In Phenomenological Reduction in Heidegger's Sein und Zeit: a New Proposal, Matheson Russell investigates the indebtedness of the Heidegger of Being and Time to Husserl's transcendental phenomenology by way of distinguishing in it differing types of transcendental reduction. He supplies an overview of recent attempts to identify such reductions in order then to propose a new interpretation locating two levels of reduction in Heidegger's fundamental ontology. These concern, first, an enquiry going back to the horizon of (...) 'existence', and, second, one going back to the horizon of 'temporality'. While the first level is argued to be explicit in the published text, the second, Russell claims, lies within the horizon of the unfinished parts of Being and Time. (shrink)

Approaches to the naturalization of phenomenology usually understand naturalization as a matter of rendering continuous the methods, epistemologies, and ontologies of phenomenological and natural scientific inquiry. Presupposed in this statement of the problematic, however, is that there is an original discontinuity, a rupture between phenomenology and the natural sciences that must be remedied. I propose that this way of thinking about the issue is rooted in a simplistic understanding of the phenomenological reduction that entails certain assumptions about (...) the subject matter of phenomenology and its relationship to the natural sciences. By contrast, Merleau‐Ponty's first work, The Structure of Behavior, presents a radically different approach to the phenomenological reduction, one that traverses the natural sciences and integrates them into phenomenology from the outset. I outline the argument for this position in The Structure of Behavior and then discuss consequences for current methodological issues surrounding the naturalization of phenomenology, focusing on the relationship between empirical sciences of mind, phenomenological psychology, and transcendental phenomenology. This novel exegesis of Merleau‐Ponty's view on the reduction offers new insight into his oft‐quoted remark that the phenomenological reduction is impossible to complete. (shrink)

Phenomenological reduction as a philosophical conversion (periagoge) -/- Während Husserl in den Ideen I die Reduktion als eine neue „Methode“ des Denkens, d. h. als eine „epistemologische“ Reduktion versteht, schlägt Scheler eine Reduktion als eine „Tèchne“ der Umbildung vor, durch die der Mensch seiner exzentrischen Stellung in der Welt Gestalt zu geben sucht. Mich interessiert an diesem Zitat vor allem der Gebrauch des griechischen Terminus „Tèchne“. Was Scheler damit bezeichnet, hat offensichtlich nichts mit dem zu tun, was wir (...) heute unter dem Begriff der Technik verstehen. Er spricht eben von einer Kunst „des inneren Handelns“. Meines Erachtens verweist Scheler durch diesen griechischen Begriff auf Platons Gedanken. Für diese These kann man sich bereits auf eine Stelle aus der mittleren Phase im Denken Schelers stützen, in der er nämlich die phänomenologische Reduktion als den moralischen Akt darstellt, dem der „platonische Aufschwung“ (Vom Wesen der Philosophie, GW V, 67) zugrunde liegt. Es ist nun geradezu dieser „platonische Aufschwung“, der im Nachlass ausdrücklich als eine „Tèchne“ (Nachlass, GW XI, 118) beschrieben wird. Was heißt nun in diesem Kontext tèchne bei Platon? Schelers Gebrauch des griechischen Terminus tèchne für die Bezeichnung der phänomenologischen Reduktion erinnert sehr an die tèchne tês periagogês im Höhlengleichnis Platons, durch die die Gefangenen aus der Höhle hinausgehen können. Diese tèchne versteht Platon als einen Bildungsprozess des Menschen; er lernt dadurch, seinen Blick auf das Gute hin zu lenken, damit seine Seinsweise in der Welt zurechtgerückt werden könne. Es geht also um eine conversio oder Umkehrung der eigenen Positionalität in der Welt, die den Übergang vom Leben zum guten Leben zustande bringen kann. Diese tèchne ist grundlegend für das Verständnis der paideía bei Platon, die sich nicht mit einer bloßen Übertragung von Informationen begnügt, sondern vielmehr nach einer periagogé (Umkehrung) der ganzen Seele strebt. Es muss also – wie Sokrates sagt – eine besondere „Kunst der Umkehrung [tèchne tês periagogês]“ geben, die lehrt, auf welche Weise am leichtesten und wirksamsten die Seele umgewendet werden kann, und zwar unter Berücksichtigung dessen, dass sie bereits sehen kann, aber es alleine nicht schafft, das Gesicht zu wenden, „wohin es solle“ (Politeia, VII, 518 d). (shrink)

Phenomenology gives rise to certain ontological considerations that have far-reaching implications for standard conceptions of patient autonomy in medical ethics, and, as a result, the obligations of and to patients in clinical decision-making contexts. One such consideration is the phenomenological reduction in classical phenomenology, a core feature of which is the characterisation of our primary experiences as immediately and inherently meaningful. This paper builds on and extends the analyses of the phenomenological reduction in the works of (...) Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty in order to identify and explain its implications for our current understanding of the principle of respect for patient autonomy and the norms of clinical decision making. (shrink)

A major part of the mind–body problem is to explain why a given set of physical processes should give rise to qualia of one sort rather than another. Colour hues are the usual example considered here, and there is a lively debate between, for example, Hardin, Levine, Jackson, Clark and Chalmers as to whether the results of colour vision science can provide convincing explanations of why colours actually look the way they do. This paper examines carefully the type of explanation (...) that is needed here, and it is concluded that it does not have to be reductive to be effective. What needs to be explained more than anything is why inverted hue scenarios are more intuitive than other sensory inversions: and the issue of physicalism versus dualism is only of marginal relevance here. (shrink)

So far, the value dimension underlying affectivity disorders has remained out of focus in phenomenological psychopathology. As early as at the beginning of the 20th century, however, German phenomenologist Max Scheler examined in depth the relationship between affectivity and value dimension through the concept of valueception (Wertnehmung). In this sense, a recent noteworthy contribution has been provided by John Cutting, who has drawn attention to the importance of Scheler’s analyses for psychiatry. In this work I take into consideration only (...) two aspects of Cutting’s proposal: 1) the relationship between the impairments of valueception and the perception of certain value classes; and 2) the interpretation of Scheler’s phenomenological reduction and its juxtaposition with the modus vivendi of schizophrenia. According to Cutting, in the modus vivendi of schizophrenia the valueception impairment entails putting vital values in brackets and focusing on personal values, with a process that recalls Scheler’s phenomenological reduction. Regarding the first aspect, I share Cutting’s starting point, but then shift the focus on how important the valueception is for the intersubjective dimension. In particular, I maintain that rather than compromising the perception of vital values, valueception impairments in the modus vivendi of schizophrenia interfere with the intersubjective dimension and are interwoven with a process of disembodiment. My thesis is that the modus vivendi of schizophrenia involves a disturbance of the intersubjective dimension that arises from the level of valueception and that determines the person’s self-referential closure. With regard to the second point, by analyzing Scheler’s phenomenological reduction, I sustain that its main objective is to increase both the interaction with otherness and the openness to the world (Weltoffenheit). As a consequence, the modus vivendi of schizophrenia, in my opinion, is not comparable, as Cutting claims, with Scheler’s phenomenological reduction, but goes in a different direction. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the phenomenology of awareness and the second reduction.

How to think a unique and determinative turn in analytic philosophy of mind? To answer this question this article first presents an attempt to render clear that analytic phenomenology, by contrast with conceptions of phenomenology of the XXth century, beneficially dispenses with several methodological and conceptual assumptions that were assumed to be compulsory, as phenomenological reduction, a notion of synthesis, and a philosophical notion of the a priori. It then presents some eventual difficulties to the achievement of a (...) phenomenological turn within analytic philosophy, which are, the neglect of historicity, abstractionism, the acknowledgement of the place of language in our lives, and solipsism. It finally presents several demands that concern the felicity of contemporary analytic phenomenologies, namely, anti-abstractionism, fallibilism, attention to polyadic relations, and the integration of ecological and decolonial concerns of our cultures. (shrink)

A prominent view of phenomenal consciousness combines two claims: (i) the identity conditions of phenomenally conscious states can be fully accounted for in terms of these states’ representational content; (ii) this representational content can be fully accounted for in non-phenomenal terms. This paper presents an argument against this view. The core idea is that the identity conditions of phenomenally conscious states are not fixed entirely by what these states represent (their representational contents), but depend in part on how they represent (...) (their representational attitudes or modes). The argument highlights the myriad liabilities and difficulties one must accrue when one tries to appeal only to what phenomenally conscious states represent in accounting for their phenomenal individuation. (shrink)

In this article I consider Eugen Fink’s critique of Husserlean approach to language in phenomenology, first of all in the ‘middle’ and ‘late’ periods of Husserlean works since Ideas I. Fink was Husserl’s student and assistant and, also, he was influenced by Heidegger’s ideas. In his works he criticized insufficient attention and unworked position to language in Husserl’s works. He believed that language is very important to the whole theory of phenomenology, that we cannot carry out true phenomenological (...) class='Hi'>reduction without clarifying what language is, how it is related to our thinking, is it possible to think without language and is it possible to carry out a complete phenomenological reduction. (shrink)

In this chapter, I discuss some lesser-known aspects of Husserl’s concept of the phenomenological reduction in relation to his use of the notion of reflection, and indicate how these topics connect to concerns in contemporary philosophy after the analytic-continental divide. Empathy, collective intentionality, non-representationalism, non-cognitivism, and the focus on the lived body as a source of sense-making and knowing-how are all domains in which Husserl’s conception of the reduction anticipates recent philosophical trends after the analytic-continental divide. They (...) are also interconnected parts of a unified conception of philosophy that arises from the phenomenological reduction when we reflect radically on experience in its full breadth as an embodied phenomenon that is both historical and communal. (shrink)

The question of whether a proper phenomenological investigation and analysis requires one to perform the epoché and the reduction has not only been discussed within phenomenological philosophy. It is also very much a question that has been hotly debated within qualitative research. Amedeo Giorgi, in particular, has insisted that no scientific research can claim phenomenological status unless it is supported by some use of the epoché and reduction. Giorgi partially bases this claim on ideas found (...) in Husserl’s writings on phenomenological psychology. In the present paper, I discuss Husserl’s ideas and argue that while the epoché and the reduction are crucial for transcendental phenomenology, it is much more questionable whether they are also relevant for a non-philosophical application of phenomenology. (shrink)

This chapter identifies two contrasting methodological reductions utilized in philosophical scepticism: withdrawal/doubt [R–]; immersion/attention [R+]. Moving toward a feminist ethics grounded in phenomenological scepticism, Aumiller explores how reduction relates to experiences of personal and global uncertainty such as a pandemic. Reduction involves our entire embodied being, challenging how we are fundamentally in touch with the world. How we respond to being disrupted makes all the difference.

This paper explores the implications of conceptualising phenomenology as explanatory for the ongoing dialogue between the phenomenological tradition and cognitive science, especially enactive approaches to cognition. The first half of the paper offers three interlinked arguments: Firstly, that differentiating between phenomenology and the natural sciences by designating one as descriptive and the other as explanatory undermines opportunities for the kind of productive friction that is required for genuine ‘mutual enlightenment’. Secondly, that conceiving of phenomenology as descriptive rather than explanatory (...) risks committing us to what Zahavi (2019) identifies as the error of equating the phenomenological with the phenomenal. Finally, that the erroneous reduction to the descriptive occludes the rich resources that the phenomenological tradition can contribute to investigations of non-human cognition. The second half of the paper then turns to focus specifically on the promising relationship between phenomenology and enactive approaches to cognition. It will suggest that phenomenology must be seen as having explanatory capacities if it is to shed light on the structures of “mind in life” (Thompson, 2007), before drawing on the model of explanation put forward by Louis Sass to explore what this might look like. (shrink)

The method of the transcendental reduction, which takes place as a return revealing the subjectivity to itself, makes possible to grasp the link connecting the worldly reality and the egological dimension, i.e. the world’s becoming in the ways of the originally subjective constitution. The legitimate aim of the psychological experience to understand the basic structures of the life-consciousness can find in the conceptual figure of the phenomenological reduction both a valid methodological approach and a useful terms of (...) comparison. (shrink)

This book focuses on Edmund Husserl’s philosophical collaboration with Eugen Fink which took place in the early 1930s, and shows how their disagreement over the nature, origin, and aim of phenomenology led to a crucial divergence on the issue of who was engaging in phenomenology, and with what motivation. It provides a philosophical investigation of a key moment in the development of Husserl’s late phenomenology. The author claims that Husserl’s meta-phenomenological exploration of the theoretical and, importantly, practical underpinnings of (...) the transcendental investigator leads him to affirm their humanity and, ultimately, to adopt an ethically charged ideal of “higher humanity” as telos of phenomenology. Fink argued that phenomenology was essentially an activity beyond the horizon of human possibility and history. In contrast, Džanić illustrates how Husserl was looking for a way to theoretically unite the purity of transcendental insight with the existential reality and practical motives of the phenomenologist. Understanding the complex aspects of this debate is crucial for understanding the Crisis-period of Husserl’s thought. This text appeals to graduate students and researchers in phenomenology and related fields of philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw the fundamental structures of the phenomenology of the person, on the basis of a precise theoretical assumption: to introduce to phenomenology of the person is to introduce to the eidetic phenomenology. So, my paper explores the fundamental questions of the Husserlian phenomenology, and traces a path towards the contemporary questions of the phenomenology of the person: what is a person in the era of social networks and liquid society?

This article is primarily concerned with the articulation of a defensible position on the relevance of phenomenological analysis with the current epistemological edifice as this latter has evolved since the rupture with the classical scientific paradigm pointing to the Newtonian-Leibnizian tradition which took place around the beginning of 20th century. My approach is generally based on the reduction of the objects-contents of natural sciences, abstracted in the form of ideal objectivities in the corresponding logical-mathematical theories, to the content (...) of meaning-acts ultimately referring to a specific being-within-the-world experience. This is a position that finds itself in line with Husserl’s gradual departure from the psychologistic interpretations of his earlier works on the philosophy of logic and mathematics and culminates in a properly meant phenomenological foundation of natural sciences in his last major published work, namely the Crisis of European Sciences and the Transcendental Phenomenology. Further this article tries to set up a context of discourse in which to found both physical and formal objects in parallel terms as essentially temporal-noematic objects to the extent that they may be considered as invariants of the constitutional modes of a temporal consciousness. (shrink)

If you have enjoyed any of the 7 (seven) other books I have published over 20 years, including literally thousands of pages of mathematical and topological concepts, Python programs and conceptually expanding papers, please consider buying this book for $20.00 on google play books. -/- Introduction: -/- Though the following pages provide extensive exposition and dedicated descriptions of the phenomenological velocity formulas, theory and mystery, I thought it appropriate to write this introduction as a partial explanation for what phenomenal (...) velocity is, and describe, briefly its theory and applications. Phenomenological Velocity is a method for solving for something that ought cancel out with itself, but there are specific implicit forms for this thing that, “ought cancel out with itself,” namely the Lorentz coefficient ought cancel out with itself when applied to the height of a cone derived from the difference between the circumferences of two circles applied to the Pythagorean Theorem, or, more generally, the height implied by application of the Pythagorean theorem to the difference between two arc lengths’ equaling a third arc length. These difference equations are essential to conceptualizing differentiation, and in these further chapters, I demonstrate that the phenomenological velocity is, indeed the conditional derivative in the chapter, “Conditional Integral of Phenomenological Velocity.” The phenomenological velocity algebraic solution to the velocity within the Lorentz coefficient when applied to the height function in such a way that it ought cancel out with itself is both constructive mathematics and it employs the concept of, “bracketing,” - first introduced by Edmund Husserl in his writings on the phenomenological reduction. Phenomenological Velocity’s algebraic solution from the difference between two arc lengths applied to the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for a theoretical height (which is a projected distance in space), employs bracketing, because we, “set aside,” the existence of an undefined solution, namely due to the presence of necessitated complex analytical forms by the architecture of the equation, or the “mathetecture,” of the algebraic form. -/- With respect to theology, the phenomenological velocity is somehow symbolic of the creation itself; symbolic of creation due to the fact that we find the canceling out of the Lorentz coefficient as, “impotent,” non-existent or non-effecting to the mathetecture of the height function. However, via the modus-ponens work around to phenomenological velocity, which in itself does not require the complex field, but embeds implied complex field solutions to the equation while maintaining logical consistency, we find existence from non-existence. This is directly linguistically applicable to the concept of the big-bang, the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah, and opens analogies for us to draw relationships between the, “fall,” of Adam and Eve as the generation of error, or the introduction of paradox, as we see the phallus representing paradox topologically. -/- The phenomenological velocity is a gestalt concept, relevant to cosmology, because we find that it is the perfect language-form for discussing dark matter. It does, however, require the reader to re-conceive or re-frame rather, some of the fundamental aspects of assumed physical reality like time, experience, solidity of dark matter, etc. We find the hidden dimension of phenomenological velocity to have been an overlooked aspect of mathematical physics by the researchers of Bell’s theorem and undoubtedly a host of other theorems. Thus, raising awareness about the real existence and necessitated reality of phenomenological velocity is in no way an endeavor deserving further procrastination by the scientific community, for doing so would be intellectually dishonest and further the propagation of incomplete or misleading theories on reality. -/- This work details how the Lorentz coefficient, when applied to the height of a cone in such a way as to cancel out with itself, permits the velocity variable to have a solution to it anyway, even though it ought cancel out with itself. This mathe-tecture, so to speak has consequences for complex analysis, and pave the way for, "transcendental relativity," building an adaptive framework for consciousness and physical reality. (shrink)

Husserl (a mathematician by education) remained a few famous and notable philosophical “slogans” along with his innovative doctrine of phenomenology directed to transcend “reality” in a more general essence underlying both “body” and “mind” (after Descartes) and called sometimes “ontology” (terminologically following his notorious assistant Heidegger). Then, Husserl’s tradition can be tracked as an idea for philosophy to be reinterpreted in a way to be both generalized and mathenatizable in the final analysis. The paper offers a pattern borrowed from the (...) theory of information and quantum information (therefore relating philosophy to both mathematics and physics) to formalize logically a few key concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology such as “epoché” “eidetic, phenomenological, and transcendental reductions” as well as the identification of “phenomenological, transcendental, and psychological reductions” in a way allowing for that identification to be continued to “eidetic reduction” (and thus to mathematics). The approach is tested by an independent and earlier idea of Husserl, “logical arithmetic” (parallelly implemented in mathematics by Whitehead and Russell’s Principia) as what “Hilbert arithmetic” generalizing Peano arithmetics is interpreted. A basic conclusion states for the unification of philosophy, mathematics, and physics in their foundations and fundamentals to be the Husserl tradition both tracked to its origin (in the being itself after Heidegger or after Husserl’s “zu Sache selbst”) and embodied in the development of human cognition in the third millennium. (shrink)

Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s “Eye and Mind” and Bergson’s Matière et mémoire and “La perception du changement,” I ask what resources are available in vision for interrupting objectifying habits of seeing. While both Bergson and Merleau-Ponty locate the possibility of seeing differently in the figure of the painter, I develop by means of their texts, and in dialogue with Iris Marion Young’s work, a more general phenomenology of hesitation that grounds what I am calling “critical-ethical vision.” Hesitation, I argue, stems from (...) affect and leads to critical memory. In hesitation, the seeming coincidence between my habits of seeing and the visible is decentered, revealing these habits and their social reference as the constitutive horizon of my field of vision. Hesitation, then, provides the phenomenological moment within which vision may become at once critically watchful, destabilizing its objectifying habits, and ethically responsive, recollecting its affective grounds. The critical and the ethical are here inseparable. Critically, this vision is an awareness of the structures of invisibility, diacritical and habitual, social and historical, to which my vision owes—dimensions which institute particular ways of seeing and being as norm while eliding others. Ethically, this is the recognition of how seeing is already seeing with others—others whose affective influence is operative within vision, even as their existence is reductively represented or denied. (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.

This chapter introduces the difficulty of acquiring phenomenological terms by examining Carnap’s and Derrida’s criticisms of phenomenological speech; their criticisms show that any account of how phenomenological speech is acquired must clarify its distinction from ordinary speech about things while not falling prey to an esoteric separation. The chapter then reviews the way Husserl, Scheler, and Heidegger offer “indication” as the way to distinguish but not separate the one and the other, and it argues that indication, even (...) with the support of analogy, metaphor, and metonym, suffers from Quinean indeterminacy and therefore requires some other resources for its successful enactment. Finally, the chapter outlines a novel solution to the problem of phenomenological speech by approaching the question as one of genesis and acquisition: ordinary language embeds certain experiential terms, such as “presence” and “absence,” that, when inflected, introduce the learner into the transcendental dimension of experience. The chapter demonstrates that the question of language learning or acquisition is necessary for unraveling the nature of phenomenological language and clarifying its relation to ordinary speech. (shrink)

This is the first book-length philosophical study of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Freud’s theory of the unconscious. The book investigates the possibility for Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology to clarify Freud’s concept of the unconscious with a focus on the theory of repression as its centre. Repression is the unconscious activity of pushing something away from consciousness, while making sure that it remains active as something foreign within us. How this is possible is the main problem addressed in the work. Unlike previous (...) literature (including Ricœur, Merleau-Ponty and Derrida) this book makes full use of the resources of genetic phenomenology and passivity in the attempt to clarify the Freudian unconscious. The central argument developed is that the structure of the lebendige Gegenwart as the core of Husserl’s theory of passivity consists of preliminary forms of bodily kinaesthesia, feelings and drives in a constantly ongoing process where repression occurs as a necessary part of all constitution. The clarification of Freudian repression thus takes place by showing how it presupposes a broad conception of consciousness such as that presented by Husserl’s genetic phenomenology. By arguing that “repression” is central to any philosophical account of subjectivity, this book takes on the most distinct challenge to philosophy posed by Freud. (shrink)

Phenomenology, as propounded by Edmond Husserl, is an important movements in the modern western philosophy, while sÅÙkhya and its application yoga are the ancient Indian philosophical disciplines or dar±ana. This is a comparative study of phenomenology with sÅÙkhya and yoga. As per my present understanding this project is now completed. I have organized the outcome of my study in the following four papers preceded by prolegomena: Prolegomena to the comparative study of Phenomenology and SaÙkhya 1, Consciousness in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya (...) 2. ‘Nature’ (ontology) in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya 3. Structures (cosmology) in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya 4. ‘Terminal Transcendental Teleological Cause’ in Phenomenology and SÅÙkhya -/- The parallelism between the philosophical disciplines, so far removed historically, geographically and culturally from each other, which this study brought out, was not only fascinating but also extensive. Certain differences also have been critically brought out. Viewing phenomenology through the grid of sÅÙkhya, I found, elucidates phenomenology. In being viewed from the perspective of a philosophical school, as modern as that of phenomenology, the ancient Indian disciplines also stand to benefit. The comparative study can hope to introduce sÅÙkhya to those acquainted with phenomenology and vice versa. This presentation is an attempt to share the flavor of my findings. (shrink)

This study is a commentary on Carl Stumpf's evaluation of Husserl's phenomenology as presented in the Logical Investigations and the first book of Ideas. I first examine Stumpf's reception of the version of phenomenology that Husserl presented in the Logical Investigations and I then look at §§ 85-86 of Ideas I, in which Husserl seeks to demarcate his "pure" phenomenology from that of Stumpf. In the third section, I analyze the criticism that Stumpf, in § 13 of his book Erkenntnislehre, (...) directs toward to the new version of phenomenology that Husserl develops in Ideas I, and in the fourth, I summarize the Spinozist interpretation of the noetico-noematical correlations that Stumpf proposes in his two studies on Spinoza. The last section addresses Husserl's self-criticism regarding the Cartesian aproach to the reduction in Ideas I and the parallelism that the late Husserl establishes between intentional psychology and transcendental phenomenology. I try to show that the version of phenomenology that Husserl develops during the Freiburg period anticipates in many respects Stumpf's criticism and partly confirms the latter's diagnosis of the version of phenomenology advocated in Ideas I. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Varela’s Radical Proposal: How to Embody and Open Up Cognitive Science” by Kristian Moltke Martiny. Upshot: I examine Varela’s relationship with Husserl’s phenomenology, highlighting Varela’s acknowledgment of the pragmatic dimension of its phenomenological reduction. I argue that Varela sees, in some developments of phenomenology, a deconstruction of the subject-object duality and an embodied view of the mind. I also highlight the existential dimension of Varela’s radical proposal, which contributes to further opening up (...) and embodying cognitive science. (shrink)

This paper examines the status of naturalism in the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and John Dewey. Despite the many points of overlap and agreement between Husserl’s and Dewey’s philosophical projects, there remains one glaring difference, namely, the place and status of naturalism in their approaches. For Husserl, naturalism is an enemy to be vanquished. For Dewey, naturalism is the only method that can put philosophy back in touch with the concerns of human beings. This paper will demonstrate the remarkable similarities (...) between Husserl’s and Dewey’s thought before contending that Dewey’s “naturalistic humanism” offers a conception of naturalism which is compatible with Husserlian phenomenology. Furthermore, reading these two philosophers together, this paper argues, can point the way forward to a naturalism which avoids the dismissal of the contributions made by knowing subjects carried out by dominant contemporary strains of reductive naturalism. (shrink)

Husserl's Phenomenology: A Lacanian and Feminist Reappraisal -/- This study undertakes a comprehensive critique of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology, highlighting its limitations and omissions. Through Lacanian psychoanalysis, feminist perspectives, and intersubjective theories, this analysis challenges Husserl's notions of bracketing, reduction, and absolute givenness. Key concerns include the neglect of unconscious dynamics, symbolic structures, embodied experience, and cultural contexts. Critics such as Zizek, Sartre, Quine, and Rorty are engaged in addressing issues of solipsism, truth, and ideology. This evaluation underscores the need (...) for phenomenology to integrate diverse perspectives, ensuring a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of human experience. -/- Keywords: Husserl, Phenomenology, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Feminist Theory, Intersubjectivity, Critical Evaluation. (shrink)

Husserl’s phenomenology is what is used, and then the conception of “bracketing reality” is modelled to generalize Peano arithmetic in its relation to set theory in the foundation of mathematics. The obtained model is equivalent to the generalization of Peano arithmetic by means of replacing the axiom of induction with that of transfinite induction. A comparison to Mach’s doctrine is used to be revealed the fundamental and philosophical reductionism of Husserl’s phenomenology leading to a kind of Pythagoreanism in the final (...) analysis. (shrink)

On the one hand, Scheler's critique of Kant's concept of a priori benefits from Husserl to a large extent, and it complements and deepens Husserl's. On the other hand, Scheler also critiques Husserl's definition of a priori. Husserl's material a priori as ideal object primarily thanks to his so-called "Bolzano- turn". In this connection, Scheler grabs hold of the relation of Husserl to Bolzano from the very beginning. For Scheler, Husserl thinks in a "platonic" way, and still falls in a (...) new type of "Platonism", or rather, logical Platonism, although he correctly refuses the ordinary Platonism. In Scheler's view, Husserl's phenomenological reduction is "not purely" executed, and therefore his phenomenological experience is problematic, or more precisely, the relation between categorial intuition and sensuous intuition is problematic. The final aim of Scheler's critique of Husserl's phenomenological understanding of "objective a priori" is to win the primary position of categorial intuition and its content , ethical insight and its correlate , and ultimately of phenomenological ethics of material value.Einerseits nimmt Schelers Kritik an Kant bezüglich des Begriffs des Apriori die Einsichten Husserls in großem Umfang auf. Schelers Kritik an Kant ergänzt und vertieft die Husserlsche Kant-Kritik. Andererseits kritisiert er aber auch Husserls Bestimmung des Apriori. Vor allem verdankt sich das materiale Apriori als idealer Gegenstand bei Husserl der sogenannten “Bolzano’schen Wendung”. Von Anfang an kritisiert Scheler Husserl in diesem Punkt, indem er dem Verhältnis zwischen Bolzano und Husserl immer präziser nachging. Für Scheler unterliegt Husserl mit Recht keinem platten Platonismus. Aber dennoch verfahre Husserl immerhin “platonistisch”, er unterliege einem “Neoplatonismus”, bzw. einem logischen Platonismus. Weil die phänomenologische Reduktion bei Husserl nach Schelers Meinung “nicht reinlich” durchgeführt wird, ist die phänomenologische Erfahrung bei Husserl problematisch, genauer gesagt ist das Verhältnis zwischen der kategorialen Anschauung und der sinnlichen Anschauung problematisch. Der Endzweck von Schelers Kritik an der phänomenologischen Auffassung des gegenständlichen Apriori bei Husserl besteht darin, die primäre Stelle der kategorialen Anschauung und ihrer Gehalte , sowie der sittlichen Einsicht und ihrer Korrelate und zuletzt der phänomenologisch materialen Wertethik zu gewinnen.S jedne strane, Schelerova kritika Kantova pojma a priori u velikoj mjeri duguje Husserlu, te dopunjuje i produbljuje Husserlovu. S druge strane, Scheler kritizira i Husserlovu definiciju apriorija. Husserlov materijalni a priori kao idealni predmet prvenstveno proizlazi iz njegova takozvanog bolzanovskog obrata. Prema Scheleru, Husserl razmišlja na "platonski" način te upada u novi tip "platonizma" ili, točnije, logičkog platonizma, iako s pravom odbacuje obični platonizam. Scheler smatra da Husserlova fenomenološka redukcija nije izvedena "čisto" te da je stoga njegovo fenomenološko iskustvo proble- matično ili, točnije, problematičan je odnos između kategorijalnog zora i osjetilnog zora. Krajnji cilj Schelerove kritike Husserlova fenomenološkog shvaćanja "objektivnog a priori" jest zadobivanje primarne pozicije kategorijalnog zora i njegova sadržaja , etičkog uvida i njegova korelata te, na koncu, fenomenološke etike materijalne vrijednosti. (shrink)

A fruitful way to approach The Idea of Phenomenology is through Husserl’s claim that consciousness is not a bag, box, or any other kind of container. The bag conception, which dominated much of modern philosophy, is rooted in the idea that philosophy is restricted to investigating only what is really immanent to consciousness, such as acts and sensory contents. On this view, what Husserl called the riddle of transcendence can never be solved. The phenomenological reduction, as Husserl develops (...) it in The Idea of Phenomenology, opened up a new and broader sense of immanence that embraces the transcendent, making it possible both to solve the riddle and to escape the bag conception once and for all. The essay will discuss ways in which this new conception of immanence is tied to the key Husserlian themes of appearance, phenomenon, essence, seeing or intuiting, and constitution. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon both argue that oppression fundamentally constrains the subject’s relationship to and embodied experience of time, yet their accounts of temporality are rarely brought together. This paper will explore what we might learn about the operation of different types of reductive temporality if we read Beauvoir and Fanon alongside each other, focusing primarily on the early works that arguably lay out the central concerns of their respective temporal frameworks. At first glance, it seems that these (...) two models of temporality have radically different emphases. While Beauvoir suggests that reductive temporalities work to sever the future from the past and present, Fanon locates this destructive operation in the heightening of their entanglement. However, I will contend that there are deep affinities between these accounts: For both Beauvoir and Fanon, freedom is bound up with futurity, with its lack therefore cashed out in terms of stagnation, repetition, and the entrapment within a hollow moment that prevents authentic projection. Both resist teleological perspectives; problematize the endeavor to describe the structures of lived temporality in neutral terms; and show that temporality is crucial to the pursuit of a political phenomenology. These resonances, however, should only serve to recast rather than dissolve the tension between their approaches; ultimately, we need to acknowledge the distinctiveness of their differing concerns and aims. (shrink)

Comparative philosophy has been subjected to much criticism in the latter half of the last century, though some of these criticisms were appropriate and justified. However, in our present cultural milieu, where traditions and culture transcend their geographical boundaries, seeping through the global network of views and ideas, it seems to be a legitimate enterprise to understand one’s own traditions and culture through the critical lens of the ‘other culture’. It is such cross-cultural understanding that paved the way towards legitimizing (...) “human rights” as a universal discourse. So also, the discourse on “environmental ethics” has gained acceptance in a similar manner across cultures and traditions. The paper attempts at an understanding of “Indian Philosophy” as a theoretical practice by exemplifying the notion of “sādhanā” in the Yoga system of Indian Philosophy through a reading of the notion of ‘phenomenological reduction’ as espoused in the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. Thus, we reject the claim that philosophy as a pure rational activity was unique to the West as proclaimed in some Eurocentric readings. It is pertinent to recall here that the Sāṅkhya philosophy, which the Yoga system accepts as an allied school of thought was atheistic in its origin and attempted to explain the universe in terms of an evolutionary theory—the “prakṛti pariṇāma vāda”. (shrink)

In his late ‘A Plea for Excuses’, John L. Austin suggests labelling his philosophy ‘linguistic phenomenology’. This article examines which idea of phenomenology Austin had in mind when he coined this term and what light this sheds on his method. It is argued that the key to answering this question can be found in Merleau-Ponty’s 'Phenomenology of Perception', which Austin must have been familiar with. Merleau-Ponty presents phenomenology in a way Austin could embrace: it is a method, it aims at (...) description and uses reduction, it is a non-idealistic study of essence, and interprets intentionality as ‘operative’. In this light, Austin’s method can be appreciated more fully. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a new approach to integrating philosophical phenomenology with qualitative research. The approach uses phenomenology’s concepts, namely existentials, rather than methods such as the epoché or reductions. We here introduce the approach to both philosophers and qualitative researchers, as we believe that these studies are best conducted through interdisciplinary collaboration. In section 1, we review the debate over phenomenology’s role in qualitative research and argue that qualitative theorists have not taken full advantage of what philosophical phenomenology (...) has to offer, thus motivating the need for new approaches. In section 2, we introduce our alternative approach, which we call Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (PGQR). Drawing parallels with phenomenology’s applications in the cognitive sciences, we explain how phenomenological grounding can be used to conceptually front-load a qualitative study, establishing an explicit focus on one or more structures of human existence, or of our being in the world. In section 3, we illustrate this approach with an example of a qualitative study carried out by one of the authors: a study of the existential impact of early parental bereavement. In section 4, we clarify the kind of knowledge that phenomenologically grounded studies generate and how it may be integrated with existing approaches. (shrink)

This paper critically evaluates Amie Thomasson’s (2003; 2005; 2006) view of the conscious mind and the interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction that it adopts. In Thomasson’s view, the phenomenological method is not an introspectionist method, but rather a “transparent” or “extrospectionist” method for acquiring epistemically privileged self-knowledge. I argue that Thomasson’s reading of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction is correct. But the view of consciousness that she pairs with it—a view of consciousness as “transparent” in the sense (...) that first-order, world-oriented experience is in no way given to itself—is not compatible with it. Rather, Thomasson’s view is, from a Husserlian vantage point, self-undermining in the same way that any genuinely skeptical view is self-undermining: it undermines the conditions of its own possibility. This is one of the motives Husserl has for developing a same-order view of self-consciousness as the complement to his transparent method for self-knowledge acquisition. (shrink)

Everything around seems phenomenal and appears driven by a conscious experience. Everything is an experience and for the experiencer appears eternally phenomenal and subjective. The conscious ‘How’ can be easily explained by the many reductive based advances in science and other disciplines, but the conscious ‘Why’ persists as phenomenal. The ‘How’ however can be reduced only to a precise limit i.e. the limits of scientific exploration, beyond which it persists to be phenomenal. This paper is an inter-disciplinary understanding of how (...) science and phenomenology can complement each other to help decipher and conform to the hypothetical approach, that everything around is phenomenal. (shrink)

This article aims to establish an understanding of Merleau-Ponty’s view of creative expression, and of its phenomenological function, setting out from the intriguing statement in his essay “Cézanne’s Doubt” that the painter (or writer or philosopher) finds himself in the situation of the first human being trying to express herself. Although the importance of primary or creative expression in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy is well known, there is no consensus among commentators with respect to how this notion is to be understood, (...) and of its apparently paradoxical relation to experience in his philosophy. On the one hand, Merleau-Ponty seems to presuppose that there is an original meaning pre-given in experience; on the other hand, expression is described as a hazardous enterprise, because the meaning to be expressed does not exist before expression has succeeded. In order to resolve this tension, I explore the significance of the precariousness of creative expression, arguing that it must be related to its other side: the constituted, all too often petrified meaning that we must start out from. (shrink)

This study was designed to explore career-related strategies for strengthening poverty reduction programmes in Nigerian communities. Using a phenomenological framework and interpretive paradigm, the study used a qualitative research design. The participants of this study consisted of five key officers working in the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (FMHAPA) in Nigeria and five counsellors working in Nigerian secondary schools. The participants were selected through a purposeful sampling process. Data collection measures include interviews, focus group discussion, (...) and document analysis. All participants were interviewed to collect data, which was analyzed using thematic analysis. To identify themes and patterns in the responses provided by the participants, the interviews were recorded and transcribed. In accordance with the findings of this study, career-related strategies for strengthening poverty reduction programmes in Nigerian communities include employability skills development, access to quality education, job creation and entrepreneurship, supportive networks, social justice and corporate responsibilities, and appropriate work policy. A major contribution of this study is the identification of career-related strategies to help strengthen poverty reduction programmes in Nigerian communities. Another contribution is the implications that can be drawn for career counselling. (shrink)

The doctrine of the pregivenness of the world features prominently in Husserl’s numerous phenomenological analyses and descriptions of the role the world plays in our experience. Properly evaluating its function within the overall system of transcendental phenomenology is, however, by no means a straightforward task, as evidenced by many manuscripts from the 1930s. These detail various epistemological and metaphysical difficulties and potential paradoxes encumbering the notion of the pre-given world. This paper contends that some of these difficulties can be (...) alleviated by revisiting Husserl’s late concept of the earth and, more specifically, disclosing its transcendental function in the constitution of pregivenness. To test this claim, I turn to Husserl’s 1931 manuscript describing the paradox of “the originary acquisition of the world.” I argue that the paradox is dissolved by introducing the transcendental-phenomenological concept of the earth. (shrink)

Yoshimi has attempted to defuse my argument concerning the identification of network abstraction with empiricist abstraction - thus entailing psychologism - by claiming that the argument does not generalize from the example of simple feed-forward networks. I show that the particular details of networks are logically irrelevant to the nature of the abstractive process they employ. This is ultimately because deep artificial neural networks (ANNs) and dynamical systems theory applied to the mind (DST) are both associationisms - that is, empiricist (...) theories that derive the principles of thought from the causal history of the organism/system. On this basis, I put forward a new aspect of the old argument by noting that ANNs & DST are the causal bases of the phenomena of passive synthesis, whereas the language of thought hypothesis (LOT) and the symbolic computational theory of mind (CTM) are the causal bases of the phenomena of active synthesis. If the phenomena of active synthesis are not distinct in kind from and are thus reducible to those of passive synthesis, psychologism results. Yoshimi’s program, insofar as it denies this fundamental phenomenological distinction, is revealed to be the true anti-pluralist program, by essentially denying the causal efficacy of the mechanistic foundations of active synthesis by referring phenomenology exclusively to associationism for its causal foundation. (shrink)

The philosophy by Husserl has always been a very interesting topic for cognitive scientists. Indeed, there is a strong analogy between the method of phenomenological reduction and the theories of mind developed by cognitive science in the last fifty years. The method of reduction is based on the concept of reality as a product of mind. Cognitive science seems to agree with this view but it is still difficult to elaborate a cognitive interpretation of the Husserl phenomenology (...) which is philosophically correct. The best attempt is that by Francisco Varela; thanks to the philosophic teaching of Humberto Maturana, he offers us a terribly reliable and audacious interpretation of Husserl even if complex for the role which plays between two necessities: the former is to construct neurophenomenology emphasizing the philosophy of Husserl like the only conceptual architecture able to study experience directly and the latter (which) is to found the enactive paradigm for cognitive science referring to Buddhist psychology. (shrink)

This chapter offered in hommage to Jacques Taminiaux’s long and fruitful career reflecting on ontological, political, and aesthetic issues, starts following the lead of his reading of Heidegger’s interpretation of these issues, as following the same “Platonic filiation” as in most of German Idealism’s representatives. Namely, Heidegger seems to interpret praxis beyond all relation to interaction and interlocution, but also that his revaluation of the role of art in politics is because he confers the utmost importance upon poiêsis as an (...) “internal potency in the human understanding of Being, of the Lichtblick,” namely, as a “high-ranked theôria.” It primarily addresses the question of how theôria-Sophia, praxis-phronêsis, poiêsis-technê in their relatedness and oppositions, are connected with the “ethical” (practical) dimension of transcendental reduction, following some hints from Taminiaux’s (2004) reflections on Heidegger’s “metamorphosis” of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction (both eidetic and transcendental), as having proved that “reduction was at the core of Husserl’s theoretical project.” However, Taminiaux thinks that “it is not an exaggeration to claim that the contrast” he has just sketched “entails as many difficulties as those implicit in Husserl’s concept of reduction” (Taminiaux 2004, 44). Thus, the primal motivation for this text’s proposal stems from its interest in finding out whether this appealing and well-argued reading of the Greek and Platonic connivance between theôria-poiêsis in contrast to the fragility and contingency of human practical judgments and the human intrigue of our worldly abode—a reading retrieved by modern and contemporary German philosophers, including Heidegger—is in seamless accordance with the canonical contemporary interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and reduction. Or whether an alternative reading could be risked. What has characterized the success of Taminiaux’s original and piercingly acute reading of the history of philosophy is his close and severe scrutiny of texts transmitted by the tradition in dialogue with our experience of the “matters themselves.” Hence, in the wake of this essential and everlasting teaching, this text risks an alternative reading of the phenomenological reduction, specifically of its transcendental version, as an eminently practical—namely, ethical—achievement (Leistung), driven by a practical virtue, responsibility. (shrink)

The present paper aims at showing that the phenomenological method is a crucial methodological element of every research that is based on the interpretation of utterances or texts based on experiences, like religious studies. Following the neophenomenological school, the notion of “phenomenon” is understood in a radically relative way: “A phenomenon for a person at a given point of time is a state of affairs for which this person cannot — in spite of trying to vary the presuppositions she (...) makes as much as possible — withdraw the belief that it is a fact” (Schmitz, 2003: 1). Starting from this notion, phenomenology may fruitfully criticise two common strategies: reduction and construction. The first one tries to reduce experiences to allegedly more fundamental processes like electrical impulses in neural nets. Here the phenomenologist must object that in doing so without preceding phenomenological analysis the reductionist will lose large parts of potentially important information. As to the second strategy, constructions — in the sense of presuppositions, ready-made concepts etc. — are present in all texts that are meant to express an experience. In order to describe the underlying experience more adequately, the phenomenological researcher has to remove as many constructions as possible. In this way she does not only produce a description that is ”closer” to the experience (though she can never hope to fully grasp it), but she also paves the way for comparison and dialogue across religions and cultures. (shrink)

Aims and Objectives. This article uses the concept of embodiment to demonstrate a conceptual approach to applied phenomenology. -/- Background. Traditionally, qualitative researchers and healthcare professionals have been taught phenomenological methods, such as the epoché, reduction, or bracketing. These methods are typically construed as a way of avoiding biases so that one may attend to the phenomena in an open and unprejudiced way. However, it has also been argued that qualitative researchers and healthcare professionals can benefit from phenomenology’s (...) well-articulated theoretical framework, which consists of core concepts, such as selfhood, empathy, temporality, spatiality, affectivity, and embodiment. -/- Design. This is a discursive article that demonstrates a conceptual approach to applied phenomenology. -/- Method. To outline and explain this approach to applied phenomenology, the Discussion section walks the reader through four stages of phenomenology, which progress incrementally from the most theoretical to the most practical. -/- Discussion. Part one introduces the philosophical concept of embodiment, which can be applied broadly to any human subject. Part two shows how philosophically trained phenomenologists use the concept of embodiment to describe general features of illness and disability. Part three illustrates how the phenomenological concept of embodiment can inform empirical qualitative studies and reflects on the challenges of integrating philosophy and qualitative research. Part four turns to phenomenology’s application in clinical practice and outlines a workshop model that guides clinicians through the process of using phenomenological concepts to better understand patient experience. -/- Conclusion and Relevance to Clinical Practice. A conceptual approach to applied phenomenology provides a valuable alternative to traditional methodological approaches. Phenomenological concepts provide a foundation for better understanding patient experience in both qualitative health research and clinical practice, and therefore provide resources for enhancing patient care. (shrink)

In this paper, I reference a Paradigm Case Core Conception of Violence, which each individual has, and can share with others to various degrees. This is shown to imply that because we cannot get at violence itself, and can only interpret violence in relationships that involve humans, we cannot avoid politicizing our conceptions of violence in our empathic, intersubjective relationships. This is demonstrated by outlining various claims concerning violence, and by utilizing Edith Stein's phenomenological account on empathy and intersubjectivity, (...) and Alfred Schütz’s characterizations of commonsense constructs and typicalities, as well as theorists who define violence in reductive and non-reductive ways. (shrink)

The article presents edmund Husserl’s idea of transcendental phenomenology in the perspec‐ tive of the project of science. this aspect of Husserl’s writings was pointed out by, for example, rudolf Bernet, man ed Brelage, Iso Kern, eduard marbach, eugen Fink, Ludwig Landgrebe, and roman Ingarden. the main aim, realised in the article is to prove the main hypothesis claiming that transcendental phenomenology is closely connected with Husserl’s conception of philosophy, the idea of philosophy as a science (eidetic and transcendental). the (...) project of transcendental science and knowledge is also connected with Husserl’s conception of transcen‐ dental reduction taken as a mode of revealing those constitutive achievements of consciousness which were covered in the natural attitude. In the paper, I focus on presenting the most im‐ portant points (epistemological, methodological, and transcendental) connected with Husserl’s evolution of phenomenology in the perspective of the project of science. (shrink)

Applying Michel Henry’s philosophical framework to the phenomenological analysis of religious experience, the author introduces a concept of material introspection and a new theory of the constitution of religious experience in phenomenologically material interiority. As opposed to ordinary mental self-scrutiny, material introspection happens when the usual outgoing attention is reverted onto embodied self-awareness in search of mystical self-knowledge or union with God. Such reversal posits the internal field of consciousness with the self-disclosure of phenomenological materiality. As shown by (...) the example of Vedantic self-inquiry, material introspection is conditioned on the attitude ‘I “see” myself’ and employs reductions which relieve phenomenological materiality from the structuring influence of intentionality; the telos of material introspection is expressed by the inward self-transcendence of intentional consciousness into purified phenomenological materiality. Experience in material introspection is constituted by the self-affection and self-luminosity of phenomenological materiality; experience is recognized as religious due to such essential properties as the capacity of being selffulfilled, and specific qualitative “what it’s like”(s). Drawing on more than 5000 live accounts of internal religious experience, it is shown that introspective attention can have different trajectories, producing, within a temporal extension of material introspection, different spatial modifications of embodied selfawareness and a variety of corresponding religious experiences. (shrink)

Natural scientific views on the human being have the tendency to reduce selfhood toa static object. This tendency arguably derives from the need to objectify the present in which the human being is found. Phenomenology avoids such a reduction by engaging with the present instead of distancing from it for the sake of analysis. This beneficence that derives froma phenomenological view of reality is argued to be a warranted view a counseling therapist should adopt. Not only can a (...) therapist who involves phenomenological perspectives in their practice succeed in viewing their clients non-instrumentally, but such a therapist can also “Be” genuine. The paper conceives of the therapist capable of performing these phenomenological tasks in therapy as adopting a mode of Being which we highlight as akin to the ancient concept: hypostasis. This conception in turn is shown to have epistemological ramifications for the meaning of “understanding”, which is shown quite suitably in the example of therapeutic presence. Heidegger’s Dasein serves as conceptual example of self in the paper to elucidate the connection between hypostasis and understanding throughout. (shrink)