Dan Zahavi. Subjectivity and Selfhood. Cambridge/London: The MIT Press, 2005, 265 pp., $21.00/£13.95 (Paper) (original) (raw)
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Husserlian phenomenology may be understood as the precursor to the triumph of subjectivity
To give a complete account of Husserlian phenomenology, we need to travel through his major works, namely Logical Investigations, Ideas and Cartesian Meditations. This essay aims at examining the contention that Husserlian phenomenology may be understood as the precursor to the triumph of subjectivity. The paper will first give an overview of Husserlian phenomenology, then, it will move on discussing epoché as the method that helps us to arrive at transcendental subjectivity.
Naturalizing Husserlian Phenomenology: An Introduction
Psychoanalytische perspektieven (English issue), 2002
The aim of this article is to give an account of what the "naturalization" of phenomenology involves. First, we need to ask what phenomenology is, and second, what we mean by "naturalizing". This should enable us to outline precisely what is at stake for both parties, the one naturalizing and the one being naturalized. Broadly, to "naturalize" can be defined as to "integrate into an explanatory framework where every acceptable property is made continuous with the properties admitted by the natural sciences" (Petitot, 1999: 1-2). From the outset, however, a specific problem arises: the project of naturalizing phenomenology is mainly addressed as a naturalization of Husserl's phenomenology. In this respect, it is important to know that Husserl developed his phenomenological philosophy in a sustained reaction against naturalist interpretations, i.e., interpretations in the frame of the natural sciences, psychology in particular. His mature phenomenology can be considered a counterpart of any naturalist theory. To talk about the possibility of a naturalized phenomenology will turn out to be, from Husserl's point of view, a paradox. Therefore, one cannot treat phenomenology first, and enter the naturalizing debate later. From the beginning, the issue of naturalization is central. The first part of this paper deals with Husserlian phenomenology. Husserl's writings are abundant, complex and make subtle and less subtle shifts throughout his life. We will restrict ourselves to "The Idea of Phenomenology," a small collection of lectures from the beginning of his mature period (1907), and some themes from his "Philosophy as a Rigorous Science" (1910-1911). The second part introduces the contemporary cognitive sciences. It is explained how the cognitive sciences adopt a naturalist viewpoint toward mental phenomena and how this viewpoint is connected to the problem of experience. The third and final part deals with the adoption of phenomenology by the cognitive sciences: the naturalization of Husserl's phenomenology.
Issues and challenges in the application of Husserlian phenomenology
2014
The field of hate crime research addresses the presence, sources and impact of particular types of expressions of prejudice, often perceived as particularly damaging and hurtful forms of interpersonal abuse and violence. Little, if any, credible academic research seeks to vindicate the specific racist, gendered and other vicious prejudices articulated by many perpetrators of hate crime. In turn, this raises the reflexive question of the possibilities of researchers themselves ever being able to adopt a truly "unprejudiced" approach to the presence of such damaging prejudices. Can this goal be realised without a researcher necessarily losing an experientially-grounded understanding of what these meanings, values and purposes have come to mean, and how they are themselves interpretatively reconstituted anew, including within the lived experience of victims, witnesses, police, prosecutors, judges and victim support workers? A possible philosophically-informed approach to the dilemmas posed by this topic is offered by Husserl's phenomenology. Husserl's perpetually unfinished philosophical methodology strives, with concerted if sometimes tragic reflective rigor, to "suspend," "bracket out" and "neutralise" those core presuppositions constitutive of the research field that typically prejudge precisely whatever demands to be questioned and explored in a radically non-prejudicial manner. This study critically explores the possibilities, reflective stages and theoretical limitations of a sympathetically reconstructed Husserlian approach to hate crime, itself understood as a would-be qualitative "science of consciousness." It argues that despite its manifest tensions, gaps, ambiguities and internal contradictions, aspects of the Husserlian philosophical approach directed towards the different levels of 2 experienced hate crime still retain the potential to both challenge and advance our understanding of this topic. It is the "instructive" part of "instructive failure" that this article highlights.
Phenomenological Reviews, 2020
We can think of the Husserlian phenomenological project and the history that surrounds it as the passage "from visible graces to secret graces", borrowing the expression with which Alain Mérot (2015) describes Poussin's artistic work. In Mérot's words, the visible graces are those of rigour (diligentia), order and visual eloquence with which Poussin always sought to show the clarity he was voluntarily seeking in all things. These visible graces make possible, in Pousin's work, the realization of "secret graces", which are those inexplicable and never totally expressed graces that support the deep and dark unity of the world, inseparable from the delectation that his work offers. It is because of the transmission of hidden graces that Poussin, according to Mérot, is accessible only to those who are both intelligent and sensible. Moreover, it is precisely because of the transmission of these secret graces that his work needs, in order to exist in all its fullness, a community of chosen people to whom it can be addressed. Like Poussin's work, facing the path of making grace visible by combining various techniques from the history of painting, Husserl's work is a work in progress, a work that is always preparatory: "Everything I have written so far is only preparatory work; it is only the setting down of methods" (Husserl, 2001a). We can say in this sense that, insofar as the contemplation of a painting by Poussin makes us participants in the grace made visible and not sufficiently expressed (secret), the methods of the phenomenological vision are put into practice by every reader of Husserl. In this way, everyone who sees through Husserl, irremediably leaves aside, in her or his reading, something that cannot be said. It is for this reason, perhaps, that phenomenology continues creating interpretative divergences even so many years after the method's foundation. Nevertheless, this is the same reason why phenomenology must confront other traditions of thought (from positivism to structuralism, among others) in front of which it still has something to say. This book presents us with the panorama of these divergences, establishing the center of the discussion in the semantic richness of the notion of “subject(s)”. Thus, we can understand this book as the discussion of the subject(s) as the main theme, or main themes, of phenomenology. But we can also understand this book as the discussion of whether the main theme of phenomenology – expressed in the imperative to go back to the “things themselves” – revolves around the notion of subjectivity (subject), although transcendental, or of the multiplicity of subjectivities (subjects). Moreover, the main interest of this book is that it is situated in the field of the most recent of Husserl's readers, which allows us to question the relevance of the phenomenological method in front of the themes of contemporary philosophical debate.
Philosophy, Phenomenology, Sciences: Essays in Commemoration of Edmund Husserl.
This volume brings together essays by leading phenomenologists and Husserl scholars in which they engage with the legacy of Edmund Husserl’s philosophy. It is a broad anthology addressing many major topics in phenomenology and philosophy in general, including articles on phenomenological method; investigations in anthropology, ethics, and theology; highly specialized research into typically Husserlian topics such as perception, image consciousness, reality, and ideality; as well as investigations into the complex relation between pure phenomenology, phenomenological psychology, and cognitive science. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Preface by U. Melle PART I The Nature and Method of Phenomenology 1 Husserl on First Philosophy by R. Sokolowski 2 Le sens de la phénoménologie by M. Richir 3 Transzendentale Phänomenologie? by R. Bernet 4 Husserl and the ‘absolute’ by D. Zahavi 5 Husserls Beweis für den transzendentalen Idealismus by U. Melle 6 Phenomenology as First Philosophy: A Prehistory by S. Luft 7 Der methodologische Transzendentalismus der Phänomenologie by L. Tengelyi PART II Phenomenology and the Sciences 8 Husserl contra Carnap : la démarcation des sciences by D. Pradelle 9 Phänomenologische Methoden und empirische Erkenntnisse by D. Lohmar 10 Descriptive Psychology and Natural Sciences: Husserl’s early Criticism of Brentano by D. Fisette 11 Mathesis universalis et géométrie : Husserl et Grassmann by V. Gérard III Phenomenology and Consciousness 12 Tamino’s Eyes, Pamina’s Gaze: Husserl’s Phenomenology of Image-Consciousness Refashioned by N. de Warren 13 Towards a Phenomenological Account of Personal Identity by H. Jacobs 14 Husserl’s Subjectivism: The “thoroughly peculiar ‘forms’” of Consciousness and the Philosophy of Mind by S. Crowell 15 “So You Want to Naturalize Consciousness?” “Why, why not?” – “But How?” Husserl meeting some offspring by E. Marbach 16 Philosophy and ‘Experience’: A Conflict of Interests? by F. Mattens PART IV Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy 17 Self-Responsibility and Eudaimonia by J. Drummond 18 Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer phänomenologischen Theorie des Handelns: Überlegungen zu Davidson und Husserl by K. Mertens 19 Husserl und das Faktum der praktischen Vernunft:Anstoß und Herausforderung einer phänomenologischen Ethik der Person by S. Loidolt 20 Erde und Leib: Ort der Ökologie nach Husserl by H.R. Sepp PART V Reality and Ideality 21 The Universal as “What is in Common”: Comments on the Proton-Pseudos in Husserl’s Doctrine of the Intuition of Essence by R. Sowa 22 Die Kulturbedeutung der Intentionalität: Zu Husserls Wirklichkeitsbegriff by E.W. Orth 23 La partition du réel : Remarques sur l’eidos, la phantasia, l’effondrement du monde et l’être absolu de la conscience by C. Majolino 24 Husserl’s Mereological Argument for Intentional Constitution by A. Serrano de Haro 25 Phenomenology in a different voice: Husserl and Nishida in the 1930s by T. Sakakibara 26 Thinking about Non-Existence by L. Alweiss 27 Gott in Edmund Husserls Phänomenologie by K. Held"
Husserlian Descriptive Phenomenology: A review of intentionality, reduction and the natural attitude
Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 2017
Background and aim: Descriptive phenomenology is widely used in social science research as a method to explore and describe the lived experience of individuals. It is a philosophy and a scientific method and has undertaken many variations as it has moved from the original European movement to include the American movement. The aim of this paper is to describe descriptive phenomenology in the tradition of Edmund Husserl. Integrative literature discussing the nature of descriptive phenomenology was used within this paper to elucidate the core fundamental principles of Husserlian descriptive phenomenology.Methods: This is a methodology paper that provides both an overview of the historical context and the development of descriptive phenomenology in the tradition of Husserl.Results and discussion: Descriptive phenomenology is explained from its historical underpinnings. The principles of the natural attitude, intentionality and the phenomenological reduction are described and using prac...