Remarks on Philosophy

 Remarks on Philosophy

Many people say the same thing about Hegel, Husserl, and others: how difficult they are to understand. If you look at Husserl’s early work, Logical Investigations and Ideas, or even his late work, the Crisis and/or Experience and Judgment ( my favorite), Husserl’s writing is quite plain and lends itself to imagery and comprehension.

Perhaps the difficulty with Husserl is that he expects his reader to suspend their usual thinking processes and to think about consciousness, to bracket their natural attitudes, and opinions!

Both Heidegger and Sartre worked from the foundations that Husserl established.

It is important to read the secondary literature on Husserl, but few get at his key insights or his many, many pointers about what is going on in the mind, similar to Hegel who might be said to have noticed that the ideas in our minds fit a pattern and these notions might make sense but that their actual sequence is both random and thus structured by the entities of the state and Geist!!

Recommend reading Adorno’s critique of both. Although Adorno has also been said to be difficult to read, his constant criticism of Husserl’s use of the term ‘reduction’ sheds light on Husserl’s method!

When I consider particular passages as I read them, I think to myself whether it is good or difficult. But this is different from drawing a conclusion after a reading or after completing a text.

So, Sartre in B&N (Being and Nothingness, 1944) says quite a few questionable things, especially about the sexual relation, and in CDR (Critique of Dialectical Reason, 1960) does not really get at what is happening in consciousness during either the queue or events during the French Revolution. He surely makes us wonder but does not literally connect consciousnesses together, but this seems to be his intent!

Is there something practically relevant in these writers that clearly emerges from a reading, or are there obviously incoherent passages? I would say no to both but I do acquire a new and deeper awareness of existence and thought, especially in contrast to the emotional and reified tone of most social contexts and feelings!

I think it is important to give and interpret specific passages to make points on whether a philosopher is relevant. But, when we are discussing the majors, it should be taken for granted that they are!