Crisis and Husserlian Phenomenology: A Reflection on Awakened Subjectivity

257 Pages·2021·1.921 MB·English

by  Kenneth Knies

Crisis and Husserlian Phenomenology
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Crisis and Husserlian

Phenomenology
A Reflection on Awakened Subjectivity
Kenneth Knies
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2021
Copyright © Kenneth Knies, 2021
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Knies, Kenneth, author.
Title: Crisis and Husserlian phenomenology : a reflection on awakened
subjectivity / Kenneth Knies.
Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020019586 (print) | LCCN 2020019587 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350145214 (hb) | ISBN 9781350145221 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781350145238 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Husserl, Edmund, 1859–1938. | Crises (Philosophy) |
Phenomenology. | Subjectivity.
Classification: LCC B3279.H94 K57 2020 (print) |
LCC B3279.H94 (ebook) | DDC 142/.7–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019586
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020019587
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-4521-4
ePDF: 978-1-3501-4522-1
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Contents

Acknowledgments viii
Introduction 1
Part 1 Awakened Subjectivity 11
Division A The Phenomenology of Having Presupposed 13
1. Bringing Presuppositions Back to Life 13
2. Realization and Reflection 17
3. Realization and Having Presupposed 20
4. Awakening and Naïveté 23
5. The “I” Who Presupposed 27
6. The Devaluation of Naïve Life 33
7. Basic Integrity 35
8. Jeopardy 43
9. The Finality of Wakeful Life 45
10. Appropriative Reflection 49
11. Illusions 55
Division B Levels of Awakening and Appropriation 59
1. Awakening and Reality: The Mundane Attitude 59
2. Reality and World 62
3. Provinciality and Worldliness 64
4. The Ideal of Reclaiming the World 72
5. Transition to the Phenomenological Level 80
6. The Consuming Interest of the Natural Attitude 82
7. Naïve World-Belief as a Transcendental Accomplishment 90
8. Self-Reflection, Self-Creation, Self-Realization 96
9. The Finality of Phenomenological Wakefulness 98
10. Complete Maturation 106
11. The Devaluation of Natural-Attitude Life 108
12. Phenomenological Awakening and Jeopardy 111
vi Contents
13. The Idea of an Enlightenment Project 118
14. The Presupposition of an Enlightenment Project 120
15. Critical-Historical Appropriation 124
16. The History of Philosophy and Philosophical History 128
17. Crisis and Hope 129
18. Phenomenological and Critical-Historical
Appropriation 131
Part 2 The Crisis Problematic 135
Division A Husserl and the Ultimate Presuppositions 137
1. The Idea of an Independent Introduction 137
2. From Philosophical Epoché to Historical Intervention 139
3. Philosophical Epoché versus Historical Intervention 142
4. The Inevitability of Crisis 146
5. Crisis as a Medical Concept 150
6. Husserl’s Appropriative Concepts 154
7. The Practical Extension of Phenomenological Reason 155
8. Historical Teleology: Contemplative and
Interventionist 159
9. Mythmaking and the Will to Believe 164
10. Relation between the Two Dimensions
of Appropriation 167
11. Relation between the Practical Extension and
Phenomenology Proper 170
Division B Husserl and the Subject of Crisis 173
1. Two Ideas of Science 174
2. Descartes 176
3. Hume 178
4. Kant 180
5. Decision between the Two Scientific Ideas 182
6. The Definition of Europe 187
7. The Nation and Political Historicity 189
8. Denationalization 196
9. Renaissance 199
10. Europeanization 202
Contents vii
11. The Problem of European Hypocrisy 204
12. The Problem of European Exceptionalism 210
13. Philosophical Seriousness 214
Conclusion: Owning Philosophy 217
Notes 221
References 235
Index of Names 243
Index of Subjects 245
Acknowledgments

I am grateful to have known so many insightful and patient conversationalists
who never tire of talking philosophy. Without their companionship, it would
have been difficult to continue believing in the importance of ideas that don’t
make anything run. I am especially indebted to two former colleagues, Ed Papa
and Marcello Kilani, for keeping me focused on this book. I am also mindful
of the many people who made it possible for me to continue professionally in
philosophy by giving generously of their time, advice, and resources. Special
thanks in this regard to Donn Welton and George Heffernan. Finally, I want
to acknowledge an anonymous reviewer from whose thoroughness I benefited
greatly.
Introduction
Consider the experience of realizing something that had previously escaped
notice. Such realizations bring to light a strange kind of failure. It is not just
that I did not notice something that I now notice. Instead, I am aware that what
I now realize was previously noticeable for me but somehow inaccessible. I was
blind to something that I now see to have been available all along. Of what I now
realize, it seems true both that I was able and that I was unable to notice it before.
It is as if I were kept from grasping something within my reach. In the experience
under consideration, nothing external kept me from noticing what I now realize.
I who realize hold myself responsible. We call “naïveté” this peculiar way of
failing to notice and “awakening” the process of discovering this failure.
Reflecting on the awakening to naïveté raises difficulties about subjectivity
and responsibility of special concern to phenomenology. We can anticipate
these difficulties by noting that phenomenology is at once a philosophy of
consciousness and a philosophy of crisis. Phenomenology is a philosophy of
consciousness not in the sense that it is the philosophical study of a particular
topic, consciousness. Phenomenology is rather a philosophy according to which
the philosophical study of any topic proceeds via the study of consciousness. It
is through actual and possible consciousness that whatever is not consciousness
is what it truly is. This insight that consciousness functions transcendentally for
all objectivity is the epicenter from which phenomenological researches radiate.
Having established this insight, phenomenology has access to its subject matter
in a unique way. Everything that exists in the material, animal, and spiritual
realms can be elucidated in its being with reference to conscious activities that are
open to reflection for the one who takes these things to be. Some consciousness
is clear and some obscure. But they are both equally available as what they are
to reflection. If consciousness is, nothing needs to happen for it to be available.
The methods that make manifest its contents move within the availability of
consciousness to itself.