Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology

15-45

Authors: Irina Kazakova

This article is propaedeutic and has as its main objective the introduction of psychotherapeutic daseinsanalytical discourse to the russian-speaking space. Despite the fact that this approach has already been introduced in a number of translations and articles, however the lack of a common field of discussion and the presence of discrepancies and distortions in the terms require а special propaedeutic work. The article briefly presents the history of daseinsanalysis represented by Ludwig Binswanger and Medard Boss. The psychoanalytic origins of daseinsanalysis is emphasized in a special way. This is due to the fact that daseinsanalysis formed within a common analytical discourse, but with a considerable output beyond it through an appeal to the Heidegger’s ontology and its daseinsanalytics. Such a marginal daseinsanalysis’ position determines the specificity of the analytical process, the development of major therapeutic issues and psychopathological issues as well as the specific reflection of analytical praxis. The article also considers the phenomenological method from the standpoint of how it can be implemented in analytical and therapeutic practice. This issue is discussed on an example of the situation taken from the movie The Secret Life of Antoine Watteau (Ce que mes yeux ont vu) in which the professor teaches the student to “see” the painting of the artist and what it depicts. This process is very similar to the Socratic maieutic procedure and it helps to disclose the specific attitude in a phenomenological study, which Heidegger calls Gelassenheit. To understand this attitude we also appeal to the fragment of Being and Time and the analysis of the specific construction of the medial verb passive voice in conjunction with semantic verb “see” (ἀποφαίνεσθαι), which helps to understand the true practical meaning of the phenomenological attitude

74-88

Authors: Tatiana Shchyttsova

The article is devoted to critical discussion of the daseins-analytical conception of a Swiss psychotherapist Alice Holzhey-Kunz. The author tries to explicate an internal contradiction peculiar to the approach of Holzhey-Kunz and at the same time to reveal a productive (heuristic) nature of that inconsistency. The main thesis of the article is that the key conceptual innovation of the Swiss psychotherapist (the substantiation of the emergence of psychic disorders by the onticoontological character of understanding) allows to problematize the principal theoretical framework of her version of Daseinsanalysis, namely the Heidegger’s idea of ontico-ontological difference. Such a problematization takes place due to the revealing a fundamental conflict between the ontic and ontological dimensions in the patient’s experience; to speak more presicely – between the patient’s openness to the ontological truths about himself and his involvement into the ontic dimension of everyday life. The author sees a decisive merit of Holzhey-Kunz in the identification of the existentials (the existential a prioris) as an actual experience of psychotherapeutic patients. The Swiss psychoterapist defines this kind of this-worldly ontological experience as Hellhörigkeit (in German) – which means literally “sensitive hearing” – and treats it as an empirical ground for various forms of psychic suffering. The author argues that the phenomenon of “sensitive hearing” cannot be unambiguously related eirther to the ontological dimension or to the ontic one and thereby calls into question the theoretical clarity of ontico-ontological difference in Heidegger’s existential analytics of Dasein. A decisive moment in the experience of “sensitive hearing” is that the authentic revealing of the ontological truth takes place not by virtue of the Dasein’s own act. The moment is clearly contrary to the logic of the Heidegger’s conception. “Sensitive hearing” presupposes beingaffected, passive vulnerability in relation to what you find yourself exposed to (against your own will). Being considered in the context of Being and Time, “sensitive hearing” appears therefore as a kind of “ontopathology” – an inappropriate existential constitution – and by this very irrelevance enables a question concerning possibility of another ontology of human existence. The author concludes that the Holzhey-Kunz’ psychotherapeutic interpretation of the Heidegger’s principle of ontico-ontological difference reveals the necessity of critical rethinking of the extent to which the corresponding theoretical frame is valid and promising (fruitful) in terms of the philosophical substantiation of psychotherapy.

109-121

Authors: Alexey Lyzlov

One of the most important tasks of Dasein-analytical work is the task to help the person to learn to be oneself. The question of how is it possible to find oneself, to find “the most my ability to be” is one of the major issues in Heidegger’s Being and Time. However, Heidegger works not in a vacuum. Before him this issue explores S. Kierkegaard. M. Heidegger is obliged to this author very much; even the concept of Dasein has a prototype in Kierkegaard’s Tilværelse. In this article we analyze how S. Kierkegaard understands what it means to be oneself, revealing Kierkegaard’s understanding of human beind as Selv (danish word that is difficult to translate into Russian; in the article we will leave it without translation, arguing in favor of this). Understanding Selv in accordance with S. Kierkegaard as “positive third” in a human being as the synthesis of opposites, we trace how a fixation on one term of synthesis in prejudice of the other leads to going away from being oneself. We take such pairs of opposites as the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. Further we speak on how the self-attitude as belonging to the self-consciousness is rooted in the attitude to oneself, carried out in acting, and describe three ways of giving up being oneself (three ways to despair), that are analyzed by S. Kierkegaard in terms of self-awareness. Finally, we show that, according to S. Kierkegaard, there is no continual transition from the state of alienation from the real being oneself (the state, that is initial for each human being) to the authentic being oneself; and that the transition from one to the other requires, in the Kierkegaard’s terms, a “jump”, associated with the coming to believe. This “jump” at the same time leads to the change of attitude to the other. In conclusion of the paper we set a problem of possibility of such a “jump” in psychotherapy.

142-174

Authors: Konstantin Gemenetzis

This paper is an attempt to explore the dreams along various ways. A critical crossroad is the point where the dream manifests itself as a figure of the Other. Dream interpretations (Sigmund Freud, Medard Boss), violate the alterity of the dreamer – they relate the dream to the constitution of the awake. Dream interpretations are answers to the “Whys” and the “Hows” of a dream. They are explanations that just soothe the uneasiness caused by the uncanny dream world. Few quotes from Elias Canetti’s notes emphasize on the singularity of a dream and its mysterious, i.e. inexplicable nature. A brief critical review of Medard Boss’s conception of dreams allows to understand a dream as magnifying mirror of the existential features decisive for the shortcomings one faces in his everyday life. In psychoanalytic practice (and not only here) we cannot grasp a dream by going straight to the point. “Free associations” and “free floating attention” guide us to other, indirect and unforseen ways of approach. Remembering and forgetting dreams is an experience different from remembering and forgetting things. The question “What is a dream?” is a trap because it demands an answer like “The dream is …”. A dream is not something, it is not a “that”. We attempt to speak about dreams following a phrase in Odyssey – “sie gingen vorbei an den Toren der Sonne, an der Gemeinde Träume, und kamen dann schnell an ihr Ziel, zur Asphodeloswiese”. Further goes a brief discussion of Beckett’s play for television (“Nacht und Träume”). And finally a revision of the famous Dschuang Dsi’s dream (“Butterfly Dream”) on the basis of a painting by Katsushika Hokusai “The chinese philosopher Sōshi looking at butterflies”.

200-225

Authors: Roland Strobl

In this case study I want to show the development during Daseinsanalysis of a woman suffering from a long term schizoaffective disorder. After three attempts to start and remain in therapy, and following eleven inpatient admissions to different psychiatric hospitals, it seems, that the phenomenological approach of Daseinsanalysis has helped her continue and, over time, she has been able to find a better way of coming closer to the aim which has been most requested of her until now – of becoming lively – but without it resulting in a psychiatric hospital admission. Firstly I will attempt to give an overview of my patient’s history, including my first encounter with her: a public help desk for working assistance for psychiatric patients in 2001, and then, soon after, as she started Daseinsanalysis in my private practice. She discontinued the therapy on account of not being able to cope with difficult feelings arising from having fallen in love with me, her analyst. I could not respond in the way she expected me to. That was the first break in our therapeutic relationship and another one was to follow two years later, when she came closer for the second time. It was my mistake as her therapist, to interfere as her father had done. She told me during one of those sessions that this was her experience and this prompted the second break. And now, since 2013, our relationship seems strong enough to continue and to come closer together to her first aim. The core question in my case study as an example from the practice in Daseinsanalysis is: how is it possible for the therapist to find the right balance in his or her approach between abstinence, through which patients can find enough space to develop freely and the naturally occurring possibilities in every relationship, which make people and their relationships lively?

248-270

Authors: Marcus Sacrini

The aim of this article is to show that Husserl’s later analyses of the perceptual syntheses (for instance in Analyses concerning passive and active syntheses) dispense with the notion of categorial intuition, carefully described in the Sixth Logical Investigation (1901). In order to show this result, initially I reconstruct Husserl’s notion of categorial intuition described in “Logical Investigations”, relating it to the problem of evident knowledge conceived as intuitive fulfillment of signifying acts. Categorial intuition is founded on simple intuitions, although it cannot be reduced to them. Simple intuitions only offer a global grasping of the intended object, with partial perceptual intentions continually fused therein. In its turn, categorial intuition consists in a new sort of act, the result of a covering synthesis between disclosed partial perceptual intentions and the global perception in which those same intentions had already been operating, although implicitly. It is highlighted that in this synthesis intuition depends on signifying intentions that guide the selection of intuitive aspects to be synthesized. It follows from this that the categorial components of the so called categorial intuition come from outside the very sphere of perception. In contrast with this position, Husserl, in later texts describes, by means of the notion of passive synthesis, the genesis of categoriality in the very realm of sensibility, which allows him to formulate a new approach to clarify the phenomenological sources of knowledge.

290-307

Authors: Nelly Motroshilova

This article is conceived as a rather unusual comparison of the two ways in philosophy, as well as of the same ideas of H. Vaihinger, on the one one hand, and of early E. Husserl, on the other hand – in the period, when they were the colleagues at Halle University to the end of XIX-th century. The analysis, given in this article, is concentrated on the special problems as follows: – the early “objective” juxtaposition to the end XIX-th century of the naturalism, positivism, pragmatism as represented by H. Vaihinger and of the anti-naturalistic orientation of early Husserl; – the H. Vaihinger’s “Die Philosophie des Als Ob” and some ideas of Husserl (“Logische Untersuchungen”) about so called “the laws of nature” as “idealized fictions”. Special attention in the work of H. Vaihinger also deserves his important historical and philosophical investigations. This is, for example, his comments to Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”. It must be said that the philosophy of H. Vaihinger still very poor explored, as well as the works of early Husserl. The author intends to shed light on this poorly explored subject.

315-427

Authors: Gion Condrau

No abstract

440-453

Authors: Alexey Lyzlov

The review provides an outline of the book and discusses the approach by A. Holtshey-Kunz to the interpretation of psychopathological phenomena, developed by her within daseinsanalysis. Reviewer traces the logic of author’s critical analysis of daseins-analytical approaches by L. von Binswanger and M. Boss, and problematizes number of important points in the author’s interpretation of M. Boss’s daseinsanalysis. The reviewer shows the problematic nature of the author’s interpretation of Heidegger’s “Being and Time” – the interpretation, on the basis of which she concludes that the “fall” of Dasein has the structure of wish and coordinates daseinsanalysis with psychoanalysis. This interpretation, however, allows the author to substantiate and develop an original approach to the understanding of mental suffering, presented in the concluding part of the book. Тhis approach is discussed in the end of review.

464-474

Authors: Alexandr Pogonyailo, Larisa Sokolova

The following review discusses the primary content of the book, highlighting the insights which the reviewers consider to be particularly significant for the conception of the transcendental genetic phenomenology of M. Richir – and its place in contemporary philosophy. The book’s author focuses on the primary challenges of Richir’s phenomenology, provides a new solution to the transcendental question and performs a constructive critique of Husserl’s phenomenology. The main focus of this review is placed on how the author articulates the terms “just-phenomenon”, “hyperbolic reduction” and “architectonics” which Richir employs to research the sphere of the phenomenological.