Immediately after his ultimately fragmented main work “Being and Time” (1927), Heidegger had a phase of intensive engagement with Kant, especially his main work “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781). Kant’s topos of the “metaphysics of metaphysics” thus plays a central role. This figure of thought is of central importance not only for the interpretation of Kant, but also for the history of modern philosophy after Kant and after idealist philosophy.

Resumen Tanto la migración como el exilio, al lado del extranjero y el extraño, han sido objeto de la investigación fenomenológica. En este estudio se da un pequeño paso con respecto a la fenomenología de la migración. En particular, se lleva a cabo una profundización en torno a un estrato fundante: el éxodo en sus intrincadas relaciones con estratos tales como la frontera y la diáspora. Así, centramos la atención en el éxodo como experiencia y en los estratos protofundadores de (...) la comprensión de la migración. Con esta mirada, se dan tres pasos, a saber, se caracteriza la relación existente entre 1. El éxodo y la constitución trascendental; se establece la interrelación entre 2. La frontera y la comunidad de pertenencia; y, finalmente, se mira cómo 3. La diáspora opera la constitución trascendental de la esperanza. A manera de 4. Conclusiones se vuelve la atención a la constitución trascendental como fundamento de la ética.Migration like exile, alongside the stranger and the stranger, have been the subject of phenomenological research. In this study a small step is taken regarding the phenomenology of migration. In particular, a deepening is carried out around a founding stratum: the exodus in its intricate relation- ships with strata such as the border and the diaspora. Thus, we focus attention on the exodus as experience and on the foundational layers of the understanding of migration. With this view, three steps are taken, namely, the relationship between the exodus and the transcendental constitution is characterized; the interrelation is established between 2. The border and the community of belonging; and, finally, we look at how 3. The diaspora operates the transcendental constitution of hope. By way of 4. Conclusions, attention is turned to the transcendental constitution as the foundation of ethics. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of modern physics came to the conclusion that the problem of how objectivity is constituted (rather than merely given) can no longer be avoided, and therefore that a transcendental approach in the spirit of Kant is now philosophically relevant. The usual excuse for skipping this task is that the historical form given by Kant to transcendental epistemology has been challenged by Relativity and Quantum Physics. However, the true challenge is not to force modern (...) physics into a rigidly construed static version of Kant's philosophy, but to provide Kant's method with flexibility and generality. In this book, the top specialists of the field pin down the methodological core of transcendental epistemology that must be used in order to throw light on the foundations of modern physics. First, the basic tools Kant used for his transcendental reading of Newtonian Mechanics are examined, and then early transcendental approaches of Relativistic and Quantum Physics are revisited. Transcendental procedures are also applied to contemporary physics, and this renewed transcendental interpretation is finally compared with structural realism and constructive empiricism. The book will be of interest to scientists, historians and philosophers who are involved in the foundational problems of modern physics. (shrink)

(2010). Constituting Objectivity: Transcendental Perspectives on Modern Physics. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 440-443.

Articles phenomenological "correlation innate" topics as the starting point, with the "pure phenomenon" implies the concept of phenomenological ambiguity beginning with the inspection of premises and the nature of the phenomenological reduction-oriented discussion. Discussions were focused on specific on the "relevance innate" topic and see that the concept of constructive interpretation, to take, to reveal the concept of phenomenological reduction and the intrinsic correlation structure, highlighting the transcendental phenomenology of the shipped back to the idea of the ultimate origin (...) of the. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 2, pp 205 - 220 I investigate the phenomenological significance of Husserl’s appeal to the “numerical identity” of _irreality_ as it appears in recollected manifolds of lived-experience in his mature account of the transcendental constitution of transcendence and find it wanting. I show that what is at stake for Husserl in this appeal is the descriptive mark that exhibits the distinction between a unit of meaning as it is constituted in psychologically determined lived-experience (...) and as it is constituted in lived-experience that is determined transcendentally. In other words, I show that numerical identity functions for Husserl as the criterion that signals transcendental psychologism has been overcome. I then present the argument that it has not been overcome in Husserl’s investigations, because the collective unity characteristic of numerical unity is presupposed by those investigations rather than made evidentially manifest and articulated. (shrink)

This paper explores Husserl's phenomenological description of the constitution of the alter ego within the sphere of transcendental subjectivity. It is important at the start to point out that the Other plays a crucial role in securing the intersubjective nature of the experienced world. Although Husserl goes on in the "Fifth Cartesian Meditation" to consider the constitution of an objective world common to all subjects and the establishment of a community of monads, my primary focus in this (...) paper will be the examination of the initial steps whereby the sense, "other ego," is constituted by the transcendental ego. My main task, then, will be to examine the reduction to the sphere of ownness, the appresentative transfer of sense from ego to alter ego, and the criterion of harmonious behavior. My primary criticisms will center around certain difficulties inherent in the attempt to uncover a primordial sphere of ownness and problems that arise from a shift in concern from the life-world (everyday) attitude to the attitude following the performance of the epoché. Part I of the paper will consist of a general discussion of Husserl's phenomenological project, Part II will be a detailed study of the alter ego, and Part III a general statement of problems and objections. (shrink)

This article attempts to outline the contours of a transcendental phenomenology that would retain the intuition of a healthy realism. In this connection it is proposed to reinterpret the Husserlian notion of constitution, presenting constitution as a discover of reality. A distinction is made between strong and weak versions of constitution. It is constitution in the weak sense that combines, in our opinion, with the realist attitude. In order to achieve the above-mentioned goal (to present (...) constitution as discovery), the Husserlian notion of object sense is clarified: it is excluded as a representative or substitute of an intentional object; object sense is seen as a mode of givenness, as а medium by means of which the object is implied or given. The idea of a meaningful discovery of reality is best matched by this treatment of object meaning. It is thus possible to combine the realist attitude with the idea of meaningful access to the real, thus avoiding, on the one hand, naive realism and, on the other hand, transcendental-idealist implications. The Husserlian notion of constitution is further related with the idea of forming interpretative schemes of understanding the world, which may include political agendas, scientific paradigms, systems of speculative metaphysics, and religious faith. It is emphasized that, although the rejection of interpretation is impossible, interpretive schemes must be reconciled with real facts and events in order to “fine-tune” reason and reality. Finally, a separation is undertaken with the conception of J.- L. Marion, which relies on the deflation of meaning in favor of the given as such, calling into question the status of man as a being who possesses reason, who discovers reality and constitutes its meaning. (shrink)

Transcendental epistemology of physics Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9507-z Authors Andrés Rivadulla, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Complutense University, 28040 Madrid, Spain Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Invocations of Merleau-Ponty’s claim concerning the incompleteness that accompanies the phenomenological reduction have had a long and somewhat contentious history. In this paper I will further explore the implications of Merleau-Ponty’s claim and the itinerary from which it emerges. From the Structure of Behaviour onward, he argued that consciousness is not a transcendental presupposition but an achievement that emerges from and transforms the labor of our rational practices. Phenomenological theory rightly argued for the centrality of the experience of the (...) reduction, albeit too often by mistakenly bestowing immanence upon it. Statically regarded, the reduction may involve an ‘act’ but it is also a Stiftung, and thus a performative, one that Merleau-Ponty claims involves an institution and an acquisition: as he puts it quite simply, it is learned. The reduction involves intuition but it is also a conceptual practice involving “a multitude of operations”, a symbolic matrix always articulated through internal transformations. Finally the reduction is an experience but it is always a sequence “gradually effected” and thus an embodied history. It results then not in the Spinozist Habemus ideam verum, but as “The Philosopher and His Shadow” rightly concludes, an “artifact”. For Merleau-Ponty, all this forced the recognition of the “internal difficulty” in the reduction theorized through the concept of a constituting consciousness. Moreover, this not an anthropological claim about a faculty or finitude, but a claim about the rationality, the “metamorphosis” and “coherent deformation” of its experience, an “ordered sequence of steps” that “could not possibly reach completion in the intellectual possession of a noema”. It is not simply en presence, in the static relation of presence that phenomenology achieves justification. For Merleau-Ponty, its experience is not unrevisable, nor immanently completable: instead it is only through the ordered steps of its history that it acquires sufficiency. (shrink)

A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOCICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY. (Vol. I: French; Vol. II: English) -/- Steven James Bartlett -/- Doctoral dissertation director: Paul Ricoeur, Université de Paris Other doctoral committee members: Jean Ladrière and Alphonse de Waehlens, Université Catholique de Louvain Defended publically at the Université Catholique de Louvain, January, 1971. -/- Universite de Paris X (France), 1971. 797pp. -/- The principal objective of the work is to construct an analytically precise methodology which (...) can serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread _conceptual fault_ or _misconstruction_, called a "projective misconstruction" or "projection" by the author. It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claims, and theories, (ii) has largely been undetected, and (iii), when remedied, leads to a less controversial and more rigorous elucidation of the transcendental preconditions of human knowledge than has traditionally been possible. The dissertation identifies, perhaps for the first time, a _projective_ variety of self-referential inconsistency, and proposes an innovative, self-reflexive approach to transcendental argument in a logical and phenomenological context. The strength of the approach lies, it is claimed, in the fact that a rejection of the approach is possible only on pain of self-referential inconsistency. The argument is developed in the following stages: A general introduction identifies the central theme of the work, defines the scope of applicability of the results reached, and sketches the direction of the studies that follow. The preliminary discussion culminates in a recognition of the need for a _critique of impure reason_. The body of the work is divided into two parts: Section I seeks to develop a methodology, on a purely formal basis, which is, on the one hand, capable of being used to study the transcendental foundations of the special sciences, including its own proper transcendental foundation. On the other hand, the methodology proposed is intended as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for dealing with _projective_ uses of concepts. The approach initiates an analysis of concepts from a perspective which views _knowledge as coordination_. Section I describes formal structures that possess the status of preconditions in such a coordinative account of knowledge. Special attention is given to the preconditions of _identifying reference_ to logical particulars. The first section attempts, then, to provide a self-referential, transcendental methodology which is essentially revisionary in that it is motivated by a concern for conceptual error-elimination. Phenomenology, considered in its unique capacity as a self-referential, transcendental discipline, is of special relevance to the study. Section II accordingly examines a group of concepts which come into question in connection with the central theme of _phenomenological constitution_. The "_de-projective methodology_" developed in Section I is applied to these concepts that have a foundational importance in transcendental phenomenology. A translation is, in effect, proposed from the language of consciousness to a language in which preconditions of referring are investigated. The result achieved is the elimination of self-defeating, projective concepts from a rigorous, phenomenological study of the constitutive foundations of science. The dissertation was presented in a two volume, double-language format for the convenience of French and English researchers. Each volume contains an analytical index. (shrink)

Transcendental Guilt challenges traditional ways of understanding moral philosophy by proposing, instead of mainstream ethical theorizing, a serious moral reflection on our ethical finitude, focusing on the concept of guilt. It argues that guilt plays a "transcendental" role in our ethical lives by being constitutive of the seriousness characteristic of the moral point of view.

Kant's influence on the history of philosophy is vast and protean. The transcendental turn denotes one of its most important forms, defined by the notion that Kant's deepest insight should not be identified with any specific epistemological or metaphysical doctrine, but rather concerns the fundamental standpoint and terms of reference of philosophical enquiry. To take the transcendental turn is not to endorse any of Kant's specific teachings, but to accept that the Copernican revolution announced in the Preface of (...) the Critique of Pure Reason sets philosophy on a new footing and constitutes the proper starting point of philosophical reflection.In this volume a team of leading philosophers explore the concept of the transcendental as it developed through history, focusing on approaches to the transcendental project by Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Bernard Williams. By giving systematic shape to historical material, the volume provides a unique resource for systematic reflection on transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

This paper introduces phenomenology as a distinctive form of transcendental philosophy by exploring a problem that arises with the phenomenological concept of “constitution,” namely, the “paradox of human subjectivity” – the idea that under the transcendental reduction the human subject is both a entity in the world and the ground of all such constitution. Focusing on the question of what conditions must obtain for something to be the bearer of normatively structured intentional content, the paper argues (...) that the appearance of paradox here rests upon a certain naturalistic assumption – namely, that the aspect of subjectivity responsible for transcendental constitution is consciousness conceived as the kind of phenomenal experience we share with other animals. In a final section I try to suggest how transcendentalism and a certain naturalism might nevertheless be reconciled on phenomenological grounds. (shrink)

The first phase of Sartre’s philosophical publications is marked by an apparent ambivalence towards Husserl’s transcendental turn. Sartre accepts both major aspects of that turn, the phenomenological reduction and the use of transcendental argumentation. Yet his rejection of the transcendental ego that Husserl derives from this transcendental turn overlooks an obvious transcendental argument in favour of it. His books on emotion and imagination, moreover, make only very brief comments about the transcendental constitution of (...) the world of experience. In each case, these appear at the end of the book and can seem to contradict the book’s central analysis. The problem underlying these features of his works of phenomenological psychology is clarified and resolved, however, when Sartre articulates his own transcendental phenomenology and ontology in Being and Nothingness a decade after he first encountered the work of Husserl. This resolution raises a new problem that animates the next phase of his philosophy. (shrink)

This essay examines Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Logic and its interpretation of Kant's “science of transcendental analysis” as a theory of the cognitive faculties and their “inherent forms” or “several functional powers”. I explain why Coleridge characterises transcendental analysis as an “investigation into the constitution and constituent forms” of the faculties, and consider the reasons behind his schematic division of such inquiry into “transcendental [ … ] Æsthetic, Logic, and Noetic”. I argue that Coleridge's claims about the (...) forms, operations, and contents that derive from different cognitive powers, and the philosophical method that enables us to prove such derivation, are based on Kant's theory of “transcendental reflection”. I also explain how Coleridge's facultative conception of transcendental analysis relates to recent scholarship on Kant's accounts of (i) our cognitive capacities and (ii) the purposes of transcendental reflection. My essay does not aim to defend Coleridge's interpretation of Kant, but rather to provide a clearer picture of how this interpretation informs Coleridge's analysis of cognitive activity and mental content in Logic, including his “transcendental noetic”, which seeks to explain the possibility of the kind intellectual intuition that Kant explicitly denies. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the relation between Kantian transcendental reflection and 20th century philosophy of science. As has been pointed out by Michael Friedman and others, the notion of a "relativized a priori" played a central role in Rudolf Carnap's, Hans Reichenbach's and other logical empiricists' thought. Thus, even though the logical empiricists dispensed with Kantian synthetic a priori judgments, they did maintain a crucial Kantian doctrine, viz., a distinction between the level of establishing norms for empirical inquiry and the (...) level of norm-governed inquiry itself. Even though Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions is often taken to be diametrically opposed to the received view of science inherited from logical empiricism, a version of this basically Kantian distinction is preserved in Kuhn's thought. In this respect, as Friedman has argued, Kuhn is closer to Carnap's theory of linguistic frameworks than, say, W.V. Quine's holistic naturalism. Kuhn, indeed, might be described as a "new Kant" in post-empiricist philosophy of science. This article examines, first, the relativization of the Kantian a priori in Reichenbach's work, arguing that while Reichenbach criticized "transcendentalism", he nevertheless retained, in a reinterpreted form, a Kantian-like transcendental method, claiming that the task of philosophy is to discover and analyze the presuppositions underlying the applicability of conceptual systems. Then, some reflections on Kuhn's views on realism are offered, and it is suggested that Kuhn can be reinterpreted as a Kantian transcendental idealist. Given the central importance of Kuhnian themes in contemporary philosophy of science, it is no exaggeration to claim that Kantian transcendental inquiry into the constitutive principles of empirical knowledge, and even transcendental idealism, still have a crucial role to play in this field and deserve further scrutiny. (shrink)

The article focuses on re-evaluating Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic by initially highlighting its seemingly negative function within the Critique of Pure Reason as a mere regulative form for cognition and experience. The Dialectic, however, does not only have such a negative-regulative function but also its very own positive and founding character for cognition that even is present in the supposedly most immediate forms of intuition. In exploring this positive side of the Transcendental Dialectic it becomes clear that it manifests (...) itself as a bridge between the so-called theoretical and practical reason inasmuch as it fills in their gap within Kant’s philosophy. From the practical side, the Dialectic is manifest as an action full of purposiveness, maxims, and imperatives within cognition, from a theoretical side it assumes the form of syllogistic inference, which is the adequate and acting theoretical form of practical reason. Therefore, the unity of reason is shown in presenting its inner gap as a dialectical misunderstanding that Kant not only highlights in the Transcendental Dialectic but also tends to leave unsolved mostly. Nevertheless, the Dialectic can be shown as the a priori synthetic act of unifying reason, if investigated in the context of Kant’s complete critical endeavour. (shrink)

: According to Kant, the arguments of rational psychology are formal fallacies that he calls transcendental paralogisms. It remains heavily debated whether there actually is any formal error in the inferences Kant presents: according to Grier and Allison, they are deductively invalid syllogisms, whereas Bennett, Ameriks, and Van Cleve deny that they are formal fallacies. I advance an interpretation that reconciles these extremes: transcendental paralogisms are sound in general logic but constitute formal fallacies in transcendental logic. By (...) formalising the paralogistic inference, I will pinpoint the error as an illegitimate existential presupposition. Since - unlike transcendental logic - general logic abstracts from all objects, this error can only be detected in transcendental logic. (shrink)

This essay presents Husserl’s Formal and Transcendental Logic (1929) in three main sections following the layout of the work itself. The first section focuses on Husserl’s introduction where he explains the method and the aim of the essay. The method used in FTL is radical Besinnung and with it an intentional explication of proper sense of formal logic is sought for. The second section is on formal logic. The third section focuses on Husserl’s “transcendental logic,” which is needed (...) to make Husserl’s conception complete, i.e., to understand what makes Besinnung radical, how the proper sense of formal logic has been reached and how all this relates to transcendental constitution of an object in the world. Husserl’s work is connected to his context (in exact sciences) and the relevance of his views for the contemporary approaches is discussed. (shrink)

This article addresses an ambiguity in Edmund Husserl’s descriptions of what it means to be a human being in the world. On the one hand, Husserl often characterizes the human being in natural scientific terms as a psychophysical unity. On the other hand, Husserl also describes how we experience ourselves as embodied persons that experience and communicate with others within a socio-historical world. The main aim of this article is to show that if one overlooks this ambiguity then one will (...) misunderstand the relation between the subject that experiences a world (and that Husserl terms transcendental) and the human being within the world. (shrink)

This article considers a central ethically relevant interpersonal emotion, guilt. It is argued that guilt, as an irreducible moral category, has a constitutive role to play in our ways of conceptualizing our relations to other people. Without experiencing guilt, or being able to do so, we would not be capable of employing the moral concepts and judgments we do employ. Elaborating on this argument, the paper deals with what may be described as the "metaphysics of guilt." More generally, it is (...) suggested, through a case study on the concept of guilt, that a moral theory avoiding naïve emotivism yet emphasizing the role of emotions in morality can and should pay attention to the transcendental status of emotions such as guilt--emotions constitutive of our concept of moral seriousness. Instead of psychologizing moral emotions, the paper employs Raimond Gaita's Wittgenstein-inspired way of examining the place of the concepts of guilt and remorse in our ethical language-use. Finally, some methodological remarks on the possibility of transcendental reflection in moral philosophy are presented. While it is not necessary to commit oneself to any specific religious tradition in order to emphasize the constitutive role of guilt in the way suggested in the paper, it turns out that the moral depth of this concept requires that one is least open to religiously relevant ways of using moral language. In the fundamental metaphysical sense examined in the paper, guilt is a concept whose home language-game is religious rather than secular ethics. (shrink)

Transcendental arguments have been described as undogmatic or non-dogmatic arguments. This paper examines this contention critically and addresses the question of what is required from an argument for which the characterization is valid. I shall argue that although transcendental arguments do in certain respects meet what one should require from non-dogmatic arguments, they - or more specifically, what I shall call 'general transcendental arguments' - involve an assumption about conceptual unity that constitutes a reason for not attributing (...) to them the status of non-dogmatic arguments. As a solution to this problem I distinguish general transcendental arguments from what I shall call 'specific transcendental arguments' and seek to explain how by limiting the use of transcendental arguments to the latter type it would be possible to avoid dogmatism. This methodological adjustment also opens up a possibility of re-interpreting transcendental arguments from the past in a novel non-dogmatic fashion. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy is often treated as a closed system, without reference to how it was written or how Kant arrived at its familiar form, the critique. In fact, the style of the critique seems so artless that readers think of it as an unfortunate by-product—a style of stylelessness. In _Constituting Critique_, Willi Goetschel shows how this apparent gracelessness was deliberately achieved by Kant through a series of writing experiments. By providing an account of the process that culminated in his three (...) _Critiques_, this book offers a new perspective on Kant’s philosophical thought and practice. _Constituting Critique_ traces the stages in Kant’s development to reveal how he redefined philosophy as a critical task. Following the philosopher through the experiments of his early essays, Goetschel demonstrates how Kant tests, challenges, and transforms the philosophical essay in his pursuit of a new self-reflective literary genre. From these experiments, critique emerges as the philosophical form for the critical project of the Enlightenment. The imperatives of its transcendental style, Goetschel contends, not only constitute and inform the critical moment of Kant’s philosophical praxis, but also have an enduring place in post-Kantian philosophy and literature. By situating the _Critiques_ within the context of Kant’s early essays, this work will redirect the attention of Kant scholars to the origins of their form. It will also encourage contemporary critical theorists to reconsider their own practice through an engagement with its source in Kant. (shrink)

This paper examines how Jacques Derrida appropriates and deepens Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy. In Derrida’s early essay on différance, Kant is conspicuous in his absence. One of the essay’s key aims is to re-think space and time, drawing on the work of Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, and several others to do so. It is therefore curious that Kant is never mentioned, especially because the method and conceptual framework Derrida ends up adopting owes a huge debt to transcendental arguments. Derrida (...) posits a fundamental double- movement of differing and deferral - différance - as the condition for the possibility of anything to be at all, the originary constitution of space and time. It therefore functions as a kind of ‘ultra-transcendental’ condition, as Derrida would say later in his career, that reaches a level of fundamentality that Kant was unable to, making possible not just human experience, but existence as a whole as such. (shrink)

This study focuses on the essential difference between Kant’s and Husserl’s transcendental Idealism. In fact, Husserl describes in the «Cartesian Meditations» his own ontological thesis as a «transcendental idealism», in which all sorts of entities have to be constituted by an activity of the transcendental subjectivity, so that we have to regard pure consciousness as the ontological origin of all entities in the world. But this study is interested in the two opposite signications of the Kantian copernican (...) inversion. On the one hand, the Copernican inversion has the same sense as the phenomenological reduction, which implies that Husserl can’t agree with Kant’s presupposition of absolute things in themselves; on the second hand, it involves a relativistic and anthropologistic orientation, so that the aprioristic structures of given objects are founded on the universal structures of finite subjectivity, on pure forms and faculties of human consciousness. At the opposite, Husserl enounces a methodological prescription for any phenomenological elucidation: it is not allowed to presuppose in phenomenology any given faculty or given nature of transcendental subjectivity. This prescription has important consequences on which this study focuses. First the ontological difference between intuitus originarius and intuitus derivatus, in nite and nite type of intuition, doesn’t have any validity: the difference between factual and rational truths only depends on the essence of the truth itself, and doesn’t have its foundation on the ontological difference between creative and receptive sort of intuition. Secondly, this first thesis admits an immediate application on the level of subjective constitution of objects: the modality in which an object appears to the subjectivity doesn’t depend on the universal structure of finite subject, but is exclusively founded on the essence of the object itself, so that it is impossible to consider the aprioristic constitutive structure as a merely subjective structure. Thirdly, in this transcendental phenomenology everything has to be constituted by subjectivity: the aprioristic character of the pure forms of sensibility is not founded on the structure of finite subjectivity, but rather on the essential connection between sensual material and form; so that it is not allowed to presuppose any facticity of time and space; the pure forms of sensibility have to be constituted by a special type of synthesis that we have to elucidate in opposition to other types of higher levels. The profound signication of Husserl’s anticopernican inversion is that the field of transcendental phenomenology consists of the essential form of an eidos ego, which is «more objective than any objectivity», as Levinas said; and that transcendental phenomenology is completely dominated by the principium reddendae rationis. (shrink)

A core thesis of Kitcher's is that thinking about objects requires awareness of necessary connections between one's object-directed representations ‘as such’ and that this is what Kant means by the transcendental unity of apperception. I argue that Kant's main point is the spontaneity or ‘self-made-ness’ of combination rather than the requirement of reflexive awareness of combination, that Kitcher provides no plausible account of how recognition of representations ‘as such’ should be constituted and that in fact Kant himself appears to (...) lack the theoretical resources to clearly distinguish between consciousness and self-consciousness or apperception properly so-called. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant argues that the empirical knowledge of the world depends on a priori conditions of human sensibility and understanding, i. e., our capacities of sense experience and concept formation. The objective knowledge presupposes, on one hand, space and time as a priori conditions of sensibility and, on another hand, a priori judgments, like the principle of causality, as constitutive conditions of understanding. The problem is that in the XX century the physical science completely changed (...) how we conceive our knowledge of the world. Face to this new situation, what was changed in our classical reason? However, if the transcendental point of view is adopted, in the specific case of quantum mechanics, we have to wonder about the general conditions of this theory that make possible such knowledge, which predictive value is much more accurate than the classical physics. The aim of this work is firstly to show the Kantian implications on Bohr’s interpretation of quantum phenomena and secondly to provide an overview of the key elements for understanding the transcendental locus of ordinary language in the quantum mechanics context, in order to give support to a transcendental pragmatic position in the analysis of science. (shrink)

This paper deals with a foundational aspect of Integrated Information Theory of consciousness: the nature of the relation between the axioms of phenomenology and the postulates of cause-effect power. There has been a lack of clarity in the literature regarding this crucial issue, for which IIT has received much criticism of its axiomatic method and basic tenets. The present contribution elucidates the problem by means of a categorial analysis of the theory’s foundations. Its main results are that: IIT has a (...) set of nine fundamental concepts of reason, called categories, which constitute its categorial lexicon and through which it formulates a system of principles incorporating the axioms, the postulates, and the central identity; and the connection between the axioms and postulates is grounded by their common root in this categorial lexicon, the categories of which find their justification by means of a phenomenological and transcendental deduction. Some further results are the unique origin of axioms and postulates in the categories; the distinction between conceptual and formalized postulates; a clarification of the uniqueness problem of categorial lexica in general; and an IIT account of objectivity by explicating how the physical is defined by means of categories. All of this is put to use against various criticism targeting IIT’s theoretical core. If successful, the proposed interpretation illuminates a central issue in the contemporary study of consciousness and contributes to an environment of mutual understanding between defenders and critics of the theory. (shrink)

I mind by transcendental philosophy the pure inquiry of the ultimate realities also called transcendental realities . The whole inquiry is divided in two parts. The first one is dedicated to study the inconditional transcendentals, and the second one to study the conditional transcendentals. Both parts are preceded by one introduction, whose content constitutes the present paper.

In this article I am going to argue for the possibility of a transcendental source of logic based on a phenomenologically motivated approach. My aim will be essentially carried out in two succeeding steps of reduction: the first one will be the indication of existence of an inherent temporal factor conditioning formal predicative discourse and the second one, based on a supplementary reduction of objective temporality, will be a recourse to a time-constituting origin which has to be assumed as (...) a non-temporal, transcendental subjectivity and for that reason as possibly the ultimate transcendental root of pure logic. In the development of the argumentation and taking into account W.V. Quine’s views in his well-known Word and Object, a special emphasis will be given to the fundamentally temporal character of universal and existential predicative forms, to their status in logical theories in general, and to their underlying role in generating an inherently non-finitistic character reflected, for instance, in the undecidability of certain infinity statements in formal mathematical theories. This is shown also to concern metatheorems of such vital importance as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems in mathematical foundations. Moreover in the course of the discussion the quest for the ultimate limits of predication will lead to the notions of separation and intentional correlation between an ‘observing’ subject and the object of ‘observation’ as well as to the notion of syntactical individuals taken as the irreducible non-analytic nuclei-forms within analytical discourse. (shrink)

The discussion of the debate on the two approaches to Husserl’s phenomenology and of the debate between David Carr and Dan Zahavi on the paradox of subjectivity signify a fundamental problem: What is the relationship between subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and the world? For this problem, I argue that subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and the world are Co-originary in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, in the sense of their structural necessity. I define this co-originary relationship from the perspective of unification of constitution and givenness—this (...) unification establishes their equiprimordial relationship. According to this co-originariness, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and the world are not three isolated and independent origins, but are interdependent and absolute origins of sense of being in their own right. In sum, this essay proposes that transcendental co-originariness can be recognized as another way of reading Husserl’s phenomenology. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the (...) Egosplitting. My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking. (shrink)

Sartre analyse l’imagination dans le contexte d’une radicalisation de l’intentionnalité husserlienne. Alors que Husserl opérait avec un concept de constitution qui explicitait le statut de la transcendance à partir de l’immanence, la phénoménologie sartrienne semblerait faire l’économie de la notion de constitution. Mais ce point est plus délicat qu’il n’y paraît. Sartre rencontre plusieurs types de transcendances problématiques : celle de l’Ego (en 1936), de certaines images (1940), et celle du « soi » (1943). Cette étude vise à (...) montrer comment ces transcendances amènent à un remaniement implicite : il existerait un concept de constitution opératoire chez Sartre qui se passe de toute référence à l’immanence. Au moyen de l’imagination, nous proposons de clarifier le lexique sartrien : unité, identité et individualité sont des termes impliqués dans une analyse de la constitution. On montrera en quoi la « constitution sartrienne » met en évidence une dimension transcendantale de la phénoménologie de Sartre qui permet d’apprécier à nouveaux frais l’enjeu et les limites de ses prétentions ontologiques. (shrink)

This dissertation engages critically with the metaphysical implications of the respective transcendentalisms of Husserl, Deleuze, and Kant in an attempt to disclose their largely untapped resources for a renewed consideration of the ability of science to grasp reality as it is in-itself. Chapter 1 examines the metaphysical implications of Husserl’s critique of natural scientific objectivity in his later transcendental philosophy in connection to his early formulations of phenomenological objectivity around the axis of the distinction between metaphysics as the science (...) of real Being and formal ontology as the science of Being in the most universal sense. I argue that Husserl’s phenomenological metaphysics constitutes a framework in which the ideal Being of the transcendental dimension of experience operates as the condition for the possibility of natural scientific objectivity. Chapter 2 scrutinizes Deleuze’s characterization of intensity as a transcendental concept rather than a scientific one against the background of his metaphysics of difference and his critique of the shortcomings of Kant’s transcendental idealism for addressing the transcendental conditions for the genesis of real experience. Through a reading of Deleuze’s metaphysics of difference and intensity in connection to his confinement of the creative productivity of scientific thought to a plane of reference, I argue that the creativity apropos to the scientific engagement with material reality necessitates that such creativity is conditioned by the same transcendental considerations operative in a metaphysics of difference at a broad scale. Against the backdrop of Husserl’s and Deleuze’s respective criticisms of the inadequacy of Kant’s transcendental idealism for articulating the material component of experience, Chapter 3 studies Kant’s later iv conception of ether as the simultaneously empirical and transcendental condition for the possibility and unity of experience. Through an examination of Kant’s renewed understanding of materiality as the necessary and sufficient condition for scientific objectivity in connection with the problematic objectivity of the transcendental ideas created by pure reason in Kant’s Critical philosophy, I suggest that Kant’s later articulation of materiality on transcendental grounds simultaneously addresses the objectivity and the creativity pertinent to the encounter of scientific Thought with material/physical reality. (shrink)

The first phase of Sartre’s philosophical publications is marked by an apparent ambivalence towards Husserl’s transcendental turn. Sartre accepts both major aspects of that turn, the phenomenological reduction and the use of transcendental argumentation. Yet his rejection of the transcendental ego that Husserl derives from this transcendental turn overlooks an obvious transcendental argument in favour of it. His books on emotion and imagination, moreover, make only very brief comments about the transcendental constitution of (...) the world of experience. In each case, these appear at the end of the book and can seem to contradict the book’s central analysis. The problem underlying these features of his works of phenomenological psychology is clarified and resolved, however, when Sartre articulates his own transcendental phenomenology and ontology in Being and Nothingness a decade after he first encountered the work of Husserl. This resolution raises a new problem that animates the next phase of his philosophy. (shrink)

A pervasive interpretation among Husserl scholars is that his transcendental idealism inevitably leads to some form of solipsism. The aim of this dissertation is to defend Husserl against this charge. First, I argue that Husserl’s transcendental idealism is not a metaphysical theory. Transcendental phenomenology brackets all metaphysical presuppositions and argues from experience to the conditions of the possibility of experience. Husserl’s transcendental idealism should therefore be interpreted as a transcendental theory of knowledge. Second, it follows (...) from the above characterization of Husserl’s transcendental idealism that the responses Husserl gives to the problem of solipsism are in no way meant to prove the existence in-itself of an external world or the existence in-themselves of other transcendental egos. The purpose of Husserl’s engagement with the problem of solipsism is to explain how it is that transcendental phenomenology can account for the constitution of both the Objectivity of the world of experience and other psycho-physical subjects. The result is a set of transcendental arguments that explain the necessary conditions of the cognition of a shared external world and of other persons. I conclude with Husserl that the solipsism is a transcendental illusion, and that Husserl’s transcendental idealism does not lead to a problematic solipsism. Through a careful study of Husserl’s Nachlass, with particular attention paid to Ideas I, Formal and Transcendental Logic, and Cartesian Meditations, I lay the framework for a transcendental-epistemological interpretation of Husserl’s idealism. Applying this interpretive strategy to Husserl’s discussions of the problem of solipsism and intersubjective monadology, I argue that, for Husserl, empathy is the condition of the experience of other subjects, but that it does not allow us to experience the mental-lives of other transcendental egos. (shrink)

Much of Ludwik Fleck’s work on the social constitution of knowledge, scientific facts, and objects of inquiry is informed by a specific use of transcendental arguments. This paper analyzes the ways in which Fleck looks for “conditions of possibilities” for the stylization and circulation of cognition. Following a brief discussion of his political agenda regarding science’s “cultural mission,” the paper offers a reconstruction of Fleck’s implicit concept of the transcendental. It is argued that Fleck addresses scientific truth (...) as an ongoing revealing and concealing of possibilities for doing research. By implication, the truth about a scientific fact is at once situated in scientific practices and transcended by a horizon of possibilities. The transcendental takes shape in Fleck’s social epistemology as a result of the reflection upon knowledge production’s “situated transcendence.”. (shrink)

Despite periods of resurgence over the last decades, it is safe to say that transcendental arguments no longer enjoy a prominent presence in the philosophical landscape. One reason for their declining prominence is the sustained suspicion that despite their self‐proclaimed metaphysical neutrality, transcendental arguments are, in fact, metaphysically committed. This paper aims to revive the discussion of transcendental considerations by offering a metaphysically neutral account of transcendental arguments. I argue that a metaphysically neutral conception of (...) class='Hi'>transcendental arguments requires a revision of two concepts constitutive of transcendental claims, namely, transcendental necessity and the a priori. I propose a transcendental reading of Wittgenstein's On Certainty, which, I maintain, provides us with an alternative, metaphysically neutral understanding of these concepts. Thus revised, transcendental claims are suitable for what Mark Sacks once described as the “post‐metaphysical” orientation of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The paper addresses the problem of the place of deconstruction in the history of transcendental philosophy. J. Derrida’s project is considered as one of the most representative and consistent realizations of theoretical foundations of transcendentalism along with prominent conceptions such as Kant’s critique and Husserl’s phenomenology. The author suggests a number of attributes of transcendental thinking that allow historical reconstruction of the transcendental paradigm. Derridian approach is considered as a turn towards this tradition, conceived as a (...) class='Hi'>transcendental tradition par exellence, guided by the attitude of «turning. Historical legacy of deconstructive «turning» is analyzed with respect to Husserlian Rückfrage: return-inquiry as method, idea and attitude, reproducing in deconstructive strategy of interpretative critique. A concept of hyperbolic transcendentalism is introduced in order to (1) define a deconstructive version of transcendental philosophy and (2) indicate an immanent tendency in the transcendental thought, constitutive for both Kantian critical project and Husserlian strive towards intellectual radicalism extending from methodological hyperboles (reduction and epoche) to radicalization of «transcendental motive». The author relies upon the concept of quasi-transcendental (thematized by Derrida himself), which defines a mode of de-dogmatization, critical purifying and preservation of proper transcendental foundations of philosophical thinking. (shrink)

In 1930 Husserl wrote that phenomenology is ‘a transcendental idealism that is nothing more than a consequentially executed self-explication in the form of an egological science, an explication of my ego as subject of every possible cognition, and indeed with respect to every sense of what exists, wherewith the latter might be able to have a sense for me, the ego.’ In transcendental-phenomenological theory, according to Husserl, ‘every sort of existent itself, real or ideal, becomes understandable as a (...) “product” of transcendental subjectivity, a product constituted in just that performance.’ This appears so inimical to the fundamental bases of feminist theory that the question of the very possibility of a ‘feminist phenomenology’ inevitably arises, not least because so much associated with the contributions of feminist theory to philosophy concern precisely the critique of the transcendental, isolated, disembodied subject. This chapter explores the different kinds of feminist phenomenology of pregnancy and birth with this problem in mind. Although phenomenology has developed and transformed itself in ways more accommodating to feminist theory we are still entitled to ask what makes it phenomenology? What are the presuppositions of any feminist phenomenology if it is still to count as phenomenology, rather than descriptive social-psychology or feminist metaphysics or feminist ethics? Is phenomenology essentially tied to first-personal description, or can third-person accounts be a legitimate part of its analyses? If third-person descriptions are accepted as a legitimate, what considerations govern the inevitable interpretative aspect of their analysis? Can there be any phenomenology, feminist or otherwise, without some conception of transcendental subjectivity? And what is at stake in the continued use of the transcendental problematic, granted its immanent phenomenological criticism and its various theoretical transformations? This chapter addresses the question of the philosophical specificity of feminist phenomenology by pursuing its distinction from the use of phenomenological research methods in practice disciplines and qualitative psychology, via two of the pivotal questions raised above: can there be any phenomenology, feminist or otherwise, without some conception of transcendental subjectivity? And what is the role of third person testimony in phenomenology? I will argue that the first of these questions remains a problem for feminist phenomenology, in a way that is not easily solved with recourse to third person testimony, the use of which remains under-theorized in the feminist phenomenological literature. Finally, I will show how the problem of transcendental subjectivity is particularly acute for the feminist phenomenology of pregnancy and birth when we consider the generative metaphorics of its philosophical origin in Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss how phenomenology might cogently express the way painful experiences are layered with complex intersubjective meaning. In particular, we propose a critical conception of pain as an intricate multi-levelled phenomenon, deeply ingrained in the constitution of one’s sense of bodily self and emerging from a web of intercorporeal, social, cultural, and political relations. In the first section, we review and critique some conceptual accounts of pain. Then, we explore how pain is involved in complex ways (...) with modalities of pleasure and displeasure, enacted personal meaning, and contexts of empathy or shame. We aim to show why a phenomenology of pain must acknowledge the richness and diversity of peculiar painful experiences. The second section then weaves these critical insights into Husserlian phenomenology of embodiment, sensation, and localisation. We introduce the distinction between Body-Object and Lived-Body to show how pain presents intersubjectively. Furthermore, we stress that, while pain seems to take a marginal position in Husserl’s whole corpus, its role is central in the transcendental constitution of the Lived-Body, interacting with the personal, interpersonal, and intersubjective levels of experiential constitution. Taking a critical-phenomenological perspective, we then concretely explore how some people may experience structural conditions which may make their experiences more or less painful. (shrink)

The main contribution of this work is to develop the account of material constitution presented in Spatially Coinciding Objects (Ratio 24, 1982) and a series of related articles. This account was merely ‘analytical’ in that it applied generously to ‘putative’ examples of distinct entities (individuals, pluralities and masses of stuff) in the same place at the same time. The account herein is ‘critical’ in that it seeks justification for recognizing the existence of entities constituted in addition to the entities (...) that allegedly constitute them. While the earlier account used examples such as a clay statue and the clay of the statue for purposes of illustrating material constitution, the present account would consider ‘reducing’ the statue to the clay, and seeks justification for how to resist this and admit the existence of generable and perishable natural objects in general. The justification sought is ‘deep’ in the sense that (unlike the popular ‘method of cases) it does not belong to ‘descriptive’ metaphysics (in Strawson’s sense) but is sufficiently potent to counter ‘revisionist’ views. Transcendental arguments, beginning with austere assumptions of justification itself, are thereby employed. Suggestions are made about what to conclude about our own identity, which amount to supporting animalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the (...) Ego-splitting. My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze constitution embodiment, a particular conception of embodiment. Proponents of constitution embodiment claim that the body is a condition of the constitution of entities. Constitution embodiment is popular with phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition, including research projects such as Enactivism and Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Unfortunately, PEC’s use of constitution embodiment is neither clear nor coherent; in particular, PEC uses the concept of constitution embodiment so that a major inconsistency is entailed. PEC (...) conceives of the body in a transcendental sense as a condition of the constitution of entities, and, in an ontic sense, as a scientifically describable entity. Yet, a condition of the constitution of entities cannot be itself an entity—rather, it is the very condition of the possibility of an entity. This inconsistency entails further problems, among them PEC’s misguided focus on the location of the embodied mind. In order to correct these mistakes, I develop a conception of constitution embodiment based on the work of Heidegger, Husserl and to a lesser degree Merleau-Ponty. This has two purposes. First, it provides the conceptual groundwork to secure the status of PEC as a consistent and coherent research project and to clarify PEC’s conception of the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In that spirit, my approach provides further guidelines for fruitful research alliances between PEC and other research programs such as Grounded Cognition and identifies current research alliances, such as those with Radical Enactivism, as undesirable. Second, my account provides an elaborate concept of constitution embodiment that can function as the basis for more sophisticated work in the future. (shrink)

It has recently been suggested that Merleau-Ponty’s position in Phenomenology of Perception is a unique form of transcendental idealism. The general claim is that in spite of his critique of “Kantianism,” Merleau-Ponty’s position comes out as a form of transcendental idealism that takes the perceptual processes of the lived body as the transcendental constituting condition for the possibility of experience. In this article I critically appraise this claim. I argue that if the term “idealist” is intended in (...) a sufficiently similar sense to Kant’s usage of the term in naming his position as a “transcendental idealism” then it is a misrepresentation to subsume Merleau-Ponty’s position under that term. This is because Merleau-Ponty rejects the transcendental metaphysics of the reflecting subject that underpins transcendental idealism. In its place he advocates a methodological transcendentalism that, whilst being anti-realist, is not idealist. Thus to call his position “a new kind of transcendental idealism,” as Sebastian Gardner has, is to misunderstand the significance of his existentialist break with what he sees as the “intellectualism” of this position. (shrink)