《Artinthelightof phenomenology》.pdf

Human Studies 18: 337-350, 1995. © 1995KluwerAcademicPublishers. Printed in theNetherlands. Art in the light of phenomenology* WALTER BIEMEL Am Hangeweiher 3, D-52074, Aachen, Germany Introduction Let this years Gurwitsch Lecture begin with recollections of a philosopher and a friend. The younger generation of today can hardly have an idea of Aron Gurwitschs life and times. His life and times mirror the very tragedy of this century, in which the present generation, fortunately for them, did not have to participate: a century of two horrifying wars marked by persecutions and the unimaginable evil of the murder of millions of Jew- ish people, their infants and elderly, mothers and fathers, their sick and healthy, rich and poor alike. In this respect, the twentieth century is un- questionably vulgar, base - replete with hate. Aron Gurwitsch was not a distant spectator of this drama: nay, he lived it. Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, into a rabbinical family that in 1907 moved to Danzig, where he received his German fifth through twelfth grade Gymna- sium education. During World War I, he was regarded as a foreigner. In 1919 he studied in Berlin under Stumpf; after that he studied under Husserl in Freiburg. He said at one time that it was Husserls style of philosophizing, Husserls meticulously analytical kind of immersion into concrete phenom- ena, rather than any disclosures of broader perspectives that led him to the decision to dedicate his work toward a continuation of the phenomenology of Husserl . . . . Then Aron Gurwitsch moved to Frankfurt where he became acquainted with Gelb and Goldstein. This, in turn, familiarized him with Gestalt-psychology. He finally acquired German citizenship in 1930, the same year he married Alice.