Already in his Logical Investigations Husserl is opposing consciousness and the world and raising the question of an objective, “true” existence of the world beyond phenomenological research. This opposition becomes increasingly radical in Husserl's subsequent works, especially in his early and mature periods. For Husserl, phenomenology is not simply about “bracketing” any conditions concerning the existence or nonexistence of the world; it is also designed to carry out a kind of “deworlding” of consciousness, which allows for revealing it not as (...) a thing or a part of the world, but as a nonobjective condition for any real existence. The critical question from which the author proceeds is the extent to which the opposition of consciousness and the world understood in the above way could be retained in situations where the main topic of phenomenology becomes the primordial relatedness of consciousness and the world or of the world a... (shrink)

The question of the world in itself — the world beyond its correlation with experience in the broadest sense — is one of the sore points of phenomenology and becomes especially acute in the light of modern discussions around correlationism. These discussions, in one way or another, make phenomenology come around to the classical distinction between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, with the help of which Kant outlines the field of ethics as a special world lying on the other side (...) of the correlation of knowledge and object constitutive for nature. Philosophy deals with the thing-in-itself in the proper, positive sense of the word, not as phenomenology (transcendental philosophy, which reveals the correlation of knowledge and reality in the world of phenomena and the futility of attempts by theoretical reason to know anything beyond phenomena), but as a critique of practical reason. The article attempts to consider the opposition of the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon in the context of the criticism that Kant’s practical philosophy is subjected to in Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit and to explicate the arguments that this criticism makes available to phenomenology for rethinking the problem of Ding an sich and the ethical dimension of the epoche. The first part of the article examines the Hegelian analysis of the main contradiction contained in the Kantian opposition of duty as something that is in itself, and nature as a phenomenon (this opposition forms what Hegel calls the moral worldview): duty does not depend on nature and therefore does not need natural (phenomenal) realization in actions, but at the same time, duty is nothing but the necessity of actions and, consequently, the necessity of a phenomenon. This contradiction, as Hegel shows, leads to the disintegration of the moral worldview and, thus, turns into the sublation of the absolute separation of duty (thing in itself) and nature (phenomenon). The restitution of the difference between the moral an sich and the phenomenon within conscience — a phenomenon that arises as a result of the destruction of the moral worldview — turns into a new paradox, which demonstrates that the thing-in-itself (ethical good), since it is freed from the phenomenon, is not only unreal, but also turns into its own opposite. The paradox consists in the fact that the consciousness of duty, taken in its independence from the phenomenal realization in actions, becomes evil itself, turning to hypocrisy in the moral judgment about other people’s actions. In the second part of the article, the significance of the Hegelian critique of Kant’s practical philosophy for the phenomenological destruction of the difference between the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon and the problematization of the ethical dimension of the phenomenological method is explicated. Tracing the naive origins of this difference in the natural attitude and their transformation in Kantian philosophy, the author tries to consider the sublation of the opposition of the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon in the field of ethics as one of the possible paths to phenomenology. It is shown how the necessary relation of the supra-worldly an sich with the situational nature of its phenomenal realization in actions calls into question the possibility of a phenomenological epoche. The author also seeks to demonstrate that the problematization of the difference between the thing-in-itself and the phenomenon does not turn phenomenology into a system in the Hegelian sense. (shrink)

Laszlo Tengelyi’s phenomenological project, as presented in his book “World and infinity. To the problem of the phenomenological metaphysics”, published posthumously, is founded on the idea of the infinity of the world. In rehabilitating the husserlian thesis of the infinity as constitutive feature of the worldly experience, Tengelyi departs from the phenomenology of the finitude, which goes back to Heidegger. The article analyzes the origins of the infinity/finitude dilemma in transcendental phenomenology of the world in Husserl, Heidegger and Tengelyi. It (...) demonstrates that the dilemma is rooted in the ambiguity of the phenomenological concept of transcendence. On the one hand, the transcendence is interpreted as the essential openness of the experience, which renders it infinite. On the other hand, the openness is constituted by horizon as the finitude of the experience. (shrink)

In his late works Husserl interprets the crisis of European sciences as the loss of their meaning for life. The diagnosis seems to suggest therapeutic strategy: to overcome the crisis, phenomenology must return to the evidences of the life-world. The article argues that the husserlian strategy of overcoming the crisis consists not in the elimination of the break with the prescientific evidences of the natural attitude, but, on the contrary, in the radicalization of the breach. Thus, I want to show (...) that Husserl seeks to overcome the crisis of sciences by means of more radical crisis of phenomenology. In Husserl’s view, phenomenology must become the only science, which does not presuppose the life-world, since it problematizes it. I am going to argue also, that the counterintuitive strategy is not just of the historico-philosophical interest, but is meaningful for the actual philosophical understanding of the life-world. To justify those claims, I will proceed in three stages. In the first section of the article, I analyze the difference between the objective world and the life-world, which is the point of departure of husserlian interpretation of the crisis of sciences in Crisis. Bringing into correlation the difference between the objective world and the life-world in Crisis with the distinction of the ideal world and the real one in Ideas I, I disclose the ambiguity of husserlian interpretation of the crisis of European sciences. According to Husserl, the crisis arises, when science transcends the life-world through the idealizations, and, at the same time, presupposes the immediate prescientific evidences as something that is taken for granted. In the second section, I argue that the strategy of overcoming the crisis in Crisis is based on the phenomenological epoche, which allows for the porblematization of the life-world without presupposing it, Within this context I demonstrate the motivational unity of two reductions, performed by Husserl in Crisis—the reduction to the life-world, stripping the reality of the garb of ideas mistakingly taken to be the reality itself, and the reduction of the life-world, turning it into horizon and depriving phenomenologist of a right of relying on the life-worldly evidences, which is taken for granted in the natural science and renders it possible. The unity of the reductions indicates that phenomenological descent back down to the life-world is treated by Husserl as the radical break with the evidences of the natural life. The third section discusses the question, whether the problematical character of the life-world can be revealed only from the point of view of disinterested spectator, or it can be discovered, in a way, from within, in pretheoretical experience, which capacitates the life to problematizing itself and motivates phenomenological epoche. I argue that, although the question is not answered in a suitable way within husserlian analyses of the motivation for the epoche, the key to the solution of the problem is provided by the genetic phenomenology, since it thematizes the historicity of the life-world. I interpret the historicity as the ambivalent pretheoretical experience, constituting both the self-evidence and the problematical character of the life-world. (shrink)

The review is devoted to Georgy Chernavin’s book Philosophy of the Troll. The Phenomenon of Paid Bots. The central concept of the book–default opinion as an opinion that nobody is behind – is outlined. In the light of the idea of the default opinion Georgy Chernavin seeks to lay bare the anonymous character of the natural attitude and the general positing which belongs to it–“the” world is always there as an actuality. The natural attitude turns out to be the attitude (...) that nobody has ever taken up, since it has always already taken me up and, thus, is taken for granted without my taking part in it. The review analyzes the ambiguity of the troll as interpreted in the book: on the one hand, the troll is the one who expresses someone else’s opinion in the first person, and, in this way, embodies the natural attitude, on the other hand, the troll turns the natural attitude into the professional one, and, therefore, breaks it involuntarily, setting it down as an attitude, that is, moving toward its defamiliarization. Yet the review problematizes the research strategy Georgy Chernavin follows in some respects. In the first instance, this refers to the almost complete reduction of the other to the anonymity, which leaves no room for the meaningful others in the structure of experience. Like Heidegger, Georgy Chernavin relies on the alternative “Me or nobody (das Man)” (despite the problematical character of “me” and “my own” in the book), whereas the other in proper sense and one’s own others remain offscreen. I also try to show the problematical character of the interpretation of the involvement and the noninvolvement, represented in the book. The involvement is treated by Georgy Chernavin only as something that buries philosophical problems in oblivion, and all possibilities of philosophical understanding are attributed to the noninvolvement. I argue that, on the contrary, the involvement in phenomenology is also essential for the non-identity of the self and, thus, is the condition of the possibility of the philosophical problematization, whereas the noninvolvement, as exemplified by the trolls, can turn out to be the source of the default opinions too. In conclusion, I consider the possibility of turning the central argument of the book against the book itself by representatives of other philosophical traditions. (shrink)