Introductory description

PH955 Origins of Phenomenology

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1 Husserl's early concept of intentionality in Logical Investigations. The central distinctions: objectifying/non-objectifying experiences; sense/object; signitive meaning/meaning fulfillment. The logical primacy of the self-givenness of objects. Why senses are not objects.
2 Methodological reflections: Husserl's distinction between constitutive analysis (Konstitutionsanalyse) and genetic explanation. The phenomenological reduction as non-Cartesian preliminary suspension of metaphysical and genetic theory for the purpose of pure constitutive analysis
3 Husserl on experience and judgement. Pre-predicative intentionality and the concept of the horizon.
4 The limits of objectification: Husserl on pre-objective self-awareness and temporality. The subject as essentially embodied (the body-subject).
5 Husserl on the levels of objectivity. The constitutive function of otherness (intersubjectivity).
6 Heidegger's criticism of the Husserlian concept of consciousness and the phenomenological reductions in History of the Concept of Time (1925). The emergence of the question of being and the idea of a fundamental ontology.
7 Heidegger's preliminary analysis of 'being in the world'. Availableness and occurrentness. Environment and publicity (das Man).
8 The ontological structure of world disclosure: self-understanding/ability-to-be; affective condition; falling; discourse/articulation.
9 Heideggerian temporality.
10 Heidegger on mineness, authenticity and finitude.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• have attained a good grasp of the central arguments and ideas of Husserl and early Heidegger.
• participate in an informed way in debates on the philosophical issues addressed in their writings.
• evaluate critically the merits and the relevance of phenomenological approaches to the issues discussed in the module.
• to use a range of conceptual and theoretical resources of phenomenological philosophy competently and productively.

Indicative reading list

E. Husserl (1997), Experience and Judgement (Evanston: Northwestern lW).
E. Husserl (1983), Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a
Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book (Dordrecht: Kluwer).
E. Husserl (1989), Ideas pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and a
Phenomenological Philosophy, Second Book (Dordrecht: Kluwer).
E. Husserl (1970), Logical Investigations (London, Routledge), 2 vols.
E. Husserl (1991), On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time
(Dordrecht: Kluwer).
M. Heidegger (1992), History of the Concept of Time (Bloomington, Indiana UP).
M. Heidegger (1995), Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwell).
Indicative secondary reading:
J.B Brough and L. Embree (eds.) (2000), More Phenomenology of Time (Dordrecht:
Kluwer).
H. Dreyfus (1991) Being-in-the-World (Cambridge/Mass., MIT Press).
J. J. Drummond (1990), Husserlian Intentionality and Non-Foundational Realism:
Noema and Object (Dordrecht: Kluwer).
A. Gurwitsch (1985), Marginal Consciousness (Athens, Ohio UP).
T. Nenon and L. Embree (eds) (1996), Issues in Husserl's Ideas II (Dordrecht,
Kluwer).
R. Sokolowski (1970), The Formation of Husserl's Concept of Constitution (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff).
M. Wrathall and J. Malpas (eds.) (2000), Heidegger, Coping, and Cognitive Science
(Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press).
M. Wrathall and J. Malpas (eds.) (2000), Heidegger, Authenticity, and Modernity
(Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press).

Subject specific skills

TBC

Transferable skills

TBC