Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology

15–43

Authors: PAVEL BARKOUSKI

The article concerns the significance of the semantic connective of understanding and playing in Gadamer’s hermeneutical analysis of the experience of art. In the spotlight is a question of constructing of imaginary (virtual) worlds as a play-based reality of understanding. It argues the appeal to the experience of art as a paradigmatic subject of hermeneutical work and emphasizes the importance of understanding of such experience as a special kind of play that takes us to the ontology plane, as opposed to the classic aesthetic view on this subject. Along with the explication of a general idea of the play in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, it also examines the main features of the artistic game itself, turning it into a multidimensional being of a special kind and a zone of gaining human freedom. The problematization of language also reveals it as the medium for the development of the artistic play and understanding, and the ethical aspects of the hermeneutic dialogue in the ongoing game is a theme of a special interest here too. The author develops his theoretical considerations based on comparative hermeneutic analysis of Hölderlin’s verses in the works of M. Heidegger and G. Gadamer, which reveals the diversity and non-linearity of our interpretation of culture, the ability to see in it an inexhaustible source of new meanings and associative connections as a result of a play of art and its understanding

69-101

Authors: ANDREI LAURUKHIN

The subject of this article is the debate of Gadamer and Habermas about the nature of critical thinking, the relationship between freedom and authority, the individual and traditions, documented in the book Hermeneutics and Criticism of Ideology (1971). Central to the author is the question: “What understanding of critical thinking would allow us to gain a higher degree of resistance to ideology?” The author consistently solves several problems. First, the author clarifies the meaning and significance of the key concepts of “ideology” and “criticism” in the critical theory of Frankfurt School and philosophical hermeneutics. Thanks to these explanations, becomes clear the basis for the possibility of a productive polemic between philosophical hermeneutics and critical theory. Secondly, in the analysis of the main lines of criticism by Habermas against the hermeneutical project of Gadamer, the author explicates the strengths and weaknesses in the argumentation of the opposing parties. The focus here is the problem of the relationship of critical reflection with prejudice, authority and tradition, the problem of theoretical maturity and methodological support of hermeneutics, the problem of forming a basic consensus of understanding and interaction. Based on a comparative analysis of the arguments and counterarguments of Gadamer and Habermas, the author shows the non-trivial nature of critical thinking and reveals new aspects in understanding the concept of criticism of ideology. The result of the comparative analysis is the idea of an integrative concept of ideology criticism, which allows productive use of the strengths of the critical and hermeneutic approaches, and thereby provide a higher resistance to ideology at the collective and individual levels.

129-142

Authors: VLADIMER JALAGONIA

Transcedental egology, which tries to follow intentional constitutive moments and explicate them, produces itself by following its guiding principe, evidence, where the presence („selbst da“, „unmittelbar anschaulich“, „originaliter gegeben“) of lived-experience in front of self-identical conscious subject has a mobilizing function. The differenctiation of evidences and phenomenological epoche, which aims to build self-transparent and rigorous scientific edifice, brackets those modes of givenness which might harbor the slightest possibility of doubt. Under this principle indirect givvences or absence is expelled or subordinated to the direct, straightforward giveness of presence: in this horizon arrises the problem of the otherness of the other. Despite this privilege and unavoidable prevalence of presence in the Cartesian way, I will try to reconstruct Husserls analyses of consitutution of the otherness and of intersebjectivity (in Fifth Cartesian Meditation) in such a way that the constitutive function of absence/non-presence will appear irreducible. Husserl, without leaving the immanence of Egology, explains the giveness of Other, and walks beyond solipsism and phenomenology of presence. I will anlyse how the irreducibilie absence of the otherness appears in the presence, participates and performs fundamental constitutive role in the constitutive process, after which, the phenomenology of otherness produced in the presence, will appear the process of exhausting the presence rather that subordinating absence to presence.

162-183

Authors: BENCE PETER MAROSAN

This article draws attention to certain features of Edmund Husserl’s theory of evidence and truth which, on closer look, reveal how his thoughts on the nature of experience and cognition are current and relevant even in the early 21st century. Many of his contemporaries and subsequent authors considered Husserl to be a late representative of traditional, modernist metaphysics—an idealist, a foundationalist, and an intellectualist, etc. The publication of his vast unpublished manuscripts has evidently dispelled such charges, and a thorough and attentive perusal of his published works (or works prepared for publication) clearly shows how highly problematic such charges were. In the article I aim to highlight the contextualist character of Husserl’s understanding of evidence and truth, of knowledge and Being. Every insight and every entity in his thought fits into a wider context of further experiences, insights, and entities. This conception is manifest at every level of his experience and knowledge: (1) everyday experiences, (2) scientific and (3) philosophical cognition. The evidence at every level is fundamentally open and contextual, and their correlation constitutes an essentially organic reality. With such formulations Husserl says something quite similar to what is now found under the label ‘epistemic contextualism’ in contemporary analytic philosophy. Next to the contextual character of evidence, the second main thesis of my essay is that Husserl’s stance in this question might serve as a fruitful field of dialogue between phenomenology and analytic philosophy.

216-234

Authors: TINA BILBAN

Niels Bohr, considered one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, formulated a complex interpretation of quantum mechanics that guided his understanding of quantum experiments. The contemporary dispute between realism and anti-realism, the two main approaches to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, is often based on different attitudes towards or even readings of Bohr. We propose that a better understanding of Bohr’s philosophical thought can contribute to the contemporary reconciliation of these opposing philosophical views and thus to a better understanding of the quantum world. Unfortunately, in many contemporary interpretations, Bohr’s philosophical approach to quantum mechanics has been misunderstood, re-interpreted or labelled as ambiguous. This is mostly due to the dispersion of Bohr’s complex and unique interpretation through different texts, never united in a single systematically conceptualized work. To comprehensively explain Bohr’s philosophical approach and his main philosophical concepts, we consider the many similarities between Bohr’s and Husserl’s philosophical approach to science. Husserl developed his philosophical standpoint in a cultural context similar to Bohr’s and shared Bohr’s objects of philosophical consideration as well as his approach to these objects. Parallel reading of Bohr’s and Husserl’s texts reveals the closeness between Bohr’s ontological realism—epistemological anti-realism standpoint and Husserl’s phenomenological standpoint. This explains their similar views on the relationship between mathematical language, scientific method and Nature. While Bohr’s use of the term phenomenon is not equal to Husserl’s, Husserl’s rigorous philosophical explanation of the term helps us to better understand Bohr’s use. Furthermore, the parallel reading facilitates better understanding of one of Bohr’s main philosophical theses, often labelled as ambiguous and interpreted in different ways, that it is necessary to use classical concepts to describe quantum phenomena. We claim that the thesis is connected with the advance of epistemological reconsideration of science at the time of Bohr’s writing. Thus, Bohr considers some parts of argumentation as self-evident, while they are not evident to the contemporary reader. Husserl’s analysis of the relationship between science and the life-world offers a much-needed background for a comprehensive understanding of Bohr’s thesis. The insight into the similarities between Bohr’s and Husserl’s philosophical approach to science and scientific phenomena enables a philosophically rigorous reading of Bohr’s texts; it can eliminate some of the disagreements between realists and anti-realists and provide a firmer philosophical ground for a dialog between them.

256-274

Authors: ANTON VAVILOV

The article constitutes an analysis of the question “why” in its transcendental and existential foundations. Based on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, this question is shown to be the fundamental question of metaphysics. In his works written after “Being and Time” Heidegger increasingly focused on the “why” question, particularly as regards the inquiry as to “Why there is something rather than Nothing.” The latter constitutes the question of all questions and the key question of philosophizing. According to Heidegger, it is precisely though the capacity of “asking why” that human essence can be explicated. On this issue Heidegger’s fundamental ontology is at variance with Max Scheler’s philosophical anthropology, since “asking why” is more primordial than “saying no” favored by Scheler. However, Heidegger never seems to clarify the relationship between “why?” and “no!”. Therefore, in this article I will try to fill this gap by confronting Scheler with Heidegger as far as the problems of negativity, questioning, metaphysics and human essence are concerned. By reading Scheler’s The Human’s Place in the Cosmos and Heidegger’s What is Metaphysics? as reflections on the origin of metaphysics, one can draw the following conclusions: 1) Orientation to nothing is as fundamental for subjectivity as Scheler’s “saying no”; indeed, the Nothing which nothings gives access to that-what-is and establishes the World as openness. (2) The power of negativity in both cases reveals the strangeness and contingency of being. The fundamental question is made possible by the wonder at the experience of nothingness. (3) Therefore, Heidegger’s “asking why” appears to be derivative from “saying no”. However, in the conclusion I suggest an opposite interpretation based on the foundationless character of Dasein. Thereby “No” becomes possible only based on the permanent “Why” motivated by Dasein’s impossibility to know its own foundation.

283-305

Authors: MARC RICHIR, SACHA CARLSON, ANNA YAMPOLSKAYA

This is a Russian translation of the first of Phenomenological Meditations of Marc Richir. The text consists of two sections. In the first section, Richir develops Husserl’s remark on “movement in a zigzag pattern” and makes a distinction between the logical structure of phenomenology and the symbolic systems of the German idealism. The sphere of the phenomenological is not given from the very beginning; phenomena have essential indeterminacy which cannot be clarified in “one go.” In the second section, Richir analyses the distinction between the symbolic and phenomenological layers of sense, and offers a new version of phenomenological hermeneutics.

324-354

Authors: MARTIN HEIDEGGER, ARKADI CHOUFRINE

Heidegger’s Cologne address of 1924 is important in at least three respects. First, it represents the next stage in the genesis of Being and Time after the seminal text known as Natorp Bericht (1922). Second, it manifests a new landmark in Heidegger’s rethinking appropriation of Aristotle’s thought. This new synthesis includes, in particular, the groundwork on Aristotle’s Rhetoric from the summer course of 1924. The annotations to the translation,—based on the texts from 1922-24,—bring to light Heidegger’s working his way to this synthesis. The preface specifically uncovers Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle’s doctrine of the “mean” and compares Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle concept of ethical decision to an interpretation of it typical of modern Aristotle scholarship belonging to analytical tradition. Third, the Cologne address represents Heidegger’s first thematic approach to the question of the essence of truth (which even after Being and Time for at least a decade remained among his guiding threads). In particular, it develops the thesis (barely outlined in Natorp Bericht) that (contrary to the dominant view which Daniel Dahlstrom appropriately dubbed “the logical prejudice”) the proper “place” of truth is not judgement, but the being indicated in a judgement by the copula and in a human act by the goodness that motivates it; and that speech, for the most part, conceals the truth originally sighted.

366-372

Authors: ANNA YAMPOLSKAYA

This is my short reply to Adonis Frangeskou’s response to my review of his book (2017). I offer a careful reading of the passage from Levinas quoted in Frangeskou’s response. I discuss the idea of God-in-me in connection with the issues of sensibility, vulnerability, and suffering. I argue that interpreting Levinas within the framework of the analytics of the sublime is crucially important for the catastrophic dimension of Levinas’ approach to subjectivity.

382–383

Authors: No

No

418-434

Authors: EKATERINA ANANIEVA

The review of the collective monograph Vitality of Phenomenology: Tradition and Renewal traces various aspects of an interesting and peculiar design implemented in this publication. Non-thematic unity and community of traditions (philosophical and cultural) are united under the same cover of the authors of this monograph. Following the centripetal tendencies in the development of phenomenology, the authors nevertheless are united by a single task of finding the growth points of the phenomenological tradition and discovering new thematic areas in which phenomenological analysis can be applied. The problems of the life world and the position of phenomenology in modern discussions with representatives of analytical philosophy on the problems of consciousness, the thematic intersections of phenomenology with anthropology, hermeneutical philosophy, biological and linguistic research are becoming the subject of analysis. The authors of the sections not only trace the obvious lines of the development of phenomenology in the concepts of M. Heidegger, M. Merlot-Ponti or O. Fink, but bold parallels with the theory of deconstruction of J. Derrida, with modern ideas of bioethics or traditions of Japanese spiritual culture are discovered and argued.

446-455

Authors: LIUBOV IAKOVLEVA

The review presents the central ideas of the Phenomenological Writings of the modern German philosopher H. Blumenberg. The main issue of this review is to clarify the general positions in the method of Blumenberg; his critics of the phenomenology of E. Husserl and to show the role of Phenomenological Writings in the corpus of Blumenberg’s works. The main focus is to identify the significance of metaphorology and anthropology for Blumenberg’s phenomenological approach. One of the most important ideas of Blumenberg’s research is the problem of finite human consciousness. He reinterprets consciousness in the context of its “factuality,” depending on the specific historical human existence. In this regard, Blumenberg criticizes the phenomenological problems of evidence and objectivity, underlines the role of “non-obvious,” incomplete and other forms of negativity in human experience. Consciousness, according to Blumenberg, along with such spheres as the world, time or the Other cannot be given in its immediate presence, therefore it requires metaphorical means of description. The life world is also described by means of metaphors that can be found in E. Husserl’s phenomenological language itself—in the metaphor of the soil or horizon. These topics reveal the meaning of the earlier project Paradigms for Metaphorology by G. Blumenberg and his initial interest in the symbolic, incomplete means of describing human consciousness and life. Further clarification of the anthropological dimension of phenomenology is carried out in the context of intersubjectivity problems. The concept of intersubjectivity, from the point of view of Blumenberg, is necessary not so much to justify the criteria of the objectivity of the world, as to reveal the boundaries of human consciousness in the experience of the Other. The conclusion of the review presents Blumenberg’s interpretation of the phenomenological method as a special “life practice” that can cross the boundaries of the principle of evidence and include such areas as paradox, hypothesis and incompleteness in understanding the activity of consciousness.

466–468

Authors: INETA KIVLE, RAIVIS BICEVSKIS

No

471–472

Authors: ANDREI PATKUL

No

389-408

Authors: WITOLD PŁOTKA

This article is an attempt to present Husserl’s phenomenology as a moderate form of rationalism. By ‘moderate rationalism’ is understood, first, a theory that does not exclude the problem of irrationality, and that comprehends the rational as a correlate of the irrational. Second, it is a theory that performs its analyses by adopting the thesis that evidence can be achieved at many levels and grades. Here perfect evidence can also appear as imperfect. Yet this imperfect evidence (as an equivalent to unreason) can be a subject of evidential inquiry (as an equivalent to reason). The argument is that moderate rationalism is connected with the transcendental character of phenomenology and leads to the perennial reconsideration of the question of evidence (Evidenz). A basic claim is that irrationality is to be understood in terms of possible vague levels and grades of evidence. By developing ‘moderate rationalism’ thus understood, one is interested in understanding reason, that is, in the question of the essence of reason in its correlation with unreason. Here, moderate rationalism is directly interested not in rational arguments, but in ‘elucidation’ of reason. It is argued that phenomenology of reason also investigates ‘irrational evidence,’ for example, background evidence, evidence with respect to others, as well as all forms of fallible evidence. Therefore, the main question of moderate rationalism is Husserl’s question of evidence.

442-459

Authors: YAROSLAV SLININ

ranz Brentano takes as a premise of his theory that along with an external experience there is an internal experience. The external experience introduces us into the world of things that are transcendental with regard to our consciousness. The internal experience helps us to read the structure of the consciousness itself. While the basis of the external experience is censorial perception, the basis of the internal experience is internal perception. The internal perception shows that the consciousness is a sequence of acts in the flow of our internal time. According to Brentano each act of consciousness is an intention or an orientation towards an object, which can be called an intentional object. Intentions together with their objects are immanent with regard to consciousness. Among the acts of external experience are censorial perception, imagination, contemplation, desire, will, and etc. There is no agreement within philosophers on the issue of the relation between intentional objects of the acts of that type and transcendental things. On this basis, Brentano believes that the data of the external experience acts is not obvious. On the contrary, the data of the internal experience is obvious since the objects of inner perception are the acts of consciousness, and so the inner experience has nothing that is transcendent with regard to consciousness. Brentano points out that scholastic philosophers have already been aware of human consciousness intentional nature. The article investigates the theory of soul powers of Meister Eckhart. According to Eckhart soul powers are, among others, censorial perception, imagination, intellect, and will. The results of their contact with objects that belong to the external, created world are the images of that objects in soul. Hence, soul powers correspond to intentions of external experience acts, and images in soul correspond to the intentional objects of that acts. Furthermore, Eckhart argues that another power intended not towards external, created world, but towards consciousness profundity can be woken up in souls of specially prepared human beings. Eckhart refers to this ‘honorable’ intention as to ‘light’ or ‘spark’ of the soul. This ‘spark’ is fully related to the inner experience and meets God on its own way not in the capacity of an image, but at first hand and in a manifest manner. However, it is important to note that according to Eckhart Holy Trinity is only an intermediate point on the way of ‘honorable’ intention. The intentional object that is at the very end on the way of ‘honorable’ intention is allegorically called by Eckhart the Profundity of Profundity, Silent Desert, and Undivided Silence.

487-501

Authors: GEORGY CHERNAVIN

The article deals with Wittgenstein’s interpretation of the Heideggerian thesis “the nothing noths.” The phenomenological utterances are, according to him, “unarticulated sounds.” We discuss the following unsettling situation: theses of phenomenological philosophy (in this case of existential phenomenology), transferred to the field of philosophy of language, lose their meaning, turn into “incompetent sounds.” How is mutual understanding possible if, in the course of a philosophical discussion, the words (coming from one of the interlocutors or from both of them) turn into unarticulated sounds? Nevertheless, despite the alleged “incomprehensibility” of phenomenological expressions, Wittgenstein wants to “pay tribute” to Heidegger and he is looking for similar motives in his own philosophy. The most important of these motives is the one of philosophical disquiet. Wittgenstein goes through the options of how to understand “the nothing noths,” not so much questioning what Heidegger wanted to say, but rather why he wanted to say it. What can make a philosopher utter a tautology? Is this strange phrase the symptom of something else? What does it replace, displaces? What hurts a philosopher, if he has such a strange verbal behavior? The first hypothesis of Wittgenstein is that the author of the statement “the nothing noths” wants to get rid of a philosophical disquiet. This is Wittgenstein’s own motive—an indistinct intellectual disquiet, a “mental cramp,” a “hair on the tongue” from which it is necessary to get rid of. Then Wittgenstein (quite in the spirit of Carnap) reflects on the fact that the phrase “the nothing noths” can be eliminated by introducing a notation in which this sentence cannot be written. Wittgenstein believes that the disquiet will go away with this unhappy sentence and tries to treat the “sick” verb “to noth” applying to it various metaphors: a landscape or a maritime metaphor, a mechanical, an architectural, a decorative, a didactic and, finally—a digestive one. Oddly enough, it is from here (from the metaphor of stomach pain) that Wittgenstein takes a step toward the apt remark that “the words of phenomenologists are inarticulate sounds.”

516-535

Authors: JAKUB ČAPEK

The recent philosophy of Renaud Barbaras counts among the most original contributions to the phenomenology of life. My article examines it in the light of some conceptual observations based on the works of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. The early phenomenological texts illustrate the complexity of the phenomenological approach to the living inasmuch as “life” can be said in different ways, it is plural in meaning; further, life is also plural in that it can be attributed to a plurality of beings (consciousness, organisms, certain forms of existence, etc.). When developing his own account, Barbaras starts from a profound analysis of the phenomenological idea of correlation and comes to a new notion of life which is no longer attributed to organisms but to the world. The article critically follows this move from the life of organisms to the life of the world and articulates certain questions that this move can raise. The background of these questions is the double plurality of the notion of life. Even though saying that “life” has multiple meanings and attributions is purely formal and general, this multiplicity can serve as a ground for the phenomenological analysis of the way life is indeed experienced in its different meanings.

573-601

Authors: STATHIS LIVADAS

This article deals with a core matter of continental philosophy which is the nature of the ego taken as a concept originating in the subjective idealism of the German school of the early nineteenth century and further developed in its various ramifications throughout the twentieth century. The main philosophical positions I will discuss are Husserl’s phenomenology of the ego in his later transcendental phase, the Heideggerean view of the nature of Dasein, and Sartre’s approach of the Being-for-itself as mainly exposed in Being and Nothingness. The central idea defended throughout this article is that self-constituting temporality as immanently induced may serve as a common foundation of the nature of the transcendental ego both in the Husserlian phenomenology and in the Heideggerean and Sartrean alternative positions; further, I will hold that, as consequence, the ultimate question about the possibility of an ontology of the pure ego is transposed to the question of the origin and foundation of inner temporality. Yet, in this case one is set to face anew the circularity of an infinite regression in terms of reflecting-reflected and the inevitability of the subjective character of the origin of temporality. Besides this key question—a primary issue of this article—I will address the issue of the convergences and differences regarding aspects of the essential nature of the Husserlian ego, the Heideggerean Dasein, and the Sartrean Being-for-itself, especially regarding the widely debated topic of the ‘exteriority’ of the latter two ‘egological’ concepts with regard to the world in contrast to the ‘interiority’ of the Husserlian absolute ego.

613-631

Authors: PETR ŠPECIÁN

The article explores novel directions in the phenomenology of economics. It analyzes how the approaches of Till Düppe and Alfred Schütz, both inspired by Edmund Husserl, may shed light on the historical development of economics. I examine the substance and meaning of economics in the context of the forceful criticism of the whole discipline recently raised by Düppe. This examination uncovers important weaknesses and omissions inherent in Düppe’s argument against the economists’ scientific aspirations. The analysis of the social scientific endeavors by Alfred Schütz who develops a phenomenologically informed ‘telescopic’ concept of an ideal type is then shown to be a more fruitful and methodologically rigorous way towards understanding the developments within economics. The Schützian view permits us to see how abstract economic models originate in the experience of the life-world and are continuous with it. Accordingly, the historical development of economic science may be viewed as consisting from two broadly defined phases, where at first the formalism is steadily increasing (the ‘zooming out’ phase) and later the discipline converges back to context-specific empirical examinations (the ‘zooming in’ phase). A case study concentrating on the economic theory of politics illustrates that both the drive towards abstraction that has culminated around 1950s and the more recent ‘zooming in’ is methodologically legitimate from the phenomenological point of view. I conclude that economics has never been completely severed from the paramount reality of the everyday life and for decades the interconnection has been growing stronger by the day.

641-669

Authors: NIKOLAI HARTMANN; EKATERINA ANANIEVA

he article by German philosopher of first half of XX century N. Hartmann gives an idea about his position in the contra-opposition of leading realistic philosophic projects of both XIX and XX centuries. Brought up in neokantinean tradition of Marburg’s school N. Hartmann yet in his early works (Über das Seinsproblem in der griechischen Philosophie vor Plato and Des Proklus Diadochus philosophische Anfangsgründe der Mathematik) showed his interest by ontology problematic and chose the hard way of polemic and even contra-opposition towards the school which had brought him up. The reasons for such his position were explained in his works published in 1920-1930. The project of “new ontology” polemically targeted not only gnoseologism of neokantian tradition, but also viewed development of phenomenological philosophy in a different way. As one of early strong points of this conception Hartmann chose contra-opposition of logical and ontological reality. Later to this he jointed his interest for cathegorial analysis and to apriorism. That is why categories of ontology turned out to be most primordial points of proclaimed theory. His article “Gegel and the Problem of Real Dialectic” published for the first time in 1935 in Blatter für Deutsche Philosophie allowed N. Hatmann settled his reasons for critic of Hegel’s philosophy, first of all, of Hegel’s dialectic. His called Hegel’s philosophy like phenomenology and this his point of view was naturally argued by Hegel’s interest towards “Phenomenology of Spirit,” but dialectical component of Hegel’s philosophy, as well as interest for categorial analysis allowed Hartmann advance hypothesis about a special significance of “Science of Logic” for giving ground for a realistic ontology. Significantly for that work, as one of opponents of his philosophic program Hartmann chose marxist explanation of Hegel’s philosophy. The latter was also considered by Hartmann as realistic philosophy. This polemics with marxism let go beyond the philosophy of nature into the area of social and follow up a succession of prerequisites advanced by Hartmann in conformity with of different parts of being.

676-706

Authors: SAUL KRIPKE; ALEXANDER PROKHOROV

Readers are invited to examine the translation of the lengthy paper “Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities” by Saul Aaron Kripke. In this work, the American philosopher and logician discusses the semantics of proper names. He severely criticizes the theories of reference based on Russell and Frege speculations. The focus of his attention is the predicate of existence. Kripke is challenged by the theories arguing that existence either is not a real predicate or is not a predicate at all. He shows that a predicate of existence can be truly trivial but only in a limited manifold of cases. He characterizes as a modal fallacy the impossibility to pass the limits of this narrow manifold where the doctrine of triviality of the predicate is being mistakenly universalized. To vindicate his own view, he appeals the sphere of fiction and myth, to the domain of legends and pretense. Kripke discusses counterfactual statements and propositions referring topossible worlds in relation to objects of fiction and fantasy. The core of his argumentation is the ontology of pretense describing particular kind of abstract entities. The heroes of his philosophical reflections are Sherlock Holmes and Hamlet, Moses and Jabberwocky, unicorns and bandersnatches. Kripke asks when such creatures actually exist, and how propositions about them change their truth-value in dependence on a source, a context and modality. Vivid and inventive examples help the author to illustrate a set of problems perplexing for contemporary thinkers and offer his own original solutions.

725-732

Authors: TOMAS ŠINKŪNAS

he report presents an overview of the international conference “Phenomenology of Emotions. Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe,” which was held on the 12th and 13th of October at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. The report briefly summarizes the main aim of the conference as well as the aim of the conference series as such, it briefly presents keynote addresses, outlines the structure of the conference, and finally presents information about the participants and their talks.

740-759

Authors: ALEXANDR POGONYAILO

The project of rewriting the history of structuralism conceived and partially realized by philosophers implies clarifying relationship between structuralism and phenomenology. It transcends the scope of research in history of science and in history of philosophy (phenomenology) because discussing such a significant scholarly and philosophical phenomenon of the first half of the past century which still exists, albeit with the prefix ‘post,’ ineluctably involves ‘post-science,’ ‘post-philosophy’ and all kinds of ‘posts’ including post-politics. This is due to the turning point that we are going through and to the crisis (in the positive sense of the word) of all the concepts and ideas habitual for the European and global culture, above all as far as science and philosophy are concerned. In this context it is instructive to address the history of formation of structuralism, its development in interaction with different currents of thought, notably with phenomenology and finally, that of its transformation into poststructuralism.

17-32

Authors: JOACHIM FISCHER

Every semester from 1920 to 1950, Nicolai Hartmann organized at his different universities (Marburg, Köln, Berlin, Göttingen) disputations with selected students and doctoral candidates. This series of discussions covered a variety of different topics, questions, and disciplines. All these dialogues were carefully recorded (handwritten or typewritten) by selected participants of the discussions and collected by Hartmann. These so-called “Circle-Protocols” (Cirkel-Protokolle) are an important finding in German history of philosophy because Hartmann (as well as a group of young intellectuals working under his guidance) followed a dialogical principle from the twenties (the Weimar republic) throughout the thirties and forties (the Third Reich) up to 1950 (the postwar era). He stuck to this principle when dealing with topics in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of nature, philosophy of history, social philosophy, aesthetics, metaphysics etc. This paper examines these debates. Though Hartmann’s discussions are already mentioned here and there in the memories of some participants (always remembering their importance for Hartmann himself), this collection as a whole was discovered only when German Hartmann researchers convinced the Hartmann family to entrust the unpublished papers of Hartmann to the German Literature Archive at Marbach. According to Frieda Hartmann, Hartmann’s deep interest in such discussions and the experience with such formats of knowledge stem already from his academic life when he studied philosophy and classical philology at Saint Petersburg Imperial University. It has been decided that these unique (from the viewpoint of the history of German philosophy) papers documenting those discussions would be published in an open access edition and separately as a selected book-edition in order to present Hartmann’s discussions to the scientific public. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has acknowledged the disputation-corpus as an important finding of modern intellectual history and supported the edition. This testimony of an ongoing philosophical debate seems to be a treasure in the philosophical history of the first half of 20th century. The reasons for this are four-fold: a) since the papers cover an enormous range of philosophical topics and disciplines: from epistemology to ethics, from philosophy of language to philosophy of religion, from philosophical anthropology to social philosophy; b) due to the principle of dialogue put in practice in the first half of the twentieth century; c) because they are relevant for writing the history of philosophy; there seems to be no other such document of German history of philosophy of this epoch; d) owing to the inspiring role of these discussions for Hartman’s later works (Metaphysik der Erkenntnis, Ethik, Der Aufbau der realen Welt, Probleme des geistigen Seins, Philosophie der Natur, and Ästhetik).

52-66

Authors: SERGUEÏ GACHKOV

The article aims to show some particularities of the reception of Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy in post-war France. In my viewpoint, one of the recurrent problems in Hartmann’s philosophy is the status of ‘real being’ on all its levels (Gegebenheit, trans-objectivity, historical, natural being, etc.). According to Hartmann, ontology does not deal with a particular being, but rather with the transcendence of the real toward trans-objectivity. With that in mind, Hartmann seems to give solutions to many philosophical problems and difficulties engendered by the interaction of realism and spiritualism, phenomenology and criticism, by showing the multiplicity of forms of the real under the conditions of subject-object relation. It is shown in the article that Hartmann’s new ontology of the real does not completely go outside of the framework of the classical metaphysical and anthropological conception of the world. As such, our approach is not purely historical, but also hypothetical and theoretical. The article presents the following conclusions as regards Hartmann’s ontology: 1) the question about the real was considered as one of the most important questions in Hartmann’s ontology by its French interpreters, 2) these interpreters connected the question of the real with that of the irrational (Vuillemin), the multi-level structure of Being (Breton) or the intentional flow of phenomena (Gurvich), 3) the question about inter-objectivity was not discussed by Hartmann, nor by his French interpreters.

87-102

Authors: BIANKA BOROS

This paper deals with Nicolai Hartmann’s realism in light of its contemporary critics and recent concepts of realism. The main topic of the article is the so-called Copernican counter-revolution, which is the decisive factor both in Hartmann’s ontology and in the recent realist projects. In Hartmann’s text the Copernican counter-revolution means the rehabilitation of ontology, which is realized through the critique of the one-sided epistemological interest of logical idealism. We enter on the same path following the program of new realism, which arises against constructivism. While Maurizio Ferraris emphasizes the distinction between epistemological and ontological perspective and wants to identify those application fields, the point of Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology is the coequality of beings. He achieves an anti-Copernican perspective, which means that the human-world relation loses its priority. He also invents a litmus test of realist theories: A true realism should treat all relations between beings equally. Initially I’m examining Hartmann’s realism, also called realism ‘without ism,’ in its contemporary context, followed by the analysis of the acts that can provide the givenness of reality. These examinations will highlight the similarities between Ferraris’ and Hartmann’s realism, especially the ontologically motivated conception of the act of cognition, correspondingly the concept of resistance. In the subsequent analysis of experience of resistance, Max Scheler’s concept is highly relevant. Scheler’s ideas are based on the critique of Wilhelm Dithey’s and Martin Heidegger’s definition of resistance. The last chapter submits Hartmann’s realism to Harman’s litmus test, whereby Hartmann’s realism proves itself to be a sustainable, modern theory.

123-139

Authors: MARTIN HÄHNEL

The following paper presents the three most powerful approaches to the metaphysical phenomena of generation and corruption stemming from Aristotle, Alfred North Whitehead and Nicolai Hartmann. After starting with a general overview of the historical developments of philosophical concepts on the issue of generation and corruption, the article sheds light on different criticisms evaluating the classical Aristotelian account of substance. Thereafter, I refer to the work of Nicolai Hartmann whose aim is to ontologize the fundamental processes of coming-into-being and passing away while his contemporary A. N. Whitehead sets up a certain process philosophy conceptually refraining from an Aristotelian conception of substance. In my view, both approaches require an overall re-examination of Aristotelian metaphysics. In his rediscovered and attention-getting work De generatione et corruptione Aristotle gives an impressive account on how to understand substance out of the processes of coming-into-being and passing-away. Against this backdrop, I finally argue that Aristotle’s conception of becoming is closer to Whitehead’s process philosophy than to Hartmann’s positivistic ontology because in De generatione et corruptione the self-standing character of substance emerges as a subsequent moment of an encompassing processuality (described as a teleological alternation of generation and corruption). In contrast, Hartmann claims that the process itself has to be taken as a self-standing substance.

160-181

Authors: STEFFEN KLUCK

This essay traces the reception of Nicolai Hartmann’s philosophy of objective spirit based on his colleagues’ reviews of his works. By examining this reception, important aspects of Hartmann’s work can be elucidated, for example, in the context of phenomenology (Martin Heidegger) and philosophical anthropology (Helmuth Plessner, Arnold Gehlen). In addition, any new ideas in the philosophy of the objective spirit will be likely to face objections analogous to those Hartmann’s theory encountered, which is why this analysis can probably have a systematic significance. In this connection, the article describes and analyzes some contemporary reviews and highlights principle arguments pro et contra Hartmann’s philosophy. It aims to show which authors criticized Hartmann with which frameworks to point out the position of his theory in the philosophy of the early 20th century. Furthermore, striking features and missing topics within the reviews are discussed. The conclusion of the article is that the reviewers praise Hartmann’s work for its phenomenological-empirical approach with rich, insightful descriptions and emphasize its ontologically founded middle position between Hegel and Marx, but at the same time characterize the book as theoretically weak and ambiguous. This finding can help to understand the work’s marginal reception and at the same time provides hints in which way it seems to be still up-to-date and relevant.

211-229

Authors: MORITZ VON KALCKREUTH

The aim of this paper is to discuss Nicolai Hartmann’s conception of personhood as developed in his philosophy of spiritual being. Many contemporary accounts of personhood are systematically focused on rational phenomena as self-consciousness or practical reasoning, which are understood as ‘conditions of personhood’. Apart from having some technical problems, those accounts limit our self-understanding as persons on distinct rational properties and often fail to consider the sociocultural aspects of the personal situation. Nicolai Hartmann—although respecting the role of reason—understands personhood particularly as participation in a shared spiritual sphere called Objektiver Geist (objective spirit), which includes various intersubjective phenomena as languages, religion, moral, arts, and the sciences. Being part of this sphere seems to be more fundamental than having distinct rational properties, which requests a spiritual frame to be exerted. Further it is shown that Hartmann’s ontology of person also includes a notion of being affected by the existential weight of situations and other person’s actions—an idea often maintained by phenomenological positions. By regarding rational, intersubjective and affective aspects, Hartmann’s philosophy of person succeeds in offering a broad articulation of our self-understanding and may also be seen as providing a background to understand certain phenomena that are part of the personal situation.

247-260

Authors: SAULIUS GENIUSAS

I argue that Hartmann’s engagement in the question of the value of aesthetic experience (especially as addressed in Chapter 35 of his Aesthetics) is a specific reinterpretation of the standpoint that we come across in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. Hartmann completed his Aesthetics at the end of World War II and some of the central claims in his work echo Nietzsche’s standpoint, as presented in the early work on tragedy, which Nietzsche completed during the Franco-Prussian war. Both studies invite us to ask: what are we to expect from philosophy under such circumstances? Like Nietzsche, Hartmann holds the view that 1) our lives are intrinsically meaningless, that 2) the world is indifferent to meaning, and that 3) aesthetic experience has value insofar as it bestows meaning both on the world and on human existence. Despite the far-reaching thematic and stylistic differences between Hartmann and Nietzsche, both thinkers see aesthetics not as a form of apolitical escapism, but as a direct way of confronting the fundamental problem, which concerns “the sense and meaning of the world and of human life.” They both leave us with the paradoxical and provocative thesis that aesthetic experience is exactly what is needed at the times of political crises.

267-310

Authors: NICOLAI HARTMANN. Trans. by A. Fomin, A. Frolov, ed. by N. Artemenko, G. Chernavin

The article by Nicolai Hartmann is devoted to the problem of sense both in its history and its current state. Hartmann addresses the problem of sense in the 30’s, when the Zeitgeist itself contributed to such reflections, and it is no coincidence that at this time various existential interpretations of the sense of human life became popular. In his own turn, Hartmann develops a kind of metaphysics of sense. He reinterprets the constructions of classical metaphysics (starting with Plato) from a new point of view, correlating the category of sense with traditional metaphysical categories, such as ‘idea,’ ‘Nous,’ ‘The One,’ ‘God,’ ‘substance,’ ‘spirit,’ and ‘absolute.’ Furthermore, the German philosopher adds his own considerations and conclusions to the historical review. The article consists of six sections. Section I sets the problem; section II outlines the main features of Ancient (Plato, Aristotle, Stoa, neo-Platonism) and Medieval metaphysics of sense; in section III Hartmann focuses on the modern metaphysics of sense, with an emphasis on German classical philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling and especially Hegel). Section IV examines the problem of sense in Hartmann’s philosophical context (in this regard, Hartmann is interested in Nietzsche and the philosophy of values), while at the same time aiming to strictly distinguish between the concepts of sense, values, and purposes. Section V draws conclusions from the historical review and the subsequent explication of the concepts; further, Hartmann offers his own solution to the problem of sense. Finally, in section VI, the problem of sense is interpreted from the perspective of the philosophy of history.the main theses and ideas of the translated work are presented in which Edith Stein tried to compare the seemingly uncompatible philosophies of Edmund Husserl and St.Thomas Aquinas.

318-327

Authors: NICOLAI HARTMANN. Trans. by V. Belov, ed. by M. Belousov

This publication provides a translation of Nikolai Hartmann’s review into an article by Vasily Sesemann, which is so voluminous that the reviewer mistakenly calls it a book. The publication provides Hartmann’s review of Sesemann’s study 1932 “Logical Laws and Being” („Die logischen Gesetze und das Sein“). Sesemann undertakes this research in order to accentuate the nature and essence of the logical, rational-reflexive sphere, on the one hand, its naturalness in the process of cognition, but, on the other,—derivativeness and limitations. In his review, Hartmann assesses this article not as logical, but as strictly ontological, although it would be more accurate to call it nevertheless ontological and epistemological, since not only the problems of being are the focus of attention of the Russian philosopher, but also the problems associated with the various possibilities of its comprehension.

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.