Dr Cyril McDonnell

Biography
Research Interests
One of my main areas of research is Heidegger’s
controversial development in the early decades of the twentieth century of Husserl’s idea of phenomenology. This has led me to investigate
(i) Brentano’s re-introduction and modification of the scholastic concept of
intentionality into a root- concept of his novel science of ‘descriptive
psychology’ in the mid-1870s (and ff.), taking into account his engagement with British empiricists (Locke, Hume, Mill); (ii)
Husserl’s advancement of Brentano’s new science of descriptive psychology into a descriptive-eidetic psychology of the intentionality of consciousness in the Logical Investigations (1900–01) and subsequent definition of transcendental phenomenology as a version of post-Kantian transcendental idealism in Ideas I (1913); (iii) Heidegger’s
re-direction of phenomenology in his first major, albeit unfinished publication in philosophy and phenomenology Being and Time (1927), towards raising anew the question of the meaning of being from
within the horizon of temporality grounded in an Kierkegaardian-existentialist approach to
ontology that deploys Diltheyean hermeneutics as a methodological consideration for this task. This required (iv) further investigation
into the unfolding of hermeneutic methods of enquiry in the origins of
late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century phenomenology, with reference to
Schleiermacher and Dilthey, and their influence on Heidegger’s reconfiguration
of Husserl’s version of transcendental phenomenology into a ‘hermeneutic’
phenomenology. I also have research interests in Kant’s objections
to natural theology and subsequent post-Kantian philosophy of religion elaborated by Hegel, Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Levinas, and Desmond, as well as research interests in three topics in moral philosophy: (i) the relation
of morality to law; (ii) the concept and moral justification(s) of punishment; (iii) the
history and concept of rights.
Book
Book Chapter
Year | Publication | |
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2023 | Cyril McDonnell (2023) 'Reconciling the Irreconcilable: Stein’s Critique of Heidegger’s Phenomenology and Christian Metaphysics' In: Irish Contemporary Phenomenologists. Maryland, U.S.A : Rowan & Littlefield. | |
2022 | McDonnell, Cyril (2022) 'Hume’s “Bundle of Perceptions” and the “Problem of the I” in Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint' In: Brentano and the Positive Philosophy of Comte and Mill. With Translations of Original Writings on Philosophy as Science by Franz Brentano. Berlin : De Gruyter. [Link] https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110734645 | |
2007 | McDonnell, Cyril (2007) 'Heidegger, Dilthey, and “the Being-Question”: Towards a Critical Appraisal of Heidegger's Use of Hermeneutic Phenomenology' In: Transcendence and Phenomenology. London : SCM-Canterbury Press. [Link] [Full-Text] |
Peer Reviewed Journal
Year | Publication | |
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2018 | McDonnell, Cyril (2018) 'The Origins of the Husserl-Heidegger Philosophical Dispute in Twentieth-Century Phenomenology'. MAYNOOTH PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, 9 :81-112. [Link] [DOI] | |
2017 | McDonnell, Cyril (2017) 'Brentano’s New Understanding of Psychology in Light of His Reading of English Empiricists'. Brentano Studien. Internationales Jahrbuch der Franz Brentano Forschung, XV/1 :263-290. [Link] | |
2015 | McDonnell, Cyril (2015) 'Understanding and Assessing Brentano's Thesis in Light of His Modification of the Scholastic Concept of Intentionality'. Brentano Studien. Internationales Jahrbuch der Franz Brentano Forschung, 13 :153-182. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2012 | McDonnell, Cyril (2012) 'The Significance of Heidegger’s Analysis of Death in His Advancement of Husserl’s Idea of Phenomenology Towards the Question of the Meaning of Being in Being and Time'. Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 2011 :85-110. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2011 | McDonnell, Cyril (2011) 'The Task and Significance of Philosophical Reflection on the Relation of the Finite to the Infinite after Kant, in Husserl, Heidegger and Schleiermacher'. Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 2010 :93-116. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2011 | McDonnell, Cyril (2011) 'Husserl's Critique of Brentano's Doctrine of Inner Perception and its Significance for Understanding Husserl's Method in Phenomenology'. MAYNOOTH PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, 6 :73-109. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2010 | McDonnell, Cyril (2010) 'The Causal Link Between Teaching and Learning: Some Metaphysical, Ethical and Political Considerations'. Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 2009 :43-63. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2009 | McDonnell, Cyril (2009) 'Why Punish the Guilty? Towards a Philosophical Analysis of the State’s Justification of Punishment'. MAYNOOTH PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, 5 :21-34. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2008 | McDonnell, Cyril (2008) 'Understanding and Assessing Heidegger's Topic in Phenomenology in Light of his Appropriation of Dilthey's Hermeneutic Manner of Thinking'. MAYNOOTH PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, 4 :31-52. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2006 | McDonnell, Cyril (2006) 'Brentano's Modification of the Medieval-Scholastic Concept of Intentional Inexistence in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874)'. MAYNOOTH PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS, 3 :56-75. [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2006 | McDonnell, Cyril (2006) 'Brentano's Revaluation of the Scholastic Concept of Intentionality into a Root-Concept of Descriptive Psychology'. Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, 2006 :124-171. [Link] [Full-Text] |
Other Journal
Year | Publication | |
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2004 | McDonnell, Cyril (2004) 'Heidegger's Recovery of the Being-Question in Light of His Interpretation and Evaluation of Husserl's Transcendental Reduction' NUI Postgraduate Research Record: Proceedings of the Colloquium, x :128-136. [Link] [Full-Text] |
Book Review
Year | Publication | |
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2019 | McDonnell, Cyril (2019) Review: The Intimate Universal by William Desmond. Dublin: BREV [Link] | |
2018 | McDonnell, Cyril (2018) Review: William Desmond and Contemporary Theology. LONDON: BREV [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text] | |
2009 | McDonnell, Cyril (2009) Review: Between System and Poetics: William Desmond and Philosophy after Dialectic, ed. by Thomas A.F. Kelly (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). BREV [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2009 | McDonnell, Cyril (2009) Review: God and the Between, by William Desmond (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008). BREV [Link] [Full-Text] | |
2002 | McDonnell, Cyril (2002) Review: Being and Dialectic: Metaphysics and Culture, ed. by William Desmond & Joseph Grange (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000). BREV [Link] [Full-Text] | |
1999 | McDonnell, Cyril (1999) Review: Being and the Between, by William Desmond (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). BREV [Link] [Full-Text] | |
1988 | McDonnell, Cyril (1988) Review (in Comhar): Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture by Richard Kearney (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). BREV [Link] [Full-Text] |
Magazine Article
Year | Publication | |
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1996 | McDonnell, Cyril (1996) Asking the Right Question. Maynooth: MA [Link] [Full-Text] |
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