Insight is the genuine core of philosophical cognition. Without it there would be only opinions, conjectures, and assertions. Insight means: one sees that something is so — and that it cannot be otherwise. One grasps a state of affairs that really is so, independently of what individual human beings happen to think about it. Whoever sees that a part cannot exist without a whole does not hold an opinion about parts and wholes — he has understood how the matter stands.
The book carefully distinguishes between the act of conceiving (the individual mental act that takes place in a particular human being at a particular time) and the conceptual content (that which is grasped through the act and can be grasped equally by others). When a student in Munich and a student in Tokyo both understand the Pythagorean theorem, the two have carried out different acts of conceiving but have grasped the same conceptual content. This is the condition for our being able to understand one another at all (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 68—75).
For the question of the person, insight is significant in a twofold respect. First, conceiving presupposes a spiritual being — the conceptual content is not identical with the neuronal process; it has neither weight nor location. That 2 + 2 = 4 has neither weight nor location. From this it follows: the human being is more than his brain; he is a spiritual being (cf. soul). Second, insight into personhood forms the foundation of the personalistic norm: whoever cognizes the person also cognizes its dignity. Husserl and Josef Seifert gave particular emphasis to the method of essential intuition (Wesensschau) as an access to necessary states of affairs (cf. truth).
Chapter assignment: Chapter 2: How does one think about such questions?, Chapter 3 (esp. 3.2)
References: Bexten 2017, pp. 44—45, 72—75 (insight and the act of conceiving), pp. 186—187 (insight and personhood).
Further sources:
- Husserl, E.: Logical Investigations (1900/01), trans. J. N. Findlay. London/New York: Routledge, 2001. (Essential intuition and access to necessary states of affairs.)
- Seifert, Josef (1987): Back to ‘Things in Themselves’. A Phenomenological Foundation for Classical Realism. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Insight into necessary essential laws.)
Ontological assignment: Insight is a subclass of the personal act and belongs to person-behavior. It presupposes rationality and is directed toward essential laws and archphenomena.
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.