User talk:Femke 01

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Happy editing! -- 🐦DrWho42  👻  08:33, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

phenomenology
Hey @Femke 01,

Thanks for your rewrite of the lead on the phenomenology article!

(Technically, the lead is supposed to be a selective summary of the article to follow, so that the article itself is the source. It would be entirely perverse, however, to insist that an incomplete and undersourced article cannot have a well-written lead supported by scholarly sources.)

Do you have any intentions (or interest) in doing further work on the body of the article? Is so, maybe check in on its Talk page so that we're not working at cross-purposes as I continue my edits.

I don't have any particular vision for the article beyond just making it not awful. So you could work on just whatever parts you like without, I don't imagine, any gruff from me.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:47, 27 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment and sorry about wedging in! The way I saw it was that the lead was not informative enough so, on the talk page, I wrote in January that I could do a rewrite. Since then I was unfortunately busy with articles and it took me long to actually do it. However, I honestly think the article now makes more sense with the new lead. It is not bad in my opinion, and I would not do a complete rewrite. Some WP editors complained about the vagueness of the concept of phenomenology on the talk page. It can be made clearer, but as the lead now implicates, there are certain problems.
 * (1) At the philosophical level, phenomenology is not one idea but several different ones. Husserl deeply disagreed with Heidegger who took the project to a different direction. Thus, transcendental and existential phenomenology should be kept apart and should eventually be given their own pages, like the other branches.
 * (2) At the empirical level: there has been quite a lot of research that has made use of phenomenological methodology. These, however, are linked to the philosophies in complicated ways and can unlikely be compartmentalized in the same way.
 * I think that clarity should be added, and I could come back some time later making more small changes - but some of the vagueness might have to be remain because different scholars have different opinions of what counts as phenomenology. Husserl started it as a logicistic project, adhering to classical and rational principles. But Heidegger made it popular in humanities and political studies by making it relativistic (something which is denied by his advocates). However, due to Heidegger's nazi connections, it was discarded and the 1960s intellectuals chose structuralism instead (because of the arbitrariness of the sign, also relativistic). Eventually, structuralism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, etc. were joined under the common banner of postmodernism to give substance to anti-conservative subjectivism. However, if you write it like this, some people will not like it and may delete parts of the text. Femke 01 (talk) 07:35, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, cool. The new lead definitely improves the article. You will see that I removed one claim that I think misrepresents Heidegger's views, but otherwise I think that it is quite good. As far as I'm concerned, it can stay as is until such a time as the article is improved to the point of requiring revisions. And I'm not sure I'll take it that far.
 * Please do, if at all inclined, come back to make further improvements—particularly with respect to the representation of Husserl, who was constantly revising his own position, and who I suspect you know better than me.
 * (Incidentally, I disagree with your characterization of phenomenology as bottoming out in postmodernism, but there is no need to debate the matter here.)
 * Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 14:48, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is fine. Whether Husserl revised his position is also subject to debate. There is now a trend of interpreting Husserl in a less absolute and more evolutionary light. However, the term 'evolution' in his concepts of genetic and generative phenomenology is distinct of Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Husserl's defenders argue that he rather wanted to demonstrate that his method of bracketing provides important insight even when the temporal aspect is added, defending his anti-relativist logicism.
 * In fact, I would point to similarities between Husserl and the classical Aristotelian and Age of Enlightenment view of science, an antithesis to German Romanticism, which became dominant around 1800. Heidegger's idea of language in shaping consciousness has certain similar aspects to Humboldt's linguistic relativity even if Heidegger did not go as far as claiming that all nations have their own linguistic logic. At any rate, the Husserlians tend to dismiss the revisionist claims or focus on his earlier writings (such as Logical Investigations). Femke 01 (talk) 16:17, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

 * Oh, thanks Clovermoss🍀! I'm deeply honoured :) Femke 01 (talk) 16:19, 1 October 2023 (UTC)