Quite a few cognitive scientists are working towards a naturalisation of phenomenology. Looking more closely at the relevant literature, however, the 'naturalising phenomenology' proposals show the presence of different conceptions, assumptions, and formalisms, further differentiated by different philosophical and/or scientific concerns. This paper shows that the original Husserlian stance is deeper, clearer and more advanced than most supposed contemporary improvements. The recent achievements of experimental phenomenology show how to 'naturalise' phenomenology without destroying the guiding assumptions of phenomenology. The requirements grounding (...) the scientific explanation of subjective experience are discussed, such as the nature of the stimuli, their variables, and their manipulation by properly phenomenological methods. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been adapted for use in qualitative health research, where it’s often used as a method for conducting interviews and analyzing interview data. But how can phenomenologists study subjects who cannot accurately reflect upon or report their own experiences, for instance, because of a psychiatric or neurological disorder? For conditions like these, qualitative researchers may gain more insight by conducting observational studies in lieu of, or in conjunction with, interviews. In this article, we introduce a phenomenological approach to conducting (...) this kind of observational research. The approach relies on conceptual grounding to focus a study on specific aspects of the participants’ experiences. Moreover, the approach maintains the openness to novel discoveries that qualitative research requires while also providing a structured framework for data collection and analysis. To illustrate its practical application, we use examples of hemispatial neglect—a neurologic disorder in which patients characteristically lack awareness of their own illness and bodily capacities. However, the approach that we describe can be applied more broadly to the study of complex illness experiences and other experiential alterations. (shrink)

(2011). Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma. Contemporary Buddhism: Vol. 12, Mindfulness: diverse perspectives on its meaning, origins, and multiple applications at the intersection of science and dharma, pp. 1-18. doi: 10.1080/14639947.2011.564811.

In the first part of this article we briefly describe the design and development of a Consciousness Studies concentration at Goddard College, a student centered, progressive educational institution in the northeastern United States. We emphasize the tensions we experienced between different orientations in Consciousness Studies and especially the one related to the scientific and transpersonal ends of the spectrum of consciousness. In the second part, we relate the scientific‐transpersonal issue that we experienced at Goddard to the broader theory and practice (...) of Consciousness Studies. We also link the latter to the so‐called explanatory gap between third and first person forms of consciousness and the call for first person methods of exploring consciousness. Our conclusion is that the scientific approach has the edge and is at risk of assimilating other approaches to the detriment of Consciousness Studies. In our view, the future development of Consciousness Studies, both in theory and practice, requires several different approaches from the scientific to the transpersonal and privileging one is to narrow the field of possibilities and to risk falling prey to one‐sidedness. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop the notion of the experiential workspace, or the phenomenal setting generated by the coupling between the enactive body and its affordance-laden environment, in order to carry out a fine-grained analysis of enactive experiential phenomena, in particular those of ordinary lived experience. My purpose is to shed light on some of the ways that empirical methodologies are intrinsically limited in their ability to capture the native phenomena of enactive, embodied experience. Drawing on the work of Merleau-Ponty, (...) I argue that the experiential workspace is characterized by dynamic mutability, emergent norms, and epistemic openness - characteristics that are transphenomenal in nature and thus resistant to empirical measurement. Using concepts from the work of developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky and feminist philosopher Iris Marion Young, I will show how our embeddedness in an intersubjective world makes the experiential workspace a mercurial, labile phenomenon, characterized by inherently transphenomenal features that are resistant to naturalistic analysis or modelling. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a notable increase in the use of phenomenology as a research method, particularly in educational research. With the rise of phenomenology as a research method, confusion has also arisen concerning what counts as phenomenology, and how best to practice phenomenological research in non-philosophical contexts. Consequently, this article will be concerned with three issues: firstly, to contextualise the debate, I provide a brief overview of three popular and influential approaches to phenomenology as a research method: (...) (1) Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method; (2) van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology; and, (3) Smith’s interpretative phenomenological analysis; secondly, for the sake of conceptual clarity, I then turn my attention to a critical discussion of these approaches and argue that these approaches tend to converge phenomenology into either a descriptive or interpretative focus that essentially transforms phenomenology into a kind of solipsist subjectivism; and, lastly, to progress the debate forward, I argue that it makes sense to look beyond the qualitative or educational research literature to successful applications of phenomenology in non-philosophical contexts because there are plenty of relevant resources that can offer significant theoretical and methodological support to researchers. (shrink)

The use of phenomenology and phenomenography as a method in the educational research literature has risen in popularity, particularly by researchers who are interested in understanding and generati...

This paper presents a version of neurophenomenology based on generative modelling techniques developed in computational neuroscience and biology. Our approach can be described as _computational phenomenology_ because it applies methods originally developed in computational modelling to provide a formal model of the descriptions of lived experience in the phenomenological tradition of philosophy (e.g., the work of Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, etc.). The first section presents a brief review of the overall project to naturalize phenomenology. The second section presents and evaluates (...) philosophical objections to that project and situates our version of computational phenomenology with respect to these projects. The third section reviews the generative modelling framework. The final section presents our approach in detail. We conclude by discussing how our approach differs from previous attempts to use generative modelling to help understand consciousness. In summary, we describe a version of computational phenomenology which uses generative modelling to construct a computational model of the inferential or interpretive processes that best explain this or that kind of lived experience. (shrink)

This paper considers some foundational concepts in ecological psychology and in enactivism., and traces their developments from their historical roots to current preoccupations. Important differences stem, we claim, from dissimilarities in how embodied experience has been understood by the ancestors, founders and followers of ecological psychology and enactivism, respectively. Rather than pointing to differences in domains of interest for the respective approaches, and restating possible divisions of labor between them in research in the cognitive and psychological sciences, we call for (...) a deeper analysis of the role of embodiment in agency that we also undertake. Awareness of the differences that exist in the respective frameworks and their consequences, we argue, may lead to overcoming some current divisions of labor and responsibility, and contribute to a more comprehensive and complementary way of dealing with a broader range of theoretical and practical concerns. While providing some examples of domains, such as social cognition and art reception, in which we can observe the relative usefulness and potential integration of the theoretical and methodological resources from the two approaches, we demonstrate that such deeper synergy is not only possible but also beginning to emerge. Such complementarity, as we envisage, conceives of ecological psychology that allows felt experience as a crucial dynamical element in the explanations and models that it produces, and of an enactive approach that takes into consideration the ubiquitous presence of rich directly perceived relations among variables arising from enactments in the social and physical world. (shrink)

Despite a long history of researchers who combine phenomenology with qualitative or quantitative methods, there are only few examples of working with a phenomenological mixed method—a method where phenomenology informs both qualitative and quantitative data generation, analysis, and interpretation. Researchers have argued that in working with a phenomenological mixed method, there should be mutual constraint and enlightenment between the qualitative and quantitative methods for studying consciousness. In this article, we discuss what a framework for phenomenological mixed methods could look like (...) and we aim to provide guidance of how to work within such framework. We are inspired by resources coming from research in mixed methods and existing examples of phenomenological mixed-method research. We also present three cases of phenomenological mixed methods where we study complex social phenomena and discuss the process of how we conducted the studies. From both the research inspiration and our own studies, we depict the landscape of possibilities available for those interested in mixing phenomenology with qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as the challenges and common pitfalls that researchers face. To navigate in this landscape, we develop a three-fold structure, focusing on the phenomenological frame, the phenomenologically informed generation of qualitative and quantitative data, and the phenomenologically informed analysis and interpretation of data. (shrink)

Neuroscientific scanning of meditators is taken as providing data on mystical experiences. However, problems concerning how the brain and consciousness are related cast doubts on whether any understanding of the content of meditative experiences is gained through the study of the brain. Whether neuroscience can study the subjective aspects of meditative experiences in general is also discussed. So too, whether current neuroscience can establish that there are “pure consciousness events” in mysticism is open to question. The discussion points to limitations (...) on neuroscience's capability to add to our understanding of the phenomenological content of mystical experiences. (shrink)

Issues concerning naturalism have increasingly become the subject of philosophical reflections involving ontological, epistemological, and even ethics affairs. The most popular topic for contemporary philosophy has been the relationship between ontological results of Darwinism and epistemology. Despite the varied circumstances of its establishment, naturalism almost always produces recommendations that reflect a worldview much “weaker” (as in the case of Habermas) than the strong one more common among scientism. There are good structural reasons for this difference. The aim of this paper (...) is to elucidate some of distinctive social features of Habermas's conception of the human being and its implications in the Theory of Communicative Action (1982). Therefore, it is shown that his anthropology takes a naturalistic and Darwinist perspective in the weak naturalism perspective. In the first part, Darwin ́s legacy is analysed as a research program, and Habermas ́s studies on biological anthropology are compared with the latest research in genetics and palaeontology. In the second part, we will show Habermas's proposal to confront an epistemological dualism through a weak non‐reductionist naturalism as a critique of modern metaphysics, which structures a new pragmatic realism. (shrink)

A significant impediment to the study of perceptual consciousness is our dependence on simplistic ideas about what experience is like. This is a point that has been made by Wittgenstein, and by philosophers working in the Phenomenological Tradition, such as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. Importantly, it is an observation that has been brought to the fore in recent discussions of consciousness among philosophers and cognitive scientists who have come to feel the need for a more rigorous phenomenology of experience. The central (...) thought of this paper is that art can make a needed contribution to the study of perceptual consciousness. The work of some artists can teach us about perceptual consciousness by furnishing us with the opportunity to have a special kind of reflective experience. In this way, art can be a tool for phenomenological investigation. The paper has three parts. First, I present what I call the problem of the transparency of experience. This is a problem for philosophy, for art, and for cognitive science. Second, I present an alternative conception of experience as a mode of interactive engagement with the environment. Finally, against the background of this conception, I discuss, briefly, the work of the sculptors Richard Serra and Tony Smith. (shrink)

Current theories of emotion have often excluded emotional feeling from the core of emotion, thereby associating emotional feeling with high order processing. In contrast, we characterize emotional feeling as a basic process that is fundamentally involved in emotional processing. Emotional feeling is further described by the phenomenal features of unity and qualitativeness. Based on recent imaging data, we assume that neural activity in the anterior cortical midline structures is crucial for constituting emotional feeling. The phenomenal feature of unity could be (...) reflected in the connectivity pattern of the aCMS. What phenomenally is described as qualitativeness may correspond to what is psychologically termed valence. (shrink)