Alexis Delamare

In “Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft,” Edmund Husserl states that “all life is position-taking [Stellungnehmen]” and “all position-taking is subject to an ought” (1987: 56). The aim of this paper is to examine Husserl’s multifaceted concept of Stellungnahme and show how it informs his understanding of human life. I start by studying this notion as initially developed by Reinach – where position-taking is a stance towards an object or state of affairs, either positive (e.g., belief) or negative (disbelief) – and by von Hildebrand – for whom a Stellungnahme is a subject’s spontaneous response to a known fact or value. Then, turning to Husserl’s reappropriation of his Munich students’ work, I demonstrate that he first interprets position-taking, building on Reinach, as a positional intention (in contrast to neutral consciousness), which explains why Stellungnahme is subject to the “ought” of reason. However, this definition overlooks the agency inherent in Stellungnahme, in which the ego actively ‘takes’ a position. Husserl thus advances an enhanced view, drawing on von Hildebrand, whereby position-taking designates a free decision of a person who thereby self-constitutes her individuality. Yet, this emphasis on freedom cannot account for the rational normativity of Stellungnahme. To address this, Husserl ultimately offers a deeper approach to position-taking as a critical procedure assessing the validity of a thesis, which articulates the first two interpretations. This procedure, culminating in the enduring, personal acknowledgment of a belief, illuminates the specificity of human beings as essentially capable of actively reshaping their theoretical and axiological convictions.

The peculiar legacy of Husserl’s mereology, chiefly studied by analytic philosophers interested in ontology, has led to a partial understanding of the III. LU, which is too often reduced to a chapter of “formal ontology”. Yet, the power of this Investigation goes far beyond: it enabled Husserl to deal, in the framework of a unified theory, with a vast range of particular problems. The paper focuses on one of these issues, namely abstraction, so as to expose how Husserl instrumentalizes his formal tools in order to tackle material issues. The existence of an up and down pattern is uncovered: Husserl first reinterprets the psychological problem of abstraction in ontological terms, before coming back to the original problem with new insights. The second, correlative aim of the paper is to emphasize the key role played by Friedrich Schumann, a forgotten yet crucial character for Husserl’s conception of abstraction.

The paper offers a renewed interpretation of Husserl’s approach to moods (Stimmungen), in light of the second volume of the Studien. There, Husserl defines moods as feelings that persist after their axiological source is no longer present to consciousness. But how can such an affective experience endure after it has been detached from its intentional origin? To address this issue, I first present an innovative account of Husserl’s conception of feelings as episodes: they start with the appearance of a value, which motivates the emergence of an emotion, embodied in affective sensations. This emotion then gradually loses its intentional relation to its object, which finally leads to the birth of a mood. Drawing on this approach, the second part examines three solutions to the aforementioned question. I dismiss the first two, based on background intentionality and the formal structures of time consciousness (retention, memory, sedimentation), and adopt the third, focusing on the embodied character of moods. This solution, however, brings up another challenge, related to the ability of moods to color the world despite their lack of intentionality. The third part resolves this second problem through a closer examination of the role of bodily affective sensations in value apprehension.

As a fervent rationalist, Husserl placed considerable emphasis on the delineation of the different levels of reason. Its highest form, he contends, is position-taking (Stellungnahme) understood as a critical stance towards a positional act P. Specifically, such a Stellungnahme is a three-step procedure: the subject, possibly motivated by a passive discordance, starts by questioning P (active doubt); she then seeks to validate P by returning to its originary fulfillment (active search for evidence); finally, she ratifies such a fulfillment in an act of acknowledgment (active decision), thereby making P a permanent personal conviction. In the literature, the role of position-taking in the formation of persons has been aptly emphasized, but insufficient attention has been paid to its intrinsic structure and concrete functioning; furthermore, the few existing studies on this topic are limited to the theoretical domain. The aim of this paper is to fill this twofold gap by providing a comprehensive account of critical Stellungnahme in both the intellectual and the axiological spheres, drawing especially on the manuscripts from the Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. The first part examines Stellungnahme in the theoretical realm, underscoring its teleological orientation towards justification and the active role played by the subject in it. The second part shows how this procedure can be extended to rationalize value-experiences, by elucidating the nature of affective evidence and approval (Billigung). Finally, the third part demonstrates how a particular value, that of knowledge, can concretely pass the axiological position-taking and thus be recognized as an actual value.

Rompant avec la conception traditionnelle du corps comme pure et simple res extensa en interaction avec une âme seule à même de sentir et de vouloir, laphénoménologie (E. Husserl, M. Merleau-Ponty, J. Patoèka, M. Henry, R. Barbaras,...) en déploie une approche vécue, faisant de la chair (Leib, en allemand) le site même de notre rapport sensible et pratique aux étants. Une telle perspective court cependant le risque de ne voir en l'incarnation qu'une condition de possibilité de la manifestation du monde - et donc de passer sous silence la phénoménalké de cette chair vivante elle-même. C'est dans ce contexte qu'une phénoménologie du corps en émoi s'avère indispensable : au contraire du corps percevant et du corps agissant, simples mediums transparents d'une conscience tout entière auprès des choses, le corps ému, en vertu des bouleversements mêmes qui le caractérisent (larmes, rougissements, sudation,...), recouvre une prégnance certaine, et s'impose comme instance propre. En bref : seule l'émotion est somatophanie, c'est-à-dire manifestation du corps en tant que corps. Le présent volume se donne pour dessein d'étudier les différents versants de cette manifestation. La première partie, comprenant les contributions de Thomas Fuchs, Natalie Depraz, et Gabriel Mahéo, développe une réinterprétation incarnée des émotions intersubjectives - et en particulier de leur dimension politique. Au cours de la seconde partie, Charles Bobant, Grégori Jean, et Gilles A. Tiberghien s'interrogent sur la fonction-du corps ému au sein des multiples artistiques et de leurs réceptions esthétiques. Enfin, la troisième partie, composée des travaux d'Alexis Delamare, d'Aurélien Deudon, et de Daniel Vespermann, propose une série d'explorations phénoménologiques particulières - étude de la joie et de la tristesse, de lajouimance amoureuse, et des affects atmosphériques"--Page 4 of cover.

Before engaging with intentionality, the philosopher of mind must consider the intrinsic nature of psychological elements. Conscious states, contrary to ordinary and scientific objects, seem to penetrate each another in such a way that it becomes impossible to enumerate, class or organize through laws the various experiences at stake. In this context, how is a science of consciousness conceivable? How is it possible to apply the epistemological requirements of any science to a domain whose ontological nature contradicts such demands? The paper reconstructs Husserl’s solution to this issue in the Fifth Logical Investigation. I show how his appeal to the mereological framework of the Third Investigation gives him the tools to rationalize the domain of the mind and to establish phenomenology as an authentic science of consciousness. I first demonstrate that the very task of phenomenological investigations is defined in mereological terms. I then reconstruct the issue regarding the inclusion of the intentional object within the act, by exposing the nuances of the Husserlian position in this famous controversy. In a last part, I show how mereological concepts are at the core of the Husserlian reinterpretation of the Brentanian thesis according to which all acts are presentations or based on presentations.

How are we able to experience values? Two sides are competing in contemporary literature: ‘Meinongians’ (represented notably by Christine Tappolet) claim that axiological properties are apprehended in emotions, while ‘Hildebrandians’ (represented in particular by Ingrid Vendrell Ferran) assert that such experiences of value (or valueceptions) are accomplished in special ‘value feelings’, and that emotions are only responses to these felt values. In this paper, I study the Husserlian viewpoint on this issue. I reveal that, contrary to what almost all scholars have assumed so far, Husserl’s position is not reducible to Meinong’s and must on the contrary be regarded as an innovative and stimulating approach that helps unifying the two standard frameworks. It indeed recognizes (with Hildebrandians) the existence of non-emotional value feelings, while maintaining (with Meinongians) that originary axiological experiences are necessarily emotional.

This paper explores the nature of ourexperiences of values– ourvalueceptions. In the recent literature, two main standpoints have emerged. On the one hand, the ‘Meinongian’ side claims that axiological properties are experienced exclusively in emotions. On the other hand, the ‘Hildebrandian’ side contends that since valueceptions can be ‘cold’, they are not accomplished in emotions but rather reside in ‘value-feelings’ – emotions, in this framework, being conceived of asreactionsto the values thus revealed. The aim of the paper is to argue that theHusserlianphenomenology of affectivity, especially as it is developed during his Göttingen period, can help to overcome these two accounts. I start by pointing out that, contrary to what most scholars have assumed so far, Husserl’s theory of valueception is not tantamount to Meinong’s, as it is very sensitive to ‘Hildebrandian’ arguments (Part 2). The core of the paper is then devoted to a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s solution to this controversy. Drawing on the analogy between thing-perceptions and value-perceptions (Part 3), I show, first, that ‘cold’ valueceptions are to be identified with empty apprehensions (Auffassungen) of value, in which an emotion is notactually experiencedbut isanticipatedin such-and-such kinaesthetic circumstances (Part 4); second, that the realization of this anticipation amounts to thefulfillmentof the valueception (Part 5). As a result, Husserl acknowledges the relevance of ‘value-feelings’, yet his account appears more satisfactory than traditional ‘Hildebrandian’ theories in that it demystifies these ‘value-feelings’ by reducing them topotential emotions.