Husserl and the Question of Relativism

Husserl and the Question of Relativism PDF Author: G. Soffer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401131783
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The question of relativism is a perennial one, and as fundamental and far reaching as the question of truth itself. Is truth absolute and universal, the same everywhere and for everyone? Or is truth historically, culturally, biologically, or otherwise relative, varying from one epoch or species to another? Although the issues surrounding relativism have attracted especially intense interest of late, they continue to spark heated controversies and to pose problems lacking an obvious resolution. On the side of one prevalent form of relativism, it is argued that we must finally recognize the historical and cultural contingency of our available means of cognition, and therefore abandon as naIve the absolute conception of truth dear to traditional philosophy. According to this line of thinking, even if there were univer sally valid principles, knowledge of them would not be possible for us, and thus an absolute conception of truth must be rejected in light of the demands of critical epistemology. However, when truth is accordingly relativized to some contingent subjective cognitive background, new difficulties arise. One of the most infamous of these is the logical inconsistency of the resulting thesis of relativism itself. Yet an even more serious problem is that the relativization of truth makes truth itself contingent, thereby undermining the motivation for preferring one belief or value to another, or even to its opposite.

Husserl and the Question of Relativism

Husserl and the Question of Relativism PDF Author: G. Soffer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401131783
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
The question of relativism is a perennial one, and as fundamental and far reaching as the question of truth itself. Is truth absolute and universal, the same everywhere and for everyone? Or is truth historically, culturally, biologically, or otherwise relative, varying from one epoch or species to another? Although the issues surrounding relativism have attracted especially intense interest of late, they continue to spark heated controversies and to pose problems lacking an obvious resolution. On the side of one prevalent form of relativism, it is argued that we must finally recognize the historical and cultural contingency of our available means of cognition, and therefore abandon as naIve the absolute conception of truth dear to traditional philosophy. According to this line of thinking, even if there were univer sally valid principles, knowledge of them would not be possible for us, and thus an absolute conception of truth must be rejected in light of the demands of critical epistemology. However, when truth is accordingly relativized to some contingent subjective cognitive background, new difficulties arise. One of the most infamous of these is the logical inconsistency of the resulting thesis of relativism itself. Yet an even more serious problem is that the relativization of truth makes truth itself contingent, thereby undermining the motivation for preferring one belief or value to another, or even to its opposite.

Husserl and the Question of Relativism

Husserl and the Question of Relativism PDF Author: G. Soffer
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789401054027
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The question of relativism is a perennial one, and as fundamental and far reaching as the question of truth itself. Is truth absolute and universal, the same everywhere and for everyone? Or is truth historically, culturally, biologically, or otherwise relative, varying from one epoch or species to another? Although the issues surrounding relativism have attracted especially intense interest of late, they continue to spark heated controversies and to pose problems lacking an obvious resolution. On the side of one prevalent form of relativism, it is argued that we must finally recognize the historical and cultural contingency of our available means of cognition, and therefore abandon as naIve the absolute conception of truth dear to traditional philosophy. According to this line of thinking, even if there were univer sally valid principles, knowledge of them would not be possible for us, and thus an absolute conception of truth must be rejected in light of the demands of critical epistemology. However, when truth is accordingly relativized to some contingent subjective cognitive background, new difficulties arise. One of the most infamous of these is the logical inconsistency of the resulting thesis of relativism itself. Yet an even more serious problem is that the relativization of truth makes truth itself contingent, thereby undermining the motivation for preferring one belief or value to another, or even to its opposite.

The Problem of Relativism in the Sociology of (Scientific) Knowledge

The Problem of Relativism in the Sociology of (Scientific) Knowledge PDF Author: Richard Schantz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 311032590X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This volume comprises original articles by leading authors – from philosophy as well as sociology – in the debate around relativism in the sociology of (scientific) knowledge. Its aim has been to bring together several threads from the relevant disciplines and to cover the discussion from historical and systematic points of view. Among the contributors are Maria Baghramian, Barry Barnes, Martin Endreß, Hubert Knoblauch, Richard Schantz and Harvey Siegel.

Phenomenology Explained

Phenomenology Explained PDF Author: David Detmer
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812697979
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Phenomenology is one of the most important and influential philosophical movements of the last one hundred years. It began in 1900, with the publication of a massive two-volume work, Logical Investigations, by a Czech-German mathematician, Edmund Husserl. It proceeded immediately to exert a strong influence on both philosophy and the social sciences. For example, phenomenology provided the central inspiration for the existentialist movement, as represented by such figures as Martin Heidegger in Germany and Jean-Paul Sartre in France. Subsequent intellectual currents in Europe, when they have not claimed phenomenology as part of their ancestry, have defined themselves in opposition to phenomenology. Thus, to give just one example, the first two works of Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, were devoted to criticisms of Husserl’s phenomenological works. In the English-speaking world, where “analytic philosophy” dominates, phenomenology has recently emerged as a hot topic after decades of neglect. This has resulted from a dramatic upswing in interest in consciousness, the condition that makes all experience possible. Since the special significance of phenomenology is that it investigates consciousness, analytic philosophers have begun to turn to it as an underutilized resource. For the same reason, Husserl’s work is now widely studied by cognitive scientists. The current revival of interest in phenomenology also stems from the recognition that not every kind of question can be approached by means of experimental techniques. Not all questions are scientific in that sense. Thus, if there is to be knowledge in logic, mathematics, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, epistemology (theory of knowledge), psychology (from the inside), and the study of consciousness, among others, another method is clearly needed. Phenomenology is an attempt to rectify this. Its aim is to focus on the world as given in experience, and to describe it with unprecedented care, rigor, subtlety, and completeness. This applies not only to the objects of sense experience, but to all phenomena: moral, aesthetic, political, mathematical, and so forth. One can avoid the obscure problem of the real, independent existence of the objects of experience in these domains by focusing instead on the objects, as experienced, themselves, along with the acts of consciousness which disclose them. Phenomenology thus opens up an entirely new field of investigation, never previously explored. Rather than assuming, or trying to discern, what exists outside the realm of the mental, and what causal relations pertain to these extra-mental entities, we can study objects strictly as they are given, that is, as they appear to us in experience. This book explains what phenomenology is and why it is important. It focuses primarily on the works and ideas of Husserl, but also discusses important later thinkers, giving special emphasis to those whose contributions are most relevant to contemporary concerns. Finally, while Husserl’s greatest contributions were to the philosophical foundations of logic, mathematics, knowledge, and science, this book also addresses extensively the relatively neglected contribution of phenomenology to value theory, especially ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

Husserl in Contemporary Context

Husserl in Contemporary Context PDF Author: B.C. Hopkins
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401718040
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
James F. Sheridan Allegheny College As we come to the end of the century, an attentive student of con temporary European philosophy will no doubt be startled by a volume titled Husserl in Contemporary Context. Such philosophers are most likely to believe that Hussed has now been declared II classical" rather than a contemporary thinker or, worse, simply old fashioned. Access to Hussed today will most likely come through the allegedly definitive critiques of his work by Heidegger and Derrida and to a lesser extent through the readings of his work by Levinas and Merleau Ponty although Merleau-Ponty himself has been declared old fashioned by some postmodems. Hence, if by II contemporary" one understands the problematic set by the work of the late Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, et. al., Hussed's work seems strange indeed in such a contemporary context, seems better understood as the last gasp of philosophy dominated by metaphysics and thus fit only for inclusion in courses in the history of philosophy.

Husserl's Phenomenology

Husserl's Phenomenology PDF Author: Kevin Hermberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441170251
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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Book Description
Kevin Hermberg's book fills an important gap in previous Husserl scholarship by focusing on intersubjectivity and empathy (i.e., the experience of others as other subjects) and by addressing the related issues of validity, the degrees of evidence with which something can be experienced, and the different senses of 'objective' in Husserl's texts. Despite accusations by commentators that Husserl's is a solipsistic philosophy and that the epistemologies in Husserl's late and early works are contradictory, Hermberg shows that empathy, and thus other subjects, are related to one's knowledge on the view offered in each of Husserl's Introductions to Phenomenology. Empathy is significantly related to knowledge in at least two ways, and Husserl's epistemology might, consequently, be called a social epistemology: (a) empathy helps to give evidence for validity and thus to solidify one's knowledge, and (b) it helps to broaden one's knowledge by giving access to what others have known. These roles of empathy are not at odds with one another; rather, both are at play in each of the Introductions (if even only implicitly) and, given his position in the earlier work, Husserl needed to expand the role of empathy as he did. Such a reliance on empathy, however, calls into question whether Husserl's is a transcendental philosophy in the sense Husserl claimed.

Husserl and the A Priori

Husserl and the A Priori PDF Author: Daniele De Santis
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303069528X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This book presents a systematic discussion of the development of Husserl’s concept of the a priori from his early and through his later writings. The chapters contained herein analyze the different phases and aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology of the a priori in light of his twofold notion of reason, construed as both ontological and transcendental. Starting from the assessment of the introduction of the notion of a priori knowledge in the context of the Logical Investigations, this text uniquely explores its development during the Göttingen years. It is at this time during his work on The Crisis of European Sciences, that Husserl comes to see the a priori as a criterion to interpret the history of philosophy, notably, modern philosophy. This book sheds light upon such concepts as: essence and eidos; ideation, eidetic attitude and eidetic reduction; as well as formal and material, innate and contingent a priori. The author argues that the a priori becomes for Husserl the expression of an ontological form of rationality, i.e., the rationality immanent to being. This book appeals to students and researchers working on Husserl and phenomenology.

Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology

Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology PDF Author: Andrea Staiti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107066301
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This book is the first study of Husserl that connects his phenomenology to the underappreciated work of Neo-Kantians and life-philosophers.

Husserl and the Idea of Europe

Husserl and the Idea of Europe PDF Author: Timo Miettinen
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810141507
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
Husserl and the Idea of Europe argues that Edmund Husserl’s late reflections on Europe should not be read either as departures from his early transcendental phenomenology or as simple exercises of cultural criticism but rather as systematic phenomenological reflections on generativity and historicity. Timo Miettinen shows that Husserl’s deliberations on Europe contain his most compelling and radical interpretation of the intersubjective, communal, and historical dimensions of phenomenology. Husserl and his generation worked in the aftermath of World War I, as Europe struggled to redefine itself, and he penned his late writings as the clouds of World War II gathered. Decades later, the fall of the Soviet Union again altered the continent’s identity and its political and economic divisions. Miettinen writes as a European involved in the question of Europe, and many of the recent authors and critics he addresses in this work—such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Giorgio Agamben—likewise deeply engaged with this new problem of European identity. The book illuminates the multifaceted problem of the idea of European rationality, and it defends novel conceptions of universalism and teleology as necessary components of radical philosophical reflection.

Heidegger Becoming Phenomenological

Heidegger Becoming Phenomenological PDF Author: Robert C. Scharff
Publisher: New Heidegger Research
ISBN: 9781786607720
Category : Phenomenology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book sets the record straight about the greater influence of Dilthey than Husserl in Heidegger's initial formulation of his conception of phenomenology.