2020 Vol. 39. №4

The Concepts of “Appearance” and “Phenomenon” in Transcendental Philosophy (Kant, Husserl, Fink)

DOI

10.5922/0207-6918-2020-4-2

Pages

29-61

Abstract

This study aims, first, to delimit the seemingly synonymous concepts of “phenomenon” and “appearance” and second, to trace the functions of each in Kant’s philosophy and the phenomenological tradition. The analy­sis is based on Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the central works of Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink. Kant does not explicitly distinguish the two terms and only speaks about phenomena when he deals with the categorial application of reason. With Husserl, appearance is linked with the area of the natural attitude while the phenomenon is absolute. Fink’s position is interesting in that it differs from the views of the main representatives of transcendental philosophy, Kant and Husserl. According to Fink, appearing is the foundation of the fact that what exists is and that appearing is being. Fink takes a different approach to the meanings of appearance as opposing the thing in itself which possesses true but unknowable being (Kant) and appearance as taking place in the “relative” sphere of the natural attitude (Husserl): with Fink, appearance (or, as Fink constantly writes, “appearing”) turns out to be the condition of the existence of objects. Appearance, understood through the prism of the human being which perceives something as Vorschein, implies an inherently open world. Following Fink, I analyse these provisions and examine, first, light as the metaphysical source of cognition, second, the human being as a special kind of being, third, the pre-Socratic treatment of being and, fourth, the formation of a distinct phenomenological idiom. I come to the conclusion that the metaphysical-ontological method of phenomenological analysis of appearance proposed by Fink affords a new insight into the a priori principle and the nature of Kant’s “thing in itself” and proposes a new grounding of Husserl’s thesis which questions Kant’s agnosticism.

Reference

Burkhanov, R. A., 2016. Thing in itself and a Phenomenon, Noumenon and Phenomenon, Transcendental, Immanent and Transcendent in the Theoretical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Historical, Philosophical, Political and Legal Sciences, Culturology and Art History. Issues of Theory and Practice, 3(65): in 2 Parts, Part 2, pp. 34-36.

Descartes, R., 1985. The Principles of Philosophy. Translated by J. Cottingham. In: R. Descartes, 1985. The Philo­sophical Writings. Volume 1. Cambridge, London, New York et al.: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177-291.

Descartes, R., 1998. Discourse on Method. In: R. Descartes, 1998. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by D. A. Cress. 4th Edition. Cambridge and Indianapolis: Hackett, pp. 1-44.

Figal, G., 2010. Erscheinungsdinge: Ästhetik als Phänomenologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Fink, E., 1957. Zur ontologischen Frühgeschichte von Raum — Zeit — Bewegung. Dordrecht: Springer.

Fink, E., 1958. Sein, Wahrheit, Welt. Vor-Fragen zum Problem des Phänomen-Begriffs. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.

Fink, E., 1959. Alles und Nichts. Ein Umweg zur Philoso­phie. Dordrecht: Springer.

Giubilato, G. J., 2017. Freiheit und Reduktion. Grundzüge einer phänomenologischen Meontik bei Eugen Fink (1927–1946). Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz.

Heidegger, M. and Fink, E., 1979. Heraclitus Seminar 1966/67. Translated by C. H. Seibert. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press.

Held K. Husserls Rückgang auf das phainómenon und die geschichtliche Stellung der Phänomenologie. In: Dialektik und Genesis in der Phänomenologie. Edited by E. W. Orth. Freiburg & München: Alber, 1980. S. 89-145.

Held, K., 2012. Phänomenologie der natürlichen Lebenswelt. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Husserl, E., 1983. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. Translated by F. Kersten. The Hague, Boston and Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983.

Husserl, E., 1999. The Idea of Phenomenology. Translated by L. Hardy. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Husserl, E., 2002. Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1922/23. In: B. Goossens, ed. 2002. Husserliana XXXV. Dordrecht and Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Ikeda, Y., 2015. Eugen Fink’s Kant-Interpretation. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 4(2), pp. 154-185.

Kant, I., 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, I., 2002. Prolegomena to Any Future Meta­physics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science. In: Kant, I., 2002. Theoretical Philosophy after 1781. Edited by H. Allison and P. Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 49-169.

Katrechko, S. L., 2018. The Nature of Appearance in Kant’s Transcendentalism: A Semantico-Cognitive Analysis. Kantian Journal, 37(3), pp. 31-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.5922/0207-6918-2018-3-2.

Komarov, S. V., 2006. The Concept of Appearance in Kant: Meaning and Significance. Vestnik of Kostroma State University, 12(4), pp. 165-175. (In Rus.)

Krouglov, A. N., 2005. Did Kant Have a Transcendental Subject? In: History of Philosophy Yearbook 2004. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 279-295. (In Rus.)

Marshall, C., 2013. Kant’s One Self and the Appearance / Thing-in-itself Distinction. Kant-Studien, 104(4), pp. 421-441.

Motroshilova, N. V., 2010. “Phenomenon”, “Appearance”, “Gestalt”: Terminological and Substantive Problems of Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” in Relation to Kant’s Philosophy. In: N. V. Motroshilova, ed. 2010. “Phenomenologiya dukha” Gegelya v kontekste sovremennogo gegelevedeniya [Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” in the Context of Contemporary Hegel Studies]. Moscow: Kanon+, pp. 73-101. (In Rus.)

Motroshilova, N. V., 2017. I. Kant: Between “Appearance” (Erscheinung) and “Phenomenon” — from early works to the Critique of Pure Reason. In: S. L. Katrechko, ed. 2017. Transtesndentalny povorot v sovremennoy filosofii (2): Kantovskoe yavleniye, ego ontologicheskiy i epistemicheskiy status. Sbornik materialov mezhdunarodnogo nauchnogo seminara [Transcendental Turn in Contemporary Philosophy (2): Kant’s Appearance, Its Ontological and Epistemic Status. Proceedings of an International Research Workshop]. Moscow: TsGI, pp. 12-15. (In Rus.)

Oizerman, T. I., 2002. The Concept of Appearance in Kant’s System. In: History of Philosophy Yearbook 2000. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 196-208. (In Rus.)

Pinkard, T., 2002. German Philosophy 1760–1860. The Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Razeev, D. N., 1997. “Appearance” and “Phenomenon” in the Theoretical Philosophy of Kant. In: Thought. Yearbook of Petersburg Philosophical Association. St.-Petersburg: St.-Petersburg University Press, pp. 200-208. (In Rus.)

Rozhanskii, I. D., 1979. Razvitiye estestvoznaniya v epokhu Antichnosti. Rannyaya grecheskaya nauka “o prirode” [The Development of Natural Sciences in the Age of Antiquity. Early Greek Science “about Nature”]. Moscow: Nauka. (In Rus.)

Schnell, A., 2015. Wirklichkeitsbilder. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Seel, M., 2003. Ästhetik des Erscheinens. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Soentgen, J., 2010. Erscheinung und Phänomen. In: H. R. Sepp, A. Wildermuth, eds. 2010. Konzepte des Phänomenalen. Henrich Barth — Eugen Fink — Jan Patočka. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, pp. 49-67.