7 ideas
| 15570 | Phenomenology is the science of essences - necessary universal structures for art, representation etc. [Husserl, by Polt] |
| Full Idea: For Husserl, phenomenology must seek the essential aspects of phenomena - necessary, universal structures, such as the essence of art or the essence of representation. He sought a science of these essences. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 2 'Dilthey' |
| 7614 | Bracketing subtracts entailments about external reality from beliefs [Husserl, by Putnam] |
| Full Idea: In effect, the device of bracketing subtracts entailments from the ordinary belief locution (the entailments that refer to what is external to the thinker's mind). | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to leave phenomenology as pure introspection, or as a phenomenalist description of sense-data. It is also a refusal to explain anything. That sounds quite appealing, like Keats's 'negative capability'. |
| 6893 | Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenology, in Husserl, is an attempt to describe our experience directly, as it is, separately from its origins and development, independently of the causal explanations that historians, sociologists or psychologists might give. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421 | |
| A reaction: In this simple definition the concept sounds very like the modern popular use of the word 'deconstruction', though that is applied more commonly to cultural artifacts than to actual sense experience. |
| 9103 | A universal is not a real feature of objects, but only a thought-object in the mind [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: I maintain that a universal is not something real that exists in a subject [of inherence], either inside or outside the mind, but that it has being only as a thought-object in the mind. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Ordinatio [1320], DII Qviii prima redactio) | |
| A reaction: [A footnote says that William later abandoned this view] I don't see a clear distinction here between having real existence in the mind, and being a thought-object in the mind. Maybe we should say 'merely' a thought-object? |
| 21216 | Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects. | |
| From: report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4 | |
| A reaction: This is 'intuitions' in Kant's sense, of something like direct apprehensions. This idea is an axiom of phenomenology, because all mental life must be bracketed, and not just the sense experience part. |
| 9104 | A universal is the result of abstraction, which is only a kind of mental picturing [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: A universal is not the result of generation, but of abstraction, which is only a kind of mental picturing. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Ordinatio [1320], DII Qviii prima redactio) | |
| A reaction: The phrase 'mental picturing' works very plausibly for the universal 'giraffe', but not so well for 'multiplication' or 'contradiction'. Though we might broaden 'picturing' to being a much less visual concept. Mapping seems basic. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |