Außensicht vs. Innensicht: Rekonstruktion und vergleichende Kritik der Philosophien der Psychologie von Husserl und Wittgenstein
Final Report Abstract
Modern philosophy of mind has largely renounced introspective – or in another word: phenomenological – methods. At the same time (perhaps as a consequence of this abandoning of introspection, perhaps as its cause), purely functional conceptions of the mind have dominated the field – conceptions that are readily amenable to materialist reduction. The basic – anti-Cartesian, anti-Brentanian, anti-Husserlian – ideas behind these developments can be traced to a surprisingly large extent to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Gilbert Ryle made those ideas popular, Daniel Dennett wedded them to materialism, Peter Hacker (together with his collaborator Maxwell Bennett) tirelessly tells us that they are just what Grammar (that is, the rational conceptual framework that underlies our language) requires, that deviating from them means: speaking nonsense. The phenomenal or experiential mind is usually given short shrift by these philosophers – to the point of bluntly denying its existence. A closer look reveals that their argument are not as good as they seem to be. This is as much true of Wittgenstein as it is true of Ryle, Hacker, and Dennett. The book Defending Husserl in the Case of Wittgenstein & Company versus Phenomenology, which is the result of the DFG-project “Außensicht vs. Innensicht” [“Outer Perspective vs. Inner Perspective”] dedicated to the philosophy of psychology of Husserl and Wittgenstein, confronts Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinianism (whether orthodox, as in the case of Hacker, or heterodox, as in the case of Dennett) in detail and comprehensively with Husserl and his Phenomenology (which is often misrepresented, even by authors who are friendly towards it). The confrontation reveals how much is lost – for no good reason – if one follows Wittgenstein and the Wittgensteinians. They are, in effect, on their way to eliminating the mind, and therewith also language. Husserl honours both, and points the way to preserving both.
Publications
- „Husserls transzendentaler Idealismus als Supervenienzthese – ein interner Realismus“, in Husserl und die Philosophie des Geistes, hg. von M. Frank und N. Weidtmann, Suhrkamp, Berlin 2010, 178-208
Uwe Meixner
- „Naturale Psyche: Husserl über die Seele als Naturobjekt“, in Die Aktualität Husserls, hg. von V. Mayer, Chr. Erhard und M. Scherini, Alber, Freiburg/München 2011, 22- 38
Uwe Meixner
