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Hermeneutic phenomenology on the meaning and function of philosophy

Joseph Kockelmans

pp. 60-98

Since its origin in Greece in the seventh century B.C. philosophy has considered the question concerning the meaning of the "Whole" to be the central and most fundamental philosophical question. In dealing with this basic question philosophers for over 2500 years have attempted to specify the precise meaning of the problem, to solve it, and to justify its solution in many different ways, using different methods and referring to it with various terminologies. But however much philosophy has changed over the centuries in almost all aspects, so that we properly speak about philosophies, all of them seem to have one thing in common: their concern for the "Whole," the totality of all that is, the totality of all possible meaning, to which they have referred with terms such as "cosmos," "universe," "world," "nature," "being," "substance," "matter," "spirit," and so on.1

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-1958-0_2

Full citation:

Kockelmans, J. (1993). Hermeneutic phenomenology on the meaning and function of philosophy, in Ideas for a hermeneutic phenomenology of the natural sciences, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 60-98.

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