Presence in absence. The ambiguous phenomenology of grief
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 17 (1):43-63 (2018)
Abstract
Despite its complex experiential structure, the phenomenon of grief following bereavement has not been a major topic of phenomenological research. The paper investigates its basic structures, elaborating as its core characteristic a conflict between a presentifying and a ‘de-presentifying’ intention: In grief, the subject experiences a fundamental ambiguity between presence and absence of the deceased, between the present and the past, indeed between two worlds he lives in. This phenomenological structure will be analyzed under several aspects: regarding bodily experience, as disruption of a shared intercorporeality; as a loss of the shared world and shared habitualities, leaving the bereaved person with ubiquitous indications of absence and with a contraction of their own self; regarding temporality, as a separation of two strands of time, namely a still ongoing past and an alienated present which become more and more desynchronized; finally, as an “as-if presence” of the deceased which the bereaved continue to feel and sometimes to perceive, leading to a cognitive-affective conflict between two experienced realities. The transforming process of grief is then analyzed as a gradual adjustment to the loss, finally enabling a re-integration of the conflicting realities. This is achieved through an incorporation and identification with the deceased on the one hand, and through various forms of representation on the other hand, in particular by recollection and symbolization.Author's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
Grief's Rationality, Backward and Forward.Michael Cholbi - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (2):255-272.
The Time Is Out of Joint: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Grief.Joseph Keeping - 2014 - Symposium 18 (2):233-255.
Organ Retention and Bereavement: Family Counselling and the Ethics of Consultation.John Drayton - 2011 - Ethics and Social Welfare 5 (3):227-246.
Falsely, Sanely, Shallowly: Reflections on the Special Character of Grief.Janet McCracken - 2005 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 19 (1):139-156.
Feelings of Loss and Grieving: Selves between Autonomy and Dependence.Hildur Kalman - 2012 - PhaenEx 7 (2):1-27.
An Exploration of the Encounter of Grief Therapy and Taiwan's Mourning Rituals and Religious Beliefs.Chunjuan Wang - 2006 - Study of Life and Death 1 (3):93-131.
The Appearance of the Deceased in Dreams of the Bereaved.Kimberly Bateman - 1999 - Dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute
The affective 'we': Self-regulation and shared emotions.Joel Krueger - 2015 - In Thomas Szanto & Dermot Moran (eds.), The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the 'We'. Routledge. pp. 263-277.
Exploring Blessed John Henry Newman's Bereavement Letters.Peter J. Conley - 2015 - Newman Studies Journal 12 (2):76-85.
The Rationality of Grief.Carolyn Price - 2010 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 53 (1):20-40.
Is post-mortem harm possible? Understanding death harm and grief.Floris Tomasini - 2009 - Bioethics 23 (8):441-449.
Analytics
Added to PP
2017-04-11
Downloads
123 (#103,121)
6 months
12 (#77,199)
2017-04-11
Downloads
123 (#103,121)
6 months
12 (#77,199)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Investigating modes of being in the world: an introduction to Phenomenologically grounded qualitative research.Allan Køster & Anthony Vincent Fernandez - 2021 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences:1-21.
Loneliness and the Emotional Experience of Absence.Tom Roberts & Joel Krueger - 2021 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (2):185-204.
Towards a phenomenology of grief: Insights from Merleau‐Ponty.Matthew Ratcliffe - 2020 - European Journal of Philosophy 28 (3):657-669.
Communing with the Dead Online: Chatbots, Grief, and Continuing Bonds.Joel Krueger & Lucy Osler - 2022 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 29 (9-10):222-252.
References found in this work
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.Charles Darwin - 2018 - Mineola, New York: Courier Dover Publications.
Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority.Emmanuel Levinas - 1961 - Distribution for the U.S. And Canada, Kluwer Boston.
Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality.Matthew Ratcliffe (ed.) - 2008 - Oxford University Press.
Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.Hazel R. Markus & Shinobu Kitayama - 1991 - Psychological Review 98 (2):224-253.
Temporality and psychopathology.Thomas Fuchs - 2013 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 12 (1):75-104.