Article/Publication Details
Views: 3837

GIVENNESS AS PROBLEM OF PHENOMENOLOGY

Abstract
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.

Key words
Givenness, intuition, problem, horizon, Husserl, Heidegger, fulfillment, possibility, impossibility.

References

• Bernet, R., Kern, I., & Marbach, E. (1996). Edmund Husserl. Darstellung seines Denkens. Hamburg: Meiner.
• Borisov, E. (1998). Fenomenologicheskii metod Khaideggera [Heidegger’s Phenomenological Method]. In M. Khaidegger, Prolegomeny k istorii ponyatiya vremeni [Prolegomena to History of the Concept of Time] (345-375). Tomsk: Vodolei. (in Russian).
• Chernavin, G. (2013a). Teleologia soglasovannosti opyta v fenomenologii Gusserlya [The Teleology of Concordant Experience in Husserl’s Phenomenology]. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 2(1), 28-47. (in Russian).
• Chernavin, G. (2013b). Erscheinung in der Schwebe zwischen Sein und Schein: von Herbart zu Husserl. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 2(2), 7-16.
• Chernavin, G. (2018). Neponyatnost samo soboi razumeiushegosya [The Oddity of the Taken for Granted]. St Petersburg, Moscow: Dobrosvet. (in Russian).
• Chernyakov, A. (2001). Ontologiya vremeni. Bytie i vremya v filosofii Aristotelya, Gusserlya i Khaideggera [Ontology of Time. Being and Time in Philosophy of Aristotle, Husserl and Heidegger]. St Petersburg: Vysshaja religiosno-filosofskaja shkola. (in Russian).
• Gusserl’, E. (2004). Krizis evropeiskikh nauk i transcendentalnaja fenomenoogija. Vvedenie v fenomenologicheskuiu filosofiiu [The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. The General Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy]. Moscow: Vladimir Dal. (in Russian).
• Gusserl’, E. (2009). Idei k chistoi fenomenologii i fenomenologicheskoi filosofii. Kniga pervaja [Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Book I]. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt. (in Russian).
• Gusserl’, E. (2010). Karteziansie Meditatsii [Cartesian Meditations]. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt. (in Russian).
• Gusserl’, E. (2011). Issledovanija po fenomenologii i teorii poznanija [Investigations in Phenomenology and Theory of Knowledge]. In Logicheskie issledovanija [Logical Investigations]. Moscow: Akadenicheskii proekt. (in Russian).
• Gusserl’, E. (2018). Ideja fenomenologii. Pjat lekcii [The Idea of Phenomenoogy. Five Lectures]. St Petersburg: Gumanitarnaja Akademija. (in Russian).
• Heidegger, M. (1999). Zur Bestimmung der Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
• Heidegger, M. (2001). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
• Husserl, E. (1966). Analysen zur passiven Synthesis. Aus Vorlesungs- und Forschungsmanuskripten 1918-1926. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1973). Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1976a). Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1976b). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Algemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (1984). Logische Untersuchungen. Bd.II. Zweiter Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Husserl, E. (2002). Zur phänomenologischen Reduktion. Texte aus dem Nachlass. 1926-1935. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Husserl, E. (2008). Die Lebenswelt. Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1916-1937). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Kant, I. (2006). Sochineniya na nemetskom i russkom yazykakh. Tom 2. Chast 1. Kritika chistogo razuma [Works in German and Russian. Volume 2. Part 1. Critique of Pure Reason]. Moscow: Nauka. (in Russian).
• Khaidegger, M. (1997). Bytie i vremya [Being and Time]. Moscow: Ad Marginem. (in Russian).
• Khaidegger, M. (1998). Prolegomeny k istorii ponatija vremeni [Prolegomena to History of the Concept of Time]. Tomsk: Vodolei. (in Russian).
• Khaidegger, M. (2001). Osnovnye problemy fenomenologii [The Basic Problems of Phenomenology]. St Petersburg: Vysshaja religiosno-filosofskaja shkola. (in Russian).
• Khel’d, K. (2008). Khaidegger i printsip fenomenologii [Heidegger and the Principle of Phenomenology]. In Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii [Annual for Phenomenological Philosophy] (190-220). Moscow: RGGU. (in Russian).
• Khel’d, K. (2010). Problema Boga v fenomenologii Edmunda Gusserlya [God in Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology]. In Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii [Annual for Phenomenological Philosophy] (15-30). Moscow: RGGU. (in Russian).
• Marion, J-L. (2014). Nashyshennyi fenomen [Saturated Phenomenon]. In A. Yampolskaya & S. Sholokhova (Eds.), Postfenomenologiya: novaya fenomenologiya vo Frantsii I za ee predelami [Postphenomenology: New Phenomenology in France and Beyond] (63-99). Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt. (in Russian).
• Mensch, J. (2017). Life and the Reduction to the Life-World. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 6(2), 13-29.
• Tengeli, L. (2013). Neobkhodimost fakticheskogo u Aristotelya i Gusserlya: dva osnovopolozheniya metafisiki [Necessity of a Fact in Aristotle and Husserl: Two Foundations of Metaphysics]. Ezhegodnik po fenomenologicheskoi filosofii [Annual for Phenomenological Philosophy] (190-208). Moscow: RGGU. (in Russian).
• Tengelyi, L. (2007). Erfahrung und Audruck. Phänomenologie im Umbruch bei Husserl und seinen Nachfolgern. Dordrecht: Springer.
• Tengelyi, L. (2014). Welt und Unendlichkeit. Zum Problem phänomenologischer Metaphysik. Alber: Freiburg-München.
• Yampolskaya, A. (2018). Iskusstvo fenomenologii [The Art of Phenomenology]. Moscow: RIPOL klassik. (in Russian).

Article/Publication Details
Views: 3645

RENAUD BARBARAS AND THE MULTIPLE MEANING OF “LIFE”

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

Key words
Phenomenology, life, organism, consciousness, biology, embodiment, Barbaras.

References

• Barbaras, R. (1999). Le désir et la distance. Introduction à une phénoménologie de la perception. Paris: Vrin, 1999.
• Barbaras, R. (2005). Desire and Distance. Introduction to a Phenomenology of perception. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Barbaras, R. (2008). Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie. Paris: Vrin.
• Barbaras, R. (2011a). La vie lacunaire. Paris: Vrin.
• Barbaras, R. (2011b). L’ouverture du monde. Lecture de Jan Patočka. Chatou: Les Etitions de la Transparence.
• Barbaras, R. (2013). Dynamique de la manifestation. Paris: Vrin.
• Barbaras, R. (2016). Métaphysique du sentiment. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf.
• Barbaras, R. (2018). La tautologie de la vie. Études phénoménologiques — Phenomenological Studies, 2, 1–19.
• Bimbenet, E. (2011). L’animal que je ne suis plus. Paris: Gallimard.
• Derrida, J. (1987). De l’esprit: Heidegger et la question. Paris: Galillé.
• Derrida, J. (2008). The Animal That Therefore I Am. New York: Fordham University Press.
• Duicu, D. (2014). Phénoménologie du mouvement. Patočka et l’héritage de la physique aristotélicienne. Paris: Hermann.
• Fink, E. (1957). Zur ontologischen Frühgeschichte von Raum — Zeit — Bewegung. The Hague: Nijhoff.
• Fink, E. (1958). Sein, Wahrheit, Welt: Vor-Fragen zum Problem des Phänomen-Begriffs. The Hague: Nijhoff.
• Fink, E. (1976). Nähe und Distanz: Phänomenologische Vorträge und Aufsätze. Freiburg im Breisgau: Alber.
• Heidegger, M. (1993). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Heidegger, M. (1996). Being and Time. Albany, NY: SUNY.
• Heidegger, M. (2003). Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles. Stuttgart: Reclam.
• Heidegger, M. (2004). Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik: Welt-Endlichkeit-Einsamkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
• Husserl, E. (1985). Erfahrung und Urteil. Hamburg: Meiner.
• Husserl, E. (1992). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Gesammelte Schriften, 5. Hamburg: Meiner.
• Jonas, H. (2001). The Phenomenon of Life: Toward Philosophical Biology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (1967). The Structure of Behavior. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
• Merleau-Ponty, M. (2014). Phenomenology of Perception. London, New York: Routledge.
• Patočka, J. (1964). O filosofickém významu Aristotelova pojetí pohybu a historických výzkumů věnovaných jeho vývoji [On the Philosophical Meaning of Aristotle’s Concept of Motion and of Historical Investigations Dedicated to its Developement]. In Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et Historica, 1, 87–96. (in Czech).
• Patočka, J. (1972). Weltganzes und Menschenwelt: Bemerkungen zu einem zeitgenössischen kosmologischen Ansatz. In W. Beierwaltes & W. Schrader (Eds.), Weltaspekte der Philosophie. Festschrift für R. Berlinger, 243–50. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• Patočka, J. (1998). Body, Community, Language, World. Chicago, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court.
• Portman, A. (1995). Der Mensch — Ein Mängelwesen? In H. Keupp (Ed.), Lust an der Erkenntnis: Der Mensch als soziales Wesen, (92–100). Munich and Zurich: Piper.
• Scheler, M. (1998). Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. Bonn: Bouvier.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 4036

IN SEARCH OF THE “MECHANISMS” OF PERSISTENCE OF SUBJECTIVITY: MINIMAL SELF AND AGENCY

Abstract
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.

Key words
Cognitive sciences, minimal self, agency, psychopathologies, thought insertion, delusions of control, terminal lucidity.

References

• Albahari, M. (2006). Analytical Buddhism: The Two-Tiered Illusion of Self. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Anton Mlinar, I., & López Vicchi, M. (2016). ¿Cómo se relacionan entre sí los niveles epistemológicos de las ciencias que estudian a la persona humana? [How Do the Epistemological Levels of the Sciences that Study the Human Person Relate to Each Other?]. In C. Vanney & J. F. Franck (Eds.), ¿Determinismo o indeterminismo? Grandes preguntas de la ciencia a la filosofía [Determinism or Indeterminism? Great Questions from Science to Philosophy] (133-148). Rosario: Logos. (in Spanish).
• De Haan, S., & De Bruin, L. (2009). Reconstructing the Minimal Self, or How to Make Sense of Agency and Ownership. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 9, 373–396.
• Feillet, L., Dufour, H., & Pelletier, J. (2007). Brain of a White-Collar Worker. Lancet, 370. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61127-1.
• Frankfurt, H. (1988). The Importance of What We Care About: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Frith, C. D. (1992). The Cognitive Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Fuchs, Th. (2000). Psychopathologie von Leib und Raum. Darmstadt: Steinkopff Verlag.
• Gallagher, S. (2000). Philosophical Conceptions of the Self: Implications for Cognitive Science. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4(1), 14–21.
• Gallagher, S. (2005). How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Gallagher, S. (2007a). Sense of Agency and Higher-Order Cognition: Levels of Explanation for Schizophrenia. Cognitive Semiotics, 0, 32–48.
• Gallagher, S. (2007b). The Natural Philosophy of Agency. Philosophy Compass, 2, 1–11.
• Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2008). The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science. London: Routledge.
• García, A., Sedeño, L., Herrera Murcia, E., Couto, B., & Ibáñez, A. (2017). A Lesion-Proof Brain? Multidimensional Sensorimotor, Cognitive and Socio-Affective Preservation Despite Extensive Damage in a Stroke Patient. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, Jan. 10. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2016.00335.
• Graham, G., & Stephens, G. L. (1994). Mind and Mine. In G. Graham & G. L. Stephens (Eds.), Philosophical psychopathology (91-109). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Hertz-Pannier, L., Chiron, C., Jambaqué, I., Renaux-Kieffer, V., Van de Moortele, P.F., … Delalande, O. (2002). Late Plasticity for Language in a Child’s Non-Dominant Hemisphere: a Pre- and Post-Surgery fMRI Study. Brain, 125(2), 361–372. doi:10.1093/brain/awf020.
• Jaspers, K. (1963). General Psychopathology (7th ed.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Mellor, C. S. (1970). First Rank Symptoms of Schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 117, 15-23.
• Metzinger, Th. (2003). Being No One. Cambridge: Mass., MIT Press.
• Nagel, Th. (1974). What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Philosophical Review, 83, 435–450.
• Nahm M., & Greyson, B. (2009). Terminal Lucidity in Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia and Dementia: a Survey of the Literature. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 197, 942–944.
• Nahm, M., Greyson, B., Kelly, E. W., & Haraldsson, E. (2012). Terminal Lucidity: a Review and a Case Collection. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 55, 138-142.
• Neisser, U. (2008). Five Kinds of Self-Knowledge. Philosophical Psychology, 1, 35–59. doi: 10.1080/09515088808572924
• Parnas, J. (2003). Self and Schizophrenia: A Phenomenological Perspective. In T. Kircher & A. David (Eds.), The Self in Neuroscience and Psychiatry (217–241). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ricoeur, P. (1994). Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Sass, L. A. (1994). The Paradoxes of Delusion. London: Cornell University Press.
• Spence, S. A., Brooks, D. J., Hirsch, S. R., Liddle, P. F., Meehan, J., & Grasby, P. M. (1997). A PET Study of Voluntary Movement in Schizophrenic Patients Experiencing Passivity Phenomena (Delusions of Alien Control). Brain, 120, 1997–2011.
• Taylor, Ch. (1989). Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Yu, F., Jiang, Q. J., Sun, X. Y., & Zhang, R. W. (2015). A New Case of Complete Primary Cerebellar Agenesis: Clinical and Imaging Findings in a Living Patient. Brain, 138. doi:10.1093/brain/awu239
• Zahavi, D. (2005). Subjectivity and Selfhood. Investigating the First-Person Perspective. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 4388

“INARTICULATE SOUNDS” OF PHENOMENOLOGY: WITTGENSTEIN AND THE THESIS “NOTHING NOTHS”

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

Key words
Wittgenstein, Heidegger, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, problem of the phenomenological language, existential experience, philosophical disquiet.

References

• Baker, G. P. (2004). Wittgenstein’s Method and Psychoanalysis. In G. P. Baker, Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects (205-222). Oxford: Blackwell.
• Bibikhin, V. V. (2003). Vitgenshtejn i Khajdegger. Odin epizod [Wittgenstein and Heidegger. One Episode]. Istoriko-filosofskij ezhegodnik, 315-332. (in Russian).
• Carnap, R. (1930-1931). Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache. Erkenntnis, 1, 219-241.
• Driesch, H. (1921). Mein System und sein Werdegang. In R. Schmidt (Ed.), Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen: Paul Barth, Erich Becher, Hans Driesch, Karl Joël, Alexius Meinong, Paul Natorp, Johannes Rehmke, Johannes Volkelt, Bd.1. Leipzig: F. Meiner.
• Heidegger, M. (2007). Was ist Metaphysik? Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
• Inwood, M. (1999). Does the Nothing Noth? Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 44, 271-290.
• Jung, C. G. (1990). Die Bedeutung der Psychologie für die Gegenwart (1932). In Taschenbuchausgabe in elf Bänden. Wirklichkeit der Seele (27-48). München.
• Karnap, R. (1993). Preodolenie metafiziki logicheskim analizom yazyka [The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language]. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, 6, 11-26. (in Russian).
• Leibniz, G. V. (1982). Nachala prirody i blagodati, osnovannye na razume [Principles of Nature and Grace Based on Reason]. In Sochineniya v chetyrekh tomakh, T.1 [Collected Works in 4 Volumes, Vol.1] (404-412). Moscow: Mysl’. (in Russian).
• Lenin, V. I. (1961). Materializm i empiriokriticizm [Materialism and Empirio-criticism]. In Polnoe sobranije sochinenij, T. 18. [Collected Works, Vol. 18] Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury. (in Russian).
• Loos, A. (1962). Ornament und Verbrechen. In A. Loos, Sämtliche Schriften in zwei Bänden, Erster Band (276-288). Wien, München: Herold.
• Loos, A. (2018). Ornament i prestuplenie [Ornament and Crime]. Moscow: Strelka Press. (in Russian).
• Luchte, J. (2007). Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Carnap: Radical Phenomenology, Logical Positivism and the Roots of the Continental/Analytic Divide. Philosophy Today, 51 (3), 241-260.
• Luchte, J. (2009). Under the Aspect of Time (“sub specie temporis”): Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the Place of the Nothing. Philosophy Today, 53 (1), 70-84.
• Richter, D. (2007). Did Wittgenstein Disagree with Heidegger? Review of Contemporary Philosophy, 6, 158-185.
• Rudnev, V. P. (2018). Chto ty khochesh’ etim skazat’? [What Do You Mean by That?]. M., SPb: Dobrosvet/Centr gumanitarnykh iniciativ. (in Russian).
• Sekaczkij, A. K. (2005). Sila vzryvnoj volny. Stat’i, esse [The Power of the Blast Wave. Articles, Essays]. SPb: Limbus-Press. (in Russian).
• Tatievskaya, E. (2009). Wittgenstein über das Verstehen. Berlin:de Gruyter.
• Vajsmann, F. (1998). Lyudvig Vitgenshtejn i venskij kruzhok [Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle]. In A. F. Gryaznov (Ed.), Analiticheskaya filosofiya: Stanovlenie i razvitie (44-68). M.: Dom intellectual’noj knigi, Progress-Tradiciya. (in Russian).
• Waismann, F. (1967). Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
• Wittgenstein, L. (1995). Wiener Ausgabe, Band 3: Bemerkungen. Philosophische Bemerkungen. Springer: Wien.
• Wittgenstein, L. (2001). Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge (1932-1935): From the Notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret Macdonald. NY: Prometheus Books.
• Wittgenstein, L., & Waismann, F. (2003). The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle. London & NY: Routledge.

Article/Publication Details
Views: 3405

SCIENCE, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING: WITTGENSTEIN BETWEEN PHENOMENOLOGY AND POSITIVISM

Abstract
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.

Key words
Phenomenology, logical positivism, knowledge, natural world, verification, soul, Wittgenstein.

References

• Anscombe, G. E. M. (1965). An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. New York: Harper and Row.
• Carnap, R. (1931a). Die physikalische Sprache als Universalsprache der Wissenschaften. Erkenntnis, 2, 432–465.
• Carnap, R. (1931b). Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache. Erkenntnis, 2, 219–241.
• Carnap, R. (1932). Über Protokollsätze. Erkenntnis, 3, 2150-228.
• Carnap, R. (2005). The Logical Structure of the World. Chicago: Open Court.
• Cobb-Stevens, R. (1983). Body, Spirit and Ego in Husserl’s ‘Ideas II’. In A.-T. Tyminiecka (Ed.), Soul and Body in Husserlian Phenomenology (243–258). Dordrecht: Reidel.
• Collingwood, R. G. (1970). The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dahms, H.-J. (2004). Neue Sachlichkeit in the Architecture and Philosophy of the 1920’s. In S. Awodey & C. Klein (Eds.), Carnap Brought Home (357–375). Chicago: Open Court Publishing.
• Galison, P. (1990). Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural Modernism. Critical Inquiry, 16, 709–752.
• Gier, N. F. (1981). Wittgenstein and Phenomenology. Albany: SUNY Press.
• Glendinning, S. (1998). On Being with Others. Heidegger — Derrida — Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
• Hamming, R.W. (1980). The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics. The American Mathematical Monthly, 87, 81–90.
• Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
• Husserl, E. (2000). Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy II. Kluwer: Dordrecht.
• Mayer, V. (1991). Die Konstruktion der Erfahrungswelt in Carnap und Husserl. Erkenntnis, 35, 287–303.
• Moran, D. (2000). Husserl and the Crisis of European Sciences. In M. W. F. Wolff & J. Stone (Eds.), The Proper Ambition of Science (122–150). London: Routledge.
• Moural, J. (2013). Czechoslovakia. In L. Embree (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology (123–129). Dordrecht: Springer.
• Patočka, J. (1992). Přirozený svět jako filosofický problem [The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem]. Praha: Československý spisovatel. (in Czech).
• Patočka, J. (1995). Tělo, společenství, jazyk, svět [Body, Community, Language, World]. Praha: OIKOYMENH. (in Czech).
• Phillips, D. Z. (1992). My Neighbour and My Neighbours. In D. Z. Phillips, Interventions in Ethics (229–250). Basingstoke: Macmillan.
• Quine, W. V. O. (1951). Two Dogmas of Empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60, 20–43.
• Rhees, R. (1959). Wittgenstein’s Builders. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 60, 171–186.
• Rosado Haddock, G. E. (2008). The Young Carnap’s Unknown Master: Husserl’s Influence on ‚Der Raum‘ and ‚Der Logische Aufbau Der Welt‘. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Sellars, W. (1997). Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Stone, A. (2005). The Continental Origins of Verificationism. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 10, 129–143.
• Stone, A. (2010). On the Sources and Implications of Carnap’s ‚Der Raum‘. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 41, 65–74.
• Tomasello, M. (2016). A Natural History of Human Morality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Uebel, T. (2011). Rudolf Carnap. In S. Bernecker & D. Pritchard (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (774–785). London: Routledge.
• Uebel, T. (2014). Carnap’s ‘Aufbau’ and Physicalism: What Does the ‘Mutual Reducibility’ of Psychological and Physical Objects Amount to? In M. C. Galavotti, E. Nemeth, & F. Stadler (Eds.), European Philosophy of Science — Philosophy of Science in Europe and the Viennese Heritage (45–56). Wien: Springer.
• Waismann, F. (Ed.). (1967). Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Wigner, E. (1960). The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 13, 1–14.
• Winch, P. (1972). Moral Integrity. In P. Winch, Ethics and Action (171–192). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Winch, P. (1990). The Idea of Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
• Wittgenstein, L. (1961). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Routledge.
• Wittgenstein, L. (1964). Philosophische Bemerkungen. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
• Wittgenstein, L. (1984). Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
• Wittgenstein, L. (2000). The Big Typescript. Wien: Springer.
• Wittgenstein, L. (2009). Philosophische Untersuchungen (4th ed.). Oxford: Wiley.