Hungarian Academy of Sciences | Institute of Philosophy

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- by János Laki
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- 3
  Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Social Epistemology

The historicist approach to science has been accompanied by a culturalist one in the last decade or two. Epistemic localism added a horizontal axis to the existing vertical (historical) one thus science came to be presented in a... more

The essence of this paper revolves around the idea that the relativist perspective on science stems from an erroneous approach to the sociological factors influencing cognitive content. I argue that the understanding of scientific... more

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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  Phenomenology, Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, School of Brentano

Edith Steins „wertvolle Dienste bei der Ordnung und Verarbeitung meiner Manuscripte“, wie Edmund Husserl die Tätigkeit seiner Assistentin 1919 zum Zweck eines Arbeitszeugnisses bezeichnet hat, dient seitdem als eine der intellektuell... more

Edith Steins „wertvolle Dienste bei der Ordnung und Verarbeitung meiner Manuscripte“, wie Edmund Husserl die Tätigkeit seiner Assistentin 1919 zum Zweck eines Arbeitszeugnisses bezeichnet hat, dient seitdem als eine der intellektuell prägendsten biographischen Perioden Edith Steins und zugleich eine der zentralen Belegstellen für ihre intime Kenntnis der Phänomenologie, die zu der philosophischen Avantgarde des frühen zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts gehörte. Einige der aus dieser Zusammenarbeit ausgegangenen Manuskripten sind allgemein bekannt (wie die Ideen II oder die Zeitvorlesungen, die Heidegger 1928 praktisch unter seinem eigenen Namen herausgab), während andere, wie die sogenannten U-Blätter, erst durch die Berücksichtigung der jüngst veröffentlichten und noch unveröffentlichten Teile des umfangreichen Husserl-Nachlasses sichtbar werden. Trotz eines solchen philologischen Gesamtinventars bleibt der Charakter von Edith Steins Assistententätigkeit bei Husserl schwer zu fassen. Dies liegt zuerst daran, dass die von Edith Stein gefertigten Texten zu einer eigentümlichen Gattung gehören. Edith Stein hat, im Gegensatz zu den Bemühungen der Nachkriegszeit, nie das Ziel verfolgt, Husserl historisch-kritisch zu edieren. Die Kritiker, die ihr in den 1960-er Jahren „Verfälschung des [Husserlschen] Gedankens“ und die Verletzung philologischer Normen vorgeworfen haben, haben also das Wesen ihrer Assistententätigkeit vollkommen verkannt. Sie sah ihre Aufgabe wohl eher darin, seinen perfektionistischen und publikationsscheuen „Meister“ zu weiteren Veröffentlichungen zu verhelfen, vielleicht auch um den drohenden Bruch der Phänomenologischen Bewegung entgegenzuwirken. Eine solche Zielsetzung bedeutet jedoch auch, dass die Produkte ihrer Zusammenarbeit mit Husserl sich wenig als Ausdrücke ihrer eigenen Positionen oder als Dokumenten ihrer Auseinandersetzung mit Husserl eignen.
Um die Natur und Folgen dieser eigenartiger Zusammenarbeit besser verstehen zu können, ist es meiner Meinung nach hilfreich, Husserls Verhältnis zu seinen späteren Assistenten zum Vergleich heranzuziehen. Merkwürdigerweise war Husserl nie ein Assistent von jemandem gewesen. Er war während seiner philosophischen Lehrjahre auch kaum in einer formalen Beziehung zu seinen akademischen Lehrern gestanden. Es ist also nicht zu wundern, dass Husserl später eine merkwürdige, stark schematische Beziehung zu seinen wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitern entwickelt hat, die schon in dem ‚Wettlauf‘ zwischen Edith Stein und Martin Heidegger in den Jahren 1916-1919 zum Vorschein kam. Wie eine komparative Analyse unter Heranziehung der jüngsten biografischen Dokumente der Heidegger-Forschung zeigen kann, waren Husserls Beziehungen zu seinen Assistenten weder durch seine persönliche Sympathien, noch durch die Arbeitsmoral der Assistenten bestimmt, sondern lediglich durch die (wahrgenommene) Bereitschaft der Assistenten, Husserls Philosophie treu zu folgen. Aber – wie es durch eine Gegenüberstellung von privaten Briefstellen bei Heidegger und Edith Stein leicht illustriert wird – gerade die Ehrlichkeit dieser Bereitschaft konnte Husserl überhaupt nicht erkennen und schätzen. Die Darstellung von Edith Steins Assistententätigkeit unter diesen Gesichtspunkten kann hoffentlich eine Bilanzierung dieser berühmten aber schwer fassbaren Periode ihres Lebens ermöglichen.

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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  Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Edith Stein, Eugen Fink

The Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences announces a First Call for Papers for an International Conference on the Topic: Horizons Beyond Borders Traditions and... more

The Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences announces a First Call for Papers for an International Conference on the Topic:

Horizons Beyond Borders

Traditions and Perspectives of the

Phenomenological Movement in

Central and Eastern Europe

17–19 June, 2015

Budapest, Hungary

Confirmed invited speakers include:

Michael Gubser (James Madison University)

George Heffernan (Merrimack College)

Marci Shore (Yale University)

Nicolas de Warren (KU Leuven)

Please send paper proposals

BY THE DEADLINE OF MARCH 1, 2015

See below for more information

Scientific Advisory Board:

Ivan Blecha (Palacký University, Olomouc), Cristian Ciocan (Institute for Philosophy “Alexandru Dragomir”, Bucharest), Ion Copoeru (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), Andrzej Gniazdowski (Polish Academy of Sciences), Balázs M. Mezei (Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Hungary), Karel Novotný (Academy of the Sciences of the Czech Republic), Csaba Olay (ELTE University, Budapest), Wojciech Starzyński (Polish Academy of Sciences), Jaroslava Vydrová (Slovak Academy of Sciences), Michal Zvarík (Trnava University)

Director of the Host Institution: Ferenc Hörcher

Chair of the Organizing Committee: Peter Andras Varga (Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

Secretary of the Organizing Committee: Witold Płotka (University of Gdańsk)

Conference Description

The main idea of the conference Horizons Beyond Borders: Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe is to explore the place of phenomenology in contemporary philosophy in Central and Eastern Europe. It has long been understood that the circumstances of the Phenomenological Movement in this part of the world were dramatically defined by the politics of the times. The generally hostile conditions for doing philosophy affected phenomenology specifically, in so far as it was officially regarded as an idealistic, bourgeois, and regressive philosophy. As a result, many philosophers in the phenomenological tradition, including some direct students of Edmund Husserl, were accused of “idealism”, labeled as “enemies of materialism”, and prohibited from teaching. Despite these adversarial circumstances, however, many phenomenologists presented interesting and important interpretations of philosophical issues. Some did phenomenology while bracketing political commitments, whereas others were strongly engaged in political activities. One need only recall such leading figures as, for example, Alexandru Dragomir, Eugen Enyvvári, Václav Havel, Roman Ingarden, Karel Kosík, Krzysztof Michalski, Constantin Noica, Jan Patočka, Wilhelm Szilasi, Józef Tischner, Karol Wojtyła, and many others. The full potential of their phenomenology, both its hopeful promise and its tragic history, constitutes a rich heritage that continues to define our contemporary philosophical horizons.

Although many philosophers of that time were completely isolated, phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe has developed in a steady dialog beyond national borders and ideological boundaries. Our ambition is to determine the contemporary status of this increasingly trans-regional Phenomenological Movement, both in the light of its legacy and above and beyond it. Our questions include but are not limited to the following: Are there any common features of phenomenological approaches in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe? What can we say about the leitmotifs of this phenomenology? How can we understand the relationship between phenomenology and Marxism? Are there any influences of Marxism on phenomenology or vice versa? What, if any, was the function of phenomenology with respect to resistance movements to Communist regimes? How can we define the current trends in phenomenology in Central and Eastern Europe and its possible paths of development in the future? What is the original contribution of the phenomenology of this part of Europe to major contemporary philosophical issues? In addressing these and related concerns, we also propose to raise the question of the future of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe. The ultimate aim of the conference is to present scholars with a first-time opportunity to discuss the wide and rich range of phenomenological ideas that have been discovered in Central and Eastern Europe.

Planned Sessions

Roots: The historical roots of Central and Eastern European phenomenology and its philosophical predecessors are well known. For example, Bolzano was born in Prague, Bohemia; Twardowski studied with Brentano in Vienna; and even Husserl was born in Prostejov (Prossnitz), Moravia. But is it possible to relate the emergence and development of early phenomenology to the specific philosophical and political conditions of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th century?
Figures: Central and Eastern European philosophers participated in the prewar and interwar stages of the Phenomenological Movement. Here presentations on lesser known figures and comparative investigations of their works are especially welcome.
Beyond Borders: Are there any general characteristics of phenomenology as it has been practiced in Central and Eastern Europe, and has there been any specific influence of that phenomenology on the philosophical and political development of its host countries?
Beyond Politics: How has phenomenology been understood in the political contexts of Central and Eastern Europe? Is it possible to ground politics phenomenologically? Or is it rather the case that politics cannot be the object of phenomenological inquiry? How can we define the relationship between phenomenology and Marxism? Are we justified in speaking of a “dialog” between phenomenology and Marxism in Central and Eastern Europe?
Beyond Particularism: Did phenomenology collaborate with other currents of philosophy in Central and Eastern Europe? Here we are also looking for contributions that analyze the contemporary situation of phenomenology in Central and Eastern European countries.
New Phenomenology: This section is devoted to original research on any aspect of phenomenology and its history by scholars with academic affiliation in Central and Eastern Europe.
László Tengelyi Commemorative Session: The saddening sudden death of the Hungarian born phenomenologist László Tengelyi (1954–2014) has deprived Central and Eastern European Phenomenology of one of its best-known and most capable representatives. For this session we are soliciting contributions on Tengelyi’s oeuvre and his impact on contemporary phenomenology.
Krzysztof Michalski Commemorative Session: Krzysztof Michalski (1948-2013) was a Polish phenomenologist, the co-founder and rector of the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna that promotes intellectual exchange among scholars from different fields, societies and cultures. For this session we are expecting contributions on Michalski’s philosophy and phenomenology, as well as his organizational work and influences on present-day phenomenological movement.
Further information

The conference will take place in the historical castle district in a Baroque style mansion.

We welcome proposals in English (main language), German, and French.
Proposals will be evaluated in a process of blind peer-review.

Contributions are welcome from both junior (pre-doc, post-doc) and senior scholars from every part of the world. The only geographically constrained section is the “New Phenomenology” session, which aims to present new research on any phenomenological topic by scholars with academic affiliation in Central and Eastern Europe.

Please submit an abstract of up to 2000 characters, including references, which is to be prepared for anonymous review, together with a separate affiliation sheet containing your contact address and academic affiliations (including all geographically relevant ones) to both witoldplotka_AT_gmail.com and peter.andras.varga_AT_gmail.com Please also indicate the proposed session assignment(s) of your contribution.

The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2015.

Registration fee is 50 € (reductions are planned).

The time limits for speakers are: 20 minutes for presentation + 10 minutes for discussion.

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- by Peter Andras Varga and +1
  Witold Płotka
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- 2
  Phenomenology, Central and Eastern Europe

The influence of Brentano on the emergence of Husserl's notion of intentionality has been usually perceived as the key of understanding the history of intentionality, since Brentano was credited with the discovery of intentionality, and... more

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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- 3
  Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, John Stuart Mill

Workshop at the Husserl Archives of the University of Cologne at March 7, 2014

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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  Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, School of Brentano

Two-day Hungarian conference in Budapest on Edmund Husserl's life and work on the occasion of Husserl's 150th anniversary ("Konferencia Edmund Husserl munkásságáról a filozófus születésének 150. évfordulója alkalmából"). Organised... more

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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- 2
  Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl

Both the current research literature and a tradition stemming from Husserl himself agree that it was Brentano’s notion of intentionality which „gave rise“ to Husserl’s phenomenology. I rely on extensive primary materials, including... more

Both the current research literature and a tradition stemming from Husserl himself agree that it was Brentano’s notion of intentionality which „gave rise“ to Husserl’s phenomenology. I rely on extensive primary materials, including unpublished sources from four archives, to revisit this thesis. Already a survey of the historical circumstances of Brentano’s second decade in Vienna, when Husserl studied under him, hints at possible discrepancies in the reception of Brentano’s thought, which are further deepened by the editing policy employed by his orthdox students. I analyze an unpublished lecture manuscript of Brentano to find three different notions of intentionality, including a strikingly a-phenomenological one, which I then relate to the discussion by modern scholarship and try to identify those notions of intentionality which were encountered by Husserl as a student of Brentano.
Given this heterogeneous matrix of influences, it is far from surprising that a closer look at Husserl’s philosophical juvenilia shows that he misunderstood Brentano’s notion of intentionality and attempted to employ it in a different theoretical context (maybe motivated by an idiosyncratic notion of inner perception). Finally, the notion of intentionality Husserl later attributed to Brentano was probably mitigated to him by indirect sources, including lecture manuscripts copied by the extravagant and less-know student of Brentano, Hans Schmidkunz, and a debate between a contemporary logician Christoph Sigwart and Brentano’s orthodox disciples. The analysis of these transmission mechanisms could reveal a distinct transformation which proved to be instrumental in the development of Husserl’s transcendental phenomeno-
logy. The allegedly decisive influence of Brentano’s notion of intentionality at Husserl thus seems to consist in a productive misunderstanding (which apparently corresponds to Brentano’s surprisingly dismissive evaluation of Husserl after Husserl’s departure from Vienna).

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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- 7
  Phenomenology, Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Intentionality

The Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences announces: International Conference "Horizons Beyond Borders. Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe" June... more

The Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences announces:

International Conference "Horizons Beyond Borders. Traditions and
Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern
Europe"

June 1719, 2015, Budapest, Hungary

Plenary Speakers (all confirmed): Michael Gubser (James Madison
University), George Heffernan (Merrimack College), Marci Shore (Yale
University), Nicolas de Warren (KU Leuven)

Further Invited Speakers (all confirmed): Jakub Čapek (Prague), Istvan M.
Feher (Budapest), Ferenc Hörcher (Budapest), Maija Kūle (Riga), Ivan Landa
(Prague), Balazs M. Mezei (Budapest), Victor Molchanov (Moscow), Karel
Novotný (Prague), Csaba Olay (Budapest), Robin D. Rollinger (Prague) , Inga
Römer (Wuppertal), Wojciech Starzyński (Warsaw), Adam Takacs (Budapest),
Petr Urban (Prague), Mihaly Vajda (Budapest)

Sessions on "Roots," "Figures," "Beyond Borders," "Beyond Politics," "New
Phenomenology from CEE," as well as Plenary Lectures "In Memoriam Krzysztof
Michalski" and "László Tengelyi" Memorial Sessions.

The program contains 64 presentations by scholars with primary affiliations
in 30 cities of 16 countries.

Detailed program:
http://ceephenomenology2015.husserl.hu/downloads/Conference_Program.pdf

Poster: http://ceephenomenology2015.husserl.hu/downloads/Poster_Web.pdf

Venue Map, Travel Information etc.: http://ceephenomenology2015.husserl.hu

Scientific Advisory Board: Ivan Blecha (Palacký University, Olomouc),
Cristian Ciocan (Institute for Philosophy “Alexandru Dragomir”, Bucharest),
Ion Copoeru (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), Andrzej Gniazdowski
(Polish Academy of Sciences), Balazs M. Mezei (Pazmany Peter Catholic
University, Hungary), Karel Novotný (Faculty of Humanities, Charles
University of Prague / Academy of the Sciences of the Czech Republic),
Csaba Olay (ELTE University, Budapest), Wojciech Starzyński (Polish Academy
of Sciences), Jaroslava Vydrová (Slovak Academy of Sciences), Michal Zvarík
(Trnava University).

Chair of the Organizing Committee: Peter Andras Varga (Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences,).

Secretary of the Organizing Committee: Witold Płotka (University of Gdansk, Poland).

Director of Host Institute: Ferenc Hörcher.

The conference is free and open to everybody. No prior written registration
is required.

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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- 8
  Phenomenology, Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, School of Brentano

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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- 6
  Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Edith Stein

Talk at the international conference "Das Kulturerbe Mittel- und Osteuropas – Katalin Neumer zum Gedenken" in Budapest on Nov 21, 2015

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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  Phenomenology, Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, School of Brentano

To be published in “Brentano Studien” 14 (2016). Comments and suggestions are especially welcome!

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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  Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, School of Brentano, Anton Marty

Although it is nearly forgotten today, the Ignorabimus Debate was one of the key events that left their marks on the German academic philosophy and the surrounding disciplines in the last decades of the 19th century. Already the... more

Although it is nearly forgotten today, the Ignorabimus Debate was one of the key events that left their marks on the German academic philosophy and the surrounding disciplines in the last decades of the 19th century. Already the contemporaneous observers described this period as a renaissance of philosophy, when philosophy tried to re-establish itself against the dominance of the increasingly successful natural sciences that were perceived as protruding into the traditional domains of philosophy after the demise of German Idealism in the earlier half of the century. It is thus far from being surprising that an inaugural address delivered by Emil du Bois-Reymond at the Annual Assembly of German Scientist and Physicians in Leipzig in 1872, in which du Bois-Reymond (himself a leading physiologist and an influential member of the academic establishment in Berlin) argued for necessary limits of the knowledge pretensions of natural sciences, produced immense echo. Du Bois-Reymond’s theses, which he reinforced at a public lecture in Berlin in 1880 (both addresses were immediately published and widely read), not only reverberated in the cultural-political consciousness of that time, forced materialism to go on the defensive and were greeted by thinkers originally hostile to materialism, but they also spurred a series of philosophical attempts at establishing methodically different regions of science. I explore both the sociocultural context of the outbreak of the Ignorabimus Debate, the philosophical merits of du Bois-Reymond’s theses, as well as the specifically philosophically reactions by Eduard von Hartmann, Friedrich Albert Lange, and Wilhelm Dilthey.
Hitherto it seemed, however, that the nascent phenomenology was not involved in this debate. The recent surge of scholarly interest in the Ignorabimus Debate barely mentions Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl. Already the publication date of Brentano’s seminal Psychology, however, renders it extremely unlikely that Brentano had been unaware of du Bois-Reymond. I first investigate the possible influence of the Ignorabimus Debate on Brentano during his transition between the Würzburg and Vienna periods. I believe that this influence could be linked to Brentano’s metaphysical pretensions, respectively to the latent discrepancies between the received (phenomenological) reading of Brentano’s work and Brentano’s intentions as manifested in his surrounding work manuscripts. The second focal point of my investigation is Edmund Husserl’s early phenomenology. I believe that the Ignorabimus Debate not only provides a particularly telling example of the various diffuse influences that were received by the young Husserl, but it could also serve as a historically anchored basis for understanding the continuous evolution of Husserl’s notion of metaphysics during the incubation of his Logical Investigations and the subsequent transition to transcendental phenomenology.
From a more general point of view, the Ignorabimus Debate thus proves to be a fertile case study in the sophisticated relation between the Early Phenomenology and the broadly conceived Kantian tradition of post-Hegelian German philosophy, as well as in phenomenology’s contested relation to the natural sciences. At the same time, choosing a concrete historical debate as the guiding thread of historical investigation could, I think, help finding a middle ground between the Scylla of antiquarianism and the Charybdis of anachronism.

Talk at the presentation of the Special Issue "Traditions and Perspectives of the Phenomenological Movement in Central and Eastern Europe" (5/1, 2016) of "Horizons. Studies in Phenomenology"

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- by Peter Andras Varga
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  Phenomenology, Franz Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Early Phenomenology

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