Cover of Phenomenology 2010

Phenomenology 2010

Selected Essays from Asia and Pacific
Phenomenology in Dialogue with East Asian Tradition
2010, ISBN 978-973-1997-64-3
Editors: Lester Embree, Ion Copoeru, Yu Chung-Chi

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1. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Yu Chung-Chi

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2. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Fang Xianghong

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In contemporary Chinese Mainland emerge a great number of scholars, which specialize in European philosophy, so that nearly all of the European philosophers and philosophical schools are researched. They have translated philosophical works, publicized investigational papers and books and corrected the misunderstandings between these two heterogeneous cultures. The Impact from philosophical ideas goes even beyond the academic circle and extends to the social fields, forming various “fevers”. This article will not only introduce the concerning important figures and events, but also attempt to shed light on a tendency, that is, on an ever deepening dialog between Chinese and western thoughts.

3. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Kanda Daisuke

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Our present day experience is becoming increasingly intercultural. In encountering different cultures, we notice mostly the differences in language. The question here comes into focus: How we can give an account of the intercultural experience of language? This paper will inquire as to where we must pay attention in order to deal properly with language in the intercultural experience on the basis of Husserl’s texts. For that purpose, it is necessary to focus on the concept of motivation. Husserl considers motivation as the demand to complement our experiences at each moment. I will call this demand “inducement” and try to make clear the relationship between language and inducement.

4. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Kamei Daisuke

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Is a “linguistic community” among different languages possible? This question is important when it comes to the linguistic aspect of intercultural phenomenological problems. Hence, we consider the problem of translation by referring to the works of Husserl, Benjamin, and Derrida. We first examine Husserl’s use of the term “linguistic community” and then criticize it on the basis of Derrida’s interpretation. Following this, we seek the possibility of the “linguistic community” in translation through the theories of translation of Benjamin and Derrida, particularly by referring to Benjamin’s “pure language” and Derrida’s concepts of “sur-vival” and “promise.”

5. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Ni Liangkang, Chen Zhiyuan

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Both Yogacara Buddhism and Husserl’s phenomenology discuss deep-structure in a certain sense. The opposite superficial-structure, in Yogacara Buddhism, unifies the upper seven consciousnesses, and in Husserl’s phenomenology, embraces all kinds of objective consciousnesses. The relationship between those two structures, whether in Yogacara Buddhism or in Husserl’s phenomenology, is regarded as a sort of founding-founded relationship. According to the things themselves, in consciousness, deep-structure takes priority over superficialstructure. But to dwell on them asks for a reversing routine taken by Husserl: he begins with the analysis of superficial consciousness before descending into the deeper parts. But it is in Yogacara that we see more loyalty to the genetic order of the things.

6. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Abe Jun

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The main aim of this paper is to compare Husserlian phenomenology and Yogācāra Buddhism in the discussion of living matter, particularly hylē in the former and ādāna consciousness in the latter. While they not only share the same interest which is the constitution of phenomena, i.e., for consciousness itself, but also the enigma of such living matter, they approach these subjects using a different methodology. This comparative study might open the field of life which Husserlian phenomenology failed to describe, and might unite, just like yogā means “union” in English, Western and Eastern philosophy which have been strictly separated.

7. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Murata Junichi

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According to Aristotle, there are two models of vision. The one is a contact model, according to which the realization of vision is explained by the process of the contact between light and eye, and the other is a medium model, according to which the realization of vision is made possible only through some medium that constitutes a distance between a seer and something seen. Aristotle defends the latter model, criticizing the former one. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of vision and painting, which he explicated in his last work Eye and Mind, can be interpreted as a development of the medium model of vision. He especially focuses on the role of illumination, which plays a role of the medium and constitutes the distance and makes a vision possible. All painters are trying to paint this role of illumination, which constitutes “depth, space, and color,” that means, the “flesh” of the world. In this sense, Mereau-Ponty’s ontology of vision and his ontology of “flesh” in his later works can be interpreted as a development of his and David Katz’s phenomenology of illumination.

8. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Lee Nam-in

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This paper aims to show that there is a fundamental similarity between Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology developed in his Phenomenology of Perception and some types of Husserl’s phenomenology. I will do this by defining the basic character of the phenomenology of perception and comparing it with Husserl’s phenomenology. I will try to define the basic character of the phenomenology of perception by taking into account the chapter 4 of the Introduction of Phenomenology of Perception that has the title: “the phenomenal field”. In section 1-2, I will show that the phenomenology of perception could be defined as a phenomenological psychology that aims to clarify the structure of the phenomenal field and, at the same time, as a transcendental phenomenology that aims to clarify the structure of the transcendental field. Thereafter, in section 3, I will draw the conclusion that the phenomenology of perception is a phenomenology that has two pillars of a phenomenological psychology and a transcendental phenomenology. In section 4, comparing the phenomenology of perception with some types of Husserl’s phenomenology developed in Crisis3, I will show that there is a fundamental similarity between them. In section 5, I will show that there are also differences between the phenomenology of perception and Husserl’s phenomenology as a whole and that there remains a necessity to promote a phenomenological dialogue between them.

9. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Lau Kwok-ying

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This paper contains some preliminary reflections of a phenomenological philosopher on spatiality. They draw our attention to four basic forms of primordial spatiality essential to the understanding of the phenomenological and ontological conditions of activities pertaining to architecture as a discipline serving for the construction of the human habitat, namely: 1) the space of signification inaugurated by writing; 2) cartographic space constitutive of the representation of the world and locality; 3) oriented space and existential spatiality opened up by the living-body; and 4) the Earth as Ground-Ark which is the ultimate space of the human habitat. Drawing textual and theoretical resources from the works of Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Derrida and especially of Husserl, these reflections conclude that there exists only one Earth as Ground-Ark on which is built the common human habitat. This is a “primitive truth”—”primitive” in the sense of primordial—a truth understood by the most primitive human civilizations. This is also a truth forgotten by the brilliant successors of Copernicus who, while dreaming of a technologically advanced humanity, contribute in spite of their success to the irrecoverable devastation of the Earth as the only space of our common habitat.

10. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Zheng Yujian

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McDowell’s Mind and World bears unique importance in terms of re-focusing the contemporary empiricist problematics on a Kantian style inquiry: how can unconceptualized sense data, thus inhabiting the space of causes, become a resident of the space of reasons? By abandoning a common presupposition underlying the two dichotomous yet oscillating positions (the Myth of Given vs. a Davidsonian coherentism), the conceptual content becomes boundless. This “boundless” implies that nature is not beyond or alien to human conceptuality or rationality, or that our experiential engagement with natural objects is permeated with normative spontaneity, the same faculty for our presumed freedom. That is a main aspect of re-enchanting nature in McDowell.Merleau-Ponty opposes the disenchanting, reductive empiricism in his well-known Phenomenology of Perception. Perception never occurs in the vacuum of pre-existing meanings. Human beings are “condemned to meaning”: we have no choice but to acknowledge the genetic dependency of our full-fledged rational accomplishments on a pre-rational or pre-objective realm. This realm is not content-bleak or rationally empty but rather has its own lived-through “logic,” which is displayable to the appropriate perceptual stance.In this paper I’ll try to put McDowell and Merleau-Ponty in comparative focus so that weakness or limitation in each, while attempting to re-enchant nature from the vantage point of perception, can be seen in a more illuminative way. An evolutionary dimension, as well as a retrospective perspective, of the implicit meaning in human/animal perception will be revealed in my critical comparison. One upshot of my critique is the following positive thesis: the intentionality of man is the epistemologically legislative condition for nature to be possessed of rational relations (Darwinian reasons), while Mother Nature is the ontologically enabling condition for man to become intentional interpreter (meaning-endower). This deep-seated interdependence between man and nature with regard to reason relations, when well cashed out, will be the ultimate ground for justifying what I call the retrospective enchantment of nature.

11. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Wang Wen-Sheng

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In an article, “The Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Its Political Significance”, Hannah Arendt showed us her conception of an authentic culture, which is signified with two elements: art and politics. How can art and politics relate to each other? What do they mean in view of the concept of authentic culture? How can we reach the concept of authentic culture? Regarding these questions, I will connect Arendt’s answer, which owes much to the Kantian way of “reflective judgment” or “judgment of taste”, with the phenomenological method which Edmund Husserl contributed to us.Husserl’s phenomenological method is nothing but epoche. There are many and different interpretations of epoche. There are also many steps leading up to the general term of epoche. I will on the one hand, expose the epoche generally in an artistic sense which is similar to Aristotle’s and Kant’s discussion of art.On the other hand, I will point out the significance of “lifeworld epoche”, a step toward the epoche, as a way of conveying what Arendt conceived as being culture.Since I have tried to disclose Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological method behind Arendt’s authentic culture if asked how we could reach what Hannah Arendt’s meant about the authentic culture. In this regard, Arendt seemed still to be a phenomenologist. But Husserl’s phenomenological method contributes to Arendt’s conception of the authentic culture only as a necessary condition. As we said above that a phenomenologist is an artist, it was about the attitude of life. As we also said above the authentic culture is to be shown in the life of action and art, it was about the content of life. In this regard, we hear still from Arendt that on the one hand the public sphere provides space for art, on the other hand, the political experience and action itself is left without any trace, but the beauty doesn’t disappear. So they must co-exist, in order to contribute to human authentic culture. So it is worthy to further investigate what Husserl in his works directly talked about the authentic culture. And it would enlarge our viewpoint, if we, with regard to “publicity”, interpret some issues and conceptions in Husserl’s texts, e.g.: culture, leisure time, politics, humanities, even sciences, and philosophy as a rigorous science, etc.

12. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Inagaki Satoshi

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In Husserl’s thoughts of the 1930s, the relation between the transcendental “I” and the passive synthesis of the consciousness comes gradually and explicitly into question. His investigation aims to phenomenologically fix the origin of absolute temporalization, the reflective “I” or the passive intentionality. The temporalization only through the passive intentionality (pre-intentionality / Vor-intentionalitat) appears to exceed the abilities of the “I” substantially and to refuse that involvement as long as it means an absolute passive ground (Urboden) of the “I” itself. However, the phenomenological investigation must not presuppose naively a stream of passive consciousness which escapes from all of the epistemological, reflective knowledge. Therefore, the self-insight of the “I” who performs the phenomenology indeed (phanomenologisierendes Ich) is demanded iteratively. On the one hand, this insight urges Husserl to recognize the apodictic uniqueness (Einzigartigkeit) of the transcendental “I” and then to abandon the explanation of temporalization through the original passive intentionality, for phenomenological reflections toward this stream without the “I” (ichlos) or before the “I” (vor-ichlich) repeatedly lead to problems of infinite regress. On the other hand, it also falls into a similar problem of infinite regress to define or explain the transcendental “I” as an operative, not as an intentional object; because the operative “I” cannot have any ontic status. Since that time, Husserl’s description of the temporalization through the passive intentionality appears again in his manuscripts. What is important in Husserl’s struggle is that he encountered an original factum that the transcendental “I” as a phenomenologist who generates (werdender Phanomenologe) inevitably is interwoven into the stream of consciousness which has a genetic history. The “I” and the stream are not the same thing, but are intimately intertwined. Whereas the “I” will reflect this stream steadily, the stream generates such performances of the “I”. If Husserl had not found this factum, he could have never reached the problem of the birth and death of the transcendental “I”, unlike an empirical one. And this problem gives us even now various possibilities to develop genetic phenomenology in the future.The structure of this paper is as follows: 1) we start our discussion by delineating a sphere, in which the passive syntheses of the consciousness perform, and there are two forms of their functions, and indicate that primary passivity is more important in both, for it is directly connected with the problem of temporalization in Husserl’s thoughts of the 1930s. 2) This section shows in what way and in what motivation Husserl understands passive intentionality which is based on the stream of consciousness itself and differentiate it strictly from normal intentionality which is derived from the performances of the phenomenological “I”. Despite this distinction, Husserl maintains in 1932 that there is only one type of intentionality, namely the active intentionality of the “I”. At the end of this section, we shall clarify why Husserl drew that conclusion at least temporarily. 3) This section reveals the difficulties of explaining the being of the “I” who performs the absolute temporalization. Accordingly, the problem of original passive intentionality appears again in Husserl’s descriptions. 4) In conclusion, we will describe how the problem of the generation of the transcendental “I” developed in connection with the passive intentionality. Our final goal is to indicate possibilities contained in the Husserlian genetic phenomenology in the 1930s.

13. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Jung Tae-Chang

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The aim of this paper is to understand Husserl’s criticism of representationalism, especially of Brentano’s. In this investigation, the exact point of Husserl’s criticism of Brentano’s “intentional inexistence” and its meaning about Husserl’s intentionality will be examined.

14. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Shin Ho-Jae

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This paper will address the concept of sensation in Husserl’s Logical Investigations and Ideas I. In Husserl’s early static phenomenology, sensation was suggested as non-intentional experience, thereby, it has the status of real moment in consciousness, and it plays a role of material for the constitution of object, and also it functions as the representative content of the intentional object. These determinations of sensation converge on the apprehension-content scheme. Especially, this paper will try to reveal the essential structure of the objectifying act in Husserl’s static phenomenology, by systematically clarifying the relation between the scheme in Fifth Logical Investigations (LI5) and the representation through fullness in Sixth Logical Investigations (LI6). This paper will examine this problem with regard to two aspects. One is about what status the sensation occupies within consciousness, and the other is about what role the sensation plays in the constitution of object. In conclusion, the fullness in LI6 is none other than the hyle in LI5. What matters in LI5 is the structure of constitution, in which the apprehension has animating effects on the sensation. On the other hand, what is concerned in LI6 is the structure of fulfillment, by which consciousness achieves to obtain the recognition of an object in such a way that the intended object is represented actually by the act of intuition with sensation. After all, in Husserl’s static phenomenology, sensation is not only the material or hyle for the constitution, but also the content of representation.

15. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Jeff Malpas

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The vast majority of work on Heidegger has focussed on the work of the 1920s and early 1930s, most notably on Being and Time. The thinking that follows after that, especially the thinking belonging to the post-war period, has received much less attention, particularly from English-speaking commentators. Yet although Being and Time is an enormously important and philosophically rich work, we cannot come to any real understanding of the Heideggerian project, or of what Heidegger came to view as lying at the heart of that project, if we remain with that early thinking alone. Rather than treat Heidegger’s later philosophy as given over to mysticism and poetry, this paper argues that the later thinking is essential to any adequate estimation of the nature and significance of Heidegger’s philosophy. The later thinking arises, in fact, directly out of Heidegger’s attempt to respond to, and to overcome, the shortcomings that exist in the earlier work. Inasmuch as Being and Time thus represents, in many respects, a failed pathway, the direction into which Heidegger is turned by that failure—the direction of the later philosophy—is perhaps the more important.

16. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Kageyama Yohei

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The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the theoretical process through which Martin Heidegger in the 1910’s came to his idea of fundamental ontology. In particular, I will try to elucidate the necessity for him to introduce the concept of “existence” in ontological investigation. I will divide his development into three stages and make clear genetic relation between them. First, motivated by Catholic realism, Heidegger tried to explicate universal categorical structure of entity, which lead him to introduce concept of logical validity and normative account for cognition. Second, inspired by Lask’s account of objectity, Heidegger switched to ontology of signification and lived experience which gives condition of truth for the first stage. Third, motivated by religious experience of finitude, he came to the idea of existence which conditions facticity of signification and is thus regarded as the principal instance of ontology.

17. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Wong Yiu-Hong

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Temporality, death and history: a reflection after Heidegger. This paper aims to evaluate how Heidegger deals with the problem of time in Being and Time. The fundamental issue in that magnum opus is to explain the question of the meaning of Being under the horizon of time. But what kind of philosophical resource could make Heidegger be capable to resolve the problem in the most effective way? The phenomenological interpretation of time takes the first priority in consideration. Although in Being and Time Heidegger has literally made a very little reference to Husserl, the influence of Husserl is too obvious to be denied. Heidegger, however, finds Husserl’s elucidation of time has ever dissolved the dimension of time into the immanence sphere of subjectivity. By making the position of the subject in an all too mighty status, the phenomenon of time has not been rendered faithfully in a phenomenological sense, the motto “zu die Sache selbst”. And, Heidegger would regard Husserl’s working on time has not fully observed this highest norm. Bearing the problem in mind when starting to compose Being and Time, Heidegger has to find a new way to avoid the same “mistake” as his master, and the overall contribution of his great work could in turn be assessed under the same evaluative principle. Has Heidegger successfully saved up “time” from the over dominance of the subject? Has he re-disclosed time as objectively as time itself (die Sache selbst)? This paper focus especially on how Heidegger’s thinking of the past and the future moments in Being and Time. Then, we can see that, when comparing with two other phenomenologists’ treatments on the same issue, Gadamer and Levinas, Heidegger resolutions on “past” and “future’ obviously show their weakness. And, the promise of removing the dominance of the subject is doomed to failure. Moreover, the underlining structure of organizing Being and Time has not fully escaped the way of metaphysical thinking. In his later period, which is so called the “turning”, Heidegger attempts to break down the metaphysical thinking about “foundationalism”, behind this thinking is the presupposition of dichotomy between founding and founded. Judging from this perspective, Being and Time has found no way out of the labyrinth.

18. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Leung Po-Shan

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View History as the Existing Situation from the Being of Thing. The question of “What is a thing?” is closely related to that of Being. Heidegger had dealt with the research of thing repeatedly since 1919. The following article will show that, regardless of his inspiring thinking about “ready-to-hand” of thing in Being and Time, his research was more extensively developed in his later years at the end of 1940s. By exploring the possibilities of viewing a thing, Heidegger continuously attempted to reveal the serious limitation of Platonic tradition in the western philosophy. This article will analyze in detail the crucial role of History of Being in Heidegger’s understanding of thing through an example of jug. Heidegger in his piece not only suggests a change of attitude to view a thing, but also “viewing a thing” as not simply a passive activity. It is rather a kind of “step backward” of thinking, which means how to let the representative, analytical and interpretative art of thinking return to its pre-reflective, pre-conceptual and intuitive state of existence.

19. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Lui Ping-keung

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This paper follows Eric Voegelin’s discussion on Gnosticism, politics and science. Gnosticism is ancient, but survives well into the modern age. Marx and Heidegger are among the modern gnostics who are determined to deny or ignore the existence of God, that is, an existence beyond what mankind can plausibly know. The political result, in the case of Marxism, has been known to be disastrous. A philosophic remedy is for man to recognize an order of being in which God is given a foothold, that is, to accept an ontology that is different from Marx’s and Heidegger’s in a fundamental way. The author suggests that while most if not all social theories remain gnostic such ontology befits theoretical sociology.

20. Phenomenology 2010: Volume > 1
Lubica Učník

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In order to show a different understanding of what it means to be human, in this paper, I will present Jan Patočka’s discussion of human existence. For Patočka, human existence is essentially historical and situational. His reflections proceed from Martin Heidegger’s explanation of the structure of human existence in Sein und Zeit, which Heidegger calls Da-Sein. According to Patočka, Heidegger’s exposition is predicated on a negative human relation to the world; we are originally inauthentic. Yet he forgets to take into account that Da-Sein is a doublet: animal rationale. Patočka appropriates Arendt’s phenomenological account of the human condition in order to critique Heidegger’s account of Da-sein in Being and Time to develop his own understanding of human existence.