Papers by Giorgio Jules Mastrobisi
Dialettica&Filosofia, 2023
One of the most neglected aspects of Husserl's philosophy is certainly the phenomenological notio... more One of the most neglected aspects of Husserl's philosophy is certainly the phenomenological notion of "possibility" [Möglichkeit / Vermöglichkeit], which in the course of Edmund Husserl's great production has taken on multiple forms and meanings, in order to allow some fundamental questions to emerge and prove the legitimacy and the internal coherence of entire phenomenological method. The question which, to this regard, is decisive and which this short contribution aims to highlight is the following: what relationship exists between "consciousness" and "possibility"? Is it possible to establish a precedence of consciousness on empirical possibilities, or the latter are determined spontaneously and only subsequently enter into a relationship with transcendental consciousness? By analyzing this kind of problem, it will be clear that a fundamental role is played by the subjective and intersubjective kinesthetic dimension of recognition [Wiedererkennen], which provides a plausible possible solution to the question proposed.
Phainomenon, 2020
This paper claims that there is an epistemological evidence of an unavoidable gap between purely ... more This paper claims that there is an epistemological evidence of an unavoidable gap between purely formal sciences (sciences of essences) and the empirical sciences for which they provide the foundation. A second key theme is the way that all empirical sciences are grounded in a pure science of essences. At the same time, I endeavour to explain how the insights Weyl gleaned from Husserl played an important role in his scientific work, and to show how Einstein’s major work exhibit important parallels to Weyl’s work, thereby establishing phenomenology both as an indirect historical influence and a systematic underpinning for Einstein’s work in theoretical physics. In so doing, this paper seeks to show how some of the most basic problems that Einstein addresses have a kinship not just to problems addressed in a completely different context by Husserl and his circle, but also to perennial problems in ontology and epistemology that go back to Kant, Hume and Leibniz. The conclusion highligh...
Akten des IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Bd. I: Hauptvorträge. Bd. II: Sektionen I-V. Bd. III: Sektionen VI-X: Bd. IV: Sektionen XI-XIV. Bd. V: Sektionen XV-XVIII, 2001
PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDIES-Revista da Abordagem Gestáltica
Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é desenhar uma nova concepção de "essência", a partir da análise ... more Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é desenhar uma nova concepção de "essência", a partir da análise das obras de Husserl (por exemplo, Filosofia da Aritmética, Investigações Lógicas, Ideias) e comparando com as considerações de Einstein e Weyl (a maioria delas inéditas) sobre fundamentar um novo método que combina "análise filosófica da essência" e "construção matemática". A pesquisa sobre a natureza física do espaço-tempo nos fornece um exemplo de análise fenomenológica pura das essências. Ao desenvolver essa concepção de essência, a subjetividade e a consciência fenomenológicas desempenham um papel importante para representar uma representação relativamente objetiva da realidade das coisas. Por essa razão, o objetivo principal deste trabalho é buscar a complementaridade entre objetividade e subjetividade na consciência representacional e na produção de essências; Além disso, este estudo tem como objetivo demonstrar como a intersubjetividade fenomenológica atua na constituição das essências, para que possamos considerar a constituição das essências intersubjetivas como um caso possível de construção de um mundo real.
SEGNI & COMPRENSIONE, RIVISTA SEMESTRALE ANNO XXXIII, NUOVA SERIE n. 97, LUGLIO/DICEMBRE 2019, 2019
Ogni pensiero scientifico, ed anche qualsiasi problematica di tipo
filosofico, implicano da sempr... more Ogni pensiero scientifico, ed anche qualsiasi problematica di tipo
filosofico, implicano da sempre delle ovvietà (Selbstverständlichkeiten), e la prima di queste ovvietà, secondo Husserl, è proprio quella che riguarda laeggiame naturalistico nei confronti del mondo. Il mondo risulta lic ie di ie gi dae e, di cegea, il cmi della fenomenologia e del fenomenologo in primis deve essere proprio quello di afmae lie ieale delleee del md i alca di comprensibile e chiaro. Ma in cosa consisterebbe questo atteggiamento naturalistico per Husserl?
Aoristo - International Journal of Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Metaphysics, 2019
This article is based on a research paper presented at I International Conference: "Phenomenologi... more This article is based on a research paper presented at I International Conference: "Phenomenological Approaches to Physics" (Graz, June 14-16, 2018).
This paper aims to explain how the insights Weyl gleaned from Husserl played an important role in his scientific work, and then how Einstein's major work exhibit important parallels to Weyl's work, thereby establishing phenomenology both as an indirect historical influence and a systematic underpinning for Einstein's work in theoretical physics. In so doing, this paper seeks to show how some of the most basic problems that Einstein addresses have a kinship not just to problems addressed in a completely different context by Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and his circle, but also to perennial problems in ontology and epistemology that go back to Kant, Hume and Leibniz. The conclusion seems to suggest that it not only shows how phenomenology both historically and systematically provides a backdrop for Einstein's work; my thesis actually situates issues in twentieth-century scientific thought against the backdrop of a philosophical development, and perhaps the most original idea of this study consists not just in showing how phenomenology influenced Einstein, ...
Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é desenhar uma nova concepção de " essência " , a partir da análi... more Resumo: O objetivo deste artigo é desenhar uma nova concepção de " essência " , a partir da análise das obras de Husserl (por exem-plo, Filosofia da Aritmética, Investigações Lógicas, Ideias) e comparando com as considerações de Einstein e Weyl (a maioria delas inéditas) sobre fundamentar um novo método que combina " análise filosófica da essência " e " construção matemática ". A pesquisa sobre a natureza física do espaço-tempo nos fornece um exemplo de análise fenomenológica pura das essências. Ao desenvolver essa concepção de essência, a subjetividade e a consciência fenomenológicas desempenham um papel importante para representar uma representação relativamente objetiva da realidade das coisas. Por essa razão, o objetivo principal deste trabalho é buscar a comple-mentaridade entre objetividade e subjetividade na consciência representacional e na produção de essências; Além disso, este estudo tem como objetivo demonstrar como a intersubjetividade fenomenológica atua na constituição das essências, para que possamos considerar a constituição das essências intersubjetivas como um caso possível de construção de um mundo real. Abstract: This paper aims to draw a new conception of " essence " , starting from the analysis of Husserl's works (e.g. Philosophy of Arithmetic, Logical investigations, Ideas) and comparing with the Einstein and Weyl considerations (most of them unpublished) about grounding a new physical method which combines " philosophical analysis of essence " and " mathematical construction ". The research about the physical nature of space-time provides us with an example of pure phenomenological analysis of essences. In developing this conception of essence, phenomenological subjectivity and consciousness play an important role in order to depict a relatively objective representation of thingly reality. For this reason, the principal purpose of this paper is seeking to address the com-plementarity between objectivity and subjectivity in the representational consciousness and in its production of essences; moreover, this study aims to demonstrate how phenomenological intersubjectivity acts on the constitution of essences, so that we might consider the intersubjective essences' constitution as one possible case of constructing a real world. Resumen: Este trabajo pretende dibujar una nueva concepción de " esencia " , comenzando por el análisis de las obras de Husserl (por ejemplo, Filosofía de la aritmética, Investigaciones lógicas, Ideas) y comparando las consideraciones de Einstein y Weyl (la mayoría de ellas inéditas) sobre cómo establecer un nuevo físico método que combina " análisis filosófico de la esencia " y " construcción matemática ". La investigación sobre la naturaleza física del espacio-tiempo nos proporciona un ejemplo de análisis fenomenológico puro de las esencias. Al desarrollar esta concepción de la esencia, la subjetividad fenomenológica y la conciencia juegan un papel importante para representar una representación relativamente objetiva de la realidad de las cosas. Por esta razón, el propósito principal de este artículo es tratar de abordar la complementariedad entre la objetividad y la subjetividad en la conciencia representacional y en su producción de esencias; además, este estudio pretende demostrar cómo la intersubjetividad fenomenológica actúa sobre la constitución de las esencias, de modo que podríamos considerar la constitución de las esencias intersubjetivas como un posible caso de construir un mundo real
S&F_n. 18_2017, 2017
The search for objective knowledge purports to aim at a reality independent of our experience of ... more The search for objective knowledge purports to aim at a reality independent of our experience of it, but we find ourselves dependent upon our sense experience as the only possible access to this purportedly independent reality that is the object of science. Husserl’s phenomenological point of view reveals how this aim is understandable, and, as the major developments in twentieth-century physics have shown (Einstein’s Relativity Theory), how science must take account of the way that virtual forms of our thinking play a key role in capturing the phenomena scientists describe and explain. What this paper claims to prove is the epistemological evidence of an unavoidable relationship between the virtual and real that are described through the formal sciences and the concrete objects that they purport to capture. In one of his manuscript entitled: “Overthrow of the Copernican theory” Husserl emphasized the role of virtuality of natural laws such as it arises from Michelson’s experiment, dwelling on natural scientific naiveté. In fact, even though we eventually come to understand the earth as a thing moving among things, the unmoving earth remains the virtual condition that makes any movement intelligible. Thus, we might consider the actual world, each of its pieces and all determinations in them, as «intentional-real» objects of «virtual-conscious» acts.
The "Singapore Manuscript" (1923) from the manuscripts' collection conserved at the "Albert Einst... more The "Singapore Manuscript" (1923) from the manuscripts' collection conserved at the "Albert Einstein Archives" in Jerusalem is published here in its entirety for the first time.
Considerazioni sparse sul ruolo e la funzione dei docenti nell'era degli specialismi
S&F_n. 15_2016, Jun 30, 2016
According to Hermann Weyl, Einstein's Relativity Theory is a method that combines "analysis of es... more According to Hermann Weyl, Einstein's Relativity Theory is a method that combines "analysis of essence" and "mathematical construction". From this point of view, in this article I try to establish a parallelism between the formulation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Husserl's Phenomenology based on the comparison of the original texts and manuscripts. From this analysis, e.g. the conception of the gravitational field, as important result of the General Relativity Theory, seems to be nothing else but a new type of "essence", a phenomenological essence, in an environing objective world that is the "world-of-life".
contribution to the discussion of phenomenology and the natural sciences. As opposed to most othe... more contribution to the discussion of phenomenology and the natural sciences. As opposed to most other treatments of phenomenology and modern natural science that stress the opposition between phenomenological and scientific approaches to reality, Mastrobisi illustrates and highlights the positive role that phenomenology, and in particular Husserl's phenomenological philosophy, played in the development of twentieth-century physics, most especially in the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity and unified field theory. He also makes a compelling case for the continued relevance of the basic insights of phenomenology for further developments in physics after Einstein, up to and including cutting-edge physics today. The guiding theme throughout the book is the opposition between timeless ideal forms such as those found in geometry and mathematics as paradigmatic emblems of reality and the contingency and openness of our experience of reality as given through our senses. The search for knowledge purports to aim at a reality independent of our experience of it, yet we find ourselves dependent upon our sense experience as the only possible access to this purportedly independent reality that is the object of science. Mastrobisi's analyses reveal how this aim is understandable but ultimately shown to be misguided not only by leading philosophers such as Kant and Husserl, whose versions of transcendental philosophy have shown how basic structures of subjectivity are constitutive of objectivity itself, but also by science as the major advances in twentieth century physics have shown how science must take account of the role of the observer and the way that variously mathematically structured forms of space and time play a key role in capturing the phenomena scientists describe and explain. Another way to describe this difference is the unavoidable gap between pure, formal sciences and the empirical sciences for which they provide the foundation or – to put it differently – between the essences and pure possibilities that are described through the formal sciences and the concrete objects that they purport to capture. Mastrobisi begins with a historical overview of some important predecessors to twentieth century phenomenology and the way that insights into the relativity of knowledge can be traced back to very beginning of Western philosophy. He recalls how the idea of vision or sight in Plato refers both to the sense perceptions of natural objects with one's eyes, but also and more importantly to the very act of knowing itself, the mental process of grasping an object or a state of affairs. In fact, Mastrobisi recalls, for Plato the very ability to recognize the object of a sense perception is grounded in the mind's ability to grasp the kind of object it is, its " eidos " or " Idea. "
L'articolo è l'insieme di alcune annotazioni al contributo di Paolo Bellan che scaturiscono dalla... more L'articolo è l'insieme di alcune annotazioni al contributo di Paolo Bellan che scaturiscono dalla lettura dei saggi di Francesco Emmolo e di Carlo Sini e dall'assunzione di una prospettiva squisitamente fenomenologica nell'interpretazione dei processi di acquisizione delle conoscenze scientifiche.
The 1920 manuscript by Einstein entitled: Vorlesungen über Relativitätstheorie points out paradig... more The 1920 manuscript by Einstein entitled: Vorlesungen über Relativitätstheorie points out paradigmatically all the preparations of the «Special Theory of Relativity», the importance and the role of this theory in the «General Theory of Relativity», the passage from a "Special Theory of Relativity" to a "general" one, and the doubts and certainties of its inventor, all that from a point of view of one of the most important issues of the history modem science: the problem of «Ether» definition. Just the Ether Theory, filtered through H. A. Lorentz's Theory, becomes in Einstein an "Inertial case" of the Classical «Principle of Relativity» and then, losing all its mechanical qualities, becomes Gravitational Theory in H. Weyl's phenomenological point of view.
… quando Stahl trasformò dei metalli in calce e quest'ultima di nuovo in metallo, sottraendo e re... more … quando Stahl trasformò dei metalli in calce e quest'ultima di nuovo in metallo, sottraendo e restituendo qualcosa a tali corpi, in questi casi tutti i ricercatori della natura furono colpiti da una luce». (KANT, Critica della Ragion pura, Prefazione alla seconda edizione)
Revista da Abordagem Gestáltica, 2018
Paper presented at II Annual Conference of the Society for Metaphysics of Science in Geneva, 15-1... more Paper presented at II Annual Conference of the Society for Metaphysics of Science in Geneva, 15-17 Sept. 2016
In the same year as Husserl's Crisis, in a writing entitled Physics and Reality, Albert Einstein affirmed that the physicists see themselves as working with a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are clearly well established, but that this is a serious problem at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic.
For the great scientist the whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the physicist cannot be restricted to the examination of the concepts of his own specific field (Einstein 1936, 349).
In Formal and transcendental Logic Husserl had just affirmed that the special sciences fail to understand the essential one-sidedness of their productions; in fact, they relate their combined researches to the universality of being and its fundamental essential unity. The present condition of European sciences necessitates radical investigations of sense, so these sciences have lost their great belief in themselves, in their absolute significance (Hua VII, 4-5). But Husserl's Sense-investigation (die Besinnung) signifies nothing but the attempt actually to produce the sense itself, the sense in the mode of full clarity or essential possibility (Hua VII, 9). I want to assume that the existence of real thing, which is the object of physics, is only given and can only be given as the intentional correlate of the processes of consciousness of a pure meaning-bestowing ego (Weyl 1918, Chapter 2, § 6). The physical world, with which we reckon continually in our daily lives, this objective world is of necessity relative; it can be represented by numbers or other symbols only after a system of coordinates has been arbitrarily carried into the world. Intuitive space and intuitive time are the adequate medium in which physics is to construct the external world. The investigations concerning space and time appear to us to be a good example of the analysis of essences (die Wesenanalyse) striven for by phenomenological philosophy, an example that is typical for such cases where a non-immanent essence is dealt with. What remains is ultimately a symbolic construction of exactly the same kind as that which Hilbert carries through in mathematics (Weyl 1949, 113-116).
Precisely for these reasons, the formulation of Einstein's theory of Relativity - according to Hermann Weyl, one of Albert Einstein’s most important discussion partners and collaborators – realizes «a method which combines Wesenanalyse (analysis of essence) with mathematische Konstruktion (mathematical construction)» (WGA IV).
In this article I intend to clarify that the concept of essence – which Einstein and Weyl received from Husserl's phenomenology - is on one hand strictly connected to this pair of opposites: subjective-absolute and objective-relative and on the other hand how this conception is always to be considered in a re-defining intersubjectivity manner as consequence of irreducibility between the Erleben (experiencing) and the Erfassen (understanding) in the process of understanding thingly reality. To this interpretation all sense-objects are - as essence in phenomenological sense - only a specific and possible manner of consciousness-givenness in a continuous intersubjective process of clarifying and understanding their totality and objectivity.
At the same time I try to point out that for Husserl what the knower intends is not merely what he or she directly experiences, but what is objective in the sense of that which can be in theory experienced by any knower or a community of knowers in which each individual is aware of him or herself as merely one fallible instance of the process of knowing in general. Husserl also shows how these essences, these formal structures are also relative in the sense of pointing necessarily to a tode ti, a concrete, independently existing individual object of which they are the formal structures. In this sense, the essence itself is dependent upon the concrete individual. The overall theme then is that each of the two sides of this relationship, the formal/essential and the material/individual/empirical necessarily stands in relationship to the other in a way that both maintains the difference between the two poles, but at the same time shows how neither can be appropriately comprehended apart from it relationship or relativity to the other side. Relativity and objectivity thereby show themselves not as mutually exclusive alternatives, but as necessarily each connected to the other in this conception of essence. In this sense, we could speak about a phenomenological Relativity.
In an attempt to solve the question mentioned above, in the first two sections I will show why and how space and time, to which the Theory of Relativity is intimately connected, can be considered as essences in a phenomenological sense and how they could save their objectivity in science. I am going to affirm that every essence relating to something physical is a composition of different layers many-sidedly of different visions, a kind of essence of a different category many-sidedly constituted in my consciousness. For this conception are very important the early Husserl's studies about the concept of number, the mathematical-logical notions of konnective Verbindung and Variations-Rechnung, such as Riemann's formulation of a n-dimensional multiplicity theory. On the other hand, I pay attention to define the role of phenomenological subjectivity, and so, the role of observer, with his psycho-physiological structures and functions (kinesthesis), the knower in the relationship between perception and reality.
In the final two sections, I try to explain my ideas about the importance of the Life-world and intersubjectivity in the physical constitution of essences. In fact, the knowledge of the objective-scientific world is grounded in the self-evidence of the life-world: things, objects are given phenomenologically as being valid for us in each case, but in principle only in such a way that we are conscious of them as things or objects within the world-horizon. In this life-world the co-subjects of this experience themselves make up, for me and for one another, an openly endless world of possible instruments (as symbolic constructions of mathematics and geometry) that allow us to represent an intersubjectively well established series of essences. The relativity of these essences shows the existence of a possible manner of consciousness-givenness in a continuous process of clarifying and re-defining their objectivity and validity. This infinite and important process I'll call the intersubjectivity constitution of essences. The conclusion is based on some unpublished reflections by Albert Einstein that seem to me taking for granted and answering to this Husserl's great problem of intersubjective constitution of the world.
eproceedings.worldscinet.com
Books by Giorgio Jules Mastrobisi
Aracne, 2020
Il volume raccoglie alcune riflessioni composte da Husserl nel 1927. Nei testi, l’autore insiste ... more Il volume raccoglie alcune riflessioni composte da Husserl nel 1927. Nei testi, l’autore insiste sull’importanza del “mondo–della–vita” soggettivo–relativo, utile “terreno di fondazione” anche per il mondo oggettivo delle scienze. Le teorie scientifiche conservano, infatti, un loro contenuto positivo, un riferimento oggettivo alla realtà, proprio mediante nozioni pre–scientifiche che cercano invece di naturalizzare; di fatto, quando si verifica una crisi, il ricorso a questo “mondo–della–vita” pre–scientifico, come si manifesta nelle nostre esperienze intuitive, diviene necessario. Questa visione offre un’alternativa filosofica valida alla posizione naturalistica adottata ancora oggi da molti filosofi analitici.
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Papers by Giorgio Jules Mastrobisi
filosofico, implicano da sempre delle ovvietà (Selbstverständlichkeiten), e la prima di queste ovvietà, secondo Husserl, è proprio quella che riguarda laeggiame naturalistico nei confronti del mondo. Il mondo risulta lic ie di ie gi dae e, di cegea, il cmi della fenomenologia e del fenomenologo in primis deve essere proprio quello di afmae lie ieale delleee del md i alca di comprensibile e chiaro. Ma in cosa consisterebbe questo atteggiamento naturalistico per Husserl?
This paper aims to explain how the insights Weyl gleaned from Husserl played an important role in his scientific work, and then how Einstein's major work exhibit important parallels to Weyl's work, thereby establishing phenomenology both as an indirect historical influence and a systematic underpinning for Einstein's work in theoretical physics. In so doing, this paper seeks to show how some of the most basic problems that Einstein addresses have a kinship not just to problems addressed in a completely different context by Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and his circle, but also to perennial problems in ontology and epistemology that go back to Kant, Hume and Leibniz. The conclusion seems to suggest that it not only shows how phenomenology both historically and systematically provides a backdrop for Einstein's work; my thesis actually situates issues in twentieth-century scientific thought against the backdrop of a philosophical development, and perhaps the most original idea of this study consists not just in showing how phenomenology influenced Einstein, ...
In the same year as Husserl's Crisis, in a writing entitled Physics and Reality, Albert Einstein affirmed that the physicists see themselves as working with a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are clearly well established, but that this is a serious problem at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic.
For the great scientist the whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the physicist cannot be restricted to the examination of the concepts of his own specific field (Einstein 1936, 349).
In Formal and transcendental Logic Husserl had just affirmed that the special sciences fail to understand the essential one-sidedness of their productions; in fact, they relate their combined researches to the universality of being and its fundamental essential unity. The present condition of European sciences necessitates radical investigations of sense, so these sciences have lost their great belief in themselves, in their absolute significance (Hua VII, 4-5). But Husserl's Sense-investigation (die Besinnung) signifies nothing but the attempt actually to produce the sense itself, the sense in the mode of full clarity or essential possibility (Hua VII, 9). I want to assume that the existence of real thing, which is the object of physics, is only given and can only be given as the intentional correlate of the processes of consciousness of a pure meaning-bestowing ego (Weyl 1918, Chapter 2, § 6). The physical world, with which we reckon continually in our daily lives, this objective world is of necessity relative; it can be represented by numbers or other symbols only after a system of coordinates has been arbitrarily carried into the world. Intuitive space and intuitive time are the adequate medium in which physics is to construct the external world. The investigations concerning space and time appear to us to be a good example of the analysis of essences (die Wesenanalyse) striven for by phenomenological philosophy, an example that is typical for such cases where a non-immanent essence is dealt with. What remains is ultimately a symbolic construction of exactly the same kind as that which Hilbert carries through in mathematics (Weyl 1949, 113-116).
Precisely for these reasons, the formulation of Einstein's theory of Relativity - according to Hermann Weyl, one of Albert Einstein’s most important discussion partners and collaborators – realizes «a method which combines Wesenanalyse (analysis of essence) with mathematische Konstruktion (mathematical construction)» (WGA IV).
In this article I intend to clarify that the concept of essence – which Einstein and Weyl received from Husserl's phenomenology - is on one hand strictly connected to this pair of opposites: subjective-absolute and objective-relative and on the other hand how this conception is always to be considered in a re-defining intersubjectivity manner as consequence of irreducibility between the Erleben (experiencing) and the Erfassen (understanding) in the process of understanding thingly reality. To this interpretation all sense-objects are - as essence in phenomenological sense - only a specific and possible manner of consciousness-givenness in a continuous intersubjective process of clarifying and understanding their totality and objectivity.
At the same time I try to point out that for Husserl what the knower intends is not merely what he or she directly experiences, but what is objective in the sense of that which can be in theory experienced by any knower or a community of knowers in which each individual is aware of him or herself as merely one fallible instance of the process of knowing in general. Husserl also shows how these essences, these formal structures are also relative in the sense of pointing necessarily to a tode ti, a concrete, independently existing individual object of which they are the formal structures. In this sense, the essence itself is dependent upon the concrete individual. The overall theme then is that each of the two sides of this relationship, the formal/essential and the material/individual/empirical necessarily stands in relationship to the other in a way that both maintains the difference between the two poles, but at the same time shows how neither can be appropriately comprehended apart from it relationship or relativity to the other side. Relativity and objectivity thereby show themselves not as mutually exclusive alternatives, but as necessarily each connected to the other in this conception of essence. In this sense, we could speak about a phenomenological Relativity.
In an attempt to solve the question mentioned above, in the first two sections I will show why and how space and time, to which the Theory of Relativity is intimately connected, can be considered as essences in a phenomenological sense and how they could save their objectivity in science. I am going to affirm that every essence relating to something physical is a composition of different layers many-sidedly of different visions, a kind of essence of a different category many-sidedly constituted in my consciousness. For this conception are very important the early Husserl's studies about the concept of number, the mathematical-logical notions of konnective Verbindung and Variations-Rechnung, such as Riemann's formulation of a n-dimensional multiplicity theory. On the other hand, I pay attention to define the role of phenomenological subjectivity, and so, the role of observer, with his psycho-physiological structures and functions (kinesthesis), the knower in the relationship between perception and reality.
In the final two sections, I try to explain my ideas about the importance of the Life-world and intersubjectivity in the physical constitution of essences. In fact, the knowledge of the objective-scientific world is grounded in the self-evidence of the life-world: things, objects are given phenomenologically as being valid for us in each case, but in principle only in such a way that we are conscious of them as things or objects within the world-horizon. In this life-world the co-subjects of this experience themselves make up, for me and for one another, an openly endless world of possible instruments (as symbolic constructions of mathematics and geometry) that allow us to represent an intersubjectively well established series of essences. The relativity of these essences shows the existence of a possible manner of consciousness-givenness in a continuous process of clarifying and re-defining their objectivity and validity. This infinite and important process I'll call the intersubjectivity constitution of essences. The conclusion is based on some unpublished reflections by Albert Einstein that seem to me taking for granted and answering to this Husserl's great problem of intersubjective constitution of the world.
Books by Giorgio Jules Mastrobisi
filosofico, implicano da sempre delle ovvietà (Selbstverständlichkeiten), e la prima di queste ovvietà, secondo Husserl, è proprio quella che riguarda laeggiame naturalistico nei confronti del mondo. Il mondo risulta lic ie di ie gi dae e, di cegea, il cmi della fenomenologia e del fenomenologo in primis deve essere proprio quello di afmae lie ieale delleee del md i alca di comprensibile e chiaro. Ma in cosa consisterebbe questo atteggiamento naturalistico per Husserl?
This paper aims to explain how the insights Weyl gleaned from Husserl played an important role in his scientific work, and then how Einstein's major work exhibit important parallels to Weyl's work, thereby establishing phenomenology both as an indirect historical influence and a systematic underpinning for Einstein's work in theoretical physics. In so doing, this paper seeks to show how some of the most basic problems that Einstein addresses have a kinship not just to problems addressed in a completely different context by Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and his circle, but also to perennial problems in ontology and epistemology that go back to Kant, Hume and Leibniz. The conclusion seems to suggest that it not only shows how phenomenology both historically and systematically provides a backdrop for Einstein's work; my thesis actually situates issues in twentieth-century scientific thought against the backdrop of a philosophical development, and perhaps the most original idea of this study consists not just in showing how phenomenology influenced Einstein, ...
In the same year as Husserl's Crisis, in a writing entitled Physics and Reality, Albert Einstein affirmed that the physicists see themselves as working with a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are clearly well established, but that this is a serious problem at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic.
For the great scientist the whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. It is for this reason that the critical thinking of the physicist cannot be restricted to the examination of the concepts of his own specific field (Einstein 1936, 349).
In Formal and transcendental Logic Husserl had just affirmed that the special sciences fail to understand the essential one-sidedness of their productions; in fact, they relate their combined researches to the universality of being and its fundamental essential unity. The present condition of European sciences necessitates radical investigations of sense, so these sciences have lost their great belief in themselves, in their absolute significance (Hua VII, 4-5). But Husserl's Sense-investigation (die Besinnung) signifies nothing but the attempt actually to produce the sense itself, the sense in the mode of full clarity or essential possibility (Hua VII, 9). I want to assume that the existence of real thing, which is the object of physics, is only given and can only be given as the intentional correlate of the processes of consciousness of a pure meaning-bestowing ego (Weyl 1918, Chapter 2, § 6). The physical world, with which we reckon continually in our daily lives, this objective world is of necessity relative; it can be represented by numbers or other symbols only after a system of coordinates has been arbitrarily carried into the world. Intuitive space and intuitive time are the adequate medium in which physics is to construct the external world. The investigations concerning space and time appear to us to be a good example of the analysis of essences (die Wesenanalyse) striven for by phenomenological philosophy, an example that is typical for such cases where a non-immanent essence is dealt with. What remains is ultimately a symbolic construction of exactly the same kind as that which Hilbert carries through in mathematics (Weyl 1949, 113-116).
Precisely for these reasons, the formulation of Einstein's theory of Relativity - according to Hermann Weyl, one of Albert Einstein’s most important discussion partners and collaborators – realizes «a method which combines Wesenanalyse (analysis of essence) with mathematische Konstruktion (mathematical construction)» (WGA IV).
In this article I intend to clarify that the concept of essence – which Einstein and Weyl received from Husserl's phenomenology - is on one hand strictly connected to this pair of opposites: subjective-absolute and objective-relative and on the other hand how this conception is always to be considered in a re-defining intersubjectivity manner as consequence of irreducibility between the Erleben (experiencing) and the Erfassen (understanding) in the process of understanding thingly reality. To this interpretation all sense-objects are - as essence in phenomenological sense - only a specific and possible manner of consciousness-givenness in a continuous intersubjective process of clarifying and understanding their totality and objectivity.
At the same time I try to point out that for Husserl what the knower intends is not merely what he or she directly experiences, but what is objective in the sense of that which can be in theory experienced by any knower or a community of knowers in which each individual is aware of him or herself as merely one fallible instance of the process of knowing in general. Husserl also shows how these essences, these formal structures are also relative in the sense of pointing necessarily to a tode ti, a concrete, independently existing individual object of which they are the formal structures. In this sense, the essence itself is dependent upon the concrete individual. The overall theme then is that each of the two sides of this relationship, the formal/essential and the material/individual/empirical necessarily stands in relationship to the other in a way that both maintains the difference between the two poles, but at the same time shows how neither can be appropriately comprehended apart from it relationship or relativity to the other side. Relativity and objectivity thereby show themselves not as mutually exclusive alternatives, but as necessarily each connected to the other in this conception of essence. In this sense, we could speak about a phenomenological Relativity.
In an attempt to solve the question mentioned above, in the first two sections I will show why and how space and time, to which the Theory of Relativity is intimately connected, can be considered as essences in a phenomenological sense and how they could save their objectivity in science. I am going to affirm that every essence relating to something physical is a composition of different layers many-sidedly of different visions, a kind of essence of a different category many-sidedly constituted in my consciousness. For this conception are very important the early Husserl's studies about the concept of number, the mathematical-logical notions of konnective Verbindung and Variations-Rechnung, such as Riemann's formulation of a n-dimensional multiplicity theory. On the other hand, I pay attention to define the role of phenomenological subjectivity, and so, the role of observer, with his psycho-physiological structures and functions (kinesthesis), the knower in the relationship between perception and reality.
In the final two sections, I try to explain my ideas about the importance of the Life-world and intersubjectivity in the physical constitution of essences. In fact, the knowledge of the objective-scientific world is grounded in the self-evidence of the life-world: things, objects are given phenomenologically as being valid for us in each case, but in principle only in such a way that we are conscious of them as things or objects within the world-horizon. In this life-world the co-subjects of this experience themselves make up, for me and for one another, an openly endless world of possible instruments (as symbolic constructions of mathematics and geometry) that allow us to represent an intersubjectively well established series of essences. The relativity of these essences shows the existence of a possible manner of consciousness-givenness in a continuous process of clarifying and re-defining their objectivity and validity. This infinite and important process I'll call the intersubjectivity constitution of essences. The conclusion is based on some unpublished reflections by Albert Einstein that seem to me taking for granted and answering to this Husserl's great problem of intersubjective constitution of the world.