The term phenomenology can be used in a generic sense to cover a variety of areas related to the problem of consciousness. In this sense it is a title that ranges over issues pertaining to first-person or subjective experience, qualia, and what has become known as "the hard problem" (Chalmers 1995). The term is sometimes used even more generally to signify a variety of approaches to studying such issues, including contemplative, meditative, and mystical studies, and transpersonal psychology.(1) Within the disciplines (...) of philosophy and psychology, however, phenomenology has a more specialized meaning. In this case it refers to the methodology and philosophy initiated by the philosopher Edmund Husserl at the beginning of the twentieth-century and developed in various ways by theorists such as Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Schutz. I restrict the scope of this review to phenomenology in this more specialized sense. In the light of several recent publications, the general questions I address are: What is and what ought to be the relationship between phenomenology and cognitive science? and What, if any, recent contributions has phenomenology made to the science of consciousness? (shrink)

I review three answers to the question: How can phenomenology contribute to the experimental cognitive neurosciences? The first approach, neurophenomenology, employs phenomenological method and training, and uses first-person reports not just as more data for analysis, but to generate descriptive categories that are intersubjectively and scientifically validated, and are then used to interpret results that correlate with objective measurements of behaviour and brain activity. A second approach, indirect phenomenology, is shown to be problematic in a number of ways. Indirect phenomenology (...) is generally put to work after the experiment, in critical or creative interpretations of the scientific evidence. Ultimately, however, proposals for the indirect use of phenomenology lead back to methodological questions about the direct use of phenomenology in experimental design. The third approach, 'front-loaded' phenomenology, suggests that the results of phenomenological investigations can be used in the design of empirical ones. Concepts or clarifications that have been worked out phenomenologically may operate as a partial framework for experimentation. (shrink)

The paper presents a research programme for the neuroscience of consciousness called 'neurophenomenology' and illustrates it with a recent pilot study . At a theoretical level, neurophenomenology pursues an embodied and large-scale dynamical approach to the neurophysiology of consciousness . At a methodological level, the neurophenomenological strategy is to make rigorous and extensive use of first-person data about subjective experience as a heuristic to describe and quantify the large-scale neurodynamics of consciousness . The paper focuses on neurophenomenology in relation to (...) three challenging methodological issues about incorporating first-person data into cognitive neuroscience: first-person reports can be biased or inaccurate; the process of generating first-person reports about an experience can modify that experience; and there is an 'explanatory gap' in our understanding of how to relate first-person, phenomenological data to third-person, biobehavioural data. (shrink)

The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience.

This paper responds to the issues raised by D. Chalmers by offering a research direction which is quite radical because of the way in which methodological principles are linked to scientific studies of consciousness. Neuro-phenomenology is the name I use here to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience, thereby placing myself in the lineage of the continental tradition of Phenomenology. My claim is that the so-called hard problem that animates these Special (...) Issues can only be addressed productively by gathering a research community armed with new pragmatic tools for the development of a science of consciousness. I will claim that no piecemeal empirical correlates, nor purely theoretical principles, will really help us at this stage. We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself. In what follows I motivate my choice by briefly examining the current debate about consciousness at the light of Chalmer’s hard problem. Next, I outline the phenomenological strategy. Finally I conclude by discussing some of the main difficulties and consequences of this strategy. (shrink)

In recent years more and more people have started talking about the necessity ofreconciliating phenomenology with the project of naturalization. Is it possible to bridge the gap between phenomenological analyses and naturalipossible to naturalize phenomenology? In their long introduction to the book NaturalizingPhenomenology published by Stanford University Press in 1999, the four coPetitot, Francisco Varela, Bernard Pachoud might be seen as a kind of manifesto for this new approach. An examination of this introduction is consequently a good starting point for (...) a discussion of the issue. (shrink)

This paper starts with one of Chalmers’ basic points: first-hand experience is an irreducible field of phenomena. I claim there is no ‘theoretical fix’ or ‘extra ingredient’ in nature that can possibly bridge this gap. Instead, the field of conscious phenomena requires a rigorous method and an explicit pragmatics for its exploration and analysis. My proposed approach, inspired by the style of inquiry of phenomenology, I have called neurophenomenology. It seeks articulations by mutual constraints between phenomena present in experience and (...) the correlative field of phenomena established by the cognitive sciences. It needs to expand into a widening research community in which the method is cultivated further. (shrink)

This expanded second edition carries forward the initial insights into the biological and existential significances of animation by taking contemporary research findings in cognitive science and philosophy and in neuroscience into critical and constructive account. It first takes affectivity as its focal point, elucidating it within both an enactive and qualitative affective-kinetic dynamic. It follows through with a thoroughgoing interdisciplinary inquiry into movement from three perspectives: mind, brain, and the conceptually reciprocal realities of receptivity and responsivity as set forth in (...) phenomenology and evolutionary biology, respectively. It ends with a substantive afterword on kinesthesia, pointing up the incontrovertible significance of the faculty to cognition and affectivity. Series A. (shrink)

Der Herausgeber dieses Jahrbuchs hat geglaubt, mit derVerof- 5 fentlichung der seit dem Erscheinen des ersten Bandes eingelaufenen und zum Teil schon im Herbst 1913 in den Druck gegebenen Arbei­ ten nieht Hinger zogern zu diirfen. So viele geistige Krafte dieser unheilvolle Krieg fesselt und leider auch zerstort, wirklich unterbin­ den kann und wird er das deutsche Geistesleben nieht. Nach wie vor 10 ist es beseelt von der ererbten Liebe zu den Ewigkeitswerten der Kultur, und immerfort wirkt es sich aus (...) in treuer Arbeit an ihren groBen Aufgaben. 1m besonderen unsere phanomenologische Philo­ sophie hat nicht geruht, auch ist ihr unverkennbar das warme Inter­ esse wissenschaftlicher Kreise erhalten geblieben. So diirften die bei- 15 den Bande, in die wir die bereitliegenden Arbeiten verteilt haben, nieht unwillkommen geheiBen werden. Die neuen Jahrbuchsarbeiten unterscheiden sieh ganz so wie die des ersten Bandes nieht nur durch ihre Themen, sondern auch durch die merklich nuancierten Auffas­ sungen, die sieh ihre Verfasser iiber Ziele, Methoden und mancherlei 20 Einzelfragen der phlinomenologisehen Forsehung gebildet haben. Es brauchte eigentlich nieht gesagt zu werden und muG es doeh ange­ siehts vorgekommener MiBverstlindnisse, daB der Herausgeber nur fiir seine eigenen Arbeiten die Verantwortung iibernimmt so wie jeder Mitarbeiter fiir die seinen. Sieherlieh ist die innere Gemein- 25 samkeit der "Phanomenologen" darum doch keine geringere, ja eher eine groBere als innerlhalb irgendwelcher sonstigen Forschungs- [VI] gemeinschaften, z. B. der der Experimental-Psychologen. (shrink)

_The Phenomenological Mind_ is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. Key questions and topics covered include: • what is phenomenology? • naturalizing phenomenology and the cognitive sciences • phenomenology and consciousness • consciousness and self-consciousness • time and consciousness • intentionality • the embodied mind • action • knowledge of other minds • situated and extended minds • phenomenology and personal identity. This second edition includes a new preface, and revised (...) and improved chapters. Also included are helpful features such as chapter summaries, guides to further reading, and a glossary, making _The Phenomenological Mind_ an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

_sciousness called ‘neurophenomenology’ (Varela 1996) and illustrates it with a_ _recent pilot study (Lutz et al., 2002). At a theoretical level, neurophenomenology_ _pursues an embodied and large-scale dynamical approach to the_ _neurophysiology of consciousness (Varela 1995; Thompson and Varela 2001;_ _Varela and Thompson 2003). At a methodological level, the neurophenomeno-_ _logical strategy is to make rigorous and extensive use of first-person data about_ _subjective experience as a heuristic to describe and quantify the large-scale_ _neurodynamics of consciousness (Lutz 2002). The paper (...) foocuses on_ _neurophenomenology in relation to three challenging methodological issues_ _about incorporating first-person data into cognitive neuroscience: (i) first-person_ _reports can be biased or inaccurate; (ii) the process of generating first-person_ _reports about an experience can modify that experience; and (iii) there is an ‘ex-_ _planatory gap’ in our understanding of how to relate first-person, phenomeno-_ _logical data to third-person, biobehavioural data._. (shrink)

Describes the changing sounds of the rain, the slow soft sprinkle, the drip-drop tinkle, the sounding pounding roaring rain, and the fresh wet silent after-time of rain.