Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl

Download or read book Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl written by Christel Fricke and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can we have objective knowledge of the world? Can we understand what is morally right or wrong? Yes, to some extent. This is the answer given by Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl. Both rejected David Hume’s skeptical account of what we can hope to understand. But they held his empirical method in high regard, inquiring into the way we perceive and emotionally experience the world, into the nature and function of human empathy and sympathy and the role of the imagination in processes of intersubjective understanding. The challenge is to overcome the natural constraints of perceptual and emotional experience and reach an agreement that is informed by the facts in the world and the nature of morality. This collection of philosophical essays addresses an audience of Smith- and Husserl scholars as well as everybody interested in theories of objective knowledge and proper morality which are informed by the way we perceive and think and communicate.