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Phenomenology & Perception Workshop

After-Life of Phenomenology Research Workshop

The After-life of Phenomenology workshop considers how phenomenology has allowed us to revisit the work of philosophers who pre-dated phenomenology, and to reinterpret their thought in light of phenomenology. Some of the major thinkers that phenomenology has allowed us to reconsider can helpfully be divided into two groups: German Idealists, who sought to discover the universal conditions of human understanding, and Psychologists, who focused on the first-personal experience of humans. Since phenomenology attempts to unite these two strands of thought – that is, it attempts to access universal conditions by inquiring into first-personal experience – idealists and psychologists have been both appropriated and critiqued by the phenomenological tradition. We inquire into this ‘after-life’ of phenomenology in three parts. First, we consider the relationship between phenomenology and German Idealism, focusing especially on the appropriation of Immanuel Kant’s thought by Martin Heidegger. Second, we inquire into the actual dialogue that occurred between phenomenologists and Neo-Kantians like Ernst Cassirer. Finally, we consider the relationship between phenomenology and psychologists like Wilhelm Dilthey.