Tag Archives: Peirce

04/5/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 17 of 18)

0062 Can a situation-level hermeneutics3b apply to the social sciences3a in the same way that phenomenology3b virtually situates the natural sciences3a?

If John Jiaro Perez Vargas, Johan Andres Nieto Bravo and Juan Esteban Santamaria Rodriguez are correct, then hermeneutical methods2b may situate these social empirio-schematic judgments2a.

0063 Yet, it is unlikely that these social sciences2a will acquiesce to the potential of interpretation1b.

First, the rule of the positivist intellect3a remains, even though compromised by an originating phenomenological intervention.

Second, hermeneutical reduction2b interrogates the noumenon1a(1b), the intersubjective being1b that conditions the consensus3a that performs empirio-schematic inquiry2a, threatening to reveal the phenomenologically generated nature of what is taken to be mind independent1a(1b).

04/4/22

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (Part 18 of 18)

0064 So concludes this examination of an article published by three enterprising faculty at the Universidad Santo Tomas, Columbia.  The full title of their article is, “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in Human and Social Sciences Research”.  The article is found in Civilizar: Cienceas Sociales y Humanas (volume 20(38), 2020, 137 to 146, DOI: https//doi.org/10.22518/jour.ccsh./2020.1a10).  Again, I thank the authors for presenting in English.

0065 This article serves as a testing ground for arguments raised in prior reveries and commentaries on articles concerning phenomenology.

0066 The e-works, available at smashwords and other electronic e-book vendors, belong to the series, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect.  They are here listed, along with this examination, which appears in April 2022 in the blog at www.raziemah.com.

Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions”

Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean-Luc Marion and … First Philosophy”

Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology”

Comments on Jack Reynolds’ Book (2018) “Phenomenology, Naturalism and Science”

Looking at John Perez Vargas, Johan Nieto Bravo and Juan Santamaria Rodriguez’s Essay (2020) “Hermeneutics and Phenomenology in… Social Sciences Research” (www.raziemah.com, April 2022 blog)

0067 Testing ground?

These commentaries contain particular category-based nested forms, interscopes and judgments, constructed from (or in reverie to) the essay and book under consideration.  These synthetic structures are abductions, constructed on Peircean frames.

So, what to do with a guess?

Test it.

0068 A full list of e-articles and blogs concerning the series, Phenomenology and the Positivist Intellect, is available on this blog for the date: May 3, 2022.

10/7/21

Looking at Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Reduction” (Part 6 of 7)

0022 Okay, so far in this sequence of blogs, I have discussed three incentives for why Catholic philosophers may be interested in phenomenology.  I have also raised a question concerning why these philosophers do not mention science.

0023 The answer to the latter question is located in the relation within the Positivist’s judgment.  A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings an empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements (what is, firstness).  The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

0024 What is the result?

Catholic anti-reductionists are excluded from discourse… er, polite scientific society in this modern Age of Ideas.

The positivist intellect says, “No.”

So, why even try?

Why not discourse with the ones who might want to talk, the phenomenologists?

0025 Do I see Gunter Figal heading to the exit?

Professor Figal is interested in objectivity, not givenness.

10/6/21

Looking at Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Reduction” (Part 7 of 7)

0026 Are Catholic philosophers so alienated from science that they are willing to talk through the mouthpiece of phenomenology?

Are there other ways to enter into discourse in this modern Age of Ideas?

Why does the hylomorphic structure of reality constantly get co-opted in the pursuit of science?

Are phenomenologists implicated?

0027 Doctor Figal imagines a gap3c, whose interpretive polarity1c sparks the exteriorization2c of what the thing itself1amust be1b, thereby generating a noumenon1b(1a) that can be objectified as its phenomena1a, according to “social” scientific discipline2a.  He labels the operation, “objectivity2c“.

Is objectivity metaphysical?

Or, does it sound like “electricity”?

0028 Colledge is fascinated.  What marvelous transformations occur in the laboratory of Professor Figal.  Metaphysics alchemically mutates into the stuff of physics.

0029 Comments on Richard Colledge’s Essay (2021) “Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenology” offers value to the originating essay.  Not only is science brought into the picture, but the re-vision is rooted in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.  Colledge has more than he knows.

003 It is wonderful to see striking similarities between Marion’s naming of givenness2c and Figal’s enumeration of objectivity2c.

Peirce’s categories offer ways to diagram that vision.

09/30/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 1 of 5)

0001 Joseph Trabbic’s essay appears in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (volume 95(3), pages 389-409).  This is the second article on phenomenology to attract attention.  The full title is “Jean Luc-Marion and the Phenomenologie de la Donation as First Philosophy”.

Jean-Luc Marion is a French phenomenologist who attempts to put Husserl’s paradigm into perspective.  His book is published 25 years ago.  It still confounds readers.

Trabbic performs admirably in trying to decipher both the French language and the book.

0002 There is a lot to unpack, especially since science is not mentioned at all.

I wonder what Husserl is up to when he calls for a return to the noumenon?

Perhaps, scientists focus so much on phenomena that they neglect the thing itself.

0003 This is the lesson formulated in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenology Reductions”(available for purchase at smashwords).  Spencer also publishes in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.  The full title of Spencer’s article is “The Many Phenomenological Reductions and Catholic Metaphysical Anti-Reductionism”.

Spencer mentions Jean-Luc Marion, along with many other phenomenologists.

It is like going through an old jewelry box.

Jean-Luc Marion sparkles.

0004 Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (also available at smashwords) builds upon this reverie.

Why does Jean-Luc Marion catch the eye?

09/29/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 2 of 5)

0006 Trabbic’s approach to Jean Luc-Marion’s masterwork, The Phenomenology of Givenness, is curious.

Trabbic precisely executes a style that is rarely used in contemporary works.

He asks us to recognize a possibility (that seems to be impossible).

0007 First, the reader must recognize that there are phenomena, rather than nothing.  Things themselves are simply given.

Second, the reader must recognize that givenness implies a gift with no giver and no recipient.

0008 Trabbic’s construction leads the reader up the staircase of one and down the staircase of two.

The literary structure is beautiful to behold.

09/28/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 3 of 5)

0009 The following looks like a hylomorphe, but it does not belong to the realm of actuality.

Figure 1

0010 This dyad expresses what is in the Positivist’s judgment.

The Positivist’s judgment constitutes the second first philosophy, arising and ruling out the first first philosophy.

0011 What is a first philosophy?

A first philosophy addresses the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

This is the first question that every philosophy must confront.

0012 Many prefer to skip to the next question, “What is ‘something’?”

The first first philosophy, as practiced by scholastics of the Latin Age, says, “It must be the things of God and of everyday life.”

The second first philosophy, modern science, says, “No, it must be phenomena, the observable and measurable facets of things.”

The third first philosophy, Husserl’s phenomenology, says, “We must return to the noumenon, the thing itself, and figure out what the noumenon must be.”

But, is the thing itself the same as what the thing itself must be?0013 Here is where Jean-Luc Marion enters the picture and says, “A fourth first philosophy should place Husserl’s situating of science into perspective, by addressing the question, ‘Why are there noumena, rather than nothing?’.”

09/27/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 4 of 5)

0014 Ah, phenomenology situates empirical science.

This is one lesson found in Reverie on Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenology Reductions” (available for purchase at smashwords).

0015 Givenness puts phenomenology into perspective.

This statement stands at the heart of Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” (also available at smashwords).

0016 Yet, neither Spencer nor Trabbic mention science.

09/24/21

Looking at Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc-Marion and … First Philosophy” (Part 5 of 5)

0017 Comments on Joseph Trabbic’s Essay (2021) “Jean Luc Marion and … First Philosophy” adds value to the original.

How much value?

Maybe two Euros worth.

0018 What is the value of a Euro?

That is a very good question.

0019 Can a one Euro coin be reduced to its matter and form?

Can a Euro be reduced to instrumental and material causalities?

Surely, according to the empirio-schematic judgment, a one Euro coin can be accounted for by its constituent metals and circular shape.  There is a science to coining money.  Isn’t there?

0020 Or, does the givenness of the Euro allow us to imagine that a Euro is more than metal and shape?

Does the givenness of the Euro say that what the thing itself must be may be treated as a thing itself, supporting novel, “social”, sciences, where the noumenon can be objectified as its phenomena?

0021 If this is so, then phenomenological reduction precedes Husserl by over a century.

Is that possible?

Can what the thing must be become a thing itself?

There is something eye-catching and nonsensical about givenness.

Trabbic graciously accepts that Marion must make sense and leads the reader to that glittering impossible possibility.

09/23/21

Looking at Mark Spencer’s Essay (2021) “The Many Phenomenological Reductions” (Part 1 of 4)

0001 What is Phenomenology?

Phenomenology belongs to (what John Deely calls) the Age of Ideas, starting with the Western civilization’s turn from scholasticism towards mechanical philosophy.

0002 Mechanical philosophers, such as Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD) say, “Forget final and formal causation.  Think in terms of material and instrumental causalities.  Attend to phenomena, the observable and measurable features of our world.  Then, build mathematical and mechanical models using well defined terms.”

0003 Later, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) codifies a reaction against this fixation, arguing that we must not forget the thing itself (the noumenon).  Sure, phenomena are crucial to scientific observations and measurements.  But, the noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena.

0004 Then, Edmund Husserl (1856-1939) declares, “I have developed another way to situate phenomena.  By consciously focusing on phenomena, while bracketing out all this measurement business, along with other distractions, I can identify the noumenon, what the thing itself must be.”

0005 Now, there are two ways to situate phenomena.

First, scientists directly situate phenomena through observations and measurements.  They build models.  They are not interested in the thing itself.

Second, phenomenologists virtually situate phenomena through a method of bracketing assumptions, such as the empirio-schematic judgment, to end up with a noumenon, what the thing itself must be.