Phenomenology Research Center

My intention here is to show how easy it is to deal with preference utilitarianism and to maximize personal (or animal) utility when we aref aced with a small set of possible actions. Once we reduce the scope of possible actions, that is, what is feasible, we are also easily able to identify the proper or improper conduct, at least in terms of rational maximization of desired preferences.

This article aims at elucidating Habermas’ critique of the phenomenological method while clarifying his own conception of the Lifeworld as a normative, homogenic, comprehension of the process of subject constitution and language. In order to do so, a review of the Husserlian understanding of the Lifeworld in the Crisis, as well as the later steps for a provisional, generative, conception of Lifeworld will be provided, along with an attempt to recast the debate between the sociological and hermeneutic appropriation of the lifeworld in Alfred Schutz which motivate Habermas to turn away from a phenomenological perspective. The article closes with elements for a phenomenological critique of Habermas’ concept of the Lifeworld.

my intention with this article is to suggest that that Derrida's notion of différance provides an interesting tool to bridge a gap in political liberalism. Focusing on the contemporary reading of liberalism, I expose the Kantian transformation of political philosophy, identifying the establishment of a reflexive-normative view-from-nowhere where in in multiple conceptions of good are pacified by Reason. A phenomenological reading of political liberalism, in this context, allows me to recast the problem of political signification and identity under a different light, suggesting that the Husserlian exposition of an ethical-political core in language complements the formal gap in liberalism.

The political potential of the later period of Husserl's philosophy is, for the most part, ignored in Brazilian scholarship about the author. In this article, I intend to point at the relevance of such material, as the notions of co-generativity, topography and lifeworld developed in the later period of Husserl's philosophy will allow us to recognize, first, that a phenomenological approach is ultimately compatible with a modern reading of political philosophy, and, second, has a potential to better inform some of the current conundrums in the debate about social choice, preferences and constitution.

This paper deals with what I identify as a limitation in linear and ordinal modes of analysis for social and moral behavior. Most of the literature on moral and political philosophy produced in the Anglo-Saxon world since the publication of A Theory of Justice has taken the premises of a ordinal account for preferences and values for granted. My hypothesis is that such premises, though methodologically sound, suffer from a practical standpoint as they take as the model of political and social choice a choice “without prejudice”. I will defend that liberal accounts of preference would benefit in taking a more mitigated and ambivalent understanding of preferences, one that admits a) that our thought process regarding the constitution of preferences is linear and somehow passive and b) that the notion of unbiased, unmitigated, position of analysis is ultimately artificial and will not help our understanding of the way actual persons are actually choosing goods

RESUMO Nosso objetivo neste artigo é interpretar a teoria da democracia rousseauniana como uma crítica do individualismo liberal e as consequências políticas dessa perspectiva individualista. Inicialmente, exploramos a antropologia de Rousseau e a narrativa romântica da decadência da natureza humana a partir da exploração tecnológica. Depois, pretendemos mostrar como Rousseau entende o Estado Civil e o Contrato Civil como mecanismos para o reestabelecimento de uma ordem natural, o que é dizer que o Estado pode ser visto como um mecanismo de reorientação coletiva, à medida que o individualismo vai ser visto pelo autor como um elemento de desengajamento social e de deterioração das relações naturais necessárias para um compacto social duradouro. Palavras-chave: Democracia Representativa. Democracia Radical. Desengajamento Social. Contrato Social. ABSTRACT Our objective in this sort essay is to interpret the Rousseaunian theory of democracy as a critique to liberal individualism, and to the consequences of such individualistic perspective. At first, we explore Rousseau's anthropology, and the romantic narrative of the fall of human nature as a result of technological exploration. Further, we intent to address the form in which Rousseau understands the State and the Civil Compact as a mechanism to the establishment of a natural order, which is to say that the State is understood as an instrument to collective orientation, insofar individualistic perspectives are seen by the author as signs of social disengagement and deterioration of the necessary natural relations for a lasting social compact.

It is the purpose of this essay to identify an Ontological turn from Schelling's Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom into the third draft of the Ages of the World. In order to do so, our initial analysis will focus on Heidegger's take on the Treatise , arguing that indeed the onto-theological critique advanced by Heidegger is not only a defensible, but necessary conclusion of the strategy undertaken by Schelling in that text. This strategy consists in the resort to a jointure of Being in order to deal with the tension between essence and existence, by appealing to such jointure Schelling creates a theological abyss that he is not able to surpass in the Treatise. However, in the Weltalter III, Schelling changes his strategy of description of the World, and organizes the creation in three different potencies of contraction, expansion and unity that follow and eventually overlap each other. Moreover, these potencies modalize a different perception of time, one that allows for a double-immanence of Creation and Revelation. These reconsiderations of the phenomena of time and freedom allow for the identification of an ontological turn in Schelling, one that is marked by the constant reference to negativity and despair as grounding, and affirmation and love as grounded. These forces of grounding and grounded forces which are later on unified in an ontological unity of potencies.

Abstract: This article provides a relation between the problem of shame in both Levinas and Agamben, focusing, for the most part, in the development of Levinas' metaphysics and its relation to the emotional tonality of shame in three works: "On Escape", "Time and the Other" and "Otherwise than Being". In stressing the unique take that Levinas has on metaphysics, I try to point at the tension between Jewish and Greek thought in Levinas, and his option for a radical notion of a situated understanding of the "ethical".Hencemy interest in contrasting Levinas and Agamben, as Agamben's appropriation of Levinas' lexicon in his "Remnants of Aushwitz" places the subject in a political, and material, position which is ultimately uncompatible with Levinas' situational and metaphysical take on the self. Keywords: Shame; Desire; Ethics; Affective Tonalities