Leopold Blaustein's analytical phenomenology
pp. 181-188
in: Sandra Lapointe, Jan Woleński, Mathieu Marion, Wioletta Miskiewicz (eds), The Golden age of Polish philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
There are at least two kinds of phenomenology: hermeneutic and descriptive. The latter rests on the idea that what is given in conscious experience is direct, akin to perception – what most phenomenologist would have called "intuition" – and is therefore a genuine source of knowledge. The theories of early analytical phenomenologists were aimed at providing an understanding of the latter. For instance, the well known distinction between the quality, the content, and the object of mental acts elaborated by Twardowski, Husserl and Meinong in the wake of Brentano was meant as a conceptual tool for the purpose of analyzing and describing cognitive processes such as "representation" and "judgment". Leopold Blaustein, a Lvovian philosopher who belongs to Twardowski's School, sought to develop the full heuristic value of this theory of intentionality and, for one thing, his results can be seen to have anticipated some of the most significant aspects of contemporary theories of cognition, and of perception in particular.
