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The study concentrates on possible connection between phenomenological thought of Edmund Husserl and Jean-Paul Sartre by focusing on the way by which each of them frames pre-reflexive self-awareness of consciousness and its role in the process of constitution of the identity of the "Ego" as a subjective pole. Essential motivation derives from the effort of highlighting those moments of Husserl's thinking, which might have been or actually were a source of inspiration for Sartre and the formulation of these concepts in the early stages of his career. Subsequently, the quest is to clarify the scale of this inspiration and to shed some light on the question whether Sartre did not push his constructions over the boundaries of the scientific field set by Husserl. The study also incorporates several of Husserl's works which are in their conclusions tending to go against those presented as a possible source of Sartre's inspiration. That is done in order not to simplify the ambivalence of Husserl's work over the acceptable limit as well as to emphasize the nature of the investigations preferred by Sartre. These investigations lead in his work to the conceptualization of human existence as necessarily free, which is the conclusion of the presented study. Key words: Husserl, Sartre, consciousness,...

The purpose of the dissertation is to investigate the degree of compatibility of two fields: phenomenology and computational cognitive science. The former field proposes to explicate all structures of conscious experience in terms of conscious experience. The latter proposes to explicate all structures of consciousness partly in terms of unconscious causal factors. These endeavors have been seen as mutually exclusive. I put forward the thesis that the original formulation of phenomenology may be seen to have a computational theory of mind in the background. To this end, I show in the first chapter that the founder of phenomenology articulated, prior to founding phenomenology, a computational theory of mind in terms of its two modern theses: (1) syntactic representations, and (2) their causal generation and interaction. Insofar as I am able to provide sufficient evidence for this thesis, I am theoretically licensed to proceed to trace its influence on the founding of phenomenology proper. On the above textual basis, I proceed in the second chapter to discuss Husserl's methodology in the founding work of phenomenology - the Logical Investigations. I there show how my compatibility thesis may be true; indeed, I demonstrate that formal evidence is the causal product of what Husserl calls “unsere Denkmaschine” – a thought-machine that manipulates syntactic symbols. The third chapter discusses several arguments against (Humean) associationism, and by extension against (Churchlandian) connectionism, and show that they demand in their stead computationalism, both on account of the nature of the explananda as well as for the sake of theoretical completeness. In the fourth chapter, I discuss, with a view to deepening my interpretation, the much-celebrated property (since Chomsky) of productivity. This leads to a discussion of the methodological relation between “universal grammar,” as it appears directly in the 4th Logical Investigation, and the computational theory of mind. In the fifth chapter, I discuss how Husserl’s descriptive treatment of the propositional attitudes (as act-matters & act-qualities), nominalization, and categorial intuition may be supplemented on the explanatory side by a language of thought.

Ce travail a pour objectif d'élaborer une description phénoménologique de l'amour en suivant pour cela trois axes d'investigation : dans une première partie, il s'agit d'analyser l'amour comme modalité de l'intentionnalité, telle que la thématisent chacun de leur côté Scheler et Husserl, ce qui suppose l'élucidation du rapport de l'amour aux valeurs qu'il dévoile pour l'un ou constitue pour l'autre. Dans une deuxième partie, à travers la reprise du débat entre Heidegger et Binswanger quant au statut de l'amour dans la constitution existentiale du Dasein, l'expérience de l'amour est comprise comme un mode original de configuration du monde : l'horizon est alors l'articulation de l'amour et de la question de l'être. Enfin, dans une troisième partie, il s'agit de combiner ces deux approches dans la perspective d'une phénoménologie de l'existence qui s'efforce de saisir le phénomène de l'amour dans son sens humain, c'est-à-dire détaché de tout horizon théologique. / Our purpose in this work is to build a phenomenological description of human love through three ways of investigation. First, we describe love as a mode of intentionnality, with Scheler's and Husserl's analysis, in order to elucidate how love reveals or constitutes values. Then, in the second part, we approach the phenomenological problem of love as configuration of a new world, by reconsidering the debate between Heidegger and Binswanger about his function within the Dasein existential analysis. By doing so, the problem of love appears in his connection with ontology. In the third part of this work, we finally try to expose the human meaning of love, which appears in Sartre's phenomenology. By including love in a phenomenology of existence, Sartre allows us to understand how it must be described with the opposition of authenticity and inauthenticity, that is to say without including any theological presupposition in the phenomenological description.

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The main objective of this research is to look at the topic of everyday life from a dynamic perspective. The definition of everyday life that this thesis stands upon, i.e. the presence of a subject in the world with the other(s) outlines also two main sources of its dynamics: the world and the other. The essential aim of this thesis is to show that the different attitudes towards the world and the other in the works of Husserl and Lévinas consequently influence the understanding of the everyday life as such, as well as the requirements it imposes upon the subject. The chapter dedicated to Husserl presents his concept of the world as a horizon, the irreplaceable position of perception in our access to the world and the creation of the other within the subject itself. On the contrary, Lévinas stresses the separation of the subject and he understands the world and the other as inherently belonging to this never-ending process. The motive of dependence and responsibility of the subject for the other belongs to the most significant differences between the two philosophers. Whereas Husserl proposes us a subject in the world which he accesses via perception and in which he encounters the other, Lévinas shows us subject that is born to the pre-reflexive and intersubjective world from which he first has to...

The aim of this paper is to explore the theme of history in Husserl’s phenomenology, a theme to which he had a complex relation. While in his programmatic text, Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft, he opposed himself to the so-called “historicism” of some of his contemporaries, claiming that it leads to relativism, he later in his career sought to incorporate historical reflections into the core of the phenomenological method. The challenge, then, is to understand, or perhaps to reconcile, the tension between Husserl’s early anti-historicism and his later turn toward history and historical reflections. By highlighting some of the key points in the development of his phenomenology, such as the distinction between static and genetic analysis, this tension is shown to be nothing but apparent. By expanding the scope of his notion of essences to also include motivations, origins, and ideals, the later Husserl gives to phenomenology a fundamentally historical and temporal dimension. A central component in this development, it is argued, is the notion of sense-reflection (Besinnung), connecting phenomenology both to historical and ethical concerns. In later texts such as Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, sense-reflection is used in a variety of contexts: as indicating the retrieval of historically lost meaning (such as that within the sciences); as indicating the Socratic ethos of self-knowledge (Selbstbesinnung); and lastly, as indicating the process of performing the phenomenological reduction. Ultimately, according to Husserl, only by engaging in historical sense-reflections can phenomenology become a truly rigorous science, seeking to clarify the meaning of science as an intersubjective project aiming toward the realization of human rationality and reason.

In this dissertation, I examine the nature and structure of consciousness. Conscious experience is often said to be phenomenally unified, and subjects of consciousness are often self-conscious. I ask whether these features necessarily accompany conscious experience. Is it necessarily the case, for instance, that all of a conscious subject's experiences at a time are phenomenally unified? And is it necessarily the case that subjects of consciousness are self-conscious whenever they are conscious? I argue that the answer to the former is affirmative and the latter negative. In the first chapter, I set the stage by distinguishing phenomenal unity from other species of conscious unity. A pair of conscious states is phenomenally unified if they are experienced together as part of a single experience that encompasses them both. In this and the next two chapters I defend the thesis that, necessarily, for any subject (of conscious mental states) at any time, all of that subject's conscious mental states (at that time) are part of a single, maximal state of consciousness. I call this thesis the "Unity Thesis." I proceed by considering some preliminary questions that might be raised about the Unity Thesis. For instance, the thesis presupposes that it is coherent to talk about parts of mental states. I consider objections by Tye and Searle and argue that the notion of an experiential part is unproblematic. In the remaining pages of the chapter, I present the source of the biggest challenge to the Unity Thesis: the data gathered from split-brain subjects. The Unity Thesis is formulated using the notion of a maximal state of consciousness. In the second chapter, I attempt to precisify this notion in a way that does not pre-emptively decide the debate over the Unity Thesis. In informal terms, a maximal state of consciousness is a sum of conscious states that are i) simultaneous, ii) have the same subject, and iii) all have a conjoint phenomenology. I call this the Consensus View. I then consider two unorthodox views that the Consensus View does not take off the table: the views that a "collective consciousness" and a "spread consciousness" are possible. A collective subject is one that can enjoy the experiences of an indeterminate number of "lesser" subjects of consciousness by sharing them together with those subjects. A spread subject is one that can enjoy the experiences of an indeterminate number of lesser subjects of consciousness, but it does so, not by sharing those experiences with the lesser subjects, but by absorbing the lesser subjects of experience into itself, thereby erasing the traditional boundaries between the entities we intuitively think of as subjects of experience. I argue that, although the Consensus View does not decide against them, these views stretch the bounds of coherence and should not, therefore, be accepted. Having presented an account of what maximal state of consciousness is, I define a stream of consciousness in terms of a maximal states of consciousness. In the rest of chapter two, I consider and argue against a number of different ways of interpreting the split-brain data that are either inconsistent with the Unity Thesis or attribute more than one subject of consciousness to split-brain subjects. Among the views I consider are Lockwood's partial-unity view and the views, by theorists such as Sperry, Koch, Puccetti, Marks, and Tye, that split-brain subjects have two non-overlapping streams of consciousness. In chapter three, I consider a recent attempt by Bayne to account for the split-brain data in a way that does not attribute two streams of consciousness to them. According to Bayne's Switch Model, the consciousness of split-brain subjects can be likened to that of a ball that is passed back and forth between the two hemispheres of the upper-brain. The hemispheres take turns supporting a single stream of consciousness. I consider the empirical data in some detail and argue that the data is not as compatible with the Switch Model as Bayne claims. I close the chapter by presenting the rough outline of an interpretation of the split-brain data that is consistent with both the Unity Thesis and the split-brain data. In chapter four, I turn from defending the Unity Thesis to examining an attempt to account for conscious unity. Rosenthal has offered a theory of conscious unity as an extension of his higher-order theory of consciousness. I consider his account of conscious unity in light of a well-known objection to his theory: the (Representational) Mismatch Objection. It can be asked what it is like for a subject of experience when a higher-order state misrepresents its target first-order state. If what it is like for the subject corresponds to the content of the higher-order state, then it appears as though higher-order representation is unnecessary for conscious experience, for it would appear as though it is possible for a state to be conscious without being represented by a higher-order state. If what it is like corresponds to the content of the lower-order state, then it would again seem as though representation at the higher-order level is unnecessary for conscious experience, for the higher-order state would not seem to be doing any work in generating the experience. I consider and argue against two recent defences of Rosenthal's higher-order theory from the Mismatch Objection. Then I turn to Rosenthal's account of conscious unity. Rosenthal's account posits two mental mechanisms. I refer to the ways of accounting for conscious unity via these two mechanisms as the "gathering strategy" and the "common-ascription strategy" respectively. Both of these strategies, I argue, appear to locate the basis for certain phenomenal facts in higher-order representational facts. This raises a prima facie question: does Rosenthal's account of conscious unity land him square within the sights of the Mismatch Objection? Although the gathering strategy may ultimately be understood in a way that does not make it subject to the Mismatch Objection, Rosenthal has certain commitments that bar this strategy from serving as a complete account of conscious unity. This is problematic for Rosenthal, I argue, because his common-ascription strategy faces some difficult questions. This strategy makes conscious unity due to an implicit expectation a subject of consciousness has that, whenever he or she engages in introspection, an explicit sense of conscious unity will be generated. I argue that it is very difficult to see how such an implicit sense could both avoid the Mismatch Objection and do the work it needs to do in order to account for conscious unity. In chapter five, the discussion turns from the unity of consciousness to self-consciousness. The question that is considered in this and the last chapter is the question whether conscious experience is necessarily accompanied by self-consciousness. The affirmative answer to this question I call the Ubiquity Thesis. I spend some time distinguishing robust conceptions of self-consciousness from minimal conceptions of self-consciousness. The notion of self-consciousness invoked by the Ubiquity Thesis is a minimal one. In spite of the fact that the Ubiquity Thesis invokes only a minimal or thin conception of self-consciousness, I believe the thesis to be false and argue against it. In this chapter I take up the views of Husserl. Husserl is often regarded as the progenitor of the phenomenological tradition, a tradition in which many philosophers affirm the Ubiquity Thesis. I examine and argue against an interpretation of Husserl's work, one defended by Zahavi, according to which Husserl could be seen to defend the Ubiquity Thesis. One claim that Husserl makes is that, in order for an object to become the intentional target of a conscious state, it must be given to consciousness beforehand. It is possible, during acts of deliberate introspection, for consciousness to take itself as its object. On Husserl's view, this requires consciousness to be given to itself beforehand. This self-givenness of consciousness, argues Zahavi, can be seen as a kind of minimal self-consciousness. Husserl has also offered an account of this self-givenness of consciousness and it appears in his discussion of inner time-consciousness. I attempt to argue, using some of Husserl's other views regarding psychological stances (or standpoints), that consciousness is not given to itself outside of the adoption of a certain psychological standpoint. I also offer an alternative way of accounting for inner time-consciousness, one that does not have, as a built-in feature, that consciousness always has itself as a secondary object. In the sixth and final chapter, I take up a contemporary defence of the Ubiquity Thesis. Kriegel, a higher-order theorist like Rosenthal, has argued that every conscious state is conscious in virtue of the fact that it represents itself. This self-representation is understood as a kind of self-consciousness and, thus, his theory can be seen as affirming the Ubiquity Thesis. In the first part of the chapter, I take issue with the way in which Kriegel lays out the conceptual terrain. In particular, Kriegel countenances a property he calls "intransitive state self-consciousness." I argue that this way of speaking is confused. I then turn to considering Kriegel's account. Kriegel identifies the species of self-consciousness that pervades all of conscious experience with a peripheral awareness of one's own mental states. I argue that such a peripheral inner awareness does not accompany all of our mental states and, thus, that Kriegel's views do not give us reason to accept the Ubiquity Thesis.

This work explores three phenomenological views of subjectivity in light of methodological transitions within phenomenology since its inception. Jean-Luc Marion offers a critique of Husserl 's transcendental ego in Cartesian Questions. This critique characterizes Husserl's transcendental ego as a 'schizophrenic ego'. This criticism is aimed at phenomenology's intentionality thesis as well as the method of reduction(s). Marion is influenced by Emmanuel Levinas' ethics and takes issue with a 'theoretical bias' within Husserl 's thought, a bias that characterizes subjectivity in the same terms as objectivity. I frame Marion's and Levinas' views of subjectivity in terms of two seemingly opposed 'origins' of subjectivity: Marion's notion of subjectivity embraces a notion of an originally auto-affected subject, while Levinas' position privileges an originally hetero-affected subject. I argue that both these views of subjectivity remain within dualist perspectives. Both thinkers try to overturn a hierarchy of reason over sensation/ emotion/ feeling by calling for a radically passive institution of subjectivity through either a givenness prior to subjectivity (Marion) or the face to face encounter with an Other (Levinas). However, both positions end up instituting a new hierarchy, one where reason is subjugated to feeling. Rather than dismantling dualism both thinkers end up defending a revised hierarchical thinking. I argue that Husserl's transcendental ego is indeed a 'schizophrenic ego' (i.e., a split ego) in Marion's sense but that this is not a problem for classical phenomenology but an alternative to either an auto-affected subject or a hetero-affected subject. Husserl's works on internal time-consciousness and passive and active synthesis illustrate a necessary correlation between passivity/ activity, matter/ form, reason/ emotion, ego/ world and self/ other which moves beyond the hierarchical thinking associated with traditional dualist thought. Husserl's notions of correlation and synthesis actually suggest a subject that is always intentionally related to the world and others and is also intentionally self-related. The implicit aim of this work is to suggest an alternative to an ethics of irreducibility endorsed by both Marion and Levinas. Husserlian phenomenology offers the possibility of an ethics of reciprocity, which paradoxically does not undermine the irreducibility of the subject, others or the world. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)