Phenomenology, Misc

Presentists have typically argued that the Block View is incapable of explaining our experience of time. In this paper I argue that the phenomenology of our experience of time is, on the contrary, against presentism. My argument is based on a dilemma: presentists must either assume that the metaphysical present has no temporal extension, or that it is temporally extended. The former horn leads to phenomenological problems. The latter renders presentism metaphysically incoherent, unless one posits a discrete present that, however, (...) suffers from the same difficulties that the instantaneous present is prone to. After introducing the main phenomenological models of our experience of time that are discussed in the literature, I show that none of them favors presentism. I conclude by arguing that if even the phenomenology of time sides against presentism, the latter metaphysical theory has no scientific evidence in its favor and ought to be dropped. (shrink)

Partindo de uma crítica à condenação kantiana de toda e qualquer mentira, faz-se uma análise da relação entre a decisão de revelar a verdade e as instâncias de poder em que o sujeito se insere. Dada a introjeção das estruturas de poder e seu papel nas deliberações do Eu Consciente, concluímos que mentir implica num reconhecimento do poder da figura a quem se mente. Do ato leviano de mentir decorre prejuízo irreparável ao teste de realidade de quem mente.

Mathematics has a long track record of refining the concepts by which we make sense of the world. For example, mathematics allows one to speak about different senses of "sameness", depending on the larger context. Phenomenology is the name of a philosophical discipline that tries to systematically investigate the first-personal perspective on reality and how it is constituted. Together, mathematics and phenomenology seem to be a good fit to derive statements about our experience that are, at the same time, well-defined, (...) precise, and significant to our inner lives. However, there are difficulties stemming from the fact that phenomenology deals with inherently subjective things. Phenomenological investigations seem to lose their appeal when trying to approach them in the clear-cut way afforded by mathematics. How to overcome this obstacle? We argue that the Arts play a special role in mediating between the precise statements of mathematics and the sometimes fuzzy nature of our experience. Mathematics and art are complementary ways to come to a comprehensive understanding of reality. (shrink)

My central research focus over the past 30 years has been the articulation of what I call a radically temporal approach to philosophy. In the papers below, written between 2001 and 2022, I treat the varying ways in which radically temporal thinking manifests itself in the phenomenological perspectives of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Eugene Gendlin. I also discuss Jacques Derrida's deconstructive project and George Kelly's personal construct theory as examples of radically temporal thinking. With the aim of clarifying and (...) further defining the nature of this family of orientations, I have delineated the important ways in which it differs from a range of interlinked approaches in philosophy and psychology that includes hermeneutic and radical constructivisms, social constructionism, 4EA (Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, and Affective) cognition, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of corporeal intersubjectivity, autopoietic self-organizing systems theory and American pragmatism. Among the authors whose work I have submitted to critique from the radically temporal perspective are: Francisco Varela (autopoietic self-organizing systems), Shaun Gallagher, Evan Thompson, Matthew Ratcliffe, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Dan Zahavi, Hanne De Jaegher, Michel Bitbol, Thomas Fuchs (enactive, embodied ('4EA') cognition), Gilles Deleuze (Deleuzian biopolitics), Ken Gergen and John Shotter ( social constructionism), Kym Maclaren ( critical phenomenology) and Jan Slaby (critical neuroscience). I argue that these authors' accounts of the relation between affect, motivation and intention, attention , reflective and pre-reflective self-consciousness, the basis of mathematical naturalism and sensori-motor models of behavior, and the relation between the body, language and culture remain burdened by traditional presuppositions that the radically temporal philosophies of Heidegger et al put into question. (shrink)

I discuss Watsuji’s characterization of aidagara or “betweenness”. First, I develop a phenomenological reading of aidagara. I argue that the notion can help illuminate aspects of our embodied subjectivity and its interrelation with the world and others. Along the way, I also indicate how the notion can be fruitfully supplemented by different sources of empirical research. Second, I put aidagara to work in the context of psychopathology. I show how disruptions of aidagara in schizophrenia not only affirm the foundational role (...) it plays in organizing our experience of self and world in everyday life. Additionally, I suggest the notion can, in this context of application, potentially enhance our understanding of and empathy for those living with schizophrenic disorders. (shrink)

In this comparative study, we examine experiential disruptions of embodiment and affectivity in Moebius Syndrome and schizophrenia. We suggest that using phenomenological resources to explore these experiences may help us better understand what it’s like to live with these conditions, and that such an understanding may have significant therapeutic value. Additionally, we suggest that this sort of phenomenologically-informed comparative analysis can shed light on the importance of embodiment and affectivity for the constitution of a sense of self and interpersonal relatedness (...) in normal conditions. (shrink)

We argue that a phenomenological approach to social space, as well as its relation to embodiment and affectivity, is crucial for understanding how the social world shows up as social in the first place—that is, as affording different forms of sharing, connection, and relatedness. We explore this idea by considering two cases where social space is experientially disrupted: Moebius Syndrome and schizophrenia. We show how this altered sense of social space emerges from subtle disruptions of embodiment and affectivity characteristic of (...) these conditions. These disruptions are instructive, we suggest, in that they highlight the foundational role that body and affect play in organizing social space—the lived context in which we first encounter one another as social agents. (shrink)

This chapter connects the phenomenon of double bookkeeping to two critical debates in the philosophy of delusion: one from the analytic tradition and one from the phenomenological tradition. First, I will show how the failure of action guidance on the part of some delusions suggests an argument to the standard view that delusions are beliefs (doxasticism about delusion) and how its proponents have countered it by ascribing behavioral inertia to avolition, emotional disturbances, or a failure of the surrounding environment in (...) supporting the agent’s motivation to act. Second, I will show how the mismatch between the experience of double bookkeeping and that of having the usual propositional attitudes of folk psychology suggests another, more recalcitrant argument not only against doxasticism but against the very attempt to fit delusion into folk psychology. Third, I will show how phenomenologically inspired theories of delusion, such as the multiple realities hypothesis, bypass the debates above and focus on describing and understanding the disturbances in the structure of experience undergone by patients. I conclude that the philosophical discussions ensuing from an appreciation of double bookkeeping show some of the limitations of the analytic philosophical approach to delusion. (shrink)

In the realm of Philosophical Practice, there remains a lack of clarity surrounding the essential characteristics that define a practice as “philosophical”. This paper aims to establish seven minimal criteria that must be met by a philosophical consultancy in order to be considered genuinely “philosophical”. Additionally, it explores the question of how one can assess the quality of such a philosophical consultancy. I provide a (non-exhaustive) answer from an Aristotelian point of view, according to which goodness is a matter of (...) balance. In the context of philosophical consultancy, the consultant should find this balance in two respects: first, between their concern for the topic and their concern for the individual seeking counsel, and, secondly, between a hermeneutical and a critical attitude in dialogue. Finally, I present a visual representation of my findings that can serve as a tool for evaluating whether a consultancy is philosophical and whether it is balanced. __ En el ámbito de la práctica filosófica, sigue habiendo una falta de claridad en torno a las características esenciales que definen una práctica como "filosófica". Este artículo pretende establecer siete criterios mínimos que debe cumplir una consultoría filosófica para ser considerada genuinamente "filosófica". Además, explora la cuestión de cómo se puede evaluar la calidad de dicha consultoría filosófica. Aporto una respuesta (no exhaustiva) desde un punto de vista aristotélico, según el cual la bondad es una cuestión de equilibrio. En el contexto de la consultoría filosófica, el consultor debe encontrar este equilibrio en dos aspectos: en primer lugar, entre su preocupación por el tema y su preocupación por el individuo que busca consejo, y, en segundo lugar, entre una actitud hermenéutica y una actitud crítica en el diálogo. Por último, presento una representación visual de mis conclusiones que puede servir de herramienta para evaluar si una consultoría es filosófica y si está equilibrada. (shrink)

The thesis aims at covering two paths that can be found within the XX Century's continental philosophy. On one hand, the analysis will focus on what M. Theunissen called Heidegger's "Being and Time"'s 'social ontology'. On the other, the work will delve into young Herbert Marcuse's so-called 'heideggerian marxism' via questioning his works located between 1928 and 1933.

In this paper, I present the Kingdom Hearts series as a video game declination of the ontological concept of relation and the phenomenological view on the empathy. My aim is to explicit the philosophical background of the video games, concluding that they offer a solidly grounded analysis of what is about to be a self, and what are bounds for the subjectivity.

This essay accomplishes two goals. First, I explore Husserl’s study of “tension” from his 1893 manuscript, “Notes Towards a Theory of Attention and Interest,” to reveal that it comprises his de facto first analysis of instinct. Husserl there describes tension as the innate pull to execute ever new objectifications. He clarifies this pull of objectification by contrasting it to affective and volitional experiences. This analysis surprisingly prefigures a theory of drive-feelings and anticipates the idea that consciousness is both teleological and (...) autotelic. Second, I show how Husserl’s de facto account of instincts from 1893 inspires his robust philosophy of instincts from Studies concerning the Structures of Consciousness and other late manuscripts. While Husserl maintains many 1893 insights, he now claims that the instinct towards objectification comprises affective and volitional moments. Finally, I demonstrate that Husserl’s analyses of instincts throughout his life are united by the idea that consciousness possesses an essential structural lack. (shrink)

The paper investigates the role played by pre-scientific experience in the philosophy of Josiah Royce and Edmund Husserl. Such a notion, generally associated with Husserl’s conception of the life-world (Lebenswelt) in the Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936), finds an equivalent and historical antecedent in Royce’s distinction between a world of description and a world of appreciation. The final goal is to show how, despite their different philosophical frameworks, Royce and Husserl agree on the idea that, through the (...) rejection of the world given through mere perception (Lebenswelt/world of appreciation), European sciences have somehow failed their task of universality. As it will be shown, this idea is also due to methodological affinities among the two thinkers. The experience of interconnectedness among individual minds, while precluded in the mere scientific explanation of the world, it becomes possible through the enactment of the Lebenswelt or, as in Royce’s case, through a return to the experience of the world of appreciation. (shrink)

This article examines the meaningful intervention that Gert-Jan Van der Heiden’s recent book, The Voice of Misery: A Continental Philosophy of Testimony, makes in the developing field of the philosophy of testimony. I argue that this intervention is accomplished through a phenomenological investigation into the nature of the testimonial object and of the demand that it makes upon one who bears witness. In taking such an approach, I argue, Van der Heiden initiates an ontological turn in the field of testimonial (...) theory, shifting the conversation away from a debate about the conditions in which belief in testimony is justified – a debate that has in many ways defined the field for philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition. I suggest that Van der Heiden’s account is helpful in demonstrating that, in many cases, doing justice to a testimonial object requires an epistemic-ethical attitude other than belief. The article concludes by developing a few questions for Van der Heiden based on my interpretation of his project, including to what extent his phenomenology of testimony can account for how often our receptivity to testimony depends on the default trust that we have in others by virtue of our fundamental immersion in social life. (shrink)

Resumen: Husserl propone una teoría sobre la intersubjetividad que parte de la conciencia trascendental como inserta en el mundo de la vida donde están los otros y donde la comunidad se construye bajo una estructura de esencias que garantiza la comunalidad. El mundo de la vida es dado y compartido por todas las conciencias intencionales y trascendentales, es condición para intuiciones empíricas y eidéticas, la epoché y las reducciones eidética y trascendental. Cada momento del método fenomenológico se basa en la (...) existencia de un mundo de la vida independiente de la subjetividad. En este mundo, hay objetos reales y, entre estos, los otros, reconocidos por analogía a través de la empatía. Desde una perspectiva metodológico-epistemológico, el yo es anterior al mundo y a los otros yos. El yo constituye, en sentido fenomenológico, la realidad. La conciencia es el lugar de evidenciación de la realidad. No obstante, en la perspectiva ontológica, es lo contrario. El mundo de la vida es anterior a la conciencia individual. El mundo de la vida está ahí, disponible, existente, independiente del sujeto, funcionando con su propio orden, con sus leyes y reglas. Es el yo el que esta insertado en el mundo de la vida y que se esfuerza por desvendarlo. La realidad se impone y el yo es, sobre todo, miembro de una comunidad de otros yos. Aun así, ¿cómo compartir las experiencias? Las vivencias pueden ser diferentes, pero hay un límite en las variaciones, un límite dado por la esencia del objeto vivido y por las leyes que rigen las relaciones de tal objeto. Así, la constitución del mundo y de sus objetos está permanentemente en progreso. Es posible donarles nuevos sentidos, en los límites de su esencia. Para Husserl, la constitución comunal del mundo es la condición de posibilidad para la existencia de sujetos separados unos de los otros, y este entendimiento recíproco solo es posible a través de la constitución trascendental de la objetividad. Así, no hay una separación entre la intersubjetividad y la constitución del mundo, es la comunidad de yos la que dona sentidos a las objetividades. En el mundo de la vida con los otros en comunidad. -/- Abstract: Husserl proposes a theory on intersubjectivity that starts from transcendental consciousness as inserted in the lifeworld where the others and where the community are built under a structure of essences that guarantees communality. The lifeworld is given and shared by all intentional and transcendental consciousnesses, it is a condition for empirical and eidetic intuitions, the epoché and the eidetic and transcendental reductions. Every moment of the phenomenological method is based on the existence of a lifeworld independent of subjectivity. In this world, there are real objects and, among these, the others, recognized by analogy through empathy. From a methodologicalepistemological perspective, the self is prior to the world and the other selves. The self constitutes, in a phenomenological sense, reality. Consciousness is the locus of evidence of reality. However, from the ontological perspective, it is the opposite. The lifeworld is prior to individual consciousness. The lifeworld is there, available, existing, independent of subjectivity, functioning with its own order, with its laws and rules. It is the self that is inserted in the lifeworld and that strives to unveil it. Reality prevails and the self is, above all, a member of a community of other selves. Even so, how to share the experiences? The experiences can be different, but there is a limit in variations, a limit given by the essence of the lived object and by the laws that govern the relation of the object. Thus, the constitution of the world and its objects is permanently in progress. It is possible to give them new meanings, within the limits of their essence. For Husserl, the communal constitution of the world is the condition of possibility for the existence of subjects separated from each other, and this reciprocal understanding is only possible through the transcendental constitution of objectivity. therefore, there is no separation between intersubjectivity and the constitution of the world, it is the community of selves that gives meaning to objectivities. (shrink)

Heidegger’s ontologische Differenz imposes methodological limits which strictly mark his philosophy for rigor and determinacy. If it is not possible to think Being from the categories of the entity, it is also true that the difference is a tank of possibilities and developments to which Heidegger himself hints at. From the accuracy of the early works to the overturning of the problem in the later works, the ontological difference is a constant of Heideggerian thought. This paper seeks to push Existenz (...) from a mode of being of Dasein to a mode of giving of Seiende. In accordance with his late writings, bringing the question of the Being­-existence bond towards the perspective of the entity – and not only the entity among entities that poses the question –, the development of the problem in Heidegger’s meditation is analysed through the questions of ontological difference – the mode of negation, the between of distinction, the specific situatedness that defines experience, the Being, as a member of ontological difference, in its connection to the Nichts, the Event as a relaxation of the connection between Sein and Seiende. The entity that is exist­ent is the convergence point of the Event where Being and existent, Being and existence, are not in contrast, but protrude (ragen) towards each other revealing the traits of a Seyende des Seyns, of the entity of Being. (shrink)

Autism is a psychopathological condition around which there is still much prejudice and stigma. The discrepancy between third-person and first-person accounts of autistic behavior creates a chasm between autistic and neurotypical (non-autistic) people. Epistemic injustice suffered by these individuals is great, and a fruitful strategy out of this predicament is much needed. I will propose that through the appropriation and implementation of methods and concepts from phenomenology and ecological-enactive cognitive science, we can acquire powerful tools to work towards greater epistemic (...) justice for autistic individuals. I will use the resources found in the skilled intentionality framework, integrated with various phenomenological theories. From these approaches, we can view autistic impairments and disability relationally and how epistemic enablement and disablement form. Phenomenology and its methods help us learn more about the perceptual and social experiences of autistic individuals. The voices of the autistics themselves will be of the greatest importance here. I will show that, through restructuring our landscape of affordances and with a greater phenomenological understanding of the autistic inner world, we can devise new strategies that afford greater epistemic enablement and epistemic justice. (shrink)

How do philosophers and psychologists receive paradigmatic cases from pathology? More specifically, how are some essential features of ‘normal’ cognitive, affective or perceptual functions derived from these pathological cases? In this paper, I argue that Maurice Merleau-Ponty offers a fecund answer to this question by putting forth a logic of supplementation in pathology that distinguishes the coping behavior of the organic world in contrast to an inorganic one. Supplementation, instead of substitution, marks the world of the living, particularly in its (...) higher forms, as it denotes a persistence through impairment governed by an organic norm. A prominent example of this appears in his reading of the patient Schneider case, a classic example from Goldstein and Gelb’s Gestalt psychology. While earlier commentators were interested in underlying whether or not Merleau-Ponty used this example to denote the persistence of a key function or the disruption of another, what has been missed, on my view, is a far more consequential point about pathologies and how they structure our relation to our world. -/- . (shrink)

This paper seeks to extend my recent work on quantum perception (Rosen, 2021) to the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. In the first section, I summarize the earlier work, noting how the conventional approach to observing photons is rooted in an objectivist philosophy that serves as an obstacle to probing the underlying quantum reality. In the summary provided, I bring out the intimate relationship between observer and observed in the quantum world, and the need for a new, proprioceptive mode of observation (...) linked to phenomenological philosophy. The second part of the paper builds on the earlier effort by applying the proprioceptive observation of photons to the phenomenon of entanglement. The basic proposition is that proprioceptive observers of entangled photons may become entangled with each other. I propose an experiment that tests this hypothesis. In concluding, I explore the possibility that a quantum internet of proprioceptively engaged participants could create an ontologically entangled society. (shrink)

The rise of mechanistic science in the seventeenth century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology—the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind—could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by “teleology” as well as what is meant “nature”. I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the twentieth century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly “self-controlled” systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics (...) failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas’s phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas’s phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas. (shrink)

This text proposes an analysis of the phenomenon of faith in the tradition and spirituality of the Eastern Church. Starting from the relationship between phenomenology and theology, the article uses a theo-phenomenological method to depict the phenomenon of faith both theologically and phenomenologically. This article also argues that non-religious faith—either natural or philosophical—is the foundation of religious faith. According to Orthodox spirituality, faith is not reduced to a set of theoretical teachings and dogmas; they constitute only the first type of (...) faith, “simple faith”. At the same time, faith is also a form of experience, which has ascetical, ethical, and mystical dimensions; they characterize the second type of faith, faith as contemplative sight and knowledge. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the multiple meanings that the invention of the brick – this simple artefact that has permitted the raising of complex and durable buildings – has brought to civilisation and to humans in their relationship with the world. I suggest that bricks may have brought a number of novel experiences to society, whose meanings are important for the understanding of the modern condition and its emphasis on rationalism, replicability, precision, standardisation and modularity among other principles. (...) I also point out that bricks, along with rectangular types of packaging, are eminently liminal objects that entail a peculiar form of violence. (shrink)

This study clarifies the need for a renewed account of the body in physiotherapy to fill sizable gaps between physiotherapeutical theory and practice. Physiotherapists are trained to approach bodily functioning from an objectivist perspective; however, their therapeutic interactions with patients are not limited to the provision of natural-scientific explanations. Physiotherapists’ practice corresponds well to theorisation of the body as the bearer of original bodily intentionality, as outlined by Merleau-Ponty and elaborated upon by enactivists. We clarify how physiotherapeutical practice corroborates Merleau-Ponty’s (...) critical arguments against objectivist interpretations of the body; particularly, his analyses demonstrate that norms of optimal corporeal functioning are highly individual and variable in time and thus do not directly depend on generic physiological structures. In practice, objectively measurable physical deviations rarely correspond to specific subjective difficulties and, similarly, patients’ reflective insights into their own motor deficiencies do not necessarily produce meaningful motor improvements. Physiotherapeutical procedures can be understood neither as mechanical manipulations of patients’ machine-like bodies by experts nor as a process of such manipulation by way of instructing patients’ explicit conscious awareness. Rather, physiotherapeutical practice and theory can benefit from the philosophical interpretation of motor disorders as modifications of bodily intentionality. Consequently, motor performances addressed in physiotherapy are interpreted as relational features of a living organism coupled with its environment, and motor disorders are approached as failures to optimally manage the motor requirements of a given situation owing to a relative loss of the capacity to structure one’s relation with their environment through motor action. Building on this, we argue that the process of physiotherapy is most effective when understood as a bodily interaction to guide patients towards discovering better ways of grasping a situation as meaningful through bodily postures and movements. (shrink)

As online learning becomes more prevalent, colleges and universities have increasingly turned to remote proctoring services that claim to detect and deter student cheating during exams. However, many students have begun to voice concerns about the discomfort and anxiety these services can cause. This chapter aims to illuminate the existential and phenomenological nuances present in student testimony by reevaluating the proctor's gaze as an objectifying and alienating force. Specifically, I argue that the anxiety students describe is a response to feeling (...) seen. In most cases, remote proctoring involves the surveillance of student behavior by a stranger or artificial intelligence, and the empirical literature suggests that students are often falsely penalized for innocuous or unintentional "disruptions" during their exams. Thus, rather than be "caught up" in the exam process (and invisible to oneself), students are forced to attend to their bodily comportment and engage in a self-reflective awareness of their behavior as a body for-others. In the most extreme cases, the proctor's gaze is not only a distraction for students; it is also alienating such that students no longer feel free to appraise the character of their own actions but must instead see themselves through the eyes of the proctor. (shrink)

Qual è il rapporto tra la mente cosciente e la natura? A tale questione fondamentale si può rispondere in modi molto diversi, a seconda di come si concepiscono sia la mente che la natura. Questo lavoro offre una risposta originale, integrando la fenomenologia husserliana e la concezione enattiva all’interno di una prospettiva unitaria chiamata fenomenologia enattiva. Nel percorso qui sviluppato, il lettore troverà un’analisi ricca e aggiornata di alcune tra le questioni più dibattute nella filosofia della mente e nelle scienze (...) cognitive contemporanee: il “problema difficile” della coscienza e il suo rapporto con l’intenzionalità, lo statuto epistemologico e ontologico delle qualità sensibili, la filosofia del colore, il dibattito sulla cognizione incorporata (embodiment) e l’approccio fenomenologico allo studio del mentale. L’autore sviluppa infine una proposta generale che si articola in una metafisica monistico-neutrale, processuale e relazionale della natura e della coscienza. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been described as a “non-argumentocentric” way of doing philosophy, reflecting that the philosophical focus is on generating adequate descriptions of experience. But it should not be described as an argument-free zone, regardless of whether this is intended as a descriptive claim about the work of the “usual suspects” or a normative claim about how phenomenology ought to be properly practiced. If phenomenology is always at least partly in the business of arguments, then it is worth giving further attention (...) to the role and form of phenomenological argumentation, how it interacts with its more strictly descriptive component, and the status of phenomenological claims regarding conditions for various kinds of experience. I contend that different versions of phenomenological reasoning encroach upon argument forms that are commonly thought to be antithetical to phenomenology, notably abductive reasoning, understood in terms of its role in both hypothesis generation and in terms of justification. This paper identifies two main steps to making this case. The first step takes seriously the consequences of the intrinsically dialectical aspect of phenomenology in intersection with other modes of philosophy, the natural attitude, and non-philosophy. The second step focuses on transcendental reflection and arguments about the conditions/structures they contain. Together, these two steps aim to rescue phenomenology from the objection that it has an “ostrich epistemology” with regard to the ostensible purity of description, the intuition of essences, or the “conditions” ascertained through transcendental reflection. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the implications of grief for philosophical theorising about absence experience. I argue that whilst some absence experiences that occur in grief might be explained by extant philosophical accounts of absence experience, others need different treatment. I propose that grieving subjects' descriptions of feeling as if the world seems empty or a part of them seems missing can be understood as referring to a distinctive type of absence experience. In these profound absence experiences, I will argue, (...) the absence of a person as a condition on various possibilities is made manifest in the structure of experience over time. Thus, by paying close attention to grief, we can see that even accounts of absence experience that are presented as in competition with one another may not be so, and that to explain all kinds of absence experience we sometimes need to appeal to something overlooked in other accounts, and which is neither straightforwardly perceptual or cognitive. I also suggest that we would have good reason to take such experiences to be part of and not merely psychological effects of grief. (shrink)

When our smartphones distract us, much more is at stake than a momentary lapse of attention. Our use of smartphones can interfere with the building-blocks of meaningfulness and the actions that shape our self-identity. -/- By analyzing social interactions and evolving experiences, Roholt reveals the mechanisms of smartphone-distraction that impact our meaningful projects and activities. Roholt’s conception of meaning in life draws from a disparate group of philosophers—Susan Wolf, John Dewey, Hubert Dreyfus, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Borgmann. Central to Roholt’s (...) argument are what Borgmann calls focal practices: dinners with friends, running, a college seminar, attending sporting events. As a recurring example, Roholt develops the classification of musical instruments as focal things, contending that musical performance can be fruitfully understood as a focal practice. -/- Through this exploration of what generates meaning in life, Roholt makes us rethink the place we allow smartphones to occupy in the everyday. But he remains cautiously optimistic. This thoughtful, needed interrogation of smartphones shows how we can establish a positive role for technologies within our lives. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon both argue that oppression fundamentally constrains the subject’s relationship to and embodied experience of time, yet their accounts of temporality are rarely brought together. This paper will explore what we might learn about the operation of different types of reductive temporality if we read Beauvoir and Fanon alongside each other, focusing primarily on the early works that arguably lay out the central concerns of their respective temporal frameworks. At first glance, it seems that these (...) two models of temporality have radically different emphases. While Beauvoir suggests that reductive temporalities work to sever the future from the past and present, Fanon locates this destructive operation in the heightening of their entanglement. However, I will contend that there are deep affinities between these accounts: For both Beauvoir and Fanon, freedom is bound up with futurity, with its lack therefore cashed out in terms of stagnation, repetition, and the entrapment within a hollow moment that prevents authentic projection. Both resist teleological perspectives; problematize the endeavor to describe the structures of lived temporality in neutral terms; and show that temporality is crucial to the pursuit of a political phenomenology. These resonances, however, should only serve to recast rather than dissolve the tension between their approaches; ultimately, we need to acknowledge the distinctiveness of their differing concerns and aims. (shrink)

Ce mémoire est une étude à la jonction des études germaniques et de la phénoménologie, et s’efforce de reconstituer la problématique de l’interrogation et de la définition de l’homme à partir de l’oeuvre de Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Prenant une perspective à la fois historiographique et philosophique, l’ambition de cette étude consiste à reconstruire un moment du corpus de Heidegger afin d’en exposer la pertinence et l’actualité philosophiques. Cette étude est divisée en trois chapitres. Le premier chapitre reprend et analyse le (...) « programme onto-phénoménologique » déployé dans Sein und Zeit, afin de comprendre comment l’« homme » était analysé de façon nouvelle par l’auteur. Le second formule l’hypothèse historiographique d’un « Heidegger III » (1959-1976), autrement dit d’un dernier Heidegger, avec l’ambition d’exposer comment la définition de l’« homme » entreprise par Heidegger s’est peu à peu modifiée afin de répondre à des difficultés d’ordre thématique et méthodologique, lesquelles furent rassemblées sous l’intitulé d’un « problème du corps » (Leibproblematik). Cette hypothèse doit en outre expliciter le statut fondamental du « corps » (Leib) dans la dernière période de l’oeuvre de Heidegger, en mettant en lumière l’importance d’un « Nietzsche matriciel » dans la réélaboration d’une interrogation et d’une définition de l’« homme » fondées sur la corporalité (Leiblichkeit). Enfin, le troisième chapitre s’attarde à comprendre et évaluer la portée et les conséquences philosophiques de cette définition heideggérienne de l’homme à partir du « corps » (Leib), notamment dans la distinction de l’homme du reste du vivant et dans la caractérisation de la « culture ». (shrink)

Intuitively, we can conceive of the existence of a conscious state as a pure activity that does not necessarily require a body (or even a brain). This idea has found new support in certain recent theories that present the possibility of a totally disconnected and disembodied consciousness. Against this hypothesis, I argue that human experience is intrinsically embodied and embedded, though in a specific way. Using Sartre’s phenomenology of the body, I first analyze the concept of consciousness as intentionality and (...) a world-disclosing activity, thus explaining how conscious activity can only be expressed through a body that is spatiotemporally related to the world. Then, I argue that bodily consciousness does not necessarily imply the actual presence of an anatomical body but, rather, a process of spatialization and temporalization (hodological space and temporal synthesis) through the “spatiotemporal body”. Finally, I test my thesis by critiquing some cases of apparent disembodied/disconnected consciousness, i.e., dreams, out-of-body experiences, and the brain-in-a-vat scenario. (shrink)

In this paper, I use a comparative analysis of mysticism in Zen and the Abrahamic faiths to formulate a phenomenological account of mysticism “as such.” I argue that, while Zen Buddhism is distinct from other forms of mystical experience in important ways, it can still be fit into a general phenomenological category of mystical experience. First, I explicate the phenomenological accounts of mysticism provided by Anthony Steinbock and Angela Bello. Second, I offer an account of Zen mysticism which both coheres (...) with and problematizes these accounts, arguing that Zen demonstrates the inadequacy of these accounts as descriptions of mysticism as a universal religious category. Lastly, I use this investigation to propose that Zen mysticism does generally cohere with the mystical experiences of other religions, but only if we devise a new formula for speaking phenomenologically about mystical experience as such which captures this phenomenon in all of its manifestations. (shrink)

Contemporary societies are regulated by a complex system, which tends to be exhaustive, supported by growing social and technical interdependence. This system is composed of subsystems: global economic production, liberal political institutions and a social organization based on labour. As a whole, these three dimensions – political, economical, social – tend to compress contemporary life forms into a single way of life, primarily structured by systemic functionality. Although it admits variations of degree (or even, to some extent, qualitative differences), the (...) functional codes (of systems) guide actions daily and impose severe limitations on lifestyles, which are particularly noticeable when the struggle for survival, both economically and socially, mobilizes all of one’s time and energy. The means obliterate the ends, functioning obliterates meaning, survival obliterates the proper human “life”. At the political level, liberal thought masks the “malaise of modern civilization” resulting from these limitations by evacuating the question on forms of life to the private sphere, concurrently with the insistence on an abstract political ethic of the “just”, ultimately determining the form and functioning of the institutions, which overrides any and all ethics of “good”. (shrink)

This chapter presents Gadamer’s conception of language and of its role in the process of understanding. The chapter begins by explaining what Gadamer means when he says that language is characterized by an essential “self-forgetfulness” [Selbstvergessenheit] and how this relates to his account of the fore-structure of the understanding. Next, it explains what it means to conceive of a linguistic presentation (e.g., a poem or a lecture) as a hermeneutic event and how this conceptualization is essential to Gadamer’s account of (...) understanding and of the dialectical unity between language and being. The chapter ends by considering how Gadamer’s analysis of conversation further clarifies what it means to be open to the event of language. (shrink)

This paper argues that the problematic of rule following in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and Heidegger's analysis of anxiety in Being and Time have analogous structures. Working through these analogies helps our interpretation of both of these authors. Contrasting sceptical and anti-sceptical readings of Wittgenstein helps us to resolve an interpretive puzzle about what an authentic response to anxiety looks like for Heidegger. And considering the importance of anxiety to Heidegger's conception of authenticity allows us to locate in Wittgenstein's later philosophy (...) a covert appeal to something resembling Heideggerian authenticity. (shrink)

Phenomenologists turn to Augustine to remedy the neglect of life, love, and language in the Cartesian cogito: (1) concerning life, Edmund Husserl appropriates Augustine’s analysis of distentio animi, Edith Stein of vivo, and Hannah Arendt of initium; (2) concerning love, Max Scheler appropriates Augustine’s analysis of ordo amoris, Martin Heidegger of curare, and Dietrich von Hildebrand of affectiones; (3) concerning language, Ludwig Wittgenstein appropriates Augustine’s analysis of ostendere, Hans-Georg Gadamer of verbum cordis, and Jean-Luc Marion of confessio. Phenomenology’s non-Cartesian Augustinianism (...) can tell us something about phenomenology, namely that it is engaged in the project of recontextualizing the cogito, and something about Augustine, namely how radically different his project is than Descartes’s. Phenomenology presents an Augustine that is well positioned for the debates of our times concerning mind and world, desire and the human person, and language and embodiment. (shrink)

The paper discusses a posthuman reading of Merleau-Ponty’s later works and an application of the concept of flesh to the digital dimension. Whereas, in the Phenomenology of Perception, the world and other beings are seen from an egological and human perspective, in The Visible and the Invisible this perspective is reshaped. Human body is made of the same stuff of other bodies, and they constitute a common being, the flesh of the world. Merleau-Ponty sets out a path through flat ontology (...) and posthumanism, opposing human perspective as a privileged one. His posthuman turn passes through the concepts of reversibility and divergence. Humans are made of the same stuff as non-humans, so they reverse into one another, but, on the other hand, they are not reduced to an undifferentiated entity, because of their divergence. Merleau-Ponty’s problematizing perspective is here actualized and applied to the hybridization between human bodies and digital protheses. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Sartre’s theory of selfhood against the background of the contemporary debate between minimal-self theories and narrative-self theories. I argue that Sartre’s theory incorporates both an emphasis on the singular first-person perspective, which is characteristic of minimal-self theories, and an emphasis on the practical intelligibility of experience, which is characteristic of narrative-self theories. The distinctiveness of the Sartrean combination of these motifs consists in its idea of the necessary ideal-relatedness of consciousness. According to Sartre, the logical structure of (...) the pre-reflective cogito requires the haunting presence of an ideal of self-coincidence, which determines for consciousness the meaning of its lived experiences. Consciousness exists as a question to itself due to this ideal-relatedness, and it answers this question by projecting its possibilities as creative and symbolic realizations of this ideal. Establishing the connection between Sartre’s theory of imagination and his theory of selfhood, I suggest that both the ideal and the possibility of consciousness are lived in the manner of the imaginary. (shrink)

In this chapter I aim to show that Husserl’s descriptions of the nature and role of activity in the epistemic economy of our conscious lives imply a nondeflationary account of epistemic agency. After providing the main outlines of this account, I discuss how it compares to contemporary accounts of epistemic agency and respond to some potential objections. In concluding I indicate that according to this Husserlian account of epistemic agency we can be said to be intrinsically responsible for holding the (...) beliefs we do as well as for the absence of belief. (shrink)

I examine Michel Bitbol’s proposal of a metaphysical counterpart of neurophenomenology, arguing that such a metaphysics should address the issue of the origin of consciousness. This can be accomplished through panqualityism, which conceives of the subject and object of experience as grounded in a flow of pre-phenomenal qualities. I conclude by framing this view in terms of a critical metaphysics that is consistent with the pragmatic and existential dimension of neurophenomenology.

Most interpreters of Heidegger’s reflections on the body maintain that—whether early, middle, or late in the Gesamtausgabe—Dasein’s or the mortal’s openness to being/beyng is the ground of the fleshly or bodily (das Leibliche), but not the reverse. In this paper, I argue that there is evidence from Heidegger’s own oeuvre demonstrating that this relationship is instead mutually reciprocal. That is to say, I contend that corporeal variability is constitutive of Dasein’s openness to being just as Dasein’s openness to being is (...) constitutive of its corporeal variability. Understood in this way, Heidegger’s thinking puts forward what I call a corpoietic understanding of the body and of the meaning of ability. I show that, despite the ableist assumptions at play in much of Heidegger’s work, such an understanding is nevertheless grounded in the idea of access, a central concept in philosophy of disability and disability studies. After developing this idea of ability as access, I close by addressing the larger political stakes of using Heidegger’s work to think about embodiment and disability given the Third Reich’s mass slaughter of people with disabilities. (shrink)

In this article I offer some existential-phenomenological reflections on the interrelationships among the forms of love, loss, finitude, and the human ways of being.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted several instances of churches violating state issued and scientifically recommended guidelines designed to keep populations healthy and to prevent the further spread of the disease. While these instances are minority responses to these orders, they nonetheless raise questions about the rationality of ecclesial belonging in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, I draw on the work of William James and W. E. B. Du Bois to articulate a conception of ecclesial belonging as (...) a social epistemological process engaging a complex, fluid multiplicity of knowers of various scales. I argue that, in this view, ecclesial rationality involves the construction of a concatenation of internal and external practices individual believers and groups can traverse so long as they consistently satisfy a plurality of desiderata. I suggest that what is irrational about religious-based defiance of COVID-19 guidelines is the church-sanctioned severance of internal from external practices. I suggest that this behavior is supported by a failure to grasp the demands of ecclesial rationality rather than embrace them, and that this conception of rationality may have been eroded by the value-neutral skepticism of secular rationality. (shrink)

Exemplified especially by Heidegger and Levinas, the phenomenology of death expresses first, the impossibility of the death experience, second, the authenticity of Dasein starting from the horizon opened by the possibility of death, and third, the relevance of the death of the other to the discovery of one’s own death. This article tries to take a step further, showing the link between the authenticity of Dasein and the desire for immortality manifested in this authenticity. By overturning Heidegger’s theses and by (...) affirming both the necessity of an authentication of death itself—in accord with Socrates’s death example—and the legitimacy of the meditation on death, this text links the need for immortality, which is phenomenologically visible, with the Christian faith in the resurrection, which is visible only for theology. (shrink)