Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology' and 'Why there isn't a ready-made world'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
Our goal is to reveal a new hidden region of Being [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We could refer to our goal as the winning of a new region of Being, the distinctive character of which has not yet been defined.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.033)
     A reaction: The obvious fruit of this idea, I would think, is Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, which claims to be a distinctively human region of Being. I'm not sure I can cope with the claim that Being itself (a very broad-brush term) has hidden regions.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)
As a thing and its perception are separated, two modes of Being emerge [Husserl]
     Full Idea: We are left with the transcendence of the thing over against the perception of it, ...and thus a basic and essential difference arises between Being as Experience and Being as Thing.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.2.042)
     A reaction: I'm thinking that this is not just the germ of Heidegger's concept of Da-sein, but it actually IS his concept, without the label. Husserl had said that he hoped to reveal a new region of Being.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam]
     Full Idea: What makes the metaphysical realist a 'metaphysical' realist is his belief that there is somewhere 'one true theory' (two theories which are true and complete descriptions of the world would be mere notational variants of each other).
     From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Causation')
     A reaction: This is wrong!!!!! Commitment to one reality doesn't imply that only one comprehensive theory is possible. Theory-making (at least in any human language, or in mathematics) is an inherently limited activity.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl]
     Full Idea: The World is the totality of objects that can be known through experience.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], I.1.001)
     A reaction: I think this is the 'Nature' which has to be 'bracketed', when pursuing Phenomenology. It sounds like anti-realist empiricism, which has no place for unobservables.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Absolute reality is an absurdity [Husserl]
     Full Idea: An absolute reality is just as valid as a round square.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.055)
     A reaction: Husserl distances himself from 'Berkeleyian' idealism, but his discussion keeps flirting with, perhaps in some sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it Hegelian way. Perhaps it is close to Dummett's Anti-Realism.
It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The idea of a coherent theory of the noumena; consistent, systematic, and arrived at by 'the scientific method' seems to me to be chimerical.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Failure')
     A reaction: I sort of agree with this, but it definitely doesn't make me an anti-realist.