Conference Presentations by Timothy Martell
In a section of Philosophy of Symbolic Forms entitled “The problem of representation and the cons... more In a section of Philosophy of Symbolic Forms entitled “The problem of representation and the construction of the intuitive world,” Ernst Cassirer both appropriates and criticizes aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology. The intuitive world referenced in the title to this section turns out to be the world of perception, and Cassirer’s account of the construction of this world largely consists of what phenomenologists would call noematic descriptions of perceptual consciousness. On the basis of these descriptions, he goes on to criticize Husserl’s hylomorphic phenomenology of perception. Cassirer’s account of perception is implicitly at odds with Husserl’s phenomenology in two additional respects: he maintains that perception involves representational objects, and he holds that perceptual consciousness can be mathematically modeled. In the first section of the paper, I explain Cassirer’s criticism of Husserl’s hylomorphism and briefly recount those other aspects of Cassirer’s philosophy of perception that appear to be most at odds with Husserl’s views. In the second section, I consider how Husserl might have responded.
Drafts by Timothy Martell
Though Michel Henry’s philosophical pursuits were wide-ranging, he surely would have regarded his... more Though Michel Henry’s philosophical pursuits were wide-ranging, he surely would have regarded his analysis of the essence of manifestation as his most important philosophical achievement. This is an analysis of the conditions on which phenomena appear. Henry argues for what he calls ontological dualism, the view that there are ultimately two distinct structures of appearance: transcendence and immanence. Critics such as Rudolf Bernet take issue with Henry’s dualism on the grounds that immanence does not exclude transcendence. Others, most notably Dan Zahavi, contest Henry’s dualism on the grounds that immanence and transcendence are interdependent. Following a brief exposition of ontological dualism, I first show that many of Henry’s critics have misunderstood the sense in which immanence is said to exclude transcendence. I then show that Zahavi has failed to establish that interdependence is incompatible with Henry’s analysis of the essence of manifestation.
This paper presents Ernst Cassirer’s contribution to the phenomenology of perception. Perception,... more This paper presents Ernst Cassirer’s contribution to the phenomenology of perception. Perception, according to Cassirer, possesses structural features that can be mathematically modeled. This claim is illustrated through detailed discussion of the order of color and the group structure of perceptual constancy. Embedded within these structures, perceptual phenomena function as representational signs of things in spatial, temporal, and causal relations. Representational signs thus play a crucial role in building up the world of perception. The human being, as a perceiver, is an animal symbolicum.
Papers by Timothy Martell
Studia Phaenomenologica, 2015
Parametric panel data logit models with individual time-invariant effects can be estimated by eit... more Parametric panel data logit models with individual time-invariant effects can be estimated by either the conditional or the unconditional xed eects maximum likelihood estimator. The conditional xed eects logit estimator is consistent under the usual assumptions but it has the drawback that it does not deliver estimates of the xed eects or partial eects. It is also computationally costly if the number of observations per individual T is large. The unconditional xed eects logit estimator can be implemented as a standard logit estimator with a dummy variable for each observational unit. It is biased for small T due to the incidental parameters problem, but bias corrections have been suggested. Another drawback of this approach is that the computational costs can be prohibitive with a large number of individuals N. This paper revisits an approach suggested by Chamberlain (1980) and Greene (2004) that makes use of the sparseness of the Hessian matrix to relieve the computational burden imposed by brute-force dummy variable regression. We show that in the context of logit models, the approach is equivalent to an intuitive pseudo-demeaning algorithm. We combine the pseudo-demeaning algorithm with a bias-correction proposed by Hahn and Newey (2004) to deal with the incidental parameter bias. Extensive Monte-Carlo simulations show that the bias-corrected parameter estimator has similar properties as the conditional logit estimator. Its computational burden is much lower, especially with relatively large T , and we can directly estimate partial eects. We oer this algorithm as an implementation in the R-package bife.
Phenomenology and Phenomenalism in Husserl’s Thing and Space
Quaestiones Disputatae, 2012
Person and Community in Stein’s Critique of Heidegger’s Existential Philosophy
Quaestiones Disputatae, 2013
Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being: an Attempt at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being is profou... more Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being: an Attempt at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being is profoundly influenced by her early work as a phenomenologist. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her critique of Heidegger’s existential philosophy. On the basis of her early phenomenological research, Stein is able to identify a number of shortcomings in Heidegger’s analysis of the human way of being. Heidegger fails to clarify what it is to be a person, fails to clarify what it is for a number of persons to be in community with one another, and mistakenly suggests that being in community with other persons is predominantly a way of fleeing from responsibility. Stein concludes that Heidegger’s analysis, though often insightful, caricatures the human way of being. In this paper, I present relevant parts of Stein’s early phenomenological studies of the person and community and show how they support her conclusion regarding Heidegger’s existential philosophy.
Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 2010
It is one thing for two or more persons to perceive the same object, and it is quite another for ... more It is one thing for two or more persons to perceive the same object, and it is quite another for two or more persons to perceive the same object together. The latter phenomenon is called joint attention and has recently garnered considerable interest from psychologists. However, contemporary psychological research has not succeeded in clarifying how persons can share perception of an object. Joint attention thus stands in need of phenomenological clarification. Surprisingly, this has yet to be offered. Phenomenologists have provided thoroughgoing analyses of perceptual experience, but have overlooked the perceptual experiences of co-perceivers; and, while a number of well-known phenomenologists have offered accounts of how one encounters other persons, they have neglected the phenomenon of perceptually attending to an object with other persons. This paper addresses a shortcoming of both contemporary psychological research and the phenomenological tradition by providing a phenomenological analysis of joint attention.
Capital' as a model of dialectical philosophy: Marx after Adorno
Neither of the two most common approaches to the interpretation of Capital adequately address the... more Neither of the two most common approaches to the interpretation of Capital adequately address the question of what a critique of political economy is. When Capital is interpreted as a treatise of political economy, the distinction between political economy and its critique is ...
This paper creates a dialogue between Ernst Cassirer, one of the last prominent representatives o... more This paper creates a dialogue between Ernst Cassirer, one of the last prominent representatives of Neo-Kantian thought, and Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. In Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer criticizes Husserl’s distinction between hylē and morphē. His criticism is based in part on the work of several figures belonging to the early phase of the phenomenological movement, including Wilhelm Schapp. By developing Cassirer’s criticism and considering the responses that Husserl could have offered, the dialogue helps to clarify the complex relationship between Cassirer’s philosophy and Husserl’s phenomenology. It also reveals some of the ways in which early phenomenology influenced other philosophical movements. But dialogue between Cassirer and Husserl is of more than historical interest. I argue that Husserl would not have had an adequate response to Cassirer’s objections. Cassirer’s criticism of Husserl thus remains relevant for present day research in phenomenology.
Quaestiones Disputatae: Selected Papers on the Philosophy of St. Edith Stein, Sep 2013
Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being: an Attempt at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being is profou... more Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being: an Attempt at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being is profoundly influenced by her early work as a phenomenologist. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her critique of Heidegger’s existential philosophy. On the basis of her early phenomenological research, Stein is able to identify a number of shortcomings in Heidegger’s analysis of the human way of being. Heidegger fails to clarify what it is to be a person, fails to clarify what it is for a number of persons to be in community with one another, and mistakenly suggests that being in community with other persons is predominantly a way of fleeing from responsibility. Stein concludes that Heidegger’s analysis, though often insightful, caricatures the human way of being. In this paper, I present relevant parts of Stein’s early phenomenological studies of the person and community and show how they support her conclusion regarding Heidegger’s existential philosophy.
Quaestiones Disputatae: Selected Papers on the Early Phenomenology of Munich and Gottingen, 3 (1), 151-62, 2012
Perception is a recurring theme of Husserl"s phenomenology. In order to distinguish between funda... more Perception is a recurring theme of Husserl"s phenomenology. In order to distinguish between fundamental parts of intentional states, Husserl relies on examples of perceptual experience such as seeing a tree in the garden and seeing the front of a house. He argues that perception is the basis for abstract thought and, as such, plays a foundational role in our cognitive architecture. He treats perceptual knowledge, furthermore, as exemplary for knowledge generally. Yet Husserl"s most detailed discussion of perception does not appear in well-known works such as Logical Investigations or Ideas I. His most thorough account of perception appears instead in the posthumously published Thing and Space: Lectures of 1907. In what follows I present the basic elements of this phenomenology of perception and argue that it commits Husserl to phenomenalism. I then offer a number of criticisms of Husserl"s views, focusing on his account of the constitution of space.
Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 2011
It is one thing for two or more persons to perceive the same object, and it is quite another for ... more It is one thing for two or more persons to perceive the same object, and it is quite another for two or more persons to perceive the same object together. The latter phenomenon is called joint attention and has recently garnered considerable interest from psychologists. However, contemporary psychological research has not succeeded in clarifying how persons can share perception of an object. Joint attention thus stands in need of phenomenological clarification. Surprisingly, this has yet to be offered. Phenomenologists have provided thoroughgoing analyses of perceptual experience, but have overlooked the perceptual experiences of co-perceivers; and while a number of well-known phenomenologists have offered accounts of how one encounters other persons, they have neglected the phenomenon of perceptually attending to an object with other persons. This paper addresses a shortcoming of both contemporary psychological research and the phenomenological tradition by providing a phenomenological analysis of joint attention.
Symposium: The Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, 16 (2), 202-18., 2012
What is a society? What is political power? John Searle claims that previous political philosophe... more What is a society? What is political power? John Searle claims that previous political philosophers not only neglected these fundamental questions but also lacked the means to effectively address them. Good answers, he thinks, depend on theories of speech acts, intentionality, and constitutive rules first developed by analytic philosophers. But Searle is mistaken. Early phenomenologists had already developed the requisite theories. Reinach’s philosophy of law includes a theory of speech acts. This theory is based on Husserl’s account of intentionality. Edith Stein extended that account by offering a detailed description of collective intentionality. And it was Stein who brought these strands of early phenomenological research together to address the very questions of political philosophy which Searle regards as both fundamental and neglected. In this paper, I recount Stein’s answers to these questions and argue that they compare favourably with those of Searle.
Minerva-An Internet Journal of Philosophy, 2009
Scholars are currently divided on the issue of whether, according to Hobbes, social collectivitie... more Scholars are currently divided on the issue of whether, according to Hobbes, social collectivities such as commonwealths or corporations are agents in their own right. In this paper I clarify Hobbes's position on the question of whether groups are agents. After distinguishing between several kinds of collective action, I show that Hobbes is not committed to the view that groups are agents in their own right. As an analysis of the terms "artificial person," "actor," and "sovereign" reveals, Hobbes is committed only to the view that some social collectivities simulate agency. I then argue that Hobbes's theory of voluntary action is inconsistent with the claim that groups engage in voluntary actions. Finally, I consider how Hobbes's theory of simulated collective agency might contribute to contemporary philosophical debates on the nature of collective action. I suggest that Hobbes's theory could be most effectively applied to apparent cases of collective action for which current philosophical theories are inadequate.
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Conference Presentations by Timothy Martell
Drafts by Timothy Martell
Papers by Timothy Martell