Chapter 1: John Brough, Art and Non-Art: A Millennial Puzzle

Phenomenology enjoys abundant resources with which to investigate such

perennially vexing issues in aesthetics as the ontological status of the work of art, its

ideality, its relation to beauty, and the nature of artistic experience. Phenomenology

is especially well equipped to contribute to the recent discussion, prominent in the

analytic tradition, of the proper definition of art, or, in phenomenological terms, of

the essential features that distinguish the artwork from things that are not art. This

essay will attempt to shed light on this issue by examining both the external cultural

horizon in which certain objects appear as art and the internal structure of the

appearing artwork itself.

Chapter 2: Shaun Gallagher and Francisco Varela, Redrawing the Map and Resetting

the Time: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

We argue that phenomenology can be of central and positive importance to the

cognitive sciences, and that it can also learn from the empirical research conducted

in those sciences. We discuss the project of naturalizing phenomenology and how

this can be best accomplished. We provide several examples of how

phenomenology and the cognitive sciences can integrate their research. Specifically,

we consider issues related to embodied cognition and intersubjectivity. We provide

a detailed analysis of issues related to time-consciousness, with reference to

understanding schizophrenia and the loss of the sense of agency. We offer a

positive proposal to address these issues based on a neurobiological

dynamic-systems model.

Chapter 3: Ronald Bruzina, Construction in Phenomenology

"Construction" in phenomenology is best understood in the context in which it was

first introduced into phenomenology (in Eugen Fink’s Sixth Cartesian Meditation

of 1932), namely, as serving in the methodology of the disclosure of transcendental

origins. Since these origins are in principle non-presentable, non-givable—being

themselves that which gives rise to the horizons for presentation and giving—the

originative can only be conceptualized as in excess of intuitional demonstration. The

originative is thus methodologically "speculative," in a specifically phenomenological

sense, and representable only via "construction," that is, in terms of what passes

within the intuitionally givable. The character of this problematic, and the radical

insights its pursuit can yield, is shown in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology

of living being, especially in his late work on "the visible and the invisible" in the

context of his lectures on nature from 1956 to 1960.

Chapter 4: Ted Toadvine, Ecophenomenology in the New Millennium

Ecophenomenology is a new program of research operating at the intersection of

ecology and phenomenology and recommending a mutually enriching dialogue

between the two. The first half of this chapter explains the need for both a

phenomenology of ecology and an ecological phenomenology, and sketches the

basic lines of ecophenomenological investigation in the areas of axiology, ontology,

and methodology. The second half of the chapter makes the case for an

ecophenomenological examination of agricultural experience and explores

agriculture’s role as mediator between nature and culture. The roots of culture, I

suggest, lie in the primordial experience of risk and faith characteristic of

subsistence cultivation.

Chapter 5: Elizabeth A. Behnke, Phenomenology of Embodiment/Embodied

Phenomenology: Emerging Work

Part I raises issues of method and identifies areas needing further descriptive

phenomenological research. For example, we should consider a broader spectrum

of bodies, modes of embodiment, and styles of bodily awareness; we should

describe cultural shaping of bodily life without falling into cultural determinism; we

should explore bodily experience in its dynamic ongoingness; and we should

continue to develop a truly embodied ethics. Part II uses the method of "unbuilding"

(Abbau) to locate a somaesthetic "dimension"; traces the passive constitution first

of a somaesthetic "field," then of the "Innenleib" as a transtemporal identity/unity;

and inquires back from somaesthetic sensings to their kinaesthetic correlates.

Chapter 6: John Drummond, Ethics

This chapter considers two trends in phenomenological approaches to moral

philosophy, namely, the axiological approach and the deontological, in relation to the

contemporary discussion between neo-Aristotelians and neo-Kantians about how

best to address the problem of an apparent separation between moral motivation

and the ground of moral obligation. The chapter suggests that a careful

consideration of the phenomenological approaches leads to a distinction between

"manifest" and "non-manifest" or "transcendental" goods that unites the basis of our

moral motivation with the ground of our moral obligations.

Chapter 7: Michael Barber, Ethnicity and Phenomenology: Primordial vs. Social

Constructionist Approaches

This chapter discusses the relevance of phenomenology for six major issues

regarding ethnicity. It examines the sociological debate about whether ethnic

identity is a primordial given of social existence or a social construction. It argues

that both social formations beyond kinship, of which ethnicity is one, and kinship

itself make possible a social world whose typification and relevance structures,

eidetically considered, are in a sense primordial for establishing personal identity.

This minimalist account of ethnicity makes possible a playing field on which various

in-groups socially construct their identity in the light of ever revisable relevances

and depending on ever changeable circumstances.

Chapter 8: Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Phenomenology and Gender

This chapter takes two approaches to the topic of gender and phenomenology. First,

it discusses the ways phenomenological methods can be applied to the study of

gender. Second, it considers whether these methods are gendered. I summarize

contributions of early phenomenologists on the topic of gender, followed by critiques

of these, and then survey work from the end of the 20th century applying

phenomenological analyses to women’s and men’s experiences of gender. Through

a cross-cultural review the essay discusses the presupposition that the number of

sexes/genders is limited to two, plus the implications arising from the gendered

experiences of persons who are intersexed, transexed, and transgendered.

Chapter 9: Thomas Seebohm, The Methodology of Hermeneutics as a Challenge for

Phenomenological Research

The first section is a survey of a phenomenologically guided general theory of

understanding and its levels, namely, animalic understanding, elementary

understanding, higher understanding, and the process of understanding in cultural

traditions. Such a phenomenological theory is the presupposition for a

phenomenological critique of methodologically guided hermeneutics. The second

section is a survey of phenomenological viewpoints that can be applied in a critique

of the principles and canons of general text hermeneutics and addresses the

question whether they can be considered as warrants of objective validity in

interpretations. A last section offers a sketch of the specific problems of

archaeological hermeneutics.

Chapter 10: David Carr, On the Phenomenology of History

In this chapter I try to outline a phenomenological approach to history, and to

distinguish it from standard or traditional philosophies of history. Philosophy of

history has traditionally taken the form either of a metaphysics of history or of an

epistemology of history. The former has tried to discern the grand design of the

historical process, while the latter has asked how our knowledge of history is

possible. Instead of an epistemology, I propose a phenomenology of history, which

traces our concepts of history back to our experience of the historical. And instead

of a metaphysics I propose an ontology of history, an account of the historical

character of human existence. I conclude by describing several topics that issue

from this phenomenological approach and that need to be further explored.

Chapter 11: Roberto J. Walton, The Phenomenology of Horizons

An analysis of horizonality implies an elucidation of its structure, function, and

motivations. An essential structure can be disclosed in the light of a series of

oppositions. On this basis a twofold function can be pointed out, for horizonality both

enables the process of legitimation and provides a ground for intentional acts. Also

to be dwelt upon are the motivations for the further forming of new horizons and

the uncovering of pregiven horizons. A still further step is to develop this theme into

a consideration of the motivating force of horizonality, i.e., its significance for

transcendental philosophy and post-Husserlian phenomenology.

Chapter 12: Dan Zahavi, Phenomenology and the Problem(s) of Intersubjectivity

One of the classical objections to phenomenology has been its alleged failure to

solve the problem of intersubjectivity—be it by way of omission, i.e., by simply

failing to recognize the philosophical significance of intersubjectivity, or by way of

an inborn shortcoming, i.e., by being in principle incapable of addressing this issue in

a satisfactory manner. Drawing on the work of Scheler, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty,

Husserl, Sartre, and Levinas, the aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the

erroneous nature of this criticism and to present an overview of four different and

distinct phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity.

Chapter 13: Olav Wiegand, Phenomenology of Logic and Mathematics

In each of the problem areas mentioned in Part I, this chapter attempts to formulate

several questions of interest to present-day phenomenology of the formal sciences.

The problems addressed are in general formulated with reference to Husserl’s

work and the phenomenological research program of a theory of science

(Wissenschaftstheorie). Part II begins with the Lucas-Penrose thesis, which is the

interpretation of the Gödel theorems according to which there are mathematical

truths that cannot be found by merely employing algorithms; human mathematicians

find truths by an "insight" that is essentially non-algorithmic. Genetic phenomenology

can offer a thoroughgoing descriptive account of mathematical insight as emerging

out of pre-linguistic experience. Our discussion will focus on the concept of

"categorial intuition," which is an important part of the phenomenological explication

of "mathematical insight" (better: "mathematical intuition"). In the last section two

points will be argued: (1) mathematics is consistent since its primitives

("categories") are regimented concepts that stem from the pre-linguistic experience

of the world, and (2) phenomenology does not allow for a causal or stochastic

explanation of categorial intuition. At least non-reflective mathematical intuition is

essentially non-algorithmic in nature.

Chapter 14: Richard M. Zaner, Envisioning Power, Revisioning Life: Prominent Issues

for a Phenomenology of Medicine

Since the 1960s, philosophers in medicine have been interested in the doctor-patient

relation: the interpretation of symptoms, the nature and requirements of clinical

judgment, the social structure of clinical encounters, and the multiple forms of

uncertainty and responsibility in decision-making. Such matters undergird many

questions captivating public attention, including those before birth (abortion,

alternative means to attain pregnancy, prenatal diagnosis, along with genetics and

embryos) and those at the end of life (euthanasia, brain death, withholding and

withdrawing life-supports, and others). Recently, medicine is undergoing radical

changes, from concern to cure disease to the ancient dream of eugenics, from

restoration of health to the deliberately engineered transformation of living beings. I

explicate the implications of these developments, in particular the ironies and

questions buried within the genetic utopias that inspire the new visions and revisions

of human life.

Chapter 15: Javier San Martín and María Luz Pintos Peñaranda, Animal Life and

Phenomenology

Following the preferences of Western culture in which nonhuman animals are

treated as non-subjects, most phenomenological analyses deal primarily with human

life. But in his actual research, Husserl shows that we are entwined with nonhuman

animals because the primary stratum of our life is the experience of our own

animate body. In the first part of this chapter, a variety of texts in which Husserl

speaks about animality are interpreted to prove that animals of all species are

transcendental subjectivities. In the second part, Husserl’s indications are followed

to outline an ontology of what is common to both human and nonhuman animate

life.

Chapter 16: Florence Romijn Tocantins and Lester Embree, Phenomenology of

Nursing as a Cultural Discipline

A professor of nursing in Brazil leads a group of colleagues in an effort reflectively

to understand what nursing is fundamentally, and they use the social

phenomenology of Alfred Schutz in their reflections. She agrees to answer

questions about their work via e-mail from a phenomenological philosopher

interested in understanding such a discipline. He is convinced by her answers that

nursing is indeed a cultural discipline of the practical sort. She teaches him much

about her discipline; focuses on how her group investigates nurses as they relate to

patients/clients, and correlatively, on patients/clients as they relate to nurses; and

ultimately shows that nursing involves a personal as well as a professional attitude

and is as such not so much about curing as about caring. The joint effort expressed

in a dialogue also shows how a philosopher can learn about nursing. Presumably

other disciplines of the same sort, e.g., psychiatry, could be reflected upon in

analogous fashion.

Chapter 17: David Woodruff Smith, Ontology

Phenomenology (appraising our lived conscious experience) would seem to bracket

ontology (appraising what ultimately exists). Yet from its inception, phenomenology

has both presupposed and led into fundamental ontology. Here we consider specific

ontological categories, starting with Aristotle’s list and moving to Husserl’s complex

system of formal and material essences. Husserl’s categories are systematized and

reorganized. We consider then the ontology of intentionality, as well as nonexistent

objects and modes of being as opposed to types of beings. Finally, we consider how

we might frame an up-to-date system of ontological categories consonant with

phenomenology.

Chapter 18: Dermot Moran, Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology

In this chapter I argue that the two modernist traditions of phenomenology and

analytic philosophy stem from common roots. Both began with the same conception

of philosophy as an a priori descriptive discipline and both rejected absolute

idealism and psychologism. Analytic philosophy, however, in the main, especially

under the influence of Quine, has been drawn toward naturalism, whereas

Husserl’s critique of naturalism has meant that phenomenology has moved in an

anti-naturalistic and in fact explicitly transcendental direction. Husserl’s

wide-ranging critique of naturalism has particular relevance for analytic philosophy

seeking to overcome a reductive scientism, and conversely, recent developments in

the philosophy of mind and in the cognitive sciences could provide much material

for phenomenologists who want to follow Husserl’s program of identifying the

ABCs of consciousness. In the 21st century, the two main streams of

contemporary thought could again merge into a single tradition.

Chapter 19: Robert Bernasconi, Reviving Political Phenomenology: The Quest for

Community and Its Drawbacks

This chapter addresses political phenomenology in terms of three questions: what is

the political? what are the basic units of politics? are there political communities?

The tendency of phenomenologists to approach the political in terms of the concept

of community is challenged. In an attempt to prepare for a reinvigoration of political

phenomenology and to establish some of the terms it may employ, certain tasks are

proposed, including phenomenological investigations of political activities, such as

voting and opinion formation, and of the different kinds of collectivities that form

and provide the context for political groups. The capacity of phenomenology to

embrace a multiplicity of perspectives is presented as one of its great advantages.

Chapter 20: Burt Hopkins, Phenomenological Psychology: Tasks and Problems for the

New Millennium

I situate basic issues pertaining to phenomenological psychology within the context

of a general reflection on the status of psychology as a science at the end of the

millennium. I then discuss Husserl’s formulation of phenomenological psychology,

and take up his project of establishing it as an autonomous science. I investigate the

phenomenon of "projection" as a guiding example in this regard, and draw

provisional conclusions about its constitution as well as about the proper method and

content of phenomenological psychology.

Chapter 21: Natalie Depraz, Holy Body and Rainbow Body: The Lived Body as an

Exemplary Access to the Absolute

After having provided some indications about the way the articulation between

phenomenology and theology has been settled by some of the most prominent

phenomenologists (Husserl, Heidegger, Stein, Levinas, Henry, and Marion), I use

the practical and mystical path in theology as the only view proving adequate to an

experiential and descriptive phenomenological approach as opposed to the

hermeneutical one. I then proceed to a description of the experienced praxis of a

spiritual life, according to three steps that correspond to the three preconditions of a

religious spiritual attitude toward life: (1) I show how necessary it is to be in

possession of a steady religious "hearth," whatever it be,_and correlatively, how

necessary it is to be able to go through a de-localization of such a traditional

anchorage thanks to the adoption of another one; then (2) I make an explicit

phenomenological claim about the primacy of the level of practical and mystical

experience over the theoretical level of a rationalized doctrinal set of theological

principles; finally (3) I account for the experience of the lived body as being the

only relevant starting point and the only legitimate end goal of any genuine spiritual

life, which involves, of course, a renewed phenomenological understanding of what

we currently call the "lived body." I indicate how such a more complex

understanding of the body can be usefully worked out thanks to two main religious

traditions that focus on the body as a clue to spiritual life, i.e., Eastern Orthodox

Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism.

Chapter 22: Don Ihde, Phenomenology and Technoscience

Technoscience studies, sometimes also science studies, is an interdisciplinary field

that combines work in the philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, and the

social studies of the sciences. This essay briefly explores some of the developments

and key figures in the field, taking note of connections with phenomenology and

hermeneutically oriented philosophy. These studies, usually humanities and social

science perspectives upon science, have become a forefront field only in the last

two decades, but hold promise for considerable development. And while there are

only a few phenomenological-hermeneutical philosophers currently working in this

area, the problems and approaches offer serious opportunities for new entrants.

The essay concludes with a concrete experiment in technoscience studies at the

State University of New York – Stony Brook and describes current research

projects.

Chapter 23: LEE, Nam-In, Active and Passive Genesis: Genetic Phenomenology and

Transcendental Phenomenology

In this chapter I will first deal with three important issues of passive and active

genesis that need further discussion: (1) the methods of genetic phenomenology, (2)

the relation between static and genetic phenomenology, and (3) genetic

phenomenology and the problems of foundation. Thereafter, I will discuss one

important topic of passive and active genesis in detail, namely, the concept of

transcendental subjectivity in genetic phenomenology. In comparison to the

traditional concept of transcendental subjectivity, the concept that I will sketch out

will turn out to be revolutionary. It is so revolutionary that some may not accept it

as legitimate. However, this concept is not only legitimate, but also better than the

traditional one in many respects. For example, it can serve as a good starting point

for philosophical dialogues, on the one hand, between transcendental

phenomenology and other forms of phenomenology, and on the other hand, between

phenomenology and other streams of contemporary philosophy and science.

Moreover, it can provide us with a useful tool to deal with various philosophical

issues that we are now confronted by in an age of pluralism and environmental

crisis.