Abstract

HENRI LAUENER'S OPEN TRANSCENDENTALISM Paul GOCHET & Michel KEFER Universite de Liege 1. Henri Lauener's manner 0/ phiLosophizing Over the last twenty-five years, Henri Lauener has published several books and quite a few papers. In this rich philosophical production, we shall concentrate on the papers in which he puts forward his own philosophical views. Even if he is not a philosopher about philosophers in the way G .E. Moore was, it is true that the starting point of Lauener 's thought is often to be found in philosophical theses widely debated today, such as Quine's naturalism and holism, Carnap's reduction of ontological questions to matters of practical decision or Kripke's semantics of modal operators. Lauener addresses the most central questions discussed in contemporary philosophy. He typically starts from the most radical version of a solution, shows its weaknesses and speIls out his own answer. If we tie up the threads of his numerous discussions of Kant's, Gonseth's, Quine's and Carnap's views, a coherent picture emerges which presents a very homogeneous and weIl-articulated philosophical approach that he calls "Open transcendentalism". This is achallenging philosophical framework in which the author takes a stance on major issues of contemporary philosophy. Lauener