Abstract
In the introduction to this book, I said that I hoped to accomplish four things in this study. First, I wanted to shed new light on the relation between the phenomenologies of Husserl and Heidegger. Secondly, I wanted to develop in detail their respective phenomenological methods. Thirdly, I wanted to discuss and evaluate some of the concrete phenomenological analyses provided by the two phenomenologists. And finally, I hoped to be able to say something general about the task of phenomenology. Let me now take a step back from the detailed analyses and try to provide an overview of what has been accomplished in the study.
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The argument of the present study thus seems to be directly opposed to that of Steven Crowell, who argues, both in his book Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space of Meaning, and in a recent article, that the topic of phenomenology “is neither consciousness nor being, but meaning” (cf. Crowell, “Does the Husserl/Heidegger Feud Rest on a Mistake?”, p. 123). Crowell does grant that “there is no real objection to invoking `being’ as Heidegger does” (ibid., p. 127), but he insists that there is no good reason to do so either. Instead, he claims, the best term for the Sache of phenomenology, and as he says “one that belongs neither to ancient nor to modern philosophy” (ibid., p. 126), is meaning (Sinn). I wonder whether that term is really as unburdened as Crowell seems to think. Would Crowell, e.g., say that the Sinn which is the topic of phenomenology is the drittes Reich — between the realm of things and the realm of Vorstellungen — that Frege speaks of (cf. “Der Gedanke,” p. 43; “Über Sinn and Bedeutung,” pp. 41–47)? Would Crowell say that the meaning Husserl and Heidegger speak of has to do only with the way things are given to us — with the “telescope” through which we see them — and not with these things themselves? Would he not, rather, agree that the kind of “meaning” that Husserl and Heidegger are interested in is very much ontologically relevant? That it is the meaning of being of the world, everything mundane, and ourselves? Crowell’s discussion with McDowell, and his persuasive critique of the inconsistent transcendental realism of Heidegger’s “metontology,” for example, seem to me clear indications that Crowell would agree with me on this point (cf. Husserl, Heidegger, and the space of Meaning, pp. 14–19, 222–243; see also p. 89). Thus, I doubt that there is much disagreement when it comes to the point. So, to reverse Crowell’s statement, if one clarifies that meaning is to be understood as “meaning of being,” then there is no real reason why one should not be allowed to invoke the term.
This is, e.g., Timothy Stapleton’s claim (Husserl and Heidegger: The Question of a Phenomenological Beginning, p. 115).
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© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Overgaard, S. (2004). Conclusion. In: Husserl and Heidegger on Being in the World. Phaenomenologica, vol 173. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2239-5_8
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