The most important 20th century innovation was phenomenology. Although the term was first used by Hegel, phenomenology as developed by Edmund Husserl was not as ambitious. What it did seek, however, was a grounding of mathematics and the empirical sciences that was better than "common sense". To that end, he intended to give a refined description of the way various objects presented themselves in consciousness. He considered the question of what was unavailable to consciousness moot. Since we never contemplate the "thing- in- itself", but only the phenomena, what difference does it make if the phenomenon is exhaustively revealing? It is good enough for us. He spent most of his time promoting and refining the method, only performing one phenomenological analysis of any length, published as "The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness".
After Husserl, phenomenology tended to go in two directions: one, more or less faithful to Husserl, but less interested in his program of seeking a foundation for the sciences, and more interested in finding a foundation for philosophical anthropology, by doing phenomenological analyses of key concepts of religious, aesthetic, and moral value.
The other, more influential tendency, originated with Martin Heidegger, who was a student of Husserl's and had, in fact, helped him complete the manuscript of "The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness". Heidegger found Husserl's indifference to the "thing- in- itself" inadequate, and developed phenomenological analysis of the interaction between "Dasein" (the human consciousness thrown into the world at a particular point) and Being (the "thing- in- itself" conceived of as a unit). The world arises out of the confrontation of the two, in consciousness. We are educated into a certain relationship with Being, although part of it follows natural contours of experience. Heidegger developed a thesis that Western culture, beginning with Plato, had started on a trajectory which had consciousness and intentionality imposing too much on Being, and therefore inhibiting the discovery of what Being has to offer, and the establishment of an inauthentic relationship with Being. He became fascinated with a somewhat eccentric philological analysis of Greek and Latin words to show what he thought the original, fresh encounter with Being might have been like, among the pre- Socratics, for example, and how later philosophy, especially as translated into Latin, had hidden that original sense of the encounter.
Now, about the same time, similar themes were being explored by Karl Jaspers, who emphasized the way in which the rational was surrounded by something beyond itself, but in which it oriented itself, and the various ways philosophers had dealt with the encounter with Being, and sought to interpret it through what is known. Martin Buber was contemplating something similar, but emphasizing that we are prejudicing the issue by regarding Being as if it were an object, rather than a "Thou", something like a Person, to relate to. Heidegger helped to influence their work, and also to make philosophy more receptive to the general themes.
Jaspers, although non- commital, often sounds like a liberal Protestant, and was a big influence. Buber, of course, was a practicing Jew, but had an influence beyond Judaism. Jaspers, by trying to systematize existentialism, and explain its origin in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, presented philosophy as a way of clarifying options and permitting informed decisions. One major option was religious existentialism, as found in Buber and others.
Another was atheistic existentialism, which, in modern Europe, came to be represented by Jean- Paul Sartre. Heidegger was ambiguous: sometimes he seemed an atheist, sometimes a sort of pantheist. Sartre was unambiguous, although inspired by Heidegger. In "Being and Nothingness", he gives a phenomenological analysis that suggests that our faculty of negation is the most important thing about us. Because of it, we can transcend circumstances, and because we can commit, we can achieve inner integrity. This combination of integrity and liberation leads to the exaltation of rebellion against oppression as the most authentic way to relate to the world. At a certain point, Sartre went so far as to become an eccentric Marxist, making existentialism supplementary to orthodox Marxist thought.
These were not the only ways Heidegger influenced the modern world. For example, Heidegger called for the "deconstruction" of the Western point of view, to see past excessive rationality and willfulness, and this became the program of philosophers and literary critics like Jacques Derrida, who attacks the sanctity of authorship and the authority of the text, so to speak, in order to subvert our faith in unequivocal auctorial meaning and the reliability of words.
Another way is through his influence on what has come to be called "Deep Ecology", which sees him describing the way in which man has dominated the Earth, and fashioned it to suit him through technology, instead of living in a more harmonious relationship with it.
It should be mentioned that Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party for several years, and behaved badly to some of his Jewish friends, including Husserl, in accepting the need of Germany for a Fuerher. He did become disillusioned with the Nazis, although he made no heroic stand. He never adequately addressed the issue in the post- War period, although, of course, he deplored brutality, such as the Holocaust. It appears that he had reactionary instincts, and mistook the Nazis as a fairly straightforward reactionary party. Hannah Arendt, a Jewish philosopher who emigrated to America, but had once been his mistress, helped him to get published after the War, and explained his behavior as political naivete. Jaspers, who had been anti- Nazi and headed to Switzerland, also helped. Their prestige, and that of others, smoothed his way back into prominence.
Anyway, this is enough for tonight........ |
