In this article, we discuss some of the linguistic features of hermeneutic-phenomenological writing and, in so doing, we point to the close connection between lived experience and the ethical-aesthetic traits of writing the experience. Our exploration starts by contemplating texts written by the so-called Utrecht School. We reflect on their orientation as it has been understood, developed, and advocated by Max van Manen. The literary style of the Utrecht orientation is sometimes misunderstood and questioned. This article aims to explicate why (...) and how hermeneutic phenomenology needs an expressive language to "write the lived experience" rather than to simply write "about" the lived experience. Lived experiences are always past experiences that we try to bring into the present, and so the difference between recollections and memories are discussed in connection to writing the experience. We argue that what is being told and not seen is, metaphorically speaking, an event in sound, which can have ethical and aesthetic virtues of truth and beauty. Lived experiences, whether written as anecdotes or as other kinds of experiential accounts, can shine forth through the use of expressive language. But is this kind of language poetry? Can such an account be regarded as poetic writing? If it is poetic writing, exactly how does it differ from academic writing? Our exploration of questions like these leads us to the tentative conclusion that, as hermeneutic phenomenological researchers, we dwell in the borderland between a "poetic attitude" and a utilitarian writing style. (shrink)

The primary goal of this essay is to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the various relations between material artifacts and the embodied mind. A secondary goal of this essay is to identify some of the trends in the design and use of artifacts. First, based on their functional properties, I identify four categories of artifacts co-opted by the embodied mind, namely (1) embodied artifacts, (2) perceptual artifacts, (3) cognitive artifacts, and (4) affective artifacts. These categories can overlap and (...) so some artifacts are members of more than one category. I also identify some of the techniques (or skills) we use when interacting with artifacts. Identifying these categories of artifacts and techniques allows us to map the landscape of relations between embodied minds and the artifactual world. Second, having identified categories of artifacts and techniques, this essay then outlines some of the trends in the design and use of artifacts, focussing on neuroprosthetics, brain-computer interfaces, and personalisation algorithms nudging their users towards particular epistemic paths of information consumption. (shrink)

This article provides an overview and analysis of recent work on the extended self, demonstrating that the boundaries of selves are fluid, shifting across biological, artifactual, and sociocultural structures. First, it distinguishes the notions of minimal self, person, and narrative self. Second, it surveys how philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists argue that embodiment, cognition, emotion, consciousness, and moral character traits can be extended and what that implies for the boundaries of selves. It also reviews and responds to various criticisms and (...) counterarguments against the extended self. The main focus is on the link between the extended mind and extended self, which has received the most attention in recent literature. But accounts of the extended self developed independently of the extended mind are also briefly discussed. This article ends by drawing out some of the conceptual, methodological, and normative implications of the extended self and suggesting some directions for future research. (shrink)

Why a hermeneutical philosophy of the natural sciences? It is necessary to address the philosophic crisis of realism vs relativism in the natural sciences. This crisis is seen as a part of the cultural crisis that Husserl and Heidegger identified and attributed to the hegemonic role of theoretical and calculative thought in Western societies. The role of theory is addressed using the hermeneutical circle to probe the origin of theoretic meaning in scientific cultural praxes. This is studied in Galileo's discovery (...) of the phases of Venus; the practice of measurement; the different theories and practices of space perception; the historicality and temporality of scientific research communities which ground paradigm change; and the process of discovery. The paper draws particularly from the work of Heidegger. Though envisaging all science and scholarship, the highlighted theme is research in the natural sciences. (shrink)

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our (unfolding) life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of (...) artifacts in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally-laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct. (shrink)

The potential for mirror neuron research to explain various aspects of social cognition has received considerable attention over the past two decades. Initially, mirror neuron research may seem in accordance with a phenomenological understanding of intersubjectivity, but the work of Dan Zahavi will be used to highlight significant incompatibilities between the two. Likewise, the enactivists Thomas Fuchs and Hanne De Jaegher identify significant issues with current interpretations of mirror neuron research and provide an alternative description of intersubjectivity. This article will (...) assess whether the enactivists are able to provide a more phenomenologically consistent alternative to mirror neuron research alone, eventually determining that their enactive account overcomes Zahavi’s incompatibilities. Consequently, Fuchs and De Jaegher should acknowledge their relation to Husserlian descriptions of empathy in their account, and mirror neuron research should be contextualised within a broader, phenomenologically-compatible framework, as that of the enactivists. (shrink)

Will robots ever be able to learn like humans? To answer that question, one first needs to ask: what is learning? Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus had a point when they claimed that computers and robots would never be able to learn like humans because human learning, after an initial phase of rule-based learning, is uncertain, context sensitive and intuitive under contract F49620-C-0063 with the University of California) Berkeley, February 1980.. Washington, DC: Storming Media. https://www.stormingmedia.us/15/1554/A155480.html. Accessed 10 Oct 2017, 1980). I (...) would add that learning also builds on prior learning, and that from the outset, human learning is a socio-cultural materially grounded collective epistemology. This posthuman acknowledgement shifts the focus from the individual learner to learning within collective phenomena. Dreyfus and Dreyfus do not seem to emphasise the essentially social and cultural nature of the human condition. Learning theory, new materialism and postphenomenology have emphasised in different ways the materially based socio-cultural nature of human learning. They thereby point towards a ‘posthuman’ learning that is far from the machine-like or enhanced creature envisioned by singularists. Until robots are essentially social and ground their epistemologies in socio-cultural materiality, I suggest that human-like AI is not possible. (shrink)

Alice has insomnia. She has trouble falling asleep and part of the problem is that she worries about it and realizes that her worrying about it tends to keep from falling asleep. It occurs to her that thinking that she will not be able to fall asleep may be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps she even has a thought that might be expressed like this: I am not going to fall asleep because of my having this very thought. This (...) thought attributes to itself the property of keeping her awake. (shrink)

While social research has documented the prevalence and ill effects of hepatitis C related stigma, there has been little analysis of the ways in which this stigma is constituted. This article addresses this gap in the literature by providing a phenomenologically informed account of the ways in which societal attitudes and regulations draw from and feed back into corporeal processes and experiences of embodiment in the creation of hepatitis C related stigma. The case is made that three components are central (...) to hepatitis C stigma: associations with illicit drug injecting, infectiousness and societal aversion to chronic illness. The article draws upon qualitative interviews with 40 people living with chronic hepatitis C in New Zealand and Australia, as well as the researcher’s embodied experience of living with the virus. The works of Julia Kristeva and Mary Douglas are utilized to provide an analysis that moves beyond acknowledgement of societal reinforcers of stigma, such as prohibitory drug laws, to address underlying notions of boundary crossing in the production of stigma and exclusionary practices. (shrink)

Medical professionals seem to interpret their uses of humor very differently from those outside the medical profession. Nurses and physicians argue that humor is necessary for them to do their jobs well. Many (potential) patients are horrified that they could one day be the butt of their physician’s jokes. The purpose of this paper is to encourage the respectful use of humor in clinical prac-tice, so as to support its importance in medical practice, while simultaneously protecting against its potential abuse. (...) I begin by examining two extremes of supporting or chastising the use of medical humor. I look at these views through the lenses of popular theories of humor to help explain their theoretical bases. In this second section, I explain the emotional aspect of humor as an embodied and embedded transformation of the world. This clarifies the role that humor plays in our daily lives, as well as why the ethical or unethical nature of its use is dependent on context. Third, I address the potential problems in the relationship between humor and clinical sympathy, and how this further affects the relationship between medical professionals and their patients. I conclude by arguing that humor can conflict with clinical sympathy, but this need not be the case. If medical professionals actively engage with clinical sympathy and focus on using humor in a way that is respectful towards their patients, then humor can continue to be a positive force in their lives while still providing the best care for their patients. (shrink)

The phenomenological attitude is essential for practising phenomenology. Many refer to wonder and wonderment as basic attitudes and ways of being present with and listening to phenomena. In this article a critical view is placed on the typically psychologically-loaded language and tonality that is used by phenomenological researchers in the human sciences in order to describe the wonder and openness they try to be a part of when doing phenomenology. With reference to the difference between Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s views on (...) Socratic dialectics the author points to an ontological dimension in the phenomenology of wonder that cannot be reached by taking only an emotional-bodily-oriented approach (the psychological approach) or an aesthetical-intuitiveoriented approach (the late Heidegger poeticised philosophizing). Instead this dimension must be reached through a Socratic questioning and Community of Wonder. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 12, Special Edition July 2012. (shrink)

Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. My reading of the situation is that our inability to come up with an intelligible conception of the relation between mind and body is a sign of the inadequacy of our present concepts, and that some development is needed. Mind itself is a spatiotemporal pattern that molds the metastable dynamic patterns of the brain.

Work in body studies and theories of affect challenge the mind/body dualism where human action/behavior is shown to be an embodied, lived event. More specifically, bodily practices not only inform/shape human subjectivity but convey what language—words—often cannot. BDSM is one such practice that illuminates embodied subjectivities, where the flesh proves pivotal to one’s orientation to/with the world. In this article I explore women BDSMers who, as survivors of sexual violence, engage in BDSM rape play. BDSM rape play foregrounds the flesh, (...) exemplifying quite powerfully “bodily capacity,” one where bodily disintegration that occurred with the sexual assault is disrupted through bodily recuperation. This felt experience—the body as the source of insight—carries considerable weight, and should inform our thinking when it comes to feminist explorations of sexuality and those contentious and controversial practices such as BDSM. (shrink)

Based on the assumption that phenomenology is a style not just of thinking, but also of perceiving and acting, this paper shows how, through specific assignments and practices, phenomenological research can become personally as well as professionally meaningful for students. Disciplined practice helps students to attend to experience even though culturally and educationally ingrained habits devalue its importance. By working together in groups, the phenomenon under study is more likely to come alive for the student researchers, and articulating the core (...) of an experience no longer to seem so daunting. The practice of phenomenology also helps students to recognize that slowing down and giving their full attention to experience is restorative, productive, and deeply satisfying. (shrink)

Given the extraordinary influence of the DSM-III and its successors, the DSM-III-R and the DSM-IV, it behooves humanistically oriented practitioners to appraise these new manuals most carefully. Toward this end, we discuss the goals that have guided the manuals' development and provide an overview of their basic structure. This is followed by a phenomenologically based critique, evaluating the claim that these manuals are "descriptive" and "atheoretical." We conclude with a discussion of five guiding principles for phenomenological diagnosis and assessment.

The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to (...) the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

Phenomenological research is of great value to clinicians, policy makers, and ordinary persons because of its distinctive emphasis on making human behavior and experience intelligible with reference to the point of view of the actor. Unfortunately, the phenomenological tradition is not readily accessible to readers who are unfamiliar with it. This article discusses specific ways that researchers within this tradition can reach more of the readers who might benefit from their findings without compromising the integrity of their scholarship.

This study aims to corroborate Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations of fundamental ideas from Saussure’s linguistics by linking them to works that were independently elaborated by Jan Mukařovský, Czech structuralist aesthetician and literary theorist. I provide a comparative analysis of the two authors’ theories of language and their interpretations of thought as fundamentally determined by language. On this basis, I investigate how they conceive linguistic innovation and its translation into changes in the constituted language and other social codes and institutions. I explain how (...) they elaborate on Saussure’s idea of language as a system of oppositions by interpreting cultural innovation as a systematic variation of pre-established social norms and, similarly, linguistic innovation as gesturing within language. Connectedly, I show how Mukařovský’s works help clarify Merleau-Ponty’s focus on the gestural dimension of language. By discussing the two thinkers’ arguments in favour of linguistic innovation, I explore what could be called phenomenological limits of structuralism. (shrink)

This article provides a historical overview of the Existential-Phenomenological tradition in psychiatry and psychotherapy, tracing its development from its origin in nineteenth and twentieth century philosophical thought, through its major European psychiatric proponents and schools, to its emergence as an influential approach in North America after World War II. The emphasis is on the implicit themes that provide continuity within this movement as well as on the distinctive contributions of individual thinkers. We conclude with a discussion of the present status (...) and future prospects of this tradition. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to specify the phenomenon of the actor’s presence onstage – to discuss its theoretical basis. The fact that the internally active body of the actor is gaining increasing precedence over the spoken word testifies to changes in the aesthetic sense of modern theatre. These changes, in turn, refer to paradigmatic changes in the Western way of thinking – the heretofore prevalent linear causality is gradually being replaced by a circular causality. An actor’s psychophysical presence (...) and corporal intensity plays an important role in the aesthetic currents of the contemporary theatre. On the stage, an actor (as a form) is positioned among other stage forms (lighting, music, setting/costumes, space and language) and, in such a community, the actor’s presence here and now becomes an important principle. His/her active condition of onstage presence requires wider kinaesthetic sensations and perceptions, which are achieved through specific psychophysical training. Important factors include the multi-levelled focus of attention, the sensitivity and activity of the actor’s organism and the sensing of the body as a transcendental and ontological unity. These keywords are taken from various phenomenological philosophies of the body (M. Merleau-Ponty, D. Leder, J. Gibson and A. Noë), and from P. Zarrill’s phenomenological model of the embodiment-experience of the contemporary actor, and I will try to relate them to my own analysis of the practical experience of onstage presence. In the analysis, I focus on evoking and maintaining onstage presence in the personal practice of acting and conclude that the psychophysical onstage presence is primarily based on the self-acknowledgment of one’s bodily movement. Theatrical acting is a practical way of thinking and acting which is always based on technique, no matter whether it involves bodily expression, working with the voice, imagination or text. The imaginary aspect of theatre and the actor’s work is secured by discipline (i.e. technique), which has a direct effect on the aesthetic formal aspirations of a production. Contemporary theatre prefers a more action-based, more ‘bodily’ and consciously psychophysical (self-) experience of the actor within the performance space. I believe that this situation indicates the need for developing a phenomenological theory of the presence of a human being that cannot directly be found in the works of the authors referred to in this article. In a narrower sense, the theory of the actor’s presence onstage could help to explain changes in the aesthetic aspirations of contemporary theatre. In the wider sense, the development of the theory of presence could be aimed at the interpretation of the processes active in the perception and way of thinking of humans. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show that human cognition cannot be characterised purely in mentalistic term. It has a bodily basis and cognition is thus the product of the interplay between mind, body, and brain. This is how the idea of embodiment and its importance is realised and gets its foothold in both philosophy and cognitive science. This brings a radical change introducing a new framework for philosophy and cognitive science. In this new change philosophy and cognitive science have a special (...) role to play which this paper seeks to explore. Philosophy in its capacity as a conceptual inquiry provides justification for human embodiment on a conceptual ground whereas cognitive science provides the same on an empirical and experimental ground. This brings the two disciplines closer resulting into a new field of inquiry which can be best described as the interface between philosophy and cognitive science. An important consequence that follows from this alignment is that the traditional epistemological distinction between the a priori and the empirical can no longer be rigidly maintained. (shrink)

While the richness of Heideggerian philosophy is attractive as a healthcare research framework, its density means authors rarely utilise its fullest possibilities as an hermeneutic analytic structure. This article aims to clarify Heideggerian hermeneutic analysis by taking one discrete element of Heideggerian philosophy (Being-towards-death), and using it’s clearly defined structure to conduct a meta-synthesis of Heideggerian phenomenological studies on the experience of living with a potentially life-limiting illness. The findings richly illustrate Heidegger’s philosophy that there is either an inauthentic positioning (...) towards death, or an authentic positioning towards death with a proposition that (1) death is certain; (2) death is indefinite; (3) death is non-relational; and (4) death is not-to-be-outstripped. None of the 29 included studies on the experience of a confrontation with death fully utilised this framework, despite claiming a grounding in Heideggerian thought. This demonstrates the value in modelling how Heideggerian existential structures can be used proactively as analytical ‘hooks’ for data in research claiming a basis in this philosophy and/or method. By modelling the potential application of an important Heideggerian philosophical construct to published qualitative data, this meta-synthesis has revealed new domains and more nuanced understandings of the temporal structure of Being-towards-death. Such an approach helps to more fully unveil the existential concerns of people at the core of interpretative phenomenological enquiry and may provide a blueprint to map either primary or synthesised data to other key ontological existentials. (shrink)

Based mainly on research conducted as part of a doctoral thesis (Guimond-Plourde, 2004), this paper introduces an epistemological and methodological framework based on the foundations and characteristics of a qualitative/interpretative approach rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology as conducive to disclosing the meaning that healthy adolescents, aged 15 to 17, attribute to the stress they experience in school and to their coping behaviour. Moving from the empirical to the phenomenal makes it possible to evoke a return to dimensions of meaning which have (...) been set aside or forgotten in the lived experience of stress-coping. By thus bringing stress-coping into focus in a new way, it enables us to glimpse the phenomenon anew, with the prospect of revealing what we haven't yet appreciated. A dual philosophical approach is outlined: a phenomenological perspective apprehends stress-coping as an existential phenomenon, while the hermeneutic focus is on interpreting the links between lived experience and meaning. The kind of knowledge generated by means of this approach offers a new way of understanding that focuses on the unique and personal nature of healthy adolescents' daily life at school and, as such, provides educators with a sensitive account of adolescents' experiences of stress in the school context. (shrink)

This article explores body constructs along the descending, ascending, and extending body-soteriological pathways, as well as it lays the foundation to identify their potential for transbody and transpersonal transformation. Insights are provided on the nexus of pluralistic body constructs using Jorge Ferrer’s participatory theory juxtaposed with Buddhist Modernism focused on Vajrayāna Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. An exuberant richness of physical and metaphysical bodies has been recognized in both Vajrayāna Buddhism and participatory theory. In Vajrayāna, the body is central to liberation and viewed (...) as the culmination of immanence, transcendence, and expansion. In participatory theory, the body is viewed as equal to vital, heart, mind, and consciousness as part of an integrated larger whole. Embodiment, disembodiment, and body awareness are critically discussed, and special attention is given to the implications of these two contrasting views and the potential of practices from both approaches to ameliorate disembodiment and foster transbody and transpersonal transformation. (shrink)

Despite the growing literature on childhood obesity and lifestyle intervention programmes focusing on weight loss, few studies have examined young persons’ experiences of being identified as candidates for such programmes and of participating in them. This paper does so. Juxtaposing insights from phenomenology with an approach inspired by Foucault, the paper shows how teenage girls’ bodily self-perception and bodily self-awareness are shaped in intercorporeal assemblages comprising other people and specific features or elements of the lifestyle programme. Inspired by van Manen’s (...) hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, with its point of departure in lived experience, this paper draws on interviews with Norwegian teenage girls participating in the same lifestyle programme and identifies three core thematic aspects of the girls’ experiences: being identified as a candidate for a lifestyle programme and not wanting this; negotiating the lack of weight loss and the scales; and bodily situated agency – feeling good and being able. Permeating all three themes are two central, interrelated phenomena: agency and resistance. Furthermore, the paper shows how a combination of Foucauldian insights and a phenomenological understanding of intercorporeality can help to shed light on the power, affective, material and temporal dimensions of dys-appearance, as well as those of eu-appearance, and thus contribute to the understanding of the girls’ narrated lived experiences. On the basis of these findings, we argue that weight-related treatment goals are not necessarily compatible with the strengthening of adolescents’ body images and self-esteem. However, whilst being obliged to attend to their bodies while in the programme, the girls also encountered unexpected, positive bodily feelings and experiences. Such events, we suggest, offer a means of resisting the more troubling dys-appearing bodily situations our participants described so powerfully. (shrink)

While health care professionals advise those who have undergone weight loss surgery to increase their levels of physical activity, research suggests that often this is not achieved. This paper explores the experiences of ten Norwegian women as they engaged in physical activity several years after weight loss surgery. In contrast to the existing literature, which explores physical activity post-WLS largely in terms of quantitative data and measurable outcomes, the present study sought to explore women’s lived experiences of physical activity, including (...) the meanings they ascribed to different forms of activity and how such meanings changed over time. The research participants, all of whom had undergone WLS more than five years earlier, described the meanings they attached to becoming physically active, as well as the different activities and movement practices they engaged in, from interval training to mountain hiking and yoga. For all the women, maintaining and increasing their level of physical activity was challenging. On the one hand, engaging in exercise after weight loss improved their sense of joy and well-being and expanded their opportunities to move and act. On the other hand, during physical activity they needed to be constantly alert to symptoms of post-surgical side-effects, including variable energy levels, digestive problems and acute illness episodes. As the women explored their new capacities, it seemed to be important for them to explore various forms of physical activity in order to find the form of exercise which best suited them or which they most enjoyed. In some cases, they constructed new meanings around activities which, prior to surgery, had seemed onerous and bereft of pleasure. We argue that such insights will benefit health professionals who provide advice on physical activity at different post-surgical stages, sometimes to persons seriously concerned about regaining weight. (shrink)

In this study we explore how a selection of Norwegian women account for their decision to undergo weight loss surgery. We argue that women’s descriptions of their experiences leading up to this choice of action illuminate issues regarding social norms of bodily appearance and personal responsibility. The starting point is women’s own experiences within a cultural context in which opting for WLS often attracts moral scrutiny. Inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s notion of consciousness as embodied and de Beauvoir’s ideas concerning women’s situation, (...) we argue that bodily as well as socio-cultural aspects intertwine with women’s choice of surgery as a means of losing weight. Although society’s stigmatization of women with obesity has been well challenged by scholars in the field of critical fat studies, women with obesity still experience the bodily hindrances associated with being overweight in an intense and subjective way. The findings suggest that women confronting the option of WLS do so in a context of pain, dysfunction and social stigma, a combination which illuminates the intricate ambiguity of the obese body as both subject and object. (shrink)

In this article we explore women’s experiences of “dumping” following weight loss surgery. The empirical material is based on individual interviews with 22 Norwegian women. To further analyze their experiences, we build primarily on the phenomenologist Drew Leder`s notion of the “inner body.” Additionally, Simone de Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty’s perspectives of the lived body occupy a prime framework for shedding light on different dimensions of bodily changes. The following three core themes were identified: Experiences of illness in conjunction with eating; (...) Learning to relate to changes in the inner body and; Feelings of losing and regaining control. In different, though interconnected ways, these themes encompass an ongoing challenge in the women’s lives after the surgery: namely their efforts to establish new eating habits while at the same time working hard to relate to their changed and changing inner body, and especially to the phenomenon of “dumping”. The results points to a dilemma: namely that the gastric bypass procedure is an operation that irreversibly alters the anatomy and physiology of a healthy stomach, whereas the individual’s eating habits cannot be situated in or reduced to a particular organ, but are endemic to the lived body and its history. This insight might be of importance in the understanding of the complexity of the changes and challenges the women go through after weight loss surgery. (shrink)

Yoga, together with other so-called holistic spiritual practices such as reiki or meditation, is one of the most popular spiritual disciplines in our contemporary society. The success of yoga crosses the boundaries between health, sport, religion, and popular culture. However, from a sociological point of view, this is a largely under-researched field. Aiming to fill this gap, this article analyzes the impact, meaning, and implications of the practice of yoga by taking prisons as the institutional context of the study. The (...) growth of yoga in penitentiary settings is a recent trend in many countries and raises new questions concerning its potential to foster well-being and self-transformation. The research presented here applies Schutz’s concepts of “finite province of meaning” and “stock of knowledge” to understand yoga’s role in inmates’ lives. The main argument of the article is that yoga is a body technique that affords inmates the possibility to enter into a “finite province of meaning” and transcend their everyday prison lives. However, the impact of yoga upon inmates’ lives is not limited just to its physical effects as learning yoga also involves the acquisition of a “spiritual stock of knowledge” made up of Eastern philosophy, holistic concepts, and self-help therapeutic narratives. Indeed, physical movements and spiritual accounts constitute one another in the practice of yoga, thus opening up a pathway into a different reality; movement and spiritual discourse inform one another—and it is precisely in this reflexivity that “transcendent experiences” are created and yoga is made meaningful and important in the improvement-setting of the prison. This article is based on ethnographic fieldwork developed carried out in two different penitentiary institutions. (shrink)

In his paper, in this journal, Sterelney claims that cases of extended mind are limiting cases of environmental scaffolding and that a niche construction model is a more helpful, general framework for understanding human action. He further claims that extended mind cases fit into a corner of a 3D space of environmental scaffolds of cognitive competence. He identifies three dimensions which determine where a resource fits into this space and suggests that extended mind models seem plausible when a resource is (...) highly reliable, individualised/entrenched and a single-user resource. Sterelney also claims that the most important cognition-enhancing resources are provided collectively by one generation to the next. In this paper, I argue that Sterelney is both right and wrong and this because he focuses primarily on external, physical resources and construes scaffolding as exclusively unidirectional and diachronic. Using examples of unfamiliar tool use, visual processing and human emotional ontogenesis, I argue, respectively, that extended mind cases include those which fail to meet Sterelney’s dimensional criteria; that the most important cognition—enhancing resources are those which actually build brains; that these are provided on a one-to-one basis in emotional ontogenesis; and, this depends on bidirectional and synchronic cognitive scaffolding. (shrink)

Many animal species use tools, but human technical engagement is more complex. We argue that there is coevolution between technical engagement and advanced forms of causal cognition in the human lineage. As an analytic tool, we present a classification of different forms of causal thinking. Human causal thinking has become detached from space and time, so that instead of just reacting to perceptual input, our minds can simulate actions and forces and their causal consequences. Our main thesis is that, unlike (...) the situation for other primate species, an increasing emphasis on technical engagement made some hominins capable of reasoning about the forces involved in causal processes. This thesis is supported in three ways: We compare the casual thinking about forces of hominins with that of other primates. We analyze the causal thinking required for Stone Age hunting technologies such as throwing spears, bow hunting and the use of poisoned arrows, arguing that they may serve as examples of the expansion of casual cognition about forces. We present neurophysiological results that indicate the facilitation of advanced causal thinking. (shrink)

Recent developments in virtual reality technology raise a question about the experience of presence and immersion in virtual environments. What is immersion and what are the conditions for inducing the experience of virtual presence? In this paper, we argue that crucial determinants of presence are perception of affordances and sense of embodiment. In the first section of this paper, we define key concepts and introduce important distinctions such as immersion and presence. In the second and third sections, we respectively discuss (...) presence, immersion and their determinants in detail. In the fourth and fifth sections, we argue for the importance of perception of affordances and sense of embodiment in increasing the degree of presence. Finally, we show the consequences of our view and discuss possible future implications. (shrink)

J.H. van den Berg was a member of the Utrecht school of phenomenology that flourished in Holland during the 1950s and early 1960s. He was a psychiatrist who had a private practice and he taught at the University of Leiden. Along with other members of the Utrecht school, not all of whom were psychiatrists, he was among the first to apply the insights drawn from existential-phenomenological philosophy to psychology and psychiatry. As with the philosophers, he emphasized that subjectivity was engaged (...) with the world and its activities had to be described. He emphasized that insights into experience as lived, or the phenomenal level, was what was critical for psychologists to understand. (shrink)

This article points out the criteria necessary in order for a qualitative scientific method to qualify itself as phenomenological in a descriptive Husserlian sense. One would have to employ description within the attitude of the phenomenological reduction, and seek the most invariant meanings for a context. The results of this analysis are used to critique an article by Klein and Westcott , that presents a typology of the development of the phenomenological psychological method.

The author explains that his background was in experimental psychology but that he wanted to study the whole person and not fragmented psychological processes. He also desired a non-reductionistic method for studying humans. Fortunately he came across the work of Edmund Husserl and discovered in the latter’s thought a way of researching humans that met the criteria he was seeking. Eventually he developed a phenomenological method for researching humans in a psychological way based upon the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. (...) This article briefly describes the method. (shrink)

Historically, when psychology broke away from a philosophical mode of scholarship it strove to become a natural science. This meant that it largely imitated the concepts and practices of the natural sciences which included the use of abstract terms to designate many of its phenomena with the consequence that psychology is often more abstract and generic than it ought to be. Husserl has emphasized the role of the life-world as the ultimate basis of all knowledge and a serious consideration of (...) its role implies that psychology’s manner of labeling its phenomena should be less abstract and closer to the way the phenomena are experienced in the lifeworld. If so, this means that psychology’s primary data should be physiognomies or the expressive characteristics intrinsic to objects and situations. However, the complexities involved in the perception of physiognomies create difficulties for the practice of science. It is suggested that certain Husserlian phenomenological contributions concerning categorial modes of experiencing could be helpful in meeting scientific criteria. (shrink)

In this article, there is a suggestion that the application of certain key concepts or procedures of Husserlian phenomenology can be helpful in the practice of therapy. It is well known that how a therapist is present to a client and his or her story is critical for the success of therapy. What is less clear, however, is how to address this "way of being" in therapy and what kinds of interventions are helpful to clients. In addressing some of these (...) difficult issues, the Husserlian concepts found to be helpful are Husserl's chief directive to go "back to the matters themselves," the distinction among real and irreal objects, presence to the order of phenomena, the phenomenal realm, the intentional-fulfilling-identifying nature of conscious acts, the phenomenological-psychological reduction, and the discovery and description of eidetic structures of experience. These fundamental philosophical distinctions are taken up within a psychological perspective and elaborated and used within a phenomenological psychological perspective. (shrink)

In this article three clients were asked to describe some alleviation of symptoms that they may have experienced in psychotherapy. The descriptions were broad enough so that they were able to be characterized as positive experiences. Positive experiences were easy to come by but they took place within a context of ongoing therapy that included as well negative experiences and lack of progress. Instrumental for the existence of the positive experiences was a high quality relationship with the therapist that was (...) safe, trusting, caring and non-judgmental. Phenomenological reflections on the empirical findings indicated 1) that focused symptom relief was not necessarily the best strategy for outcome evaluation of therapy, 2) threw doubt on termination of therapy as a good criterion for the experience of therapy and 3) concluded that the relationship between therapist and client is complex but unified in a way that needs further clarification. (shrink)

This article is a response to Jonathan Smith’s attempted rebuttal to the accusations I had made that Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis’s methodical procedures did not meet generally accepted scientific criteria. Each of Smith’s defenses was carefully examined and found to be lacking. IPA’s claim to have roots in contemporary phenomenological philosophy was found to be seriously deficient and its claim that it has a basis in hermeneutics was superficial. IPA’s hesitation to proclaim fixed methods makes the possibility of replication of IPA (...) studies impossible and thus it makes the fulfillment of an important scientific criterion impossible. Its claim that its findings are subjective fails to meet the important scientific criterion of objectivity or even intersubjectivity. Consequently, the claims that I made in my original article were basically sustained and repeated. (shrink)

Recently, a book was published, the sole purpose of which was to discourage researchers from using the scientific phenomenological method. The author had previously been critical of nurses who had used the scientific phenomenological method but in the new book he goes after the originators of different methods of scientific phenomenological research and attempts to criticize them severely. In this review I defend only the scientific phenomenological method that is strictly based upon the thought of Edmund Husserl. Given the entirely (...) negative project of only critiquing phenomenologically grounded scientific research, one would expect the author to be sensitive to the cautions historians and philosophers of science speak about when one attempts to criticize concepts and procedures that belong to a different research community. Paley, an empiricist, uses empirical criteria to criticize phenomenological work.Moreover, given the entirely negative project of critiquing phenomenologically grounded scientific research one would expect the author to be knowledgeable about phenomenology and the innovative research practices used by a new research community. However, the author has only a thin, superficial understanding of phenomenology. One gets the impression that he only reads phenomenology in order to critique it. He displays an outsider’s understanding of it which means that his criticisms of it are faulty because he does not know how to think and dwell within the phenomenological framework; he does not understand “discovery-oriented” research and he keeps judging such research according to criteria from the “context of verification” perspective which are the wrong criteria for “discovery-oriented” research; he denigrates and reduces nursing research strategies because he interprets them to be based on pragmatic motivations only. He does not even grant that nurses can have authentic scientific motivations for seeking phenomenologically based methods; he uses unfair rhetorical strategies in the sense that he uses strategies himself that he criticizes when others use them. The review below documents what has been summarized here. (shrink)

Four research strategies currently employed by mainstream psychologists in researching the experiences and behaviors of human subjects are criticized for diminishing the presence of subjectivity. Two perspectives that tend to exaggerate subjectivity are also criticized. A balanced approach to subjectivity is offered that: acknowledges a theoretical perspective that recognizes that there are invisible or nonsensorial characteristics of subjectivity that have to be theoretically appropriated, and that emphasizes the intersubjective dimension as being critical for properly assessing a balanced approach to human (...) subjectivity. A subject-dependent perspective that can efface its own interests is the attitude that is required for the achievement of objectivity. (shrink)

The issue of how to incorporate the individual's first‐hand experience of illness into broader medical understanding is a major question in medical theory and practice. In a philosophical context, phenomenology, with its emphasis on the subject's perception of phenomena as the basis for knowledge and its questioning of naturalism, seems an obvious candidate for addressing these issues. This is a review of current phenomenological approaches to medicine, looking at what has motivated this philosophical approach, the main problems it faces and (...) suggesting how it might become a useful philosophical tool within medicine, with its own individual, but interrelated, contribution to make to current medical debates. After the general background, there is a brief summary of phenomenological ideas and their current usage in a medical context. Next is a critique of four key claims within current phenomenological medical works, concerning both the role phenomenology plays and the supposedly clear divide between phenomenology and other approaches. There are significant problems within these claims, largely because they overlook the complexity of the questions they consider. Finally, there is some more in‐depth examination of phenomenology itself and the true complexity of phenomenological debate concerning subjectivity. The aim is to show that it will be both more productive and truer to phenomenology itself, if we use phenomenology as a philosophical method for explicating and gaining deeper understanding of complex and fundamental problems, which are central to medicine, rather than as providing simple, but flawed solutions. (shrink)

This paper develops a phenomenological approach to the concept of pain, which highlights the main presuppositions that underlie pain research undertaken both in the natural and in the sociohistorical sciences. My argument is composed of four steps: only if pain is a stratified experience can it become a legitimate theme in both natural and sociohistorical sciences; the phenomenological method is supremely well suited to disclose the different strata of pain experience; the phenomenological account offered here identifies three fundamental levels that (...) make up the texture of pain experience: pain can be conceived as a prereflective experience, as an object of affective reflection, or as an object of cognitive reflection; and such a stratified account clarifies how pain can be a subject matter in the natural and sociohistorical sciences. Arguably, the natural and sociohistorical sciences address pain at different levels of its manifestation. While the natural sciences address pain as an object of cognitive reflection, sociohistorical sciences first and foremost deal with pain as a prereflective experience and as an object of affective reflection. (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)

Starting high school can be a challenging but also exciting time for students. The focus of this paper lies with students' experiences of transition into secondary school. Sixteen students from one government school in New South Wales kept a journal for their first ten weeks in high school as a way of recording their experiences. Their journal entries were studied utilising a phenomenological psychological approach following Giorgi (1985a, 1985b ). The aim of this research approach is to produce clear and (...) accurate descriptions of a particular aspect of human experience ( Polkinghorne, 1989 ) in order to reveal the essential structure of the phenomenon under investigation. Emerging from the study were seven themes about transition: the pivotal role of peers in helping or hindering settling into high school; the place of school support through programs and activities; the challenges of new procedures; different types of learning activities; feelings of confidence and success that can enhance transitional experiences; the place of homework in the academic curriculum; and the role of teachers in affecting student integration into high school. The paper concludes by raising some important issues and implications for school based practitioners. (shrink)