As we speak about time in the context of everyday life, we have no problem with what we mean by time. We take time as given. Different kinds of theories of development rely on the ordinary concept of time. Time is a sequence of instants, and we are moving along from the past to the future, from birth to death. Moving in time also means development. It does not take into account how a human being is in the time. It (...) flattens our view of human life and cannot describe our manifold being. According to theories of development, if a child does not behave in a certain instant as the theories expect, there must be a problem with that child or she has not developed as well as others. Heidegger uses terms like time-space, temporality and ecstases of time. The question of time is of the same kind as the question of Being. We are in the world and in time in the same way. We all have experience of time, how it sometimes goes quickly and sometimes very slowly. Time is not experienced as moments one after another. It is time-space. Time-space means that time has three dimensions and it consists of the ecstatical opening up of the future, the past and the present. In this article, I will open up the question how the traditional understanding of time and the ecstatic understanding of time understand children differently. What does it mean that little children live exclusively in the present? (shrink)

The community of psychiatrists and psychologists in early twentieth century Europe cultivated a strong interest in the phenomenologically informed accounts of human existence offered by Heidegger. The psychiatrists, Binswanger (1968) and Boss (1957/1963; 1970/1979), developed personal relationships with Heidegger, and while Heidegger ultimately rejected Binswanger’s work, Boss worked closely with him throughout his life in order to keep his own work on a sound phenomenological footing. This interest in phenomenologically informed psychological practice and theory continued into the latter half of (...) the twentieth century with psychiatrists and psychologists such as Erwin Straus, Eugene Minkowski, Hubertus Tellenbach, and Rollo May.Today this tradition is continued by a number of psychiatrists, psychologists, and philosophers, including Thomas Fuchs, Matthew Ratcliffe, Giovanni Stanghellini, and Robert Stolorow. However, Robert Stolorow’s contributions to this movement are distinctive for. (shrink)

Here we consider interpersonal experience in schizophrenia, melancholia, and mania. Our goal is to improve understanding of similarities and differences in how other people can be experienced in these disorders, through a review of first-person accounts and case examples and of contemporary and classic literature on the phenomenology of these disorders. We adopt a tripartite/dialectical structure: first we explore main differences as traditionally described; next we consider how the disorders may resemble each other; finally we discuss more subtle but perhaps (...) foundational ways in which the phenomenology of these disorders may nonetheless be differentiated. These involve disruptions of common sense and conventionality, abnormalities of empathy, distinct forms of paranoia and the sense of personal centrality, and altered perceptions of intentionality, deadness, and artificiality. We end by considering some neurocognitive research relevant to these abnormal forms of subjectivity, including work on theory of mind, experience of human movement, and perception of faces. (shrink)

In this paper, we describe the value and philosophy of lifeworld-led care. Our purpose is to give a philosophically coherent foundation for lifeworld-led care and its core value as a humanising force that moderates technological progress. We begin by indicating the timeliness of these concerns within the current context of citizen-oriented, participative approaches to healthcare. We believe that this context is in need of a deepening philosophy if it is not to succumb to the discourses of mere consumerism. We thus (...) revisit the potential of Husserl’s notion of the lifeworld and how lifeworld-led care could provide important ideas and values that are central to the humanisation of healthcare practice. This framework provides a synthesis of the main arguments of the paper and is finally expressed in a model of lifeworld-led care that includes its core value, core perspectives, relevant indicative methodologies and main benefits. The model is offered as a potentially broad-based approach for integrating many existing practices and trends. In the spirit of Husserl’s interest in both commonality and variation, we highlight the central, less contestable foundations of lifeworld-led care, without constraining the possible varieties of confluent practices. (shrink)

A well-worn trope used by phenomenologists is that things that remain invisible or unnoticed in the course of our everyday being in the world reveal themselves in instances of breakdown. This paper borrows this trope to explicate one instance of breakdown, that of traumatic spinal cord injury (TSCI). We use the phenomenology of Heidegger, especially his formulation of ecstatic temporality presented in Being and Time, to illuminate the temporal issues surrounding this radical rupture in Dasein’s being in the world through (...) data collected from field observations of inpatient rehabilitation, interviews with persons with TSCI, and with their rehabilitation providers. Specifically, we explore the breakdown in temporality (the rupture on thrown projection) that occurs in persons who experience TSCI across three interconnected existential dimensions – understanding, attunement (mood), and falling. We conclude by discussing the value this approach to human temporality might have for both social scientists interested in human temporality and to practitioners interested in research related to the rehabilitation process. (shrink)

Staggering advances in biotechnology within the past decade have given rise to pharmacological, surgical and prosthetic techniques capable of enhancing human functioning rather than merely treating or preventing disease. Bioenhancement technologies range from nootropics capable of enhancing cognitive abilities to distraction osteogenesis, a surgical technique capable of increasing height through limb lengthening. This paper examines whether the use of bioenhancements falls inside or outside the proper boundaries of healthcare, and if so, whether clinicians have professional responsibilities to administer bioenhancements to (...) patients. After explicating two theoretical approaches to the concept of health, one objectivist and the other constructivist, I contend that clinicians' corresponding professional responsibilities hinge on which philosophical account of health is endorsed, and illustrate how the lack of analytic clarity with respect to this concept can lead to defective positions on the place of bioenhancements in healthcare. With this conceptual framework in place, an account of health as a cluster concept that incorporates both constructivist and objectivist components is developed and defended. (shrink)

The paper examines the personalization of information technology from the p.c. onwards to the 3-D printing and mobile technologies in order to show that the current process of technological evolution puts the human personality in the centre of its functionality. This new centre opens the discussion about authenticity and in-authenticity of human Dasein, since the common element of these new technologies is that they employ faciality and personalization in a new condition of ready-to-hand and present-at-hand mode. By applying the Heideggerian (...) modes of being on the process of personalization new forms of digital ethics appear. I suggest that the above take place in the navigation memory of the net, in the creativity of the self through the 3-D printer, and in the localization of the “psyche” in the hard drive disk. The paper defends the possibilities of an ethical, authentic and sheltering personalization, where human beings and information technology responsibly engage. (shrink)