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RECENT PHILOSOPHY |
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Select: Edmund Husserl - Maurice Merleau-Ponty - Hans-Georg Gadamer Richard Rorty - Karl Popper |
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Diagrams The Development of Modern and Recent Philosophical Thought Major Influences on American Social Thought Phenomenology Edmund Husserl (picture) was a German philosopher who founded phenomenology. He was professor at the universities of Gottingen (1901-16) and Freiburg (1916-29). At first a mathematician, he became interested in the philosophy of Franz Brentano, whose concept of intention was applied to the philosophy of consciousness in the maxim "all consciousness is consciousness of something." Husserl combined his interests in mathematics, formal logic, and psychology in his first book, The Philosophy of Arithmetic, published in 1891. The properly phenomenological themes of his philosophy were first presented explicitly in his Logical Investigations (1900-01; Eng. trans., 1970). In his 1907 lectures "The Idea of a Phenomenology," published in English in 1964, and his book Ideas: General Introduction to Phenomenology (1913; Eng. trans., 1931),
Regarding his other works:
His most famous pupil was Martin Heidegger, who transformed Husserl's relatively cognitive phenomenological method into an existentialism that dealt with the emotional and ethical significances of life as well as its perceptual, intellectual, and logical structures. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) Maurice Merleau-Ponty (picture), a French phenomenologist and social critic, taught philosophy at the University of Lyon and at the Sorbonne in Paris. He occupied the chair in philosophy at the College de France from 1952 until his untimely death in 1961. Merleau-Ponty is regarded as one of the finest phenomenologists who have worked in the tradition of Edmund Husserl, a reputation that is based primarily on his two early works,
Unlike Husserl, Merleau-Ponty focused on the world-referring structures of perception rather than the internal organization of consciousness. His phenomenology is unique in that he explicitly affirms the reality of the world external to consciousness; thus, much of his philosophy consists of a refutation of certain idealistic suppositions that characterize classical phenomenology. Regarding his other writings:
Elsewhere On The Internet
Positive contributions of the Phenomenologists to the Perennial Philosophy. Virtually none.
Philosophical Hereneutics Hans-Georg Gadamer (picture) is a German philosopher who founded the discipline of philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer studied philosophy, classical philology, art history, literature, and theology at the universities of Breslau, Munich, Freiburg, and Marburg and was for a while a pupil of Martin Heidegger, who had a determining influence on his thought. After earning a doctorate in 1922, he taught philosophy at the universities of Marburg, Kiel, Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. The publication of Truth and Method (1960; Eng. trans., 1975) brought Gadamer worldwide recognition. Its main purpose was to free the humanities from the straitjacket of a methodology modeled -- whether openly or only tacitly -- on the exact sciences. Gadamer believes that methodological concerns alone cannot do justice to the experience of truth. Understanding, as he sees it, is not merely a cognitive process that can be regulated by means of a method. More fundamentally it involves the way in which we strive to come to terms with the world. It requires that we be aware of our own preconceptions. Beyond that, it requires that we have some sense of the limits to the possibility of such self-knowledge, since all knowledge and all experience is rooted in some given "situation." Thus Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics is concerned with all human and social sciences and lays claim to universality. This has been a matter of contention for those who oppose his hermeneutics with other approaches, such as the deconstruction of Jacques Derrida and the critique of ideologies of Jurgen Habermas. It should be observed that Gadamer's "situatedness" does not, for him, involve any relativism. It simply acknowledges that situation must be taken into account. Elsewhere On The Internet
Positive contributions of philosophical hermeneutics to the Perennial Philosophy. Virtually none.
Neo-Pragmatism Philosopher Richard Rorty (picture) has served as an important interpreter of European philosophers to analytically oriented Americans. Rorty attended the University of Chicago, earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1956, and taught at Wellesley College (1958-61) and Princeton University (1961-82). His early career as an analytic philosopher provided a dramatic contrast to his later view of philosophy, which was strongly influenced by John Dewey. Awarded a MacArthur fellowship, he moved to the University of Virginia in 1982. There he came to view the philosophic enterprise as a continuing conversation. His own companions in conversation have included European philosophers in the hermeneutic and critical traditions as well as analytic philosophers. Rorty rejects the common interpretation of his views as relativism, while at the same time he denies the existence of any logical or empirical foundation or standpoint that cannot be subject to dialogue. Among his books are:
Elsewhere On The Internet
Positive contributions of Neo-Pragmatism to the Perennial Philosophy. Absolutely none.
Critical Rationalism Sir Karl Popper (picture) was a highly influential philosopher. He was educated at the University of Vienna and subsequently taught at the University of New Zealand and at the London School of Economics, where he became professor of logic and scientific method in 1949. An exponent of critical rationalism, Popper attacked certain assumptions of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. His view was that the task of philosophy is not to dissect and analyze language but to use it to learn and convey truths about the world. Regarding his writings:
Note: We are currently working on an expanded presentation of the philosophy of Karl Popper. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Positive contributions of Karl Popper to the Perennial Philosophy. Still under consideration. A few Classical Realists are looking seriously at Popper's work.
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