Background
Conrad-Martius, Hedwig was born on February 27, 1888 in Berlin.
Conrad-Martius, Hedwig was born on February 27, 1888 in Berlin.
Philosophy at Munich and Göttingen Universities.
Unable to follow an academic career, initially because she was a woman and later because she had one Jewish grandparent. But in 1949 she was given a Lectureship at the University of Munich and in 1955 was made an Honorary Professor.
As she had one Jewish grandparent her work was stalled by the rise of Nazism.
Like other members of the Göttingen circle of phenomenologists Conrad-Martius rejected what were seen as the idealistic implications of Husserl’s phenomenology. This is evident in her 1916 contribution to Husserl’s Yearbook. Phenomenology is understood as the presuppositionless description and analysis of that which shows itself in consciousness, i.e. phenomena. There is no suggestion that things are in some way dependent on consciousness. Indeed the ‘external’ world shows itself as being self-standing in its being. However, the principal concern of that work is the sensory component in our experience of the world. Conrad-Martius provides a subtle and impressively rich description of the multiplicity of sensory contents in perception and of how they combine to disclose material objects and their properties. The word ‘disclose’ is important. Objects are not reducible to sensations. They are disclosed in sensations. As well as describing the essence of perception Conrad-Martius also provides a phenomenological analysis, much praised by Roman Ingarden, of the difference between perception and imagination as one of kind rather than degree. As a phenomenologist ConradMartius is not concerned with what in fact exists. We are concious of various kinds of things as real. But what is it for something to be real? ConradMartius poses this question in her 1923 contribution to the Yearbook. Toask such a question about being is to engage in ontology. However, her method of tackling ontological questions remains phenomenological. The meaning of‘reality’ is not constructed but is arrived at by interrogating those modes of consciousness in which something shows itself as real. In later life, as she moved into Naturphilosophiea.nd metaphysics, her thinking became less phenomenological and more speculative in character.