Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology

13-29

Authors: James Mensch

Husserl’s Crisis contains his final attempt to understand the world in terms of an ultimately constituting consciousness. The path he chooses is that of a reduction to the “life-world,” the world that appears when we bracket the results of the objective sciences. His claim is that “the ‘objective’ a priori [of the natural sciences] is grounded in the ‘subjective-relative’ a priori of the lifeworld”. It is from the latter that he attempts to achieve his vision of “a universal, ultimately functioning subjectivity”. In this article, I question whether this is possible. If the world were the product of this functioning subjectivity, the latter could not be part of the world. But, the inherent sense of the reduction to the life-world leaves us with the sensuous embodied subject, who is a part of the world. How can we think of the a priori in terms of this subject? I conclude by considering both Merleau-Ponty’s and Patočka’s attempts to conceive of such an a priori.

46-65

Authors: Alice Pugliese

The paper presents an assessment of the Husserlian concept of Lebenswelt (life-world) on the basis of the late manuscripts on genetic analysis. The reflection on the concept of the life-world intends to evaluate the contribution of phenomenology to the philosophical debate beyond the contention between realism, naturalism, and subjectivism. The paper starts by evaluating the idea of the “universal correlation”, thereby stressing the egological figure of the “Ich-kann” (I-can) as the proper candidate to achieve the constitution of the life-world. The author claims that the constitutive activity of the I-can is based not only on intellectual and perceiving acts, but rather on a comprehensive praxis, which also bears ethical meaning. The sense-borrowing activity of the I-can is namely responsible for the inner articulation of the plural particular worlds (Sonderwelten) within the encompassing life-world. Such a relation between interest-centered worlds and the encompassing life-world is not merely empirical and cannot be explained in causal and factual terms. It rather points out a peculiar subjective responsibility intended as a specific access to the world that bears a significant moral meaning. Here appears a pre-predicative and pre-normative form of responsibility rooted in the temporal and intentional structure of experience, connected with the first forms of socialization and with the essential structure of the life-world as a world “for everybody”.

82-99

Authors: Beat Michel

It is well known that Husserl never accepted to publish Ideas II. During one of his conversations with Cairns, he explained his failure to complete the second volume of Ideas by a “feeling of inadequacy to his task”. In this paper I argue that the apparent simplicity of the subject of Ideas II – the successive constitution of the material and animal nature and of the world of spirit – hides a much more difficult question: the relation between nature and spirit, and even more specifically the relation between mind and body. We will show that in Ideas II this problem leads to an aporia in both senses of the word: contradiction between two apparently valid positions and obstruction of a passage. Husserl may well have noticed this aporia when he spoke of a “vicious circle”. However, he was probably not conscious of its severity and did not really develop a solution. We will argue that Husserlian phenomenology simply does not have the conceptual means to tackle the difficulty. To surpass the aporia one must go beyond the strict context of phenomenology to reason in terms of a phenomenological metaphysics.

121-148

Authors: Victor Molchanov

Communication and intersubjectivity are considered as correlative problems of the phenomenology of consciousness. The term “communication” is taken in the narrow sense and refers to already formed communities with relatively independent subjects. Intersubjectivity is understood as a double constitution: the goals and means for their achievements, on the one hand, and their coherence of action, on the other. The source of intersubjectivity and communicative consciousness as a whole is the discriminating ability of consciousness, and above all the ability to distinguish between one’s own and another’s, as well as between what is real and what is unreal. The first difference is correlated with the problem of a common understanding of goals and objectives, the second with efforts for coherence. In this paper, I analyze Husserl’s approach to the problem of intersubjectivity. I show that the concepts of one’s own and others’ must be supplemented by the concept of real and unreal. Criticism of the Husserlian conception focuses on the premise of the early phenomenology of the primacy of perception in relation to judgment and all other modes of consciousness. In this paper judgment is regarded as the primary ability of a person to communicate, to determine the relationship between parts and the whole in search of common solutions and a common understanding, which remain relative and factual also through judgments. I conclude that the difference and correlation of the act of consciousness and meaning is the source of communication; any communication involves internal communication on the type of feedback. Any communication has two levels: (1) communication and (2) communication of communication.

164-176

Authors: Georgy Chernavin

The article raises the question of possible common philosophical experience, a more fundamental one that the usual division into schools or traditions of philosophy. I propose to seek for such an experience in a typical (for the twentieth-century philosophy) form of a philosophical wonder which I would call the “oddity of the obvious”. Using the example of the Husserl’s and Wittgenstein’s philosophies, I try to demonstrate how this experience works, showing the important discrepancy between the two philosophers: a differently placed frontier between the sense and the nonsense. The most striking feature that characterizes the types of philosophical wonder established in the analytical and phenomenological traditions is an element that escapes their view: in the first case it is the being-in-itself which is considered absurd (widersinnig); in the second case it is pre-predicative experience which is proclaimed meaningless (unsinnig). I specify what strategies Husserl and Wittgenstein use, dealing with the experience of the “oddity of the obvious”; namely, they try either to retain the incomprehensibility of the obvious or to dissolve the “mental cramp”. The philosophical tradition (phenomenological or analytical one) takes one of the possible forms of the philosophical wonder to be the basic form. For the phenomenological philosophy, quite an emblematic feature is the effort to retain the “oddity of the obvious”, and for the analytical philosophy (of wittgensteinian provenance) – the dissolution of “mental cramp”, of philosophical bewilderment, the release from vague intellectual disquiet. Concluding the article, I propose to consider the alteration of the philosophical wonder models as a possibility of overcoming intrashop discrepancies between the philosophical traditions.

191-225

Authors: Alexey Savin

The article aims to explain the connection of Marcuse’s concept of dehistorization with his interpretation and criticism of the Heideggerian concept of historicity. Dehistorization in Marcuse’s philosophy, according to my tentative definition, is the kind of transformation of the creative social forces and human abilities denying an existing reality that makes them elements of the mechanism producing and reproducing the existent reality, and thereby makes them a manner of repression of the human striving for freedom and happiness and a way to perpetuate domination. According to Marcuse, dehistorization is the main form of reproduction of the false totality. The idea of dehistorization is the prevailing critical concept in Marcuse’s philosophy. It appears in the course of his criticism of fascism. The basis of the formation of the dehistorization concept is Marcuse’s criticism and interpretation of Heidegger’s conception of historicity during his “Heideggerian Marxism” period (1928–1933). This Heideggerian conception is the ultimate achievement of contemporary philosophy. The ultimate character of this achievement is given to it, according to Marcuse, that it treats history from the viewpoint of being in contrast to Hegel’s idealistic dialectics and German historicism of the 19th century, which interpreted it from the viewpoint of consciousness or the spirit. There are four main tendencies in Marcuse’s criticism and transformation of Heidegger’s conception of historicity. 1. The deformalization of Heidegger’s treatment of historicity of Dasein. The explanation of the material substance of historicity, i.e. the explanation of the material character of conditions of human existence (Dasein) as the definitive feature of historicity. 2. The concretization of Dasein, its treatment not as an individual, but as a class in view of substantial differences of the environment (Umwelt), material conditions of its existence. 3. Following from both the deformalization of historicity and the concretization of Dasein – the rehabilitation of the “being-with” (Mitsein) and the public sphere (Mitwelt), and, thereby, of the space of political struggle as the sphere of authenticity. 4. The disclosure of the fundamental role of the phenomenologically considered spatiality (Räumlichkeit) in the constitution of concrete historicity, i.e. historicity determined by the material, social and political character of Dasein and the world. Marcuse’s interpretation and criticism of Heidegger’s conception of historicity and his criticism of dehistorization based on it paves the way to his ontological interpretation of Marxist dialectics as the method of the struggle against dehistorization and false totality and as the only truly revolutionary way of thinking.

250-281

Authors: Natalia Azarova

In this article, we examine Heidegger’s poetry, which was published in the 81st volume of his collected works. We consider it as an independent discursive practice that could express existence in a different mode of philosophical discourse, which could either be called “philosopher’s poetry” or “discourse of a thinker” — the experience of thinking in a pure form. With the help of poetry, Heidegger establishes the very possibility of poetic thought. Heidegger’s poetry during all his life, his work is ever-changing, from rhymed text to rhythmical vers libre, while simultaneously varying formats: counting rhyme, ecphrasis, a poem-commentary, aphorism, and so on. At the same time, the format of Heidegger’s poetry, as wells as its graphics, the attention to short (simple) words, form a connection with the Avant-garde poetry contemporary to him and in particular the minimalism of the middle and second half of the 20th century. The actual form of the poem (the rhyme, the length of the verse, and its vertical dimension, the iconization and the ductility) of the poetical word allows the philosopher to build connections that are equal in value without using common discursive elements such as cohesion tools and semblance. An etymological explosion sounds more persuasive in a poem than in a philosophical text, not only because of consonance, but also due to the graphics of the verse. Heidegger is attempting to “achieve” an untranslatable text, and thus his poetry is a manifestation of the possibilities of his native language, which is may be conceived as the universal discourse of a thinker. The most important aspect in the poetry of the philosopher is a new concept of text creation, an experience of a contemporary discussion through the speech of Parmenides. The non-linear nature of a poetical text, the dialectic of fragmentation/unity could materialize the lack of linearity in the wandering in front of the opening (Lichtung). The thinker’s discourse is characterized by a procedure of recurrence that is achieved by the cyclical nature of Heidegger’s poetry, the main unfinished text, and his gravitation around mini cycles and open cycles. Poetical discourse is a way towards antipropositionality, whereas poetry allows to stop perceiving language as a tool for creation of expression devices. It is also a theological approach: not to deduct the unknown from the known. Heidegger’s poetry can be seen as theological poetry as well.

303-319

Authors: MAX SCHELER, Trans.: Daniil Dorofeev, Alla Shapkina

We hereby present to the reader a translation of a fragment of one of Max Scheler’s main works, The Nature of Sympathy. Max Scheler was the most important figure in the philosophical life of Europe in the 1910-20s in phenomenology, axiology and philosophical anthropology. This work is an example of expressive, original and deep interconnection and intersection of these directions. The book was published in 1923 and was a significantly expanded, supplemented and rethought version of the book Phenomenology and Theory of the Feeling of Sympathy and of Love and Hate (1913). One of the central themes of this work is the development of a holistic theory of phenomenology of intersubjectivity (which first appeared in printed form) on the basis of the examination of the problems of personal relations between the “I” and “Other” by the experience of emotional sympathy. In the presented translation, Scheler carries out a detailed phenomenological analysis of the phenomenon of “sympathy” (Mitgefühl), in the course of which he criticizes theories of the Other (such as that of T. Lipps) and reveals various forms of “sympathy.”

329-357

Authors: EDIT STEIN. Trans.: Anastasiia Kartcheva. Editors:Natalia Artemenko, Alexei Krioukov

This publication is a translation of the article by Edith Stein, a German-Jewish philosopher, in which she analyses and compares philosophical positions and theories of Edmund Husserl and Thomas Aquinas. The selection of such central figures results from two main directions in Stein’s life and research: on the one hand, from phenomenological work as Husserl’s scientific assistant and editor of his manuscripts, and, on the other hand, from her conversion to Catholicism, which led her to a detailed learning of Thomas Aquinas’ legacy and initiation into the Carmelites religious order. The challenge that Edith Stein offers in this work is to bring these two ways together, to break the boundary between faith and knowledge and to show the possibilities of productive interaction between both phenomenological and scholastic methods. Despite their great divergences caused by historical background and different starting points of philosophical thought, Stein shows us, that these methods share common basic foundations and are able to complement each other in solving philosophical problems arising from experience, knowledge and practical action in the world. Thanks to studies that have been undertaken, the author draws the conclusion that the scholastic legacy of Aquinas could be promising for findings ways to deal with some internal problems of Husserl’s phenomenological project and to overcome its limitation. The first attempt of such a comparison that was realized in this article provides the basis for another of Stein’s works, namely her book Finite and Infinite Being (Endliches und ewiges Sein), where she tries to build her own ontological project based on the synthesis of the scholastics and phenomenology but is placed mostly in the coordinate system of Aquinas’ theoretical field.

366-375

Authors: Vadim Prozersky

The main ideas of Eugen Fink’s book Play as Symbol of the World and Other Writings are discussed in the review and the most significant thoughts of the German philosopher on the problems of ontology of play are highlighted. O. Fink has managed to give a new solution to the ontological problems of play, as one of the basic phenomena of human existence, to uncover its previously unknown aspects and to show its dual nature and worldliness. In general, O. Fink’s analysis of play shows the productivity of the phenomenological investigations in new areas of research.

390-410

Authors: Andrei Patkul

In this review, I emphasize and analyze the main outcomes of the philosophical investigation presented in Victor Molchanov’s book. I state that Molchanov’s interpretation of Kant’s theoretical philosophy, which is based on the so-called “model of production” as well as his reconstruction of F. Brentano’s thought, could be very fruitful for the contemporary understanding of the essence and the limits of phenomenological research. I think that the phenomenal primacy of differences over identities and the methodological primacy of analysis over interpretation in phenomenology defended in this text are authentic theses that could renew the phenomenological way of thinking. The thesis of the primacy of space-experience over time-consciousness and the genesis of such consciousness as a kind of fiction from the space-experience is contentious, but could also be productive for the understanding of phenomena and the phenomenal world. The conceptions of the primordial body-judgments and space as condition of historicity are of great interest and well-reasoned applications of the main theoretical thesis of the primacy of space-experience over time-consciousness. Finally, I conclude that the author of the book formulates an original version of phenomenological philosophy. We could characterize this type of phenomenology as an “analytical phenomenology.” I am sure this version should be detailed and developed in the future investigations by the book’s author and his followers.