Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology

11-14

Authors: RAIVIS BIČEVSKIS, INETA KIVLE

No abstract

45-60

Authors: ANNA MAŁECKA, PIOTR MRÓZ

The paper presents a non-standard interpretation of the celebrated Heideggerian existential das Man in terms of its oft-underrated unity with Dasein—an entity of a special ontic-ontological prerogative. The present authors intend to highlight this essential theme in terms of the specific unity of Dasein being-in-the world, covering many subsequent and adjacent existentials in the analytics of the Heideggerian existential hermeneutics, especially Mitsein/Mitdasein. Dasein’s existence-essence is based on the structure of possibilities, and hence free, spontaneous choices, while Das Man is a concrete choice of a certain modus of existence rendering—as it were—all other modi invalid and non-operational. Although Heidegger is far from taking up an ethical or moral stance in its traditional understanding, he is quite adamant that the phenomenon of das Man invalidates a truly human project of existing one’s own possibilities—to wit—be oneself (Jemeines).

77-95

Authors: ANNA KHAKHALOVA

The paper intends to supplement the studies of emotional affordances of BAA by elaborating on the conception of participatory sense-making as well as developmental studies on joint attention and interattentionality. I address different spheres of expertise from the experience-based phenomenological perspective, which allows exploring the problem both from the first-person and second-person perspectives. This research presents the conception of inter-selfness that carries on M. Merleau-Ponty’s idea of intercorporeality, T. Fuchs’ et al. analysis of intersubjectivity and phenomenologically oriented psychoanalysis by E. Z. Tronick et al., R. Stolorow et al. The mechanism of BAA is presented through the conception of participatory sense-making and the idea of minimal inter-attentionality in developmental studies. The paper presents an emotional affordances scheme that illustrates the emotional regulation of BAA. By examining this process of regulation one could see in what way the self becomes an inter-self in communication. The article also postulates correlation between cultural mediation of emotional affordances and their direct accessibility from the second-person perspective. In the last part of the paper, I examine social interaction from the viewpoint of developmental studies (C. Trevarthen, V. Reddy, M. Carpenter). The developmental perspective supplements the idea of emotional regulation in interaction, by focusing on primary such forms of BAA between a caregiver and a baby, as joint attention and mutual gaze. Herein, I demonstrate how the initial forms of the positive bodily-affective attunement develop into the interattentionality and self-representation practices of the subject. This point could contribute to the theory of personal identity by exploring the process of maturing of the sense of self in its different aspects. The results of the research could be useful for further study of BAA and its pathologies. The results could also be of use for the discussion on non-human or human-like affordance-based technological interaction theory.

108-122

Authors: RIHARDS KŪLIS

The secularized and rational-oriented mindset of the Western civilization does not preclude important elements of a religious worldview. The objective of the present study is to come to understand the role the categories of Being and God play in the present day spiritual situation. Heidegger’s and Rahner’s views are considered here within the prospective of the paradigmatic process. The latter marks the fading away of the classical understanding of God and search for new and divine meanings. Therefore I suggest considering some of the most significant motifs in the two philosophers’ reflection as regards the history of western civilization and our epoch in the context of the categories of God and Being. Among these motifs there are such attitudes as subjectivism, self-suggestion, disposal of beings, planetarism, oblivion of Being, loss of origins, groundlessness, alienation, situation of meaninglessness. It is due to these attitudes, especially owing to meaninglessness, that many people tend to raise again the issue of the concealed, the encompassing, God or Being. Or perhaps speaking about “Being” and “God” can be interpreted as something that leads to the oblivion of Being and to atheism. “Being” in Heidegger and “God” in Rahner single out the existential centre to which forms of life are related. Nowadays it is forgotten or even vanishes. “God” or “Being” hold everything together and confer meaning thereto. Could it be exactly what modern man is in search of? One has to find answers to these questions.

140-162

Authors: MĀRA KIOPE

Phenomenology contains potential that can be expanded to include the development of cognitive phenomenology concepts. One of the most notable works in this area is related to the name of Stanislavs Ladusāns (Staņislavs Ladusāns, 1912–1993), the famous Latvian and Brasilian philosopher. The article will outline the key elements of S. Ladusāns’s phenomenology of cognition, showing how his many-sided gnoseology was developed as the basis for multidimensional humanism to transform culture into a more humane one. At first phenomenology of cognition is discussed as the ground of many-sided humanism. The notion of many-sided or multidimensional humanism clearly affirms that human understanding about the human itself is based on a plurality of principles. At the end of the seventies Stanislavs Ladusāns decided to realise the philosophy-as-rigorous-science approach—a clear citation of Husserlian idea—and to concentrate attention on the human person within the manifold relations—providing his/her existential experience. All the system of rigorous science of many-sided humanism should be grounded on the theory of cognition. On the basis of epistemology, Ladusāns wants to build a unified picture of human existence, including the discoveries of many sciences and integrating them into multidimensional humanism through philosophy. Meanwhile the phenomenology of cognition in its final form as it is appears in the monograph Gnosiologia Pluridimensional (1992) was build up by Stanislavs Ladusāns during many decades. One of the first most important episodes in this process was the reinterpretation of the Thomistic concept of induction. Stanislavs Ladusāns deals with the conception of the general critical reflection by demonstrating the judgment-formation of the mind. Ladusāns holds that the sensual experience providing material contents of our knowledge displays certain nexuses between forms of experience, these may be transferred onto general inductive judgements. The second significant episode in the construction of system of the phenomenology of cognition is linked with the concept of “doubling-of-cognition-structure” by which the religious, spiritual experience becomes philosophically legitimate. Even in the case of religion the objective evidence comes first; it gives an opportunity to reason to ascertain about the existence of God. Stanislavs Ladusāns places phenomenology of cognition or many-sided gnoseology at the corner-stone of his programme of cultural regeneration. The capacity of reason is incapable for revigoration of culture—these are overestimated or underestimated—this has to be established in a truly gnoseological investigation. In the context of critics of culture and ideologies is presented Ladusāns’ correspondence with Welte and Heidegger, which reveals the intensive quest for thinking about being that where characteristic of the seventies of the last century aspiring towards the grasping of the Highest Being.

186-211

Authors: ULDIS VĒGNERS

Temporality is one of the key components of our experience, but the experience of time is hardly one and the same for all of us throughout our lives. The experience of time in its entirety is not solid and simple. It is a fluid and complex phenomenon consisting of a multitude of dimensions. In medical phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology there are ample cases of different temporal experiences analysed in the context of the illness experience. However, only a few attempts have been made to propose a conceptual framework that could not only be used to conduct a concrete analysis in a more systematic manner, but also provide a solid and comprehensive theoretical basis. The aim of this article is to draw on the rich distinctions found in Husserl’s phenomenology to outline a framework of different temporal dimensions for the analysis of temporal experience. The framework could provide conceptual tools to analyse temporal experiences in any field of study that deals with the human experience, including medical phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology. The resulting analysis would be not only clearer, more comprehensive and precise, but also more systematic and conceptually consistent. The framework consists of fourteen dimensions of temporal experience ordered in seven binary distinctions: (1) change and structure, (2) immanence and transcendence, (3) ownness and intersubjectivity, (4) passivity and activity, (5) receptivity and spontaneity, (6) presentation and representation, (7) unthematized temporality and thematized temporality.

232-257

Authors: VIRGIL W. BROWER

The primary focus of this project is the silent and subvocal speech-recognition interface unveiled in 2018 as an ambulatory device wearable on the neck that detects a myoelectrical signature by electrodes worn on the surface of the face, throat, and neck. These emerge from an alleged “intending to speak” by the wearer silently-saying-something-to-oneself. This inner voice is believed to occur while one reads in silence or mentally talks to oneself. The artifice does not require spoken sounds, opening the mouth, or any explicit or external movement of the lips. The essay then considers such subvocal “speech” as a mode of writing or saying and the interior of the mouth or oral cavity as its writing surface. It briefly revisits discussions of telepathy to recontextualize Heidegger’s warning against enframing language exclusively within calculative technics and physiology, which he suggests is detrimental to Mundarten (mouth-modes of regional dialects). It closes in reconsideration of Husserl’s phenomenology of language and meaning in Ideas as it might apply to subvocal speech-recognition interfaces. It suggests ways by which the electrophysiology that the device detects and deciphers (as an alleged intention of a presumed natural language unspoken vocally or aloud) might supplement Husserl’s insinuation of the Leiblichkeit of language through a self-stamping extraction of an extension of meaning.

268-285

Authors: ONUR KARAMERCAN

Although Heidegger’s explicit account of “poetic dwelling” belongs to his later philosophy, there are important indications that he was already engaging with the core matter of the notion in his early thought. Contrary to the idea that in Being and Time, “dwelling” amounts to mere practical coping with the environment, we would like to demonstrate that the notion is already a poetic issue in his early thought, as it requires the appropriation of our relation to the world via an authentic experience of finitude. Following a topological mode of thinking, the paper thematizes the connections between Heidegger’s early and later thought, and elucidates the following three points: First, “freeing” and “letting” appears as the appropriate ethos of a poetic experience of finitude, one that maintains the “clearing” of meaningfulness. Second, a topological reading of Being and Time can explicate the notions of authenticity and inauthenticity as different disclosures of the clearing where human being-world correlation occurs. Third, the notion of “keeping-still” (Schweigen) can be interpreted as an authentic disposition that frees space for the disclosure of existence. The paper concludes that an authentic experience of finitude through “stillness” appears to reorient human ethos by releasing “discourse” from absorption in “idle-talk” and that such an act of existential re-orientation of one’s disposition towards the world is the essence of “authenticity,” and Heidegger’s early “poetic dwelling”.

305-311

Authors: RAIVIS BIČEVSKIS, VALTERS ZARIŅŠ

Book review focuses on two books by Gunther Neumann, dedicated to the thought of Heidegger and Leibniz. If one of the books deals specifically with the understanding of freedom in both of the two philosophers, then the other one deals more with Heidegger’s three approaches to Leibniz’s thought: (1) Interpretation of Leibniz in the context of the making of fundamental ontology and in Being and Time, as well as the reading of Leibniz after Being and Time; (2) Interpretation of Leibniz during the transition to Ereignis thought; (3) Interpetation of Leibniz in the framework of Ereignis thought. Author’s scrupulous close reading approach allows to show the changes in Heidegger’s approach to Leibniz’s philosophy, as well as sketch out the placement of Leibniz’s great themes on the horizon of Heidegger’s history of the truth of being. Author also shows that from metaphysics there stems a certain view in the modern philosophical discussions oriented on neurosciences—a certain view on the human being and on the freedom of will. On this background Heidegger appears as a thinker who has looked beyond the alloy of metaphysics and sciences, in which the concept of freedom has been greatly restricted. Heidegger manages (thanks to the radical questioning of Being) to turn the view on the problem of freedom, which appears in G. Neumann’s books as the main problem of philosophy—through the contact of Leibniz’s thought and Heidegger’s.

320-327

Authors: JAROSLAVA VYDROVÁ

The collective volume Early Phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe: Main Figures, Ideas, and Problems, edited by Witold Płotka and Patrick Eldridge, enriches the ongoing and highly topical research of the history of phenomenology with the thematization of a specific period and localization of phenomenology. The authors of eleven chapters explore the emergence of phenomenology in local traditions outside the Germanophone area, its appropriation and development, describing the unique forms it acquired in individual environments. The book clarifies the characteristics of the early wave of phenomenology and provides a list of Central and Eastern European phenomenologists who participated in it. On the one hand, the volume is a contribution to historiography, enriching the study of the history of phenomenology thematically and thus contributing to the development of phenomenology itself; on the other hand, it introduces its own set of philosophical problems. These concern methodology and the issue of the Central and Eastern European identity, which is examined through the prism of the development of local traditions of phenomenology. When exploring the latter it is useful to introduce the concept of the marginocentric. This concept, which originated in comparative literature, facilitates an understanding of the unique cultural configuration of a concrete tradition in its communication with internal and external environments.

489-494

Authors: WITOLD PŁOTKA, THOMAS BYRNE

No abstract

513-531

Authors: THOMAS BYRNE

This essay critically assesses Roman Ingarden’s 1915 review of the second edition of Edmund Husserl’s Logical Investigations. I elucidate and critique Ingarden’s analysis of the differences between the 1901 first edition and the 1913 second edition. I specifically examine three tenets of Ingarden’s interpretation. First, I demonstrate that Ingarden correctly denounces Husserl’s claim that he only engages in an eidetic study of consciousness in 1913, as Husserl was already performing eidetic analyses in 1901. Second, I show that Ingarden is misguided, when he asserts that Husserl had fully transformed his philosophy into a transcendental idealism in the second edition. While Husserl does appear to adopt a transcendental phenomenology by asserting–in his programmatic claims–that the intentional content and object are now included in his domain of research, he does not alter his actual descriptions of the intentional relationship in any pertinent manner. Third, I show Ingarden correctly predicts many of the insights Husserl would arrive at about logic in his late philosophy. This analysis augments current readings of the evolution of Ingarden’s philosophy, by more closely examining the development of his largely neglected early thought. I execute this critical assessment by drawing both from Husserl’s later writings and from recent literature on the Investigations. By doing so, I hope to additionally demonstrate how research on the Investigations has matured in the one hundred years since the release of that text, while also presenting my own views concerning these difficult interpretative issues.

552-578

Authors: WITOLD PŁOTKA

The article addresses the popular reading of Ingarden that his aesthetic theory is determined by ontology. This reading seems to suggest that, firstly, aesthetics lacks its autonomy, and, secondly, the subject of aesthetic experience is reproductive, and passive. The author focuses on Ingarden’s aesthetics formulated by him in the period of 1925–1944. Moreover, the study presents selected elements of Ingarden’s phenomenology of aesthetic experience, and by doing so, the author aims at showing how Ingarden’s aesthetics was reconsidered by Blaustein, a student of Ingarden, whose theory seems to lead one beyond the scope of ontology. Blaustein, namely, reconsiders Ingarden’s theory of purely intentional objects by interpreting it in a descriptive-psychological, or phenomenological fashion. The article is divided into four parts. In section 1, the author highlights historical interconnections between Ingarden, and Blaustein. Section 2.1. is devoted to Ingarden’s phenomenological approach towards aesthetic experience as a phasic structure. At this basis, in section 2.2., Ingarden’s early theory of intentional objects is to be discussed. Section 3 concerns Blaustein’s contribution to phenomenology of aesthetic experience. Given that Blaustein formulates his theory in discussion with Ingarden, section 3.1. is devoted to Blaustein’s critical assessment of Ingarden’s method, and aesthetics. Next, in section 3.2., the author presents Blaustein’s original theory of presentations, and its use in aesthetics. Finally, in section 4, the author lists similarities, and differences between Blaustein’s and Ingarden’s aesthetic theories.

601-618

Authors: TOMAS SODEIKA

The Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden gained recognition primarily due to his research on aesthetics. However, he considered the ontology to be the main area of his philosophical interests. At the beginning of his scientific career, Ingarden realized that he could not agree with his teacher Edmund Husserl, who considered phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy. From Ingarden’s point of view, the fallacy of this approach lies in the fact that it leads to metaphysical idealism and makes it impossible to grasp the difference between real-life objects and intentional objects, i.e. objects generated by pure consciousness. In his main work Controversy over the Existence of the World (Der Streit um dieExistenz der Welt), Ingarden tried to identify the difference between the ontological structures of real and intentional objects, expecting in this way to uphold the legitimacy of a realistic point of view and to prove that the real world is not a product of pure consciousness, but exists independently of him. Nevertheless, the result achieved by using the existential and formal ontological analysis of the a priori structures of various objects turned out to be insufficient to refute Husserl’s transcendental idealism. The article focuses on the last lifetime publication of Ingarden—his book On Responsibility. Its Ontic Foundations (Über die Verantwortung. Ihre ontischen Fundamente) published in 1970. Since this work is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of responsibility, it may seem that here we are dealing primarily with research on ethics. The article attempts to show that the book can be read as an ontological study that continues the “debate about the existence of the world,” i.e. as an attempt to prove the reality of the world. However, this proof is no longer based on an analysis of the a priori structures of various objects, but on a direct experience of responsibility.

640-661

Authors: MATTHEW E. GLADDEN

From his earliest published writings to his last, Roman Ingarden displayed an interest in theoretical biology and its efforts to clarify what distinguishes living organisms from other types of entities. However, many of his explorations of such issues are easily overlooked, because they don’t appear in works that are primarily ontological, metaphysical, or anthropological in nature but are “hidden” within his works on literary aesthetics, where Ingarden sought to define the nature of living organisms in order to compare literary works to such entities. This article undertakes a historical textual analysis that traces the evolution of Ingarden’s thought regarding the nature of the literary work of art as an organism-like entity and uncovers its links with the simultaneous development of his systems theory and its central concept of the “relatively isolated system”: for Ingarden, a literary work and an organism are each a systematically transforming, “living,” functional-structural whole that comprises a system of hierarchically arranged and partially isolated (yet interdependent) elements whose harmonious interaction allows the literary work or organism to fulfill its chief function. Having completed that historical analysis, we test Ingarden’s assessment of works of art as organism-like entities in a novel context by investigating the organism-like qualities of the contemporary computer game; insofar as their AI-driven behavior displays a form of agency, such games might appear to be even more “alive” than traditional works of art. We show that Ingarden’s conceptual framework provides a useful tool for understanding the “organicity” of such games as works of art, despite the fact that they differ qualitatively from those art forms with which Ingarden was directly familiar.

683-702

Authors: ROBERT LUZECKY

In the present paper, I suggest a modification to some aspects of Ingarden’s analyses of the sound-synchronized filmic work of art. The argument progresses through two stages: (1) I clarify Ingarden’s claim that the work of art is a stratified formation in which the various aspects present objectivities; (2) I elucidate and critically assess Ingarden’s suggestion that the filmic work of art is a borderline case in respect to other types of works of art—paintings and literary works. Here, I identify a problem with Ingarden’s claims about the function of sound in the concretized filmic work’s presentation of its fictive world. Ingarden identifies the presented universe of the filmic work of art as a habitus of reality, but Ingarden seems oddly conflicted with respect to his notion of habitus. I argue that this stems from Ingarden’s conceptualization of the filmic work of art as primarily composed of the stratum of represented “visible aspects” in both the cases of the silent film and the sound-synchronized film, and his restriction of the role of phonetic content in the latter. I suggest that were we to reconceptualise the role of aurally presented phonetic content in the concretized sound-synchronized film, we could better understand how film has the seeming magical capacity to transfix us.

729-748

Authors: CHARLENE ELSBY

The time of the literary work of art is a schematized aspect of the represented objectivities of the literary work. Roman Ingarden’s analysis of the time of the literary work extends upon Husserl’s phenomenology of time consciousness but nevertheless remains consistent with it, insofar as within a literary work as well as actuality, an objective time or literary objective time is constituted from an experience of temporal objects (or in the case of the work of art, represented objectivities). The time of the literary work of art is experienced through its represented objectivities and depends on an already existent concept of objective time. (We conceive of the time of the literary work of art as a variant of actual time.) The time of the literary work, however, gains an indeterminacy, as the author of the literary work is able to manipulate our experience of time within the literary work by predicting how the reader will concretize its events, characters, and objects with respect to time. I use Alain Robbe-Grillet’s representation of the centipede in La Jalousie as an example of the possible manipulations of time, explicable through Ingarden’s analysis of time in the literary work of art.

760-781

Authors: MARC RICHIR (Trans. by D. Mikhaylov, ed. by D. Chaganova, G. Chernavin)

The article « La Défenestration » by Belgian philosopher Marc Richir has been translated into Russian for the first time for this issue of the “Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology.” In his early work “The Defenestration” Richir raises the question of relation between the subject and conceivable world. Here, a philosopher is pictured contemplating the world through the window of his tower. In such detachment from the world the thinker finds himself according to all Modern philosophies of consciousness. Husserl’s phenomenology inherits this detachment, since Husserl imposes the structure of transcendental ego as external to the world. Richir abolishes the concept of transcendental ego with the help of heideggerian Dasein, but analyzing Heidegger’s ontology he comes to the conclusion that the latter remains fixated on beings. Believing a person to live in the fundamental openness of Being, Heidegger places such a person in the secondary world of “truth.” In order to overcome the remains of traditional philosophy in Heidegger’s ontology Richir turns to Merleau-Ponty’ “cosmology of the visible.” The author takes the Merleau-Ponty’s thesis that everything visible has something fundamentally invisible in it.This allows him to discover the universe of “nothing” (rien), which includes both the visible and whatis “behind” it. As a result Richir overcomes the classical dualism of the sensual and the intelligible. The concept of defenestration places the subject and the world in the same universe.

13-14

Authors: No

No

44-68

Authors: ILYA INISHEV

Key innovation of phenomenological, or philosophical hermeneutics is the treatment of ‘understanding’ not as an operation with symbols and meanings but as an activation of the specific experiential forms, including correlative affective and bodily potentials as well as respective ‘aggregate states’ of the material-perceptual environment. In this regard, understanding is a kind of transposition from one material and bodily configuration into another. In each case, configuration is comprised of ‘subjective’ (experience) and ‘objective’ (milieu) components. But while ‘subjective’ side of ‘hermeneutic phenomenon (‘hermeneutic event’) is elaborated by Gadamer relatively detailed (for example, “theory of hermeneutic experience” makes up the central—systemic—part of Truth and Method), dynamics of the ‘objective’ side (and first of all, of its material dimension) is just indicated by the use of the vivid metaphors (for example, “fusion of horizons” or “increase in being”) or by description of everyday material practices in which ‘microphysics’ of transformative dynamics of ambient environments is implicated but not discussed overtly, as, for example, in case of Gadamer’s references to architecture, décor, and gestures. The problem here is that the ‘strong’ treatment of the transformative potential of hermeneutic experience presupposes the strong transformation affecting not only interpreter’s consciousness but also materiality of his body and ambient environments. The elements of such a ‘strong’ treatment of transformative potential of understanding, we find in Gadamer’s conception of the speculative schematically presented in the two concluding sections of his Truth and Method.

102-128

Authors: LUIGI AZZARITI-FUMAROLI

The postulate of Husserlian phenomenology, according to which evidence is the giving of thought to the thing, also contemplates the possibility that certain ways of givenness may be achieved by transgressing the dynamics proper to intellectual intuition. Thus, the primacy of direct perception would be replaced by a system of relations between thought and thing in respect of which there would be no single evidence. This outcome, rather than the finiteness of human subjectivity, should bring one back to the very essence of the object. Evidence would therefore know a conversion that would make it coincide with the ultimate degree of visibility, corresponding to the invariant element of the object. But the attestation, in Husserl’s reflection, of an a priori rooted in the factual or in a “definitively true world” would imply in turn the assumption of a perspective inclined to a form of realism sustained by a “minimum of reality.” This would entail a phenomenology in which the manifestation of entities is no longer linked to the subjective sphere but to a dimension of self-evidence within which the phenomenon coincides with its own evidence. In this sense Husserl seems to reach the acquiescentia in re ipso of the phenomenon: a dwelling of it in its own essence; a dwelling in which the phenomenon would not reveal itself through any grammar of the visible.

143-161

Authors: ADAM LOVASZ

I seek here to return to the original spirit of Edmund Husserl’s “radicalism.” To be radical means to be both rooted in a tradition and to retrace a path back to one’s roots. According to the position I advocate, phenomenology may be reconceived of as an enterprise in realism. Through a creative rereading of one of phenomenology’s founding texts, Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, I suggest that phenomenology can indeed provide us with a semantics applicable to realist ontologies, provided we excise phenomenological concepts from their subjectivist framework, providing a new structure with which to analyze reality. Specifically, Husserl’s eidetic Apriori may be reconceived as denoting the inherent dynamism of existents. Movement would be the basis of manifestation, a universal category unconditioned in itself. That which appears need not be synonymous with all that which is given to experience. The eidos is the manifold of coiled movements awaiting manifestation, whilst the a priori is movement in itself. Following Graham Harman’s lead, I expand the scope of the Husserlian idea of intentionality, reconceptualizing it as the directionality pertaining to any process whatsoever. Following Jaakko Hintikka, I take the cogito to be nothing other than performativity in its emergent state. Several different phenomenal horizons can connect to the same type of intentionality. The nonlinear nature of temporality means that even radically distant horizons are capable of sharing in the same intentionality. Once reenvisioned as a “genuine universal ontology” (this is Husserl’s expression), phenomenological semantics can be extended to include any and all types of existents. First phenomenology need not maintain the primacy of perception or subjectivity

184-215

Authors: JORGE LUIS MÉNDEZ-MARTÍNEZ

Both Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl addressed sound while trying to explain the inner consciousness of time and gave to it the status of a supporting example. Although their inquiries were not aimed at clarifying in detail the nature of the auditory experience or sounds themselves, they made some interesting observations that can contribute to the current philosophical discussion on sounds. On the other hand, in analytic philosophy, while inquiring the nature of sounds, their location, auditory experience or the audible qualities and so on, the representatives of that trend of thought have remained silent about the depiction of sound and the auditory phenomena in the phenomenological tradition. The paper’s intention is to relate both endeavours, yet the perspective carried out is that of analytic philosophy and, thus, I pay special attention to conceptual analysis as a methodological framework. In this sense, I first explain what sound ontology is in the context of analytic philosophy and the views that it encompasses—namely, the Property View (PV), the Wave View (WV) and the Event View (EV)—. Secondly, I address the problems it entails, emphasising that of sound individuation. In a third section, I propose the possibly controversial conjunction of a “Brentano-Husserl Analysis of the Consciousness of Time” (for short “Brentano-Husserl analysis”) and outline the commonalities of both authors, without ignoring its discrepancies. My main focus is Husserl’s 1905 Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des Inneren Zeitbewusstseins. While addressing the Brentano-Husserl analysis, I elaborate on the problem of temporal and spatial extension (Raumlichkeit and Zeitlichkeit, respectively) of both consciousness and sound. Such comparison is a key one, since after these two developments, one can notice some theoretical movements concerning the shift of attention from sounds to the unity of consciousness, and how they mirror each other. After examining the controversial claims concerning the temporal and spatial extension of both consciousness and sound, I argue in the concluding paragraphs that while considering the accounts of sound ontology, the Brentano-Husserl analysis would probably endorse a Property View and that this could have interesting consequences for the issue of Sound Individuation.

235-255

Authors: BORIS SOKOLOV

“Blindness” to the problem of the symbol necessarily follows from the main positions of the research strategy of Husserl phenomenology. However, both noema and noesis, as well as the flow of cogitations in our minds are initially infected with symbolism, and therefore the project of phenomenological description needs a “symbolic correction.” The supposed and experienced object is supposed as a symbolically filled object, and the position of the ego describing, constituting, experiencing its object is not only initially infected with cultural symbolism, but also represents the “assemblage point” of any phenomenon as a “constellation” formation. Symbolism is initially “embedded” in any phenomenon and in any scheme of “pure” consciousness. Correspondingly, the flow of phenomena that can be subjected to both noematic and noetic description proceeds according to various “scenarios,” “schemes,” which are nationally and culturally based, and do not follow the single universal route (Past, Present, Future), which is peculiar only to the new European model of time. This drawback of Husserl’s project was overcome in varying degrees by some phenomenologically oriented philosophers. The author of the article analyzes one of such “symbolic adjustments” by reference to the poetic topology (microphenomenology) of poetic image of the Home in the text of French philosopher G. Bachelard.

275-282

Authors: SACHA CARLSON, ANNA YAMPOLSKAYA

The aim of this paper is to present and briefly comment on our Russian translation of the first of Phenomenological Meditations of Marc Richir (1943-2005), a key figure of the “New French Phenomenology” (a term of Gondek and Tengelyi). Richir develops a phenomenological architectonics by distinguishing between the “symbolic” and “phenomenological” layers of sense. The symbolic sense, as a sense that is already instituted or that could be instituted, is opposed to the phenomenological sense, which is a sense in formation. The sphere of the phenomenological can be reached by way of a new, more radical reduction, which Richir calls a “hyperbolic reduction.” Richir’s phenomenological project nova methodo opens up new possibilities for the transcendental phenomenology.

306-323

Authors: 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.

355-365

Authors: ADONIS FRANGESKOU

The aim of this paper is to respond to Anna Yampolskaya’s challenge to the interpretative strategy of my book, Levinas, Kant and the Problematic of Temporality. I intend to refute her claim that by effectively withdrawing the problematic of sensibility from view my book has forgotten, or, at the very least, shaded the Rosenzweigian requirement of concreteness that Levinas first inherited from Heidegger, and to refute her corollary argument that my ethical reading of the schematism in Kant’s First Critique is not sufficiently justified because it suspends the problem of the symbolic imagination in Kant’s Third Critique. This double refutation will require me to reiterate the concrete unveiling of the Kantian schematism in Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant (according to its destruction of the schematism of the categories) and in Levinas’s explication of Rosenzweig (such as it unfolds a more radical destruction of the schematism of the ideas). It will also require me to demonstrate precisely how this ideal notion of the Kantian schematism in the form of the regulative ideas of pure reason (and more specifically, in the form of the regulative idea of God) is indeed read by Levinas himself in the ethical terms of the equivocation or enigma of diachrony, that is, in the ethical terms of his philosophy of ambiguity (such as it adheres to the Kantian antinomies). This is the interpretation that I propose to defend against Yampolskaya’s claim that my ethical reading of the First Critique should have taken this ambiguous form of rationality seriously.

373-381

Authors: INETA KIVLE, RAIVIS BIČEVSKIS, KRIŠJĀNIS LĀCIS

The current report gives an overview of The International Interdisciplinary Conference: To Let Things Be! Edmund Husserl 160, Martin Heidegger 130 , which took place at the University of Latvia, December 10-12, 2019. The report outlines the philosophical aims of the conference, analyses the contribution of the researchers from fifteen countries around the world, and introduces the main conclusions concerning the interdisciplinary development of phenomenology.

384-417

Authors: ALEXEY SALIN, NATALIA SAFRONOVA

The main goal of the book Vitality of Phenomenology/Lebendigkeit der Phänomenologie (ed. by Giovanni Jan Giubilato) is not only to outline the variety of philosophical movements that emerged within the field of phenomenology, but also to demonstrate the “vitality” and relevance of phenomenological ideas in the contemporary philosophy. The underlying assumption of the book is that phenomenology by its definition should stay an open project: even if some “discoveries” have been already made in this field, there still stays a possibility of renewal and transformation of our experiences and modes of contemplation. Thus, the movement of phenomenological thought always presupposes a certain kind of circularity and interplay between tradition and renewal. Therefore, the present miscellany of articles aims to cover a wide scope of ideas, which are crucial for the phenomenological tradition, and to show how they function in the contemporary thought. Connections between phenomenology and analytic philosophy of mind, phenomenology and hermeneutics, phenomenology and deconstruction, phenomenology and neorealism, and even the phenomenological implications in political philosophy are all brought to light by this stimulating book.

435-445

Authors: SVETLANA NIKONOVA

Haas’ Unity and Aspect reveals a philosophical impulse that leads to the creation of a new form of language for posing the questions that belong to first philosophy. This philosophical intuition should be appraised within the historical and philosophical development of metaphysical thought which demonstrates its self-destructive nature (as Heidegger argues with respect to “European Nihilism”) through a critique of traditional concepts and questions, which subsequently leads to the deconstruction of metaphysics as such. The experience of metaphysical thought—its critique as well as the deconstruction of its critical impulse—can be defined as traumatic; and in a certain sense, Haas’ work is an attempt to overcome the trauma underlying the entire project of contemporary philosophical searching. Unity and Aspect’s turn to metaphysics is a consequence of an opposition to the language of rational thought and its deconstruction. Haas introduces new concepts, therefore, such as implication and illumination, in order to problematize and “suspend” the idea of human consciousness and personality in its special stance towards the world. It is certain that the questions of first philosophy and metaphysics are extremely relevant for the contemporary thought, yet, the privileged stance of consciousness is radically rejected by some schools, as for instance, by speculative realism. Thus, we try to show that the language posed by Haas brings, in a certain sense, the problems of phenomenology closer to those of speculative realism by sublating the difference in their intentions.

456-465

Authors: KATE KHAN

Is there a chance to grasp the reachness and the variety of my emotional feeling to reflect upon it, not reducing it to the irrational state of mind or primary instinctive reaction? How can we describe the structure of emotional state, and does it affects our (self)understanding? How do I perceive something as valuable, what does it mean to be affected, to feel hatred or shame? The presented review highlights these issues together with the main historical topics and some other notions, that has been focused upon in the essays, included into the volume of Phenomenology of Emotions, Systematical and Historical Perspectives (2018). The early phenomenological projects of A. Pfaender, E. Husserl, M. Scheler and E. Stein, that has been introduced from the historical point of view, provide a range of questions for phenomenological theory of emotions to be developed further. In this review, I provide a brief overview of the contributions to this volume to show how this new “regional ontology” has emerged and what is the possible role of phenomenology in the “interplay” of arguments of analytical philosophy, cognitive and neurobiological approaches to consciousness and emotional sphere.

469–470

Authors: RONNY MIRON, SIMONA BERTOLINI

No

473–475

Authors: DALIUS JONKUS

No

353-388

Authors: MARCO CAVALLARO, GEORGE HEFFERNAN

This paper treats of Husserl’s phenomenology of happiness or eudaimonia in five parts. In the first part, we argue that phenomenology of happiness is an important albeit relatively neglected area of research, and we show that Husserl engages in it. In the second part, we examine the relationship between phenomenological ethics and virtue ethics. In the third part, we identify and clarify essential aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology of happiness, namely, the nature of the question concerning happiness and the possibility of a phenomenological answer, the power of the will, the role of vocation, the place of obligation, the significance of habituation, the necessity of self-reflection and self-criticism, the importance of sociability and solidarity, the impact of chance and destiny, and the specter of regret. In the fourth part, we establish the inextricable linkage between Husserl’s metaethics and his metaphysics. In the fifth part, we provide a provisional exploration of his conception of the connection between happiness and blessedness. We acknowledge that there is an extensive literature on Husserl’s phenomenological ethics, and our study has benefitted greatly from it, but we also suggest that our holistic approach critically clarifies his description of happiness, virtue, and blessedness by fully recognizing that his phenomenological metaethics is embedded in his phenomenological metaphysics.

409-441

Authors: NATALIA ARTEMENKO

The problem of passive constitution in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology is worthy of particular attention, since it is passive constitution, rather than active conscious constitution, which can be considered to be one of the focal points of 20th century philosophy. Thematisation of the sphere of passivity is related to resolving the problem of intersubjectivity. The elaboration of the problem of intersubjectivity is not so much a response to an externally cast reproach ‘in solipsism’ as an internal theme of phenomenology itself. Husserl aspired to establish phenomenological science as being of universal significance to everybody, but in order to make this discipline significant, i.e. in order to make it necessary for everyone else, it was primarily necessary to prove the existence of these other Selves or of the transcendental subjects. I will elaborate on the history of the consideration which Husserl gave to the problem of intersubjectivity, in order to clarify how his attempts to resolve the problem of intersubjectivity, based on the activity of the Self, led to an egocentric model, and in turn how the need to overcome this model led to the thematisation of the genesis of subjectivity, and the detection of passivity as the very basis of such genesis. According to my working hypothesis, it was largely the demand for thematisation of the genesis of the sense of ‘the Other’ which influenced the modification of the phenomenological method. Finally, I will turn to the concept of primary subjectivity, or Ur-Ich, in order to bring into focus the methodological significance of distinguishing the proto-Self for the substantiation of intersubjectivity, since only in its ‘context’ does the ultimate level of the foundation of the individual Self appear to be not merely a deeper level of consciousness, or the history of a universal subject, but the absolute subjectivity, as a field of intersubjective interaction in which the individual subject is awakened (individualized) to self-constitution in the world. Only then can we reconsider the constitution of the individual Self as being primarily passive, as being permeated by the primordial passive, independent from the Self, aiming for the co-constitution of the intersubjective world.

460-486

Authors: ONDŘEJ BERAN

The paper explores some philosophical consequences of the phenomenological criticisms addressed (indirectly) to logical positivism. It introduces arguments by Husserl and Patočka concerning the duality inherent to the notion of world, as suggested by modern scientism: the real world is alleged to be different from, and hidden behind, the everyday appearance (perception) of the world and things within it. Carnap’s project of reconstructing (scientific) knowledge in reductionist terms of psychological—atomic sense-data—and, ultimately, physical objects distinguishes him from Husserl: for the latter, meaningful experience originates in primitive encounters with meaningful things. Both, however, share a certain preoccupation with reductionist analyses of scientific rigour, while this tendency has been abandoned in Wittgenstein’s works. His expanded notion of verification betrays motivations of a phenomenological kind. He tries to show that the relationship between simpler and more complex contents of knowledge is a relationship between contents playing different, but interlinked, roles within our practices of understanding and making ourselves intelligible. Understanding other people and the events in their lives in terms of a soul (and what happens to it) is not a marginal, eccentric, or derivative case: it is the central, primitive form of this understanding. Wittgenstein’s working with the notion of ‘soul’ parallels Husserl’s analyses from Ideas II

502-515

Authors: IVANA ANTON MLINAR

This paper aims to analyze neuropsychiatric pathological experiences (as thought insertion and delusions of control) in which features intrinsic to subjectivity are deeply affected to the extent that the first-person perspective is lost, an essential core of the subjective condition. The distinction between the sense of agency and the sense of ownership is addressed, in particular in the context of unbidden thoughts and thought insertion. A gradualist reading of the distinction is suggested, and the problem of phenomenological adequacy of the sense of agency for thoughts is raised. Descriptive arguments are provided to show what a minimal self consists of and how it is possible that it does not get lost in extreme neuro- and psycho-pathologies, including a puzzling phenomenon such as terminal lucidity, the case in which an unexpected return of mental clarity and memory take place shortly before death in patients suffering from severe psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Based on these phenomena it is suggested that subjectivity may be underlain by some ‘mechanisms’ different from those usually assigned by neuroscientific models of normal brains. Finally, the challenges that emerge both for neurology and for phenomenological analysis are set out, opening new paths for the research and comprehension of subjectivity.

536-572

Authors: MIKHAIL BELOUSOV

According to principle of all principles, formulated in §24 of Ideas I, every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of all cognition. The principle is the one of givenness, and, as such, it seems to show the limits of philosophical problematization, since the true givenness leaves no room for sensible questions and is, as Husserl puts it, the absolute matter of course. Proceeding from the key differences and intuitions of Husserlian phenomenology, I show instead that bringing phenomena to phenomenological givenness does not eliminate them, but, on the contrary, constitutes them as problematic. In grounding this thesis in the first section of the article I start with analyzing differences underlying the problematics of givenness in phenomenology. These are the correlative differences between empty and fulfilled intention and between meaning and fulfilling sense, which are introduced in Logical Investigations. In the second section I show that the Husserlian idea of final fulfillment as strict phenomenological evidence—eliminating the surplus of meaning in relation to the givenness and hence, at first sight, depriving the phenomenon of its problematical character—is, at the same time, the idea of final ‘emptying’ of meaning which turns it into the problem. In view of this, the article puts together the Husserlian description of final fulfillment with the analysis of the phenomenon of death in Heidegger’s Being and Time to demonstrate their affinity. In the third section, relying on Hans Jonas’ description of metabolism, I draw an analogy between the relation between organism and matter and the one between problem and givenness to substantiate the thesis that problematicity is not a philosophical dead end, but the constitutive feature of life and life-world.

602-612

Authors: JAN JOSL

The Socratic theme of care for the soul expresses in Patočka’s late thought his desire to keep the understanding of human existence as a place of turn, metanoia, of struggle between authenticity and inauthenticity. This tendency not only goes against Heidegger and his late philosophy, but is also opposed to Patočka’s own earlier project of asubjective phenomenology as well. This essay argues, firstly, that the importance of subjectivity and existential dimension is still present in art and secondly, that art represents for Patočka sort of care for the soul. The argument has three stages. First, I demonstrate what Patočka means by soul or experience of soul and how we should understand the term ‘care.’ I argue that what Patočka understands under the concept of soul consists has freedom, krisis, and physis as its main features. The second part demonstrates that in Patočka’s view, these features are present in art. The last part compares art and philosophy as two kinds of care for the soul and demonstrates the limits of art as care of the soul. My conclusion is that art represents for Patočka a limited form of care for the soul compared to philosophy. However, according to Patočka, in current situation it is the only way of care for the soul that is left.

632-640

Authors: EKATERINA ANANIEVA

The 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.

670-675

Authors: ALEXANDER PROKHOROV

his paper aims to introduce the translation of Saul Kripke’s influential text to Russian-speaking readers. It shows that the work of American philosopher should be of interest and be useful among the phenomenologists especially. Kripke criticizes the reference theory of Russell and Frege and Hintikka’s logical analysis of the “cogito ergo sum” statement. In both cases he defends his own views on the predicate of existence and shows the change of its status depending on the kind of entity in every particular proposition. The mode of quantifier depends on a given situation which is described in the statement and in some cases the quantifier determines the conditions of the statement’s truth-value. Kripke shows that classical reference theories have no universal meaning; without a set of special stipulations they can only be applicable under limited conditions. He appeals to fiction and myth and writes about fictional characters as a special kind of abstract entities which exist in virtue of the activities of human beings and their interrelations. Kripke scrutinizes the possible relations between a fictional character and his historical prototype. The battery of his examples, his own reference theory including an entity as its core, his ontology of fictional reality and sophisticated philosophical technics are extremely useful materials to explain basic problems of classical phenomenology such as reduction, modification of a phenomenon in imagination, and regional ontologies. All of this provides tools helpful for the practical work of a phenomenologist. In particular, Kripke’s investigations and especially his examples about higher level fictions (fictions within fictions) could be used in the framework of the phenomenology of language when one needs to describe the interlocations of an author, a reader, and a fictional reality before undertaking noetic and noematic analysis.

707-724

Authors: ANNA SHIYAN, OLEG MUKHUTDINOV

The 4th annual international scientific seminar “Transcendental turn in modern philosophy: transcendental metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of science, theology and philosophy of consciousness” was held in Moscow from 18 to 20 April 2019. The review of the seminar reflects the structure of the event and presents the main content of the reports of its participants. The priority theme of the seminar was the problem of transcendental metaphysics. Within the framework of this topic, issues related to the understanding of transcendental metaphysics in Kant, Husserl and Hartmann were discussed, the problems of transcendental and phenomenological theory of consciousness were considered. Special attention was paid to actual issues of transcendental epistemology and philosophy of science, as well as transcendental theology and ethics. The seminar was distinguished not only by professional international composition, but also by a variety of methodological approaches: the idea of transcendental metaphysics was considered from the point of view of classical tradition, as well as from the perspective of analytical and phenomenological philosophy. The content of the seminar reports was devoted to the study of the phenomena of transcendentalism and idealism, world and consciousness, transcendental subjectivity and intersubjectivity. In addition, the seminar discussed the problems of transcendental substantiation of phenomenological metaphysics, theoretical science, theology and practical philosophy. The seminar once again demonstrated the crucial role of the transcendental method for the development of modern philosophy and science.

733-739

Authors: SUSANNE MOSER

The present review of Yvanka B. Raynova’s book Being, Sense and Values aims to outline its contribution to a long debate about the so-called “crisis of philosophy.” Unfolding the diverse facets of this discussion in the phenomenological schools, Raynova displays how the crisis of reason led to a crisis of meaning and of being. According to her, this axiological insecurity came to a head in the area of responsibility, human dignity and human rights and led to the necessity of a rethinking of history and community. The hidden purpose of her analyses is to show the usefulness of philosophy as a basic knowledge, without which the concept of the fundamental values and the history of human rights, upon which the European Community is based, cannot be understood and further developed. What is special about Raynova’s approach is that she is well balanced in her interpretations, letting the various viewpoints to enter in an appreciative polylogue. By combining and transforming Ricoeur’s dialectical method of suspicion and his discursive mediation into a translative and comparative hermeneutics, and applying it in a problem related manner, Raynova displays the various perspectives of the classics of phenomenology demonstrating convincingly their importance for contemporary European thought.

760-762

Authors: ANDREI PATKUL

No

11-16

Authors: ALEXEI KRIOUKOV, ANDREI PATKUL

No abstract

33-51

Authors: KEITH R. PETERSON

Was Nicolai Hartmann a phenomenologist? Answering this question has become more important in the context of debates over new realisms in Continental philosophy. To answer it, the paper highlights five important points. First, Hartmann’s own distinction between the phenomenological school of thought and phenomenological method must be preserved. He does not accept the sweeping humanistic opposition between the sciences and phenomenology, and yet (like the phenomenologists) he employs a method that aims to provide a description of phenomena following on a suspension of metaphysical commitments that is directed at their essential structures, with some important qualifications. Secondly, he rejects the phenomenological reduction because it identifies the natural attitude with a metaphysical standpoint and it advocates instead a ‘naïve consciousness’ free of metaphysical assumptions. Thirdly, his assessment of phenomenology is conditioned by his conception of cognition as a transcendent act. He finds that phenomenology fails to adequately account for the whole phenomenon of cognition, especially its characteristic grasp of something independent of the act. Fourthly, Hartmann grants the irreducibility of phenomena, but holds that they are characteristically unstable, referring to something beyond themselves and forcing us to decide whether what they show is genuine or not. There is thus no infallible intuition of phenomena. Finally, from an epistemological perspective, the concept being-in-itself is merely a counterpart to the concept of the phenomenon, which we do not need for the purposes of ontology. Based on this reassessment, it is concluded that Hartmann employs some form of the phenomenological method but cannot be identified as a phenomenologist.

67-86

Authors: MAXIM GUSEV

The article addresses two versions of returning to ontology and two views on the nature of ontology. The aim of the article is to reveal the way two 20th century philosophers—Nicolai Hartmann and Martin Heidegger—saw the meaning and purpose of ontology, as well as the answer to the question as to why each of them thought that the other’s ontological approach was fundamentally flawed. My investigation is based on Hartmann’s book Ontology: Laying the Foundations and Heidegger’s book Being and Time. Hartmann’s option of returning to ontology implies the question about being as being. It is impossible to reduce being as being (being as such) to being in some definite, limited sense. Thus, being as being possesses absolute universality and cannot be defined, albeit one can distinguish some structure in it. Not only being is always both being-there (Dasein) and being-so (Sosein), but being is also always either real or ideal. Hartmann is certain that the restriction of being as being to being in some definite sense and the miscomprehension of that four-component system leads up to various errors. According to Hartmann, Heidegger misses the ontological question because he puts the question on being as it is given instead of that on being as it is in itself. According to Heidegger, Hartmann misses the ontological question because he stays on the grounds of the unrestricted speculations instead of understanding being and its meaning by means of being itself. The question arises as to who of them is right. As a matter of fact, there are no arguments that both philosophers would deem acceptable. Each of them is deaf to the opponent’s opinion. In addition, we are not obligated to accept neither Heidegger nor Hartman’s opinion because there are certainly more than just two views on ontology.

103-122

Authors: GREGOR SCHIEMANN

The conception that the world can be represented as a system of levels of being can be traced back to the beginnings of European philosophy and has lost little of its plausibility in the meantime. One of the important modern conceptions of levels was developed by Nicolai Hartmann. It exhibits remarkable similarities and contrasts with the classification of the real developed by Werner Heisenberg in his paper Ordnung der Wirklichkeit (Order of Reality). In my contribution I will introduce these two conceptions of levels and compare their salient features. I will discuss them as variants of a scientific worldview that attempts to forge a link to the perspective of the lifeworld. Then I will go on to argue that the shortcomings of these conceptions can be remedied by extending them with the level of the very small and that of the very large. The introduction of these ontologically fundamental levels is based on scientific knowledge that for the most part eludes the intuitively representable character of lifeworld experience. Historical changes in science and the lifeworld could lead to the notion that reality can be represented as a system of levels being challenged in future.

140-159

Authors: ANDREA SCANZIANI

The work aims at presenting an interpretation of Nicolai Hartmann’s investigation of teleology, which would make possible a confrontation with Kant’s critical philosophy and teleological thought. Kant’s influence on the theoretical position assumed by Hartmann regarding the problem of finality is elucidated in the article. Kant’s influence on Hartmann will be explained in two steps: by considering the definition of purposiveness as a heuristic principle and by analyzing Hartmann’s approach to the problem of human freedom. Then Hartmann’s analysis of the categories is addressed, the philosopher’s exposition of the origin of the final nexus in the structure of consciousness being fundamental for his entire interpretation of the problem of teleology. By means of that, the faculty of consciousness to set for itself a purpose and its temporality as the origin of this faculty are analyzed. Hence, the question about the categorical claim of finality turns into the problem concerning its position with respect to the level of Being as exposed by Hartmann. Following that, the case of the organic is investigated, where the question of teleology is crucially at stake. Even though finality and purposiveness are necessarily given as related to a consciousness, this latter cannot represent something dominating the world and the organic. That excludes the possibility of finality in the organic—at least in this form. Considering Kant’s influence on defining the heuristic principle and causality of human freedom, monism in the determinations of reality is excluded in principle, while the position and possibility of finality in nature are newly defined.

182-210

Authors: FRIEDRICH HAUSEN

In Nicolai Hartmanns view, values are objective ideal beings and objective norms (Wo = No — thesis). So, his value-theory seems synthetic, complex, and highly defeasible. Being valuable doesn’t imply obligation. In my investigations, I will show one of the ways in which the how the Wo = No — thesis can be grounded. I will start from Hartmann’s level-ontology and argue that at the psychological level values (as types of being valuable) are determined with prima-facie-necessity, while at the level of spirit—within its constitutive interdependencies of personnel spirit, objective spirit, and objectivated spirit—they don’t. At the level of spirit (as normative sphere), values appear as super-formed to norms. The possibility of normative relevant decision is grounded in the relative autonomy of the level of spirit in relation to the psychological level and in dependencies between persons and institutions. For defeating strong cultural relativist implications of this approach, I will argue on the ground of a counterfactually modelled response-theory of obligation. A source of obligation are valuable goods, we receive since our birth and which determine that we owe a worthy response to the givers. An idealized-generalized obligation under response-theoretical conditions as the content of the normative expectation of an ideal expectator could concern the realization of values, how it is claimed by value-ethics. I will conclude, that in respect to different features of normativity, such conception cannot ground normativity in the strong sense of factual ought, but normativity in a weaker sense of counterfactual ought. It seems plausible, that what is good, should—under certain conditions—be realized, if possible.

230-246

Authors: VADIM PEROV

The purpose of this article is to analyze the problem of conflict of values in N. Hartman’s ethics. According to Hartmann, ‘the old ethics’ related the concept of conflict to contradictions that arise between ‘values’ and ‘anti-values.’ This approach to moral values is associated with the problem of normative philosophical ethics. This article shows that Hartman privileged other types of conflicts of values that are more important for the existence of morality. Hartman notes that most of the various values can be reduced to a certain harmony of values. But there are values that are so contradictory in content that in specific situations they are fundamentally mutually exclusive. In such cases, it is not a conflict between the moral and immoral (value and anti-value), but between the moral and moral. In addition, there are conflicts that arise in the process of learning values. Each new conflict in life confronts a person with the need to make a moral decision and thus leads her to the comprehension of new values. Hartman believes that neither the particular man nor mankind has a conscious goal of learning values, but the whole history of mankind constitutes the process of discovery of moral values—be it within the limits of historical existence, or within the limits of a personal moral worldview. The article substantiates the idea that Hartmann’s moral philosophy of formulates a fundamentally new notion for the history of ethics—namely, the notion of the conflict of values having a positive role to play in ethics.

261-266

Authors: ANTON FOMIN, ALEXANDER FROLOV

The article by Nikolai 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.

311-317

Authors: VLADIMIR BELOV

N. Hartmann and V. Sesemann are the creators of the so-called ‘ontological turn’ of the philosophy of the twentieth century. The article presents a comparative analysis of the work of these two philosophers, who were familiar with each other since their youth. The analysis shows that although Nicolai Hartmann is a classic—the founder of the whole direction in the philosophy of the twentieth century, the influence of which have experienced many philosophers—Vasily Sesemann, unfortunately, is a little-known author. This is due, first of all, to the fact that Sesemann wrote lengthy articles instead of books and never republished them in collections. Secondly, he published them mainly in Lithuania and in the Lithuanian journals, where most of the works were in the Lithuanian language. Finally, Sesemann published his research in three languages, two of which were Russian and Lithuanian—quite exotic for the European philosophical community. The article also notes that in his original and independent work Sesemann actively uses and develops primarily two concepts of Hartmann. Hartmann’s distinction between two types of intuition—direct or stigmatic and recapitulative—helps Sesemann to demarcate in a deeper and more multifaceted way between thematic and non-thematic knowledge. Hartmann’s concept of multilayered or multidimensional existence is used by Sesemann to develop his ideas about the problems of irrationality, to talk about different degrees of tension of inner life, to overcome the epistemological dualism of objective and non-objective knowledge in the monism of the higher (divine) reality, and to assert that philosophy is an experimental science.

328-336

Authors: ANDREI PATKUL

This article consists in a brief presentation of Tatyana Gornshtein’s Nicolai Hartmann’s Philosophy (1969) for non-Russian speakers. It provides some information on the author of the work, describes the purpose and structure of the book, and briefly describes the subject matter of each of its chapters. It also focuses on the most interesting points of the author’s analysis of Hartmann’s philosophy. The different sections of this article follow the order in which the content of the book is presented. Special emphasis is placed on the appraisal and critique of Hartmann’s ontology from the perspective of dialectical materialism as elaborated by Gornshtein throughout her book.