Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology

273–296

Authors: ANDREI PATKUL

The goal of the article is, one the one hand, to show the concrete correlation between the phenomenological conception of the world in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and its conception in the critical philosophy of Kant, insofar such philosophy could be treated as one of the significant predecessors of Heidegger’s understanding of the world. On the other hand, this explication allows us to analyze the limits and the borders of Heidegger’s phenomenological conception of the world. In order to achieve such goal, the following tasks were undertaken by me: (1) the reconstruction of the phenomenological conception of the world in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology at two levels (i.e. (a) the world as wholeness of involvement and (b) the world as the direction of the transcendence)); (2) the reconstruction of Kant’s cosmological concept of the world made from the perspective of the interpretation of this concept given by Heidegger; (3) detection of the continuity and divergence between Kant’s cosmological concept of the world and its phenomenological conception posed by Heidegger in light of Kant’s concept of the transcendental ideal. As result, I would like to pose and defend the following theses. (1) Heidegger primarily treats the world as a priori condition of the possibility of the wholeness of involvement, and yet, more fundamentally it is treated as the direction for the transcendence of human Dasein. Thus, being understood as such direction, it represents universal horizon of the existent possibilities. (2) Kant characterizes the world as an idea of reason, namely, as the totality of appearances, being formed on the bases of the universal hypothetic synthesis of the unconditional one. Herewith, Kant’s cosmological concept of the world ought to be distinguished from his concept of the moral world. (3) Both Kant and Heidegger understand the world as the totality a priori, which in every case differently presupposes the presence of the human being. (4) The concept of the world as the direction of the transcendence posed by Heidegger has the formal functions similar to those, which are ascribed by Kant to the concept of the sum-total of all possibilities, consequently, not to the world, as the totality of appearances, but to the totality of all objects of thought altogether (to the transcendental ideal). Thereupon, Heidegger believes that whole definition of the Kant’s cosmological concept of the world can be achieved only from the perspective of the transcendental ideal. (5) Heidegger tries to overcome the limitation of Kant’s theory of the world as present being by understanding it as the condition for possibility of that-which-is as ready-at-hand. For Heidegger it is also a way to manifest the ontological foundation common both for Kant’s cosmological and moral concepts of the world.

312–336

Authors: SVETLANA KONACHEVA

The paper is devoted to the dialogue between Orthodox theology of the latter half of the 20th century and Heidegger’s philosophy. We focus on the interpretation of the apophasis in the works of Vladimir Lossky. Our research tasks are not so much the description of the direct influence of Heidegger’s philosophy on the Lossky’s theological reflections, but, rather, a demonstration of the parallels between Heidegger’s existential and historical thinking and Lossky’s negative theology. In the first part we highlight the points common to early Heidegger’s interpretation of the mystical theory of cognition and Lossky’s understanding of the mystical theology of the Eastern Church: the correlation between theology and mystical experiencing, overcoming the conceptual frameworks, the knowledge of God as a transformative practice, which is aimed at the radical unity with God. There are also common features in both in Heidegger’s and Lossky’s critical interpretations of the identity of the concepts of God and being in Meister Eckhart’s mystical theology. Lossky opposes Eckhart’s God as Esse absconditum with the apophaticism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite who has thought out God beyond being. Heidegger insists on the theological differentiation distinguishing between God and being. We also compare the concept of detachment given in the works of Eckhart, Lossky and later Heidegger. Lossky’s explanation of the human personality is focused on irreducibility of a person to nature; he referred to the ecstatic character of existence of Dasein, but his anthropology is constituted on doctrine of a human being seen as the image and likeness of God. Further development of Orthodox apophaticism (Chr. Yannaras, D. B. Hart and J. P. Manoussakis) demonstrates a critical attitude towards Heidegger’s philosophy. Such attitude originates in their attempts to develop the ontology of personal being. We argue that Orthodox thinkers correlate with Heidegger in their search for a renewal of theological method, for the identical-differential mode of thinking moving from subject-object speculation to the ecstatic transformations of subject. The difference is in the emphasis on the personal character of the mystical ecstasy, founded on the trinitarian provisions inherent to the Eastern Church.

365–390

Authors: ANDREI LAURUKHIN

The article analyzes the nature of the presence of the political aspect in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. Reconsidering the critique, expressed in Friedrich Fellmann’s, Hannah Arendt’s and Jürgen Habermas’ works, an author detects the strengths and weaknesses of such critique, as well as reveals the conceptual foundations and content of the political dimension in Husserl’s phenomenology. Herewith, the focus is made on the theory of intersubjectivity and theory of lifeworld, which constitute the conceptual core of Husserl’s phenomenological research on social, ethical and political issues. The reconsideration of Fellmann’s critique is based on considering the nature of the presence of the political dimension in Husserl’s intellectual and biographical legacy. Analyzing Arendt’s critique, an author argues that there are two theories of intersubjectivity existing in Husserl’s phenomenology: a theory of constitution of the alter ego in the “primordial world” through “analogizing transfer” and a theory based on the doctrine of “the primary Self”, mutual constitution and on the analyses of passive genesis. The problematization of Habermas’ critique is based on rethinking given the place of practical philosophy in Husserl’s phenomenology and its importance, as well as on defining the heuristic potential the concept of the lifeworld has for constructing the social and political theory. Relying on the philosophy of the state, reconstructed by Karl Schuhmann adapted from Husserl’s legacy, an author explicates the key prerequisites, ideas and terms, constitutive for the political dimension of Husserl’s phenomenology and essential for its understanding in historic-philosophical and modern contexts. The results of the analysis contribute to more adequate understanding of the nature of the political problematic in Huserl’s phenomenology.

414–429

Authors: ANNA YAMPOLSKAYA

In this paper I undertook a study of Henri Maldiney’s problematization of the way which we aesthetically experience the world in. The notion of aisthesis unites the aesthetic, in its etymological meaning, as related to the sensory perception, and the aesthetic, as related to the theory of art. According to Maldiney, aisthesis, or sensing, cannot be described in Kantian terms of experience as being structured by intelligence; being pre-reflective and ante-predicative, sensing should be classified as épreuve, passive experience that puts one to the test. Sensing is not just the sensory perception: it is holistic and gives the access to the world as a whole; in sensing one senses not the qualities of individual objects but, rather, the world which is not got crystallized in objects yet. Sensing is also a basic level of communicative human experience: through sensing one obtains an access to the world as being shared with others. Sensing is aesthetically important inasmuch as it possesses its own rhythm. I have carried out the analysis of two metaphysical notions, i.e. transpassibility and transpossibility, introduced by Maldiney in order to overcome the classical dichotomies of passibility/impassibility and possibility/impossibility accordingly. Aesthetically, rhythm as opposed to schema, is transpossible; it also constitutes the work of art in a dynamic unity. The hypothesis I come to can be formulated as follows: there is a special synthetic function of rhythm that can be opposed to the synthetic function of intentionality. This synthetic function cannot be normalized and, thus, it paves a way to de-transcendentalized and de-normalized phenomenology. In the conclusion I contemplate the experience of depression as described by Matthew Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe deals with a methodological challenge of how to apply transcendental notions to the empirical. I argue that the language of transpassible and transpossible can be used as a replacement for the Husserian language of transcendental constitution.

452–471

Authors: PRADEEP P. GOKHALE

Unlike most other philosophical systems of India, Buddhism, though it gives a central place to “consciousness” in its philosophical enquiry, does not raise its status to a transcendental metaphysical level. Buddhism, in this way, has a special affinity with the phenomenological approach. The present paper focuses on the points of a contact between phenomenology and mindfulness meditation, the Buddhist spiritual practice. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part gives an account of the four kinds of mindfulness meditation based on the Buddha’s sermons on mindfulness. Then it focuses on their core features, namely, “objectivity”, “impermanence and other essential features” and “dynamic, yet passive awareness”. These features bring the two approaches close to each other. The second part brings out similarities and differences between the two approaches. The phenomenological approach, like the approach of mindfulness meditation regards consciousness as being of the intentional and propositional nature. It also emphasizes immanent to consciousness and brackets transcendent to it. Both approaches exhibit a scientific temperament and both tend to be presupposition-less. In spite of these close similarities, there are glaring differences between these two approaches. The phenomenological inquiry is aimed at intellectuality, whereas that of the Buddhist approach is spiritual. Phenomenology attributes reality to essences, whereas there is a tendency to deny ontological status to essences in Buddhism. Husserl’s acceptance of transcendental or pure ego contrasts with the no-self theory of Buddhism. Intentionality attributed to consciousness is also alien to all forms of Buddhism. The third part of the paper asserts the similarities and differences between the two approaches open to various possible forms of phenomenological practice. Furthermore, the paper suggests that different models of phenomenology are possible within Buddhism.

475–491

Authors: BRIGITTE FLICKINGER

For almost two millennia the relationship between a physician and a patient, with regard to medical treatment, was settled according to the paternalistic moral principles laid down in the Hippocratic oath and later, in a modernized diction, in the Declaration of Geneva. With social und scientific changes occurring over the recent decades this structure lost its ethical balance and, thus, requires an amendment. Medicine is split into a curative part and a new field of scientific biomedicine, researched in laboratories independently from the relationship between a physician and a patient. While doctors have been experiencing increasing economic and legal restrictions, actual and potential patients have been tending to make use of the new medical opportunities, claiming their right to autonomous decisions. With advances made in biomedicine, the concept of health became broader and now it includes all sorts of the desired treatment (Wunschmedizin) and projective diagnosis. Today not only patients seek medical assistance, but also clients who, on the basis of their own right for autonomy, claim to have their bodily wishes fulfilled by medical practitioners. The article examines the ethical implications of these changes, with special attention paid to the concept of autonomy. Autonomy, in Kant’s enlightened deontological ethics, is the basis of such universal moral principles as the human dignity and the social responsibility. However, as can be shown, for contemporary biomedical ethics the concept of autonomy is based on libertarianism and utilitarianism. Moreover, the newly revised Declaration of Geneva neither is able to solve the moral dilemma physicians have to face choosing between professional duty and own conscience, nor can it compensate for the lack of responsibility of both sides in the relationship between a physician and a patient. Mutual respect can help to recreate a full-fledged notion of autonomy that would regain its moral value.

509–530

Authors: MAURO FOSCO BERTOLA

As Susan Sontag highlights in her seminal monograph “Illness as metaphor” published in 1978, the appropriation of illness for constructing powerful metaphors which have a great impact on broad social, political or cultural issues became a widespread phenomenon both in everyday life and in artistic discourse. For various arts illness turns into an important meaning-making metaphor for the social and cultural phenomena. In my article I intend to explore the use of such kind of metaphor in the context of Franz Kafka’s short story Country Doctor („Ein Landarzt”). A condition of a man who is ill is similar to the condition described by Freud in terms such as “oblivion”, “suppression”, “negation” etc. This text is very important for the psychoanalytical interpretation of Kafka’s legacy because one can see a definite parallel between a wound of a young man and his sexual desire for Roza. In my article I also analyse Hans Werner Henze’s homonymous radio opera, composed in 1951, which is based on Kafka’s text. Thanks to the special expressive instrumental medium, Henze creates an atmosphere of unreality and fuzziness of the Kafka’s short story. Adopting Walter Benjamin’s interpretation of Kafka’s œuvre qua a reflection on the “illness of tradition” („Erkrankung der Tradition”) in relation to the modern situation, I point out that Kafka and Henze share common understanding of modernity as well as show how Henze re articulates this idea of modernity as “illness of tradition” both in his poetic as well as in his compositional strategies after World War II.

542–545

Authors: VASILY SESEMANN (Prepared by Dalius Jonkus)

The text of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty belongs to Sesemann’s manuscript collection, located at the Vilnius University (F122-85). The text was written by Sesemann during the time of his imprisonment in the Gulag labor camp in Taishet (Irkutsk region). Being in the camp, Sesemann used to teach western philosophy and aesthetics to other prisoners. Sesemann devotes the manuscript of The Problem of Spiritual Beauty to reflection on the circumstances which make the aesthetic contemplation of the moral qualities possible. According to Sesemann, spiritual beauty is possible not only in the ethical field, but it also manifests itself in intellectual constructions. Ethical actions and products of human thinking are not the same, but both of them can be of the aesthetic value. All of them require the conditions for sensual presentation and realization in the specific situations. Ideas must be sensually expressed in order to acquire aesthetic value. Sesemann emphasizes two following points with respect to the aesthetics of ethical behavior. First of all, the reference is made not to general judgments about beauty, but to individual experiencing of a particular situation. Secondly, aesthetic experiencing is provoked by the actions, which astonish by their spontaneity, clarity and timeliness in a concrete situation.

554–562

Authors: SERGEY TROITSKIY, NIKITA KRECHKO

The review of the International Scientific Conference “Phenomenology of Oil”, held at the Institute of Philosophy of the St Petersburg State University on May 17-18, reflects the structure of the event, presents the participants of the conference, includes the main abstracts of the reports. The conference was devoted to the issues related to the ontological, socio-cultural, economic role oil plays in the modern world order. The program was conveniently divided into three thematically related and logically arranged components: theoretical, demonstration, interactive. The first and main one involved delivering of reports and organized discussions. The composition of speakers was distinguished by diversity of nations (Italy, Germany, Poland) and professions (philosophy, literature, art). Besides the main (scientific) part, a film seminar, an exhibition of Vitaly Kasatkin’s paintings in oil and oil products (the demonstration part), the conference “Phenomenology of Oil” also included a master class of painting in oil, which was of great interest. Such workshop made it possible to feel the potential hidden in the very object of two-day intellectual and artistic exploration. As a result, a number of oil-related phenomena, that can not be described and analyzed through classical approaches and generally accepted terminology have been detected, which suggests the need for developing the research in the domain of the oil philosophy.

576–585

Authors: ANNA YAMPOLSKAYA

Frangeskou’s point of departure in his juxtaposition of Levinas and Kant is the problem of transcendental schematism but not the tension between autonomy and heteronomy as it is common for most of the published literature. Thus, the middle ground between Levinas and Kant is occupied by Heidegger, but also by Franz Rosenzweig with his “biblical” version of ecstatic temporality. Levinassian diachrony is described by Frangeskou as a new form of ecstatic temporality, different from the interpretations given by Heidegger and Rosenzweig. It is analogous to transcendental schematism of reason. We briefly compare Frangeskou’s interpretation with Marc Richir’s notion of transcendental schematism which also goes back to Levinassian diachronic temporality. Richir’s schematism functions as a medium joining together heterogenous elements such as the layer of “phenomenological”, i.e., the unstable and flickering sense, and the layer of “symbolic”, i.e., the organised and stabilised sense. In a similar way, for Frangeskou, diachronic temporality provides a synthesis (though, not a synchronisation) of God, the world and a man.

597–607

Authors: MAXIM MIROSHNICHENKO

This review is an attempt to read the main ideas of Catherine Malabou’s Before Tomorrow: Epigenesis and Rationality, with a particular emphasis made upon the problem of the modifiability of the transcendental one and the rejection of the a priori dimension of subjectivity within scientific and philosophical thought of a materialist orientation. Malabou’s thesis of the epigenesis of pure reason evinces the dynamical dimension of the transcendental one, integrating structural and evolutionary conceptions of reason. Epigenesis secures the stability of the phenomenal world and provides the possibility of a contingent metamorphosis of reason, thereby establishing the economy of the transcendental contingency. Largely, Malabou’s work has many affinities with the recent phenomenological thought, although it makes just a few explicit references to phenomenological philosophers as such

13-31

Authors: Rosemary R. P. Lerner

Unlike Kant’s practical philosophy and aesthetics that still enjoy a wide popularity, two Kantian topics that belong to his transcendental philosophy have become favourite targets of manifold attacks as out-dated and archaic, especially during the 20th century: the concept of the “transcendental” and the role of the “I think”. Yet, a century and a half later Husserl salvaged both of these concepts in their essential core, and – against the tide of his time – dealt with them anew, for he considered them revolutionary and unprecedented in history. Husserl’s phenomenological method profoundly differed from Kant’s constructive methodology – albeit his transcendental turn was also inspired by it – enabling him to overcome many of the controversial aspects of Kant’s interpretation. Thanks to Husserl’s retrieval, both concepts survived the implacable judgment of history and are currently being seriously reconsidered, in ever increasing measure, as relevant for philosophy. Although both topics are intertwined and should be dealt with jointly, this article is only concerned with some aspects that are central to the “meaning of the transcendental”. First, as it has been introduced by Kant, and second, as it has been retrieved by Husserl in its essential core, broadening its reach far beyond the merely “speculative” or “theoretical” level to which Kant confines it, in order to encompass the whole field of lived human experiences (theoretical, practical, or evaluative), as well as in cultural and scientific endeavours.

57-78

Authors: Azul Katz

The present paper explores the place that imagination and phantasy hold in the transcendental philosophies of Kant and Husserl when they are not subordinated to functions that are external to them. The Kantian imagination (Einbildungskraft) has a key function within reason, both theoretical and practical, but it seems to exhibit its true potential in the aesthetic subjective domain, as productive imagination — in addition, this aesthetic domain is defined as the most properly human. In Husserl’s work, phantasy (Phantasie) has a relevant methodological function in the intuition of essences and plays other constituting roles, for example in empathy — and therefore in intersubjectivity. Nevertheless, the Husserlian phantasy shows its full potential not when it is bound to a presentation through perception — as it does in its constituting functions, but when it is pure and moves freely in an enlarged eidetic sphere. Husserlian phantasy would not only allow the transit from facts to essences, but it would also allow the reverse path, limiting essences towards facticity. In this framework, a final consideration points to the challenges raised by the exploration of this intermediate sphere of experiences involving productive imagination and pure phantasy, regarding the hierarchy and margins of the transcendental constitution.

98-102

Authors: Francesco Pisano

Husserl’s late claim of that transcendental logic is self-founded stands in a puzzling relation with the facticity of nature. This relation concerns issues such as the traceableness of a “living present” in the immanence of living consciousness. The article considers this matter through a specific perspective, gained by reference to the project of a transcendental foundation of the science of nature. This project requires the problematic possibility of a formal determination of facticity. One could characterize the phenomenological finding of a “living present” as Husserl’s attempt to resolve the discrepancy between fact and form in a “living being” which consists of both actual materiality and transcendental ideality. This conciliatory solution remains questionable, given the impossibility to provide an a priori foundation of this synthetic moment through the self-reflexive movement of transcendental logic. However, the systematic project of transcendental phenomenology as such entails the question concerning the a priori foundation of our ordinary knowledge of facts. It seems, then, to require a solution of this sort. The problem of grounding the scientific knowledge of natural facts dates back at least to Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. So does the need for the definition of an empirical moment of this grounding. A discussion of Kant’s Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft presents an aporetic facet of the way in which transcendental philosophy responds to this need. An analogous impasse occurs in Husserl’s mature work. The concept of “living present” holds a central role in defining Husserl’s stance towards this stalemate. The analysis of this role aims to clarify both Husserl’s specific position in the broader context of transcendental philosophy, and an aspect of the transcendental foundation of the science of nature. I conclude that this foundation must encompass a factual, non-formalizable element: a material residue, required in order to complete its reflexive movement.

137-159

Authors: Claudio Tarditi

In this text, I intend to demonstrate the relevance of Husserl’s phenomenology for the debate on Cantor’s continuum hypothesis. Once described the classical formulation of this problem by Cantor, Dedekind, Zermelo-Fraenkel, and Hilbert, I observe that the current discussion about this issue is characterized by the opposition between a Platonist (Gödel) and a formalist (Cohen) solution. Although this latter is widespread among mathematicians, a few of them still think that the continuum conjecture is relevant for a philosophical foundation of set theory and, in general, for a scientific description of reality. Most of them have been somehow inspired by Husserl's phenomenology. This is the case, for instance, for Weyl and Gödel himself, even if both of them gradually abandoned phenomenology for, respectively, constructivism/predicativism and Platonism. My aim in this text is to reconstruct this “minor” history, in order to show how Husserl’s account of the continuum, developed in different ways by Weyl and Gödel, remains the unique radical attempt to found mathematical formalization on intuition. Although the continuum, namely the phenomenological condition of both the flux of the lived-experiences and the flowing of the intuitive data, is a real leitmotiv of the phenomenological method as a whole, it plays a peculiar role in the early Husserl, notably in his lectures of 1891 on Philosophy of Arithmetic, those of 1905-1908 On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, and those of 1907 on Things and Space. In these texts, there emerges a theory of how the concept of the continuum originates in the intuition of concrete data: more precisely, the intuition of continuity is conceived as the phenomenological condition for any mathematical formalization of the continuum. This does not entail that Husserl is not committed to the problem of a rigorous formalization of the continuum. Rather, as demonstrated by his in-depth inspection of spatial perception and time-consciousness, he is fully aware of the limits of any attempt of formalizing continuity (the same limits Weyl will emphasize concerning Cantor-Dedekind’s axiom). Accordingly, it is precisely for its attempt to keep together intuition and formalization that transcendental phenomenology still plays a relevant role in the current debate about the foundation of mathematics.

186-202

Authors: Don Beith

The critical insights of transcendental philosophy and phenomenology evolve out of a tension in the nature of consciousness. On the one hand, consciousness is a synthetic activity or intentional that discloses the horizon in which meanings and objects have conditions of possibility. On the other hand, in perception we find the workings of sense that point to a dynamic, expressive origin prior to the pure activity of consciousness. Our investigation is concerned with explaining how this passivity of consciousness is itself a synthesis that arises out of our expressive bodily nature. There is a clear logical connection between the ways Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conceive of a synthesis within sensibility and bodily affectivity, where each thinker requires us to conceptualize nature as a mode of expressivity, with the implication that transcendental conditions of possibility must, mysteriously, happen within the very intercorporeal and temporal fields that they render possible.

223-227

Authors: Eric Beauron

In Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant develops what the Critique of Pure Reason calls the “rational physiology”, which is the metaphysics of corporeal nature. The aim of this text is to specify the object in general as matter and as the “movable in space” and, for this purpose, to take into account the various properties that make possible the material donation of the object, such as rest, speed, direction, impenetrability, attraction, repulsion, etc., the so-called predicables of the pure understanding (§ 10 of the CPR). Those predicables constitute the properties that are indeed necessary to ground the natural science (mathematical physics) and are here examined from a transcendental point of view thanks to the system of the categories and principles of the Analytics of Principles. The structure of the book is thus the following: Phoronomy deals with quantity (Axioms of Intuition), the Dynamics with quality (Anticipations of Perception), the Mechanics with relations (Analogies of Experience) and the Phenomenology with modalities (Postulates of Empirical Thought). What Kant seeks to account for, then, is the applicability of the mathematics that make the intuitive and apodictic certainty possible thanks to the construction of the object in an a priori intuition. The methodological problem concerns the possibility of this a priori construction, which must be here realized in the realm of existence. How to connect the empirical properties of the object to the necessary and universal principles provided by the categories in order to account for the possibility of the mathematical construction of the object? The metaphysics of the corporeal nature is different from the transcendental cognition of the pure nature in general because it considers the transcendental schematism from the point of view of space and not of time

234-239

Authors: Paul Slama

This review presents historical and philosophical hypotheses of Chad Engelland's book by first considering the general thesis of a Heidegger transcendental philosopher, then emphasizing the importance of this theme for the treatise Sein und Zeit (1927), finally considering promises and aporia of such an interpretation for the second Heidegger. Heidegger first endorsed the program of a certain transcendental philosophy, to reject it in a second part of his work. Each time, the problem is to know what type of transcendental philosophy it is, which implies asking the question of Heidegger's relation to both transcendental philosophy of Kant and transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Does the thought of utensility or authenticity in Being and Time refer to a transcendental questioning? And is it a Kantian or Husserlian transcendental? But also, can the thought of Ereignis and of the last God be so, as C. Engelland thinks? The reviewer insists on the importance of understanding the role of intuition in phenomenology’s relationship to Kant, but also on the link made by Heidegger between Kant's first and second Critiques, that is, between the theory and practice. Finally, it shows from the book the role of affectivity, not without indicating possible extensions including the analysis of neokantism, or Hölderlin.