From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Phenomenology and Science.
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 20:21:47 +0000


Michael P wrote:

>I hate to admit it, but Jud has a naively interesting point here: why
>are not so-called "subjective dispositions" themselves not relevant as
>an object/subject of (some) science? Science, the "passionless
>passion" {Goethe?}, can surely passionlessly sub-ject passion itself
>to scientific rigour (rigour, exactitude, 'objectivity', elimination
>or minimalisation of bias & ideology, etc, are surely examples of
>extra-ordinary passion)...

Yes it can do that, but it does this passionlessly. Psychology does this all 
the time, subjecting passions and feelings to scientific analysis.

>what Anthony, I feel, leaves out of his account, is that science
>(qua-science!) *begins* with passion, a passion to leave out passion
>(of the scientist-qua-man), with the metaphysical notion that being
>(as beings-as-a-whole) will reveal itself to man if man leaves himself
>(as desire, as passion, as interest, etc) out of the proceedings as
>far as possible (however impossible that may be!).

A scientist of course would probably object to the equation of a 
"metaphysical notion" with just another "passion," albeit a passion to leave 
out passion.

>Does not
>phenomenology insurrect itself precisely to bring the original
>passion, desire, eros, interest, etc, back into the frame, as a ground
>to the very institution of science in the first place (by bringing the
>forgotten, faggoten, of the first place, the arche, back into the
>second place, as a new second nature...).

Well that's Heidegger's phenomenology (sort of), but not Husserl's. But it's 
not exactly obvious that this must be done - remember that scientific 
philosophy basically reigned all the way up to Husserl. I don't think it's 
accidental that it took centuries and centuries of scientific philosophy 
beating itself over the head by repeatedly cutting itself off from the very 
world it was trying to reach, before a Heidegger was finally produced, 
almost out of exhaustion, as if to say, "OK OK, I finally get it, the world 
is not primarily objective!" Philosophy was dragged to Heidegger kicking and 
screaming, and I sincerely believe that no one can truly understand the 
significance of Heidegger's philosophy unless they themselves have been 
dragged kicking and screaming out of scientific philosophy. Of all the 
students whom I have taught, the ones who find it easy to accept Heidegger 
from the start (generally artists, poets, lit majors) are almost without 
exception the ones who later exhibit the most fundamental misunderstandings, 
like continually interpreting readiness in the easy common sense way - as 
presupposing basic sensory sight. The scientific minds in my class, on the 
other hand, inevitably reject Heidegger from the start, but precisely 
because they understand what Heidegger is actually claiming - for example, 
that circumspective sight cannot be reduced to "basic" sensory sight (which 
I bang into their heads over and over again). For the scientific types, my 
job is then rather easy - I just show them that their own scientific 
presuppositions will drive them into the very idealism that they ridiculed 
when they read Descartes. For the artists, poets, and lit majors, on the 
other hand, it is always extremely hard to get them to see just what 
Heidegger is saying. So I get quite suspicious whenever I hear someone say 
that Heidegger's subordination of science is surely obvious.

Anthony Crifasi

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