This paper develops a phenomenological defense of Ian Hacking's experimental realism about unobservable entities in physical science, employing historically undervalued resources from the phenomenological tradition in order to clarify the warrant for our ontological commitments in science. Building upon the work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heelan, the paper provides a phenomenological correction of the positivistic conception of perceptual evidence maintained by antirealists such as van Fraassen, the experimental relevance of which is illustrated through a phenomenological interpretation of the 1974 discovery (...) of the J/ ψ particle generally regarded as evidence for the charmed quark. The argument then turns to address known problems in Hacking's account, demonstrating that his own instrumentalist criterion of the real is inadequately rooted in the phenomenology of perception, and as a result, passes over the true ontological significance of experimental phenomena. The paper maintains that the proper criterion, only indirectly related to instrumentality, is the distinctive style of the real encountered in perception: empirical pregnancy. With this notion and Merleau-Ponty's associated reversibility thesis, I show that the phenomenological tradition provides insights into the warrant for our realist commitments that have yet to be adequately acknowledged by philosophers of science. (shrink)

Dennett’s recent defense in this journal of the heterophenomenological method and its supposed advantages over Husserlian phenomenology is premised on his problematic account of the epistemological and ontological status of phenomenological states. By employing Husserl’s philosophy of science to clarify the relationship between phenomenology and evidence and the implications of this relationship for the empirical identification of ‘real’ conscious states, I argue that the naturalistic account of consciousness Dennett hopes for could be authoritative as a science only by virtue of (...) the very phenomenological evidences Dennett’s method consigns to the realm of fiction. Thus heterophenomenology, qua scientific method, is incoherent. (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of the special issue of Human Studies on “Alfred Schutz and Religion”. Following a line similar to that of Dominique Janicaud I call into question the very phenomenological status of the “phenomenology of religion” developed across the various contributions. Appealing to the Husserlian principle of freedom from presuppositions my critique focuses on the way these phenomenologies of religion talk about “religion”. At their core, the failure contained within these contributions is the failure to properly consider (...) a question which begins any undergraduate Religious Studies program—what is “religion”? I charge that because these contributions take it as “self-evident” what religion “is” they allow a metaphysical assertion into their phenomenology which breaches the “neutrality” demanded of the principle of freedom from presuppositions. Drawing on the work of the Critical Religion project in Religious Studies I further highlight how this metaphysical assertion predicates an unavoidable ideological assertion, one which serves colonial mechanics of exclusion. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the representational theory of perception, on which the world is represented as being a certain way in perceptual experience, cannot explain how there can be a genuinely epistemic connection between experience and belief. I try to show that we are positively required to deny that perceptual consciousness is contentful if we want to make its fitness for epistemic duties intelligible. (So versions of the representational theory on which experience has a merely causal purchase on (...) belief are not considered.) But my aim is not just negative. I try to defeat representationalism in such a way as to motivate a robustly presentational theory of perception. According to such a theory, perceptions are relations not between a subject and a content but between a subject and an ordinary object (such that if the relation holds at t, an appropriate subject and object must exist at t, and the object must be presented to the subject). I end by sketching an account of perceptual experience that is meant to show that, contrary to a very popular misconception, there is a way to conceive perceptual consciousness as relational and presentational (not intentional and representational) that does not succumb to the celebrated ?myth of the Given? (shrink)

Despite the growing interest and supporting evidence for person-centered care, there is still a fundamental disagreement about what makes healthcare person-centered. In this article, we define PCC as operating with three fundamental conditions: personal, participatory and holistic. To further understand these concepts, we develop a framework based on the theory of affordances, which we apply to the healthcare case of rehabilitation and a concrete experiment on social interactions between persons with cerebral palsy and physio- and occupational therapists. Based on the (...) application of the theory, we argue that in order for healthcare to be considered as PCC, professionals need to adopt a personalistic attitude in their care, defined in terms of mutual affordances: how the professional and the person of care acknowledges each other as a person in an interaction. In opposition, we define the functionalistic attitude in terms of object affordances, those related to a concrete goal. We show that PCC requires a balance of personalistic and functionalistic attitudes, since this contributes to a participatory and holistic conception of, and interaction with, the person of care. (shrink)

Is there intentionality in the inner most level of the soul? Do we have experience of what is unconscious? And, supposing that such an experience might exist, is it possible to perform reduction on it? In this regard the present paper aims to investigate, from a phenomenological point of view, the process of “raising awareness” of what is unconscious, trying to understand if there is a connection between this process and the methodological concept of “reduction” developed by Husserl. Particular attention (...) is paid to the specific type of reduction called “psychological reduction,” which, according to Husserl, provides access to the pure soul, the pure field of psychological experience. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl has argued that we can intuit essences and, moreover, that it is possible to formulate a method for intuiting essences. Husserl calls this method 'ideation'. In this paper I bring a fresh perspective to bear on these claims by illustrating them in connection with some examples from modern pure geometry. I follow Husserl in describing geometric essences as invariants through different types of free variations and I then link this to the mapping out of geometric invariants in modern (...) mathematics. This view leads naturally to different types of spatial ontologies and it can be used to shed light on Husserl's general claim that there are different ontologies in the eidetic sciences that can be systematically related to one another. The paper is rounded out with a consideration of the role of ideation in the origins of modern geometry, and with a brief discussion of the use of ideation outside of pure geometry. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the notion of shared emotion. After contextualizing this notion within the broader research landscape on collective affective intentionality, I suggest that we reserve the term shared emotion to an affective experience that is phenomenologically and functionally ours: we experience it together as our emotion, and it is also constitutively not mine and yours, but ours. I focus on the three approaches that have dominated the philosophical discussion on shared emotions: cognitivist accounts, concern-based (...) accounts, and phenomenological fusion accounts. After identifying strengths and weaknesses of these approaches and summarizing the elements that a multifaceted theory of shared emotions requires, I turn to the work of the early phenomenologist Edith Stein to further advance an approach to shared emotions that combines the main strengths of Helm and Salmela’s concern-based accounts and Schmid’s phenomenological fusion account. According to this proposal, the sharedness of a shared emotion cannot be located in one element, but rather consists in a complex of interrelated features. (shrink)

This paper (1) sketches a phenomenological analysis of visual mental imagery; (2) applies this analysis to the mental imagery debate in cognitive science; (3) briefly sketches a neurophenomenological approach to mental imagery; and (4) compares the results of this discussion with Dennett’s heterophenomenology.

b>. Computational models of colour vision assume that the biological function of colour vision is to detect surface reflectance. Some philosophers invoke these models as a basis for 'externalism' about perceptual content (content is distal) and 'objectivism' about colour (colour is surface reflectance). In an earlier article (Thompson et al. 1992), I criticized the 'computational objectivist' position on the basis of comparative colour vision: There are fundmental differences among the colour vision of animals and these differences do not converge on (...) the detection of any single type of environmental property. David R. Hilbert (1992) has recently defended computational objectivism against my 'comparative argument;' his arguments are based on the externalist approach to perceptual content originally developed by Mohan Matthen (1988) and on the computationally inspired theory of the evolutionary basis for trichromacy developed by Roger N. Shepard (1990). The present article provides a reply to Hilbert with extensive criticism of both Matthen's and Shepard's theories. I argue that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions. Comparative research indicates that both the perceptual categories and the distal stimuli will differ according to the animal and its visual ecology; therefore externalism and objectivism must be rejected. (shrink)

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, Page 335-343, September 2012.

This paper claims rigour and sensitivity for a methodology used to explore multiple sources of data and expose the essential characteristics of a phenomenon in the human sciences. A descriptive phenomenological methodology was applied in a study of the experience of ten people with osteoarthritis receiving ginger compress therapy. The application of the phenomenological attitude, with reduction, bracketing and imaginative variation, allowed multiple sources of data – written, pictorial and oral – to be explicated. The applied methodology used is described (...) in this paper, with its six clearly defined steps illustrated by examples from the study. The findings demonstrate that phenomenological reduction enabled an indication of the potential benefits of ginger compress treatment as a therapy for people with osteoarthritis. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , May 2010, Volume 10, Edition 1. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 48, Issue 2, pp 209 - 232 In _Specters of Marx_, Derrida suggests that the most fundamental condition of phenomenality lies in the ambiguous status of the noema, defined as an intentional and non-real component of _Erlebnis_, neither “in” the world nor “in” consciousness. This “irreality” of the noematic correlate is conceived by Derrida as the origin of sense and experience. Already in his _Of Grammatology_, Derrida maintained that the difference between the appearing and the appearance, between (...) the world and the lived experience, is the condition of all other differences. Unfortunately, Derrida limits himself to a few self-evident remarks, without further elaborating.The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, to contextualize Derrida’s interpretation of the noema from a theoretical and historical perspective; on the other hand, to show its effects on the early moments of Derrida’s philosophy. The result will shed light on a neglected issue in the relationship between deconstruction and phenomenology. (shrink)

Gödel’s philosophical conceptions bear striking similarities to Cantor’s. Although there is no conclusive evidence that Gödel deliberately used or adhered to Cantor’s views, one can successfully reconstruct and see his “Cantorianism” at work in many parts of his thought. In this paper, I aim to describe the most prominent conceptual intersections between Cantor’s and Gödel’s thought, particularly on such matters as the nature and existence of mathematical entities (sets), concepts, Platonism, the Absolute Infinite, the progress and inexhaustibility of mathematics.

This paper reports on a recent hermeneutic phenomenological study aimed at understanding the experiences of special school teachers in Hong Kong, and specifically visual arts teachers tasked with teaching students with intellectual disabilities. Illustrating the use of a phenomenological research method, the paper outlines the methodology and procedure followed in respect of determining the source of data, conducting phenomenological interviews, and formulating themes. The themes that emerged from the interviews were examined in conjunction with the stories told by the teachers. (...) The special school visual arts teachers who participated in this study have strong emotional and personal connections with their students. In relation to performing their teaching role, the teachers had experienced problems of various kinds, with many of these problems unique to the special school settings. In an effort to tackle these problems and improve their teaching, these teachers engaged in reflection and explored a variety of ways to enhance their students’ learning. Despite the practical learning problems their students experience, the teachers maintained that studying visual arts is beneficial to their students’ whole-person development. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on the nature of teaching visual arts to students with intellectual disabilities. (shrink)

Whether, and in what sense, research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychopathology has—in addition to its descriptive and hermeneutic value—explanatory power is somewhat controversial. This paper shows why it is legitimate to recognize such explanatory power. To this end, the paper analyzes two central concerns underlying the debate about explanation in phenomenology: (a) the warning against reductionism, which is implicit in a conception of causal explanation exclusively based on models of natural/physical causation; and (b) the warning against top-down generalizations, which neglect (...) the specificity of the individual. While acknowledging that these two caveats express serious concerns regarding the debate on explanatory models, I show that phenomenology has the resources to respond to them. These can be found in analyses of different types of causation relating to different regions of reality and in the structure of explanatory models based on exemplarity. On the basis of these analyses, I defend a pluralist account vis-à-vis explanatory models. (shrink)

Naturalists seek to ground what exists in a set of fundamental metaphysical principles that they call ‘nature’. But metaphysical principles can’t function as fundamental explanatory grounds, since their ability to explain anything depends on the intelligibility granted by transcendental structures. What makes metaphysical principles intelligible, what unifies them, and allows them to characterize the being of worldly objects are the transcendental structures through which worldly objects are manifest. This means that the search for fundamental explanatory grounds must go deeper than (...) the postulation of brute metaphysical facts. But this search cannot end with transcendental structures either, since the mode of being of transcendental subjects also calls out for explanation. Conceiving of transcendental subjects through the concept of being-in-the-world ties the mode of being of subjects to the world they inhabit. What grounds the existence of worldly objects, and what grounds our existence as being-in-the-world is nature: a principle that is neither an object, nor a subject – a principle that makes possible our encounters with intelligible worldly things. (shrink)

‘Naturalizing phenomenology’ by limiting it to the ontology of the sciences is problematic on both metaphysical and phenomenological grounds. While most assessments of the prospects for a ‘naturalized phenomenology’ have focused on approaches based in Husserlian transcendental phenomenology, problems also arise for non-reductive approaches based in Heideggerian existential phenomenology. ‘Heideggerian cognitive science’ faces a dilemma. On the one hand, if it is directly concerned with the nature of subjectivity, and this subjectivity is assumed to be ontologically irreducible to its physical (...) enablers yet still metaphysically dependent on them, then Heideggerian cognitive science will either leave that metaphysical dependence an unexplained instance of supervenience, or ground it in speculation about brute metaphysical laws that have an unclear relationship to the ontology of the sciences. On the other hand, if Heideggerian cognitive science is not directly concerned with the nature of subjectivity, but is instead merely aimed at the development of a Heideggerian phenomenological psychology, then it doesn’t fully address the ontological implications of phenomenology’s transcendental approach, and so, while it might succeed in explaining the realization of psychological phenomena scientifically, the existence of subjectivity will remain inexplicable based on the ontology of the sciences. Neither strategy succeeds in ‘naturalizing phenomenology’: either rejects scientific naturalism, or makes its requirements trivial, while either rejects the transcendental dimension of phenomenology, or fails to address its ontological implications. (shrink)

It is now generally accepted that human beings are naturally, possibly even essentially, intersubjective. This chapter offers a robust defence of an enhanced and extended intersubjectivity, criticising the paucity of individuating notions of agency and emphasising the community and reciprocity of our affective co-existence with other living organisms and things. I refer to this modified intersubjectivity, which most closely expresses the implicit intricacy of our pre-reflective neuro-muscular experiential entanglement, as ‘enkinaesthesia’. The community and reciprocity of this entanglement is characterised as (...) dialogical, and in this dialogue, as part of our anticipatory preparedness, we have a capacity for intentional transgression, feeling our way with our world but, more particularly, co-feeling our way with the mind and intentions of the other. Thus we are, not so much ‘mind’-reading, as ‘mind’-feeling, and it is through this enkinaesthetic ‘mind’-feeling dialogue that values-realising activity originates and we uncover the deep roots of morality. (shrink)

This essay attempts to assess whether the perceptual issues posed by the contemporary interface culture, and the constant attitude shift demanded by the new media between the “natural” and the “as if” modes, might be considered a significant challenge for phenomenological aesthetics as understood in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. To demonstrate how the use of a particular interface profoundly shapes the form and structure of an activity as well as enabling perception of a particular kind, the author does (...) not focus directly on the state-of-the-art smart interfaces, but describes the experience of cycling in a large city, with the interface in the form of the bicycle upgraded with an imagined ride simulator. While the former enables a very particular entrance into the world of perception, shaped by its moderate speed and detachment from the ground, the latter enables techno-shaped perception in the “as if” screenic mode. The experience described raises questions concerning the kinaesthetic, proprioceptive and motor features contributing to the cyclist’s mobile perception, as well as pointing to issues related to the reading of the city’s network as a particular spatial configuration generated by the cyclist’s realtime activity. This is the space-time-event-ridescape maintained and modified by the corporeal act of cycling. The spatiality of such a ride does not presume the notion of a space that contains the cyclist, but builds on notions of being-in-the-ridescape (as a kind of cityscape), in terms not only of full corporeal and mental engagement, but also of bodily literacy. The reading of the cityscape enabled by the combination of two interfaces, the bicycle and the ride simulator, is discussed in relation to de Certeau’s account of pedestrian (walking) experience in a big city, his distinction between strategies and tactics, and the notion that each cyclist contributes a novel story to ridetext, which is viewed not as an aesthetic object but as the production of puzzles for the rider to solve. The paper cocludes by questioning the capacity of phenomenology to accommodate the contemporary phenomenon of a “mixed” or “augmented reality” either in concept or in relation to the demands of the phenomenological reduction and the ends of the epoché. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 10, Edition 2, October 2010: 61-71. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental premises of feminist philosophy is the assumption of an invidious asymmetry between the genders that has to be overcome. Parallel to this negative account of asymmetry we also find a positive account, developed in particular within the context of so-called feminist philosophies of difference. I explore both notions of gender asymmetry. The goal is a clarification of the notion of asymmetry as it can presently be found in feminist philosophy. Drawing upon phenomenology as well as (...) feminist difference theory , I argue that a gender asymmetry does exist that cannot-as in the first assumption-be transformed into symmetry. (shrink)

One of the most fundamental premises of feminist philosophy is the assumption of an invidious asymmetry between the genders that has to be overcome. Parallel to this negative account of asymmetry we also find a positive account, developed in particular within the context of so-called feminist philosophies of difference. I explore both notions of gender asymmetry. The goal is a clarification of the notion of asymmetry as it can presently be found in feminist philosophy. Drawing upon phenomenology as well as (...) feminist difference theory, I argue that a gender asymmetry does exist that cannot-as in the first assumption-be transformed into symmetry. (shrink)

I examine the ordinary-language use of deictic terms, notably the personal, spatial and temporal markers 'I' and 'you', 'here' and 'now', in order to make manifest that their meaning is inextricably embedded within a pragmatic, perceptual and interpersonal situation. This inextricable embeddedness of deixis within the shared natural and social world suggests, I contend, an I-you connectedness at the heart of meaning and experience. The thesis of I-you connectedness extends to the larger claim about the situatedness of embodied perceivers within (...) a shared perspectivally configured milieu. This claim can be cast in terms of a polycentric orientation to the natural and social world, which provides a robust alternative to an egocentric conception of experience. I develop this claim via a renewed phenomenological reflection on speech, assisted by ordinary-language philosophy, as well as relevant contributions from empirical sociolinguistic studies and developmental psychology. These reflective and empirical perspectives help make a case for the primacy of socially and spatially situated experience, which departs from the received notion of an asocial and uprooted mind. (shrink)

This paper lays the groundwork for developing a thorough-going phenomenological description of different phenomena of violence such as physical, psychic and structural violence. The overall aim is to provide subject-centered approaches to violence within the social sciences and the humanities with an integrative theoretical framework. To do so, I will draw primarily on the phenomenological accounts of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz, and thereby present guiding clues for a phenomenologically grounded theory of violence.

This article elaborates a relational phenomenology of violence. Firstly, it explores the constitution of all sense in its intrinsic relation with our embodiment and intercorporality. Secondly, it shows how this relational conception of sense and constitution paves the path for an integrative understanding of the bodily and symbolic constituents of violence. Thirdly, the author addresses the overall consequences of these reflections, thereby identifying the main characteristics of a relational phenomenology of violence. In the final part, the paper provides an exemplification (...) of the outlined conception with regard to a concrete phenomenon of violence, i.e., slapping, and a concluding reflection upon its overall significance for research on violence. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the issue of how our personal life is given to us in experience as a whole to be actively shaped and determined. I examine in detail Husserl’s analysis of the kind of experience responsible for this achievement, which he terms Überschau and which thus far has never been addressed by scholars of phenomenology. First, I locate Überschau in the context of self-determination and highlight the difference between the unthematic pre-givenness of life in the phenomenon of (...) self-awareness and the actual, i.e. thematic givenness of life in acts of Überschau. Second, I contextualize Husserl’s discovery of Überschau in his analyses of ethical life and the possibility of a universal epoché. I argue that for Husserl the very possibility of ethical life and of phenomenology itself rest on the totalizing apprehension of one’s life rendered possible by Überschau. In the third section I spell out the essential characteristics of Überschau by contrasting this peculiar kind of consciousness with reproductive forms of consciousness such as recollection and expectation, which otherwise might be easily conflated with Überschau. In section four I reply to a possible objection to the very possibility of Überschau based on the consideration of the infinitely open stream of time-consciousness. I argue that the possibility of Überschau is tightly connected with the egological nature of consciousness as understood by Husserl. The ego does not coincide with its own conscious acts and thus enjoys a special vantage point on the totality of its own life. To conclude, I advance a speculative suggestion about the phenomenological origin of Überschau in the structure of self-awareness. This opens up a variety of possible lines of research that would connect Husserl with philosophers such as Augustine or Heidegger who are more immediately associated with the issue of personal life and its unity or lack thereof. (shrink)

Spinoza distinguishes between three grades of knowledge, (i) sense perception and hearsay; (ii) abstract scientific knowledge; (iii) intuitive reason. It is implied that our intellectual ideal should be to pass from the first to the second, and then from the second to the third. It is problematic, however, how such supersession of the first kind of knowledge is an intelligible ideal. For, on the face of it, it is this alone which can direct our attention on to those particulars (single (...) individuals) a better understanding of which is the main value of the second and third types of knowledge. But perhaps the third (if not, the second) kind of knowledge targets particulars from its own resources. However, it is doubtful that this is quite Spinoza's position. So there is something of a problem as to how he conceives the clearest knowledge of particulars which it makes sense to strive for. There is even a related problem as to how God can possess such knowledge, at least of particulars qua extended. An attempt is made to find a Spinozistic answer to these problems including a Spinozistic account of indexicals such as 'this'. (shrink)

I present a perceptual account of other minds that combines a Husserlian insight about perceptual experience with a functionalist account of mental properties.

Over the past century phenomenology has ably analyzed the basic structuresof consciousness as we experience it. Yet recent philosophy of mind, lookingto brain activity and computational function, has found it difficult to makeroom for the structures of subjectivity and intentionality that phenomenologyhas appraised. In order to understand consciousness as something that is bothsubjective and grounded in neural activity, we need to delve into phenomenologyand ontology. I draw a fundamental distinction in ontology among the form,appearance, and substrate of any entity. Applying (...) this three-facet ontology toconsciousness, we distinguish: the intentionality of consciousness ,the way we experience consciousness ,and the physical, biological, and cultural basis of consciousness .We can thus show how these very different aspects of consciousness fit togetherin a fundamental ontology. And we can thereby define the proper domains ofphenomenology and other disciplinesthat contribute to our understanding of consciousness. (shrink)

Pike’s phenomenology of mystical experiences articulates sharply where theological content may enter the structure of Christian mystics’ experiences (as characterized in their own words). Here we look to Buddhist (and other) accounts of pure or nibbanic consciousness attained in experiences of deep meditation. A contemporary modal model of inner awareness is considered whereby a form of pure consciousness underlies and embraces further content in various forms of consciousness, including mystical experiences in different traditions and experiences of full union (with God).

This essay explores an ideal notion of form (mathematical structure) that embraces logical, phenomenological, and ontological form. Husserl envisioned a correlation among forms of expression, thought, meaning, and object—positing ideal forms on all these levels. The most puzzling formal entities Husserl discussed were those he called ‘manifolds’. These manifolds, I propose, are forms of complex states of affairs or partial possible worlds representable by forms of theories (compare structuralism). Accordingly, I sketch an intentionality-based semantics correlating these four Husserlian levels of (...) form—thereby integrating logic, phenomenology, and ontology. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide an introduction to the so-called 'theological turn' in recent French, 'new' phenomenology. I begin by articulating the stakes of excluding God from phenomenology (as advocated by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger) and then move on to a brief consideration of why Dominique Janicaud contends that, by inquiring into the 'inapparent', new phenomenology is no longer phenomenological. I then consider the general trajectories of this recent movement and argue that there are five main themes that unite (...) the work of such varied thinkers as Levinas, Derrida, Marion, Henry, Chrétien, Lacoste, and Ricœur. I conclude by outlining points of overlap between new phenomenology and contemporary analytic philosophy of religion and suggest that the two stand as important resources for each other. (shrink)

Those of us who are captivated by new television, often find ourselves rewatching episodes or whole series. Why? What is the philosophical significance of the phenomenon of rewatching? In what follows, I engage with the ontology of television series in order to think about these questions around rewatching. I conclude by reflecting on what the entire discussion might suggest about the medium of new television, about ourselves, and also about our world and the possibilities of art in it.

This review of Manning’s article wonders at the wonder that Manning describes. It does so first in broad terms that question the experience of wonder that Manning describes and goes on to wonder specifically about her understanding of the experienced realities of thinking in movement. In the course of doing so, the review questions her sweeping away ‘the subject’; questions her hard-and-fast distinctions between phenomenology and Whitehead’s metaphysics and voices wonder about her neglecting complementarities between phenomenology and Whitehead’s metaphysics; questions (...) the validity of her claims about ‘where phenomenology goes wrong’; wonders about the absence of kinesthesia and its qualitative dynamics in what she writes of human movement; and finally wonders about her non-substantiated claims about ontogeny. (shrink)

This paper raises fundamental questions about the claims of art historian David Freedberg and neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese in their article "Motion, Emotion and Empathy in Esthetic Experience." It does so from several perspectives, all of them rooted in the dynamic realities of movement. It shows on the basis of neuroscientific research how connectivity and pruning are of unmistakable import in the interneuronal dynamic patternings in the human brain from birth onward. In effect, it shows that mirror neurons are contingent on (...) morphology and corporeal-kinetic tactile-kinesthetic experience. Accordingly, it poses and answers the overlooked but seminally important question of how mirror neurons come to be. The original neuromuscular research of Parma neuroscientists and the findings of Marc Jeannerod concerning kinesthesia support the answer that the "underpinnings" of visual art appreciation are themselves underpinned. An abbreviated phenomenological analysis of movement and its implications regarding the fact that the making of all art is quintessentially contingent on movement, hence a dynamic enterprise, further bolster the given answer as does a brief review of an empirical phenomenological analysis of the natural dynamic congruency of emotions and movement. In the end, the paper shows that movement and life are of a piece in the creation and appreciation of art as in everyday life. (shrink)

This article identifies already existing theoretical and methodological commonalities between evolutionary biology and phenomenology, concentrating specifically on their common pursuit of origins. It identifies in passing theoretical support from evolutionary biology for present-day concerns in philosophy, singling out Sartre’s conception of fraternity as an example. It anchors its analysis of the common pursuit of origins in Husserl’s consistent recognition of the grounding significance of Nature and in his consistent recognition of animate forms of life other than human. It enumerates and (...) exemplifies five basic errors of continental philosophers with respect to Nature, errors testifying to a philosophical fundamentalism that distorts the intricate interconnections and relationships of Nature in favor of a preferred knowledge rooted in ontological reductionism. It shows that to discover and appreciate the common ground, one must indeed study “the things themselves.”. (shrink)

This article begins with a critical discussion of the commonly used phenomenological term “self-affection,” showing how the term is problematic. It proceeds to clarify obscurities and other impediments in current usage of the term through initial analyses of experience and to single out a transcendental clue found in Husserl’s descriptive remarks on wakeful world-consciousness, a clue leading to a basic phenomenological truth of wakeful human life. The truth centers on temporality and movement, and on animation. The three detailed investigations that (...) follow – of sensations and dynamics with respect to affectivity and movement, of the experiential connection between affectivity and movement, and of the defining features that Husserl identifies as “the sphere of ownness” – show specifically how temporality and movement are linked and how animation is at the heart of what is called ‘self-affection’. They show further that Nature in the form of the felt dynamics of life itself warrants substantive and assiduous phenomenological elucidation. (shrink)

An examination of animate from reveals corporeal archetypes that underlie both human sexual behavior and the reigning Western biological paradigm of human sexuality that reworks the archetypes to enforce female oppression. Viewed within the framework of present-day social constructionist theory and Western biology, I show how both social constructionist feminists who disavow biology and biologists who reduce human biology to anatomy forget evolution and thereby forego understandings essential to the political liberation of women.

As its title indicates, this article shows animation to be the fundamental, essential, and properly descriptive concept to understandings of animate life. A critical and constructive path is taken toward an illumination of these threefold dimensions of animation. The article is critical in its attention to a central linguistic formulation in cognitive neuroscience, namely, enaction ; it is constructive in setting forth an analysis of affectivity as exemplar of a staple of animate life, elucidating its biological and existential foundations in (...) animation. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception have been readier to postulate the existence of a visual field than to acknowledge sensory fields in other modalities. In this paper, I argue that the set of phenomenal features that philosophers have relied on when positing a visual field aptly characterise, mutatis mutandis, bodily sensation. I argue, in particular, that in localised bodily sensations we experience the body as a sensory field. I first motivate this claim for the case of haptic touch, and then generalise it (...) to other kinds of bodily sensation. I demonstrate the theoretical fruitfulness of this notion of a bodily field for the debate on the phenomenology of bodily ownership. (shrink)

The enactive approach and the skilled intentionality framework are two closely related forms of radical embodied cognition that nonetheless exhibit important differences. In this paper, I focus on a conceptual disparity regarding the normative character of action and perception. Whereas the skilled intentionality framework describes the norms of action and perception as the capacity of embodied agents to become attuned (i.e., skilled intentionality) to preestablished normative frameworks (i.e., situated normativity), the enactive approach describes the same phenomenon as the enactment of (...) norms (i.e., as sense-making) at different levels of organization that go from individual biological agents to linguistic encounters. I will argue that although both accounts accurately recognize important features of the norms of action and perception, they also have significant shortcomings. Norm-attunement accurately sees normative, ecological frameworks as the necessary set of constraints for the existence of norms at play in sociocultural bodily practices, but it fails to acknowledge the temporal and open-ended character of these norms and frameworks. Norm-enactment, by contrast, acknowledges that norms of action and perception are temporally open-ended, but fails to explicitly recognize that environmental normative frameworks are necessary for the enactment and development of all sort of norms in the interactional domain of an agent-environment system. To overcome these problems, I propose an enactive-ecological approach to norms of action and perception. This approach consists in describing norm-enactment as a result of a developmental process I call norm-development. This process describes the enactment of norms from the background of ecological, normative frameworks. These frameworks are norms enacted in the past of the interactional history of the agent-environment system that remain open to new configurations (new norms) in the present. To clarify conceptually norm-development, I appeal to Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions of norms of perception, and more particularly to his concept of spatial levels. Like the enactive approach, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that perceptual norms emerge in the interactional history of the agent-environment system, but he also posits that ecological, normative frameworks, that he calls levels, enable and constrain the emergence of perceptual norms and its development. (shrink)

Many philosophers have held that it is not possible to experience a spatial object, property, or relation except against the background of an intact awareness of a space that is somehow ‘absolute’. This paper challenges that claim, by analyzing in detail the case of a brain-damaged subject whose visual experiences seem to have violated this condition: spatial objects and properties were present in his visual experience, but space itself was not. I go on to suggest that phenomenological argumentation can give (...) us a kind of evidence about the nature of the mind even if this evidence is not absolutely incorrigible. (shrink)