[contributions to phenomenology] encyclopedia of phenomenology volume 18 || k

17
IMMANUEL KANT Two points of view on Kant ha ve served as catalysts for the critica) reconstruc- tion of his philosophy in phenomenology. Both oper- ate with Kant's transcendentalism, which is knowledge concerned not with objects, but with our a priori mode of knowledge of objects. One serves as the catalyst for EDMUND HUSSERL's critica! considerations of Kant, the other as the catalyst for MARTIN HEIDEGGER 's. In the first, the focus is on the grounding of NATURAL SCIENCE; in the second, the focus is on the grounding of metaphysics, not in the knowledge of the sensible world, but in the realm of free rational agency. Husserl contends that without phenomenological re- construction, Kant's transcendentalism remains strin- gently bound to the conditions ofscientific knowledge. He then broadens transcendentalism phenomenologi- cally to include prescientific experience and the sub- ject's own intentiona) awareness, whose reasonable- ness is sustained in and by perception. Heidegger main- tains that without reconstruction, Kant's grounding of metaphysics is tethered too strongly to subjectivis- tic formulations and hence mistakenly identifies that which enables what we caii experience. He seeks to transform transcendentalism by referring to the Lich- tung ( clearing) that enables anything-object, the sub- ject, and his or her representationallvolitional activities - to be disclosed as conditions at ali. The "clearing" is a non-representational horizon enabling both expe- rience and its conditions to appear "for a time." Ali this reflects Husserl 's and Heidegger's concern with the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781/1787). To some extent, their phenomenological reconstructions converge. But ultimately, they produce influential Kant interpretations that diverge from each other. The rest ofthe "phenomenological movement" takes its cues on Kant from their approaches. Their interpretations also Jet them oppose the varieties of neo-Kantianism. For Husserl, neo-Kantianism rehabilitates transcendental- ism in the face ofpsychologism, which reduces Kant's transcendentalism to the "facts of consciousness" and not to the subject's a priori conditions of experience. In other words, psychologism reduces the a priori el- ements of experience to the psychical mechanism of the human species and subjects it to scientific observa- tion. On the other hand, neo-Kantianism concentrates on the a priori presuppositions of mathematical natural science, but denies that they are intrinsic to conscious- ness. Rather, they are logically pertinent to the con- struction of objects in thought. So both psychologism and neo-Kantianism disavow that there are subjective sources that bear the a priori presuppositions of expe- rience. It is Husserl 's doctrine of INTENTIONALITY that en- ables access to those "subjective sources" by steering between the Scylla ofpsychologism and the Charybdis of neo-Kantianism. According to this doctrine, con- sciousness is not representational, but essentially di- rected toward objects, objects that thus stand in a tran- scendent rather than immanent relation to it. Further- more, acts of consciousness are directed toward objects via correlative ideal MEANINGS. Those acts are temporal, but their meaning-correlates have the capacity ofbeing identified and reidentified over time. Ultimately these ideal meanings are accomplishments whose "origin" or "genesis" !ies in intentionallife. Husserl avoids the rocks of psychologism because he maintains that intentionality cannot be registered naturalistically as an item among other items in the causal order of nature. The method of EPOCHE AND RE- DUCTION shows consciousness tobe a "region" indepen- dent of the "region" of "nature." In contrast, natural- istically driven psychologism reduces consciousness either to nature or some part thereof and holds that consciousness is subject to causal laws. Husserl also bypasses Neo-Kantian constructivism. Intentiona! ob- jects are not logically constructed by consciousness in thought, but instead are rendered present to conscious- ness by virtue of intentionality. Intentionality enables meanings or intentiona) objects to be given as intel- ligible and essential structures within the conscious experience. For example, a perceptual act would be es- sentially identified by its passive character; the object perceived would be essentially given as something out there in the world and indistinct from its sense. In con- trast, a propositional act would be essentially charac- terized by its expressible quality; the object expressed Lester Embree, Elizabeth A. Behnke, David Carr, J. Claude Evans, lase Huertas·lourda, Joseph J. Kockelmans, William R. McKenna 377 Algis Mickunas, Jitendra Nath Mohanty, Thomas M. Seebohm, Richard M. Zaner (eds.), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. ' © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Page 1: [Contributions to Phenomenology] Encyclopedia of Phenomenology Volume 18 || K

IMMANUEL KANT Two points of view on

Kant ha ve served as catalysts for the critica) reconstruc­

tion of his philosophy in phenomenology. Both oper­

ate with Kant's transcendentalism, which is knowledge

concerned not with objects, but with our a priori mode

of knowledge of objects. One serves as the catalyst for

EDMUND HUSSERL's critica! considerations of Kant, the

other as the catalyst for MARTIN HEIDEGGER 's. In the first,

the focus is on the grounding of NATURAL SCIENCE; in the

second, the focus is on the grounding of metaphysics,

not in the knowledge of the sensible world, but in the realm of free rational agency.

Husserl contends that without phenomenological re­

construction, Kant's transcendentalism remains strin­gently bound to the conditions ofscientific knowledge.

He then broadens transcendentalism phenomenologi­cally to include prescientific experience and the sub­

ject's own intentiona) awareness, whose reasonable­

ness is sustained in and by perception. Heidegger main­tains that without reconstruction, Kant's grounding of

metaphysics is tethered too strongly to subjectivis­tic formulations and hence mistakenly identifies that

which enables what we caii experience. He seeks to

transform transcendentalism by referring to the Lich­

tung ( clearing) that enables anything-object, the sub­ject, and his or her representationallvolitional activities

- to be disclosed as conditions at ali. The "clearing"

is a non-representational horizon enabling both expe­

rience and its conditions to appear "for a time."

Ali this reflects Husserl 's and Heidegger's concern

with the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781/1787). To

some extent, their phenomenological reconstructions

converge. But ultimately, they produce influential Kant

interpretations that diverge from each other. The rest

ofthe "phenomenological movement" takes its cues on

Kant from their approaches. Their interpretations also

Jet them oppose the varieties of neo-Kantianism. For

Husserl, neo-Kantianism rehabilitates transcendental­

ism in the face ofpsychologism, which reduces Kant's

transcendentalism to the "facts of consciousness" and

not to the subject's a priori conditions of experience.

In other words, psychologism reduces the a priori el­

ements of experience to the psychical mechanism of

the human species and subjects it to scientific observa­

tion. On the other hand, neo-Kantianism concentrates

on the a priori presuppositions of mathematical natural

science, but denies that they are intrinsic to conscious­

ness. Rather, they are logically pertinent to the con­

struction of objects in thought. So both psychologism and neo-Kantianism disavow that there are subjective

sources that bear the a priori presuppositions of expe­

rience. It is Husserl 's doctrine of INTENTIONALITY that en­

ables access to those "subjective sources" by steering

between the Scylla ofpsychologism and the Charybdis

of neo-Kantianism. According to this doctrine, con­

sciousness is not representational, but essentially di­rected toward objects, objects that thus stand in a tran­

scendent rather than immanent relation to it. Further­more, acts of consciousness are directed toward objects

via correlative ideal MEANINGS. Those acts are temporal,

but their meaning-correlates ha ve the capacity ofbeing

identified and reidentified over time. Ultimately these

ideal meanings are accomplishments whose "origin"

or "genesis" !ies in intentionallife. Husserl avoids the rocks of psychologism because

he maintains that intentionality cannot be registered

naturalistically as an item among other items in the

causal order of nature. The method of EPOCHE AND RE­

DUCTION shows consciousness tobe a "region" indepen­

dent of the "region" of "nature." In contrast, natural­

istically driven psychologism reduces consciousness

either to nature or some part thereof and holds that

consciousness is subject to causal laws. Husserl also

bypasses Neo-Kantian constructivism. Intentiona! ob­

jects are not logically constructed by consciousness in

thought, but instead are rendered present to conscious­

ness by virtue of intentionality. Intentionality enables

meanings or intentiona) objects to be given as intel­

ligible and essential structures within the conscious

experience. For example, a perceptual act would be es­

sentially identified by its passive character; the object

perceived would be essentially given as something out

there in the world and indistinct from its sense. In con­

trast, a propositional act would be essentially charac­

terized by its expressible quality; the object expressed

Lester Embree, Elizabeth A. Behnke, David Carr, J. Claude Evans, lase Huertas·lourda, Joseph J. Kockelmans, William R. McKenna 3 77 Algis Mickunas, Jitendra Nath Mohanty, Thomas M. Seebohm, Richard M. Zaner ( eds.), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. ' © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Page 2: [Contributions to Phenomenology] Encyclopedia of Phenomenology Volume 18 || K

378 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

(the meaning) and the object that the proposition is

about would be rendered distinct in such an act.

Intentionality as noetic-noematic correlation and as

constitution signals Husserl 's fidelity to Kant's tran­

scendentalism and "Copernican turn." ARON GURWITSCH

claims that Kant fa ils to recognize intentionality. How­

ever, others contend that Kant either operated with or

anticipated a doctrine of directedness toward objects.

Husserl himself believed Kant could anticipate inten­

tionality as both correlation and constitution, but was

unable to give it express philosophical treatment. In

Erste Philosophie [ 1923/24], he understands Kant's

"Copernican turn" to consist in the determination of

the sense of objectivity on the basis of the "correla­

tion between subjectivity and objective content," but

believes Kant did not go deep enough in his analysis

ofthis correlation.

Regarding prescientific nature, Husserl challenges

Kant's failure to formulate more sharply an account of

consciousness "naively" heeding what is already tacitly

organized, experientially significant, and contextually

"sedimented" in the LIFEWORl.D and for PERCFPTION. He

maintains that prescientific nature operates only "la­

tently" in Kant and thus it requires reconstruction. In

Die Krisis der europdischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phdnomenologie ( 1936), he takes his

point of departure from Kant's 1781 "Transcenden­

tal Deduction." To show a theory of constitution and

of prescientific nature in Kant, Husserl combines two readings of the "Deduction," each with two distinct

proofs. One reading contends that the "Deduction"

contains both "an objective deduction and a subjec­

tive one"; the other states that the deduction includes a

proof"from above" and a proof"from below." The for­

mer regards the "objective deduction" as establishing

the objective validity ofthe categories and the "subjec­

tive deduction" as establishing the manner in which the

categories achieve that validity in relation to our cog­

nitive capacities. The latter reading offers two demon­

strations of how the relation between the categories

and sensible intuitions can be established - either

from apperception through imagination to sensibility

or from sensibility through imagination to appercep­

tion. On this reading, the imagination both coordinates

the employment of the categories and facilitates the

direction ofthat employment.

No Kant scholar before or since combines both of

these readings. By combining them, however, Husserl

is able to reconstruct a hierarchical sequence of con­

stitution in Kant. The "objective and subjective deduc­tions" enable Husserl to reconstruct the two functions

of the understanding as two levels of intentiona! ac­

complishment. The "deduction from above and from

below" allows him to re late these levels hierarchically,

so that the scientific view, resulting from the under­

standing's functioning at the objective level, is shown

to arise from the understanding operating passively,

constituting the already organized and always devel­

oping sense ofthe lifeworld.

Husserl recognizes that the "lifeworldly" structures

cannot be expressly part of Kant's own theoretical en­

terprise for two reasons. First, his own notion of tran­

scendental subjectivity is registered in his discussion of

constitution, and not in the metaphysically paralogistic

orientation of pure reason. It is not entangled in some

kind of double-world account, nor is it involved in jus­

tifying the objective validity of the a priori conditions

of empirica! knowledge. Rather, it entails the spectrum

of intentionality through which ali levels of meanings - from higher-order idealizations of intellectual ac­

tivity to lower-order vague typicalities of lifeworld1y

experience- are thematized. Unlike Kant's, Husserl 's

notion of transcendental subjectivity is notat odds with

empirica! subjectivity; rather, it is at one with it insofar

as empirica! subjectivity is its unreflective yet inten­

tiona! life. The second reason has to do with Kant's concept

of "formal intuition," i.e., an intuitive representation

in which mathematical concepts can be constructed.

Since a priori concepts of the understanding are not

mathematical and hence not the result of idealization,

they cannot be constructed or exhibited in a formal

intuition. But they can be schematized. In that case, a

formal intuition as a schema is an intuitive setting for making possible the temporal determination of sensi­

ble objects or empirica! intuitions in accordance with a

priori concepts. It is a representation oftime that serves

as an a priori condition for intuitively construing phe­

nomena as categorially objective, public phenomena

in the spatiotemporal world and not as ad hoc psycho­

logical arrangements of mental states in an individ­

ual mind. But this non-mathematical yet objective and

public world, of which Kant sought the conditions of

knowledge, would not be equivalent to Husserl 's "life-

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IMMANUEL KANT 379

world," since it would not be either the pre-objective

aisthetic world of perceptual experience or the indeter­

minate yet ubiquitous horizon within which ali other

worlds, scientific and prescientific, objective and pre­

objective, are disclosed. GERHARD FUNKE, ARON GUR­

WITSCH, ISO KERN, PAUL RICCEUR, and THOMAS M. SEEBOHM

ha ve explored these and other aspects of Husserl 's re­

lation to Kant.

Despite his criticism of Kant's sharp distinction

between sensibility (receptivity) and understanding

(spontaneity), Husserl views his own doctrine ofinten­

tionality as generally compatible with Kant's "Coperni­

can turn." In Husserl 's order of constitution, receptivity

and spontaneity "dovetail" in a concrete colligation of

intentionality, whcrein each stands with its correlate

and refers beyond the temporal horizon of its corre­

late's mode of givenness to the temporal background

of the modes of givenness of other correlates. The re­

suit, Husserl believes, enables him to account for the

sense-history of theoretical knowledge or judgments.

Unlike Husserl's, Heidegger's interpretation of

Kant, especially in Kant und das Problem der Meta­

physik ( 1929), falls squarely on the "Schematism,"

whose argument presupposes the Kantian distinction

between sensibility and understanding. This focus

scrves the purpose of reconstructing Kant not as an

incipient theorist of intentionality as constitution, but

as an incipient theorist of"ecstatic temporality."

In Sein und Zeit ( 1927), Heidegger argues that TIME

does not consist of a stream of"nows" and is not itself

an entity that is objectively there in the present. Rather,

it is a horizon of the understanding of Being in which

past, present, and future are the temporalizations of

DASEIN. Heidegger's phenomenological ontology con­

strues the meaning of Being in terms of Oase in 's un­

derstanding ofBeing. Temporality in general is futural

and can only be understood in terms of the situation

in which Dasein confronts (a) the range of choices re­

gard ing the way it wants to carry out or to be its being

and (b) the fact that Oase in has to carry out or be its

being as its being is given to it.

In Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik, Heideg­

ger again approaches time from the stance of Dasein,

and in so doing, interprets the Kritik der reinen Ver­

nunft as Kant's unwitting or incipient identification of

time and the unity of apperception. As a consequence,

human subjectivity is shown to be fundamentally tem-

poral. Sin ce the "Schematism" offers the "sensible con­

ditions under which alone pure concepts of the under­

standing can be employed," it signals the place where

Kant explains the results ofthe transcendental synthe­

sis of the imagination, whereby time is related to the

objects of experience. Heidegger thus contends that a

schema, or what Kant calls a "transcendental determi­

nation of time," is the horizon of constant presence in

which an object is revealed as present.

Although this places the objective character of ob­

jects in direct and essential connection with the finitude

ofthe subject, the "Schematism" still does not charac­

terize temporality in what Heidegger believes is its

more primordial sense. Heidegger maintains that tran­

scendental imagination is, for Kant, the concealed root

of both sensibility and the understanding. lf Kant had

followed this insight and explicitly identified transcen­

dental imagination with temporality, then temporality

would be the condition on which the appearance of ob­

jects continually comes to pass as having been in the

offing. Furthermore, as temporal, the finite subject is

one whose being affected by the appearance of objects

is always already in the offing.

Heidegger concedes that his reconstruction concen­

trates on the 1781 or "A" edition of the Kritik and that

such a reconstruction of the 1787 or "B" edition is

nigh impossible. Since the 1787 version of the "De­

duction" seems to deny any paramount distinction be­

tween the imagination and the understanding, referring

to the imagination as an "action of the understanding

on the sensibility" oras belonging to "o ne and the same

spontaneity" of the understanding, the primacy of the

imagination, Heidegger believes, is surrendered there

in fa vor of the understanding. Hen ce the source of ali

synthetic activity is no longer the imagination, but the

understanding. This represents, according to Heideg­

ger, Kant's "shrinking back" or "recoiling" from the

"power of the imagination" in discursive thought, a

power that rcnders discursive thought radically tempo­

ral and finite and that serves as the essential ground for

Kant's "metaphysics of experience."

But just as Heidegger reformulates the 1781 Kritik

as an incipient precursor to Sein und Zeit, it is also pos­

sible to do likewise for the claims about the imagination

according to the "two-steps-in-one proof structure" of

the 1787 vers ion. Instead of claiming that the unity of

apperception logically implies the unity of time, we

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380 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

can argue from thc determination or objectification of the unity oftime to the unity ofapperception. Since the

determination of time is a result of the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, it must conform to the categories. If it did not, it could not be objectified as a unity. Since the categories are the necessary condi­

tions ofthe unity ofapperception (according to the first step ), the transcendental synthesis of the imagination necessarily conforms to the categories. However, since time is a formal a priori condition of ali appearances whatsoever, the items of the sensible manifold can be

objectified together anly ta the extent that they are con­nected to o ne another in a single time. Thus they can be

conceptualized together in a single consciousness anly when they are given as connected in a single time (ac­cording to the second step ). The unity of time thereby becomes a necessary condition of the possibility of human experience. But it is a condition established outside of apperception, although exacted upon apper­

ception, and hence serves to "restrict" it. This would be the kind of conclusion Heidegger would seek.

Heidegger !ater proceeds with his interpretation of Kant in the context ofhis renowned Kehre. Although

he continues to read Kant in terms of the ground­ing of metaphysics, there is a shift whereby his mea­sure is no longer the meaning of Being as a proto­existentially impending issue for Dasein, but rather the meaning of Being as the "clearing." Die Frage nach dem Ding. Zu Kants Lehre van den transzenden­talen Grundsătzen ( 1962) and "Kants These liber das Sein" ( 1963) are representative, though these are writ­

ten drafts oflectures originally given in the 1930s. Hei­degger's "Briefe liber den Humanismus" (1947) offi.­

cially signals the appearance ofthe Kehre; however, the shift actually takes place in his writings ofthe 1930s, albeit without the !ater more "poetic" cast. The same is not true for his posthumous Die Grundprobleme der Phănamenalagie [ 1927] and Phănamenologische !nte1pretation van Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft [ 1927 /28], which are pre-Kehre works.

Prior to the Kehre, Heidegger's FUNDAMENTAL ON­

TOLOGY attempts to disclose the meaning of Being through an analysis of the structures or "existential ia"

of Dasein. Subsequent to it, he asks how the meaning of Being is revealed by virtue of the way in which it

is thought in the ancient, medieval, and modern meta­physics of the "West." When Heidegger's Kant inter-

pretation is placed in this post-Kehre context, !here is less interest in reconstructing the first Kritik in terms of Dasein's temporality. As part of modern thought, this work is under the sway of"Western" metaphysics,

because the "clearing" remains "unthought" in it and it understands Being as something subject to represen­

tational thought. In Die Frage nach dem Ding, the supreme principle

ofKant's metaphysics of experience- "the conditions of the possibility of experience in general are likewise conditions of the possibility of the ohjects of experi­ence" -- is for Heidegger Being as constant presence and as representational because what counts for things

being objects of experience is their being known or rep­resented. To be represented requires being present to and for the subject engaged in representing or knowing. Thus according to Heidegger, Kant conceives objectiv­ity as the Being of ali things that can be experienced, known, or represented by the subject. He regards Kant

as exclusively concerned with the ro le of pure concepts in the mathematical character of natural bodies present in space, and not with time as the condition of their application to ali appearances whatsoever.

In "Kants These liber das Sein," Heidegger argues

that Kant's thesis about Being, which normally appears episodically throughout his work, is actually a guiding idea ofthe first Kritik. Heidegger interprets Kant's first claim - "'Being' is obviously not a real predicate, i.e., it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing"- as distinguishing "reality" from "existence," "actuality," and "being." If "Being" were a real predicate, then it would serve as a determination belonging to the substantive or real content of a thing and could be attributed to that content in ajudgment. But since the real or substantive content of a thing can be thought in a concept without the thing existing before us, the thing's reality is not the thing's being or existence.

Heidegger interprets Kant's second claim- "['Be­ing'] is purely the positing of a thing, or of certain

determinations in and of themselves" - as asserting

that, as a predicate nonetheless, Being does not predi­

cate substantivally what a thing is; it rather predicates

modally that a thing is. The meaning of Being for Kant, according to Heidegger, is not real predication.

It is positing modally. Positing, Heidegger says, is for Kant the establishment of something as existing by

Page 5: [Contributions to Phenomenology] Encyclopedia of Phenomenology Volume 18 || K

JMMANUEL KANT 381

virtue of a subject engaged in representation. In setting

up something as possibly, actually, or necessarily ex­

isting, Being as positing essentially stands for Kant in

relation to the representational capacities of the sub­

ject. (Again Heidegger draws the conclusion that Kant

endorses the thesis of Being as representational, but

he does so without explicitly considering how Kant

could or did explain the role oftime in Being's pasit­

ing, especially in terms of the very strong connection

Kant initiates between the schema of modality and the

"Postulates of Empirica! Thought.")

Temporality is thus criterial for Heidegger in in­

terpreting the kind and degree of success or failure

the first Kritik has in addressing the meaning of Se­

ing and the grounding of metaphysics. In Kant und

das Problem der Metaphysik, he finds in Kant the ele­

ments for a successful inquiry. In !ater works, he thinks

Kant's pathway is closed. What makes the difference

for Heidegger between Kant's success and failure is his

openness to temporality. This openness is signalled by

the possibility of giving greater emphasis to the self­

affection of human reason through the integral unity

of the modalities of time than to the self-reflection of

human reason through conceptual or representational

thought. IfKant's analysis ofhuman experience is read

as giving greater weight to the conceptual dimension

ofthat experience, then he is approaching it, Heidegger

believes, in a way that allows the meaning ofBeing to

be "forgotten" in the history of Western metaphysics.

Heidegger points human reason to a level of experi­

ence whereby the impact of sensibility, affection, and

intuition on it, through time's integral unity, enables

the meaning of Being to be an issue "taken to heart"

by it in a distinctly non-representational manner.

On this point, Heideggerian phenomenology is of a

piece with Husserlian phenomenology. Husserl sees in

Kant an incipient phenomenologist whose analysis of

human experience could have moved in the direction

of thematizing the non-representational or lifeworldly

dimension. Kant is measured against this phenomen­

ological ability in both Heidegger's and Husserl's in­

terpretations, and this is reflected in the work of phe­

nomenologists as diverse as MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY

with his emphasis on the a priori of BODILY intention­

ality and MAX SCHELER with his critique of Kantian

formalism in ethics.

Ultimately, however, there is a major difference be-

tween Husserl and Heidegger with respect to the non­

representational domain. Husserl 's phenomenology

leads to the reflective incorporation of that domain.

He believes that this evinces his deep affinity with

Kant's "Copernican turn" and transcendentalism. Hei­

degger 's phenomenology, on the other hand, abi des by

what it discloses, viz., the affective incorporation of

Dasein into that domain, what Heidegger carne to call

the fourfold ( Geviert).

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Allison, Henry E. "The Critique o/Pure Reason as Transcen­dental Phenomcnology." In Dialogues in Phenomenology. Eds. Don Ihde and Richard Zaner. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975, 136--55.

~. "Gurwitsch's Interpretation of Kant." Kant-Studien 83 ( 1992), 208-2 I.

Carr, David. "Kant, Husserl and the Non-Empirica! Ego." Journal of Philosoph.v 74 (1977), 682-90.

Cassirer, Emst. "Kant und das Problem der Meta­physik. Bermerkungen zu Martin Heideggers Kant­Interpretation." Kant-Studien 36 ( 1931 ), 1~36; "Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics: Remarks on Martin Heideg­ger's Interpretation of Kant." In Kant: Disputed Ques­tiollS. Ed. and trans. Moltke Gram. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967, 131-57.

Dufrenne, Michel. "Heidegger et Kant." Revue de Meta­physique et de Morale 54 ( 1949), 1-20.

Fink, Eugen. "Die phănomenologischc Philosophie Edmund Husscrls in der Gegenwărtigen Kritik" [ 1933). In his Stu­dien ::ur Phănomenologie. 1930--1939. The Hague: Mar­linus Nijhoff, 1966, 79-156: "Husserl's Phenomenology and Contemporary Criticism." In The Phenomenology of Husserl. Ed. and trans. R. O. Elveton. Chicago: Quadran­gle Books, 1970, 73-14 7.

~. "Die Idee der Transzendentalphilosophie bei Kant und in der Phănomenologie." In his Năhe und Distanz. Phiinomenologische Vortrăge und Auf~ătze. Ed. Franz­Anton Schwarz. Freiburg: Karl Alber, I 976, 7--44.

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. "Kant und die philosophische Her­menutik." Kant-Studien 66 ( 1975), 395--403; "Kant and the Hermenutical Turn." In his Heidegger:~ Ways. Ed. and trans. John Stanley. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 1994, 49--59.

-. "A new epoch in the history of the world begins here and now." Trans. John Donovan. In The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Ed. R. Kennington. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985, 1-14.

Gurwitsch, Aron. "The Kantian and Husserlian Conceptions of Consciousness." In his Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1966, 148-74.

-. Kant.~ Theorie des Verstandes. Ed. Thomas Seebohm. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990.

Henrich, Dieter. "Uber die Einheit der Subjektivităt." Philosophische Rundschau 3 ( 1955), 28--69.

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382 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

Kern, Iso. Husserl und Kant. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964.

Kirkland, Frank M. "Husserl and Kant: The Problem ofPre­Scientific Nature and Transcendental Aesthetic." In Kant and Phenomenolo6'Y· Ed. Thomas Seebohm and Joseph Kockclmans. Lan ham, MD: The Center for Advanced Re­search in Phenomenology/University Press of America, 1988,31-59.

Klein, Ted. "Being as Ontologica] Predicate: Heidegger's Interpretation of 'Kant's Thesis of Being' ." Southwestern Journal of"Philosophy 4 ( 1973), 7-33.

Mohanty, J. N. The Possihility o/Transcendental Philosophy. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1985.

Prauss, Gerold. Erkennen und Handeln in Heideggers "Sein und Zeit. "Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1977.

-. "1ntentionalităt bei Kant." In Akten des VI. interna­tionalen Kant-Kongresses. Vols. 1-3. Bonn: Bouvier, 1987, 853-59.

Ricreur, Paul. "Kant et Husserl." Kant-Studien 46 ( 1954), 44-67; "Kant and Husserl." In his Husserl: An Anal1·sis ofHis Phenomenology. Trans. Edward Ballard and Lester Em­bree. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967, 175-201.

Seebohm, Thomas. Die Bedingungen der Măglichkeit der Transzendentalphilosophie. Bonn: Bouvier, 1962.

-. and Joseph Kockelmans, eds. Kant and Phenomenology. Lanham, MD: The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology/University Press of America, 1984.

Sherover, Charles. Heidegge1; Kant and Time. Lanham, MD: The Center for Advanced Research in Phenomen­ology/University Press of America, 1988.

FELIX KAUFMANN

FRANK M. KJRKLAND Hunter Ca/lege

Kaufmann was horn

in Vienna in 1895 and received a doctorate in law

from the University of Vienna in 1920. His disserta­

tion under Hans Kelsen ( 1881-1973) was published

in 1922 as Logik und Rechtswissenschaft (Logic and

jurisprudence). This work led to his appointment as

Privatdozent in philosophy of law with the juridica!

faculty of the University of Vienna. While a student,

Kaufmann introduced his fellow law student, ALFRED

SCHUTZ, to the philosophy OfEDMUND HUSSERL. Through

the years, Kaufmann and Schutz read and discussed a

number of Husserl 's seminal phenomenological texts,

including Vorlesungen zur Phi.inomenologie des in­

neren Zeitbewusstseins [ 1905], Formale und transzen­

dentale Logik ( 1929), and Cartesianische Meditatio­

nen [ 1931]. Kaufmann received a doctorate in philoso­

phy from the University ofVienna in 1922, publishing

this dissertation in 1924 as Die Kriterien des Rechts

(Criteria ofright). While serving as Privatdozent, Kauf­

mann earned his living by working as a manager for

the Anglo-Persian Oii Company. Meanwhile, he par­

ticipated in a number of intellectual circles, including

the circle surrounding Hans Kelsen; a private semi­

nar of Richard von Mises ( 1883-1953); and the group

that was !ater to become known as the Vienna Circle

(where he referred to himself as "his majesty's loyal

opposition," to indicate his nonpositivist stance).

When Germany invaded Austria in 1938, Kaufmann

accepted an invitation to join the New School for So­

cial Research in New York, where he fled with his wife

and son. He was a member ofthe Graduate Faculty of

the New School and also served as a founding mem­

ber ofthe International Phenomenological Association

and on the editorial board of Philosophy and Pheno­

menological Research until his death. From the UNITED

STATES, Kaufmann labored to help others escape from

the Nazis, and also was actively involved in the preser­

vation of Husserl 's manuscripts and the relief effort for

EUGEN FINK and LUDWIG LANDGREBE.

Kaufmann 's research ranged widely, including pub­

lications in philosophy of LAW, the foundations of

LOGIC and MATHEMATICS, ECONOMICS, SOCIOLOGY, and

the methodology of the HUMAN and the NATURAL SCI­

ENCES. In his main interests (law, mathematics, and

scientific methodology) Kaufmann introduces and de­

velops methodological insights, based upon key con­

ceptual and experiential analyses in Husserl 's writings,

to recast traditional and contemporary controversies

and problems. In each case he argues that a phenomen­

ological foundation leads to a more fruitful account of

the problems at hand, and to resolution for a number

of traditional controversies. A champion of Husserl 's

phenomenology in the Vienna Circle, Kaufmann's de­

bates with RudolfCarnap (1891-1973), Cari Gustav

Hempel, and others led to decades-long exchanges of

articles on the nature of MEANING and TRUTH, the foun­

dations ofmathematics and the social sciences, and the

status oflaws, principles, and data in scientific inquiry

in general. Kaufmann, who characterized himself as a

"methodologist," always sought to clarify and to so­

lidify the logica! and experiential foundations of any

inquiry. Husserl regarded him as one ofthe most com­

petent logicians in the phenomenological movement

and as one of his most loyal friends, and Kaufmann 's

Lester Embree, Elizabeth A. Behnke, David Carr, J. Claude Evans, Iose Huertas-Jourda, Joseph J. Kockelmans, William R. McKenna, Algis Mickunas, Jitendra Nath Mohanty, Thomas M. Seebohm, Richard M. Zaner ( eds.), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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FELIX KAUFMANN 383

acclaim by a diverse array ofrespected contemporaries

is noteworthy. Albert Einstein ( 1879-1955) regarded

him as one ofthe great living philosophers.

Kaufmann develops Hans Kelsen's pure theory of

law (according to which the normative nature of laws

and legal terms cannot be derived from facts alone,

since norms belong to a different "sphere") from its

Kantian basis to a view based on a phenomenological

analysis ofthe concept ofnorms. This analysis denies

the existence of a separate "normative sphere" requir­

ing a peculiarly normative method. He also applies

a phenomenological approach to key legal concepts, such as that of responsibility in criminal law.

Kaufmann's Das Unendliche in der Mathematik und seine Ausschaltung (The infinite in mathematics

and its exclusion, 1930) was regarded by Husserl as

a major contribution to the phenomenology of math­

ematics, and engendered a great deal of interes! and

discussion among the members of the Vienna Circle.

In this and related works, Kaufmann develops a con­

structivist approach to the foundations ofmathematics

based upon a phenomenological account of the basic

facts of cognition. This account includes discussion of

the JNTENTIONALITY of mental life, the objectivity of

logica! and mathematical concepts, the nature of es­

sential features of the objects of consciousness, and the difference between empirica] and non-empirica]

universal statements - the distinction between indi­

vidual and specific universality drawn by Husserl in

the Logische Untersuchungen ( 1900--1901 ). From this

basis various problems in the foundations ofmathemat­

ics are analyzed, including the set-theoretic interpreta­tion of mathematics, the extended functional calculus,

the Dedekind cut, Cantor's diagonal procedure, trans­

finite numbers, and a number of logica! antinomies in

mathematics and set theory. In each case Kaufmann

uses his phenomenological approach to reject various

interpretations of mathematical and logica! notations,

procedures, and problems.

Many of these problems are seen to stern from two

methodological errors: interpreting symbols as repre­

senting sets of objects, when in fact they represent

formation laws and not objects, and misunderstanding

the nature of(and cquivocating between) empirica! and

non-empirica! universal statements. The set-theoretic

account of mathematics is rejected, and the concept

of "set" is argued to be completely unnecessary for

the definition ofthe natural number series. Kaufmann

also rejects transfinite numbers and non-denumerable

infinite sets, which he claims to be impure (because

ambiguous and circular) pseudo-concepts. The natural

numbers are defined as formal eidetic singularities (in Husserl's sense), and Peano's axioms are modified to

clarify the definition of natural numbers. AII of math­

ematics flows from the definitions ofthe natural num­

bers and keeping this clearly in focus enables one to

avoid many of the logica! antinomies of mathematics.

While taking a constructivist position, Kaufmann also

criticizes the tendencies toward PSYCHOLOGISM ofsome

other constructivist mathematicians, such as Luitzen

Egbertus Jan Brouwer ( 1881-1966). Kaufmann holds that methodology (which he de­

fines as the logica! analysis of scientific procedure)

deserves the status of a separate field, independent of

logic, whose goal is to explicate and clarify the rules,

laws, postulates, and procedures of the social or hu­

man sciences and natural sciences. Central to this role

is methodology's goal of clarifying the procedures for

verifying and falsifying scientific claims. For Kauf­

mann, methodology presupposes objective MEANINGS

that are already constituted (logica! analysis is the

analysis of meanings, according to Kaufmann); thus

methodology presupposes phenomenological analyses

oflived meanings. Many ofhis methodological analy­

ses begin with explicit phenomenological analyses of

basic scientific and prescientific terms and concepts.

Kaufmann discusses a number of methodological is­

sues stemming from the social sciences, as well as some ranging over ali the sciences, both natural and

social.

For Kaufmann the key to the methodology of the sciences !ies in viewing science as an ongoing and

highly structured human enterprise that is based upon

lived meanings stemming in part from ordinary, pre­

scientific experience. Indeed, Kaufmann holds that the

prescientific and scientific realms share some basic em­

pirica! procedures, and are thus (at that level) not en­

tirely distinguishable. A science is defined not in terms

of its objects of study, but in terms of its rules of pro­

cedure. Although Kaufmann 's view of the structure of

science went through development and modification,

it is possible to find in his work a rather consistent

set of the primary elements of scientific procedure:

the ideals of science (such as truth, precision, and the

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384 ENCYCLOPED!A OF PHENOMENOLOGY

ideal of a rational, and therefore knowable, cosmos

- these ideals serve as regulati ve ideas of science in

Kant's sense); the basic rules of scientific procedure

(unrelated to goals, these provide the criteria for the

truth and falsity of propositions); preference rules of

scientific procedure (related to scientific goals, hav­

ing the status of conventional norms for the gathering,

verification, falsification, and employing of empirica!

evidence); heuristic postulates (having the status of

conventions, not refutable by empirica! evidence, e.g., the principles of ceteris paribus and marginal utility

in economics, free will in sociology, uniformity ofna­

ture in physics ); the scientific situation ( the state of a

given field of inquiry at a particular time ); the impor­

tance of grounds (with protocol propositions playing

key ro les as grounds); and the layers or strata ofhuman

experience (including the distinction between presci­

entific and scientific strata of experience ). Kaufmann's

methodology of the sciences studies and clarifies the ways in which these elements interact in the pursuit of

scientific knowledge. The basic rules of science guide research in every

science, but they are not a priori laws. Rather, they

serve as regulative ideas (so as not to violate the prin­

ciple of permanent control). Methodology ofthe Social

Sciences (1944) identifies seven basic rules of science.

These rules are: scientific decision (the basic decision in scientific research is that of adding or deleting propo­

sitions from the corpus of propositions belonging to

a particular science); the methodological principle of

sufficient reason (scientific decisions must be grounded

in EVIDENCE and procedural rules); grounds (proposi­tions recording sense observations must play a central

role in evidence); scientific situation (a proposition be­

ing considered for addition to the scientific corpus must

be judged in light ofthe totality of relevant knowledge

available at the time of a scientific decision); the prin­

ciple of permanent control (no empirica! proposition is

immune from rejection based on further evidence ); the

procedural correlate ofthe principle of contradiction (a

scientific decision may not admit any proposition to the

scientific corpus that generates a contradiction in that

corpus ); and the procedural correlate ofthe principle of

the excluded middle (no undecidable proposition may be admitted into the corpus).

Kaufmann traces many methodological problems

( and the controversies surrounding them) to basic epis-

temological problems. Phenomenology plays a key

role in sorting out and solving these problems. The

issues of truth and knowledge are central to method­

ology. The concepts of "truth" and "verification" in

science are defined in terms of coherence- a coher­ence that can never be finally or ultimately established,

and that is defined in terms of the rules of scientific

procedure. Truth, knowledge, and probability must not

be defined in terms of absolute or perfect knowledge.

In spite of this, Kaufmann rejects RELATIVISM in its

various guises (nominalism, sociologism, historicism,

etc.). For him many ofthe methodological controver­

sies in the natural and the social sciences (for instance,

the pervasive one between rationalism and empiricism)

stern from a lack of clarity with respect to the status

of the rules and postulates of science. These rules and

postulates have the status ofnorms, and are not subject to the sort offalsification characterized by Karl Popper

( 1902-1994 ). The reason for this is to be found in the

scientific situation, in which rules, postulates, obser­

vations, mechanisms, and hypotheses are interrelated

in an extremely complex fashion. An unexpected ex­perimental result could stern from a faulty assumption

about control parameters, an imperfection in a mecha­

nism or sample, or a false hypothesis. No experiment

or observation taken by itself is sufficient to establish

its own interpretation (the data cannot speak for them­

selves ). Kaufmann holds that scientific laws should not

be interpreted as laws of nature but as laws relating ob­servation to expectation, based on contemporary scien­

tific understanding and instrumentation. Thus even ba­

sic laws of physics such as the conservation of energy

and the uniformity of nature are in essence heuristic

postulates, rules guiding physicists in what to expect,

and how to observe, in their experimental and theoret­

ical grappling with nature. Such postulates are subject

to the principle of permanent control.

Even logica! laws are often misunderstood in

methodological controversies. For instance, Kaufmann

argues that despite many claims to the contrary, the

law ofthe excluded middle does not apply to synthetic

propositions- its procedural correlate does (and this

correlate is a property ofthe system of procedural rules

of science, rules that determine how to proceed with

a science, given the observational input and the con­

temporary scientific situation). Likewise, the concept

of "ground" in science is related to the rules of sci-

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FRIEDRICH LEOPOLD KAUFMANN 385

entific procedure and thus differs from the concept of

"ground" in deductive logic.

It is characteristic of Kaufmann 's work that his

thought developed and changed. While his focus upon

methodological and phenomenological issues and the

clarity and precision of his thought and writing re­

mained steadfast, he continually refined his view. He

published various lists of basic and procedural rules

ofscience. His conception ofscience gradually shifted

its emphasis from the side of logic ~ and the notion

of science as a set of propositions and rules for ad­

mitting or rejecting propositions from the set ~ to

science as a set of procedures and heuristic procedural

rules. His reading of the work of John Dewey ( 1859-

1952), with whom he corresponded extensively in the

!940s, contributed to a shift from stress upon deductive

and a priori rules to a growing concern with inductive

and probabilistic elements of scientific procedure. Al­

though Kaufmann 's work has been heretofore largely

ignored, his methodological pluralism enabled him to

assimilate ideas from many sources, and the insight,

precision, and intellectual honesty ofhis work won the

respect of thinkers as diverse as Edmund Husserl, Al­

fred Schutz, Albert Einstein, RudolfCarnap, and John

Dewey.

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Helling, Ingeborg K. "Alfred Schutz, Felix Kaufmann, and the Economists ofthe Mises Ci rele: Personal and Method­ological Continuities." In Alfi·ed Schutz. Neue Beitrăge zur Rezeption seines Werkes. Ed. Elisabeth List and Ilja Srubar. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988, 43--68.

--."A. Schutz and F. Kaufmann: Sociology Between Science and Interpretation." Human Studies 7 (1984), 141--6!.

-. "Wirken in der Emigration. Felix Kaufmann." In Exil. Wissenscha{t. Identităt. Die Emigrat ion deutscher Sozial­wissenschafiler 1933-1945. Ed. Ilja Srubar. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988, 181-205.

Kaufmann, Felix. Methodenlehre der Soziahvissenschaft. Vienna: Verlag Julius Springer, 1936; Methodologia de las ciencias sociales. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1946.

--. Das Unendliche in der Mathematik und seine Ausschal­tung. Leipzig and Vienna: Dentike, 1930; The Infinite in Mathematics: Logico-Mathematica/ W!·itings. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978.

--. "Remarks on Methodology ofthe Social Sciences." So­ciologica/ Review 28 ( 1936), 64-84.

-. "The Significance of Methodology for the Social Sci­ences." Social Research 5 ( 1938), 442--63; 6 ( 1939), 537-55.

-. "Truth and Logic." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1 ( 1940--1941 ), 59--69.

-. "Strata ofExperience," Philosophy and Phenomenologi­cal Research 1 ( 1940-41 ), 313-24.

-. "The Logica! Rules of Scientific Procedure." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2 ( 1941-42), 457-7!.

-. "Verification, Meaning and Truth." Philosophy ami Phenomenological Research 4 ( 1943-44), 267--s3.

-. Methodology of the Social Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944 [ not a translation of Methoden­lehre, but a different book, influenced by the work of John Dewey].

-. "The Nature of Scientific Method." Social Research 12 ( 1945), 464-80.

-. "Scientific Procedure and Probability." Philosophy ami Phenomenologica/ Research 6 ( 1945-46), 47--66.

-. "Basic lssues in Logica! Positivism." In Phi/osophic Thought in France and the United States. Ed. Marvin Farber. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1950, 565-88.

Reeder, Harry P. The Work of Felix Kaufinann. Lan­ham, MD: Center for Advanced rcsearch in Phenomen­ology/University Press of America, 199!. [Including the index and classification of Kaufmann's Nachlass and a bibliography ofKaufmann's published works].

Srubar, Ilja. "On the Origin of 'Phenomenological' Sociol­ogy." Human Studies 7 ( 1984 ), 163-89.

Kaufmann 's papers reside in the Archival Repository of the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology at Wil­frid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario. A microfilm of the papers is located at the Sozialwissenschaftliches Archiv, University of Konstanz, Germany.

HARRY P. REEDER University of Texas at Arlington

FRITZ LEOPOLD KAUFMANN (1891-1958) Kauf-

mann is generally not well known to contemporary

students of phenomenology and was not always un­

derstood by his contemporaries, but is actually one

of the most innovative phenomenologists of the first

generation. Kaufmann carne to phenomenology from

the perspective of WILHELM DILTHEY's philosophy, with

an eye to developing a "middle ground" or unity in­

corporating both philosophical positions. In doing so,

he anticipatcd even MARTIN HEIDEGGER in viewing con­

sciousness as an essentially worldly phenomenon and

the work of art as a world-revelatory phenomenon.

Born in Leipzig, Kaufmann began his university

career enrolled in the faculty of law at Geneva ( 191 O)

and Berlin ( 191 ~Il). His interests quickly gravitated

from law to philosophy. Only his unpublished and un­

submitted 1918 Leipzig Habilitationsschrift, entitled

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386 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

Der Konflikt, conta ins material reflecting his legal stud­

ies. In Berlin, Kaufmann was quickly immersed in a

philosophical tradition shared with EDMUND HUSSERL. He studied with Husserl 's former teacher Cari Stumpf

(1848-1936) and with Benno Erdmann (1851-1921), among others. Both Erdmann and Stumpfstressed, al­

though quite differently to be sure, the relevance of

psychology to philosophical investigation. From 1911

to 1913, Kaufmann studied in Leipzig under Wil­

helm Wundt (1832-1920), Johannes Volkelt (1848-

1930) and Eduard Spranger ( 1882-1963). He was

deeply indebted to Volkelt for introducing him to a

metaphysically oriented aesthetics and especially to

Spranger who, in his 1912 course, "Die Philosphie

der Gegenwart," introduced Kaufmann to the philos­

ophy of Dilthey within the perspective of Husserl 's

Logische Untersuchungen ( 1900--1901 ). The Dilthey­

Husserl connection is a key to understanding Kauf­

mann 's phenomenological orientation.

Kaufmann studied with Husserl in Gottingen from

April 1913 until the outbreak of the war in 1914.

He came to study phenomenology, of course, but

a phenomenology whose character and philosophi­

cal relevance he interpreted in a unique way. Even

before he arrived in Gottingen, he did not inter­

pret phenomenology realistically, nor did he view

Husserl's ldeen zu einer reinen Phănomenologie und phănomenologischen Philosophie 1 ( 1913) as a retreat

back into idealism. In both respects Kaufmann was unique in the Gottingen circle of Husserl's students.

His interest in phenomenology was threefold. In the

first place, he viewed Husserl 's "strengen Sachlichkeit"

as an antidote to nea-Kantian system building. In the

second place, he further interpreted Husserl 's rigorous

method and insistence upon the constitutive function

of consciousness and the correlation of subject and ab­

ject as the way to escape the traps of realism, idealism,

and intuitionism. In the third place, and what most dis­

tinguishes Kaufmann the phenomenologist, is the fact

that he saw Husserl 's 1913 constitutive analysis of con­

sciousness as a rigorous clarification and extension of

Dilthey's interpretati an of historicallife.

Already by 1913 Kaufmann was engaged in

the phenomenological investigation of a historically

viewed, embodied consciousness that can only be de­

scribed within the context ofthe world in which it finds

itself. In a 1914 lecture on Kant's ethics, for example,

he rejected both KANT's formalism and MAX SCHELER's

intuitionism regarding values. He claimed that ethical

values must be regarded as "meaning-elements of the

everyday world which can only be understood within

the context of that world." Moreover, as meaning­

elements of a historically viewed consciousness, values

are accessible to phenomenological analysis.

In Freiburg after the war Kaufmann continued his

investigation of consciousness as a historical phe­

nomenon. While there, he met Heidegger for the first time. Although it would bea mistake to say that Kauf­

mann 's philosophical direction was altered by his en­

counter with the young Heidegger, it did intensify and

focus his interest in historical consciousness in terms

ofthe new structural analyses ofoASEIN and "being-in­the-world." Heidegger's influence is clear in the first

chapter ofKaufmann 's Freiburg dissertation, Das Bild­

werk als ăsthetisches Phănomen (The image as aes­

thetic phenomenon, 1924). lts three chapters progres­

sively deepen one 's insight into the consciousness of an

artistic image in analyses that are existentially (Heideg­

ger), phenomenologically (Husserl), and finally histor­

ically (Dilthey) based. The dissertation sets out the ba­

sic ideas and subject matter that occupied Kaufmann

throughout his life. His book on Thomas Mann ( 1957),

the last major work that he completed during his life­

time, can be viewed as a mature expression of basic

analyses and concepts already present in the 1924 the­

sis, applied this time to a particular artist and his work

rather than to artistic consciousness in general. Kaufmann's philosophical vision is rooted in his

passionate commitment to discovering the fundamen­

tal nature of reality. Above ali, he was in search of

the TRUTH, and both the content and the form of his thinking are integral to this search as he conceived of

it. Without understanding this, one cannot understand

his writings or his life. His rejection of idealism and realism, his interest in the concept of representation,

and his preoccupation with art and the artistic vision

are ali motivated by that search. His interest in a mid­

dle ground between realism and idealism, Dilthey and

Husserl, individual and universal must be understood

in terms ofthe same motivation.

Starting, as always, with historically determined

consciousness, Kaufmann 's thesis examines the con­

stitutive process whereby the experience ofthe artistic

representation causes a transformation of conscious-

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KOREA

ness and its intended object. In this transformational

process the object of consciousness attains univer­

sal significance and consciousness itself becomes en­

dowed with universal meaning. Artistic consciousness

is a privileged access to the true nature of reality, ac­

cord ing to Kaufmann, which explains its pivotal role

in his writings as a whole. Without access to the true

nature of reality, i.e., without art and, we might add,

philosophy or religion, life is reduced to purely indi­

vidual meaning, which for Kaufmann would be a life

that is not fully human, one completely engulfed in the

present moment and its immediate demands. For Kauf­

mann, a life reduced to the merely personal is not worth

living, and its valuelessness is revealed with each of

life's tragedies.

More than half of Kaufmann 's published works re­

ma in untranslated. His Nachlass, housed at the Husserl

Archives in Leuven, contains both published and un­

published material written for the most part in German

longhand and shorthand (Gabelsberger stenography),

as well as in English. It includes notes for the lectures

Kaufmann delivered in Freiburg from 1926 to 1935,

offprints of his many articles in German and English,

originals of his Leipzig and Freiburg Habilitations­

schriften, his doctoral thesis, notes for lectures deliv­

ered at Northwestern University ( 1938-46) and at the

University ofBuffalo (1946--54) during his refugee pe­

riod in the United States, and much ofhis philosophical

correspondence. The current grouping of many of the

documents on aesthetics in the Nachlass, incorporating

material from very early and late periods, reflects Kauf­

mann 's plans for a wide-ranging book, to be entitled

Phenomenology of Art, which was never completed.

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Kaufmann, Fi-itz. "Die Philosophie des Grafen. Paul Yorck und von Wartenburg." Jahrhuch fiir Phănomenologische Forschung 9 ( 1928), 1-236.

--. "Die Bedeutung der kiinstlischeren Stimmung." Jahr­huch .fiir Phănomenologische Forschung 1 O Ergăn:::ungshand (1929), 191-223.

--. Geschichtsphi/osophie der Gegenwart. Berlin: Junker & Diinhaupt, 1931.

--. "Art and Phenomenology." In Phi/osophical Essays in Memm:1· o{ Edmund Husserl. Ed. Marvin Farber. Cam­bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940.

~. "Ethik und Metaphysik." Zeitschriji fi'ir philosophische F orschung 1 O ( 1956 ).

387

~. Das Reich des Schănen. Bausteine ::urei ner Philosophie der Kunst. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1960 [conta ins a bibliography].

Spiegelberg, Herbert. The Phenomenological Movement. 3rd rev. and enl. ed., with the collaboration of Karl Schuh­mann. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1982, 248-9.

CHRISTINE SKARDA University o( California, Berkelev

FRED KERSTEN University ol Wisconsin, Green Bay

KOREA The earliest acquaintance of Korean

scholars with phenomenology dates back to the late

1920s and early 1930s, when a handful of Koreans at­

tending what was then known as the Keijo Imperial

University in Seoul took part in seminars on EDMUND

HUSSERL, MAX SCHELER, and MARTJN IIEIDF.GGER. Perhaps

it was indicati ve of the general trend of reception of

philosophy from GERMANY at institutions in .JAPAN like

this before World War II that the main interest had al­

ready shifted from the somewhat "dated" Husserlian

philosophy to Heidegger's thought. Still retaining the

labei of phenomenology, Heidegger introduced an en­

tirely new and, especially to the Orientals, surprisingly

intuitive and appealing way oflooking at human being

and the world. Some of the clearest documents from

this period are an article on Heidegger 's notion of care,

"Haideiga-ni okeru Sorge ni tsuite" ( 1932), and one on

"Haideiga-ni okeru chihei-no monddi" ( 1935), which

were published in the journal Ris o by CHONG HONG PARK.

On the other hand, KI-RAK HA, who wrote "Haidege-e

issese kongkansengkwa sikanseng muncey'' (On spa­

tiality and temporality in Heidegger, 1940), criticized

Heidegger for orienting his analysis of DASEIN one­

sidely to the issue ofTIME, neglecting the other essential

aspect ofhumankind's being, namely, SPACE.

A serious and systematic study of phenomenology

in Korea shows not only that it reflected the worldwide

Husserl "renaissance," but that it was also sensitive to

what occurred in the works of major followers, reform­

ers, and critics of Husserl developed after World War

Il. Seoul National University quickly emerged as the

Republic of Korea's central academic institution af­

ter 1945. Its Department of Philosophy was occupied

by respectable senior faculty, one of whom, HYONG­

KON KOH, conducted seminars on Heidegger while the

Lester Embree, Elizabeth A. Behnke, David Carr, J. Claude Evans, Jose Huertas-Jourda, Joseph J. Kockelmans, William R. McKenna, Algis Mickunas, Jitendra Nath Mohanty, Thomas M. Seebohm, Richard M. Zaner ( eds.), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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388 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

aforementioned Park lectured on Kierkegaard, Niet­

zsche, and JASPERS. But phenomenology did not gain a

firm foothold on Korean soi! for at least another decade.

Moreover, the ravages of the Korean War ( 1950-53)

had c1aimed heavy tolls on the human and physical re­

sources ofthis newly emerging nation, rendering it ali

the more necessary to seek graduate education over­

seas.

Thus, from the viewpoint of the history of the re­

ception of modern Western philosophy in Korea and

of phenomenology in particular, there was a nearly

absolute hiatus between what was taught in a severely

regimented cultural environment before 1945 and what

was tobe a new learning experience for a growing num­

ber ofphilosophy students after 1945. KANT and HEGEL,

the epistemology ofneo-Kantianism as well as BRITISH

EMPIRICISM, pragmatism, and a variety of other schools

of thought continued, but phenomenology was reju­

venated by a new generation of scholars who studied

in Europe. During 1959--{) 1, .JEON sooK HAHN studied

in Heidelberg and brought more recent knowledge of

Husserlian phenomenology back to Korea. KAH KYUNG

CHO, who had previously studied in Heidelberg, vis­

ited the Husserl Archives in Koln in 1963 and main­

tained a close relationship to LUDWIG LANDGREBE. He

was also the first returnee from Europe to teach pheno­

menology at Seoul National University. Though he

lectured mostly on Heidegger and his Siljon Chelhak (Philosophy of existence, 1961, 1 Oth ed. 1993) treated

Husserl only marginally, he began Husserl seminars in

the early 1960s, using Die Krisis der europăischen Wis­senschaften und die transzendentale Phănomenologie (1936) and Erlahrung und Urteil ( 1939), as well as

Landgrebe's Husserl interpretations.

While three younger colleagues- YER-SU KIM, IN­

SUK CHA, and HYONG-HIO KIM- may also be considered

pioneers among Korean phenomenologists trained in

post-war Europe, a steady stream of aspiring students

went to Europe in the 1 970s and 1980s. Thus by 1994,

no less than thirty-five Koreans returned home with

Ph.D. degrees, mostly from German universities, after

having written on phenomenology or in closely re­

lated areas. Especially in the early stages ofthe expan­

sion and reorganization of Korean universities, study

abroad was a crucial career decision. But unlike young

academics dispatched and supported by their home

institutions, the "freelancing" students never had the

guarantee of an appointment upon returning home,

and this lack of coordination contributed to an over­

supply of "foreign" Ph.D's. in philosophy. There are

dozens of well qualified, but unemployed philosophy

degree holders, not a few of them having been trained

in phenomenology. Some moved away from pheno­

menology or sought employment in entirely unrelated

areas. Meanwhile, incentives were given to those in

academic positions without the Ph.D. (the degree not

having been previously mandatory) to obtain it. There

were at least twenty-three phenomenology-related dis­

sertations accepted during this "grace period" at var­

ious Korean universities, raising the current total of

phenomenology-related degree holders, both home ed­

ucated and foreign trained, to about sixty.

Given so many specializing in phenomenology, it

was inevitable that phenomenologists formed a perma­

nent section of the Korean Philosophical Association

in 1976, and as the volume ofactivity increased further,

the Korean Society for Phenomenology was officially

born in 1978. lts presidents ha ve been MYONG-RO YOON,

JEON SOOK HAIIN, IN-SUK CIIA, and YOUNG-HO LEE. The

official outlet of the Society, fl.vunsang-hak Yim-gu

(Research in Phenomenology), was not intended as a

journal in the strict sense. It is a series ofvolumes pub­

lished at varying intervals from papers presented at the

meetings of the society. Such meetings are held four

to six times a year, totaling eighty-four by the end of

1994. Volume titles indicate the common theme under

which the papers are collected and are, in English trans­

lation, What is Phenomenology? (1983 ), Phenomen­ology and Individual Sciences ( 1985), Development of" Phenomenological Issues ( 1984 ), Husserl and Modern Philosophy ( 1990), Phenomenology of" Lif"eworld and Hermeneutic.\· ( 1992), World, Man, and the Intentional­ity of Consciousness (1992), and Phenomenology and

Practica! Philosophy ( 1993 ).

A significant am o unt ofpubl ication, however, stems

from individual initiatives. According to a recent sur­

vey of Korean phenomenology by Jeon Sook Hahn

there are 35 books, roughly 250 articles, and over 36

major titles of translated books that have appeared,

for the most part, during the past quarter of a century.

These statistics do not include the some 60 disserta­

tions referred to above, parts of which ha ve been pub­

lished separately in shorter articles. In Die Heidegger­Rezeption in Korea ( 1991 ), GWANG-IL sw lists 288

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KOREA

Korean-language titles of books and articles on Hei­

degger alone. No doubt there are more lists of spe­

cialized titles, such as those on JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, but

such titles can only be suggested here: YER-su KIM, Die bedeutungstheoretische Problematik in den Philoso­phie Husserls und Wittgensteins (1966); IN-SUK CHA,

Eine Untersuchung uber der Gegenstandsbegriff in der Phănomenologie E. Husserls ( 1968); MYONG-RO

YOON, On the Objectivism of the German-Austrain School ( 1971 ); KYU-YOUI\G KIM, lntentionality and Vi­sua! Direction in Husserl 's Time Constitution (1974);

JEON sooK HAHN, The Cartesian and Non-Cartesian Way for Husserl (1975); KWANG-HIE SOH, Time and Time-Consciousness in A ugustine and Husserl ( 1977);

OH-HYUN SHIN, Sartre :5 Concept of the Self ( 1977);

KEEL-WOO LEE, Subjektivităt und lntersubjektivităt: Un­

tersuchungen zur Theorie des geistigen Seins bei E.

Husserl und N. Hartmann ( 1984 ); CHONG-HYON PAEK,

Phănomenologische Untersuchung zum Gegenstands­begrţff in Kants "Kritik der reinen Vernunfi" (1985);

JEONG-OK CHO, "Liebe" bei Max Scheler unter beson­derer Beriicksichtigung des Begriffs "Eros" ( 1990);

KWAN-SUNG CHO, Das Verstăndnis van Phiinomenologie bei Roman fngarden ( 1990); HAK-SOON KANG, Die Bedeutung von Heideggers Nietzsche-Deutung im Zuge der Verwindung der Metaphysik ( 1990); NAM-IN

LEE, Edmund Husserls Phănomenologie der Instinkte ( 1991 ); ZAE-SHICK CHOI, Der phănomenologische Feld­begriffbei Aran Gurwitsch (1994).

One may wonder what the central contribution of

Korean phenomenology thus far might be. More than

any other thought significantly accepted, transmitted,

and assimilated across national and cultural bound­

aries, phenomenology is conscious· ofthe problematics

of how and why such knowledge of the "other" is

possible. The factual encounter with and the possible

assimilation of an "alien world" (Fremdwelt) as dif­

ferent from my own "familiar world" (Heimwelt) is

predicated on the structure of the "horizon" and the

phenomenological sense of the WORLD as the "total

horizon" of human experience. The alien part of the

world, however, is never so totally severed from mine

or so abysmally strange as to defeat ali my efforts to

understand it. According to Husserl, it is always by

way ofprojecting and extrapolating from my own per­

spective that 1 can have access to an alien perspective

and assimilate it.

389

Time and again, students from Asia traveling to Eu­

rope would ha veto face the curious question from their

Western teachers and peers as to how they overcame the

barriers of language and the entirely different cultural

tradition. Without false modesty, Asian students nor­

mally responded by saying that they had "brought with

them" the basic ability to understand the seemingly dif­

ferent West and only failed previously to explain what

they have been doing ali along, which was to bring

what they already knew about their own tradition to

bear upon the new and unfamiliar one.

If Korean scholars have truly understood some of

the most basic problems of phenomenology "origi­

nally," it must be because they were able in princi­

ple to recognize them as their own problems. This

could be made manifest in the way they "interpret"

those problems "differently," and yet in a manner es­

sentially faithful to the phenomena. Until recently, this

"affinity recognition" has been ignored in the interest

ofintellectually more gratifying higher-level construc­

tions. But we have to descend into the lower layers

of conscious life and explicate the structures and re­

lations between what is "founding" and what is "be­

ing founded." Moods or basic states of mind ( Grund­stimmungen) such as anxiety, sorrow, shame, boredom,

wonder, and doubt are always there in reallife regulat­

ing the lifestyles of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Con­

fucianism, and Taoism, and yet, seldom analyzed in

their constituting function for the higher order of ideas

and values. They must become topics of sharpened

analysis. In this connection, NAM-IN LEE's recent work

has disclosed, through a great feat of empathetic read­

ing, a congenial ground in Husserl 's theory of instincts

that shows his phenomenology to be a "universal vol­

untarism." More intercultural phenomenology may be

built on this basis.

There ha ve also been attempts to apply the insights,

methodological and otherwise, gained of phenomen­

ology to inherently Korean thought. In Yul-Gok-kwa Merleau-Ponty bikyo Yengoo (A comparative study of

Yul-Gok and Merleau-Ponty, 1972), HYONG-HIO KIM has

compared, for example, Yul-Gok, a noted Confucian

scholar of 16th century Korea, with MAURICE MERLEAU­

PONTY. He also connects Husserl 's notion of LIFEWORLD

to the way the concept of TRUTH is formed in tradi­

tional Korean thought. But similar short essays by Kim

on ancient stories and myths can be regarded more as

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390 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

preliminary pointers than precedent-setting exemplars

in intercultural phenomenology. His most recent work,

Derrida-wa Nojang-uy Tokbup (Derrida and the art of

reading Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, 1987), is a much

more spirited attempt at an East-West synthesis that

merits international critica] review. Another philoso­

pher, .IYONG-BOK RIE, was a participant in the Third

Oriental Phenomenology Congress, sponsored by the

World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Re­

search and Learning ( 1992), and presented a paper en­

titled "Eine Hermeneutik des Symbols im Buch der

Wandlungen."

Most Korean phenomenologists, though trained in

Europe and multilingual, adjust to the academic envi­

ronment at home soon after returning, and are obliged

to publish for the most part in their native tongue.

Exceptions are those with long-term or permanent

overseas appointments, thus having much freer ac­

cess to conferences and publications in Westem lan­

guages. For example, a POLITIC AL SCIENTIST residing in

the United States, IIWA YOL JUNG, has made himself

known through erudite and elegant essays on pheno­

menological, existential, and hermeneutica! subjects.

Perhaps his "Heidegger's Way with Sinitic Thinking"

( 1987) should be mentioned as a typically intercultural

and international contribution by an overseas Korean scholar. YINHUI PARK, though now returned to Korea

permanently, was also a frequent participant in pheno­menological conversations in the U"'ITED STATES during

his decades-long teaching career in Boston.

However, a more durable bond has been estab­

lished between the international community of phe­

nomenologists and Korean scholars through the activ­

ities of KAH KYUNG cHo. His "Gedanken abseits der

dichotomischen Welterklarung" ( 1967) was the first

attempt by an Asian to review critically Heidegger's

relationship with Lao Tzu and his conversation with a

Japanese visitor entitled "Aus einem Geschach von der

Sprache." Cho's lecture, "Anschauung und Abstrak­

tion im Lichte der modernen Wissenschaftentheorie"

( 1969) was also the first major phenomenological pre­

sentation by a Korean scholar at an international con­

ference. More recently, at the Xlllth Conference ofthe

General Society of German Philosophy, Cho pointed

out the significance of physis for Heidegger's thought

of Being in a widely noted paper, "Die okologische

Suggestibilitat der Spatphilosophie Heideggers" (Eco-

logica! suggestibility in Heidegger's !ater philosophy, 1986).

Landgrebe noted in his introduction to Cho 's Be­wusstsein and Natursein ( 1987) that whereas most

Japanese tried to appropriate Husserlian phenomen­

ology by setting it against the background of Zen Bud­

dhism, Cho made his knowledge ofTaoist philosophy relevant to interpreting phenomenology. Phenomen­

ology was seen as an extreme form ofthe modern "phi­

losophy of consciousness." Gratifying though the great

degree of self-transparency was that consciousness

has achieved from its subject-centered coNSTITUTIVE­

PHENOMENOLOGIC AL perspective, Husserl himself even­

tually had to face the consequences of having blurred

the boundary of ordo essendi and ordo cognoscendi. His talk of the primacy of the lifewordly a priori, and

a bodily a priori, ofthe "norm-giving" authority ofthe "factual"- as well as his admission ofthe unsurpass­

ability of "world logic" by ali real as well as possible

logics-all this points to the limits ofthe philosophy of

consciousness and suggests the need for a different kind

of openness toward what !ies beyond consciousness.

Heidegger's !ater philosophy may be construed as an

attempt at opening such a consciousness-transcending

vîsta in an approximation to Lao Tzu's posture of"let­

ting be."

The future ofphenomenology in Korea depends on the possibility of creatively participating in ongoing

international dialogues. Fresh cues coming from reve­

lations about Husserl 's universal voluntarism and mon­

adology suggest, if anything, that the opportunity rad­

ically to rethink the problem of intersubjective and so­

cial understanding beckons- a very real opportunity

if multi cultural and ETHNIC diversity are to function in today's globallife with more than a semblance ofhar­

mony born offear. Lack ofvenues, especially for those

who were trained early to express themselves also in English or German, but having no means to keep it up

once they returned home, has been a sorely felt handi­

cap for Korean scholars. The recently inaugurated se­

ries of publication, Orbis Phănomeno/ogicus, holds

out a promise of bridging such a gap. Volumes under

preparation include Korean Contributions to Pheno­

menology.

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ALEXANDRE KOYRE 391

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Cho, Kah Kyung, ed. Philo~ophy and Science in Phenomen­ological Perspective. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984.

~. Bewusstsein und Natursein. Phănomenologischer West­Ost-Diwan. Freiburg: Karl A1ber, 1987.

Hahn, Jeon Sook. Hyensanghakuy ihhae [Understanding of phenomeno1ogy]. Seou1: Minumsa, 1984.

~. Hyensanghak: Gu Ppoorlilul Chajase [Phenomeno1ogy: In search of its roots]. Seou1: Minumsa, 1995.

Jung, Hwa Yol. "Heidegger's Way with Sinitic Thinking." In Heidegger and Asian Thought. Ed. Graham Parkes. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987,217--44.

Kim, Hyong-Hio. Gabriel Marcel-uy goochey chelhakkwa yejenquy hyengisanghak [The philosophy ofthe concrete and the metaphysics of being-on-the-way]. Seoul: In­gansarang, 1990.

~. Derrida-wa Nocang-uy Tokbup [Derrida and the art of reading Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu]. Seol: Hankwuk Jungsinmwunhwa Yenkuwen, 1987.

Kim, Young-Han. Heidegger-eyse Rica:ur-kkaji: Hyentay chelhakjek haysekhaklnva sinhakjek haysekhay [From Heidegger to Ricreur: Philosophical herrneneutics and theological hermeneutics of modem times]. Seoul: Bakyengsa, 1987.

Lee, Ki-Sang. Heidegger-uy siljonkwa ene [Existence and language in Heidegger]. Seoul: Mwunyey chwulphansa, 1991.

Lee, Nam-ln. Edmund Husserls Phănomenologie der In­stinkte. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993.

Park, Yinhui. Hyensanghakkwa bwunsekchelhak [Pheno­menology and analytic philosophy]. Seou1: Iljokak, 1977.

Seo, Gwang-11. Die Heidegger-Rezeption in Korea. Ph.D. diss., Diisse1dorf, 1991.

Shin, Oh-Hyun. Jayuwa bikuyk: Sartre-uy ingansiljonlon [Freedom and tragedy: Sartre's theory of human being]. Seou1: Moonhakga Jisengsa, 1979.

Suh, Woo-Suk. Umak hyensanghak [Music and phenomen­o1ogy]. Seoul: Seoul University Press, 1989.

KAH-KYUNG CHO State University of New York, Buffalo

NAM-IN LEE Seoul National University

ALEXANDRE KOYRE Koyre was bom in

Odessa on August 29, 1892, and died in Paris on April

28, 1964. He went to Paris in 1908, probably to study

mathematics (and philosophy). During winter 1909-

1 O he moved to Gottingen, at that time the "Mecca of

mathematics," where especially Ernst Zermelo ( 1871-

1953) was working on set-theoretic paraduxes such

as Russell 's antinomy, and ADOLF REINACH, appointed

Privatdozent only in 1909, was working on classical

paradoxes in philosophy (the liar, Zeno's paradoxes).

Already at the end of his first Gottingen semester, in

February 191 O, Koyre was a leading figure in the circle

of young students of phenomeno1ogy there. He man­

aged to procure for Reinach a set of the proofs of an

article on the psychology of judgment that Karl Marbe

(1869-1953) was about to publish; probab1y on this

basis Reinach criticized Marbe's views in an article on

negative judgment that appeared in 1911.

In summer 191 O, Koyre attended not only the lec­

tures of David Hi1bert (1862-1943) on fundamental

problems of mathematics, but also Reinach 's lecture

course on Plato, in which the pre-Socratics ( especially

Zen o, who is criticized along with Russell 's Principles

of Mathematics of 1903 ), Socrates, and three early di­

alogues by Plato were treated. Although Koyre stated,

in his own lntroduction a la !ee ture de Platon ( 1945),

that he had "leamed to understand Plato only by ex­

plaining him," it is noteworthy that in the first part of

this work he treats Meno, Protagoras, and Theaetetus,

which are precise1y the dialogues Reinach had dea1t

within1910.

In winter 1910--11 Koyre turned to experimen­

tal psychology and entered a lasting friendship with

David Katz (1884-1953), an assistant in psychology at

Gottingen whose psycho1ogical work was influenced

by Reinach. He a)so tumed to EDMUND HUSSERL. He

attended Husserl's lectures on logic as theory of cogni­

tion, those ofReinach on KANT's critique ofreason, and

the meetings of the Gottingen Philosophical Society,

where ali the students of phenomenology participated.

Together with Reinach, MAX SCHELER, and two other

students, he even participated in an "inner circle" of

this society where he presented his own ideas on math­

ematical and logica! paradoxes. He also discussed them

with Hilbert's assistant Richard Courant ( 1888-1972),

a cousin of EDITH STEIN.

In 1911 Koyre lectured to the society on HENRI BERG­

soN. He must have leamed about Bergsonian thought

in Paris. Husserl first heard of Bergson through this

lecture. In the same year Koyre prepared three unpub­

lished manuscripts, "Insolubilia," "Die Antinomien

der Mengenlehre," and "Paradoxa als Perpetuum mo­

bile." His very first publication, "Sur les nombres de

M. Russell" in Revue de Metaphysique et Morale,

carne from this fund of ideas. Russell 's definition of

number in The Principles of Mathematics was said

to contain paradoxes and thus could not serve as

Lester Embree, Elizabeth A. Behnke, David Carr, J. Claude Evans, Jose Huertas-Jourda, Joseph J. Kockelmans, William R. McKenna, Algis Mickunas, Jitendra Nath Mohanty, Thomas M. Seebohm, Richard M. Zaner ( eds.), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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392 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHENOMENOLOGY

a foundation for mathematics (Russell published a "Reponse a M. Koyre"). From the same source Koyre also derived "Bemerkungen zu den Zenonischen Para­doxen," which was published in Husserl 's Jahrhuch fiir Philosophie und phănomenologische Forschung in 1922. There he insists, against Reinach 's way of sol v­ing Zeno's problem by means of an analysis ofthe con­cept ofmotion, that the paradox in question is common to motion, infinity, and continuity and thus requires a broader framework for its solution. Notwithstanding this critica! approach, the article is dedicated "to the memory of AdolfReinach": Koyre's erstwhile teacher who had been killed in action in 1917. Finally, the two !ater articles, "The Liar" and "Manifold and Cate­gory," published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research after World War II, are ultimately drawn from the same fund of ideas.

In March 1912, Koyre submitted his manuscripts to Husserl, who studied them carefully and in part annotated and took excerpts from them. Neverthe­less, he considered them insufficient as a basis for Koyre's projected doctoral dissertation. Finding his way thus blocked, Koyre followed Reinach's advice and returned to France in late 1912 or early 1913. Like his lifelong friend and fellow Gottingen student HED­

WIG CONRAD-MARTIUS, he had meanwhile developed a strong interes! in religion. At the same time, Reinach 's vast erudition had aroused in him a strong interes! in the history of philosophy. Accordingly, he took the doctorat es lettres at the Sorbonne in June 1923 with two works, L 'idee de Dieu et les preuves de son exis­tence chez Descartes ( 1922) and L 'idee de Dieu dans la philosophie de Saint Anselme ( 1923). In his orals he defended Scheler's phenomenology of religion against the scholar of German literature Henri Lichtenberger (1864-1941).

After Reinach's death, Husserl became the lead­ing figure of the phenomenological movement for Koyre too. He paid him extended visits, first in July 1921 and again in September and October 1922. An­other visit in October 1928 was meant to help pre­pare Husserl 's Paris lectures, for which Husserl had been invited by Lichtenberger at Koyre's instigation. In these lectures, given in February 1929, Husserl re­ferred publicly to "the fine and profound investigations of Messrs. Gilson and Koyre" that had made clear the presence of Scholastic thought in Descartes 's philoso-

phy. Husserl had worked out a summary ofthese lec­tures for the French audience and the translation, while anonymous, is without doubt the work of Koyre. In Paris Husserl was also present at Koyre 's defense of his thesis, La philosophie de .Jacoh Boehme ( 1929). Part of it also appeared, in Conrad-Martius's trans­lation, as "Die Gotteslehre Jakob Boehmes" in the Husserl Festschrift ( 1929). Koyre was a bie to travel to Freiburg for the presentation because of a grant from Husserl. A month !ater Husserl sent the expanded manuscript ofhis Paris lectures to Koyre, who revised the french translation of it by EMMANUEL LFVINAS and Gabrielle Pfeiffer and supervised the publication of Husserl 's las! book, Meditations Cartesiennes (1931 ); in fact, Husserl considered him as the "true translator" of this work. In July 1932, while Koyre was staying with Husserl for what was to be his last visit to Ger­many, Husserl was elected a Corresponding Member of the French Academie des Sciences morales et poli­tiques. Here again Koyre had played a decisive role by writing the four-page report to Leon Brunschvicg (1869-1944) on the basis ofwhich Husserl was elected.

In Paris, Koyre co-founded the journal Recherches Philosophiques ( 193 I-36), which introduced pheno­menology into FRANCE by publishing translations of work by, among others, Conrad-Martius, HELMUTII

PLESSNER, OSKAR BECKER, MARTIN HEIDEGGER, and KARL

LOWITH. The journal also published the first studies of JEAN WAHL, GABRIEL MARCEL, and JEAN-PAUL SARTRE.

When an eventually short-lived scientific committee for the edition of Scheler's posthumous work (he had died in 1928) was formed in 1932, Koyre was called to serve on its board. He was also among the first members ofthe International Phenomenological Soci­ety founded by MARVIN FARBER in 1940. Nevertheless, he told HERBERT SPIEGELBERG in 1956 that he did not know whether he was a phenomenologist or not. At the same time, however, he spoke ofHusserl 's influence on him as decisive. Actually, this statement results from a certain distortion of historical perspective, for the Platonic realism, historical approach, and high regard for medieval objectivism that Koyre on that occasion erroneously attributed to Husserl are ali hallmarks of Reinach 's approach.

It was also in line with Reinach that at the 1932 meeting of the Societe Thomiste in Juvisy on pheno­menology Koyre declared himself in agreement with

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ALEXANDRE KOYRE 393

Edith Stein, who asserted: "Husserl never managed

to convince any of his old students of the necessity

to arrive at a transcendental idealism." Such expres­

sions werc more of general convictions inherited from

Reinach, rather than thcmes Koyre would ha ve worked

on, for his interest in the connection between the his­

tory of philosophy and that of RELIGION soon had also

led him to the bistory of NATURAL SCILNCE. It is in these

historical fields and above ali on their interconnection

that his work had become concentrated and that he at­

tained prominence. During 1922--40 he taught mainly

at the Ecole Pratique des Hautcs Etudes in Paris. In

1941 he became Professor at the French Ecole Libre

co-foundcd by him at the New School for Social Re­

search in New York. He returned to the Ecole Pratique

in 1945 and continued teaching there, except for vis­

its to the UNITED STATES (Columbia University, Univer­

sity of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and above

ali the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study), which

continued until 1962.

Koyn!'s work spans an amazing variety ofthemes.

As regards the history of phi1osophy, he published,

besides his aforementioned books on Plato, Anselm,

and Descartes, annotated French translations of texts

by Anselm, Fides quaerens intellectum (1927), and

Spinoza, Trai te de la reforme de l'entendement ( 1936).

In 1944 his Entretiens sur Descartes appeared. He

had written La philosophie et le probleme national

en Russie au debut du X!Xe siecle in 1929. A col­

lection of related articles appeared in 1950 under the

tit le Etudes d 'histoire de la pensee philosophique en

Russie. Another collection, Etudes d 'histoire de la

pensee philosophique ( 1961 ), brings together articles

on Condorcet, Hegel, Louis de Bonald, and Heidegger.

As concerns the history of religious thought, in

1955 Koyre published, in addition to his early book

on Boehme, a collection of articles, Mystiques, spir­

ituels, alchimistes du XV!e siecle allemand dealing

with Valentin Weigel, Caspar Schwenckfeld, Sebas­

tian Franck, and Paracelsus. But he is above ali the

author of severa! major classics in history of sci­

ence, such as his Etudes galileennes (Galilean stud­

ies, 1940), on the laws of falling bodies and iner-

tia; From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe

( 1957), which traces the history of cosmology from

Nicholas of Cusa to Leibniz; and the more special­

ized work, La revolution astronomique, Copernic, Ke­

plet: Borelli ( 1961 ). In 1965, 1. B. Cohen published

Koyre's Newtonian Studies on Newton's "Rules of

Phi1osophizing," his optics, and the law of attrac­

tion posthumously. A year !ater Rene Taton collected

most of Koyre 's articles on Leonardo da Vinei, Gio­

vanni Battista Benedetti, Galileo, Bonaventura Cav­

alieri, Pierre Gassendi, Nicolo Tartaglia, and Blaise

Pascal under the title Etudes d 'histoire de la pensee

scientifique. Already in 1934 Koyre had published an

annotated French trans1ation ofBook I ofCopernicus's

main work as N. Copernic, Des revolutions des orbes

celestes. Togetherwith 1. B. Cohen he also prepared the

two-volume critica] cdition of Newton's main work,

Philosophiae natura lis principia mathematica ( 1972).

Materials of a more biographical nature are contained

in De la mystique a la science: Cours, conferences

et documents 1922-1962, edited by Pietro Redondi in

1986. Koyre's influence made itself fe1t above ali among

historians of science in the United States, France, and

Italy. More particularly, it should be mentioned that

Thomas Kuhn developed his theory of paradigms out

of Koyre's work, where the very expression "scien­

tific revolution" was coined. A two-volume Festschrift,

Metanges Alexandre Koyre publies a l'occasion de son

70e anniversaire ( 1964), testifies to his unique signif­

icance in this field. An issue of the Revue d 'Histoire

des Sciences et leurs Applications ( 1965) is devoted

to his memory; also worthy of mention is Gerard Jor­

land, La science dans la philosophie. Les recherches

epistemologiques d 'Aiexandre Koyre (1981 ). Under

the title Science: The Renaissance of a History, Pietro

Redondi published the proceedings of a conference on

Koyre's thought in an issue of History and Technol­

ogy. Koyre's Nachlass is kept at the Centre Alexandre

Koyre, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris.

KARL SCHUHMANN Universiteit Urrechr