Transcendence and Sensibility from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty

The Master Class in Phenomenology for Asian Scholars,

Chinese University of Hong Kong
19 July 4 August 2010
Course Outline
Part One
Professor Dermot Moran
(University College Dublin)
These four seminars focus primarily on the German tradition of phenomenology -- Husserl, Scheler,
Stein and Heidegger -- with some reference to the French tradition of Merleau-Ponty. Husserl speaks of
sensibility in Ideas II and of transcendence especially in The Idea of Phenomenology (1907).
Heidegger, of course, discusses transcendence in Vom Wesen des Grundes and elsewhere. I was going
to cover these texts and possibly also something on Edith Stein Zum Problem der Einfhlung.

Seminar One: Husserls Phenomenology: Transcendence in Immanence. The Riddle of

Transcendence
In our first seminar we will introduce the concepts of sensibility and transcendence, particulalty as they
occur in the phenomenology of Husserl. We will begin with a brief overview of the traditional
discussion of transcendence and the transcendental in Kant, and also discuss briefly Kants account
of sensibility. We shall then outline Husserls relationship with the tradition of transcendental
philosophy and his phenomenology as an attempt to understand the transcendence-in-immanence.
Husserls phenomenology of perception as developed in Ideas I (perception of something transcendent
and immanent perception) and elsewhere will be discussed in order to understand the relations between
sensibility and transcendence.
Readings:
Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason. Introduction.
Kant Letter to Markus Herz 21 February 1772, in Kant, Correspondence (Cambridge U. P. 1999), pp.
132-38.
Husserl,Edmund. Idea of Phenomenology (1907), especially Lectures I to III, pp. 15-40.
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas I 38-46 and 51, 54-55, 58-59.
Husserl, Edmund. Kant and the Idea of Transcendental Philosophy. Trans. Ted E. Klein and William
E. Pohl. Southwestern Journal of Philosophy Vol. 5 Fall 1974, pp. 9-56.
Seminar Two: Husserl on Embodiment and Personhood
In our second seminar we shall explore Husserls conception of embodiment (Leiblichkeit) and
sensibility (Sinnlichkeit) as well as his layered account of the structure of the self in its full
personhood (the monad) especially as found in Ideas II. In particular we will look at Husserls claim
that, in the constitution of spatiality including the spatiality of ones own body there is a priority of
touch over sight. We will examine Husserls discussion of the Double Sensation (one hand touching
the other) and also its subsequent use by Merleau-Ponty in his Phnomnologie de al perception and Le
visible et linvisible.
Readings:
Husserl, Thing and Space 46-47
Husserl Ideas II 18; 36-37
Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of Perception, pp. 315 ff
Merleau-Ponty The Intertwiningthe Chiasm, The Visible and Invisible, pp. 130-162.

Seminar Three: Transcendence and the Other in Scheler and Stein

In this seminar we will continue our exploration of the concepts of sensibility (especially embodied
perception and perception of others in empathy) and transcendence in the work of two
phenomenologists close to Husserl: Max Scheler and Edith Stein. We will examine their attempts to
develop a personalistic phenomenology and look in some detail at the phenomenological concept of
empathy (Einfhlung; Sympathie) in relation to intersubjectivity.
Readings:
Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, Fifth Meditation
Max Scheler The Nature of Sympathy
Edith Stein On the Problem of Empathy
Schutz The Problem of Transcendental Intersubjectivity in Husserl, Schutz, Collected Papers III.
Seminar Four: Heideggers Concept of Transcendence; Overcoming Subjectivity
In this seminar we will examine Heideggers efforts to move beyond Husserls phenomenology of
subjectivity through the concept of the ek-sistence and thrownness of Dasein. Heidegger also wants to
rethink the concept of transcendence to overcome the legacy of Cartesian subjectivism. Dasein has the
character of fallenness (Verfallensein) and the capacity for authenticity (Eigentlichkeit) and
inauthenticity. Heideggers discussion the concept of transcendence in various places, including On the
Essence of Reasons (Vom Wesen des Grundes), will be examined.
Heidegger, M. Being and Time 26-27 on das Man, Mitsein
Heidegger, M. The Essence of Reasons. Translated by Terrence Malick. Evanston, Northwestern
University Press, 1969.
Heidegger, Phenomenology and Theology, trans. James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo, in Pathmarks,
ed. William McNeill (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1998).
M. Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, in Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, ed. and trans. David Farrell
Krell (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978),
M. Heidegger, Only a God Can Save Us: Der Spiegels Interview with Martin Heidegger (1966),
trans. Maria Alter and John D. Caputo, in Richard Wolin, ed. The Heidegger Controversy. A Critical
Reader (Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr., 1993), pp. 91-116.
Marion, Jean-Luc The Saturated Phenomenon, in The Visible and the Revealed, trans. Christina M.
Gschwandtner (New York: Fordham, 2008), pp. 18-48.

Recommended Further Reading

E. Husserl, Die Idee der Phnomenologie. Fnf Vorlesungen. Nachdruck der 2. erg. Auflage, hrsg. W.
Biemel, Husserliana II (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), trans. Lee Hardy, The Idea of Phenomenology.
Collected Works VIII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999).
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy.
First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology (Collected Works, vol. 2), trans. F. Kersten.
The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.
Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy.
Second Book. trans. by Richard Rojcewicz and Andr Schuwer, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic
Publishers, 1989.
Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. by
David Carr, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970.
Edmund Husserl, Thing and Space: Lectures of 1907, trans. by R. Rojcewicz. Husserl Collected Works
VII (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997).
E. Husserl, Kant und die Idee der Transzendentalphilosophie, in Erste Philosophie (1923/24). Erster
Teil: Kritische Ideengeschichte, hrsg. R. Boehm, Hua VII (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965), pp. 230-287;
trans. by Ted E. Klein and William E. Pohl as Kant and the Idea of Transcendental Philosophy,
Southwestern Journal of Philosophy Vol. 5 Fall 1974, pp. 9-56.
M. Heidegger, Ontologie (Hermeneutik der Faktizitt), ed. Kte Brcker-Oltmanns, GA 63 (Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1988), p. 32; trans. by John van Buren as OntologyThe Hermeneutics of Facticity
(Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1999).
M. Heidegger, Phnomenologie des religisen Lebens, GA 60 (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1995), trans.
Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei, The Phenomenology of Religious Life
(Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 2004).
M. Heidegger, Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten, Spiegel-Gesprch mit Martin Heidegger am 23
September 1966, Der Spiegel 31 Mai 1976; Only a God Can Save Us: Der Spiegels Interview with
Martin Heidegger (1966), trans. Maria Alter and John D. Caputo, in Richard Wolin, ed. The Heidegger
Controversy. A Critical Reader (Cambridge, MA: MIT Pr., 1993), pp. 91-116.
Heidegger, M. The Essence of Reasons. Translated by Terrence Malick. Evanston, Northwestern
University Press, 1969.
Roman Ingarden, On the Motives Which Led Husserl to Transcendental Idealism, trans. Arnr
Hannibalsson, Phaenomenologica 64 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975).
Kant, Immanuel, tr. Ted Humphrey as What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since
the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? (New York: Abaris Books, 1983). Also In Kants Theoretical
Philosophy After 1781 (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2002).
Marion, Jean-Luc. Reduction and Givenness. Trans. Thomas Carlson. Northwestern U. P.
Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige: ber das Irrationale in der Idee des Gttlichen und sein Verhltnis zum
Rationalen (1917, reprinted Mnchen: C. H. Beck, 1963), translated by John W.Harvey as The Idea of
the Holy (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1923, reprinted 1950).
Scheler, Max. The Nature of Sympathy. Trans. Peter Heath. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954.
Revised edition with new Introduction by Graham McAleer. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 2008

Dermot Moran, Husserl and Sartre on Embodiment and the Double Sensation, in Katherine J.
Morris, ed. Sartre on the Body, Philosophers in Depth Series. Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010,
pp. 41-66.
Dermot Moran, Husserls Transcendental Philosophy and the Critique of Naturalism, Continental
Philosophy Review, Volume 41 No. 4 (December 2008), pp. 401-425.
Dermot Moran, Edmund Husserls Letter to Lucien Lvy-Bruhl, 11 March 1935: Introduction, with
the assistance of Lukas Steinacher, New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological
Philosophy, Vol. VIII (2008), pp. 325-347.
Dermot Moran, Immanence, Self-Experience, and Transcendence in Edmund Husserl, Edith Stein and
Karl Jaspers, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly vol. 82, no. 2 (Spring 2008), pp. 265-291.
Dermot Moran, Finks Speculative Phenomenology: Between Constitution and Transcendence,
Research in Phenomenology, Vol. 37 No. 1 (2007), pp. 3-31.
Dermot Moran, Heideggers Transcendental Phenomenology in the Light of Husserls Project of First
Philosophy, in Steven Crowell and Jeff Malpas, eds, Transcendental Heidegger (Stanford: Stanford U.
P., 2007), pp. 135-150 and pp. 261-264.
Dermot Moran, Edmund Husserl. Founder of Phenomenology. Key Contemporary Thinkers Series.
Cambridge, UK & Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2005.
Dermot Moran, The Problem of Empathy: Lipps, Scheler, Husserl and Stein, in Amor Amicitiae: On
the Love that is Friendship. Essays in Medieval Thought and Beyond in Honor of the Rev. Professor
James McEvoy, ed. Thomas A. Kelly and Phillip W. Rosemann (Leuven/Paris/ Dudley, MA: Peeters,
2004), pp. 269-312.
Dermot Moran, Making Sense: Husserls Phenomenology as Transcendental Idealism, in J. Malpas,
ed., From Kant to Davidson: Philosophy and the Idea of the Transcendental, Routledge Studies in
Twentieth-Century Philosophy. (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 48-74. Reprinted in Phenomenology.
Critical Concepts in Philosophy. Ed. Dermot Moran and Lester E. Embree (London & New York:
Routledge, 2004), Vol. 1, pp. 84-113.
Dermot Moran, Introduction to Phenomenology. London & New York: Routledge, 2000.
Max Scheler, Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt Toward a
Foundation of An Ethical Personalism. Trans Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1973.
Max Scheler, Zur Idee des Menschen, Vom Umsturz der Werte, Abhandlungen und Aufstze,
Gesammlte Werke, Vol. 3, Ed. Maria Scheler (Bern: Francke. 4., 1955), pp. 171-195.
Robert Bernasconi (1984). Transcendence and the Overcoming of Values: Heidegger's Critique of
Scheler. Research in Phenomenology 14 (1):259-267.
Martin Buber (1945). The Philosophical Anthropology of Max Scheler. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 6 (2):307-321.
Marvin Farber (1954). Max Scheler on the Place of Man in the Cosmos. Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 14 (3):393-399.
Seminar Four: Heidegger. Facticity and Transcendence
Heidegger on Transcendence. Heidegger Being and Time.
Transcendence as Surpassing (berstieg) in On the Essence of Reasons (Vom Wesen des Grundes,
1928).

Martin Heidegger, Ontologie (Hermeneutik der Faktizitt), Frhe Freiburger Vorlesung

Sommersemester 1923, Gesamtausgabe II, Vorlesungen, Vol. 65, (Frankfurt am Main, 2nd Edition,
1995, Chapter Die Idee der Faktizitt under der Begriff Mensche, (Martin Heidegger, Ontologie,
pp. 21-29).
Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. Albert Hofstadter (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1982).