The Constructive Critique of Reason

Abstract

In the course of several decades Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has issued a challenge to classical phenomenology in a series of books, monographs, and articles, which not only criticize central themes, but call for a complete overthrow of the traditional perspective. For example, in a book entitled Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? (1964), traditional phenomenology was criticized for radically separating consciousness and existence, and for an inability to account for the passions, and for evasions of the problem of creativity. Consequently, it was recommended that a shift be made from the traditional phenomenological perspective to a concrete cosmological framework that would preserve the continuities between nature and spirit. The focus was directed at individual concrete existence, which was understood not in terms of its relation to other existences, but in terms of its unfolding according to the laws of its inner development. Now it was claimed that one could account for the ways in which the various functional life circuits within the individual were linked together and brought into harmony. Such a perspective was considered more fruitful for the formulation and treatment of philosophical problems.