The ‘body’ has remained the pivotal and essential mechanism for analysis within disability scholarship. Yet while historically conceptualized as an individual’s fundamental feature, the ‘disabled identity’ has been more recently explained as a function of ‘normalcy’ through social, cultural political, and legal discriminations against difference and deviancy. Disability studies’ established tradition of consultation with philosophical endeavour remains apparently unwilling to exploit or utilize Martin Heidegger’s understanding of ‘Being’ and interpretation of Dasein as a possible framework for unravelling the complexities of (...) contemporary discrimination and oppression of those others. This paper in tracing Heidegger’s explanation of humankind, inspired by arguments proposed by Cerbone (Int J Philos Stud 2:209–230, 2000) and in consultation with Levin (The body: classic and contemporary readings, Blackwell, Malden, 1999), Aho (2009), Malpas (Heidegger’s topology: being place, world, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008), and Rae (Hum Stud 33:23–39, 2010) among others, will interpret the ‘embodied’ reality of ‘Being,’ of being-disabled-in-the-world as primarily involved within the practical context and structured according to impersonal, normative social norms, rather than detached, theoretical contemplation or observance. (shrink)

This essay discusses the normative significance of the spatial dimension of conflict events. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with political actors – politicians, officials, and activists – and on Heidegger’s account of spatiality in Being and Time, I will argue that the experience of conflict space is co-constituted by the respective conflict participants, as well as the location where the conflict unfolds. Location and conflict parties’ (self-)understandings ‘open up’ a space that enables and constrains ways of seeing and acting. Yet, (...) a purely transcendental phenomenology will remain oblivious to the quasi-transcendental, societal structures of power that shape a person’s conflict experience. To illuminate these facets of the phenomenon, phenomenology has to join forces with critical theory. Introducing Garland-Thomson’s feminist distinction of fit/misfit, I will illustrate how power shapes conflict space in manifold ways. The essay thereby fills a gap in the philosophical literature that rarely analyses political conflict as a phenomenon sui generis. (shrink)

Digital technology is transforming life and is beginning to have a profound effect on individual psychic life and the wider social milieu. This article seeks to understand the nature of the new technology and its implications for personal life, culture, and education. The scene is set by comparing the introduction of printing to the revolution inaugurated by digital technology. This new age is often called “postmodern,” and some of the characteristics of the age suggested by Lyotard, Baudrillard, McLuhan, and others (...) are identified. The cultural impact of technology, according to Heidegger, is outlined, together with the interpretation in terms of digital technology proposed by Dreyfus and Spinosa. This is illustrated with examples and compared with the position of other thinkers. Finally, the consequences for education, including universities, are presented, and some proposals for approaches to education in terms of meaning, embodiment, and teacher-student relationship are considered. (shrink)

This study conducts an epistemological and contextual discourse analysis of the idea of knowledge in the philosophy of the 20th century. The main key stones of this work are as follows: the identification of the essential characteristics indicating the ontological genesis of the existing crisis of epistemological and ethical foundations; consideration of the main distinctive features of knowledge interpretation in epistemology and contextualism as a possible knowledge production instrument; study of the possibility of restoring an integral picture of the world (...) based on phenomenological ontologies; study of possibilities in the language domain from a hermeneutical point of view in the light of the resolution of epistemological contradictions. For all people interested in modern philosophy. (shrink)

Both Martin Heidegger and Harry Frankfurt have argued that the fundamental feature of human identity is care. Both contend that caring is bound up with the fact that we are finite beings related to our own impending death, and both argue that caring has a distinctive, circular and non-instantaneous, temporal structure. In this paper, I explore the way Heidegger and Frankfurt each understand the relations among care, death, and time, and I argue for the superiority of Heideggerian version of this (...) nest of claims. Frankfurt claims that we should conceive of the most basic commitments which practically orient a person in the world and define his identity (“volitional necessities”) as naturalistic facts, foundational for and located completely without the normative space of reasons. In support of this he appeals to the supposedly foundational role played in human life by the instinct for self-preservation, what Frankfurt calls the “love of living.” The claim is that in questions of practical identity there is a definite priority of the factual over the normative. Frankfurt’s naturalistic model of volitional necessity is motivated by a misunderstanding of the temporal structure of care, a misunderstanding that helps lead him to an implausible conception of the basic structures of human identity. Heidegger advances an anti-naturalistic conception of caring, one bound up with his way of understanding how human beings relate to their own future. I argue that the existential, temporal, and normative significance that Frankfurt attributes to the naturalized “love of living” is better captured by the Heideggerian claim that human identity is defined by being “for-the-sake-of” certain projects and commitments, a way of being lived out in the way Heidegger calls “being-towards-death.”. (shrink)

Influential interpretations of Heidegger’s Origin of the Work of Art focus on the view that great art is massive and communal—typically structures like temples and cathedrals. This approach, however, faces two interpretive problems. First, what are we to do with artworks in the essay that clearly are not monumental or communal, such as van Gogh’s Shoes? Second, how should we understand our experience of works such as the Greek temple, which once were but are no longer central in this way? (...) Heidegger himself says that great art of the past becomes either a relic of the past or a mere object of aesthetic experience, but his description of his own experience with a Greek temple seems to contradict this. To understand Heidegger’s views on art—including his explicit claims about the limited vitality of great art of the past and his unintentional case for the continued power of great art of the past—it is crucial to distinguish, first, between Heidegger’s notions of world and worldhood, and, second, between two senses of what makes art great—world disclosure and world gathering. Doing so allows us to make better sense both of the essay as a whole and the potential continued vitality of great art of the past. (shrink)

Being in a mood—such as an anxious, irritable, depressed, tranquil, or cheerful mood—tends to alter the way we react emotionally to the particular objects we encounter. But how, exactly, do moods alter the way we experience particular objects? Perceptualism, a popular approach to understanding affective experiences, holds that moods function like "colored lenses," altering the way we perceive the evaluative properties of the objects we encounter. In this essay, I offer a phenomenological analysis of the experience of being in a (...) mood that illustrates the limitations of the colored lens metaphor and demonstrates the basic inadequacy of the perceptualist account of moods. I argue that when we are in a mood, it is common to experience a kind of "emotional disconnection" in which we perceive evaluative properties that would normally elicit strong emotional reactions from us, but nonetheless we find that, in our present mood, we remain emotionally numb to these perceptions. Such experiences of "seeing but not feeling" are difficult to understand from within the perceptualist paradigm. Building on the work of Martin Heidegger, I sketch an alternative, phenomenological analysis of moods that can better account for experiences of emotional disconnection. On this alternative account, being in a mood does not merely alter the content of our perceptions but, rather, alters the way we interpret the overall significance of what we perceive, relative to a certain situational context. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of technology after the empirical turn has surprisingly little to say on the relation between language and technology. This essay describes this gap, offers a preliminary discussion of how language and technology may be related to show that there is a rich conceptual space to be gained, and begins to explore some ways in which the gap could be bridged by starting from within specific philosophical subfields and traditions. One route starts from philosophy of language (both ‘‘analytic’’ and (...) ‘‘continental’’: Searle and Heidegger) and discusses some potential implications for thinking about technology; another starts from artefact-oriented approaches in philosophy of technology and STS and shows that these approaches might helpfully be extended by theorizing relationships between language and techno- logical artefacts. The essay concludes by suggesting a research agenda, which invites more work on the relation between language and technology. (shrink)

This in-depth qualitative study considered how women from two different generations came to understand birth in the context of their own experience but also in the milieu of other women’s stories. For the purposes of this thesis the birth story encompassed personal oral stories as well as media and other representations of contemporary childbirth, all of which had the potential to elicit emotional responses and generate meaning in the interlocutor. The research utilised a hermeneutic phenomenological approach underpinned by the philosophies (...) of Heidegger and Gadamer. This methodology allowed the significance of the experience of engaging with stories to be grasped, and in-depth insights into the meanings and lived experience for women of the phenomenon to be made. Twenty participants were purposively selected, recruited and interviewed. In phase one ten women who were expecting their first baby in 2013 were recruited in order to explore how they understood birth prior to the event and in the light of other women’s stories. Birth stories were revealed as one of many ‘voices’ offering ‘advice’ to women about birth. The women also talked about classes they had attended, books they had read, websites and online forums they had accessed, as well as television programmes and films they had watched. The conversations with the first cohort of women led to further questions about whether the information gleaned from media and virtual birth story mediums creates meaningful knowledge about birth for women. The second phase evolved from this thinking. In phase two interviews with an older cohort of women were undertaken to determine whether women from a different era were more able to translate knowledge into meaning. This was based on the belief that, for this generation of women, stories were mediated by personal contact and not though virtual technologies as in the previous generation of women. Phenomenological conversations with the participants took place in the iterative circle of reading, writing and thinking. This revealed the experience of ‘being-in-the-world’ of birth for the two generations of women and the way of communicating within that world. From a Heideggerian perspective, the birth story was constructed through ‘idle talk’ and took place across a variety of media accessed by women, as well as through face to face conversations. Five central and interrelated interpretive findings emerged. Firstly the stories the women engaged with, had a significant role to play in their understanding and expectations of birth. The ‘norm’ as portrayed in the stories circulating in 2013, for instance, was one which perpetuated what one participant described as the ‘drama of birth’. Secondly, the modern ‘landscape’ of birth created and perpetuated fear of childbirth for many of the women. The stories shared were lacking in detail about women’s lives, and did not necessarily help them to become ‘knowers’ and gain wisdom about birthing. Thirdly, the women birthing in the present day were overloaded with information amassed in an attempt to manage their anxieties about birth as well as to fit the role of the informed patient, and demonstrate their competency as mothers. Fourthly the cultural and spiritual significance of birth was not shared in the circulating stories in either generation. Finally, some of the birthing women felt secure in the ‘system’ of birth as constructed, portrayed and sustained in the stories widely circulated. The data revealed that the lifeworld of birth being sustained in stories was one of product and process, concentrating on the stages and progression of labour and the birth of a healthy baby as the only significant outcome. Taken as a whole this thesis revealed that the information gleaned from birth stories did not in fact create meaningful knowledge and understanding about birth for these women. The study is unique in that no other published research has explicitly identified the premise of the ‘modern birth story’ or the notion of ‘idle talk’ in relation to childbirth. Further no other study has considered the phenomenon of engaging with these types of stories whilst pregnant. This study reveals how engaging with the ‘modern birth story’ and the ‘idle talk’ of birth may influence women’s expectations and consequent experience of birth. (shrink)

Philosophy of religion, in both its analytic and Continental streams, has been undergoing a renewal for some time now, and I seek to explore this transformation in the fortunes of the discipline by looking at how truth – and religious truth in particular – is conceptualised in both strands of philosophy. I begin with an overview of the way in which truth has been commonly understood across nearly all groups within the analytic tradition, and I will underscore the difficulties and (...) shortcomings of the analytic approach by comparing it with a Continental, and specifically Heideggerian, approach. I then proceed to a conception of truth that is even further removed from the analytic tradition, one that is prominent in the theology of Christianity and which identifies truth with Christ. The point of this detour through divergent understandings of truth is to show how philosophy of religion, whether analytic or Continental, remains entrenched in forms of thinking that will need to be overcome if it is to have a credible future. (shrink)

Psychological research and practice in New Zealand has a long history of a positivist inspired epistemology and a pragmatic evidence-based approach to therapeutic treatment. There is a growing realization that a more meaningful interface between research and practice is required to accommodate indigenous Maori knowledge of wellbeing and living. The dominant Western psychological view in New Zealand of world, time, illness and wellbeing results in practices that do not make sense in cultural terms. The medicalisation and classification of psychological disorders (...) cannot account for the degree to which cultural and spiritual factors are associated with problems of living. Heidegger’s analysis of Being and his phenomenological method of understanding these matters ontologically reflect a persuasion not dissimilar to the worldview of the Maori and their notion of wellbeing. It offers some direction to the question of how to better integrate psychological research and practice in New Zealand. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , September 2008, Volume 8, Edition 2. (shrink)

Heidegger's primary concern in Being and Time is the question of the meaning of being—a distinctly ontological concern. Yet, with discussions of death, guilt, conscience, anxiety, uncanniness, authenticity, and inauthenticity, Heidegger seems to end up in existential territory. The ontological import of these existential excursions is difficult to discern—indeed, it has not been identified in leading interpretations. In this paper, I aim to highlight the ontological import of Heidegger's analysis of anxiety—it manifests the inadequacy of Dasein's fallen and inauthentic self-understanding, (...) which is motivated by the inadequacy of Dasein's fallen and inauthentic, average understanding of being. In making this case, I will clarify the sense in which anxiety involves an experience of world-collapse and show how it functions to reveal the possibilities of authenticity and inauthenticity. (shrink)

The philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that the truthful life was at risk of being lost in Western technological culture in the name of increasing control, efficiency, and agility. As the risk is actualised, so the human essence as truth maker is obscured and life itself feels poorer. This thesis draws on Heideggerian philosophy to demonstrate the loss in two dominant styles of contemporary strategic management: the world-picturing and, more recent, agile style. It builds a theory of post-agile strategic practice, which (...) I call adaptive, to address this loss. Consistent with Heideggerian philosophy, I utilise a transformative disclosure methodology and a literary, paradigmatic case reading method to address the questions: Why is agile strategic management so unsatisfying? How do Heideggerian scholars shed light on this dissatisfaction? How do Heideggerians understand the emerging style and what strategic management practices can I propose for the future? After introducing agile strategic management and the impoverishment of life that it fosters, I set out how Heidegger’s philosophy of truth, thinking, and the sacred both sheds light on the problem and suggests a remedy for it. I closely read paradigmatic texts of the world-picturing and agile strategic management styles to demonstrate how business strategy theorisation lines up with extraordinary closeness to Heidegger’s philosophical assessment. I then analyse three Heideggerian prototypes for an adaptive style of strategy practice, concentrating on one paradigmatic text to identify their principal weakness: the omission of the sacred. I illustrate and contrast paradigmatic cases of both the agile and adaptive styles drawn from the beer industry and draw on the adaptive case to construct a theory of adaptive strategy practice, which addresses the problem of the loss of truth, suggesting pedagogical and strategic management practices. I conclude by summarising its findings and contributions, noting some limitations and connections to other studies and suggesting further lines of research. (shrink)

This paper is based on a study of therapists’ experiences of working with suicidal clients. Using a hermeneutic-phenomenological methodology informed by Heidegger, the study provides an understanding of the meaning of therapists’ experiences from their perspective as mental health professionals in New Zealand. In this regard, the findings of the study identified three themes: Therapists’ reaction of shock upon learning of the suicide of their client; Therapists’ experience of assessing suicidal clients as a burden; and finally, Therapists’ professional and personal (...) crises as a result of their experiences and struggling to come to terms with events.The study sheds light on how the experiences of therapists whose clients have committed suicide can be understood. The findings show how mainstream prevention and intervention strategies result from the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of our traditional way of knowing what it means to be human. When therapists discover that phenomena are not necessarily what they appear to be, they feel unsettled and confused about their responsibilities and what it means to live and die as a human being. The study reveals that therapists experience a profound legacy of guilt, doubt and fear when a client commits suicide. Finally, the study proposes that the time has come for the profession to care for its own in order to allow therapist, in turn to care for (and about) the vulnerable other. (shrink)

By juxtaposing a phenomenological-existential mode of understanding with the mainstream therapeutic modality of cognitive behavioural therapy, this paper considers how the mode in which a therapist chooses to understand a client's thoughts may manifest in practice, and the potential implications thereof for the authenticity and effectiveness of the therapeutic process. In conclusion, the author points to the similar challenges confronting both client and therapist when thoughts are heard, despite the clamour of the collective voice, as a call from the lived (...) to the self to explore its own possibilities. (shrink)

It is the intention here to ‘apply’ certain meta-concepts from Owen’s [2014] Genetic-Social framework together with some ‘new’ constructs, to the study of virtual and hybrid cyber-criminologies associated with Sheila Brown [2006, 2013]. It is strongly suggested that far from playing down or ignoring ‘the merging of the human and the technical through sociotechnical environments such as the dissolution of the body into information, disembodied entities, digitalizing the human, simulated consciousness and cybernetics’ [Brown, 2013:488], critics are correct to view this (...) ‘new’ school of criminological theorising as ‘old wine in new bottles’ [Brown, ibid]. It is argued here that Brown’s virtual/hybrid criminologies revolve around an under-theorised and reified concept of agency. Drawing upon the model of agency favoured in the Genetic-Social framework in which an actor is conceived as an entity capable of formulating and acting upon decisions, and incorporating selected insights from neuroscience which suggest that we need to reformulate the concept of agency as neuro-agency, in tandem with considering the ‘hybrid’ in terms of Heidegger’s Dasein, it is suggested that virtual and hybrid criminologies, in common with the related actor-network theories [Callon and Latour, 1981] and posthuman agency theories [Pickering, 1993, 1995a, 1995b, 2001] should be repudiated. It is contended here that we need a non-reified concept of agency which reflects the influence of neurons, and the mutuality between genes and environment, together with the concept from Heidegger [2010] that being is time. The so-called ‘merged’ human-technical hybrid in reality is an example of symbolic thinking. No machinery or cyborg has the capability of formulating and acting upon decisions without human programming, and no cyborg qualifies as Dasein. As Heidegger [ibid] suggests, to be is to exist temporally in the stretch between birth and death. In reality there is no ‘merging’ of the human and the technical. We also consider the implications for social policy inherent in Brown’s [2013: 488] contention that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish ‘human agency and culpability’ from ‘non-human objects and technology’. (shrink)