Rhetoric of/in the phenomenology. Speech and language in Edmund Husserl and in Martin Heidegger's early works

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Dedicated to the interrelation between philosophy and rhetoric, this research project focuses on the rhetoric of philosophy, respectively a rhetoric at the service of philosophy. Rhetoric is not understood here as a mere art of fine words or as sophistry: The term defines, firstly, speech and persuasion as a spontaneous, pretheoretical and communicative ability of humans; secondly, the regular and systematic use of this ability; and finally, the technique of persuasion itself. The proposed project discusses the rhetoric of phenomenology in two respects, namely, as conception and as use of language: The aversion of rhetoric in Edmund Husserl´s Logische Untersuchungen and Heidegger´s affinity for rhetoric in Sein und Zeit provide the starting point. Initially, I will outline the respective conceptions of language in Husserl and Heidegger, and scrutinize their mutual influences in order to reconstruct the network of transfer, continuation, and repercussion that characterizes the relation between both authors. In this regard, I will carefully examine how the aspect of communicative speech, which was excluded in the Logische Untersuchungen but returns in Husserl´s later writings, is negotiated in the context of the phenomenology of body, intersubjectivity, and lifeworld. In a second step, I will investigate if and how Husserl and Heidegger themselves reflect on the use of language: The language thus becomes topical as the medium of phenomenological description. In doing this, particular attention is given to the rhetorical means, which play a central role in the constitution and assertion of science and theory.