Yin, Rui
Thesis topic: ‘Type and Normativity in Pre-Predicative Experience: Husserl’s Phenomenology between Conceptualism and Non-Conceptualism.’
Contact details at the University of Würzburg:
Institute of Philosophy
Ehrenhof, South Wing
Residenzplatz
97070 Würzburg
Email to Mr Yin
Primary supervisor: Prof. Dr Michaela Summa
Second supervisor:
Prof. Dr Andrea Altobrando (University of Padua)
Class in the Graduate School: “Philosophy, Languages, Arts”
PhD programme at the Graduate School from the winter semester 2026/27.
Abstract:
Summary of the dissertation topic: The dissertation project focuses on Edmund Husserl’s concept of the ‘type’ and its significance for a theory of normativity in perception. The central question is how types and typifications in pre-predicative experience – particularly in simple perception – enable an awareness of regularity, reliability and appropriateness. The thesis thus examines not only how objects are recognised as the same across varying appearances, but also the extent to which perception can succeed, be confirmed or fail.
The central thesis is that, for Husserl, the type is neither a mere empirical generalisation nor a fully formed concept, but rather a pre-predicative form of order arising from passive synthesis, habituality and the formation of the horizon. Types structure perceptual expectations, open up scope for possible fulfilment and disappointment, and thereby define normality. On this basis, a phenomenological understanding of perceptual normativity can be developed which amounts to neither strict conceptualism nor a norm-free non-conceptualism.
This thesis pursues three objectives: Firstly, the concept of ‘type’ in Husserl’s genetic phenomenology is to be systematically clarified. Secondly, its function in relation to the immanent normativity of perception is to be elucidated, in particular with regard to normality, horizon structure and modalisation. Thirdly, it aims to demonstrate how concepts can arise from typifying experience without perception having to be presupposed from the outset as being entirely conceptually determined.
