Was Roman Ingarden a phenomenologist? Cover Image

Czy Roman Ingarden był fenomenologiem?
Was Roman Ingarden a phenomenologist?

Author(s): Andrzej Półtawski
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: Roman Ingarden; Ingarden; phenomenology;

Summary/Abstract: Roman Ingarden used to say that he is not sure whether he was a phenomenologist. This does not seem to be just coquetry. Transcendental phenomenology in its official Husserlian version did not achieve adequacy of describing our primary experience in its fullness because it began as a sort of science, in the attitude of an ‘uninvolved observer’. Yet phenomenology postulated a separate methodology, different from that of science, a methodology understood as building up a new conceptual apparatus based on a full analysis of primary experience – and the phenomenologists did achieve a great progress in this direction – the direction of transcending the limits of some sort of analytic philosophy of ‘pure consciousness’ based on traditional concepts which phenomenology could seem to be at the beginning. Husserl oscillated between the ‘dogmatic’ and ‘critical’ motive discerned in his thought by Ernst Tugendhat: between accepting consciousness as a sphere of absolute insights and seeing such insights as an asymptotic limit of investigation. A similar duality exists also in Ingarden’s thought. This duality could have been a motive of Ingarden’s doubts.

  • Issue Year: 2009
  • Issue No: 22
  • Page Range: 5-11
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: Polish