The Normality of the Consciousness and the Normality of the Body. Husserl’s View on Normality

"In the following paper, I’ll try to summarize Husserl’s view on normality. I will claim that there is a contradiction between his early, transcendental conception, which claims the absolute normality of the transcendental consciousness, and his late genetic-generative analyzes that lead back the normality of experience to the normality of the psychophysical body. I will argue that his contradiction can be resolved from the perspective of the embodied consciousness which, according to Anthony Steinbock is also present in the late writings of Husserl. Keywords: normality, abnormality, transcendental phenomenology, genetic phenomenology "

Critical Phenomenology and Phenomenological Critique

"Phenomenological critique attempts to retrieve the lived experience of a human community alienated from its truthful condition and immersed in historical crises brought by processes of objectification and estrangement. This introductory article challenges two methodological assumptions that are largely shared in North American Critical Phenomenology: the definition of phenomenology as a first person approach of experience and the rejection of transcendental eidetics. While reflecting on the importance of otherness and community for phenomenology’s critical orientation, we reconsider the importance of eidetics from the standpoint of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, highlighting its historical and contingent character. Contrary to the received view of Husserl’s classical phenomenology as an idealistic and rigid undertaking, we show that his genetic phenomenology is interested in the material formation of meaning (Sinnbildung), offering resources for a phenomenological approach to a materialist social theory. Keywords: critical phenomenology, critical theory, genetic phenomenology, community, normativity "

¿Una razón sin astucia? Revisitando el tópico fenomenología trascendental e historia

En este ensayo su autor revisita el tópico fenomenología trascendental e historia 12 años después de la publicación de un trabajo amplio sobre el tema. El escrito esta dividido en tres partes donde se muestras acuerdos y discrepancias con esa interpretación inicial. En la primera se rebate la tesis tan extendida de que la fenomenología de Husserl es alérgica a la historia y se establece una conjetura razonable sobre por qué, y a pesar de la evidencias en contra, sigue todavía bastante vigente esa idea entre los no versados en su obra. En la segunda parte, se muestra en positivo la articulación entre fenomenología e historia y se concluye que la manera quizá más adecuada de entender el sentido último del pensamiento de Husserl es comprenderlo como una teoría transcendental de la historia. Para mostrar esto se expondrá, en primer lugar, el hecho crucial del paso de la fenomenología estática a la fenomenología genética. En segundo lugar, se incidirá en la mutua interconexión entre historia intencional, a priori de la historia y filosofía o teleología de la historia. Por fin, en una tercera y última parte, se realizan algunas valoraciones críticas de las ideas husserlianas. También una autocrítica de algunas partes del mencionado trabajo publicado hace 12 años. Todas tienen que ver, en última instancia, con lo que hoy entiendo como excesiva potencia de la teleología de la historia y la idea de racionalidad y fundamento que la animan.In this essay, the author revisits the topic transcendental phenomenology and history 12 years after the publication of a book on the subject. The paper is divided into three parts and shows agreements and discrepancies with that initial interpretation. The first part contradicts the widespread thesis that Husserl's phenomenology is allergic to history, and develops a conjecture about why, despite the evidence to the contrary, this thesis is still quite common among those not strictly versed in Husserl’s work. The second part shows the positive articulation among phenomenology and history. It concludes that the best way to understand the ultimate meaning of Husserl's thought is considering it as a transcendental theory of history. In order to show the plausibility of this reading, this part of the essay will expose, first, the step from static to genetic phenomenology, and secondly, the mutual interconnection between intentional history, a priori of history, and philosophy or teleology of history. Finally, in a third and final part, some critical assessments of Husserl's ideas are made, also a criticism of the mentioned book of the author of the paper published 12 years ago. They are concerned, ultimately, with what I now understand as an excessive power of teleology of history and the idea of rationality and foundation that animates it.

MERLEAU-PONTY Y LA PSICOLOGÍA DE LA FORMA

A partir del análisis de la relación de Merleau-Ponty con la psicología de la forma, se intenta dar una lectura de su fenomenología como una lectura ontológica de la forma. De este modo, Merleau-Ponty no solo puede pensar una alternativa a la fenomenología de Husserl, sino que le permite elaborar su propia idea de Ser y dar una nueva interpretación de la diferencia ontológica de Heidegger. Desde una descripción fenomenológica de la experiencia perceptiva, a partir de las nociones de comportamiento, forma y estructura, se mostrará enseguida el sentido de ser que moviliza una filosofía de la forma que implicará proyectar un pensamiento de una pertenencia radical de la fenomenalidad a la existencia, y además renovar el sentido de una fenomenología genética que considera toda conciencia trascendental en el marco de una facticidad originaria.On the basis of the relationship Merleau- Ponty establishes with Gestalt psychology, I seek to provide an interpretation his phenomenology as an ontological reading of the notion of form. Therefore, I claim that Merleau-Ponty is able, not only to develop an alternative to Husserl’s phenomenology, but also to elaborate his own idea of Being; in addition, he can offer a new understanding of the Heidegger's ontological difference. From a phenomenological description of perceptive experience, and starting with the notions of behavior, form and structure, I will then show the sense of being mobilized by a philosophy of form. This sense of being implies a projection of a thinking of phenomenality's radical belonging to the existence and, also, renewal of a genetic phenomenology that considers the whole of transcendental consciousness within the framework of an originary facticity

La evidencia en los Prolegómenos y las Investigaciones lógicas

La determinación husserliana de la evidencia como cumplimiento [Erfüllung] llevó a una tácita identificación de la evidencia con la conciencia plena. Sin embargo, el desarrollo de su fenomenología revela que en todo caso se presenta como una síntesis particular de plenitud y vacío, configuración que resulta modal por tratarse de una conciencia de posibilidad aunque en un sentido material y no cualitativo. Los Prolegómenos aportan un primer elemento en esta línea –que sólo en la fenomenología genética resulta explícita–: la evidencia como vivencia de la verdad supone que la validez de un enunciado se sustenta en la posibilidad de la existencia de otros enunciados idénticos de la misma forma y materia; con las Investigaciones lógicas, estas multiplicidades posibles serán comprendidas como momentos en un nuevo contexto descriptivo: la mención y el cumplimiento, lo cual otorga estatuto intencional a la objetividad que se configura como escorzo de sentido, esto es, el modo en que la unidad determinada de plenitud y vacío –en cuanto horizonte de cumplimiento posible– conforma la evidencia objetiva.Husserlian determination of evidence as fulfillment [Erfüllung] brought a tacit identification of evidence with full consciousness. However, the development of his phenomenology reveals that it always appears as a particular synthesis of fullness and emptiness, configuration that turns out to be modal because it is a consciousness of possibility though in a material and not qualitative sense. The Prolegomena introduce a first element in this perspective –that only in the genetic phenomenology becomes explicit–: evidence as experience of truth supposes that the validity of a judgment supports itself in the possibility of existence of other identical judgments with the same form and matter; with the Logical Investigations, this possible multiplicities will be understood as moments in a new descriptive context: mention and fulfillment, whereby objectivity –configured as adumbration of sense– acquires intentional status, i. e., the mode in which the determined unity of fullness and emptiness –as horizon of possible fulfillment– shapes objective evidence.

Tipos de motivación y vida moral: la propuesta de E. Husserl

La reducción trascendental introdu-cida por Husserl en Ideas I le permite a nuestro autor, ya en Ideas II, definir la “actitud perso-nalista”, donde el “objeto intencional” abre paso a una nueva noción clave que es la de “motivación”. Dada la importancia que tiene la motivación para entender cualquier vida y también, por tanto, la vida moral, mi ponencia busca obtener una clasificación rigurosa de los distintos tipos de motivación que Husserl describe (tanto en Ideas II como en Einleitung in die Ethik). Su objetivo es mostrar que aunque Husserl concede a la motivación “racional” (correcta o incorrecta) toda la importancia que merece, no por ello identifica motivación con racionalidad. En la motivación, que cubre por completo el ámbito personalista (no “causal”), Husserl incluye, en efecto, una motivación “prerracional” o asociativa, que nos lleva al terreno de la fenomeno-logía genética.The transcendental reduction introduced by Husserl in Ideas I allows him, in Ideas II, defining the "personalistic attitude" where the "intentional object" gives way to a new key notion, "motivation." Given the importance of motivation to understand any life and, therefore, moral life, my paper seeks a rigorous classification of the different types of motivation that Husserl describes (in Ideas II and in Einleitung in die Ethik). Its aim is showing that although Husserl gives importance to "rational" (correct or incorrect) motivation, he does not identify motivation with rationality. In the motivation, that covers completely personalistic (no "causal”) level, Husserl includes, in effect, a "pre-rational" or associative motivation, which leads us to the field of genetic phenomenology

Affective Pre-Givenness and Accumulation of Oneself

Based on the analysis of the previously unpublished heritage of Eh. Husserl, the so-called “Bernau-manuscripts” in the horizon of genetic phenomenology, a holistic consideration of subjectivity from the affectively pre-given to the Self as a collection of the self is outlined. Passive synthesis and passive genesis are analysed at the level of sensuality, which refers to the pre-predicative experience of affеction and genetically precedes the thematic correlation between the subject and the world. The accumulation of one’s own Self takes place in onto-reflexive processes through effective communication. Where the Self itself is the identical center, the pole with which the entire content of the stream of experiences is correlated.

Qualitative relationism about subject and object of perception and experience

In this paper, I compare various theories of perception in relation to the question of the epistemological and ontological status of the qualities that appear in perceptual experience. I group these theories into two main views: quality externalism and quality internalism, and I highlight their contrasting problems in accounting for phenomena such as perceptual relativity, illusions and hallucinations (the “problem of perception”). Then, I propose an alternative view, which I call qualitative relationism and which conceives of the subject and the object of perceptual experience as essentially related to one another (hence relationism) in a process of co-constitution out of fundamental qualities (hence qualitative relationism). I lend support to this view by drawing on Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, which I complement with a form of neutral monism. I argue that the investigation of the temporal structure of perceptual experience leads us to find at its heart a qualitative process that is more fundamental than the two relata of perception and that gives rise to them. Then, I extend this account of perception into a general theory of intentionality and experience and I develop its implications into a neutral monist metaphysics.

From Personal Threat to Cross-Cultural Learning: an Eidetic Investigation

This study was an eidetic, phenomenological investigation of cross-cultural learning that involves overcoming an experience of personal threat. The study and its findings were placed within the context of Husserl’s genetic phenomenology and the extant humanistic literature on cross-cultural encounter. This appeared especially appropriate given phenomenology’s history “within the movement of the so-called ‘Third Force’ psychology” (Giorgi, 1970, p. xi). The eidetic reduction revealed the phenomenon to be rooted in an essential unfamiliarity with the other compounded by presumptions of the other as representing a substandard foreignness harboring danger. For the phenomenon to unfold required the learner to witness spontaneous emotional expression and empathically discover that the other struggles and suffers “like any other human being.” Openness to the other progressively builds and new meanings emerge from the interpersonal exchange as compartmentalized, intellectualized understandings of the other are outmoded.