In Praise of Phenomenology

Journal of advanced nursing, 2002

By taking nursing as a human relationships activity, in spite of its strong technical--scientific features, this article reflects on the phenomenological method as one of the ways to develop an investigation and acquire knowledge of the topic. Based on Husserl's phenomenology, which is opposed to the way of doing science based on the laws that regulate the physics and mathematics, the article introduces Merleau Ponty's existential phenomenology as the theoretical foundation for the method it proposes. My existential conceptions--people as historic beings inserted in a world over which they act but which, in its turn, determines them; the human perception as reference for our way of being in the world; the space-time structure of perception--these are the key concepts that have led to the elaboration of an approach to phenomenological research. Steps are proposed for such an approach, namely phenomenological description, reduction and analysis. These lead to the building up o...

2020

The Subject(s) of Phenomenology: Rereading Husserl, Part of the Contributions to Phenomenology book series (CTPH, volume 108), Springer, © 2020.

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.

Springer Verlag, 2023

This text examines the many transformations in Husserl’s phenomenology that his discoveries of the nature of appearing lead to. It offers a comprehensive look at the Logical Investigations’ delimitation of the phenomenological field, and continues with Husserl’s account of our consciousness of time. This volume examines Husserl’s turn to transcendental idealism and the problems this raises for our recognition of other subjects. It details Husserl’s account of embodiment and examines his theory of the instincts. Drawing from his published and unpublished manuscripts, it outlines his treatment of our mortality and the teleological character of our existence. The result is a genetic account of our selfhood, one that unifies Husserl’s different claims about who and what we are.

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"

2015

This paper investigates phenomenology approaches from three perspectives: Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology; Heidegger’s hermeneutical phenomenology; and Merleau-Ponty’s idea of perception. Phenomenology provides a general comprehension that demonstrates the relationship between the mind and the world. This relation is reflected in Husserl’s phenomenology as a transcendental act by subject in relation to the object. Heidegger’s phenomenology mostly being in the concept of “Dasein” which is influenced by a link with time and history. Merleau-Ponty’s idea of perception sees being existing prior to thought as an ‘inalienable presence. Unlike Husserl; Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty perceive being as the inseparable part of the world itself and individual.

The main argument of Husserl’s Phenomenology Revisited is developed in three steps: [1] In the first part of the book, I present reconsiderations of certain basic terms that Husserl introduces in his philosophy. I first show that phenomenological activity can be re-interpreted in anthropological terms. What Husserl calls his “phenomenological method,” which includes reflection, eidetic variation, and the performance of the epoche, is, I claim, an abstract development of concrete life-world experiences such as imagining, playing and wondering. By discovering the concrete anthropological horizon of central Husserlian methodological terms (which have confused readers from the beginning on), their foundation in certain experiences, and the way in which they can be regarded as abstractions from those experiences, is shown. [2] In the second part of the book, I show how subjectivity, in the phenomenological sense according to which it is an area of investigation, evolves out of the sensual sphere, and that as such, subjectivity should not be analyzed apart from the lived body or apart from world experience, as some commentators have suggested. As I show, affectivity and the “openness of the subject” towards what is other than itself, is tied to the experience of other subjects, to proto-ethical experiences, as well as to the lived body. [3] In the last part of the book, I turn to the experience of the past and future, in order to establish them as the most important features of the self’s constitution. In sum, by proceeding in these three steps I am able to outline (in a non-abstractive way) three of the most important levels of human experience and its phenomenological investigation, from Husserl’s point of view.

Meaning and Language: Phenomenological Perspectives, 2008

The communication of insight-be it through a transcription, translation, 5 a seminar or classroom lecture-is a philosophical task as old as Plato. 6 Phenomenological insight, according to Husserl, is to be gained by tem-7 porarily "bracketing" the various presuppositions of the different realms 8 of human activity for the purpose of intuiting the essential structures 9 of experience that appear to a consciousness purified by the method of 10 the epoché. And Husserl makes it abundantly clear that an essential part 11 of phenomenology's task is the communication of phenomenology's in-12 sights to the various regions of human activity which it claims to ground 13 through its activity. It is through such communication that phenomeno-14 logy invites humanity to return to "the things themselves" that underlie 15 all of our various preconceptions of these things, so that it may have a 16 deeper understanding of the lived world common to all. This is often 17 forgotten about phenomenology: it is not only about intuition, but also 18 expression. 19 This first half of this essay will show that Husserl was acutely aware 20 of the role that language must play in the successful expression of pheno-21 menological insight It will also show, through an analysis of his theory 22 146 Meaning and Language in Phenomenological Perspective just communicating the insights gained by his method. This analysis will 1 also reveal what might be called a nascent but essential rhetorical element 2 in Husserl's understanding of how insight is gained and meaning consti-3 tuted. 4 This points to the second half of the essay, which concentrates on the 5 considerable problems of the mobility of phenomenological insight via 6 expression, and the subsequent constitution of phenomenological mean-7 ing and community. This investigation will yield a clear sense of the 8 demands being made on phenomenological expression, as well as nega-9 tive insights into what phenomenological expression can not be like. It 10 will also suggest a possible way in which practicing phenomenologists 11

Edmund Husserl's "Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology" serves as a pivotal work in the development of phenomenological philosophy, offering a profound and systematic exploration of the structures of consciousness and the foundational principles of phenomenology. This essay delves into Husserl's articulation of the phenomenological method, and the intricate process of phenomenological reduction, all framed within the context of his engagement with the determination of the nature and structure of the human conscious experience. This essay aims to illuminate Husserl's aim to move beyond the everyday, unreflective natural attitude to explore how experiences and meanings are constituted in consciousness. By doing this, Husserl seeks to clarify how we can achieve objective knowledge and shared understanding in a common lifeworld, ultimately providing a deeper, transcendental understanding of the conditions that make all experience and knowledge possible.