Thought Theory (TT) seems to provide an answer to the paradox of fiction (PoF) which has the ontological merits of current pretence accounts without, however, assuming mere pretence emotions. This article will question whether present formulations of TT live up to what they promise. Whenever its current versions try to include evaluative beliefs in a TT framework in order to comply with a cognitivist account of emotions, they either stop being a genuine thought theory or endorse the irrationalism of fictional emotions. This unfortunate outcome can be prevented by shifting the focus to thoughts, and specifically to the genetic dynamics of how we come to think of the objects in question. This is at least what we can learn from Edmund Husserl, who developed a still underestimated account according to which it is possible to have the belief that x merits evaluation as appearing emotion-worthy without this belief implying that x merits being believed to exist.
In this article I aim to shed light on the question of whether aesthetic experience can constitute practical knowledge and, if so, how it achieves this. I will compare the approaches of Nelson Goodman and Edmund Husserl. Both authors treat the question of which benefits aesthetic experience can bring to certain basic skills. Though one could argue together with Goodman that repeated aesthetic experience allows for a trained and discriminating approach to artworks, Husserl argues that by viewing aesthetic objects we can learn to perceive in a more undiluted fashion and to qualify our own perceptions against the backdrop of the conceptual framework that shapes our everyday experience. As a consequence, aesthetic experience is not to be regarded as something that only contributes to a normatively loaded involvement in the distinct field of the ‘aesthetic’. Reading Goodman with Husserl and vice versa, I will argue in support of a practical aesthetic knowledge account that mediates cognitivist-constructivist and phenomenological concerns and can thus overcome some of their respective shortcomings. The account I present is useful for understanding the practical value of aesthetic experience in and beyond the confined field of the arts.
The article is an attempt at establishing a theoretical basis for a dialogue between phenomenology and contemporary philosophy, with regard to the problem of internalism-externalism. It is argued, according to Roman Ingarden, that one has to first of all put forward an adequate question about the problem, to be able to understand it appropriately. Moreover, the analysis is limited to the two forms of the internalism-externalism debate, namely semantics and the philosophy of the mind. Within Husserl’s phenomenology one can easily point to basic intuitions that justify the thesis that this philosophy refers to the internalism-externalism problem. Ultimately, by using phenomenological terminology, the article arrives at questions about possible internalism-or-externalism within Husserl’s phenomenological project. The questions, however, suggest that phenomenology can be neither clearly nor completely classified either as internalism or as externalism.
PL
Artykuł jest próbą stworzenia teoretycznej płaszczyzny dialogu pomiędzy fenomenologią i filozofią współczesną w odniesieniu do problemu internalizmu-eksternalizmu. Za Romanem Ingardenem argumentuje się, że należy wypracować adekwatne pytanie o ten problem, aby móc go właściwie zrozumieć. Analizy zawęża się przy tym do dwóch form debaty internalizmu z eksternalizmem, a mianowicie do semantyki i filozofii umysłu. Na gruncie fenomenologii Husserla bez trudu można wskazać podstawowe intuicje, które utwierdzają przekonanie, że filozofia ta może traktować o omawianym problemie. Korzystając z terminologii fenomenologicznej, ostatecznie formułuje się pytania o możliwy internalizm i eksternalizm w projekcie filozoficznym autora „Badań logicznych”. Pytania te jednak sugerują, że fenomenologia nie daje się w całości zdefiniować ani jako internalizm, ani jako eksternalizm.
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