Philosophy

§1. Brentano's Rehabilitation of Intentionality and the Problem of Imagination. §2. Husserl and the Breakthrough of Phenomenology. §2.1 The Meaning-Bestowing Act as 'the Peg from which Everything hangs.' §2.2 Consciousness is not a Container. §2.3 'A Difference that cannot ...

The systematic importance of the eidetic account of phantasy for Husserlian phenomenology in general is undisputed, but whether this account can be relevant for Aesthetics has often been put into question. In this paper I argue that Husserl’s rich phenomenology of phantasy, and in particular his account of perceptual phantasy, can nevertheless significantly enhance our understanding of how we recognize and imaginatively participate in artistic fictions. Moreover, I show how Husserl’s peculiar formulation of a non-intuitive phantasy at stake in artistic representation anticipates some uses of the imagination in Aesthetics suggested by Ernst Gombrich and Kendall Walton.

Ever since the distinction between temporal and spatial arts appeared in Aesthetic discourse, attempts have been made to refine the characterization of plastic arts as non-temporal. Starting from the work of Edmund Husserl this paper defends the thesis that a phenomenology of image consciousness and of time consciousness accounts not only for this “static” characterization but also for the possibility that such images might manifest temporality. Regarding the possibility of completing the “image now” exhibited by a picture through pure phantasy, Husserl realizes that static images tend to resist such completions or continuations amongst others because of how they already involve our phantasy in combination with perception. However, the manifestation of movement or duration in a static image which initially startles Husserl can nevertheless be reassessed in light of his insistence that a form of nonintuitive phantasy is at work in artistic representation.

That there are genuinely religious representations, and that the practice of praying with images involves no confusion of the divine with its representation, are matters firmly established by a phenomenology of imagination such as Edmund Husserl’s. Moreover, such a phenomenological regard can become attentive to the concrete roles played by a viewer’s imagination in his dealings with various sorts of images. I propose to bring these phenomenological insights to show that there is a distinctively religious play of imagination in dealing with religious images. Moreover, I address this question by turning to one kind of representation which Barthes and others have found unsuitable for representing a religious subject, namely, photographic images. While agreeing with some of these reservations, this paper explores some of the ways in which photography may still be found to represent a religious subject, shifting the problem of religious photography from its inherent impossibility to its inadequacy. In doing so, I show that the distinctively religious play of imagination vis-à-vis religious representations cuts a wedge between the depictive and the symbolic, and is rather akin to a metaphorical use of representations.

Contemporary media may claim to fulfill the desire – as old as illusionism in painting and sculpture – for a static image to come to life without relinquishing the astonishment of pictorial or sculptural presence. However, oftentimes the blending of static and dynamic images accomplished by the new media gives rise to disquieting presences. This paper addresses this phenomenon by taking into account Husserl’s comments on both image consciousness and time- consciousness. With regards to static images Husserl overcomes the bias that a static image may have nothing to do with time, while with dynamic images Husserl corrects the tendency to see them as fulfilling a depictive role by interweaving the isolated temporality of individual slides. As it turns out, for Husserl not only does imagination work differently in each genre of images, but also, static and dynamic images prod our awareness of time in contrasting – rather than complementary – ways. We can thus understand why some technically animated images are disquieting, and also why otherwise popular virtual items like GIFs and Live Photos are less bearable than either static or else straightforwardly cinematic images.

Modern psychology considers itself to be an empirical science, which poses a problem for humanist oriented psychologists, who often have trouble justifying their results empirically. Even scientifically oriented empirical psychologists suffer a gap between their results and their interpretations. This gap refers to the distinction between the empirical appearances given on the basis of sense experience and really existing beings given through the experience. Sensible appearances always have a subjective contribution to their constitution, whereas our experience of the existence of persons-including ourselves-completely lack any such contribution to our basic existence. Sensible appearances are, after all, given to us as objects of conscious experience. But our very self is primarily given laterally via self-presence: not as an appearance but the being experiencing the appearances. If this is true, then the self is neither given as a mere "term" (Freud) nor as a product of an inference (B. F. Skinner). It is simply not given merely as one more sensible, empirical appearance among others. If so, then the proper object of psychological research should not refer only to "behavior and mental processes," but to really existing subjects of these mental processes. Finally, the empirical nature of contemporary psychology should then not be absolutized into a philosophical position of empiricism. Psychologists tend to coalesce around the basic division between a more humanistic or scientific orientations. Each point of view has its advantages and disadvantages. The scientific orientation within psychology has the obvious advantage of having the most precise access to empirical facts, the 'matter' of psychological science, which then requires the interpretive 'form' that psychologists then give according to their theoretical presuppositions or pragmatic concerns. The humanistic orientation also has its advantages. Whereas their scientific counterparts' laser focus will typically or even inevitably be selective and thus one-dimensional, the humanists can call upon the richer three-dimensionality of lived experience to ground their assertions.

As only persons can be in a right relation to truth, truth is a uniquely personal category. Truth and truthfulness are also important for psychology, as for every other discipline. The question is whether there is a special relation that truth has for psychology going beyond the above formal, structural aspects of being honest. In this paper, I argue that psychology cannot rightly ignore various other more unique relations to truth: for diagnosis and for human flourishing. Because of these intrinsic relations, psychology needs to reconsider its reliance on exclusively empirical phenomena as its proper object of psychological study. In the American Psychological Association's (APA) Code of Ethics, we read, "Psychologists seek to promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology."1 Truth is important for psychology, as it is for every other discipline in the academy. The question is whether there is a special relationship with truth that is unique to psychology going beyond the merely formal, structural aspects of being honest in doing research and dealing with others, typical with all other disciplines, which is the direction of the above quote. It seems to me that as important as basic honesty and truth is to psychology-as well as to everything else-there is a sense this emphasis alone "defangs" far more intrinsic relations between truth and psychology that is unique to that field that I want to try to bring out in this talk. I want to develop these more intrinsic relations that span both psychology and a personalist philosophy, insofar as only persons can know and appreciate what is true. Before going into these points, let me mention perhaps two reasons why psychology may want to only focus on this formal/structural emphasis on honesty and truth. This is, first, because of the prominence of empirical methodology. Traditional psychology likes to define itself as an empirical science, without elucidating any other methodology. In that sense, it at least implicitly takes up a position of empiricism, which asserts that the only source of psychological knowledge is empirical or sensible. From that point of view-outside of this formal/structural interest-an

This paper concerns Max Scheler's critique of the ancient Greek moral vision.  The critique follows along the lines of what Scheler calls the "love of goodness," and of what he sees as fundamental for establishing a (non-Aristotelian) Christian ethical framework. The problem concerns whether the meaning of goodness (and evil) ought to apply to determinate objects in the world, that which is "loveable" (philēton) or whether good and evil ought to apply exclusively to acts, as Scheler maintains. The ancient paradigm becomes especially problematic when the question of the goodness or loveability pertains to persons. Insofar as this possibility is open to the ancient moral vision, it represents what Scheler calls "pharisaism," namely, "the precept to ‘love the good’ or ‘love others insofar as they are good,’ and hate evil, and others insofar as they are evil.’” I argue that as far as their general ancient conception of love is concerned, and only insofar as it follows the potency/act paradigm, Aristotle’s and Plato’s (et al.) views of love are either essentially pharisaical as Scheler describes the concept or have within them a pharisaical tendency leading to more ethical difficulties than is justifiably ascribed to them.  The aspect however whereby the ancients may evade the critique in the end is their conception of justice on two accounts: (1) insofar as justice is a moral concept that applies exclusively to human actions, or to things (such as souls or cities) only with conditional reference to human action, and (2) insofar as it is universally held that justice cannot include doing harm even to one’s enemies because doing so would make someone worse, thereby begetting injustice; but an act of justice can never cause greater injustice.

Scheler subjects Husserl’s categorial intuition to a critique which calls into question the very methodological procedure of phenomenology. Scheler’s divergence from Husserl with respect to whether sensory or categorial contents furnish the foundation of the act of intuition, leads into a more significant divergence with respect to whether phenomenology, primarily, should be considered a form of science, to which a specific methodology applies. Philosophical methods, according to Scheler, must presuppose, and not distract from, important preconditions of knowledge which pertain more to the philosopher than to logical procedure. Accordingly, the phenomenological attitude serves as a foundation for, not the result of,  phenomenological method.

Various, albeit largely incongruent, attempts have been made at demonstrating the critical force of phenomenology. Mohr seeks to rekindle the project by accentuating the critical potential hidden within a core phenomenological presupposition: the discrepancy between conceptual and intuitive meaning (logos and phenomenon). Phenomenological attention on the discrepancy itself as an experienced phenomenon constitutes the starting point of critical phenomenology. While Adorno famously rejects intuition as a viable candidate for grounding critique, Mohr argues that reflection on lived experiences and the nonformal meanings they yield provide a robust source for critical self-reflection. As such, ideology may be most effectively unmasked by means of a proper attitudinal orientation to the intuitive meanings within one’s lived social experiences.

This work explores the way core elements of phenomenology map on to the critical theory program in order to demonstrate phenomenology's relevance for ideology critique. "Critical phenomenology" means putting the findings of phenomenology to work for the sake of social critique. I argue that phenomenology gains a critical edge precisely where many critical theorists suggest phenomenology withdraws from a critical function: on the basis of their theory of intuition. While Adorno takes phenomenological intuition to be another version of identity philosophy, he overlooks the significance of the way in which phenomenological givenness is incommensurable with, and at best only symbolized by, conceptual articulation. An awareness of the tension between logos (concept) and phenomenon (intuition) offers an opportunity for the phenomenologist to critique the substitution of lived-experience for conceptual variations of that experience, a tendency central to ideology.

This is seen clearly in Scheler's phenomenology. With the three concurrent components of his theory of intuition--the givenness of the intentional object; the givenness of reality; and the givenness of value--Scheler addresses all the main objections Frankfurt School critical theorists traditionally pose against phenomenology. And he insists on phenomenology's importance for sociology and the sociology of knowledge. The fact that Scheler's theories of intentionality and value are, as I argue, taken into an existential and social context, adds social relevance to his value theory. This is significant for the question of ideology and for emphasizing certain shortcomings of critical theory's approach to this question.

I suggest that phenomenology elucidates prior grounds for the possibility of emancipatory critique. The domain of the moral (love and the values the act discloses) is the common root of both theory and practice. The way a society thinks and acts is an outgrowth of attitudinal factors suggestive of certain patterns of valuation. Ideology is, in this case, an intellectual outcome of improper valuing. According to Scheler, rationality is in large part an expression of patterns of valuation, so a critique of rationality in its instrumental form, for example, has to be framed in terms of a moral critique of the trends of social valuation.

Max Scheler's phenomenology was famously brought forth into his work on anthropology and social and political theory. In this entry, I treat these implications in terms of three main contexts. The first concerns Scheler's engagement with the work of Fredrich Nietzsche on the idea of ressentiment. Here, Scheler gives an initial indication of his value theory, the rank of values, and his critique of modern industrial capitalism. The second concerns Scheler's engagement with the work of Immanuel Kant concerning the idea of the person and its relevance for a theory of social forms, particularly the meaning of moral solidarity. And the third concerns Scheler's engagement in the sociology of knowledge and the sociopolitical implications of his dynamic metaphysics of spirit and life. Scheler was a highly influential thinker during his time on account of these other contributions to moral and social theory.