Primordial Givenness in Husserl and Heidegger

  • Panos Theodorou
Part of the Contributions To Phenomenology book series (CTPH, volume 83)

Abstract

In his Ideas I (1913), with his thought experiment of world-annihilation, Husserl becomes persuaded that the beings of which we are conscious do not simply lie ‘out there’ in themselves, enjoying an independent (realistic) existence. Our experience of beings in a world, qua total horizon of beings, is the achievement of our intentional consciousness, which unfolds its overall constitutive possibilities. It is because of this that in our everyday meaningful comportments, we are always intentionally correlated with what is “Vorhanden” for us.

It is generally thought that Husserl was of the view that, for us, primordial consciousness is the perceptual experience of nature-things; simple sensory perceptual things. That is, on the lowest level of our conscious life, we are intentionally correlated with simple perceptually appearing things. Our experience of cultural beings or, more broadly speaking, things of value (goods) like tools, books, etc., is intentionally derivative and founded upon the former.

Keywords

Cultural Layer Intentional Object Cultural Object Intentional Correlate Intentional Consciousness 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

References

  1. Arp, Kristana. 1996. Husserlian intentionality and everyday coping. In Issues in Husserl’s ideas II, ed. Thomas Nenon and Lester Embree, 162–171. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
  2. Dreyfus, Hubert. 1991. Being-in-the-world: A commentary on Heidegger’s being and time, Division 1. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press.Google Scholar
  3. Dreyfus, Hubert. 2000. Responses. In Heidegger, authenticity and modernity: Essays in honor of Huber L. Dreyfus, vol. 1, ed. Mark Wrathall and Jeff Malpas, 305–341. Cambridge, MA: MIT University Press.Google Scholar
  4. Fink, Eugen. 1995. Sixth Cartesian Meditation: The Idea of a Transcendental Theory of Method. Trans. R. Bruzina. Blumington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
  5. Føllesdal, Dagfin. 1979. Husserl and Heidegger on the role of actions in the constitution of the world. In Essays in honour of Jaakko Hintikka, ed. E. Saarinen, R. Hilpinen, I. Niiniluoto, and M. Provence Hintikka, 365–378. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Føllesdal, Dagfin. 1998. “Husserl, Edmund”, encyclopaedia entry. In Routledge encyclopaedia of philosophy, ed. Edward Craig. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  7. Føllesdal, Dagfin. 2000. Absorbed coping, Husserl and Heidegger. In Heidegger, authenticity, and modernity: Essays in honour of Hubert L. Dreyfus, vol. 1, ed. Mark Wrathall and Jeff Malpas, 251–258. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
  8. Mensch, James. 1998. Instincts: A Husserlian account. Husserl Studies 14: 219–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Mooney, Timothy. 2010. Understanding and simple seeing in Husserl. Husserl Studies 19: 19–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Mulligan, Kevin. 1995. Perception. In The Cambridge companion to Husserl, ed. B. Smith and D.W. Smith, 168–238. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Soffer, Gail. 1999. Phenomenologizing with a Hammer: Theory or practice? Continental Philosophy Review 32: 379–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. Sokolowski, Robert. 1971. The structure and content of Husserl’s Logical investigations. Inquiry 14: 318–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Theodorou, Panos. 2010a. Heidegger’s search for a phenomenological fundamental ontology in his 1919 WS, vis-à-vis the Neo-Kantian philosophy of values. Phenomenology 2010: 404–431.Google Scholar
  14. Theodorou, Panos. 2010b. A solution to the ‘paradoxical’ relation between lifeworld and science in Husserl. Phänomenologische Forschungen, 145–167.Google Scholar
  15. Theodorou, Panos. 2012a. Husserl’s original project for a normative phenomenology of emotions and values. In Values: Readings and sources on a key concept of the globalized world, ed. Ivo De Gennaro, 265–289. Leiden/Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
  16. Theodorou, Panos. 2014a. The aporia of Husserl’s phenomenology of values and another beginning. In Phenomenology of intersubjectivity and values in Edmund Husserl, ed. Susi Ferrarello, 65–82. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
  17. Theodorou, Panos. 2014b. Pain, pleasure, and the intentionality of emotions as experiences of values: A new phenomenological perspective. Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 14/Special Issue: Andreas Elpidorou and Lauren Freeman (guest eds), The phenomenology and science of emotions, 625–641.Google Scholar
  18. Vassiliou, Fotini. 2010. The content and meaning of the transition from the theory of relations in Philosophy of arithmetic to the mereology of the third logical investigation. Research in Phenomenology 22: 408–429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Moran, Dermot. 2000b. Introduction to phenomenology. London/New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  • Panos Theodorou
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of Philosophy & Social StudiesUniversity of CreteRethymnoGreece

Personalised recommendations