The suggestions below are intended as a guide for those who do not want to or cannot find their own topic for their thesis.

BA indicates topics for a bachelor’s thesis; MA indicates topics for a master’s thesis.

Theses can be written in Czech or English.

Husserl’s phenomenology and his quest for a scientific metaphysics (BA, MA)

From the very beginning of his philosophical activity, Husserl presents the ultimate ambition of his phenomenology as that of the foundation of a new “scientific metaphysics.” In opposition to the speculative and a priori metaphysics of the past, this new scientific metaphysics is described as a posteriori and based on the results of the empirical sciences of reality. The goal of the thesis should be that of understanding and clarifying the meaning and significance of Husserl’s conception of metaphysics, also trying to identify its historical roots and relevance for present discussions.

– De Santis, D., “The Development of Husserl’s Concept of Metaphysics” (In: The Husserlian Mind, Routledge 2021), pp. 481-493

– Geiger, M., Die Wirklichkeit der Wissenschaften und die Metaphysik, G. Olms 1966

– Husserl, E., Logische Untersuchungen, N. Nijhoff 1964 (English translation 2001)

– Husserl, E., Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie Vorlesungen 1906/07, Kluwer 1985 (English translation 2008)

– Husserl, E., Allgemeine Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesung 1902/03, Kluwer 2001

– Marosan, B. P., “Main Stages and Features of the Development of Husserl’s Conception of Metaphysics: Or How Might We Thematize the “Supreme and Ultimate Questions” in a Phenomenologically Legitimate Manner?”, Husserl Studies, 2024, pp. 309-329

– Trizio, E., “Husserl’s early concept of metaphysics as the ultimate science of reality,” The New Yearbook of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, 17, 2019, pp. 309-330

Stein’s axiological conception of the person (BA, MA)

From the beginning to the end of her intellectual activity, Edith Stein always regarded the “person” as the center of her own philosophizing, the center from which philosophy both starts and to which it returns. More specifically, Stein was always interested in the axiological nature, the ontological structure, and modes of experience that are proper and peculiar to the personal subject. The goal of the thesis should be that of reconstructing Stein’s view on “personal subjects” with a special on one of the following topics: the distinction between natural sciences and the humanities; the problem of the qualitative identity of persons; the intentional nature of emotions.

– Borden, S., Edith Stein, Continuum 2003

– Calcagno, A. (Ed.), Edith Stein: Women, Social-Political Philosophy, Theology, Metaphysics and Public History, Springer 2016

– Caminada, E., “Edith Stein’s Account of Communal Mind and Its Limits: A Phenomenological Reading”, Human Studies, 38(4), 2015, pp, 549-566

– De Santis, D., Tropia, A. (Eds.), Rethinking Intentionality, Person, and the Essence. Aquinas, Scotus, Stein, Brill 2023

– Stein, E., Zum Problem der Einfühlung, Herder 2006 (English translation 1989)

– Stein, E., Beiträge zur philosophischen Begründung der Psychologie und der Geisteswissenschaften, Herder 2010 (English translation 2000)

Philosophy and phenomenology of image (BA, MA)

The question of the nature of the “image” has been haunting Western philosophy since its origins, and phenomenology is no exception. What is an image? What is the mode of experience of the image? What distinguishes image consciousness from that of a real object? One could write or rewrite the history of phenomenology from the angle of the nature of the “image” and the way in which phenomenologists conceive of its function. The goal of the thesis should be that of assessing the problem of image from a phenomenological standpoint, focusing on one of the following possible topics: that of the experience of images; the relation between image/painting and truth; the relation between phenomenology and images and/or paintings.

 – Husserl, E., Phantasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung, Den Haag 1980 (English translation 2005)

– Heidegger, H., Holzwege, Frankfurt a.M. 1977 (English translation 2001)

– Schapiro, M., “The Still Life as a Personal Object. A Note on Heidegger and Van Gogh” (In: The Bloomsbury Anthology of Aesthetics, Bloomsbury 2015

– Merleau-Ponty, M., Sens et non-sens, Nagel 1966 (English translation 1991)

– Henry, M., Voir l’invisible, PUF 1988 (English translation 2009)

– Deleuze, G., Francis Bacon. Logique de la sensation, Seuil 2002 (English translation 2003)

Phenomenological aesthetics (MA)

– Beck, M., Wesen und Wert. Grundlegung einer Philosophie des Daseins, Berlin 1925

– Cornad, Th., Definition und Forschungsgehalt der Ästhetik, Bergzaben 1909

– Geiger, M., Zugänge zur Ästhetik, Leipzig 1928 (partial English translation 1986)

– Heidegger, H., Holzwege, Frankfurt a.M. 1977 (English translation 2001)

– Von Hildebrand, D., Ästhetik 1-2, Stuttgart 1984

Phenomenology, ontology, and theory of ideas (a chapter in the long history of Platonism) (MA)

Since the beginning, phenomenology has systematically tried to reconnect to and reactivate the so-called Platonic “doctrine of ideas,” thus developing a quite complex and articulated ontological system (= essences, essentialities, ideas, forms, and the like). What are ideas? What is their mode of being or existence? Is it possible to vindicate some sort of intuitive experience of them without falling into any sort of mysticism? What is the relation between language and ideas/essences? Does the assumption of ideas and essence commit phenomenology to some sort of Platonic realism? Or should we not recognize that the fact of essences and ideas is what alone guarantees the ultimate rational structure and nature of reality? The goal of the thesis should be that of clarifying the phenomenological understanding of essences and ideas and the very possibility of an ontology and logic of ideas

– De Santis, D., “Wesen, Eidos, Idea Remarks on the ‘Platonism’ of Jean Héring and Roman Ingarden.” Studia Phaenomenologica 15, 2015, pp. 155180

– Hering, Jean: “Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit, und die Idee.” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, IV, 1921, pp. 495-543; English translation, “Remarks on Essence, Ideal Quality and Idea”, in Phenomenological Investigations 1, 2021, pp. 51-108

– Husserl, E., Logische Untersuchungen, N. Nijhoff, 1964 (English translation 2001)

– Husserl, E., Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie I, M. Nijhoff 1976 (English translation 2014)

– Ingarden, R., “Essentiale Fragen. Ein Beitrag zu dem Wesensproblem.” Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung, VII, 1925, pp. 125-304

– Millán-Puelles, A., El problema del ente ideal. Un examen a través de Husserl y Hartmann, Instituto Luis Vives de filosofía 1947

Jacques Derrida’s arche-writing (BA, MA)

The obscure notion of arche-writing is a key-term in the early reflection of Jacques Derrida and his strategy of “deconstruction” of the so-called “Metaphysics of Presence” of the Western philosophical tradition. The idea was developed by Derrida during his critical dialogue with phenomenology, history of philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and literature. Specifically, it could be also considered as a radicalization and further development of Husserl’s later reflections on the role and function of writing in the constitution of ideal objects. The goal of the work should that of clarifying Derrida’s early reading of Husserl’s conception of writing from his late texts so as to propose a phenomenological interpretation of the arche-writing.

– Derrida, J., Edmund Husserl, L’origine de la géométrie, PUF 1962 (English translation 1978)

– Derrida, J., De la grammatologie, Minuit 1967 (English translation 1998)

– Husserl, E., Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, N. Nijhoff 1956 (English translation 1970) (selection)

– Lawlor, L., Derrida and Husserl. The Basic Problem of Phenomenology, IUP 2002

Wilfrid Sellars’s manifest image of the world and Husserl’s life-world (BA, MA)

In “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,” W. Sellars argues that in the search for the unity of knowledge, philosophy is confronted by two “pictures” of the same order of complexity, the so-called manifest (that of mid-sized objects) and the scientific image of the world, each of which develops a completely different conception of “man-in-the-world.” Many scholars have argued that Sellars’s of the manifest world (and thus of the manifest image) is indebted to the Husserlian idea of the life-world or Lebenswelt. In another essay (“Mental Events”), in fact, Sellars identifies the manifest world with the phenomenological Lebenswelt. The goal of the thesis should be that of exploring Sellars’s distinction between manifest and scientific image Husserl’s idea of the life-world from The Crisis of European Sciences in order to highlight differences and similarities between them. The ambition should be that of understanding whether these two views can still represent viable options to address the problem of the relation between the picture of the world that natural sciences (physics) proposes and our intuitive and everyday experience of it.

 – Hopp, W., “Sellars and Husserl on the Manifest World” (In: Wilfrid Sellars and Phenomenology: Intersections, Encounters, Oppositions, Ohio University Press 2023), pp. 37-70

– Husserl, E., Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, N. Nijhoff 1956 (English translation 1970)

– Manca, D., “Husserl’s Lifeworld and Sellars’s Stereoscopic Vision of the World” (In: Wilfrid Sellars and Phenomenology: Intersections, Encounters, Oppositions, Ohio University Press 2023), pp. 71-92

– Sellars, W., “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man” (In: Science, Perception, and Reality, CA: Ridgeview 1963), pp. 1-40

Theories of intentionality in phenomenology and the history of philosophy (MA)

“Intentionality” is usually regarded as the property of consciousness (or the mind) to refer to… something or to be about… something. If it is thanks to Franz Brentano (and some of his students) that the idea or concept of intentionality (intentional object) has been reintroduced to modern philosophy, we owe to Husserl the attempt at understanding it transcendentally. The problem of how intentionality should be properly construed was (and still is) a matter of dispute among phenomenologists and phenomenology scholars. Is it a psychological property? Is it essential to consciousness? Can there be something like a non-intentional consciousness? Does consciousness intentionally refer directly to the world and its objects? Or via some sort of intermediary? Does it have a representational nature? Could we distinguish between different species of intentionality, each of which would correspond to a different species of world-experience? The goal of the thesis should be that of understanding the nature and functioning of intentionality by also considering some of its historical origins and developments.

– Aristotle, De Anima

– Beck, M., “The Proper Object of Psychology”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1953): 13, pp. 285-304

– Beck, Psychologie. Wesen und Wirklichkeit der Seele, Leiden 1938

– Brentano, F., Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Leipzig 1874 (English translation 2015)

– Husserl, E., Logische Untersuchungen, N. Nijhoff 1964 (English translation 2001)

– Twardowski, K., Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen, Eine psychologische Untersuchung, Vienna 1894 (English translation 1977)

– Scarpelli Cory, Th., “Intentionality as Vita Striving? Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas.” In: A. Tropia, D. De Santis (Eds.), Rithinking Intentionality, Person and the Essence. Aquinas, Scotus, Stein, Leiden 2024, pp. 109-134

Other possible BA and MA topics (to be discussed with the teacher)

Carnap and Husserl

Emotions and values in the early phenomenological tradition

Essence and modality in phenomenology

Freud and Husserl

Lukács’s theory of reification

Ontology and theory of knowledge in early phenomenology

Phenomenology and Marxism

Philosophy of the unconscious

The dispute over synthetic a priori propositions between phenomenology and the Vienna Circle

Theories of the person in early phenomenology

Themes from Heidegger’s Being and Time