The Great Chain of Being and Italian Phenomenology

349 Pages·1981·10.585 MB·English

by  Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (auth.), Angela Ales Bello (eds.)

THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING AND ITALIAN PHENOMENOLOGY
ANALECT A HUSSERLIANA
THE YEARBOOK OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
VOLUME XI
Editor:
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning
Belmont, Massachusetts
THE GREAT CHAIN OF
BEING
and
ITALIAN
PHENOMENOLOGY
Edited by
ANGELA ALES BELLO
Centro Italiano di Fenomenologia, Rome
and
The World Institute tor Advanced Phenomenological Research
and Learning, Belmont, Massachusetts
SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
The Great chain of being and Italian phenomenology.
(Analecta H usserliana ; v. 11)
Includes research reports of the World Institute for Advanced
Phenomenological Research and Learning, the Centro italiano de
fenomenologia, and selected papers presented at two meetings held in Feb.
and Mar. 1979, in Viterbo and Rome, Italy.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Phenomenology-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Husserl,
Edmund, 1859-1938-Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Ontology
Addresses, essays, lectures. 4. Philosophy, Italian-20th century
Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Ales Bello, Angela. n. Centro
italiano di fenomenologia. Ill. World Institute for Advanced Pheno
menological Research and Learning. IV. Series.
B3279.H94A129 vol. 11 [B829.5] 142'.7s 80-19100
[142'.7]
ISBN 978-94-011-7988-1 ISBN 978-94-009-8366-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-009-8366-3
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1981 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by D. Reide1 Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1981
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1981
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reprodu<:ed or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
T ABLE OF CONTENTS
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA / The Theme - Counter to the
Spirit of Our Time and Italian Phenomenology ix
ANGELA ALES BELLO / Introduction xv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS x~
PART I: THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING IN
PHENOMENOLOGY
A. THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING AND CREATIVE IMAGINATION
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA / Existence and Order 5
EUGENE KAELIN / Exposition: Man-the-Creator and the "Prototype
of Action" 11
B. UPSTREAM ENQUIRIES
ANGELA ALES BELLO / Le probleme de l'etre dans la phenomeno-
logie de Husserl 41
J. DE FINANCE / Les degres de l'etre chez saint Thomas d'Aquin 51
Y. BELA V AL / Leibniz et la chaine des etres 59
W. H. WERKMEISTER / Kant, Nicolai Hartmann, and the Great Chain
of Being 69
ROBERT SWEENEY / The "Great Chain of Being" in Scheler's Phi-
losophy 99
PHILIBERT SECRETAN / Edith Stein on the "Order and Chain of
Being" 113
CARDINAL KAROL WOJTYLA / The Degrees of Being from the
Point of View of the Phenomenology of Action 125
ANNEX
Program of the Roman Symposium (27-28 March 1976) 132
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART II: ITALIAN PHENOMENOLOGY
A. PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES
ANGELA ALES BELLO I Phenomenology and Science: An Anno-
tated Bibliography of Work in Italy 137
AURELIO RIZZACASA I Epistemological and Phenomenological
Considerations about the Natural Sciences in the Thought of E.
Husserl 147
PAOLO VALORI I Moral Philosophy and the Human Sciences 157
B. CALLIERI AND A. CASTELLANI/On the Psychopathology of
the Life-World 173
MAURIZIO DE NEGRI I Some Indications toward aPhenomenolog-
ically Oriented Approach to Child Neuropsychiatry 203
EUGENIO BORGNA / Phenomenology of the Schizophrenic Split 213
B. HUSSERLIAN INVESTIGATIONS
RENZO RAGGIUNTI I The Language Problem in Husserl's Phenom-
enology 225
FILIPPO COSTA / The Phenomenology of External Objects according
to Ding und Raum 279
ROSA MIGNOSI / Reawakening and Resistance: A Stoic Source of
the Husserlian Epoch/; 311
FILIPPO L1VERlIANI / The Phenomenology of Religion as a Science
and as a Philosophy 321
ELIO CONST ANTINI / Einflihlung und Intersubjektivitat bei Edith
Stein und bei Hussed 335
Annex: Conference Program (Viterbo, 24-25 February 1979) 341
INDEX OF NAMES 345
Angela Ales Bello speaking. Next to her are Mario San cipriano and A.-T. Tymieniecka.
Angela Ales Bello and A.-T. Tymieniecka at the heads of the table at one of our Roman
dinners. Among others at the table are Gareth Halett, Henrik Houtakker, and P. Santoro.
ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
THE THEME
COUNTER TO THE SPIRIT OF OUR TIME
and
IT ALlAN PHENOMENOLOGY
The present volume contains the work deriving from the initial phase of the
collaboration between The World Phenomenology Institute and Italian
scholars, together with the proceedings of the Annual Convention of the
Centro Italiano de Ricerche Fenomenomenologiche of Rome held February
24-25, 1979, and some additional research. Together with volume IX of the
ANALECTA it assesses our fruitful work in Italy.
In our age, we may say, man is the center of attention. Yet the spirit
of "humanism" is lost. Such a variety of ways have been proposed by the
multifarious cultures clamouring to make themselves heard - ways of inter
preting what it means "to be human" - that the essential sense of man's
"humanity" which lies at the ·roots of these approaches does not come into
its own. Indeed, it remains completely ignored.
This sense of humanity, or of "what makes man specifically human",
cannot be identified with any particular human faculty, with any peculiar
aspect of his existence, with any singular feature of his life-world. Neither
could their mere sum total yield the necessary insight into what makes up
the meaningfulness of human destiny. Although aiming, as we know, at the
vindication of the "complete man", the phenomenological anthropologies
remained limited to their own j;>iases, due predOminantly to the prevailing
assumptions of the cultures from which they have emerged. On the one hand,
the predominant prestige of positive science has left its "dehumanizing" mark
upon the life-world, the world of the thinker himself. On the other hand, a
concurrent "disillusionment" has corrupted the Western spiritual climate,
calling in question the higher aspirations and ideals of man, ideals which in
previous cultural epochs determined the "humanistic" faith of man, and so
undermined the very foundations of the culture of our times, causing our
view of man to shrink to the bare minimum. This shrinkage expresses itself
in the approach to any object of reflection or inquiry by a certain onesided
ness, a certain limitation to some self-enclosed segment, which loses its link
to the whole - of which it is in fact an organic part.
ix
x ANNA-TERESA TYMIENIECKA
This shrinkage - as is only too well known and too much emphasised -
this shrinkage at the heart of the great majority of variants expressing Westent
culture appears with a striking force when contrasted with the way in which
our central phenomenological issue of man in-the-human-condition is received
by Italian scholars. Until now nurtured by the humanistic culture of the
Renaissance, which saw man fully "human" only when approached in the
entirety of his being and from within the viewpoint of his noblest and highest
aspirations, the Italian scholar has remained ever responsive to this profound
insight into the nature of man, while enriching it continuously through the
scientific and social debate of our times. The philosophies of Croce, Gentile,
Sciacca, which have prevailed in Italy until recently, continued the tradition
through their cultural and historical emphasis. Now that their influence has
faded away, our vast program of the phenomenology-of-man-and-the-human
condition seems to offer to the Italian philosopher the best opportunity of
making a link between his innermost humanistic tendency and the possibility
of pursuing his own specific interests.
This appears to me to account clearly for the vivid and creative response
found in Italy to the activities and projects of The International Husserl and
Phenomenological Research Society - later expanded into The World Institute
for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning with its two other
International Societies reaching respectively into the field of Phenomenology
and Literature and that of Phenomenology and the Human Sciences. I believe
it explains also the expansion and unique enrichment of our common research
work brought about by the collaboration with our Italian colleagues.
In fact, our collaboration with the Italian scholars had already been in
itiated by the participation in the second International Congress of our IHPRS
(held in September 1972 in New York), of Professor Mario San cipriano whom
I invited after I had become acquainted with his work on Husser!. But it took
on a larger scope in 1974 in Rome when Professor B. D'Amore entrusted us
with the task of moderating (together with Professor A. Dondeyne of Louvain)
the phenomenology session of the International Congress of Thomas Aquinas,
in the program of which all major contemporary trends were represented. It
was then that I had the opportunity of meeting with several Italian as well as
foreign phenomenological scholars that I had not previously met. This en
counter became, in fact, not only a germinal point for our work in Italy but
also for its radiation into other spheres of collaboration.
In the first place we then met with the Italian Professors Paolo Valori,
Filipo Liverziani, Rizzacasa, Constantini and the professoressa Ales Bello,
who took the steering-wheel when we together formed The Centro Italiano di
THE THEME xi
Fenomenologia shortly thereafter. On the same occasion, however, there were
present some foreign scholars such as Philibert Secretan, Andre de Muralt,
Jean Claude Piguet, and others who thereafter joined our work and also took
part in some of our other Italian symposia.
The Rome phenomenology center soon became an autonomous group,
bringing together not only Italian but also foreign scholars - such as our
American, French, and Swiss collaborators. Furthermore, during our Inter
national Phenomenology Congress in Arezzo/Siena I launched the third of
the Institute's outward bound organs: The International Society for Pheno
menology and Human Sciences. This focus upon our interdisciplinary pheno
menology attracted much attention from Italian scholars, psychiatrists in
particular, who have joined our work in a vigorous fashion.
In a short time our work with the Italian group has gained an enthusiastic
response from our collaborators in our countries. Professor Paul Ricoeur
consented to preside over our YIth International Conference on Phenom
enology at Arezzo/Siena, a conference which attracted much international
participation. Among the distinguished foreign scholars were Professor
Stephan Strasser from Nijmegen, Erling Eng from Lexington, Kentucky, and
others. In the honorary committee of the conference we were joined by our
collaborators from Japan, Germany, Switzerland, etc. as well as by all the
major centers of phenomenological research.
For some of them, like Cardinal Wojtyia, it has been easier to participate
in person in our Italian programs - as we see in the present volume - than
in our congresses in other countries where, with some exceptions, he had
to have his material read in absentia. It was on account of a Rome meeting
that we entered into contact with the Cardinal. In fact, when in the summer
of 1972 I was requested to represent American scholarship on the Scientific
Committee of the Thomas Aquinas Congress, I took the initiative - with the
approval of the organizers - to go personally on the 20th and 21 st of August
1973, to see the Cardinal in Cracow and to invite him to give a paper in the
phenomenology session. The Cardinal was at filSt hesitant to enter as a phi
losopher on the international scene. Yet he accepted and read his paper at
the plenary session. He also participated in our debate and from this time on
continued to collaborate with the Institute. This collaboration took place at
several of our Congresses held in Europe but also extended into his July 1976
lecturing tour in the USA which I organized for him. (His lectures included
one on July 26th at Harvard, sponsored by the Harvard summer school, for
which we made the preparations together with Mr Thomas Crooks, the Direc
tor, and one on July 29th at the Catholic University of America, sponsored