background preloader

Phenomenology (philosophy)

Phenomenology (from Greek: phainómenon "that which appears" and lógos "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.[1] Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. This ontology (study of reality) can be clearly differentiated from the Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world as objects, sets of objects, and objects acting and reacting upon one another. There are several assumptions behind phenomenology that help explain its foundations. Related:  Philosophy

Jean-Paul Sartre His work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his open relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution".[2] Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris as the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the French Navy, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer.[3] His mother was of Alsatian origin and the first cousin of Nobel Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer. In 1929 at the École Normale, he met Simone de Beauvoir, who studied at the Sorbonne and later went on to become a noted philosopher, writer, and feminist. World War II[edit] French journalists visit General George C. Cold War politics and anticolonialism[edit]

Transcendence (religion) In religion, transcendence refers to the aspect of a god's nature and power which is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all physical laws. This is contrasted with immanence, where a god is said to be fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways. In religious experience transcendence is a state of being that has overcome the limitations of physical existence and by some definitions has also become independent of it. Although transcendence is defined as the opposite of immanence, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Bahá'ís believe in a single, imperishable god, the creator of all things, including all the creatures and forces in the universe.[1] In the Bahá'í tradition, god is described as "a personal god, unknowable, inaccessible, the source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty In Buddhism "transcendence", by definition, belongs to the mortal beings of the formless realms of existence.

Ordinary language philosophy View that philosophical problems are based in distortions of language Central ideas[edit] The later Wittgenstein held that the meanings of words reside in their ordinary uses and that this is why philosophers trip over words taken in abstraction. From this came the idea that philosophy had gotten into trouble by trying to use words outside of the context of their use in ordinary language. For example, "understanding" is what you mean when you say "I understand". The controversy really begins when ordinary language philosophers apply the same leveling tendency to questions such as What is Truth? Anti-essentialism and the linguistic philosophy associated with it are often important to contemporary accounts of feminism, Marxism, and other social philosophies that are critical of the injustice of the status quo. History[edit] Early analytic philosophy had a less positive view of ordinary language. Criticism[edit] See also[edit] References[edit] Further reading[edit] Primary sources[edit]

René Girard René Noël Théophile Girard (;[2] French: [ʒiʁaʁ]; 25 December 1923 – 4 November 2015) was a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science whose work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy. Girard was the author of nearly thirty books, with his writings spanning many academic domains. Although the reception of his work is different in each of these areas, there is a growing body of secondary literature on his work and his influence on disciplines such as literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, psychology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy. Girard's main contribution to philosophy, and in turn to other disciplines, was in the field of epistemological and ethical systems of desire. For Girard, religion and mythology were therefore necessary steps in human evolution to control the violence that arises from mimetic rivalry and unequal distribution of desirable things. Biography[edit] Girard also says:

Phenomenology (philosophy) Phenomenology (from Greek: phainómenon "that which appears" and lógos "study") is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.[1] Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. Hicks writes, "In effect, the Structuralists were seeking subjective noumenal categories, and the Phenomenologists were content with describing the phenomena without asking what connection to an external reality those experiences might have

Philosophical analysis Various techniques typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition Philosophical analysis is any of various techniques, typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition, in order to "break down" (i.e. analyze) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concepts (known as conceptual analysis). Method of analysis[edit] Conceptual analysis consists primarily in breaking down or analyzing concepts into their constituent parts in order to gain knowledge or a better understanding of a particular philosophical issue in which the concept is involved (Beaney 2003). Criticism[edit] While the method of analysis is characteristic of contemporary analytic philosophy, its status continues to be a source of great controversy even among analytic philosophers. In short, some philosophers feel strongly that the analytic method (especially conceptual analysis) is essential to and defines philosophy—e.g. See also[edit] Notes[edit] References[edit]

Robert C. Solomon American philosopher Robert C. Solomon (September 14, 1942 – January 2, 2007) was a philosopher and business ethicist, notable author, and "Distinguished Teaching Professor of Business and Philosophy" at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held a named chair and taught for more than 30 years, authoring The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (1976) and more than 45 other books and editions. Critical of the narrow focus of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, which he thought denied human nature and abdicated the important questions of life, he instead wrote analytically in response to the continental discourses of phenomenology and existentialism, on sex and love, on business ethics, and on other topics to which he brought an Aristotelian perspective on virtue ethics. He also wrote A Short History of Philosophy and others with his wife, Professor Kathleen Higgins. The passions: emotions and the meaning of life[edit] On sex, love, marriage, and children[edit] Early life[edit]

Ontology Philosophical study of being and existence When used as a countable noun, the words ontology and ontologies refer not to the science of being but to theories within the science of being. Ontological theories can be divided into various types according to their theoretical commitments. Monocategorical ontologies hold that there is only one basic category, but polycategorical ontologies rejected this view. Hierarchical ontologies assert that some entities exist on a more fundamental level and that other entities depend on them. Etymology[edit] onto- (Greek: ὄν, on;[note 1] GEN. ὄντος, ontos, 'being' or 'that which is') and -logia (-λογία, 'logical discourse').[3][4] While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant records of the word itself is a Neo-Latin form ontologia, which appeared in 1606 in the Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus), and in 1613 in the Lexicon philosophicum by Rudolf Göckel (Goclenius). Overview[edit] Particulars and universals[edit] Abstract and concrete[edit] D.

OntoClean OntoClean is a methodology for analyzing ontologies based on formal, domain-independent properties of classes (the metaproperties) developed by Nicola Guarino and Chris Welty. Overview and History[edit] OntoClean was the first attempt to formalize notions of ontological analysis for information systems. The idea was to justify the kinds of decisions that experienced ontology builders make, and explain the common mistakes of the inexperienced. Alan Rector, during a debate at the KR-2002 conference in Toulouse, said, "What you have done is reduce the amount of time I spend arguing with medics." The notions Guarino & Welty focused on were drawn from philosophical ontology. Note on terminology[edit] In logic, a property is a unary predicate in intention, in other words a property is what it means to be a member of a class. [edit] The basis of OntoClean are the domain-independent properties of classes, the OntoClean metaproperties: identity, unity, rigidity, and dependence. Identity[edit]

Kathleen Higgins Kathleen Marie Higgins (born 1954) is an American Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin where she has been teaching for over thirty years.[1] She specializes in aesthetics, philosophy of music, nineteenth and twentieth-century continental philosophy, and philosophy of emotion. Education and career[edit] Higgins earned her B.A. in music from the University of Missouri–Kansas City and completed her graduate work in philosophy at Yale University, receiving her M.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D. Professor Higgins has taught at the University of California, Riverside, and she is a regular visiting professor at the University of Auckland. Philosophical work[edit] Her work deals with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, the ethical aspects of music, musical universality, and the emotion of grief. Her books have been translated into 10 languages: Chinese, Dutch, German, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovenian, and Spanish. Works[edit] Co-edited[edit] Robert C.

by raviii Oct 1

Phenomenology - is a major product of twentieth-century sociological theory developed in order to explain and explore the way people view the world in the light of their own experience, the way they interpret other people's words and behaviour through the medium of their own subjective understanding of the world, and how this affects patterns of human interaction. Its thinking underpins many of the methodological imperatives that have been built into qualitative research.

Found in: Davies, M. (2007) Doing a Successful Research Project: Using Qualitative or Quantitative Methods. Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 9781403993793. by raviii Jul 31

Phenomenology - The study of how people experience the world.

Found in: Glossary of Key Terms: by raviii Jul 31

Related: