This chapter surveys the (relatively limited) place of philosophical ethics in the development of phenomenology, and the problematical legacy of Heidegger’s thought, specifically, for phenomenological engagement with ethics. It discusses divergent interpretations of Heidegger in both philosophy and anthropology, and different anthropological versions of a phenomenology of ethics. It also considers the distinctive approach to ethics, building instead of Heidegger on Husserl’s unpublished lectures on ethics, in the study of values.

The third force movement, grounded in the principles of existential philosophy, focuses on the individual in quest of identity, values, and authenticity. The nineteenth century writings of such figures as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Dilthey formed the background for the view of the person as alone and dehumanized. The twentieth century works of Sartre, Camus, and Jaspers offered further expression to the basic state of anxiety and absurdity. The personalism of Emmanuel Mounier and Karol Wojtyła reintroduced the person within psychology. The methodological writings of Husserl and Heidegger contributed to the development of phenomenology as a means of investigating the holistic character of human experience. The combined existential–phenomenological psychology was an application of a new orientation in clinical settings, by such psychologists as Merleau-Ponty and Binswanger. In America, the humanistic viewpoints of Allport, Bühler, Maslow, May, and Rogers agreed generally with the European movement, and a center of existential-phenomenological psychology emerged at Duquesne University. Although it did not generate a comprehensive alternative to behaviorist formulations, the third force movement has exerted an impact on clinical applications, especially in therapeutic efforts.

Chapter 5 explores Derrida’s analysis of the problem of judgement through an extended analysis of Derrida’s analysis of presence and différance. It analyses three of Derrida’s readings of other philosophers: Plato, Hegel, and Husserl, with the aim of showing how in each case, Derrida believes that the priority of presence (and hence judgement) rests on a transcendental idea that exceeds the given. It argues that despite Derrida’s apparent hostility to the phenomenological tradition, his work is indebted to Sartre, and echoes Bergson’s analysis of resemblance.

Phenomenology of time-consciousness underwrites Dante’s entire experience of the letters appearing successively to him in the Heaven of Jupiter and forming a whole only in his mental synthesis of their event. Dante takes the “I” as organizing framework and originary principle of the poem. But this I and the poem itself are put forward as mediations of a higher being, that of God. The situation is thus fundamentally different from that in modern phenomenological tradition, where the “I” as mediation of otherness is centered in itself rather than in a divine Other. The self in the perspective of Dante’s poem is a structure serving to relate to God as the absolute Other rather than simply encompassing all possible reality within its own parameters. Whereas in modern philosophy from Descartes to Husserl, otherness has typically been comprehended as no more than a detour back to self and thus as an indirect mode of self-relation, we need to stand this insight on its head (or turn it inside out) in order to see things from Dante’s perspective. Not the I, but God, is the ground and principle in Dante’s theocentric world-view. The reality of the “I” is derivative: it consists of being “made in God’s image.”

This chapter explores the historical relationship between Heidegger and Gadamer. It points out several surprises and disappointments that Gadamer experienced with Heidegger. More importantly, the chapter considers the phenomenological character of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. Gadamer rejects many of the basic characteristics of Husserl’s phenomenology, but he is also indebted deeply to other aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology. These aspects he also shares with Heidegger–the concepts of horizon and lifeworld, the account of temporality, and the rejection of a representational epistemology. The chapter points out the distinctiveness of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in relation to Heidegger’s. Gadamer’s hermeneutics is more dialogical, embraces the antinomy of beginnings, and embraces Plato and Aristotle.

Situating Cassirer in a historical perspective, Daniel D. Dahlstrom's chapter casts light on prominent lines of convergence and divergence between Husserl’s phenomenological analyses and Cassirer’s philosophical studies. The general topic of the first line of convergence is logical theory, as Husserl and Cassirer both argue for the autonomy of logic, the promise of set theory, and the intensionality of concepts.Other lines of agreement include their common rejection of empiricist accounts of abstraction and universals, their embrace of a Kantian philosophical legacy, and their respective commitments to the primacy of meaning and self-described versions of idealism. Nevertheless, the philosophies of Husserl and Cassirer diverge from one another in significant ways, primarily in view of the thematic range of their investigations and their respective insistence upon intuition and the sign or symbol as the basis of human consciousness and cognition. Dahlstrom focuses on differences in Husserl and Cassirer's analyses of intuitions and perceptions that Cassirer himself also pronounced.

In the final chapter, Sebastian Luft revisits Michael Friedman's famous claim that Cassirer's philosophical vision has the potential to overcome the split between analytic and continental philosophy. This chapter first formulates some criteria for a post-split philosophy, namely a balance between historical sensitivity and systematic focus, a priori and empirical truths, conceptual analysis and descriptive synthesis, and exegesis and jargon. Next, Luft shows why and how Cassirer's thought lives up to each of these criteria in his own writings as well as in characteristic discussions with some of his contemporaries, in particular Husserl and Heidegger. The conclusion of this chapter explains how Cassirer combines these criteria by installing the interdependence of transcendental idealism and cultural pluralism. Luft presents these as the two most important aspects of Cassirer's work, both in terms of actual cultural practice and the way in which philosophical and scientific scholars account for it.

This chapter makes the argument that there are several levels of the constitution of experience indicated in Husserl's phenomenology, and that they are much more systematically in place in his work than might first appear. These levels begin from the ‘lowest’, hyletic level of raw sensory experience, move up through passive synthesis and the active constitution of objects, and then reach two final levels of intersubjectivity. After providing an overview of each of these levels, the chapter turns to an application of this understanding of phenomenological constitution to the experience of gender, and more specifically, to eating disorders. In doing so, it demonstrates that these levels of constitution can be applied to areas beyond phenomenology, and hopefully, that they can provide structures and terminology that assist in the explanation of many differing approaches to experience.

Three fundamental anthropologic dimensions are severely disturbed in anorexia nervosa: corporeality, spatiality and temporality. These dimensions constitute an existential form of anorexia which actualizes a disembodied subject in a purely physical world exhibiting rationalistic thoughts. We will not separate corporeality and spatiality, but indeed temporality. In the chapter we describe the most prominent characteristics.

This response offers a brief overview of Gallagher’s chapter, and then questions it on three specific points: reflective versus pre-reflective accounts of the ownership of our body, the extension of this sense of ownership to cognitive and affective realms, and the basis for this sense of ownership in the very fabric of our experiences. The commentary ends with a suggestion on how the phenomenological approach can contribute to psychiatry, both in the clinic and in the lab.