Jean Hering on Eidos, Gegenstand, and Methexis

Phenomenological Adventures and Misadventures of "Participation"

Daniele De Santis

pp. 145-170

in: Simona Bertolini, Faustino Fabbianelli (eds), Ontologie fenomenologiche, Discipline Filosofiche 26 (1), 2016.

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is twofold. On the one hand, it intends to briefly pave the way for a future exploration of the language and conceptuality of "participation" in the phenomenological movement. On the other hand, it aims at providing an analysis of the manner in which Jean Hering, a former Göttingen student of Husserl’s, resorts to the notion of methexis in his 1921 Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee to explain the relation between individual objects and what he calls eide and thereby account for the possibility of "individual essences". As we shall see, it is precisely the comprehension of the way he employs such a notion that will help us shed light on his ontology, notably on his understanding of the ontological status of individual objects. In the appendix to this paper (pp.167-168) is a transcription of the table of contents from Hering's Lotzes Lehre vom Apriori (Eine philosophische Studie). Schriftliche Hausarbeit für die Prüfung der Befähigung zum höheren Lehramt.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund