I argue (1) that what (ontic) New Mechanistic philosophers of science call mechanisms would be material Gestalten, and (2) that Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with Gestalt theory can help us frame a standing challenge against ontic conceptions of mechanisms. In short, until the (ontic) New Mechanist can provide us with a plausible account of the organization of mechanisms as an objective feature of mind-independent ontic structures in the world which we might discover – and no ontic Mechanist has done so – it (...) is more conservative to claim that mechanistic organization is instead a mind-dependent aspect of our epistemic strategies of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

(1997). An historical holistic thread in the dynamical fabric of psychology. World Futures: Vol. 49, The Dialatic of Evolution: Essays in Honor of David Loye, pp. 159-201.

This article is the editors’ introduction to the transcript of a lecture that Harold Garfinkel delivered to a seminar in 1993. Garfinkel extensively discusses the relevance of Aron Gurwitsch’s phenomenological treatment of Gestalt theory for ethnomethodology. Garfinkel uses the term “misreading” to signal a respecification of Gurwitsch’s phenomenological investigations, and particularly his conceptions of contextures, functional significations, and phenomenal fields, so that they become compatible with detailed observations and descriptions of social actions and interactions performed in situ. Garfinkel begins with (...) Gurwitsch’s demonstrations with line drawings and other abstract examples, and suggests how they can be used to suggest original procedures for investigating the vicissitudes of embodied practical actions in the lifeworld. This introduction to the lecture aims to provide some background on the scope of Gurwitsch’s phenomenological critique and elaboration of Gestalt theory and Garfinkel’s “misreading” of it in terms of his own conceptions of indexicality and accountability, and ethnomethodological investigations of the production of social order. (shrink)

During the 1992–1993 academic year, Harold Garfinkel offered a graduate seminar on Ethnomethodology in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. One topic that was given extensive coverage in the seminar has not been discussed at much length in Garfinkel’s published works to date: Aron Gurwitsch’s treatment of Gestalt theory, and particularly the themes of “phenomenal field” and “praxeological description”. The edited transcript of Garfinkel’s seminar shows why he recommended that “for the serious initiatives of ethnomethodological investigations (...) […] Gurwitsch is a theorist we can’t do without”. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological “misreading” is not a mistaken reading, but is more a matter of taking Gurwitsch’s phenomenological demonstrations of Gestalt contextures in phenomenal fields and transposing them for making detailed, concrete observations and descriptions of organizationally achieved social phenomena. Where Gurwitsch addresses the organization of perception as an autochthonous achievement, inherent to the stream and field of individual consciousness, Garfinkel extends and elaborates this field into the social world of enacted practices. The April 1993 seminar also is rich with brief asides and digressions in which Garfinkel comments about his use of Alfred Schutz, his attitude toward publishing, his relationship with Erving Goffman, and many other matters. (shrink)

Argues that truth, moral right, political right, and aesthetic value may be understood as arising out of a naturalist account of humanity, if naturalism is rightly conceived.

Editors’ AbstractDuring the 1992–1993 academic year, Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011) offered a graduate seminar on Ethnomethodology in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. One topic that was given extensive coverage in the seminar has not been discussed at much length in Garfinkel’s published works to date: Aron Gurwitsch’s treatment of Gestalt theory, and particularly the themes of “phenomenal field” and “praxeological description”. The edited transcript of Garfinkel’s seminar shows why he recommended that “for the serious initiatives of (...) ethnomethodological investigations […] Gurwitsch is a theorist we can’t do without”. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological “misreading” is not a mistaken reading, but is more a matter of taking Gurwitsch’s phenomenological demonstrations of Gestalt contextures in phenomenal fields and transposing them for making detailed, concrete observations and descriptions of organizationally achieved social phenomena. Where Gurwitsch addresses the organization of perception as an autochthonous achievement, inherent to the stream and field of individual consciousness, Garfinkel extends and elaborates this field into the social world of enacted practices. The April 1993 seminar also is rich with brief asides and digressions in which Garfinkel comments about his use of Alfred Schutz, his attitude toward publishing, his relationship with Erving Goffman, and many other matters. (shrink)

Between 1937 and 1951 Wittgenstein had numerous philosophical conversations with his student and close friend, Rush Rhees. This article is composed of Rhees’s notes of twenty such conversations — namely, all those which have not yet been published — as well as some supplements from Rhees’s correspondence and miscellaneous notes. The principal value of the notes collected here is that they fill some interesting and important gaps in Wittgenstein ’s corpus. Thus, firstly, the notes touch on a wide range of (...) subjects, a number of which are only briefly addressed by Wittgenstein elsewhere, if at all. The subjects discussed include: explanation, ethics, anarchism, contradiction, psychoanalysis, colour, religion, concepts, classification, seeing-as, evolution, the relation between science and philosophy, and free will, amongst others. Secondly, the notes contain references to, and brief remarks about, philosophers of whom Wittgenstein otherwise says very little, if anything — such as Brentano, Heidegger, Aquinas, and Marx, amongst others. And thirdly, the notes provide us with valuable examples of Wittgenstein ’s use of some key ‘Wittgensteinian’ terms of art which are surprisingly rare in his written works, such as ‘surface-’ and ‘depth-grammar’, and ‘centres of variation’. (shrink)

In contemporary North American contexts, to say that a claim is oracular is seriously to undermine its philosophical credibility. My thesis is that this negative judgement of oracularity is unwarranted and that it is rooted in an excessively narrow notion of what constitutes ‘good’ philosophy. More specifically, I argue that oracular utterance is appropriate to the expression of views that regard the phenomena towards which they are directed as radically, non‐systematically integrated wholes. Importantly, such views are falsifiable—or at least as (...) falsifiable as scientific paradigms, which, in one important respect, they resemble. However, I argue further that there is good reason to think that such views cannot, without distortion, be expressed using the systematic‐analytic forms of argumentation that are frequently regarded as essential to the pursuit of philosophy. Yet the questions that they compass, concerning the way in which parts are related to the wholes that they constitute, fall squarely within the purview of traditional metaphysics. Thus, in proscribing oracular utterance we divest ourselves of the opportunity to contemplate world orders of potential philosophical interest that systematic‐analytic argument is incapable of conveying to us. (shrink)

: The distinction between science and philosophy plays a central role in methodological, programmatic and institutional debates. Discussions of disciplinary identities typically focus on boundaries or else on genealogies, yielding models of demarcation and models of dynamics. Considerations of a discipline's self-image, often based on history, often plays an important role in the values, projects and practices of its members. Recent focus on the dynamics of scientific change supplements Kuhnian neat model with a role for philosophy and yields a model (...) of the evolution of philosophy of science. This view illuminates important aspects of science and itself contributes to philosophy of science. This interactive model is general yet based on exclusive attention to physics. In this paper and two sequels, I focus on the human sciences and argue that their role in the history of philosophy of science is just as important and it also involves a close involvement of the history of philosophy. The focus is on Gestalt psychology and it points to some lessons for philosophy of science. But, unlike the discussion of natural sciences, the discussion here brings out more complication than explication, and skews certain kinds of generalizations. (shrink)

Emerging evidence is now challenging the view that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia experience a selective deficit in their sense of agency. Additional disturbances seem to exist in their sense of body ownership. However, the factors underlying this disturbance in body ownership remain elusive. Knowledge of these factors, and increased understanding of how body ownership is related to other abnormalities seen in schizophrenia, could ultimately advance development of new treatments. Research on body ownership in schizophrenia has mainly been investigated with the (...) rubber hand illusion (RHI). Schizophrenia patients show higher susceptibility to the RHI, which may be explained by a stronger reliance on multisensory information over weaker stored body representations. This review shows that a coherent sense of body ownership arises from the integration of both bottom-up sensory processes and higher order, top-down bodily- and perceptual representations. Multisensory integration, temporal binding, anticipation, intention and efferent signals all partly modulate the complex experience of body ownership. Specifically, we propose that patients with schizophrenia have weaker stored body representations, and rely to a greater extent on external stimuli, such as visual information, due to imprecise or highly variable internal predictions on the consequences of action. Moreover, the reduced sense of agency in schizophrenia may additionally contribute to the disturbed sense of body ownership, as evidence from healthy participants suggests that agency and body ownership are interrelated. Vice versa, a reduced sense of body ownership may also contribute to a reduced sense of agency. Future studies should explicitly target the precise relation between the two in schizophrenia. (shrink)