Calendar | Conference

The Phenomenon of Reality

Paderborn, 22nd September 2022

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The phenomenon of the real is deeply ambivalent: Is it reality that shows itself, such that phenomenology is the discipline that can account for a real-ontological self-manifestation? Or is reality rather the product of a constitution by the subject, for whom the world is, in the first place, a transcendent experience? Or is reality shaped by both processes, the self-showing as well as the constitution, such that only the meeting of a constituting subject and a self-giving reality can generate world? 

Along these lines, some of the early phenomenologists have discussed the real and ideal modalities of the experience of reality. In this workshop, we want to consider some of these historic aspects more closely and contrast them with more contemporary approaches. Next to the discussions between Husserl and other early phenomenologists, we are interested in what the method of phenomenology has to offer in addressing the phenomenon of reality more broadly considered. What are the modalities of the appearance of reality as reality? Can this phenomenon be naturalized? What are the metaphysical stakes that a phenomenological approach in particular can bring (and has brought) to the discussion of real and subjective reality?