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The article focuses on the relevance of communication studies for human sciences. Communication studies is often proposed as a synthetic approach to the human sciences outright, an interdisciplinary inquiry capable of linking the researches of specialized human sciences to the philosophical foundations of the project of human scientific inquiry itself. The author says that from the standpoint of the relation between philosophy and the human sciences, the constitution of perception, institutions and thought by media of communication is the thesis proper to communication studies, the thesis from which its larger significance derives. According to the author, by describing the precise point at which a theory of communication diverges from a theory of scientific meaning, it is possible to note a significant convergence between phenomenology and a Marxist critique of a semiotic theory of language.

In 1979 the author spent the summer at a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar at Princeton with Richard Rorty, an experience which had numerous consequences, including a very Rortyan paper subsequently published in Human Studies called "Social theory," without wholes. Over this summer he has also worked on a manuscript that grew out a long article published in Human Studies on Max Weber and the fact-value distinction entitled "The limits of reason and some limitations of Weber's morality." The research that he was doing in the Princeton library was primarily concerned with filling in the context in which Weber had made his famous statements about fact and value, and also with examining the sequel of those writings in subsequent philosophy. This topic represents an important and distinctive strand in the tradition of continental philosophy, something that has now increasingly come to be recognized.

The article provides a summary of all of the papers within the issue. The author ties together a common theme among the articles: ideas about "the other." Practical as well as theoretical aspects of "the other" are presented. The author mentions the philosophies of several philosophers including Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Alfred Schutz, Emile Durkheim, Emmanuel Levinas, Erving Goffman, and Harold Garfinkel. Also mentioned is the development of ideas of the self in respect images of "the other."

This paper investigates the claims made by both Freudian psychoanalysic thought and Husserlian phenomenology about the unconscious. First, it is shown how Husserl incorporates a complex notion of the unconscious in his analysis of passive synthesis. With his notion of an unintentional reservoir of past retentions, Husserl articulates an unconscious zone that must be activated from consciousness in order to “come to life.” Second, it is explained how Husserl still does not account for the Freudian unconscious. Freud's unconscious could be called, in phenomenological terms, a repressed retentional zone that differs from both near and far retention. Finally, an analysis is offered for the significance of this psychoanalytic argument for phenomenology. Does phenomenology provide a complete account of the psychical life of the subject without the Freudian unconscious? Does phenomenology suggest, as is often done, that Freud's “discovery” of the unconscious is a fantastical invention? Or, does the Freudian unconscious represent a true stumbling block for phenomenology? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to trace the evolution of Bachelard‘s thought as he gropes toward a concrete formulation of a philosophy of the imagination. Reverie, the creative daydream, occupies the central position in Bachelard‘s emerging metaphysic, which becomes increasingly ’’phenomenological‘‘ in a manner reminiscent of Husserl. This means that although Bachelard does not use Husserlian terms, he appropriates the following features of (Husserlian) phenomenology: 1. a desire to ’’embracket‘‘ the initial (rationalistic) impulse; and 2. an aspiration to apprehend in its entirety, the creative epiphany of an image. Ultimately, this paper aims to show that there is a sense in which Bachelard‘s metaphysical concerns in his poetics are an outgrowth of (rather than radical break from) his earlier scientific and epistemological concerns. What results in reverie is an aesthetic intentionality providing a metaphysic of the imagination: the aesthetic object, such as fire or water, is an object only insofar as it enables/calls forth a subject to enter into a receptive, self-aware and cosmic state of being; subject-ness and object-ness are intimately and archetypally intertwined. Bachelard‘s ’’new poetics‘‘ results from his transplantation/cross-fertilization of the general epistemology of the ’’new scientific spirit‘‘ on to/across his aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the reception and impact of Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of Reality (SCR). The article will, first, address Berger and Luckmann themselves and their approach to the book (see section 1). In the next part, we will sketch the diffusion of the basic concept of the book (see section 2a). Then we want to show that the reception exhibits a particular open form, which allowed it to disperse into extremely different disciplines not only of the social sciences and the humanities (see section 2b). It is the disciplinary distance in particular that detaches the diffusion of the concept from reference to the book (see section 3). In the next part, we can see that this detachment leads to the variation of approaches to social construction (see section 4). Particularly, it is the misidentification with constructivism (see section 5) that leads to misunderstandings, which will then be clarified in contrast to our reconsideration of the basic thesis of SCR (see section 6). The conclusion (section 7) will state that Berger and Luckmann's concept therefore constitutes the common denominator of social constructivist approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper lays the groundwork for developing a thorough-going phenomenological description of different phenomena of violence such as physical, psychic and structural violence. The overall aim is to provide subject-centered approaches to violence within the social sciences and the humanities with an integrative theoretical framework. To do so, I will draw primarily on the phenomenological accounts of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz, and thereby present guiding clues for a phenomenologically grounded theory of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although birth marks the entrance of a human being into the world and establishes the very possibility of experience the philosophical implications of this event have been largely ignored in the history of thought. This is particularly troubling in phenomenology in general and in the work of Martin Heidegger in particular. While Heidegger raises the issue of birth he drops it very quickly on the path to defining Dasein‘s existence as constituted from the standpoint of death, as being-towards-death. In this paper I argue, contra Heidegger, that intentional existence can only be understood from the standpoint of birth. I begin by showing that intentionality inheres in a double difference that is fundamentally dependent on birth insofar as birth is an original differentiating from prenatal existence. I conclude with the argument that only a philosophy that regards Dasein from the standpoint of birth, as being-from-birth, can give an adequate account of humans as beings who live with others and who can initiate sense constitution and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces various essays on humanities. The principle just expressed is intensified in the case of the next five papers. Each of them focuses on one of Kurt Wolff's books: "Moon's on Surrender and Catch. Each writer has a history of involvement with Wolff's work in general and the idea of surrender-and-catch in particular that stretches beyond any single text. All are familiar with his other work, and all know Wolff as a friend, colleague, or teacher. Hence, each chosen text serves as the pivot off of which the author is confronted with the influence of a broader involvement with Wolff's ideas on his or her ways of thinking. The text itself is addressed within this historical thickness within which the writer's contact with it is set. It is appropriate that these essays should have this character. Wolff's work calls uncover and confront the grounds of our perceptions, feelings, conduct, and thoughts. John Dewey said that philosophy is "thinking which has become conscious of itself."

This contribution starts from Max Scheler’s claim that modern philosophy holds two differing views on feelings. The first view, which Scheler attributes to René Descartes, presents them in their intentional role but rejects their independence; the other view, which Scheler attributes to Immanuel Kant, holds that they cannot be reduced to the rational part of the soul and thus affirms their independence, but deprives them of all cognitive powers. After considering both views, I discuss the views of Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl. Husserl takes an ambivalent approach to attunement, which opens the possibility of understanding Martin Heidegger’s thought of fundamental attunement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is clear that the Gadamer–Habermas debate has had a major influence on Paul Ricoeur, his commentators have had little to say about the nature of this influence. I try to remedy this silence by showing that Ricoeur's account of tradition is a direct response to the Gadamer–Habermas debate. First, I briefly explain the debate's importance and describe Ricoeur's reaction to it. Next, I show how his discussion of tradition in Time and Narrative steers a middle course between Gadamerian hermeneutics and Habermasian Ideologiekritik. Finally, I raise some critical questions about the adequacy of Ricoeur's middle course. Specifically, I argue that it rests on an implausible distinction between the form and the content of tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a two-fold problem the phenomenologist must face: the first has to do with thinking like a phenomenologist given that one is always already steeped in the mundane sphere; the second has to do with the phenomenologist entering into dialogue with those scientists, psychologists, sociologists and other laypersons who still remain in the mundane sphere. I address the first problem by giving an Husserlian-inspired account of the movement from the mundane to the transcendental, and show that there are decent prospects for getting life-world folks to start thinking like phenomenologists. I address the second problem by showing that Husserl has himself caught in a dilemma: either the reduction takes place and no communication is possible between phenomenologist and non-phenomenologist, or the reduction does not take place and the phenomenological method remains a psychological makeshift, supposedly accessible to Husserl and his esoteric followers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this lecture is to celebrate the memory of Aron Gurwitsch by examining and enlarging the domain of phenomenological clarification of some elements of what Gurwitsch called the ’’logic of reality.‘‘ Chief among those elements are the nature of the taken-for-grantedness of our existential belief, the difference between presentive and non-presentive indices of reality and the ground for the self-illumination of the ’’world of working.‘‘. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introducing some possibilities in the use of the notions "membership categorization device" and "category-bound activity" for ethnomethodology, philosopher H. Sacks sketched out features and uses of, among others, the stage of life collection. A complement to this work, and a useful expansion of it, is found in researcher M.A. Atkinson's analysis of the practical uses of a natural lifetime. Both Sacks and Atkinson discuss how notions of life stages are used in practical reasoning and describe the tying of activities to categories within the collection or to location in the natural lifetime. The purpose in the article is to develop these sources by observing membership categorization activity in conservations between members of different categories within the device stage of life, where membership in these categories is also the topic of the talk. Descriptions of how the stage of life device is used conversationally make possible some purchase on how adolescence is constituted as a commonsense category in everyday life and some exploration of how biographical identities serve as resources as well as topics in conversation.

The human from the outset developed different and even incompatible conceptions of human existence. This clashing of views seemed to call for philosophical mediation and integration, it appeared that philosophical reflection on human life — as old as philosophy itself — could now be extended and tested by benefiting from the wealth of details and facts supplied by empirical inquiries. The growing body of factual discoveries could henceforth inform and enrich philosophy. The wedding of philosophy and human science seemed advantageous to both: the sciences would gain consistency and unity through a philosophical reflection on theft formulations, and philosophy would transcend its own traditional limitations by learning from empirical research into the human. But, like most marriages in our century, this one proved rocky. If there were divergences and inconsistencies in the scientific image of man, these faults, it was argued, could best be remedied by the sure development of empirical science itself. In the understanding of human life, in other words, the empirical sciences could claim autonomy and render philosophy superfluous.

This article focuses on the concept of surrender-and-catch phenomenology. The ideal of science is the most obviously self-critical, self-questioning intellectual activity, which systematically looks for exceptions which might explode regularities hypothesized and searches for explanations, hypotheses, interpretations, hunches, clues which differ from those which to the scientists best knowledge and conscience are true and certain. In terms of surrender-and-catch, the catch intends is knowledge of how things actually appear, that is, it is to get hold of their essence or eidos to get clarity on their meaning. The aim of clarifying intersubjective understanding is the illumination of how the transcendental and the empirical interact and such an aim would have been a response to the world not as of purely epistemological appeal but also as demanding moral, political, aesthetic response. The subjective meaning is the aim of understanding in the social sciences and humanities, the hoped-for result of acting on the injunction to get inside the other, to place a person into the others shoes, to look at the world from the others point of view.