Susi Ferrarello

The Ethical Project and Intentionality in Edmund Husserl

In this chapter we will focus on the relation between the ethical Husserlian project and the theory of intentionality. We would like to show how the ethical project influences on the progress of phenomenological research and compels Husserl to uphold some original thesis about reason and its intentional skill. Husserl wants to become an “Aristoteles der reinen Ethik” through an ethical project aimed to the foundation of an ethical science analogous to the logical science (described by himself in Prolegomena). This project plays a strategic role in the Husserlian thought. In fact, it is based on a parallelism (Parallelismus) between the modalizations of reason (Vernunftarten) of the consciousness. Following Husserl ethics should be shaped on the same rational structure of logic and it should have the same validity of logics. Nevertheless, the characteristics of the practical reason are different from those of logical reason. The practical reason in fact, is linked to the sphere of sentiments, feelings, instincts and it cannot be perfectly intentional. Husserl himself defines the practical acts as nearly intentional acts. Hence, in the chapter we will show that the parallelism is imperfect. Moreover we will show the theoretical consequences of Husserlian ethical position respect to the modification of his definition of intentionality.

Existential Sexuality and Intimacy

This article will discuss sexuality from an existentialist and constructivist point of view. Constructivism will be used as a means to grasp a dynamic understanding of sexual existence and intimate life. In fact, the author believes there is genetic character of intimacy that informs the passive and active existential choices that constitute our sexual identity. The goal of the article is to show how the social constructions that define human sexual existence are remodeled continuously by the fluid nature of intimacy.

The Idea of Good in Husserl and Aristotle

What is the perfect good that everyone has to pursue? Does it exist a universal idea of good? Is it possible to get a science grounded on the idea of good? In this paper I would like to answer these questions by a comparison between Aristotle’s and Husserl’s ethics. Indeed, taking as a reference point the Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia, I would like to discuss the connection, if any, between Husserl’s and Aristotle’s idea of good. My aim is to detect a specific notion of what good is and how it can be explained by a phenomenological research. Essentially the questions I raise are: “Is well-being a moral target to which everyone should tend? What is exactly the good and has it do with well-being?” To a certain extent, Aristotle and Husserl seem to interpret the good as one of the moral aims but it is not so clear how it can be a universal and shared value by the human kosmos. Thence to answer these questions in this paper I will work on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and on Husserl’s ethics of 1914.

Transcendental and Spiritual Consciousness

Transcendentalism is one of the most relevant concepts of modern and contemporary philosophy. Many important works have been elaborated on this subject over the years. For example, A-T Tymieniecka’s researches showed how concepts of mental and corporeal experience play an essential part in grasping overall process of life and in the constitution of its wholeness. Starting from this point, we would like to go through the definition of transcendentalism as it is explained by Husserl in his phenomenology of living experience. We would focus on the meaning of spiritual and transcendental consciousness, highlighting the role played by the first and second group of Husserlian ethical lectures. Namely, we would show the differences between the definition of transcendental consciousness, as we know it in Idee I and as it is described in the ethical writings of 1914 and 1920. We think, in fact, that the ethical researches compel Husserl to work out an idea of transcendental consciousness nearer to a personal living experience than to epistemological one.

The Axiology of Ontopoiesis and its Rationality

Ontopoiesis is a fascinating concept introduced by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka in the phenomenological context to express a rich range of meanings. In this chapter I would like to draw its rational bounds. Especially, what I aim to show is the relationship between ontopoiesis, logos and antiquity. En effect, I would like to sketch in the balance between creative energies of ontopoiesis and the layers of reality on which they are applied. From a phenomenological point of view, namely from an Husserlian one, Tyminiecka shows a path by which the phenomenologist marks out the meaning of this concept. Here, I am going to be focused particularly on Husserl’s definition of spiritual and creative life. Effectively, in the sixth chapter of Husserliana XXXVII, he talks about the spiritual life by the hermeneutic instrument of dynamis, pointing up its rational and irrational aspects. In fact, it is not clear if Husserl conceives this kind of dynamis as rational at all. Therefore what I want to examine here is whether ontopoiesis might be enlivened by irrational sentiments like ancient ate or menos or if it is an Apollinean energy that inspires our souls.