This book comprises both an inquiry into the history of German philosophy in the early 20th century and a critical exposition of Husserl’s transcendental thinking. The investigation follows the method of Konstellationsforschung which, instead of privileging individual authors, describes “spaces of thinking”. Indeed, far from being an isolated thinker, Husserl developed his own thought in constant dialogue and theoretical exchange with the contemporary German philosophy – in particular, with the Southwestern Neo-kantian School (Windelband, Rickert, Lask) and so-called Lebensphilosophie (Simmel, Dilthey). The book offers a historical understanding of Husserl’s phenomenology as a critical (and original) answer to the main issue arising from this context, i.e. the problematic distinction between the natural sciences and Geisteswissenschaften. In this view, the stratified richness of the sphere of Geist and its intertwinement with the sphere of Leben constitute the points of departure of Husserl’s transcendental philosophy, which reveals itself as being rooted in a “Kantian liberation narrative” (p.222).

Auf den folgenden Seiten werde ich eine Hypothese vorschlagen für das, was momentan unter dem Begriff der ‚Lebensphilosophie' verstanden wird. Während der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, in einem neuen sozialen und epistemologischen Umfeld bestimmt durch Säkularisation, dem Erfolg der Evolutionstheorie, der progressiven Affirmation positiven Wissens über menschliche.

In this paper I offer an analysis of the issue of interculturality from the point of view of Husserl’s late phenomenology, with particular attention to the notions of concordance and tendency to concordance. After presenting the mainstream criticism of Husserl’s approach to cultural otherness, according to which genuine otherness has to be conceived of radically and according to which Husserlian phenomenology is intrinsically unable to do so, I summarize the core of Husserl’s position with what I call the “theorem of concordance”. According to this theorem, in every cross-cultural encounter intersubjective concordance is always a priori reachable regardless of the point of departure of the subjects involved. This theorem can be demonstrated by exploring the implications of three fundamental assumptions that guide Husserl’s thought: (1) doxic discordance between subjects in unbearable; (2) all cultural significance is mediately or immediately founded on doxic positions; (3) culture is directed towards and expresses itself in the configuration of the surrounding world. The conclusion of the paper is that otherness and in particular cultural otherness cannot be as radical as some contemporary continental philosophers would have it.

Karl Jaspers’ theory of delusion (General Psychopathology, 1913/1946) is still widely discussed today, much unlike his theory of world views, laid out in his 1919 work Psychology of World Views, which has more or less fallen into oblivion. Based on Jaspers’ casuistic observations of nihilistic delusion and nihilistic world view, as presented in 1919, we first analyze the relationship between delusion and world view – a relationship analogous to that between “psychotic process” and “development of personality” in his concept of psychopathology. We then scrutinize this categorical distinction and its underlying methodical assumptions and consider possible links between delusion and world view. Our conclusion is that, today, phenomenological and sociological concepts like “habituality” (Husserl) and “habitus” (Bourdieu) are more suitable, both for a theoretical explanation of these links and for a therapeutic use.

Das Potenzial der Philosophie Ernst Cassirers ist keinesfalls erschöpft, sondern vielmehr in systematischer, transdisziplinärer und gesellschaftlich relevanter Perspektive anschlussfähig, um Fragestellungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie und der Wissenschaften zu begegnen. Die Cassirer-Rezeption befindet sich in dieser Hinsicht an der Schwelle des Eintritts in eine neue Phase, die im Lichte eines ‚Neulesens‘ sowie einer zunehmend globalen Vernetzung betrachtet werden kann. Von der Wissensforschung und Wahrnehmungstheorie über neue Gebiete symbolischer Formung wie Film, Geld und Virtualität bis zum spannungsreichen Verhältnis zwischen Demokratie und Mythos: Die Beiträge des Bandes verstehen sich als Aktualisierung von Cassirers Philosophie der Kultur- und Wissensformen im 21. Jahrhundert.