In this paper, I will investigate the temporal structure of photographic images. According to a common understanding, photographic images open up a direct access to what has been recorded in the past. In contrast to this view, I will show that photographs have to be conceived in terms of a higher temporal complexity. Referring to Derrida’s reflections upon trace, representation, and the temporal mode of the futur antérieur as well as his involvement in photography, I will understand the temporality of photographic images not as unidirectional relation of presence and past, but rather as an ongoing process of temporalization.

One can find a very strong objection against many kinds of philosophical thematizing of suffering: this objection criticizes and entertains suspicion that these philosophical efforts adopt an arrogant and cynical position toward the sufferer. In the context of the question of theodicy one e.g. criticizes approaches which practice a functionalisation, relativization and depotentialization of the evil and suffering: Toward them one basically objects that these approaches finally result in a rationalisation and instrumentalisation of the annoying and scandalizing moment of suffering. First of all, the distance from the suffering and the sufferer seems questionable, alarming and dubious. This implies the more general and more fundamental question of the relation between experience (concernment) and reflection (consideration) of suffering. The following attempt to reflect philosophically the suffering will thematize this relation and point out some specific limits of the philosophical reflection which will become evident thereby. The central starting point of the following phenomenological considerations is the assumption that suffering represents a paradigmatic boundary-phenomenon of human reality and that this phenomenon departs from the stringent proposition forms of philosophy and thereby limits and denies a philosophical access. By keeping in mind this awareness of the problem, the question to be asked is: What essentially characterizes suffering?

This essay is devoted to the existential interpretation of birth in the fundamental ontology of M. Heidegger. Author argues that Heidegger develops two different lines in conceptualisation of birth—the explicit one (based on such characteristics of the Dasein‘s being as throwness and facticity) and the implicit one (based, correspondingly, on self-projectivity and existentiality)—which can be considered as an echo of the classical metaphysical differentiation between the first (physical) birth and the second (spiritual) birth. It is shown that the discrepancy between two existential conceptions of birth is essentially connected with a remarkable aporetical character of the Dasein’s analytic. In general, the paper is aimed at the demonstration of the key-role of the birth question for the postmetaphysical clarification of the constitution of the Subject.

Traditionally the phenomenon of war and its causes have been predominantly examined by the disciplines of political science, history and political philosophy, but these disciplines seem to be unable to grasp the nature of the phenomenon of war completely. One of the few methods that actually attempts to ‘grasp the phenomenon of war’ in its totality, is the philosophical-phenomenological method. The philosophical-phenomenological approach to the phenomenon of war can be found in the works of the German philosopher and phenomenologist Max Scheler (1874-1928). In his essays on war Scheler tries to fathom the nature of war in a cultural critical way, that is, war is viewed as being able to reveal “true” structures of reality that have been covered by static perceptions. It will be shown that--though it appears counterintuitive--Scheler’s approach to war as katharsis needs to be understood within the wider concept of his value theory and philosophical anthropology: man as ens amans. The major flaw of Scheler’s argument, however, lies in his assumption that meaning and values remain untouched by the destructiveness of war. A counter point to Scheler’s view can be made by turning to the French philosopher Simon Weil. Weil argues that the all-embracing destructiveness of war changes perceived reality altogether, and instead of removing separation between individuals, new and stronger ones arise that cannot be crossed by acts of compassion or empathy. By bringing both Scheler and Weil’s approaches together, it is argued new light can be shed on the phenomenon of war and thus in turn bring about new explorations which aim to grasp the totality of the phenomenon and its causes per se.

Based on the early phenomenological works of Edith Stein, this essay applies to the problem of intersubjectivity. By fleshing out the issues of corporeality and personhood as being specific premises of approved otherness, it can be demonstrated that Stein certainly belongs to the founders of a philosophy of the living body, a fact that has often been disregarded so far. Her inventive conception of corporeality will be defended against a naturalistic interpretation of the person focusing on the brain, whereupon the mind can be reduced to certain brain-activity making it an epiphenomenon lacking important features of its own. By presenting a valid alternative to this problematic conception, the thought of Edith Stein is both substantial and challenging for contemporary anthropology.

The article shows that the apparently range-external acoustic volume is a matter of independent instances of sound. Given the particular occurrence of the acoustic volume, the reference sources prove to be inadequate or unessential conditions of the acoustic effect. The affinity to the dimensions of the felt body allows for a more detailed conceptual identification of the acoustic volumes.

In this text I deal with the theme of the ‘primal conscious’ (das Urbewusste) in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology. The ‘primal conscious’ or ‘primal consciousness’ (die Ur-Bewusstheit) characterizes those ways of experience and consciousness which represent in some way an intermediate level between the non-conscious, on the one hand, and the act-intentional, objective conscious experiences, on the other,. In the first part three basic forms of the primal conscious are distinguished and illustrated with the help of concrete examples. In the second part I offer a—merely sketched—historical-phenomenological reconstruction of the development of Husserl’s analyses of primal consciousness. Nevertheless, the systematic-phenomenological point of view remains foremost also in this part of the text. In the first part I differentiate three basic forms of the primal conscious: (1.) consciousness of the immanent, retentional-primal-impressional-protentional streaming alteration of the experiences (= the immanent, retentional-protentional time-consciousness), (2.) the pre-thematically or non-thematically affective consciousness (= the pre-apperceptive consciousness and experience) and (3.) the consciousness of the execution of acts (= the „accompanying“ executive consciousness, „the internal consciousness“ or also „the consciousness along with“ especially in early Husserl). The differentiating criteria between the pre-apperceptive and apperceptive consciousness are attention, and the synthetic activities of the subject, i.e. its differing attentional activity and its execution of certain syntheses. It is common to all forms of the primal conscious experiencing that it is a non-thematic, non-act-intentional kind of (self)consciousness of the experiencing—and of that, what is being experienced, though not of that, what objectively appears—, which is indeed already fully determined—with regards to content, time, and emotional character. In the second part of the text it will be shown that Husserl wrestled with the theme of the primal conscious for over four decades and that, after several essential transformations and numerous terminological modifications, he gradually arrived at a conception whose development can be traced back through his writings. However the differentiation of the concept of the primal conscious—as undertaken above—namely, offering an extensive examination of all these phenomena under the concept of the primal conscious can be found only implicitly in Husserl’s writings.

Eugen Fink and Husserl are often considered to share a similar conception on dreams. Indeed, they both assert a firm distinction between a dreaming and a dreamt I, by grounding it on the striking observation that one of them is actually sleeping while the other is necessarily wakeful. Moreover, Husserl and Fink both consider that, from the perspective of the sleeping I, dream is an extreme form of presentiation (Vergegenwärtigung). In spite of these similarities, however, the article wishes to address certain aspects in Husserl’s interpretation of phantasy during the early 1920’s that seem to offer grounds for a quite different approach to dreams.

In Husserl’s thoughts of the 1930s, the relation between the transcendental “I” and the passive synthesis of the consciousness comes gradually and explicitly into question. His investigation aims to phenomenologically fix the origin of absolute temporalization, the reflective “I” or the passive intentionality. The temporalization only through the passive intentionality (pre-intentionality / Vor-intentionalitat) appears to exceed the abilities of the “I” substantially and to refuse that involvement as long as it means an absolute passive ground (Urboden) of the “I” itself. However, the phenomenological investigation must not presuppose naively a stream of passive consciousness which escapes from all of the epistemological, reflective knowledge. Therefore, the self-insight of the “I” who performs the phenomenology indeed (phanomenologisierendes Ich) is demanded iteratively. On the one hand, this insight urges Husserl to recognize the apodictic uniqueness (Einzigartigkeit) of the transcendental “I” and then to abandon the explanation of temporalization through the original passive intentionality, for phenomenological reflections toward this stream without the “I” (ichlos) or before the “I” (vor-ichlich) repeatedly lead to problems of infinite regress. On the other hand, it also falls into a similar problem of infinite regress to define or explain the transcendental “I” as an operative, not as an intentional object; because the operative “I” cannot have any ontic status. Since that time, Husserl’s description of the temporalization through the passive intentionality appears again in his manuscripts. What is important in Husserl’s struggle is that he encountered an original factum that the transcendental “I” as a phenomenologist who generates (werdender Phanomenologe) inevitably is interwoven into the stream of consciousness which has a genetic history. The “I” and the stream are not the same thing, but are intimately intertwined. Whereas the “I” will reflect this stream steadily, the stream generates such performances of the “I”. If Husserl had not found this factum, he could have never reached the problem of the birth and death of the transcendental “I”, unlike an empirical one. And this problem gives us even now various possibilities to develop genetic phenomenology in the future.The structure of this paper is as follows: 1) we start our discussion by delineating a sphere, in which the passive syntheses of the consciousness perform, and there are two forms of their functions, and indicate that primary passivity is more important in both, for it is directly connected with the problem of temporalization in Husserl’s thoughts of the 1930s. 2) This section shows in what way and in what motivation Husserl understands passive intentionality which is based on the stream of consciousness itself and differentiate it strictly from normal intentionality which is derived from the performances of the phenomenological “I”. Despite this distinction, Husserl maintains in 1932 that there is only one type of intentionality, namely the active intentionality of the “I”. At the end of this section, we shall clarify why Husserl drew that conclusion at least temporarily. 3) This section reveals the difficulties of explaining the being of the “I” who performs the absolute temporalization. Accordingly, the problem of original passive intentionality appears again in Husserl’s descriptions. 4) In conclusion, we will describe how the problem of the generation of the transcendental “I” developed in connection with the passive intentionality. Our final goal is to indicate possibilities contained in the Husserlian genetic phenomenology in the 1930s.

Long before the instauration of hermeneutical translation studies in the 1970s, understanding was considered a prerequisite for translation. Valery Larbaud’s (1881-1957) opus represents an outstanding example for this. It is mainly in his book Sous l’invocation de Saint Jérôme (1946), a collection of short multifaceted works, where the author argues for employing a modern approach to hermeneutical translation theory avant la lettre. For Larbaud, translation constitutes an intellectual, selfreliant work of writing, and it is also a research activity

The doctoral thesis Verstehen verstehen: Modellierung epistemologischer und methodologischer Grundlagen für die Konferenz - dolmetschforschung ausgehend vom Simultandolmetschen in die B-Sprache (Modelling Comprehension in Interpreting Studies: Epistemological and Methodological Foundations for Research on Conference Interpreting; with an Initial Concentration on Simultaneous Interpreting into the B-Language) (Leibbrand2009a/ 2011a) is situated thematically in the discipline of Interpreting Studies (Pöchhacker 2004). After briefly outlining the issues treated in my doctoral thesis, this essay tries to show what contribution the approach called “Hermeneutical Research into Interpreting” (Hermeneutische Dolmetschforschung) can make to the new field of Translational Hermeneutics. In addition, the essay demonstrates how this approach can fecundate the discussion concerning Hermeneutics and Cognitive Science on the one hand and, on the other hand, provide insights into the question concerning whether or not Hermeneutics and Empirical Research are conflicting paradigms. For Hermeneutische Dolmetschforschung, Translational Hermeneutics should not restrict its research to understanding in translation per se; rather it must go beyond this and also explore how understanding itself can serve as a research method and as the foundation for an epistemological attitude. The power and productivity of Hermeneutics for building a paradigm in Translation Studies is not limited to observing and explaining the processes and products of translation. Neither is it limited to contributing to the discussion of methods adopted by the translator/interpreter in translating or interpreting. The question of method includes the questioning individual who is actively and hermeneutically reflecting on his/her own research activities. The new methodology resulting from my investigations is called Verstehende Forschung and it is grounded on the epistemological attitude of Epistemologische Off enheit. Th is methodological approach is qualitative, notquantitative. Hermeneutical Research into Interpreting defines the process of understanding while interpreting (comprehension) as Produktionsorientiertes dynamisches Verstehen. However, the core of this new approach is built by the methodological dimension of Hermeneutics. Therefore, a contribution geared towards solving the LAP-versus-ESP-controversy in Translation Studies lies at the very heart of Hermeneutical Research into Interpreting.

Hermeneutical translation is based on the conviction that one first has to understand a text before being able to present the message once again in another language. The objective is precision in the sense of an authentic presentation of that message in the translation. Th is task requests a dynamical translation competence that interlinks knowledge-based, refl exive and strategic elements. Th e article off ers a systematic description of the factors involved in such a competence. Specifically, it addresses the necessary cultural and technical knowledge, hermeneutical fields of orientation as to how to comprehend texts and formulate their translation, and the issue of the translator’s intellectual growth brought about by lifelong learning and the inter-relation between various translation assignments. Hermeneutical translation competence, which can be presented in a systemic model,proves to be an informed, self-critical, dynamic and fl exibly networking approach to texts and their worlds.

By neglecting to integrate the final step of rhetorics into theory, i. e. pronuntiatio and actio, modern text linguistics passed a theoretical deficit on to modern translation studies. Literary texts must be read aloud in order to realize the acoustic potential programmed into the text by the author. The rhetorical tradition of writing and reading aloud was marginalized in the course of the 18th century when reading became a private and silent affair. Herder’s (and others’) foregrounding of the ‘tone’ or the ‘voice’ in literary texts and their translations is a theoretical attempt to return to the holistic view of text production, integrating performance into the process of literary production and reception. In practice, however, great literary translators always paid attention to the ‘voice in the text’. The tradition of orality – distinguishing precise voices in literary texts – seems to come to an end in Jelinek’s anti-individualistic texts.