Prof. Sara Heinämaa - Phenomenology as Vocation: A Project Instituted by the Will for a Future

Season 8 continues with a recording from our 2021 annual conference, The Future as a Present Concern. This episode features a keynote presentation from Prof. Sara Heinämaa Abstract: In The Crisis, Husserl argues that transcendental phenomenology must be understood as a scientific vocation with radical philosophical aims. However, The Crisis also gives a curiously ambiguous characterization of the phenomenological vocation which emphasizes its similarities with other life vocations but, at the same time, problematizes this analogy. On the one hand, Husserl argues that we can conduct phenomenological inquiries in the same manner as we manage other projects, scientific and non-scientific. On the other hand, he also argues that phenomenology requires a radical and fundamental abandonment of all worldly interests – theoretical as well as practical, positive scientific as well as critical. If this holds, phenomenology cannot be practiced in the manner of any worldly projects (everyday, scientific or philosophical). So, we find a fundamental tension in Husserl’s characterization of his own philosophy: it seems that phenomenology must be understood as a dual vocation which, on the one hand, allows periodic practicing like worldly vocations but, on the other hand, demands a permanent abandonment of everything that is worldly. My presentation gives a novel account of Husserl’s understanding of the phenomenological vocation, one that helps us understand and alleviate this tension. I will argue that Husserl’s conceptualization of phenomenology as a scientific vocation must be understood in the light of his theory of the habituation and institution of intentional acts, and that special attention must be paid to the habituation of the conative acts of willing. For this purpose, I will offer explications of Husserl’s concepts of habituation and institution and introduce the main parameters of his analysis of the intentionality and temporality of volition. Biography: Sara Heinämaa is Academy Professor (2017–2021 Academy of Finland) and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She specialises in phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy of mind and history of philosophy, and has published extensively in these fields, especially on normativity, emotions, embodiment, personhood, intersubjectivity and gender. She is an expert of Husserlian phenomenology but has also contributed broadly to our understanding of existential phenomenology and its methods, especially the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir and Sartre. Heinämaa is co-author of Birth, Death, and Femininity (2010) and author of Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference (2003), and has co-edited several volumes, including Why Method Matters: Phenomenology as Critique (forthcoming 2021), Phenomenology and the Transcendental (2014), and Consciousness (2007) Further Information: This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2021, co-organised with University of Galway and The Irish Philosophical Society. This conference was held online consisting of live webninars with keynote presents and pre-recorded presentations from panel speakers. Biographical information of speakers is taken from the programme of that event and therefore may not be up-to-date. The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast. About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/ About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/