on points that remain especially crucial, i.e., the concept of the natural attitude, the ways into the reduction (and their systematics), and finally the question of the “meaning of the reduction.” Indeed, in the reading attempted here, this final question leads to two, not necessarily related, focal points: a Cartesian and a Life-world tendency. It is my claim that in following these two paths, Husserl was consistent in pursuing two evident leads in his philosophical enterprise; however, he was at the (...) same time unable to systematically unify these two strands. Thus, I am offering an interpretation which might be called a modified “departure from Cartesianism” reading that Landgrebe pro-. (shrink)

Part 1. Husserl: the outlines of the transcendental-phenomenological system -- 1. Husserl's phenomenological discovery of the natural attitude -- 2. Husserl's theory of the phenomenological reduction: between lifeworld and Cartesianism -- 3. Some methodological problems arising in Husserl's late reflections on the phenomenological reduction -- 4. Facticity and historicity as constituents of the lifeworld in Husserl's late philosophy -- 5. Husserl's concept of the "transcendental person": another look at the Husserl-Heidegger relationship -- 6. Dialectics of the absolute: the systematics of (...) the phenomenological system in Husserl's last period -- Part 2. Husserl, Kant, and neo-Kantianism: from subjectivity to lifeworld as a world of culture -- 7. From being to givenness and back: some remarks on the meaning of transcendental idealism in Kant and Husserl -- 8. Reconstruction and reduction: Natorp and Husserl on method and the question of subjectivity -- 9. A hermeneutic phenomenology of subjective and objective spirit: Husserl, Natorp, and Cassirer -- 10. Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms: between reason and relativism: a critical appraisal -- Part 3. Toward a Husserlian hermeneutics -- 11. The subjectivity of effective history and the suppressed husserlian elements in Gadamer's hermeneutics -- 12. Husserl's "hermeneutical phenomenology" as a philosophy of culture. (shrink)

The latter half of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century witnessed a remarkable resurgence of interest in Kant’s philosophy in Continental Europe, the effects of which are still being felt today. _The Neo-Kantian Reader_ is the first anthology to collect the most important primary sources in Neo-Kantian philosophy, with many being published here in English for the first time. It includes extracts on a rich and diverse number of subjects, including logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, (...) and transcendental idealism. Sebastian Luft, together with other scholars, provides clear introductions to each of the following sections, placing them in historical and philosophical context: the beginnings of Neo-Kantianism: including the work of Hermann von Helmholtz, Otto Liebman, Friedrich Lange, and Hermann Lotze the Marburg School: including Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer the Southwest School: including Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, Emil Lask, and Hans Vaihinger responses and critiques: including Moritz Schlick, Edmund Husserl; Rudolf Carnap, and the 'Davos dispute' between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer. The Neo-Kantian Reader is essential reading for all students of Kant, nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and phenomenology, as well as to those studying important philosophical movements such as logical positivism and analytic philosophy and its history. (shrink)

Sebastian Luft presents and defends the philosophy of culture championed by the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. Following a historical trajectory from Hermann Cohen to Paul Natorp and through to Ernst Cassirer, this book makes a systematic case for the viability and attractiveness of a philosophical culture in a transcendental vein, in the manner in which the Marburgers intended to broaden Kant's approach.

Verschiedene Zusammenhänge von Ästhetik, Psychologie, Kultur, Politik und Wirtschaft wurden bereits von der Frankfurter Schule dargestellt. Mit der vorliegenden Studie und unter Verwendung der Formel der »Verkünstlichung« soll das ästhetisch und metaphysisch basierte Denken Walter Benjamins in Zusammenhang mit der Kritischen Theorie fruchtbar gemacht und als Entgegnung auf den gegenwärtig stattfindenden Diskurs zum digitalen Fortschritt verstanden werden.

In this chapter, I present some systematic thoughts on a phenomenology of attention. There are two angles from which I will approach this topic. For one, the phenomenon in question is quite important for Husserl, but his thoughts on the topic have not been known to the public until recently through a new volume of the Husserliana (Hua XXXVIII) that presents the only analyses in Husserl’s entire oeuvre dealing with this phenomenon. As it turns out, attention, as located between passive (...) perception and active, synthetic consciousness, plays a key role in genetic phenomenology and its attempt to work out the levels of consciousness from passivity to activity. Hence, one part of this paper has the intention of presenting some of Husserl’s thoughts on attention and the systematic role it plays in his phenomenology of constituting consciousness. Secondly, in order to further the systematic point of the phenomenon, I turn to Goethe’s reflections on the primal phenomenon (Urphänomen) that can, I believe, be brought to bear on attention. Indeed, the primal phenomenon as a phenomenon that immediately and forcefully seizes our attention Goethe once compares to “the most beautiful pearls” in a chain of related phenomena. Among the phenomena appearing to us, some “simply” have a special quality in that they beckon us to investigate them, very much in the way in which Husserl describes the manner in which some phenomena lure us to focus our attention on them. Finally, if it is the world which “chooses,” as it were, certain phenomena for us to be drawn into their meaningful contexts, this observation has serious consequences for phenomenology as transcendental idealism. I want to put it as a question: What does it mean for a theory of world-constitution through consciousness that the world is “designed” such that certain phenomena are privileged from within the world to leap out at us, enticing us to explore it? Does attention bring us before the limits of phenomenology as transcendental idealism? (shrink)

In this article, I deal with the phenomenon, known to today’s philosophers, as the split between analytic and continental philosophy. I provide a historical-institutional explanation for this split and then a propose a type of doing philosophy beyond the divide, which I call “synthetic philosophy.” Synthetic philosophy should take and synthesize the best of both traditions into a new form of philosophy, which I recommend for the future.

Phenomenology was one of the twentieth century’s major philosophical movements and continues to be a vibrant and widely studied subject today. _The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology_ is an outstanding guide and reference source to the key philosophers, topics and themes in this exciting subject, and essential reading for any student or scholar of phenomenology. Comprising over fifty chapters by a team of international contributors, the _Companion_ is divided into five clear parts: main figures in the phenomenological movement, from Brentano to (...) Derrida main topics in phenomenology phenomenological contributions to philosophy phenomenological intersections historical postscript. Close attention is paid to the core topics in phenomenology such as intentionality, perception, subjectivity, the self, the body, being and phenomenological method. An important feature of the _Companion_ is its examination of how phenomenology has contributed to central disciplines in philosophy such as metaphysics, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, aesthetics and philosophy of religion as well as disciplines beyond philosophy such as race, cognitive science, psychiatry, literary criticism and psychoanalysis. (shrink)

https://revistes.uab.cat/enrahonar/article/view/v57-luft.

Ancient texts show Democritus as contemptuous and tradition represents him as a laugher. These two aspects of character are easily merged, as we see in Nietzsche, who in this regard is very much the heir of Democritus. The humor in Nietzsche's writings is not extraneous to his philosophy, but coextensive with his thought and an integral expression of his contempt for the targets of his philosophical attacks. Insofar as Nietzsche's humor is neither stylistic, rhetorical, nor intended to emphasize philosophical points (...) antecedent to his process of joking about them, we cannot understand Nietzsche unless we get his jokes. (shrink)

Sebastian Luft - Hermann Cohen's Critical Idealism - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.4 668-670 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Sebastian Luft Marquette University Reinier Munk, editor. Hermann Cohen's Critical Idealism. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought 10. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005. Pp. v + 434. Cloth, $229.00. This anthology, the first of its kind in English, is devoted to a much-needed reassessment of Hermann Cohen's philosophy. Cohen was one (...) of the founders of the so-called Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism and came to be, with the development of his own philosophical system following his Kant interpretation, one of the most original thinkers in Germany during his lifetime. Moreover, his charismatic personality inspired other philosophers, such as Natorp and Cassirer in Marburg as well as the.. (shrink)

In this paper I will give a systematic account of Husserl's notion of the natural attitude in the development from its first presentation in Ideas I (1913) until Husserl's last years. The problem of the natural attitude has to be dealt with on two levels. On the thematic level, it is constituted by the correlation of attitude and horizon, both stemming from Husserl's theory of intentionality. On the methodic level, the natural attitude is constituted by three factors: naturalness, naivety and (...) normality. I shall conclude by sketching out a possible motivation for leaving the natural attitude and thus for entering the sphere of phenomenology. (shrink)

This chapter offers a reassessment of the relationship between Kant, the Kantian tradition, and phenomenology, here focusing mainly on Husserl and Heidegger. Part of this reassessment concerns those philosophers who, during the lives of Husserl and Heidegger, sought to defend an updated version of Kant’s philosophy, the neo-Kantians. The chapter shows where the phenomenologists were able to benefit from some of the insights on the part of Kant and the neo-Kantians, but also clearly points to the differences. The aim of (...) this chapter is to offer a fair evaluation of the relation of the main phenomenologists to Kant and to what was at the time the most powerful philosophical movement in Europe. (shrink)

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant's and Husserl's versions of it. I present Kant's transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl's transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant's transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. (...) He thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the quid iuris-question, and provides a new conception of the thing-in-itself. What needs to be clarified is not exclusively the possibility of a priori cognition but, to start at a much lower level, the validity of objects that give themselves in experience. The thing-in-itself is not an unknowable object, but the idea of the object in all possible appearances experienced at once. In spite of these changes Husserl remains committed to the basic sense of Kant's Copernican Turn. I end with some comments on how both Kant and Husserl view the relation between theoretical and moral philosophy. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta duas questões filosóficas centrais legadas pelo Idealismo Alemão sem resposta. De um lado, as tentativas reiteradas de determinar o Múltiplo a partir da unidade ordenadora de uma subjetividade incondicionada resultaram em perspectivas dualistas e metafisicas inflacionárias. De outro lado, a meta do estabelecimento de uma filosofia capaz de se elevar para além da oposição sujeito/objeto, reconciliando natureza e liberdade, tornou-se refém da teleologia do incondicionado. Uma resposta a tais desafios pode brotar da problematização do idealismo contemporâneo e (...) do diálogo renovado com a filosofia platônica. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of CultureSebastian LuftEdward Skidelsky. Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture. Princeton-Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pp. ix + 288. Cloth $34.00.This is a curious book, because the soul of its author is torn.On the one hand, the book is a monograph on the philosopher-intellectual Ernst Cassirer. It is scholarly, noticeably well-written (not surprisingly, as the author also writes articles for British and (...) American newspapers), philosophical to the extent that it does not distort its subject matter too much, and a splendid piece of intellectual history, which places its subject, Cassirer, in a rich cultural, historical, and intellectual context. In terms of presenting the gist of Cassirer’s thought in relatively few pages, the author does everything right, disregarding minor quibbles. So far, so good.But already reading the introduction, the author makes a confession that bathes the entire book in a different light. Here we learn that the precursor of the present tome was a “straight-faced” account of the philosopher of culture, Cassirer. But over the course of writing it, Skidelsky admits, doubts crept in. Little by little, he came to see Cassirer as a dinosaur of a past age, his philosophy as a “rearguard action on behalf of a vanishing civilization” (3), which died on the battlefields of the Second World War. The “Olympian” Cassirer had an “enchanting vision” and dreamt a “happy dream” of human culture, all of which went down the drain with the advent of Nazism and has now, in our own age of postmodernism, been completely washed away.Instead, the real hero of the book is Heidegger. It was Heidegger, the existentialist, who rebelled against Western metaphysics, who won the day against Cassirer in the 1929 Davos encounter, and it is to him that we, today, owe our sensibilities. The liberalism of Cassirer—a unified vision, not just some narrowly political manifesto—“lost out to the Existenzphilosophie of Heidegger,” he writes, and, “Such unity of vision [as in Cassirer] is impossible for us. Our political principles find no support in our cultural tastes, religious beliefs, or metaphysical insights. We pay tribute to Cassirer, but Heidegger remains the secret master of our thought” (219). [End Page 116]Hence, the book is written, or rather re-written after the author’s conversion, in an ironic, sometimes melancholy style, looking back at Cassirer as a relic of a different era, his thought being “a stranger to our age” (7). Why read and study him at all then? The argument—the only argument—is weak: “he was the twentieth century’s most accomplished defender of the Humboldtian ideal” (6). Is this all? Yes, and this is how Cassirer is presented: with some sympathy, but at bottom as a creature from a different age that one observes like an exotic animal. Once more, why is this so? Skidelsky explains: “We have inherited Cassirer’s liberal political attitudes, but not the cultural sensibility that underlay them. With our skepticism toward progress, our distaste for ‘bourgeois’ formalities, our fascination with charisma, and our endless talk of commitment, authenticity, and roots, we remain, consciously or not, Heidegger’s children” (8), leaving “us” “with a dilemma” between both sentiments (ibid.).But who is this “we”? This reviewer’s suspicion is that it is first and foremost the author himself. Not denying that this dilemma might ring true to many contemporaries, it seems that the one who is troubled by it is primarily the author, who would like the world to be according to Cassirer, but who has become disenchanted with the latter’s synthetic vision due to the fragmented world around him. He would like to bring himself to believe, but cannot. But why is this? Because he has tacitly bought into the idea of all us being “Heidegger’s children.” There can be no doubt—we simply have to accept this fate.But it is this self-assurance that irks this reviewer about the author’s sentiment. Who is this “we” that he invokes? What right does he have to lump “us” together in this category of Heideggerians and to speak about “us” ex cathedra? That one... (shrink)

As filosofias de Platão e Schelling têm como traço comum o projeto de construção de uma ontologia relacional. Sua grande divergência reside na compreensão do princípio filosófico capaz de fundar tal ontologia. A Filosofia da Identidade do jovem Schelting estã ancorada na atividade de autodesdobramento da subjetividadeabsoluta. A critica a esta teleologia do incondicionado exigirá um renovado diálogo com a filosofia platônica. O autor encontra no Filebo platônico a inspiração para o desenvolvimento de uma possível ontologia deflacionária.

Based on the previous results of the immanent critique of Hegel’s Logic that led to the system project of evolutionary idealism, the author seeks an aesthetics of thought prior to any theory of the beautiful, even if not without consequences for a future approach in this direction.

Aiming at the constitution of a truly critical philosophy, Hegel took distance from Schelling and his claim to achieve absolute knowledge on the basis of intellectual intuition and resumes the dialogue with Kant and Fichte. Hegel’s goal was to overcome the conflicts of modern reason by promoting the conciliation between the critical attitude and absolute sistematicity. It should be asked, however, whether such a conciliation is actually possible. Key words: Hegel, Schelling, Critical attitude, Absolute sistematicity.

O autor mostra a especificidade do conceito de contradição em Hegel, a partir da análise do & 81 da Enciclopédia. Em primeiro lugar, demonstra a importância deste conceito para a compreensão efetiva do método dialético. Em segundo lugar, a contradição dialética é apresentada como um conceito complexo, que não pode de modo algum ser confundido com o uso deste termo em lógica formal. Além de conter um elemento pragmático, tal contradição é constituída por três modos diferentes de manifestação, acompanhados de (...) três sentidos diversos a serem especificados ao final do artigo. (shrink)

This paper offers a further look at Husserl’s late thought on the transcendental subject and the Husserl–Heidegger relationship. It attempts a reconstruction of how Husserl hoped to assert his own thoughts on subjectivity vis-à-vis Heidegger, while also pointing out where Husserl did not reach the new level that Heidegger attained. In his late manuscripts, Husserl employs the term ‘transcendental person’ to describe the transcendental ego in its fullest ‘concretion’. I maintain that although this concept is a consistent development of Husserl’s (...) earlier analyses of constitution, Husserl was also defending himself against Heidegger, who criticized him for framing the subject in terms of transcendental ego rather than as Dasein. Husserl was convinced that he could successfully respond to Heidegger’s critique, but he did not grasp that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology was an immanent development, rather than a scathing criticism, of his own phenomenology. (shrink)

This edited volume examines women's voices in phenomenology, many of which had a formative impact on the movement but have be kept relatively silent for many years. It features papers that truly extend the canonical scope of phenomenological research. Readers will discover the rich philosophical output of such scholars as Edith Stein, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and Gerda Walther. They will also come to see how the phenomenological movement allowed its female proponents to achieve a position in the academic world few women (...) could enjoy at the time. The book explores the intersection of social ontology, phenomenology, and women scholars in phenomenology. The papers offer a fresh look at such topics as the nature of communities, shared values, feelings, and other mental content. In addition, coverage examines the contributions of Jewish women to the science, who were present at the beginning of the phenomenological movement. This remarkable anthology also features a paper on Gerda Walther written by Linda Lopez McAlister, former editor of the feminist journal Hypatia, who had met Walther in 1976. This book features work from the conference “Women Phenomenologists on Social Ontology,” held at the University of Paderborn. Overall, it collects profiles and analysis that unveil a hidden history of phenomenology. (shrink)

What does it mean to be a community and to be in a community? Can this social phenomenon be analogized to an individual person with her interwoven opinions, wants, and desires? Or is a community a phenomenon sui generis that requires its own methods and tools for research? Concretely: What does it mean that a community may achieve certain acts? And what about the intentional object of such an act, which has also been referred to as “social act”? These questions (...) raise the methodological ones: how is it even possible to characterize a community, such that it can be said to issue social acts? And how can such an inquiry be carried out, does it require an outside perspective or one from within a community, or can it be done by both? (shrink)

This volume brings Cassirer s work into the arena of contemporary debates both within and outside of philosophy. All articles offer a fresh and contemporary look at one of the most prolific and important philosophers of the 20th century. The papers are authored by a wide array of scholars working in different areas, such as epistemology, philosophy of culture, sociology, psychopathology, philosophy of science and aesthetics.".

Immanuel KantKant, Immanuel war für Simmel ein ständiger Begleiter. Bereits Simmels Dissertation von 1881 an der Berliner Universität trug den Titel Die Natur der Materie nach Kants Physikalischer Monadologie und seine Habilitationsschrift aus dem Jahre 1885 handelte von Kants Lehre von Raum und Zeit. Seit dem Beginn seiner Lehrtätigkeit an der Berliner Universität hielt Simmel weiterhin zahlreiche Lehrveranstaltungen zu Kant, so dass Kant – zumindest in Simmels Berliner Zeit bis 1914 – zum ständigen Repertoire von Simmels Lehrtätigkeit gehörte.

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant's and Husserl's versions thereof. I present Kant's transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl's transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: Through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant's transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. He (...) thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the 'quid iuris?,' and provides a new conception of the thing-in-itself. What needs to be clarified is not exclusively the possibility of a priori cognition, but instead, starting much lower, the validity of objects that give themselves in experience. The thing-in-itself is not an unknowable object, but the idea of the object in all possible appearances experienced at once. In all these innovations Husserl remains committed to the basic sense of Kant’s Copernican Turn. I end with some comments on how both Kant and Husserl view the relation between theoretical and moral philosophy. (shrink)

The present volume is the final tome in the six-volume translation of the main writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, offering a selection of what the series editors, Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi, deemed the most important writings of the philosopher-historian. By comparison, Dilthey's Collected Works in the German spans twenty-six volumes and is now complemented by a four-volume edition of his correspondence. Thus, the texts gathered in this set of translations are but the tip of the iceberg of Dilthey's writings.The (...) sixth volume fills... (shrink)