Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM, Edmund Husserl and Karl Jaspers

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4 ideas

16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
The psychological ego is worldly, and the pure ego follows transcendental reduction [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
     Full Idea: Husserl distinguishes two sorts of egos or subjects of experience, the psychological ego and the pure ego. The psychological ego is a reality of the world, and the pure ego is a result of transcendental reduction.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Cartesian Meditations [1931]) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 4.6.1
     A reaction: The sounds like embracing both the Cartesian and the Kantian egos. This is obviously the source of Sartre's interesting early book on the self. 'Transcendental reduction' is his bracketing or epoché.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We never stumble across the pure Ego as an experience within the flux of manifold experiences which survives as transcendental residuum; nor do we meet it as a constitutive bit of experience appearing with the experience of which it is an integral part.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.057)
     A reaction: It seems that he agrees with David Hume. Sartre's 'Transcendence of the Ego' follows up this idea. However, Husserl goes on to assert the 'necessity' of the permanent Ego, which sounds like Kant's view.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law [Jaspers]
     Full Idea: Without knowledge there is no freedom ....and without an arbitrary act there is no freedom, ....and there is no freedom without law.
     From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2)
     A reaction: He emphasises that an arbitrary act is not a free act, but it is a precondition for being free. The submission to law is active freedom. If you believe in education (and you should) you must believe that knowledge is liberating.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 4. For Free Will
I am aware that freedom is possible, and the freedom is not in theory, but in seeking freedom [Jaspers]
     Full Idea: Either there is no freedom or it is in asking about it. But what makes me ask is an original will to be free, so my freedom is anticipated in the fact of asking. I cannot prove it first, then will it. I will it because I am conscious of its possibility.
     From: Karl Jaspers (Philosophy [1932], vol.2)
     A reaction: This presents the subjective claims for free will rather more persuasively than usual. I am conscious of a possibility that I might flap my arms and fly, so that doesn't establish anything. But yearning to be free is a sort of freedom.