display all the ideas for this combination of texts
12 ideas
19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
7001 | If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil] |
Full Idea: If you start with language and try to work your way outwards, you will never get outside language. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Pref) | |
A reaction: This voices my pessimism about the linguistic approach to philosophy (and I don't just mean analysis of ordinary language), though I wonder if the career of (say) John Searle is a counterexample. |
22216 | Phenomenology studies different types of correlation between consciousness and its objects [Husserl, by Bernet] |
Full Idea: Husserl's phenomenology is the science of the intentional correlation of acts of consciousness with their objects and it studies the ways in which different kinds of objects involve different kinds of correlation with different kinds of acts. | |
From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.198 | |
A reaction: I notice he uncritically accepts Husserl's description of it as a 'science'. My naive question is how you would distinguish one kind of 'correlation' from another. |
22218 | There can only be a science of fluctuating consciousness if it focuses on stable essences [Husserl, by Bernet] |
Full Idea: How can there be a science of a Heraclitean flux of acts of consciousness? Husserl answers that this is possible only if these acts are described in respect of their invariant or essential structure. This is an 'eidetic' scence of 'pure' psychology. | |
From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199 | |
A reaction: This is his phenomenology in 1913, which Bernet describes as 'static'. Husserl later introduced time with his 'genetic' version of phenomenology, looking at the sources of experience (and then at history). Essentialism seems to be intuitive. |
21217 | Phenomenology needs absolute reflection, without presuppositions [Husserl] |
Full Idea: Phenomenology demands the most perfect freedom from presuppositions and, concerning itself, an absolute reflective insight. | |
From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], III.1.063), quoted by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 3.1 | |
A reaction: As an outsider, I would have thought that the whole weight of modern continental philosophy is entirely opposed to the aspiration to think without presuppositions. |
22217 | Phenomenology aims to validate objects, on the basis of intentional intuitive experience [Husserl, by Bernet] |
Full Idea: Husserl's goal is to account for the validity, the 'being-true', of objects on the basis of the way in which they are given or constituted. ...Experiences more suitable for guaranteeing objects are those which both intend and intuitively apprehend them. | |
From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.199 | |
A reaction: [compressed] In the light of previous scepticism and idealism, the project sounds a bit optimistic. If there is a gulf between mind and world it can only be bridged by 'reaching out' from both sides. This is a mind-sided attempt. |
22219 | Husserl saw transcendental phenomenology as idealist, in its construction of objects [Husserl, by Bernet] |
Full Idea: Phenomeonology is 'transcendental' in describing the correlation between phenomena and intentional objects, to show how their meaning and validity are constructed. Husserl gave this process an idealist interpretation (which Heidegger criticised). | |
From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.200 | |
A reaction: [compressed] If the actions which produce our concepts of objects all take place 'behind' phenomenal consciousness, then it is hard to avoid sliding into some sort of idealism. It encourages direct realism about perception. |
22204 | Start philosophising with no preconceptions, from the intuitively non-theoretical self-given [Husserl] |
Full Idea: Where other philosophers ...start from unclarified, ungrounded preconceptions, we start out from that which antedates all standpoints: from the totality of the intuitively self-given which is prior to any theorising reflexion. | |
From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.2.020) | |
A reaction: This is the great aim of Phenomenology, which is obviously inspired by Hegel's similar desire to start from nothing. Hegel starts from a concept ('nothing'), but Husserl starts from raw experience. I suspect both approaches are idle dreams. |
22207 | Epoché or 'bracketing' is refraining from judgement, even when some truths are certain [Husserl] |
Full Idea: In relation to every thesis we can use this peculiar epoché (the phenomenon of 'bracketing' or 'disconnecting'), a certain refraining from judgment which is compatible with the unshaken and unshakable because self-evidencing conviction of Truth. | |
From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.031) | |
A reaction: This is the crucial first step of Phenomenology. It seems to me that it is best described as 'methodological scepticism'. People actually practise it all the time, while they focus on some experience, while trying to forget preconceptions. |
22208 | 'Bracketing' means no judgements at all about spatio-temporal existence [Husserl] |
Full Idea: I use the 'phenomenological' epoché, which completely bars me from using any judgment that concerns spatio-temporal existence. | |
From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.1.032) | |
A reaction: This makes bracketing (or epoché) into a sort of voluntary idealism. Put like that, it is hard to see what benefits it could bring. I am, you will notice, a pretty thorough sceptic about the project of phenomenology. What has it taught us? |
22210 | After everything is bracketed, consciousness still has a unique being of its own [Husserl] |
Full Idea: We fix our eyes steadily upon the sphere of Consciousness and study what it is that we find immanent in it. ...Consciousness in itself has a being of its own which in its absolute uniqueness of nature remains unaffected by disconnection. | |
From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033) | |
A reaction: 'Disconnection' is his 'bracketing'. He makes it sound obvious, but Schopenhauer entirely disagrees with him, and I have no idea how to arbitrate. I struggle to grasp consciousness once nature has been bracketed, but have little luck. Is it Da-sein? |
22215 | Phenomenology describes consciousness, in the light of pure experiences [Husserl] |
Full Idea: Phenomenology is a pure descriptive discipline which studies the whole field of pure transcendental consciousness in the light of pure intuition. | |
From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.4.059) | |
A reaction: When he uses the word 'pure' three times in a sentence, each applied to a different thing, you begin to wonder precisely what it means. Strictly speaking, I would probably only apply 'pure' to abstracta, and never to experiences or reality.115 |