Review of \u3cem\u3eKant and Phenomenology\u3c/em\u3e

Photograph of Ted on Barker's Ark, taken Campion Hill site, 13 May 1961 close up portrait. A3

Husserl\u27s Notion of the Natural Attitude and the Shift to Transcendental Phenomenology

R. Wilson's Reverchon Matterhorn - MH13 - Phantom Chase photographed 11 October 1984

The Subjectivity of Effective History and the Suppressed Husserlian Elements in Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics

This essay makes two claims. The first, exegetical, point shows that there are Husserlian elements in Gadamer’s hermeneutics that are usually overlooked. The second, systematic, claim takes issue with the fact that Gadamer saw himself in alliance with the project of the later Heidegger. It would have been more fruitful had Gadamer aligned himself with Husserl and the enlightenment tradition. following Heidegger in his concept of “effective history,” Gadamer risks betraying the main tenets of the enlightenment by shifting the weight from subjectivity to effective history as the “agent” in history. This is not a wholesale dismissal of Gadamer’s project, however. The problem in Gadamer’s effective history can be remedied by insisting, with Husserl, on the subjective character of effective history. Gadamer was right to criticize Husserl’s idea of a transcendental genesis, but went too far in giving up the idea of human subjectivity as the agent in history

Theorizing Moral Cognition: Culture in Action, Situations, and Relationships

Dual-process theories of morality are approaches to moral cognition that stress the varying significance of emotion and deliberation in shaping judgments of action. Sociological research that builds on these ideas considers how cross-cultural variation alters judgments, with important consequences for what is and is not considered moral behavior. Yet lacking from these approaches is the notion that, depending on the situation and relationship, the same behavior by the same person can be considered more or less moral. The author reviews recent trends in sociological theorizing about morality and calls attention to the neglect of situational variations and social perceptions as mediating influences on judgment. She then analyzes the moral machine experiment to demonstrate how situations and relationships inform moral cognition. Finally, the author suggests that we can extend contemporary trends in the sociology of morality by connecting culture in thinking about action to culture in thinking about people

Husserl’s Concept of the ‘Transcendental Person’: Another Look at the Husserl–Heidegger Relationship

This paper offers a further look at Husserl’s late thought on the transcendental subject and the Husserl–Heidegger relationship. It attempts a reconstruction of how Husserl hoped to assert his own thoughts on subjectivity vis-à-vis Heidegger, while also pointing out where Husserl did not reach the new level that Heidegger attained. In his late manuscripts, Husserl employs the term ‘transcendental person’ to describe the transcendental ego in its fullest ‘concretion’. I maintain that although this concept is a consistent development of Husserl’s earlier analyses of constitution, Husserl was also defending himself against Heidegger, who criticized him for framing the subject in terms of transcendental ego rather than as Dasein. Husserl was convinced that he could successfully respond to Heidegger’s critique, but he did not grasp that Heidegger’s fundamental ontology was an immanent development, rather than a scathing criticism, of his own phenomenology

Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Between Reason and Relativism; a Critical Appraisal

This paper pursues the double task of (a) presenting Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms as a systematic critique of culture and (b) assessing this systematic approach with regards to the question of reason vs. relativism. First, it reconstructs the development of his theory to its mature presentation in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Cassirer here presents a critique of culture as fulfilling Kant’s critical work by insisting on the plurality of reason as spirit, manifesting itself in symbolic forms. In the second part, the consequences of this approach will be drawn by considering the systematics Cassirer intended with this theory. As can be reconstructed from his metaphilosophical reflections, the strength of Cassirer’s philosophy is that it accounts for the plurality of rational-spiritual activity while at the same time not succumbing to a relativism. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms steers a middle course between a rational fundamentalism and a postmodern relativism