form of relativism.

The phenomenological attitude can help us to distinguish the different attitudes, that is, it makes us sensitive towards the grasping of changes between attitudes. In fact, the phenomenological task is not only to pursue a classification of the different attitudes, but to investigate the correlation and transition from one attitude to another, as well as the way they interplay in concrete experience.

Jagna Brudzinska (Cologne, Germany/Warsaw, Poland): “Genetische Phänomenologie und Psychologie”

Jagna Brudzinska delves into the much debated question of the relation between phenomenology and psychology. Phenomenology characterizes itself as a descriptive science of experience and, under this perspective, it shares the descriptive character of its method with psychology. However, unlike empirical psychology phenomenology deals with eidetic laws and truths concerning the essential structures of experience. Its method is therefore not deductive and empirical, as in the case of psychology. Brudzisnka underlined further that one of Husserl’s main goals was to lay the foundations for a new kind of psychology as an a priori discipline. In this sense, one can speak of a parallel development of phenomenology and a pure, a priori psychology in Husserl’s thinking. The difference between the two derives from the transcendental character of the former, i.e. its attempt to unravel the constitution of being by the transcendental subject.

A topic further addressed by Brudzinska’s talk was the character of motivation as opposed to proper causation. According to her, it is important not to conflate motivation with a weak form of causality, as the former has a totally different structure of relation with respect to the latter.

The genetic turn in Husserl’s phenomenology means a turning point in the analysis of the life of consciousness. If in static phenomenology the singular act was the primary focus of the phenomenological investigation, with total abstraction from the temporal dimension of experience, genetic phenomenology instead points at illustrating the meaningful connections that join experiences together. One of these connections is the temporal succession which is far from being a mere “one-after-the-other” (Nacheinander), but which is more better described as a “one-upon-the-other” (Aufeinander) or “one-in-the-other” (Ineinander) relationship. Thus, there is a dynamic structure underlying the succession of experiences; one that cannot be seized upon by static phenomenology alone. The genetic method permits precisely the singling out of this structure and makes it the object of a phenomenological, a priori analysis.

Dieter Lohmar (Cologne, Germany): “Prepredicative Experience, Negation, Explication”

In his second talk, Lohmar tackled the topic of pre-predicative experience in the late Husserl by introducing a number of examples from everyday life. Pre-predicative experience is a knowledge each individual has about the properties and practical usefulness of determinate objects. This knowledge is not propositional; ratherit is founded in the past experiences the subject has of this or that object. Furthermore, the way that this specific kind of knowledge appears in phenomenological terms is a phantasmatic anticipation of the distinctive characteristics that individuate an object as that particular object. This phantasmatic anticipation is a form of evidence that Lohmar contrasts to impressive evidence. In the case of disappointment, a pre-predicative experience Husserl poses as the basis of the predicative form of negation, anticipative and impressive evidences clash together giving rise to a conflict of evidences in which impressive evidence usually has the upper hand.

According to Lohmar, pre-predicative experience functions primarily in an unconscious way. Whether the subject can find out what she already knew in advance depends on the particular situation in which she finds herself, and it is pre-predicatively functioning by shaping her experience of a determinate object and of the world in general. Methodically, we need to make a conscious repetition of the situation, and then we may gain insight into the knowledge and pieces of information that were operative in it.

Lohmar emphasized once more the fact that we have an historiographic knowledge of past experiences. Our present situation is informed by what we have lived in the past. This holds true also for predicative formations like negation, addition, and subject-object predication. They all have their origin in experience or, more specifically, in the history of experience. This is the main idea Husserl advocates, for instance, in Formal and Transcendental Logic, in which he argues that logic needs a theory of experience in order to become understandable and justified from a phenomenological perspective.

Sebastian Luft (Marquette University, USA/Padeborn, Germany): “Husserl’s Mature Phenomenology of the Life-World and His Critique of the Sciences”

Sebastian Luft offered a survey of Husserl’s phenomenology of the life-world from its beginnings in Ideas II to its extensive development in the Crisis-work. Husserl envisioned the task of describing the intuitive lifeworld in its concrete typicality especially in the lecture on Nature and Spirit from 1919. In Ideas I (1913), this project is not yet fully developed, although one can find there a description of the natural attitude, i.e. the way in which human beings naturally live and are conscious of a world that is intuitively given in experience. Therefore, Luft argues that the theme of the life-world was introduced in 1913 whereas the concept only in 1919. The first time both the theme and the concept were set forth in a published work was in the first volume of the Crisis in 1936. For this reason, the theme of the life-world was usually understood as a result of Heidegger’s influence on Husserl’s later work. This is, however, far from being true, as the unpublished Husserl’s reflections on this particular topic from the 1910s and 1920s unmistakably prove.

Luft discussed the concept of the natural attitude as the horizon within which the theme of the life-world gradually emerged in Husserl’s thought. The natural attitude is the normal attitude underpinning our everyday activities and opinions. Most importantly, we do not know that we are in the natural attitude as long as we are in it. The main thesis of the natural attitude is that the world exists and  more precisely does so independently of any experiencing consciousness. Thus, according to Luft the correlation between the subject and the object of experience remains absolutely concealed in the natural attitude. Only phenomenology and its proper methodology can reveal that everything objectively existent is the correlate of a subjective “doing”. In this sense,  science is deemed to be a specific doing guided by the intention of gaining objective (subject-independent) knowledge. This doing is further characterized by a proper form of attitude that Husserl calls “naturalistic attitude,” which distinguishes itself from the natural attitude through the epistemological goal informing its activity. This primarily consists in the task of de-perspectivizing the perspectival view on the world proper to the natural attitude and achieving thereby a “view from nowhere”. The world of the natural attitude is therefore prior to science and to the naturalistic world that is a product of the objectivizing and de-perspectivizing standpoint the natural sciences assume with respect to the given, intuitive world.

The world of the natural attitude, which Husserl lately baptizes as the life-world, is not a pre-linguistic world, but rather a world of opinions, musings, projects, and interests. Luft provided the following definition of the life-world: “The life-world is the product of constitution on the part of transcendental subjectivity, living in the mode of the natural attitude”.

In the Crisis Husserl explicitly carries out the project of a phenomenological description of the a priori of the life-world as it is given to us prior to science. This world is eminently a social world, and the naturalistic attitude of the positive sciences has concealed this fundamental worldly dimension by identifying the world with (material) nature. Hence, Husserl’s project amounts to the attempt to develop a science of the “despised doxa”, i.e. of the subjective-relative that characterizes the natural attitude and the experience within the original dimension of the life-world. This experience is at the same time the starting point of every scientific endeavor, and the life-world can thus lay the “meaning-foundation” of and for every kind of science. Sciences “cover up” the life-world with a “shroud of ideas” and take the result of this operation, which is the world according to the science, as the real world while relegating the life-world to an illusion. But this is the reverse of the truth, according to Husserl. Science reverses the natural order of things or, to put it in Cassirer’s terms, science is the one symbolic form of meaning that has become the measure of all others. This position characterizes the so-called naturalistic reductionism against which Husserl’s phenomenology of the life-world wants to take over. This implies the development of a new science able to describe and to conceptually fix the structure of a world that is most known and familiar to us, and in that way most distant. This world contains a material a priori structure – spatially, temporally, and genetically. A science of the life-world, Luft finally remarked, is precisely a transcendental science of the subjective, i.e. of the conditions of the possibility for the subjective access to the world.

Alice Pugliese (Palermo, Italy): “Intersubjectivity in Late Genetic Phenomenology”

Alice Pugliese provided in her talk an overview of Husserl’s understanding of intersubjectivity. In particular, she questioned the method through which Husserl intended to illustrate the experience of the other in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation. In this work, the analysis carried out by Husserl boosts a static account of intersubjectivity in which the individualities of the encountering subjects are already constituted and pre-given. Pugliese argues that this is certainly one aspect of the intersubjective encounter, but it does not exhaust all of the dimensions and facets in which intersubjectivity may appear. The face-to-face encounter that Husserl has in mind in describing intersubjectivity within the Fifth Meditation presupposes that each person has already a history of experiences that constitute her individuality and make her a full-blown subject. There may be, however, encounters with subjects at different levels of genetic development, for instance the relation between the mother and child, which has also been object of scrutiny in Husserl’s posthumously published manuscripts. According to Pugliese, it is precisely the static account characterizing Husserl’s most known theory of intersubjectivity that poses the problem of the accessibility of the other’s consciousness life. In this view, the subjects are mutually inaccessible, they are opaque to each other. This depends, at least partly, on the fact that the already constituted subjects do not share the same experiential history. This represents, however, both a term of differentiation as well as a term of continuity between the subjects. In fact, Pugliese stressed that the individuation of the subject through a lived history means that they are profoundly different, but this is at the same time the basis for their mutual recognition. A single experience is by definition not sharable; and, therefore, the other is given to me in this regard in the mode of the accessible inaccessibility. Yet, if one puts the single experience in the web of a continuous flow of experiences, the identification with the other subject can take place, since we both share the structure of a meaningful life spreading over a number of different, successive experiences. This general structure is what links us together and gives evidence of our commonality, which is then the basis for the mutual recognition of the other as a subject like me, that is as an alter ego.

Pugliese continued by saying that a specific kind of individuation takes place in the experience of the other. There is a process that Husserl labeled with the term “communalization” (Vergemeinschaftung) that means the process of becoming subjects within a given community of other subjects – what the sociologists nowadays probably would call “socialization”. Through this process of becoming intersubjectively recognized by other subjects, everyone achieves a characteristic individuation as a social subject. Everyone becomes an individual for a community and thus identifies herself with specific social roles and values.

Saulius Geniusas (Hong Kong, China): “Phantasy in Late Phenomenology”

Saulius  Geniusas undertook a discussion of Husserl’s phenomenology of phantasy. He focused in particular on the question about productive imagination and sought to answer this on the basis of Husserl’s reflections on the phenomenon of phantasy. The issue regarding productive imagination is a critical one and concerns the alleged absence of a treatment of this phenomenon within the Husserlian phenomenology. According to Geniusas, this represents a bias of post-Husserlian phenomenologists, according to whom Husserl ultimately never recognizes productive imagination as a proper object of investigation. Geniusas’ talk provided an argument against this bias.

The talk was divided into four sections. First, Geniusas elucidated the meaning of the concept of “reproductive phantasy”, with which Husserlian phenomenology is particularly concerned. According to a widespread view, the reproductive character of phantasy derives from the fact that it replicates copies of actual objects given in actual experience. This however does not exhaust the meaning of the reproductive character in phantasy experiences. In addition to this Geniusas identifies two other forms of phantasy reproduction: namely, the reproduction of the experience (Erfahrung), e.g. the act of seeing Peter, and the reproduction of experiencing (Erlebnis), e.g. the act of seeing as such without its intentional object. This should allow us to draw a distinction between memory, as a reproduction of experience in the first sense, and phantasy, which has the freedom to reproduce the act of experiencing in isolation from the object of experience.

Second, Geniusas tackled the question of whether phantasy can be regarded as an immanent component of perception. With the help of the example of cross-modal illusions, he showed how the transfigurative function of phantasy does not go smoothly together with the fundamental capacity of perception for presentingthe given in its own pure givenness. Hence, phantasy cannot be taken to be an ingredient of the perceptual experience. This does not mean, however, that phantasy is completely disconnected from perception. As Geniusas pinpoints, in fact, the function of phantasy in perception has to be found on the objective side of the experience, i.e. in the internal and external horizon that surrounds the object as perceived. Every perception is, according to Husserl, an apperception. This entails that the perception of the front side of an object is always at the same time accompanied by the givenness of the back side and of the other objects that physically surround the first object. In this sense, Geniusas sees a function of phantasy in providing an experience of these horizons of the objects that cannot be grasped in immediate perception.

Third, Geniusas discussed three fundamental senses on which one can speak of productive phantasy in the framework of Husserl’s phenomenology. In the first place, productive phantasy may be intended as referring to the capacity to intend original fictive objects, such as centaurs, round squares, etc. Secondly, productive phantasy is associated with the activity of opening up the field of pure possibilities. This sense is employed by Husserl in his discussion of the eidetic method and the function of phantasy as one of its pre-conditions. Ultimately, productive phantasy intends configurations of sense in the sphere of inactuality with the practical purpose of transferring them into the sphere of actuality. This latter sense has been then the topic of the last part of Geniusas’ talk.

In the fourth section, Geniusas argued for an understanding of the constitution of the cultural world in terms of a product of phantasy. His argument began with addressing the question of meaning that is at the core of Husserl’s philosophical enterprise. Namely, all philosophical questions represent for Husserl questions of meaning. The actual reality, and in particular the reality of the cultural world, is in this view also a particular configuration of meaning. The problem of constituting a cultural world equals, therefore, the problem of constituting a new sphere of meaning that is shared by a plurality of subjects. The main question here amounts to asking how a subject can participate in and gain access to a particular cultural world. A first answer would be simply communication: the subject apprehends the culture in question through communication with the ones who belong to that particular cultural world. This, however, begs the initial question according to Geniusas. Communication does not make me intuitively present the sense that is communicated; rather, it points towards this sense and its correlative intuition. An empty intention of the sense and meaning contained in a cultural practice does not allow the actor to fully understand what she is doing while performing this or that practice. There must be an intuitive access to the content of sense conveyed by the cultural practice. Now, the question turns out to be, what kind of experience can provide us with an intuitive access to this content? Geniusas’ answer is that only phantasy can and must play a role here by furnishing an intuitive experience of a sense that would otherwise be inaccessible and concealed.

Dieter Lohmar (Cologne, Germany): “Kritik und Begründung von Wissenschaften im Spätwerk Husserls“

Lohmar’s last talk addressed the issue of Husserl’s foundation of sciences. Hereby, one intends three kinds of scientific inquiry: humanities, formal sciences (like mathematics and logic), and natural sciences. Husserl attempted, on the one hand, to provide a critique of those sciences as they are historically handed down by the Western tradition and, on the other hand, to found them on the basis of a phenomenological investigation into their a priori conditions. Probably taking up a concern which Dilthey expresse before him, Husserl especially aimed at establishing a foundation of the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften), and this is attested by a series of lectures he gave in 1913, 1915, 1919, and 1927 that bear the title “Natur und Geist” as well as the lectures on Phenomenological Psychology from 1925 and, ultimately, the Crisis (1936). Ideen II (1912-15) is also informed by this project, since is displays analyses concerning the intersubjective constitution of cultural sense as well as a consideration of the development of habitual, spiritual meaning and the “teleological” dynamics of sinking-down and re-actualization of cultural formations.

In the discussion of the constitution of a cultural world, the body (Leib) plays a prominent role. This is so, according to Lohmar, because the communication between subjects takes place first and foremost at a bodily level rather than a merely linguistic one. There is a huge number of conversational patterns that are possible and are actually performed only through body movements and behaviors. The body is an organ of communication and also is the principal path allowing us to discover the other as another subjectivity like us, as the well-known analyses of the experience of the other in the Cartesian Meditations suggest. The activity of interpreting or re-enacting (Nachvollziehen) in one’s mind what the other thinks, feels and judges relies on the direct experience of the other’s body in analogy with our own.

In the Crisis Husserl pinpoints the role played by the evidences of the life-world in laying the foundation for the natural sciences. He shows how everyday evidences supervise and ultimately render possible every step of the scientific inquiry, starting from the bare handling with experiment devices to the communication of scientific results within a community of trusted co-researchers.

Reviewed by: Marco Cavallaro (PhD Fellow at a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne; Department Member of the Husserl-Archive Cologne; Visiting Researcher at Boston College)

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