Damn Prof. Thorsby, you know how to make this topic digestible. Trying to work my way through Husserl before I attempt to read Heidegger again and you're making it much smoother.
I've been struggling with Husserl and this essay. Very clear presentation that makes reading continental philosophy more enjoyable. Plan to be back frequently for all content. Subscribed
Missed a flight last night and would have listened to this waking up in der schwarzwald just north of Frieberg... instead events, the insufficient application of reason, a rare but inevitable unexpected consequence of the principle caused something else. Thanks (nevertheless :-)) to Mark for such a great job!
Excellent class Professor Thorsby, I am enjoying it very much. I just wanted to bring that Husserl was Jewish by some genetics, but was a Christian German citizen, (not that it matters): "...(...) "In 1886 he went to Halle, where he studied psychology and wrote his(...). He also was baptized. /(the same year)/ The next year he became Privatdozent at Halle and married a woman from theProssnitz Jewish community, Malvine Charlotte Steinschneider, who was baptized before the wedding. The couple had three children." (...)" IEP (Marianne Sawicki) He is the example of the cruelty and evilness of the Nazi ideology. After being one of Historical luminaries of German Philosophy he became an "untouchable", and died in 1938, before WWII, and having lost children fighting with the German Army in the First World War, he was stripped of all his rights as a German citizen and also as a member of Academia.
What is emerging across Professor Thorsby's depiction of Husserl's understanding of phenomenology, is something of a turf war in Husserl's mind, between mathematics/logic and psychology; where characterising psychology as naturalistic is a strawman device in Husserl's commitment to science, and concomitantly to mathematics and logic as the final arbitrators of what is real and true. Husserl's limitation for us then is, that 80 odd years down the line in time, we have given over to a greater understanding from the social sciences. Where now we displace the simplicity of Husserl's idea of naturalism, with the rich complexity of all things social and collective and cultural; where Husserl's naturalism is seen as a component part of a collective ideology which we have long left behind. Husserl was another elite figure who sought to comprehend all things from an elite position and for elite purposes; where we now see and understand such things as what they are. Elite activities are reflections of what is done in a distributed way across all humanity, in all its diversity and multiplicity of instances. The elite philosophising of a moment reflects the philosophising that a contextualising population are doing. Rather than leading this overall process, elite philosophising needs to be serving this wider activity. Forget the eternal and communicating with aliens; and contribute to enhancing what members of a population are already doing. Science isn't then the answer to everything'; rather science is simply one grand activity amongst numerous other grand activities. "1+1=2" only works when we are already experiencing sameness. If and as we continue to experience uniqueness or singularity, we do not have experience across which 1+1=2 is pragmatically validated. I sometimes wonder as to just how dialogue went, when people went through the process of moving 1+1=2 from being meangingless to being valid and having utility. I've worked with children educationally who found nothing in their experience to validate the idea of 1+1=2. Psychology is as much a concern with relating and interacting, with subjectivity and intersubjectivity, with the mystery and wonder of the other, with how we become self across the view of us by others; as it is as depicted by Husserl. In many ways the psychologist is the ultimate philosopher, seeking realtime understanding across realtime relation.
Many thanks for these very helpful lectures! Your explanations are really clear. So grateful for the work you've not only put into the videos but into the subject itself. You clearly know your stuff and succeed in conveying difficult concepts with an ease that allows the listener to begin to really get it!
I am told by certain pedagogues that science is essentially an experimental activity seeking to find rules/laws by which reality can be subjected to predictive definite outcomes. Mathematics is an abstract endeavor that assists science as a descriptive tool but evolves independently of science using its own methods. Philosophy offers abstract prescriptive methods of thinking to evaluate any problem, As such, the methods of Phenomenology remain one of the most powerful tools scientists can have to reject assumption, dogma, any weak hypothesis in the search for the truth.
This lecture was extremely intereseting and helpful, and tbh, way better than my course current ongoing course of phenomenology. If you have a prior idea of the subject, your lecture really helps to knit that blanket and see the purpose and meaning of the subject. Thank you.
The problem with mathematics being the universal language with aliens is that mathematics isn't a language - but a set of concepts that requires a language to communicate. If I write "1+1=2" - that won't mean anything to you unless you are familiar with one funny shape that means "one", another funny shape that means "two", another that means "plus", another that means "equal" - as well as other things such as the way these funny shapes go together. Unless you're familiar with all these symbols (which are the _language_ of mathematics) then "1+1=2" won't seem like a mathematical equation to you, but rather, a scribble.
This seems to be getting to the crux of what it might all be about. I've been wondering whether phenomenology was useful, or just some intellectual meandering of little worldly value. I'm still trying to decide. Thank you for doing a great job on trying to elucidate the topic.
LOL. I keep seeing the 1st of February and the number 40 everywhere. Ian Brown - who I am a fan of - bringing forward his latest album release date from the 1st of March to the 1st of February. This video being released on the 1st of February. And this year being the 40th anniversary of the "Disco Sucks" campaign in the USA and the "Disco Demolition Night" at White Sox Baseball stadium in Chicago (arguably a fore runner of the present day "culture war"). I get it okay - I turn 40 years old on February 1st.
Excellent content, really appreciate you going to the trouble of sharing it with us. One suggestion that would improve the presentation: stop saying "right?" every 3 words 🙂
I’m sorry Mark, I know you are doing a wonderful job, but as a Philosopher, a theorist and a creator of a new concept of Science called Pazl Phenomenology. (Pazl meaning Puzzle in Greek.) I feel that your teachings are more focused in comparisons between different studies, than the subject itself. The whole idea of Philosophy is the freedom to think the unthinkable, using the mind as a tool of innovative possibilities and not conform with the restrictions of theoretical stablished sciences. Trying to fit Phenomenology with Naturalism, Psychology, Mathematics is like comparing Bananas, with Oranges and Apples. Each are unique and doesn’t need the others to exist. To me, Consciousness is the flow of Epiphanies . 🦋
The definition of philosophy, psychology of a branch of philosophy and not excluded from it,phi·los·o·phyfəˈläsəfē/nounthe study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.
Hi Mark, I notice that you make a reading mistake at 38:21. I am a german student and know we are studying about Logic. At Minute 38:21 you make a reading mistake and i want to know, if you mean "condition" or "conclusion". May first "condition" and afterwards "conclusion". I do not know, if there is a difference in english, but i assume, that there is the same difference in english than in german. I will mean a loot to me, if you clarify this for me. Your Explanation about Edmund Husserls Philosophie are very helpful. Thank you for your time. Best regards
I believe that a much better example for a philosopher mathematician would be Gottfried Leibniz. Other great examples are Russell, Descartes, and, of course, the Greeks (Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato)
Epistemology is incompatible with Phenomenology, so he will not teach it. Epistemology is based on objective reality and not abstract concepts that do not exist in objective reality,
I'am because I experience. I'am the essence of my existence because I can experience life, without experience you can know nothing and therefore cannot reason about anything ---- we were not born with any innate knowledge but with a blank slate. If you say that conscious exists since conscious is a predicate it is a false predicate premise argument, being conscious is a verb and cannot exist without an object to the verb, what exists is our essence and conscious is the activity that our essence does ----this is proven by the fact we can be unconscious and wake up and we still exist -----our essence exists if we are conscious or not,
The physical you is certainly not the idea you have of you, therefore not you in totality. You exist with all of your essence because the universe is in agreement with itself that you exist. Therefore your “essence” is because of the subjective world, I.e. the conscious in totality of the universe.
Subjectivism ➡ Backwards rationalize to try to justify sciences ➡ decide how other people interpret sciences. The kicker? None of this matters. 2 + 2 might not equal 4 if someone observes the 2 as 3 separate entities. Everyone interprets sciences differently. "Rigor" doesn't matter no matter how much we try to backwards rationalize the sciences. It just so happens that most people interpret other people interpreting the sciences in a similar way, so it makes us feel bonded. I venture that if these philosophers really examined cartesian skepticism and solipsism, they might see phenomonology the same way.
I wish you didn't start with _Philosophy as a Rigorous Science_ because every time I hear what Husserl says in it, especially the part where Philosophy had never begun, I get irked. I have _Logical Investigations Vol. 1_ and I've sections 1-20, but the claims has this seemingness of being irresponsibility. That the work of Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Hegel, while he will bring back some, are dismissed as unnecessary. Philosophy is difficult in the fact that we cannot truly make a canon of work, or doctrines as you put it for Husserl, but in a way this supposed weakness is almost a light of hope. Not that this would be based on the passion of the matter, but that there is a complexity that science and analysis can't itself comprehend. In the end, what Husserl did against Psychologism was good and so are his investigations, but perhaps where he claimed Philosophy didn't have an object, and I believe this to be so, there was an object that he missed.
If phenomenology proceeds from Descartes - what did Descartes say? the mind is conscious and is immaterial, whereas everything else is material. Okay. Now, how can we possibly assign transcendental structures to consciousness or mind, that is something immaterial? But in phenomenology, we do assume that our consciousness has certain pre-given structures, that makes the experience possible. This means -- we cannot assume that consciousness is immaterial (Descartes view). Also, Edmund Husserl said - our consciousness has certain features and structures -- this means consciousness must be material. So, in phenomenology - what is consciousness - a material or immaterial? If it is immaterial, how can say, it has a structure? Please resolve this dilemma.
It is essential to know where I am coming from. I am coming from the eastern conception of consciousness. In the Eastern religions and yoga traditions -- consciousness is immaterial, Self, formless, with no qualities. According to Eastern religions, consciousness is Truth-Existence-Bliss. It is only the Self (our spirit) that is conscious. The mind is material (dead like cardboard) and thus can be assigned structures. Interestingly, Edmund Husserl did assign structures to the mind but he called it consciousness.
from my past experience with objective epistemology it seems like phenomenology is bullshit, "ANY IDEALS ARE ABSTRACT CONCEPTS THAT DON'T EXIST" for example Mickey Mouse, the Tooth Fairy or Mother Goose do not exist in objective reality, only identities and the relationship of those identities to each other exist in reality. ---for the example words do not exist but they are just symbols that refer to objects in objective reality that do exist. What conscious is ------is biochemical reactions and neurotransmitters in the brain, naturalism is just one of the identities in objective reality, along with all matter of the universe, quantum waves, and other identies. It seems like the whole study of phenomenology is the study of non-existent abstract concepts, ideas don't exist. Conscious is just part of the viol chemical processes of our body that cease to exist upon our death when those processes cease to function anymore,
