Very briefly: for Heidegger, being is as it appears, therefore phenomenology is the same as ontology. For Husserl, the correlation between phenomena and reality is a problem that does not exist for Heidegger. It is not true that Husserl merely describes the contents of consciousness: he brackets the natural attitude that adscribes an external correlation to phenomena and hopes to regain the outside through a study of pure phenomena (eg, The Idea of Phenomenology); therefore Husserl does have ontological aims. Both Husserl and Heidegger have ontological aims, and have a radical disagreement on whether being=phenomena.

Because Husserl makes no claims to existence and starts with what we know, how is it possible that anyone - namely Heidegger/Sartre - can refute this position? After all, isn't any claim or knowledge about existence-of-being presuppose one to abide by the 'logic' that Husserl is uncovering? To refute anything that Husserl says by ontological reasoning one first has to show how one is able to arrive at said 'knowledge' from a sound base? Husserl's sound base is Descarte's "I think therefore I am" for any doubting of this claim presupposes the very claim it means to object hence rendering itself to contradiction and thus false.

Any claims about existence no matter how convincing they are, no matter how obvious the axioms, have to follow a particular structure of relations of consciousness between the noematic-noetic phases, the doxic, modalities and so forth. i believe Husserl means to say that it is based on this structure of consciousness that one can be made aware of existential features and arrive at existential claims, and therefore because it rests on these structures that were built apodeitically it serves only to show the flexibility and strength of pure phenomenology not its weakness.

To speak of existence here and now is to point to something that can only be known in terms of something ideal, and thus anything truly KNOWN follows a phenomenological construct. And in order to do that, Husserl's phenomenology has to be expanded upon from where he left off.

Anyways, since I am reading the above works independently it is hard for me to get feedback on whether I understand it well enough or not, so I had put forward these questions to the community to help verify or challenge my understanding. So by no means do I assume I am an expert. In fact, I believe myself to be the opposite, and I am in need of direction.

Show metaphysics out by the door, the metaphysical reenters by the window.

I wonder if it could be seen to be the child going off in a new direction. While Heidegger and the later phenomenologists may be seen to be refuting the master, is this the case, I ask. Is it not more a question of adding new dimensions to Husserl's groundbreaking work?

I know just enough about Husserl to be dangerous--however regarding Edith Stein and some of the phenomenological school--I am on better ground. I think Husserl's position is ever evolving and that many of his early students Stein, Reinach etc felt that Husserl's abandonment of metaphysical realism (sometime between Ideen 1 and Ideen 2 which Stein was helping to edit) was the cause of a big philosophical break with many of Husserl's students. I learned a lot from Alasdair MacIntyre's book on Edith Stein--it is more about ealry phenomenology than it is about Edith Stein.

I guess what I am saying is that the presupposition of your question fails to distinguish between early and late Husserl. Early Husserl may have been a metaphysical realist and saw phenomenology as having a complex dialectical relation to metaphysics.

Herman issue is important in terms of otherness Husserl's and Heidegger's philosophy: both are metaphysical philosophy in the traditional sense, each one is different, original. Heidegger's philosophy was an original philosophy, although Heidegger came from Husserl. The problem is a criticism to be replaced by syncriticism, i. e. by nonreductive bringing both philosophies in relationship. Heidegger by his critique of Husserl only made oneself distinguished from Husserl; Heidegger created a different philosophy and sense has only to compare the two.

http://www.jozefpiacek.info/2013/06/syncriticism-summary/

it seems to me that this question needs to define an ontological (and ontical - too) difference between physics and metaphysics;

such a difference can be made by a definition of sorts of givenness (Arten der Gegebenheiten);

it's a pity, but those differences (and differances too) were not explicitly stated nor by Husserl nor by Heidegger (imho)

Right, but by the very admission that you and Arten der Gegenbenheiten indicate that the difference can be made by sorts of givenness, is parallel to the very noema that Husserl talks about as arising out of its noetic correlate. In other words, whatever meaning that is given from a particular phenomena is based on a particular, or a set of particular, noetic phases that allow it to be meant as 'such and such'. Each 'givenness' has its manner in which it is given. So while one may say that Husserl is making an existential claim as to the relationship between the noetic and noema, I believe Husserl would say that they only exist insofar as they are built upon other noetic and noematic relationships that ultimately can be deconstructed to ego cogito ego sum and the manner which this is experienced.

And while I agree that Husserl does not explicitly state these ontilogical differences between physics and metaphysics (from my preliminary assessments of reading L.I, Ideas I, and Cart Med, and Phantasy, Image Cons, and Memory - I have yet to read his other books) I feel it is because he has to spend the bulk of his time like Moses "mapping out the desert" so to speak, and is unable to precisely to lead us into the "promised land". So much time is spent defending and articulating what he means that he fails to make progress in bringing us to the familiar terrain of philosophy and empirical sciences.

So basically I am saying that Husserl would probably agree with you that he doesn't spend a lot of time on this, but I believe he would also say that his sole purpose was to show that the difference CAN be become "known" by phenomenology. Thus if even existence may contradict our facts, Husserl would have little care whatsoever about this, because he is only interested in understanding what we can and how we can KNOW (ex: how we can know of metaphysical propositions), which is different from knowing what exists. [And while this threatens to position him ever so dangerously close to the dualism that he objects to, I acknowledge that it does and that I lack the ability to articulate myself out of this conundrum to the same level of conviction that Husserl is able to do.]

All in all, I guess, I make the argument: that anything that bases itself on a metaphysical premise cannot be considered to be a phenomenology (as by Husserl's standards). And I am looking for either affirmation or criticism regarding this because I believe my entire understanding on Husserlian thought rests on this. And as I get sucked into more of my own world and ways I would like to know if I have been navigating the terrain accurately or if I am way off course. Much thanks to all of your contributions so far. I look forward to reading more.

@Mathew: m.b., in a development of a Rickert's direction, the early Heidegger (1915) had distinguished 3 realms of being (such ideas routed also in L.I. (1900-1901) but are more explicitly made in L.I.(1912));

imho, the main purpose of Husserl and Heidegger was laid in a sphere of construction of a world (as an unique construction);

but their constructions - for me - are non-satisfying (but very important)

I have a neuroscience doctor friend who once told me, she would never marry to a personal who also possess a PhD degree because 'too much opinions" simply about everything and non-sense!, or, she perhaps would be willing to marry to a PhD guy who obtains totally different academic specialty.

One must not judge a philosopher by what he claims but only by what he actually does.In spite of all their claims Husserl or even Sartre were trapped into metaphysical speculation.A clear idealistic tendency is visible everywhere in Husserl's later works.Similarly contrary to his claim Sartre remained realist throughout his career.

However, Heidegger-Sartre objections to the Husserlian phenomenology are valid I think. Husserl presupposes "the ghost of Ego" which is fully illegitimate as phenomenoly claims to centre only on that which appears to consciousness and not to that which grounds from within.It was in fact a return to the old metaphysical speculation.On the other hand Heidegger's fundamental ontology could better explain that the the theory of intentionality does not permit us to bracket any thing which is given to our consciousness.And hence the worldly existence cannot be bracketed.

Joseph, I assume we all have to learn from a master. This relationship is much as one between father and son. Do we have to kill the father to take his place? But it often hapens in philosophy, and elswere. A good fat(her wishes to be surpassed by his son. This is a most tragic task for most uf us. So we can be a good son, and a good or bad succesor. The kind of philosopher you are depends on the kind of man you are (Fichte) . .

this is turning out to be a rather interesting debate. I agree with Herman in that there is a sense of satisfaction in watching a son (or daughter, in my case) do better. I also agree with Ananda: it is extremely difficult to enter into true 'epoche'; however, being conscious of one's background is helpful in being open to the discussion, it is also a huge learning curve, as I found when doing psychotherapy with sexually abused women.

In my Heideggerian studies (on the relevance of care in medicine and nursing) I am finding that it is essential to read Husserl and his students (Stein, for instance) in order to 'see' what Heidegger is on about. But reading Husserl does not necessarily entail studying him. It is background like reading Brentano and Nietzsche.

So would I be correct in generalizing most of the answers here as saying: "Mathew, you cannot have such a restrictive umbrella that determines what is and is not phenomenology. Phenomenology is like everything else. It grew out of a set of thoughts, and gives birth to another set of thoughts, which in turn go on and on and on. Husserl arrived at his position because of his history and ethos, and therefore his phenomenology does not deserve privilege amongst the rest. To try to excise out only that which is his phenomenology is like brain surgery and will likely cause damage to both what is phenomenological, and all its surroundings since they are all attached. It is simply part of a body of work, and therefore the question about distinguishing his from others is both trivial (insofar that everyone's can be expediently distinguished from others) and is also invalid in itself (since in truth it bares the DNA of its sire and cannot be separated therefrom) ."

If this is the meaning that everyone seems to be articulating then it is one that I can fully respect, and slowly coming to agreement with - (notwithstanding, there being a hesitation I feel, as though I am missing some other argument). Thank you all for your participation and help. Please do not hesitate to continue to respond. I have gained so much, and look forward to more of your insights and experience.

Merleau-Ponty, I think, had it right. What Husserl's epoche (bracketing) shows is that it cannot be done. It reminds me of Bertrand Russel's address to his fellow philosophers-- he is convinced that solipsism is true, but out of respect for his listeners he will believe that they are listening to what he is saying. I think as Heidegger did say, that the scandal of philosophy is not that it tried and failed to solve the problem of the external world but that it regarded it as a problem. The very fact that I continue to write what I am writing right now assumes that I am doing something that others will be able to read and discuss. Humans do communicate hence they can share their thoughts. I believe that his apparent mystery is generated by philosophy.

We try to understand vision as if it were caused by "impressions" for example. We do not realize that this is the beginning of a pseudo physics, which will not provide us with any real understanding . I am as certain that my visual consciousness EXISTS as I am that it would be a calamity for a me if I were blind. Visual consciousness is visual being-in-the-world. This is the human condition and I think it seems mysterious because we try unwittingly to understand it as if it were explainable as part of physical nature . Consciousness is as consciousness does-- my visual being-in -the-world is simply a natural condition of a living human being. If this is metaphysics, then we are metaphysical beings. To deny the reality of visual consciousness is a world historical absent mindedness.

Thank you for your post, as it raises some important questions, but unfortunately the questions that it invokes in me threaten to vere the discussion way off course (not that your comments were off course, but rather the questions I now have will spur new discussions, and as I would like to learn from all the contributors here I would like to keep the discussions linear so that I know what subject/question people are referring if/when they answer). So you should be able to find and answer these questions through my profile. I look forward to hearing your opinion on the questions below.

Question (1): What is the point of Husserl's epoche? how is it supposed to accomplish this?

Question (2): Is it possible to perform Husserl's epoche? and why/(not)?

... not to sound to repetitive, but for those who wish to continue to contribute to this discussion please do, but know that i have two other threads now as well.

I would comment as follows: Question (1): What is the point of Husserl's epoche? how is it supposed to accomplish this?

Question (2): Is it possible to perform Husserl's epoche? And why/(not)

To question (1) I would comment :My Husserl scholarship, if it can be called that , is very rusty. I have not read him for years so when I venture to say anything about the epoche I may be speaking nonsense. As I recall Husserl was adamant about trying to put all presuppositions on hold. As I understood it he regarded any presuppositions not only a danger to his pure phenomenology but an outright rejection of it. If I am not mistaken the terms “bracketing” and “reduction" are other names for this suspension (epoche) of presuppositions. Husserl believed he was starting something radically new in philosophy. Since Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and so many others owe so much to him, and hence to much philosophy in the western world he was probably right.

To Question (2) I would comment: In the preface to his Phenomenology of Perception Merleau-Ponty makes some acute observations about the “reduction”. What I gathered from what he said there is that the reduction is anything but a return to idealism for instead of making the world immanent to the subject it teaches us be filled with wonder at its being there for us. Most memorable sentences for me in that preface were that “the most important lesson which the reduction teaches is the impossibility of a complete reduction.” and above all that “Heidegger’s being-in-the-world appears only against the background of the phenomenological reduction .”

I would put it this way. The natural attitude is that the world is there just as I find it, and the epoche done effectively brings to our attention that the astonishing fact is that being a human being is being someone who makes the world be seen, and heard , and touched, and tasted and cared about, and known. Human beings are an uncanny animal that are barely beginning to know what they are. Human embodied consciousness is a tremendous reality-- awesome, grand, noble, pathetic, brutal. Sadly, for the most part Dasein ist Verfallen as Heidegger observed which is the truth at the heart of that the myth of the Fall. Can humanity save itself?

Hi Mathew,

The bottom line first: I believe that the words 'departure' and 'turn' do not necessarily reflect the true nature of the penomenological perspectives on phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger in their final form. The word may be more reflective of the natural need to differentiate and label in order to avoid complexity.

As Heidegger once said, we need to be very selective in our use of words as, rightly or wrong, they frame our mindset and tunnel our thinking. You used in your question the words 'departure' and 'turn' that are part of the natural scholarly attitude toward phenomenology, at least from the historical 'who said what to whom' perspective. As suggested by Fink, Husserl's latest student, and practically embraced by Husserl in his last years and by Heidegger after the war, phenomenology in its core is the transcendence of methodology regardless its scientific, mathematical, philosophical, religious, cultural, political, and/or artistic origins. This means that phenomenology and phenomenological discussions are better off applying phenomenological practices on themselves. As Heidegger mentioned in the last pages of being and time, phenomenology is well suited to vicious circle type problems, we just need by trial and error to find the entry point. Furthermore, as documented by Gödel in his philosophical oriented works, unlike mathematically-oriented methodologies that break by necessity when applied on vicious circle problems, phenomenology excels when applied on itself and from the perspective of this discussion, it would be better to conduct a phenomenological investigation on phenomenology in order to get to an acceptable answer.

This cannot be done here and must be done individually by each interested individual, but here is the rudementary and incomplete set of cues that I can provide to the discussion following my own 5 years journey:

1. Husserl's and Heidegger's works should be regarded in their whole as part of the scholarly milieu of their time and not as isolated components.

2. Both had initial fallacies or incompletenesses that were discovered in later iterations and refinements of applying their emerging views of phenomenology on the views themselves: Husserl got into phenomenology while researching the mathematical natural attitude and Heidegger was initially interested in the theological natural attitude from a Germanic perspective - both, for different reasons, expanded gradually their horizons of interest.

3. The books that they published reflected their views at specific times and were partly shaped by and were subject to the political and sociocultural turmoil of the first half of the 20th century - in some cases their notes may better representatives of their thoughts than their books.

4. Heidegger's and Husserl's major disagreement of the 1920s-1930s regarding the interrelation between the natural and the transcendental attitudes faded as both scholars understood the need for continuous process of forming and unforming applied on a specific topic of interest while maintaining simultaneous awareness of the transcendental and the natural.

5. Heidegger's critique of Husserl in his die grundprobleme der phänomenologie in 1927 relates to the early purely transcendental views of Husserl and not his more mature views.

6. I recommend for further reading the following books: (a) Husserl: 'analyses concerning passive and active syntheses', 'the sixth cartesian meditation' (edited/written with/by Fink and therefore controvertial, but nevertheless very important), 'the fifth' and 'the crisis' (read again after the previous books were read); and (b) Heidegger: 'the basic problems', 'what is called thinking', 'the principle of reason', and 'identity and difference'.

Not sure if it is clear enough, 100 years of phenomenology prove that, unless inhumanly complex structures are used, words are limited in their ability to express concepts of being.

HTH,

Ronnen

Useful and excellent synopsis, Ronnen, thank you. What I believe would simplify your/the admittedly "inhumanly complex structures," would be (under publication in 2014) the very self-referential or iteration, fractal structure of nature or of all (yet-to-be proven) phenomena, for which Husserl has laid the groundwork on the method, drawing transcendentally from both the sciences and philosophy as no one ever has before or since. Further expounded upon, a fractal approach would then allow for a valid, even concrete/tangible, so-called entry point (again to be published in 2014), which I have found Heidegger has unfortunately only naysayed and then unoriginally redundantly in merely a scholarly fashion gone off (setting back I am sorry to say) in the usual self-fulfilling vicious circles with no entry point to add.

Ronnen,

Thank you for your analysis, and recommended readings. I had Fink in mind for my next reading, but also Husserls Arithmetic. And I have Crisis on my shelf but will do as you recommend and read it afterwards.

I am in complete agreement with what you spoke about regarding doing it individually, and nor do I deny that my use of "departure" to explain Heidegger's position represents the naturalistic attitude. My own "crisis", and reason for asking this question, came about in reading up on phenomenological research and being confounded by the methods that to me seem so far removed. As you said, phenomenology is to be conducted individually. Understanding this, but reading contradicting research studies like Giorgi and Ashforth I felt compelled to bring this discussion forward. Moreover, to compound my confound, since Giorgi and Ashforth seem to prefer Heidegger's "rendition" of phenomenology, I thought I would read into Heidegger a bit more (Being in Time - quite quickly however) and instead of finding the Husserl and Heidegger in opposition, I found they were really not incompatible at all. It seemed that Ashforth and Giorgi (among others) seemed to be reading into Husserl's statements and Heidegger's criticism from a metaphysical stand point. Thus the word "departure" and "metaphysical" in the question only served to bring to a head what I felt was the interpretation of thinkers in line with the above researchers. So, this is a long way of saying your critique brings me relief.

Lastly, your comments regarding the relationship between Heidegger and Husserl make sense to me. I will continue to hold those points as a frame of reference as I continue to study their work ( I have so much more to go). And your words about using phenomenology for self-referential matters resonates deeply with me. It is out of a process I have created called the Dendrite Process that I am now back in school to formally develop it. It was in trying to find a theoretical framework that included the merits of geometry, topology, and n-euclidean space that I fell in love with Husserl.

And with that said, CJ, I'm quite fascinated with fractals for perhaps similar purposes. Can you recommend any readings by any chance?

Thanks for both your contributions and help.

Mathew, Because fractals are new on the scene (1970s), the literature is sparse and gradually growing here and there, so off the top I would recommend references you may already be familiar with:

(a) PBS Nova-Fractals-Hunting the Hidden Dimension at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemPnZn54Kw

(b) The father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, website http://users.math.yale.edu/mandelbrot/ or http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/

(c) Challenging yet hugely worthwhile, Manfred Schroeder's "Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws"

(d) Also, an excellent comprehensive account -- Kenneth Falconer's "Fractal Geometry: Mathematical Foundations [of] and Applications"

(e) Lastly, for a primary source I should not fail to mention Benoit Mandelbrot's "Fractals and Chaos"

The field of fractals needs to be expanded upon for solving problems present maths cannot cohesively solve (e.g., see Reimann Hypothesis at claymath.org, Lecture by Jeff Vaaler at the University of Texas (video)). I look forward to reading your views and findings as you pursue the topic, as true it is most fascinating.

Hi Cj,

Husserl described phenomena at 3 levels: the constituted world (subconscious/conscious passive/active structures of awareness stemming from specific life experience of a specific individual), the structures of the lifeworld (superposition of constituted worlds within a specific sociocultural network), and the natural attitude (superposition of all lifeworlds in specific distinctive aggregate of sociocultural networks). This fairly complex superstructure is hard to explain and grasp, and its best partially equivalent is the current concept of unstructured big data clusters. If you are interested in the analysis of the lifeworld, I would refer you to the notes of Schutz who developed them in interaction with Husserl. I have an unedited text for a book or series of articles on the subject.

nevertheless, I will be interested to learn about your suggested application of fractal theory as a representation/visualization means. Yet, I encourage you to learn more about previous attempts from Husserl to present time to use mathematical methods in areas they inherently cannot address (i.e. Gödel's work). The dimensional modeling, either fractional (fractals) or natural (integer multidimensional) most probably falls under this category

Thanks for the note,

Ronnen

Dear Ronnen, Refreshing to hear your derivation of Husserl's work, which will prove helpful to me and I will use (print and place with Husserl's 'stuff') when I return to include him in construction of a publication I am working on presently, due out in 2014. Thank you as well for pointing out Husserl's efforts concerning time that I will also incorporate as I go, corresponding fractals with, as you well explain, Husserl's third level of phenomena: "The natural attitude (superposition of all lifeworlds in specific distinctive aggregate of sociocultural networks)." Thanks also for your reference to the notes of Schutz and for appreciating/your interest and encouragement in the possible connection between fractals and Husserl's I consider breakthrough work. The "fractal theory" would not stop there, it is merely a viable means that supports concrete/tangible unification of many in fact all seemingly dichotomous phenomena.

Very briefly: for Heidegger, being is as it appears, therefore phenomenology is the same as ontology. For Husserl, the correlation between phenomena and reality is a problem that does not exist for Heidegger. It is not true that Husserl merely describes the contents of consciousness: he brackets the natural attitude that adscribes an external correlation to phenomena and hopes to regain the outside through a study of pure phenomena (eg, The Idea of Phenomenology); therefore Husserl does have ontological aims. Both Husserl and Heidegger have ontological aims, and have a radical disagreement on whether being=phenomena.

Nazism and Heidegger did influence the state of play during Nazi Germany and the role that the University of Freiburg played in anti Jewish sentiment and what influence this played in phenomenology.

Well, certainly Heidegger is strongly inclined to metaphysics - something that is already clear since his doctoral dissertation and almost immediately afterwards with his habilitation thesis (on Duns Scoto).

However, the real turn away from Husserl was "discovered" later when in 1979 were first published his "Prolegomena zur Geschcihte des Zeitbegriffs", a seminar Heidegger gave in 1925 (summer semester). Only then was it clear that it was exactly the interest on time what created a distance between Heidegger and Husserl.

(I shall not mention that Husserl gave Heidegger his text: "Zur Phänomenologie des Zeitbewusstseins" (from 1905) in order to be published and Heidegger kept it for himself for a long while before he published it, eventually).

Heidegger's critique of Husserl is not irrelevant, at all. Let me, en passant, tell you this anecdote:

Husserl was invited to give a lecture in London. Heidegger accompanies his professor and friend to the train station in Freiburg. As the were walking, Husser was telling Heidegger what he was planning to teach in London (namely, the Cartesian Meditations). Then, suddenly Heidegger asks Husserl: "Dear Professor, and what about history?". And Husserl replies: "Oh, history! I forgot about it!".

I worked for five years on these subjects while being in Leuven (at the Husserl Archives), some years ago...

Thank you for your wonderful post, Carlos; it brings philosophy to life.

No one's critique of anything is irrelevant; we all have something to say that adds to the discussion. Ronnen says in his initial post above that "unless inhumanly complex structures are used, words are limited in their ability to express concepts of being." I would agree that words are inadequate to express concepts of being; more than that, being may be impossible to capture in concepts. I would also add that the more structured, conceptual, and linear the articulation the further from being the words take us. That is why I prefer the work of Merleau-Ponty to Husserl or Heidegger, although Merleau-Ponty would not be the same if it were not for the thinkers who came before him. I prefer work that not only argues and articulates, but also evokes.

Gordon

Ananda,

I do not enough of the philosophy of Heidgger nor Sartre , but apparently that Heidegger was not pleased by Sartre's interpretation of his philosophy.