Naturalizing phenomenology – A philosophical imperative
Abstract
Phenomenology since Husserl has always had a problematic relationship with empirical science. In its
early articulations, there was Husserl's rejection of ‘the scientific attitude’, Merleau-Ponty's distancing of
the scientifically-objectified self, and Heidegger's critique of modern science. These suggest an antipathy
to science and to its methods of explaining the natural world. Recent developments in neuroscience have
opened new opportunities for an engagement between phenomenology and cognitive science and
through this, a re-thinking of science and its hidden assumptions more generally. This is so partly
because of the shortcomings of conventional mechanistically-conceived science in dealing with complex
and dynamic phenomena such as climate change, brain plasticity, the behaviour of collectives, the dynamics of various microbiological processes, etc. But it is also due to recent phenomenological scholarship focussed on the ‘embodied’ phenomenology of Husserl's Ideen II and Merleau Ponty's later
ontology of nature which have helped to extend the insights of phenomenology beyond the narrowly
‘human’ to an understanding of nature (which includes the human) more generally. Thus recontextualised, phenomenology is well placed to examine some of the assumptions that give rise to
the reductionism and associated scientism which has characterised conventional science in its approach
to the study of natural processes. In light of this, it might be suggested that the ‘anti-science’ of early
articulations of phenomenology is more a hostility to the underlying assumptions of science as
conventionally understood than to science itself e that it is scientism rather than science that is targeted.
In this paper, I aim to show how a phenomenological naturalism might be seen as a necessary step
towards the development of a non-reductionist and non-scientistic approach to scientific inquiry. A key
to this is a reconceptualization of nature as inclusive of meanings and of mind. It is a conception
developed by Merleau-Ponty, especially in his later ontology of nature, and one that is shared by
American pragmatist philosopher of science, C.S. Peirce (1839e1914). For both philosophers, meaning
must be understood in terms of an ontology which is relational rather than atomistic, and dynamic or
processual rather than static and substance-based. For Merleau-Ponty this is an experientially-derived
ontology; for Peirce it is a more conceptually-based one. In this paper, I explore this connection between these two philosophers in two stages. The first is by reference to Peirce's theory of signs or semiotics. More specifically, I look at the application of this theory to the study of biological processes as
developed in Peirce-inspired biosemiotics. In the light of this, I suggest that Merleau-Ponty's account of
intentional relations in nature might be articulated as semiotic relations, and can serve as a philosophical
basis for a non-reductive biological science. I then turn to questions relating to the ontology of nature. I
explore Merleau-Ponty's experientially-based “ontology of flesh” and Peirce's distinctive form of naturalism to show affinities at this ontological level. These affinities consist in commitments to a reality that
includes possibility, meaning, temporality, and final causation e that is, an ontology which is far more
inclusive than that of conventional positivistic science. Peirce's broader scientific metaphysics enables us
to extend Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological naturalism beyond the biological to the physical sciences.
Whilst Merleau-Ponty's ontology of nature provides the experiential basis necessary for a critique of
scientism, Peirce establishes the relevance of that ontology for a re-conceived empirical science.