Phenomenology And Intersubjectivity

This collection examines the instrumental role of intersubjectivity in Husserl’s philosophy and explores the potential for developing novel ways of addressing and resolving contemporary philosophical issues on that basis. This is the first time Iso Kern offers an extensive overview of this rich field of inquiry for an English-speaking audience. Guided by his overview, the remaining articles present new approaches to a range of topics and problems that go to the heart of its core theme of intersubjectivity and methodology. Specific topics covered include intersubjectivity and empathy, intersubjectivity in meaning and communication, intersubjectivity pertaining to collective forms of intentionality and extended forms of embodiment, intersubjectivity as constitutive of normality, and, finally, the central role of intersubjectivity in the sciences. The authors’ perspectives are strongly influenced by Husserl’s own methodological concerns and problem awareness and are formed with a view to applicability in current debates – be it within general epistemology, analytic philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, meta-ethics or philosophy of science. With contributions written by leading Husserl scholars from across the Analytic and Continental traditions, Husserl’s Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity is a clear and accessible resource for scholars and advanced students interested in Husserl’s phenomenology and the relevance of intersubjectivity to philosophy, sociology, and psychology.

Phenomenology’s remarkable insights are still largely overlooked when it comes to contemporary debate concerning values in general. This volume addresses this gap, bringing together papers on the phenomenology of intersubjectivity. What makes it special and distinct from similar texts, however, is its reliance on the axiological—that is, the ethical and existential—dimension of phenomenology’s account of intersubjectivity. All the great phenomenologists (Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Emmanuel Levinas) are covered here, as are lesser-known thinkers in the Anglo-American world, such as Max Scheler and Gabriel Marcel. As such, this book will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in phenomenology, existential philosophy, continental philosophy, sociality, and values.

Social Phenomenology: Husserl, Intersubjectivity, and Collective Intentionality brings together insights from the tradition of Husserlian phenomenology and from recent discussions of collective intentionality. Eric Chelstrom offers a unique account of how consciousness is formative of the social world-that is, in some cases our collectively thinking something to be the case is what makes it so. For instance, that the money one uses on a daily basis is worth something is not because of its physical characteristics, but because we believe that those physical traits, printed by the right institutions, make it so. Our institutions only have authority because we believe they do. This book promotes a position between atomism and collectivism. Chelstrom argues that there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as collective consciousness. Further, this book disputes the atomistic conception of the human subject, the view that individuals are like islands unto themselves, able to develop their capacities independent from others, and free of necessary relations to others. The resulting analysis in the work offers a strong challenge to common interpretations of the philosophy of Edmund Husserl. Social Phenomenology is primarily written for phenomenologists concerned with the social world. Its broader aim, however, is to draw into dialogue both analytic and continental philosophers working in social philosophy, specifically on collective intentionality. Book jacket.

Winner of the 2018 Edwin Ballard Prize awarded by the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology This book develops a unique phenomenology of plurality by introducing Hannah Arendt’s work into current debates taking place in the phenomenological tradition. Loidolt offers a systematic treatment of plurality that unites the fields of phenomenology, political theory, social ontology, and Arendt studies to offer new perspectives on key concepts such as intersubjectivity, selfhood, personhood, sociality, community, and conceptions of the "we." Phenomenology of Plurality is an in-depth, phenomenological analysis of Arendt that represents a viable third way between the "modernist" and "postmodernist" camps in Arendt scholarship. It also introduces a number of political and ethical insights that can be drawn from a phenomenology of plurality. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the topics of plurality and intersubjectivity within phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, and feminist philosophy.

"This book provides a compelling look at the importance of Husserl's methodological shift from his original purely "static" approach to his later "genetic" approach to the analysis of consciousness. The author shows that between 1913 and 1921 Husserl progressed in his thinking from a constitutive analysis of how something is experienced, which focused primarily on the general structure of consciousness as an abstract unity, to an investigation into the origins of the subject as a unique individual interacting with and growing within the surrounding environment. This much needed synthesis of Husserl's methodology will be of interest to scholars, phenomenologists, and philosophers from both continental and analytic schools."--

The volume gathers together over twenty contributions that emerged from a conference held in in honour of Dermot Moran on the occasion of his retirement from University College Dublin. The book explores the contribution of phenomenology to empathy, intersubjectivity, affectivity, and the constitution of the cultural and social world, from both a historical and an applied philosophical perspective. Theoretical and methodological differences in approach notwithstanding, phenomenologists have converged in the recognition that self and others are fundamentally related, and have provided fine-grained accounts of the origin, forms, and implications of such relationship. The volume critically reconstructs and further develops central aspects of this body of research within a pluralistic framework. It offers a renewed investigation of the work of classical phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as an original application of phenomenological concepts and theories to contemporary discussions on intentionality, culture, emotions, and morality. The book provides insights for scholars in phenomenological philosophy as well as in philosophy of mind and interpersonal and social experience.

The societal web of life is underpinned by one concept - that of Self and Other - which emerged earlier in this century. The concept has received a new formulation within the field of the phenomenology of life and the human creative condition, finding a foothold, a point of reference that radiates novel, seminal insights. It is nothing other than the creative fulcrum of human functioning. The self-individualisation of the human being, as revealed in the present collection, is existentially and vitally intertwined with that of the Other. Tymieniecka's seminal idea of the `trans-actional' is explored in this collection of essays, which reveals a variety of significant perspectives, weaving the cycles of the human universe of existence in an essential oscillation between the Self and the Other. In this oscillation we throw out our existential tentacles, trying to gain a living space with respect to each other, all the while engaging in a mutual creative prompting and attunement.

Dialogue and communication have today become central concepts in con temporary man's effort to analyze and comprehend the major roots of con flict that threaten our twentieth-century world. Underlying all attempts at dialogue, however, is the presupposition that it is ontologically possible for men to reach one another and to communicate meaningfully. It is to this most basic question - of the possibility and the limits of interpersonal rela tionships - that various phenomenologies of intersubjectivity direct them selves. Both the topic (intersubjectivity) and the method (phenomenology) are relative newcomers to philosophy and in a sense they arrived together. Ever since Descartes, philosophers have labored to explain how a subject knows an object. But not until the twentieth century did they begin to ask the much more fundamental and vastly more mysterious question - how does one subject encounter another subject precisely as another subject? The problem of intersubjectivity is thus one that belongs in a quite special way to contemporary philosophy. "Classical philosophy used to leave it strangely alone," says Emmanuel Mounier. "If you ennumerate the major problems dealt with by classical philosophy, you have knowledge, the out side world, myself, the soul and the body, the mind, God, and the future life - the problem created by association with other people never assumes 1 in classical philosophy the same importance as the other problems. " Phenomenology, too, is a newcomer to the philosophical scene, especially in America.