Josef Seifert - Böcker

In an enlightening dialogue with Descartes, Kant, Husserl and Gadamer, Professor Seifert argues that the original inspiration of phenomenology was nothing other than the primordial insight of philosophy itself, the foundation of philosophia perennis. His radical rethinking of the phenomenological method results in a universal, objectivist philosophy in direct continuity with Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. In order to validate the classical claim to know autonomous being, the author defends Husserl's methodological principle "Back to things themselves" from empiricist and idealist critics, including the later Husserl, and replies to the arguments of Kant which attempt to discredit the knowability of things in themselves.Originally published in 1982, this book culminates in a phenomenological and critical unfolding of the Augustinian cogito, as giving access to immutable truth about necessary essences and the real existence of personal being.

In an enlightening dialogue with Descartes, Kant, Husserl and Gadamer, Professor Seifert argues that the original inspiration of phenomenology was nothing other than the primordial insight of philosophy itself, the foundation of philosophia perennis. His radical rethinking of the phenomenological method results in a universal, objectivist philosophy in direct continuity with Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. In order to validate the classical claim to know autonomous being, the author defends Husserl's methodological principle "Back to things themselves" from empiricist and idealist critics, including the later Husserl, and replies to the arguments of Kant which attempt to discredit the knowability of things in themselves.Originally published in 1982, this book culminates in a phenomenological and critical unfolding of the Augustinian cogito, as giving access to immutable truth about necessary essences and the real existence of personal being.

At all times physicians were bound to pursue not only medical tasks, but to reflect also on the many anthropological and metaphysical aspects of their discipline, such as on the nature of life and death, of health and sickness, and above all on the vital ethical dimensions of their practice. For centuries, almost for two millennia, how­ ever, those who practiced medicine lived in a relatively clearly defined ethical and implicitly philosophical or religious 'world-order' within which they could safely turn to medical practice, knowing right from wrong, or at least being told what to do and what not to do. Today, however, the situation has radically changed, mainly due to three quite different reasons: First and most obviously, physicians today are faced with a tremendous development of new possibilities and techniques which allow previously unheard of medical interventions (such as cloning, cryo-conservation, ge­ netic interference, etc. ) which call out for ethical reflection and wise judgment but regarding which there is no legal and medical ethical tradition. Traditional medical education did not prepare physicians for coping with this new brave world of mod­ em medicine. Secondly, there are the deep philosophical crises and the philosophical diseases of medicine mentioned in the preface that lead to a break-down of firm and formative legal and ethical norms for medical actions.

From Plato and Aristotle and on to the present, many great philosophers have dealt with the nature of love, which is the most central and profound act of the person. Particularly the philosophy of the twentieth century excelled in this regard, most often inspired by the methods of essential (eidetic) analysis developed and practiced by phenomenology, particularly by realist phenomenology as represented by Max Scheler, by Dietrich von Hildebrand, whose masterwork, The Nature of Love (St. Augustine’s Press, 2009), was recently published in an excellent English translation, and by Karol Wojtyìa in his profound analysis of love in Love and Responsibility and in Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (1987 in Italian, 2006 in a recent translation). One of the key topics of a philosophy of love regards the question whether love is a self-centered act in the service of what Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas regarded as the supreme goal of human life, happiness, to which the beloved person and love would be means, or whether true love is verily an other-centered and other-directed act motivated by the intrinsic value of a person, such that love can truly be called a “value response” – a response to the beloved person for her own sake. According to this last understanding of true love defended in the present work, any hedonistic interpretation of love as springing from a mere desire for pleasure, and also any eudemonistic interpretation of love according to which love would be a mere means to true self-fulfillment and happiness, turn out to be serious misunderstandings of true love. Instead, happiness, however ardently desired by man, is a superabundant fruit of a true love that first turns to the beloved person for her own sake (propter seipsam), and only through a sincere self-donation can reach authentic happiness. The book answers many objections that have been and could be raised against this central thesis about the self-giving and value responding gesture of true love, for example some profound objections raised by Nygren and by Josef Pieper. The book shows the multiple and complex mysterious root of that value and intrinsic goodness of the person that motivates love. He shows that the genuinely self-transcending and self-sacrificing gesture of love is fully compatible with a motivating role, but only with a subordinated and co-motivating role, of happiness in love, while happiness always remains principally and primarily a fruit of true love and self-donation, rather than its motive.

The term "method" of realist phenomenology and philosophy can refer to three kinds of things which are being explored extensively in this work: (1) Kinds of philosophical knowledge used to return to things themselves: intellectual "vision" of necessary intelligible essences, insights into necessary states of affairs, knowledge of less than necessary essences, knowledge of existence as such, of the ego cogitans and of a concretely existing world, other persons, and the absolute being, deductive forms of reasoning, and others. (2) Ways to achieve such knowledge: such as various types of distinctions, asking proper questions, correct use of analogies, and replies to objections. (3) Finally, these methods include several "tricks" and devices such as methodic doubt and epoché; these are subordinated to the other methods, and neither necessary nor universal tools of all philosophical knowledge.