Dependency Complex

In no more than two double-spaced pages total (600 words, font size 12), provide a glossary entry for both of the following terms:

1. Dependency Complex (p. 74; 88)
2. Two Systems of Reference (p. 90)

Be sure to include in your entry:

• A succinct, straightforward definition of the term in no more than 1-2 sentences
• An account of the underlying motivations and issues that led the term to be discussed by the philosopher (at least in the context of the readings)
• A few examples that illustrate your understanding of the term. For this task, feel free to compare and contrast the term with other uses of it – either in everyday usage or in other philosophies
• References to the text (e.g., page numbers, important quotes – but do not excessively)

Example entry:

Phenomenology – The term phenomenology literally means “the logic or science of phenomena.” Husserlian phenomenology, in particular, is the science of mental phenomena as they appear to consciousnesses – specifically, phenomenological “essences” or the universal features of mental phenomena. The discovery of phenomenological essences makes phenomenology a study of indubitable structural conditions upon which all other philosophy and the positive sciences are grounded and made possible.

Husserl understands the science of phenomenology as clarifying the very “idea of knowledge” by unearthing the a priori structures of the concepts and acts involved cognition and knowledge. Specifically, Husserlian phenomenology provides first-person descriptions and analysis of conscious life in order to identify certain a priori subjective 
conditions necessary for objective cognition, and trying to distinguish these 
transcendental conditions from the empirical, factual or “psychological” conditions that are also involved in human cognition.

Phenomenology is conceived of by Husserl as a presuppositionless way of approaching epistemological concepts in order to exhibit them their conceptual contents and connections with other concepts with “clarity and distinctness.” This clarification of concepts is not achieved, however, not by the philosophical analysis of concepts or philosophical argumentation, but by tracing back these concepts to their “origin” or “source” in our conscious mental life itself (which provide the ultimate “evidence” of things/structures as they are given): As Husserl puts it:

“[Phenomenological] descriptions do not concern lived experiences, or classes thereof, of empirical persons; for of persons of myself and of others, of lived experiences which are ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ – it knows nothing, assumes nothing. Concerning such matters 
it poses no questions, attempts no definitions, makes no hypotheses. In phenomenological description one views that which, in the strongest of senses, is given, just as it is in itself”
(EW, p. 251, Hua XXII 206-7).

In this way, phenomenological investigation is not simply to be identified with either introspection or descriptive psychology. In addition to its scientific ideals and aspirations, phenomenology differentiates itself from other first-person self-reflections on our mental life in that (1) its goal is to illuminate the a priori structures of consciousness, and (2) by deploying the “phenomenological reduction” or epoché to set aside any and all commitment about the nature of conscious phenomena (so as to focus solely on what appears immanently to consciousness) “brackets” or “suspends” our concrete lived experience as empirical subject.

So, for example, to study our perception phenomenologically is to set aside the empirical features of the subject having the perception as well as the object perceived (e.g., the psycho-physical dimensions of the perceiver and the concrete details of the object such as its specific color, size, location, etc.), in favor of a description of how perceptual objects appear immanently to consciousness “as such” (that is, “essentially” or according to their universal structures). Such a study will show that perceptional objects, for instance, are always given – essentially – from a certain angle; this belongs to the perception of objects, but not to, e.g., objects of thought such as numbers.

The main result of Husserl’s phenomenological investigations into “essences” is that consciousness is defined by intentionality – it is always “of something” and so defined by an intentional relation to something else (an intentional object). Not only are there a variety of structural essences to the various intentional relations and so the objects they intend (e.g., objects as they are given in perceiving, doubting, imagining, etc.), but intentional “ego-pole” in the ego-object relation is itself informed by a “synthetic” activity (protention, retention) to past and future which structures itself and its intentional relations.