6893
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Phenomenology aims to describe experience directly, rather than by its origins or causes [Husserl, by Mautner]
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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.
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From:
report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.421
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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.
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21699
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Russell offered a paraphrase of definite description, to avoid the commitment to objects [Quine]
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Full Idea:
Russell's theory involved defining a term not by presenting a direct equivalent of it, but by 'paraphrasis', providing equivalents of the sentences. In this way, reference to fictitious objects can be simulated without our being committed to the objects.
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From:
Willard Quine (Russell's Ontological Development [1966], p.75)
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A reaction:
I hadn't quite grasped that the modern strategy of paraphrase tracks back to Russell - though it now looks obvious, thanks to Quine. Paraphrase is a beautiful way of sidestepping ontological problems. See Frege on the moons of Jupiter.
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21216
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Husserl says we have intellectual intuitions (of categories), as well as of the senses [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
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Full Idea:
The novelty of Husserl is to describe that we have intellectual intuitions, intuitions of categories as we have intuitions of sense objects.
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From:
report of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations [1900], II.VI.24) by Victor Velarde-Mayol - On Husserl 2.4.4
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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.
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3643
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The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body.
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From:
René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225)
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A reaction:
A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious.
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