Husserl: Phenomenology and Cognitive Science

In Cognitive science and philosophy of consciousness, the explanatory gap, following Joseph Levine, refers to the unintelligible link between our conscious mental life and its corresponding objective physical explanation; the gap in our understanding of how consciousness is related to a physical or a physiological substrate :354–361, 1983). David Chalmers holds the explanatory gap as the evidence for a form of metaphysical dualism between consciousness and physical reality. On the other hand, McGinn takes it as an epistemic rather than an (...) ontological gap. Considering the recent advances in neuroscience, however, the reductionist approaches have become replete, which attempt to reduce consciousness and subjectivity to neurobiological accounts. On this view, consciousness mirrors the brain mechanisms, and the self is formulated as an illusory product or construct of neuronal processes. Thomas Fuchs, who is committed to embodied and enactive approaches toward cognition, in Ecology of the Brain, espouses an enactive-ecological perspective concerning the problem of the explanatory gap. He develops an account of human’s life in its dual aspects of the living body and lived body which, on the one hand, defies the ontological dualism and, on the other hand, avoids drifting towards any form of reductionism. Often, the ontologically monistic approaches to the explanatory gap have inclined to a form of reductionism because they conceive consciousness as either identical with its physiological substrate or caused by it, where in both cases, consciousness is claimed to be explainable within the framework of physicalism. Fuchs, however, defends an ontological monism which remains irreconcilable with reductionism. In his account of dual aspects, there is no interaction or impact between the sphere of subjectivity and nature; however, these two aspects imply one another. In this essay, I will develop the philosophical justification of the above reformulation of the mind–body problem and employing the analogy of light will canvass the paradoxical relationship between dual aspects in a phenomenological framework. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus once noted that it would be difficult to ascertain whether Edmund Husserl had a computational theory of mind. I provide evidence that he had one. Both Steven Pinker and Steven Horst think that the computational theory of mind must have two components: a representational-symbolic component and a causal component. Bearing this in mind, we proceed to a close-reading of the sections of “On the Logic of Signs” wherein Husserl presents, if I’m correct, his computational theory of mind embedded (...) in a language of thought. My argument goes like this: the computational theory of mind is the idea, following Haugeland, that the mind comes prepackaged as, or is endogenously constrained to be, an automatic formal system; this explains, according to Husserl, why automatic trains of thought without logical intent resemble arguments exhibiting deductive structure with logical intent. In general, an automatic formal system yields true results provided that the syntactic symbols with which they compute are univocal and are semantically evaluable, and the mechanized inferences they perform are valid and preserve truth. These two conditions describe a computational cognitive process: the first condition connects representations to syntax, and the second condition uses the syntax, in inauthentic judging, to arrive at true conclusions through blind causality. Now, in point of textual fact, these are the conditions which Husserl attributes to our “natural psychological mechanism of symbolic inference” which typically yields true results. Since a formal system attributed to the “internal structure” of the mind, and guided by blind causality, just is the computational theory of mind, it follows, I think, that Husserl had a computational theory of mind. This computational theory is, moreover, embedded in a language of thought, since Husserl attributes a language-like form to our thoughts so that they may be mechanically processed. I conclude with a discussion of my results. (shrink)

The kind of collective improvisation attained by the “free jazz” at the beginning of the sixties sets a challenge to analytic theories of collective intentionality, that emphasize the role played by future-directed plans in the interlocking and interdependent intentions of the individual participants, because in the free jazz case the performers’ interdependence or [interplay] stems from an intuitive understanding between musicians. Otherwise said: what happens musically is not planned in advance, but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. By looking (...) at the way jazz improvisers take up the challenge of making music together without a pre-conceived notion as to what kind of effect they will achieve and without a pre-set code of agreements, my aim has been to clarify what kind of strategies — other than advanced action plans and joint commitments — are used by improvising musicians to integrate their improvisations into a unified shared activity. In developing this proposal I initially drawn pre-theoretically on one paradigmatic study case — Ornette Coleman’s double quartet Free Jazz, A collective Improvisation and brought it in conversation with Husserl’s phenomenology of time. In a final move, I brought this phenomenological frame into dialogue with some recent readings of the predictive coding model. All in all, what we learned from the Free Jazz case is that the interdependence and interlocking of attitudes among individual participants characteristic of shared intention is not determined by a future-directed plan and the rational pressure to be responsive to and coordinate with others, it typically engages. Rather, in the free jazz case, the performers’ connection and interplay depend on the players’ readiness to feel each other out, by listening to each other playing, in a way that no doubt presupposes the Husserlian retention-protention scheme. (shrink)

: This paper aims to situate the roles of attention and habit in contemporary approaches to embodied cognition with particular regard to the conceptualisation of affordances. While Chemero has argued that affordances have a relational character that rules out dispositions, Rietveld and Kiverstein have suggested that engaging with affordances amounts to exercising skills. By critically reconsidering the distinction between dispositions and abilities proposed by Chemero, as well as the standard theory of habit that underpins accounts of skilful coping, I propose (...) to disambiguate habit from skill and to reassess the phenomenology of dispositions. Dispositions are motivational factors that depend on two elements: sensitivity to context clues, which is regulated by habit and attention, and the positionality of the subject, which is inseparable from context-awareness. Drawing on Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s insights, I argue that both and can accommodate a dispositional view of affordances. Keywords: Habit; Attention; Affordances; Dispositions; Phenomenology; Embodied Cognition Situare attenzione e abitudine nel panorama delle affordance Riassunto: L’articolo mira a situare i ruoli svolti dall’attenzione e dall’abitudine negli approcci contemporanei all’ embodied cognition, con particolare attenzione alla concettualizzazione delle affordance. Se, un da un lato, Chemero ha sostenuto che l’ affordance ha un carattere relazionale, che esclude le disposizioni, Rietveld e Kiverstein, dall’altro lato, mantengono che il coinvolgimento nell’ affordance corrisponde all’esercizio di abilità pratiche. Nel riconsiderare criticamente la distinzione fra disposizioni e abilità avanzata da Chemero, così come la concezione standard dell’abitudine che è alla base delle teorie di skilful coping, propongo di disambiguare l’abitudine dalle abilità e di rivalutare la fenomenologia delle disposizioni. Queste ultime sono elementi motivazionali che dipendono da due fattori: sensibilità verso il contesto, che è governata dall’abitudine e dall’attenzione, e la posizionalità del soggetto, la quale è inseparabile dalla consapevolezza del contesto. Basandosi su Husserl e Merleau-Ponty, l’articolo difende l’ipotesi che sia che possono soddisfare una concezione disposizionale dell’ affordance. Parole chiave: Abitudine; Attenzione; Disposizioni; Fenomenologia; Cognizione incarnata. (shrink)

SummaryThe philosophical core of a psychological theory of cognitive processes is developped and commented, focussing on the problem of intentionality, this term being taken in the normal and in the phenomenological sense. Actions, perceived processes, their states and results, operations and concepts are seen as related insofar as they all establish relations between elements, are generated by construction and can be objectivated. These acts and/or the objectives that control them, are intentional insofar as their structure is activated. Such activation is (...) characteristic of living systems. Intentionality sensu Brentano/Husserl is limited to acts of presentation, a contemplative conception which lacks the constructivity and the dynamism of our pragmatistic concept of action and thought. (shrink)

From Minkowski and Jaspers to Blankenburg, phenomenological psychopathology has assumed that lost or diminished experience of ‘realness’ is related to an impairment of tacit level intersubjectivity. This paper develops a theoretical framework for this hypothesis by drawing mainly on the phenomenological tradition and the works of Wittgenstein. The argument, in return, contributes to recent discussions regarding depersonalization and intersubjectivity. In addition, the approach suggests some interesting implications for psychopathology.

When talking about how cinema is affected by late-stage capitalism we have to look at the overall meaning of the film. But on occasion, these films incorporate stylistic but also temporal context. In this paper, I will use a traditional and contemporary phenomenological approach not just on the temporality aspect but the over the condition of cinema in late-stage capitalism. I will use Children Of Men to open up the ideas of how time within itself such as Heideggerian terms. Such (...) as the single shot sequences can not only reveal to us how time can be disjointed from the comprehensive understanding of personal time. Also the use of narrative as a vehicle for disclosing and the emergence of the true nature of the world and the state that it is in. Not just Being-in-the-world but the actualization of how late-stage capitalism brings about this disconnection with time and ontological narrative. Within this tension I will unpack it so we can see how time is both suffering from reification in the terms that Georg Lukács establishes and how being present-at-hand create a natural tension were capitalism exploits our own disjointed time but film is able to capture it in a manner that is not only presentable but it relates even though all experiences are unique in this fragmented reality. (shrink)

This chapter presents the main formalism of the book, which is used in subsequent chapters to describe a variety of concepts in Husserlian phenomenology, and thereby unify them. A dynamical systems approach to Husserl is introduced, and several dynamical laws of Husserlian phenomenology are described. The first is an expectation rule according to which expectations are determined by what a person knows, sees, and does. The second is a learning rule according to which background knowledge is updated in a specific (...) way when experiences fulfill or frustrate prior expectations. In addition to these rules, a “supervenience function” is described, which associates how a thing is seen with a “trail set,” the set ways that thing is expected to look, relative to all possible ways of moving around it. This function further illustrates the explanatory dimension of phenomenology described in Chap. 2, whereby how we immanently experience things is determined by how we expect them to look relative to counterfactual movement patterns. (shrink)

We explore the integrated structure of consciousness by examining the “phenomenological axioms” of the “integrated information theory of consciousness ” from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. After clarifying the notion of phenomenological axioms by drawing on resources from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, we develop a critique of the integration axiom by drawing on phenomenological analyses developed by Aron Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty. This axiom is ambiguous. It can be read either atomistically as claiming that the phenomenal content of conscious experience (...) is an integrated complex and holistically as claiming that it is an integrated Gestalt. We argue that the latter reading provides a better characterization of the internal structure of the phenomenal content. Furthermore, the integrated structure of consciousness is not confined to the phenomenal content, but it also extends into the subjective attitude. Subjective attitudes and phenomenal contents are interdependent constituents that jointly make up conscious experiences. This implies a novel theoretical challenge to the scientific component of IIT, which is to explain how to accommodate the subjective dimension of consciousness into its explanatory scope. IIT can respond in a few different ways, but most importantly, it cannot just ignore it once and for all. As one possible way to address the challenge, we propose introducing a novel construct, noetic complex, to develop a fine-grained model of the neural underpinning of consciousness. (shrink)

The following issues are considered in the paper: The proper understanding of the ‘attempt to doubt’ recommended by Husserl in Ideas, Book I, as a point of departure on a way to the transcendental reduction. How intentional reference of an act of consciousness is possible and what it consists in, according to Husserl. A logical dependence between the characteristics of intentional reference and the standpoint of transcendental idealism in Husserl’s Ideas, Book I. How to understand Husserl’s claim that the intentional (...) object is equivalent to sense. I arrive at the conclusion that a fully consistent interpretation of Husserl’s declarations regarding the aforementioned issues does not seem to be possible; for one needs to modify Husserl’s standpoint in certain respects. These considerations will be carried on in an article titled ‘The Noema as Sense. The Problem of the Object of Consciousness in Husserl’s Transcendental Idealism’, forthcoming in Diametros. (shrink)

Cardiophenomenology aims at refining the neuro-phenomenological approach created by F. Varela as a new paradigm, jointly based on Husserl’s a priori dynamics of the living present and an experiment on anticipatory time-dynamics of visual motor perception. In order to do so, we will situate the paradigm of neurophenomenology at the cardio-vascular level, focusing on the emotional dynamics of lived experience and thus refining the dialogue, more precisely, the generative mutual constraints between first- and third-person analysis. In this article we present (...) the theoretical hypothesis of cardiophenomenology, which places the bodily-emotional heartsystem at its core, as an intrinsic part of the cognitive system. The latter therefore needs to be enlarged in order to include an enactive embodied cardiac-affective dimension. Here we present five main arguments for the necessary inclusion of the bodily-emotional heartsystem in the cognitive system: first, two pragmatic operational arguments, then three theoretical ones. A direct methodological-pragmatic consequence is the actual operativity of the generative mutual constraints based on an experiential -experimental continuity of the embodied cardiac-affective fold inherent in the subject. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPatočka highlights the central role of Cartesianism in our tradition of thinking. Yet, today, brain scientists often claim to have overcome Cartesian dualism. In this paper, I argue that the Cartesian conceptions of human nature and sensory perception remain presuppositions of brain science, where perception is largely equated with thinking. Equating perception and thinking means that thinking is a determined process, which leads to an erosion of critique. Critique, and the freedom of thought it entails, is essential to Descartes, Husserl (...) and Patočka. I examine the differences, as well as the relationship, between Descartes method of doubt, Husserl’s phenomenological epochē and Patočka’s universalization of the epochē. I also show how Descartes’, Husserl’s and Patočka’s way into critique present different ways to understand self, things and the world. In conclusion, I suggest that Patočka presents a promising way to critique mechanistic understandings of thinking by rethinking both subject and object. (shrink)

A review of Michael Madary's book Visual Phenomenology.

In this book, Michael Madary examines visual experience, drawing on both phenomenological and empirical methods of investigation. He finds that these two approaches—careful, philosophical description of experience and the science of vision—independently converge on the same result: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. -/- Madary first makes the case for the descriptive premise, arguing that the phenomenology of vision is best described as on ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. He discusses visual experience as being perspectival, (...) temporal, and indeterminate; considers the possibility of surprise when appearances do not change as we expect; and considers the content of visual anticipation. Madary then makes the case for the empirical premise, showing that there are strong empirical reasons to model vision using the general form of anticipation and fulfillment. He presents a range of evidence from perceptual psychology and neuroscience, and reinterprets evidence for the two-visual-systems hypothesis. Finally, he considers the relationship between visual perception and social cognition. An appendix discusses Husserlian phenomenology as it relates to the argument of the book. -/- Madary argues that the fact that there is a convergence of historically distinct methodologies itself is an argument that supports his findings. With Visual Phenomenology, he creates an exchange between the humanities and the sciences that takes both methods of investigation seriously. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze constitution embodiment, a particular conception of embodiment. Proponents of constitution embodiment claim that the body is a condition of the constitution of entities. Constitution embodiment is popular with phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition, including research projects such as Enactivism and Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Unfortunately, PEC’s use of constitution embodiment is neither clear nor coherent; in particular, PEC uses the concept of constitution embodiment so that a major inconsistency is entailed. PEC conceives of the body in a (...) transcendental sense as a condition of the constitution of entities, and, in an ontic sense, as a scientifically describable entity. Yet, a condition of the constitution of entities cannot be itself an entity—rather, it is the very condition of the possibility of an entity. This inconsistency entails further problems, among them PEC’s misguided focus on the location of the embodied mind. In order to correct these mistakes, I develop a conception of constitution embodiment based on the work of Heidegger, Husserl and to a lesser degree Merleau-Ponty. This has two purposes. First, it provides the conceptual groundwork to secure the status of PEC as a consistent and coherent research project and to clarify PEC’s conception of the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In that spirit, my approach provides further guidelines for fruitful research alliances between PEC and other research programs such as Grounded Cognition and identifies current research alliances, such as those with Radical Enactivism, as undesirable. Second, my account provides an elaborate concept of constitution embodiment that can function as the basis for more sophisticated work in the future. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl’s critique of using the natural scientific method to investigate meaningful human experience remains relevant to recent debates in psychology. Discursive Psychology (DP) claims to draw upon phenomenological insights to critique quantitative psychology for studying theoretical concepts rather than the actual practices of the lived social world. In this paper, I will argue that DP overlooks the important distinction that can be made between the theoretical attitude and the natural scientific attitude in Husserlian Phenomenology and hence, once again, loses (...) sight of the meaningfully constituted life-world. In doing so, I will demonstrate the continued relevance of Husserl’s critique of natural science to the discipline of psychology. (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)

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

In the late 19th century Husserl studied our internal sense of time passing, maintaining that its deep connections into experience represent prima facie evidence for it as the basis for all investigations in the sciences: Phenomenology was born. Merleau-Ponty focused on perception pointing out that any theory of experience must in accord with established aspects of biology i.e. embodied. Recent analyses suggest that theories of experience require non-reductive, integrative information, together with a specific property connecting them to experience. Here we (...) elucidate a new class of information states with just such properties found at the loci of control of complex biological systems, including nervous systems. Complexity biology concerns states satisfying self-organized criticality. Such states are located at critical instabilities, commonly observed in biological systems, and thought to maximize information diversity and processing, and hence to optimize regulation. Major results for biology follow: why organisms have unusually low entropies; and why they are not merely mechanical. Criticality states form singular self-observing systems, which reduce wave packets by processes of perfect self-observation associated with feedback gain g=1. Analysis of their information properties leads to identification of a new kind of information state with high levels of internal coherence, and feedback loops integrated into their structure. The major idea presented here is that the integrated feedback loops are responsible for our ‘sense of self’, and also the feeling of continuity in our sense of time passing. Long-range internal correlations guarantee a unique kind of non-reductive, integrative information structure enabling such states to naturally support phenomenal experience. Being founded in complexity biology, they are ‘embodied’; they also fulfill the statement that ‘The self is a process’, a singular process. High internal correlations and RenéThom-style catastrophes support non-digital forms of information, gestalt cognition, and information transfer via quantum teleportation. Criticality in complexity biology can ‘embody’ cognitive states supporting gestalts, and phenomenology’s senses of ‘self,’ time passing, existence and being. (shrink)

In recent years, some simulation theorists have claimed that the discovery of mirror neurons provides empirical support for the position that mind reading is, at some basic level, simulation. The purpose of this essay is to question that claim. I begin by providing brief context for the current mind reading debate and then developing an influential simulationist account of mind reading. I then draw on the works of Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein to develop an alternative, phenomenological account. In conclusion, (...) I offer multiple objections against simulation theory and argue that the empirical evidence mirror neurons offer us does not necessarily support the view that empathy is simulation. (shrink)

I aim to provide some evidence that Husserl’s description of perceptual updating actually fits very nicely into the Bayesian Brain paradigm, articulated by Karl Friston and others, and that that paradigm, in turn, can be taken as an excellent example of “Neurophenomenology”. The apparently un-phenomenological Helmholtzian component of the Bayesian Brain paradigm, according to which what one consciously seems to see is a product of unconscious causal reasoning to the best explanation of one’s sensory stimulations, can be finessed, I claim, (...) in a way that makes it compatible with a phenomenological orientation. I begin by roughly characterizing the Bayesian Brain paradigm as it relates to perceptual cognition. I then show how Husserl’s descriptions of the conscious perceptual process relate to the paradigm. I conclude with some considerations about how to understand the relation between conscious and unconscious brain process in the present case and in relation to Neurophenomenology generally. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to show the significance of a phenomenological approach towards the cognitive explanations of bodily awareness. Shaun Gallagher, for example, is one of the authors who has tried to develop phenomenological descriptions within cognitive science. This essay is a critical analysis of this embodied cognitive approach. I will use Husserl’s genetic phenomenological description. In such description, the body is more than just an intentional object; it becomes the realm of the pre-reflexive and kinesthetic.

This paper reports on the Kuhnian revolution now occurring in neuropsychology that is finally supportive of and friendly to phenomenology — the "enactive" approach to the mind-body relation, grounded in the notion of self-organization, which is consistent with Husserl and Merleau-Ponty on virtually every point. According to the enactive approach, human minds understand the world by virtue of the ways our bodies can act relative to it, or the ways we can imagine acting. This requires that action be distinguished from (...) passivity, that the mental be approached from a first person perspective, and that the cognitive capacities of the brain be grounded in the emotional and motivational processes that guide action and anticipate action affordances. It avoids the old intractable problems inherent in the computationalist approaches of twentieth century atomism and radical empiricism, and again allows phenomenology to bridge to neuropsychology in the way Merleau-Ponty was already doing over half a century ago. (shrink)

Dan Zahavi engages with classical phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and a range of empirical disciplines to explore the nature of selfhood. He argues that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed or dependent upon others, but accepts that certain dimensions of the self and types of self-experience are other-mediated.

DEFINING THE LIMITS OF THE FIELD. Because 'consciousness and the body' is central to so many philosophical endeavors, I cannot provide a comprehensive survey of recent work. So we must begin by limiting the scope of our inquiry. First, we will concentrate on work done in English or translated into English, simply to ensure ease of access to the texts under examination. Second, we will concentrate on work done in the last 15 years or so, since the early 1990s. Third, (...) we will concentrate on those philosophers who treat both consciousness and the body together. Thus we will not treat philosophers who look at body representations in culture, nor philosophers who examine socio-political bodily practices with minimal or no reference to consciousness. Finally, even with the philosophers we choose to treat, we cannot be comprehensive and will instead make representative choices among their works. With that being said, we will have a fairly liberal definition of continental philosophy, operationally defined as that which makes (non-exclusive) reference to the classic phenomenology of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Thus we will include the radical.. (shrink)

Behind the phase of cognition analysed by Husserl, there is a phase of affection. In this phase, there are significant mental disorders occurring. Similar to the way in which the phase of cognition is divided into reference, meaning (referent), and representation of words (classification according to Husserl's theory of meaning), the phase of affection is also divided into reference, “meaning,” and figure as sphere of “meaning”. The situation as a reference can allow various predications to form different explanations, i.e. different (...) states of affairs. From the point of view of affection, this reference has another role. The affection of a situation obliges us to produce bodily “meanings,” which is a sign of health. Mental disorders can be described as some distortion in the phase of affection. Healing in this regard occurs through the restoration of creativity for “meanings” which assume the situation. (shrink)

This chapter offers a overview of Shadworth Hodgson's account of experience as fundamentally temporal, an account that was deeply influential on thinkers such as William James and which prefigures the phenomenology of Husserl in many ways. I highlight eight key features that are characteristic of Hodgson's account, and how they hang together to provide a coherent overall picture of experience and knowledge. Hodgson's account is then compared to Husserl's, and I argue that Hodgson's account offers a better target for projects (...) such as neurophenomenology than does Husserl's. Hodgson's account is historically important as a culmination of a certain trajectory of British Empiricist thought. It offers a substantive alternative for how to think about temporality and experience in contemporary discussions, not just of the present moment but of the relationship between experience and knowledge more broadly. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Perception-Action Mutuality Obviates Mental Construction” by Martin Flament Fultot, Lin Nie & Claudia Carello. Upshot: In this commentary, I focus on several issues concerning the notion of presentation. I argue that Fultot, Nie and Carello do not pay sufficient attention to these problems, despite the fact that Gibson, compared here with Husserl, may be regarded as one of those thinkers who made an important contribution to this.

I describe and partially formalize two aspects of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy, in a way that highlights their relevance to cognitive science. First, I describe “constitutive phenomenology”, the study of structures (what I call phenomenological “models”) that constitute a person’s sense of reality. These structures develop incrementally over the course of a person’s life, and serve a variety of functions, e.g. generating expectations relative to actions, and determining the contents of context awareness. Second, I describe “transcendental-eidetic phenomenology”, which posits a (...) hierarchy of laws, each governing the way consciousness must be organized in order for a particular type of thing (a physical thing, a person, a social institution, etc.) to appear. (shrink)

У західноєвропейській соціальній філософії та соціальній теорії осмислення повсякдення має довгу традицію. У статті аналізуються не лише наявні теорії повсякдення, але й робиться спроба вийти на метатеоретичний рівень, щоб визначити межі цих теорій та тих методів, які використовувалися для їхньої побудови. Автор статті доводить, що на часі запровадження такого дослідження повсякдення, у якому б органічно поєднувалися метатеоретичні пошуки з конкретним феноменом повсякдення, таким, яким він постає перед свідомістю звичайної людини.

[opening paragraph]: Natalie Depraz builds on Iso Kern's distinctions to outline three different motivational pathways to the phenomenological reduction -- the Cartesian way, the psychological way, and the way of the life-world. I would like to suggest a fourth one that may appeal to cognitive neuroscientists and neuropsychologists, theorists who, for the most part, are not ordinarily motivated to pursue phenomenological methodologies.

Teorija samo-modela Thomasa Metzingera nudi okvir naturaliziranja subjektivnih iskustava, to jest perspektive prve osobe. Ovi se fenomeni objašnjavaju referiranjem na reprezentacijske sadržaje za koje se kaže da su međuodnošajni na različitim razinama svijesti i suodnošajni s moždanim aktivnostima. Članak počinje razmatranjem o naturalizmu i anti-naturalizmu u svrhu grubog skiciranja pozadine Metzingerove tvrdnje da njegova teorija drži filozofijske spekulacije o umu ne-nužnima . Posebice, Husserlova se fenomenološka koncepcija svijesti odbacuje kao nekritička i neprimjerena. Pokazat će se da je ta kritika pogrešno (...) usmjerena . Glavni nedostaci Metzingerove teorije osvijetlit će se referiranjem na koncepciju fenomenalne transparencije koja će se usporediti s fenomenološkom idejom transparencije . Tada ćemo povećati naš kritički horizont fokusirajući se na neke implikacije reprezentacionalizma, uključujući reifikaciju svijesti, mozgovni kartezijanizam, te isključivanje socijalne dimenzije . Konačno, primijenit ćemo naše meta-teorijske refleksije na raspravu o naturalizmu. (shrink)

Los eventos clínicos asociados a la experiencia de la adicción de pacientes en tratamiento implican una serie de fenómenos asociados a las nociones de experiencia, conciencia y temporalidad. Estas nociones han sido abordadas desde la psicoterapia y psicología clínica, implicando dicha psicología una visión acerca de la experiencia y conciencia que no siempre son formuladas y descritas y que postulamos como eje central de la comprensión y reformulación de la experiencia de recaída y craving en pacientes adictos en tratamiento. El (...) propósito de este artículo es aproximarnos a una descripción y reformulación de la experiencia de craving y recaída en los pacientes adictos, desde un marco que integre la mirada fenomenológica husserliana, la biología de la cognición y la enacción articulando las nociones de experiencia, conciencia y temporalidad con la noción de autoengaño que caracterizaría los eventos de craving y recaída de los pacientes adictos en tratamiento.Clinical events associated to the addiction experience of patients in treatment involve a number of phenomena associated with the nature of experience, consciousness and temporality. These notions have been approached from psycotherapy and clinical psychology, involving a psychological vision aboutthe experience and consciousness that are not always made and described, and that we postulate as the central axis to the understanding and reformulation of the experience of relapse in addict patients in treatment. The purpose of these paper is to get closer to a description and reformulation of the experience of craving and relapse in addict patients, in a framework that integrates the phenomenology of Husserl, the biology of cognition and enacting articulating the notion of experience, consciousness and temporality with the notion of self-deception that characterizes the craving and the relapsing events in addict patients in treatment. (shrink)

Comment fonder l’altérité et ses conséquences morales ? Sur le plan neurobiologique, les animaux évolués et l’homme sont très proches. Berthoz et Petit offrent une approche phénoménologique de l’intersubjectivité fondée sur les kinesthèses de Husserl. Nous montrons que cette position n’est pas contradictoire avec la neurobiologie et qu’elle appelle, sur le plan moral, à inclure les animaux dans l’altérité. D’autant que, comme le montre Burgat, la question de l’animal peut être considérée comme l’un des enjeux essentiels de la phénoménologie.How to (...) found otherness and its moral consequences ? On the neurobiological level evolved animals and man are quite close. Berthoz and Petit offer a phenomenological approach of the intersubjectivity founded on the « kinestheses » of Husserl. We show that such a point of view is in no way contradictory with neurobiology calling forth that we should, on the moral level, include animals within otherness. All the more so since, as Burgat shows it, the question at stake of animals may be considered as one of the main stakes of phenomenology. (shrink)

This ambitious work aims to shed new light on the relations between Husserlian phenomenology and the present-day efforts toward a scientific theory of cognition—with its complex structure of disciplines, levels of explanation, and ...

Persons currently making contact with the field of psychology have become increasingly aware of the pressing need for a model of human experiencing that appropriately reflects the presence, or as the phenomenologist expresses it, the lebendige Gegenwart, of psychological life. This dissertation attempts to arrive at an understanding of a basis for this need, felt by psychologist and philosopher alike, through a focus upon behavioral and cognitive psychological models. ;Our findings suggest that the behavioral model, historically rooted in laboratory studies (...) of the rat, regards the individual as largely passive to the activity of the external world. In restricting its approach to public methods of observation and focusing exclusively upon behavior, the depth and subtlety of human experience remains undisclosed. ;The cognitive model of information processing, on the other hand, derived from the way computer scientists describe what their machines do, perceives the external world as passive to the formal apparatus of so-called structures of thought. In restricting its approach to the data of discrete "inputs" and independent formalized rules, the situatedness of experiences remains unaccounted for. ;Claiming that behavioral and cognitive psychology are grounded in a "prejudice of the world" wherein the person is regarded as not being different for any other object of investigation, a phenomenological model is offered as a basis for both behaviorism and cognitivism. Based upon the philosophical work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, this third model seeks to overcome the bifurcated reality of the models of empiricism and rationalism through the ontological primacy of phenomena and the lived body. ;Conclusions reached regarding the application of the phenomenological model to the psychological study of language, sensation, and perception suggest that these domains of human activity are realized initially on a pre-reflective level with meaning as their central basis. In disagreement with both cognitivism and behaviorism, evidence was provided to indicate that language and perception are fundamentally inseparable. (shrink)

This is a collection of articles clarifying the nature of Husserlian phenomenology. Dreyfus argues that, given that Husserl put intentionality at the centre of cognitive investigation and painstakingly analyzed it and related concepts in logic, linguistics and psychology he is the father of current research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. The authors include Follesdal, Fodor, Mohanty and Searle among others.