This work resulted from my interests in several flDldam ental issues of contemporary phenomenology. Originally, their focal point was 1) the role and importance of the subject in philosophical activity and 2) the subject's finitude. To gain a perspective on these issues, a possible approach seemed to lie in the direction of the transcendental imagination and its relation to tim e. This focus on the imagination, of course, led to Fichte's egological philosophy that explicitly centers on the imagination. Here both issues are raised together. The reader of the Fichtean texts cannot for long hesitate to pose the question of intersubjectivity. These three issues-imagination, reflection, and inter subjectivity-formed the basis of the present work. Since such a work could never be completed if it were not for those num erot5 discussions and friendly conversation with friends and colleagues with whom philosophy is always alive, I wish to acknowledge my gratitude specifically to the following people: Professor Andre Schuwer, of Duquesne University, for his encouragement, critical reading of the work, and his comments that have greatly aided me in the writing of the present work; Professor John Sallis, Chairman of the Philosophy Department of Duquesne University, whose interest in Fichte provided invaluable insights and approaches to the issues; Professor Paul Ricoeur, University of Paris and University of Chicago, whose reading and encouragement greatly helped in the work's publication; Professor Samuel Ijsseling, University of Leuven, who introduced me to Martinus Nijhoff Publishers; Professor G. A.

Our experience of other individuals as minded beings goes hand in hand with the awareness that they have a unique epistemic and emotional perspective on the experienced objects and situations. The same object can be seen from many different points of view, an event can awaken different emotional reactions in different individuals, and our position-takings can in part be mediated by our belonging to some social or cultural groups. All these phenomena can be described by referring to the metaphor of perspective. Assuming that there are different, and irreducible, perspectives we can take on the experienced world, and on others as experiencing the same world, the phenomenon of mutual understanding can consistently be understood in terms of perspectival flexibility. This edited volume investigates the different processes in which perspectival flexibility occurs in social life and particularly focuses on the constitutive role of imagination in such processes. It includes original works in philosophy and psychopathology showing how perspectival flexibility and social cognition are grounded on the interplay of direct perception and imagination.

The future of gene editing in humans will involve the use of CRISPR. How we think about the combination of the scientific, ethical, and moral aspects of this technology is paramount to the success or failure of CRISPR in humans. Unfortunately, the current scientific discussion around CRISPR in humans has left ethics trailing behind due to the rapid pace of innovation. New modes of ethics and stakeholder participation are needed to keep pace with rapid scientific advances and provide the necessary policy and ethical frameworks necessary to help CRISPR flourish as an important health care tool to treat human disease. This requires intense interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion between scientists and philosophers, policymakers and legal scholars, and the public. Dr. Michael W. Nestor (a neuroscientist who actively uses CRISPR in pre-clinical research) and Professor Richard Wilson (a philosopher who focuses on anticipatory ethics) set out to develop a new ethical approach considering the use of CRISPR in human targeted therapies. The field of anticipatory ethics is uniquely poised to tackle questions in fast-evolving technical areas where the pace of innovation outstrips traditional philosophical approaches. Furthermore, because of its “anticipatory” nature, this type of analysis provides the opportunity to look ahead and into the future concerning potential uses of CRISPR in humans, uses that are not currently possible. Nestor and Wilson collaborate both scientifically and philosophically in this book to forecast potential outcomes as the scientific and medical community goes beyond using CRISPR to correct genes that underlie diseases where a single gene is involved. Instead, Nestor and Wilson envision CRISPR in complex, multigenic disorders with a specific focus on the use of CRISPR to edit genes involved in mental traits like IQ or other cognitive characteristics. They argue that the use of CRISPR to modify genes that are potentially important for mental traits represents a particular category for special consideration from scientists, policymakers, the public, and other stakeholders. Nestor and Wilson explain why using CRISPR to alter mental states is very different from treating a disease like cancer by combining the latest scientific advancements with anticipatory ethics and philosophical phenomenology. Their analysis considers the role that mental states play in personhood and the lived experience-as genes that can change mental/cognitive attributes like IQ have wide-ranging effects on the lived experience in ways that are categorically different from other attributes. This book was written to set a non-exhaustive framework for shared understanding and discussion across disciplines and appeal to scientists and non-scientists alike. This appeal is made inclusively, inviting all stakeholders to engage in active dialogue about the appropriate context for using CRISPR and other gene-editing technologies in humans. It provides policy analysis and recommendations for assuring the most inclusive, equitable, and ethically sound use of CRISPR in humans, concerning its positive potential to treat mental conditions like depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and the potential to induce other cognitive enhancements.

Search Without Idols is a study of human transcendence in the context of human striving, projecting, surpassing, overcoming. This power is central to man's search for wholeness. Such transcendence makes reality tolerable. It provides us with ~m impressive array of human responses which enable us to cope. But it also provides the excesses that go beyond human striving. Nothing seems to be off-limits to this ubiquitous power. Such a state of surpassing limits is what we find in the relation between the human search for wholeness and the quest for external totalities which lies beyond the human context. Such soaring flights beyond the capacity of human striving are hard to control, impossible to show responsibility-for and beyond the reach of criteria. The reach exceeds both our grasp and our control. Transcendence, then, is a greatly used and much abuse~ human power. Its activities have never ceased to amaze me, its excesses have always troubled me even from the beginning of my studies. This book is not an exercise in self-clarification. I have some thoughts on the matter which I wish to share with the reader. Perhaps we can mutually appreciate the great gift without compromising our sanity. Part I will provide a new look at the meaning of transcendence.

The object of this study is to find a coherent theoretical approach to three problems which appear to interrelate in complex ways: (1) What is the ontological status of consciousness? (2) How can there be 'un conscious,' 'prereflective' or 'self-alienated' consciousness? And (3) Is there a 'self' or 'ego' formed by means of the interrelation of more elementary states of consciousness? The motivation for combining such a diversity of difficult questions is that we often learn more by looking at interrelations of problems than we could by viewing them only in isola tion. The three questions posed here have emerged as especially prob lematic in the context of twentieth century philosophy. 1. The question of the ontological status of consciousness The question 'What is consciousness?' is one of the most perplexing in philosophy-so perplexing that many have been motivated to proceed as though consciousness did not exist. If William James was speaking rhetorically when he said "Consciousness does not exist," 1 many behaviorists of the recent past were not. 2 James meant only to imply that consciousness is not an independently existing soul-substance, along side physical substances. He did not mean that we do not really 'have' consciousness, and he did not provide final resolution for the problem of the causal interrelations between consciousness and the physical realm (e. g. , our bodies). Many recent philosophers and psychologists, however, try to proceed as though these problems did not exist.

The full century that has elapsed since Nietzsche was at the height of his work did not obliterate his impact. In many ways he is still a contemporary philosopher, even in that sense of 'contemporary' which points to the future. We may have outgrown his style (always, however, admirable and exciting to read), his sense of drama, his creative exaggeration, his sometimes flamboy ant posture of a rebel wavering between the heroic and the puerile. Yet Nietzsche's critique of transcendental values and, especially, his attack on the inherited conceptions of rationality remain pertinent and continue to pro voke anew cultural critique or dissent. Today Nietzsche is no longer discussed apologetically, nor is his radicalism shunned or suppressed. That his work remains the object of extremely diverse readings is befitting a philosopher who replaced the concept of truth with that of interpretation. It is, indeed, around the concept of interpretation that much of the rem:wed interest in Nietzsche seems to center today. Special emphasis is being laid on his manner of doing philosophy, and his views on interpretation and the genealogical method are often re-read in the context of contemporary hermeneutics and "deconstructionist" positions.