> On Feb 20, 2016, at 11:15 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote: > > Thanks Clark. I don’t think of Heidegger as a phenomenologist as much as an > existentialist (view from studying Heidegger from Bert Dreyfus). Merleau > Ponty fits the Husserlian model more closely, I think. <> I always enjoy Dreyfus’ stuff but he tends to have a somewhat different take on him. Although to my eyes Dreyfus still reads him fundamentally at a phenomenologist. I think you can see that importance of a phenomenological stance in the Dreyfus/Searle correspondence where they keep misreading each other - primarily because Dreyfus is reading Searle as if Searle was also a phenomenologist. That said, the kind of phenomenological emphasis Dreyfus gives is definitely quite different than you typically get. There is a more pragmatic take. While I don’t know the history, I halfway suspect the far more pragmatic readings of Heidegger arise out of Dreyfus’ influence.
Merleau Ponty I always found as a kind of half-way point between Husserl and Heidegger. I’m never quite sure what to think about him. He’s got some very deep analysis of our embodiment yet I don’t think he has enough of a place for strife/polemos that I see key to Heidegger (and I’d argue Peirce). > Husserl distinguished between surface and depth phenomenology. The second, > while not analytical, does involve a further degree of abstraction. I think > it is there that Husserl become more clearly non or anti psychological. Yes. I’ve long thought that those seeing the two layers as a difference from Peirce exaggerate it too much. So like you I think Joe is pushing this a tad too much. To me Peirce’s move of prescinding generals from experience is simply too similar to get wrapped up in this. That said I think Husserl's approach is a tad too formal and so is open to kinds of criticism I’m not sure afflict Peirce. The question of how bracketing enables this is of course a deep hole. And since my Husserl is just too rusty not one I ought go down without refreshing my memory. That said while Husserl tries to make bracketing do the work of avoiding psychologizing I’m not sure it works. If only because I think bracketing is kind of like the paper doubt Peirce criticizes relative to Descartes. I’m just not sure humans can bracket the way Husserl needs them to. This is only a problem for Peirce if continuing inquiry were not his fundamental stance. Effectively that inquiry by a community avoids the problem of biased armchair phenomenology where we think we escape our psychology more than I think we can. (In a similar way I think the appeals to intuition in analytic philosophy often hide psychological crutches - especially when all the intuitions tend to be from educated western middle class men) > Though I agree that Husserl was Cartesian in some respects, his > anti-psychologism in this bracketing form undermines the similarity with > Cartesian access to the mental. That’s interesting as to me it ends up being pretty similar structurally to Cartesian doubt as a positive force of analysis. And, as I said above, perhaps with the same weaknesses. > I think that the way in which objects of thought are understood in Husserl > and Peirce are quite different, for example. (I have always found Husserl’s > approach to psychologistic for my taste, or at least too reductive.) I think > Ransdell was correct in focusing on the differences with Peirce here. To me most of Peirce’s strength ends up taking a more object oriented focus. That is the objects determine the interpretant rather than acts determining or selecting the object. This type of externalism avoids the pitfalls of internalist projects - and effectively Husserl’s project is an attempt to redo Descartes and avoid his pitfalls but maintain the same basic approach. To my eyes (although I know not everyone agrees) Husserl's objects are most interesting as he’s trying to avoid the internal/external divide and have it both ways. I don’t think it works and I think he falls prey to Cartesianism but the attempt is fascinating to me. However it’s probably precisely because it’s there that I see Husserl fail that I like Peirce. I simply think his continuing inquiry and gap between object, sign and interpretant recognize the problem and show a way that it’s not disastrous.
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