Christian Lotz

In den Cartesianischen Meditationen von Edmund Husserl heißt es: "Der Andere ist Spiegelung meiner selbst und doch nicht eigentlich Spiegelung." . Man kann den Satz nicht nur als einen Reflex der Leibniz-Lektüre Husserls auslegen, sondern ihn auch als sachlichen Hinweis auf die Erfahrung der Spiegelung verstehen. Meine Überlegungen beschränken sich auf eine Grundskizze einer Phänomenologie der Spiegelerfahrung, die die konkrete Fremderfahrung, also abgesehen von ihrer Grundlegungsdimension, genauer beleuchten hilft. Man kann die ursprüngliche Assoziation, die Husserl unter dem Titel "Paarung" anführt, im Sinne einer leiblichen Spiegelung interpretieren. Mit der Bestimmung einer solchen unmittelbaren leiblichen "Übereinkunft" wäre ein erster rudimentärer Begriff des Mitmachens gewonnen, bei dessen Bestimmung kognitive Muster vermieden werden können. Die passive Fremderfahrung läßt sich verstehen als eine passive Einigung der Leiber und Bewegungssysteme, die spiegelverkehrt verläuft. Dieser Aufweis kann nicht nur helfen kann, den psychologischen Begriff der Nachahmung phänomenologisch zur reinterpretieren, sondern auch als Voraussetzung jeder intersubjektiven Erfahrung angesehen werden

In this essay, I shall attempt to shed light on central practical concepts, such as action and decision, in Heidegger’s existentialism and in Fichte’s idealism. BothFichte and Heidegger, though from different philosophical frameworks and with different results, address the practical moment by developing [1] a non-epistemic concept of certainty, in connection with [2] a temporal analysis of the conditions of action, which leads to the primacy of future in their analyses. Both [1] and [2] shed light on their concept of the self, and on the concept of freedom. In addition, my paper offers a further clarification of what was called before Fichte’s “proto-existentialism” (G. Zöller, D. Henrich). The ontological framework of both philosophies and their concept of the practical self, finally, leads to the proposal to merge both perspectives into what I would like to call “existential idealism.” Fichte’s and Heidegger’s practical philosophies can be taken as two sides of the same coin.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 160-161 [Access article in PDF] Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl. Edmund Husserl. Zeitlichkeit und Intentionalität. Freiburg: Alber Verlag, 2000. Pp. 828. DM 178.00. Husserl himself understood the principle of a further development in phenomenology as a process of "critique of critique." One can find a realization of this principle in this impressive study by Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (University of Graz, Austria). Through the title Edmund Husserl.Zeitlichkeit und Intentionalität the author announces her project to be an immanent analysis of central themes in transcendental phenomenology. The study concerns not only an interpretation of the whole published corpus, but also methodological problems and problems of the theory of subjectivity. Phenomenological topics like the lived body or psychology are exlcluded, which is a great advantage of the study. The themes are presented by critical analysis, and with systematic perspicacity in order to give new insights into traditional problems of research in Husserlian phenomenology. The author introduces her main points in three steps. In part one she deals with the "basis of phenomenology" and the "model of intentionality," which are presented in the first chapter through a commentary on the doctrine of intentionality in the Logical Investigations and the Noesis-Noema-correlation in Ideas I. Questions of method such as eidetic intuition and reduction are discussed in the second chapter. Overall, the study tries to understand Husserl's theory as an "intentional neutralism" (684) in which problems of a theory of knowledge are "bracketed." In the two chapters of the second part, the author connects Husserl's theory of subjectivity, the I-problematic and the problem of self-awareness, with his phenomenology of time consciousness. The I-problematic and the different concepts of consciousness in transcendental phenomenology are not only presented through an analysis of the Logical Investigations and Ideas I, but also an explanation of Husserl's later monadology. Rinofner-Kreidl shows convincingly that Husserl's position has to be understood as a non-egological theory of self-awareness.In the third part, the author demonstrates the limits of transcendental phenomenology within metaphysics by critisizing Husserl's thesis of a thinkable "world annihilation" [Weltvernichtung]. The investigation is finished by a chapter on the connection between phenomenology and science.Against the background of such questions, Rinofner-Kreidl develops her main argument against Husserl's phenomenology, namely, that it is able to solve neither the problem of the original temporal constitution of consciousness nor that of the pure I, because of certain methodological preconditions, e.g., intuition and the pure givenness of the phenomena to be described. Both threads are linked together in an impressive discussion of the often discussed reflective problematic. According to Rinofner-Kreidl, the heart of the matter is the question whether acts of reflection have to be understood as inner perception or as re-presentification [Vergegenwärtigung]. By preferring the first option one encounters difficulties by considering the act of reflection as occurring at the same time as the retentional constitution of the lived present. However, on the basis of Husserl's time phenomenology, the latter seems to be impossible. Non-intentional original constitution of time and intentional acts cannot be together at the same "objective" time. Thus, the author speaks about the "neuralgic problem" (511) of Husserl's phenomenology. Further, by preferring the second case one must give up the Cartesian [End Page 160] thread of phenomenology, because a representing reflection must "thematize" its objects, namely the experiences [Erlebnisse] themselves, as an object like any other object. However, this means that phenomenology, which is itself constituted by reflection, is unable "to refer to past objects without errors" (377). Consequently, The Cartesian ideal of an absolute apodicticity has to be given up.The author argues for the second option. She writes: "If a phenomenological philosophy is to keep itself clear of all constitution and speculation by strictly confining itself to the given, then precisely the time analysis comes into conflict with the basic principle, since it wants to describe what never can be an object" (499). Not only the analysis of time consciousness...

Es ist bekannt, daß Husserl Fichtes theoretischer Philosophie keine gute Seite abgewinnen konnte. In den 1917 vor Kriegsheimkehrern gehaltenen und 1918 wiederholten Vorträgen über Fichte spricht Husserl von »abstrusen Konstruktionen«, die in der Wissenschaftslehre Fichtes zu finden seien. Nichtsdestotrotz kann man sehen, daß beide Ansätze mehr als bloße Strukturanalogien aufweisen. Es wurde - wenn auch nicht häufig - darauf hingewiesen, daß sachliche Verweise beider Ansätze aufeinander möglich sind. Die Berührungspunkte in der praktischen Philosophie dagegen fallen eher ins Auge. In seinen Vorträgen orientiert sich Husserl insbesondere an Fichtes populären und religionsphilosophischen Schriften und es ist inzwischen bekannt, daß sich Husserl in den 20er Jahren vermehrt der praktischen Philosophie im Sinne Fichtes zuwendet, über deren Verhältnis zu der seinen er in einem Brief an Adolf Grimme meint, »daß die religions-philosophischen Perspektiven, die mir die Phänomenologie eröffnete, überraschend nahe Beziehung zu Fichtes späterer Gotteslehre zeigen«. Ich möchte mich an dieser Stelle auf den theoretischen Zugang konzentrieren und dabei speziell den Begriff der Affektion bei Fichte und Husserl näher untersuchen.

Hubert L. Dreyfus has worked out a critique of what he calls “representationalism” and “cognitivism,” one proponent of which, according to Dreyfus, is Husserl. But I think that Dreyfus misunderstands the Husserlian conception of practical intentionality and that his characterization of Husserl as a “representationalist” or as a “cognitivist” is thereby wrongheaded. In this paper I examine Dreyfus’s interpretation by offering a Husserlian critique of Dreyfus’s objections to Husserl, and then by outlining Husserl’s account of practical intentionality and the practical lived Body. I sketch the critique and the approach of Dreyfus in three steps. First, I deal with his objections against Husserl’s theory by arguing that Dreyfus understands neither the role of the reduction nor the function of background-awareness in Husserl’s phenomenology. Second, I elucidate the central role that the “practical lived Body” plays in practical intentionality for Husserl, and, third, I highlight the consequences that follow from the analyses offered in the previous sections.