The main aim of this article is to offer a systematic reconstruction of Husserl’s theory of minimal mind and his ideas pertaining to the lowest level of consciousness in living beings. In this context, the term ‘minimal mind’ refers to the mental sphere and capacities of the simplest conceivable subject. This topic is of significant contemporary interest for philosophy of mind and empirical research into the origins of consciousness. I contend that Husserl’s reflections on minimal mind offer a fruitful contribution (...) to this ongoing debate. For Husserl, the embodied character of subjectivity, or consciousness, is essential for understanding minimal mind. In his view, there is an a priori necessary constitutive connection between the subjective and objective aspects of the body, between _Leib_ and _Körper_, and this connection is especially important for exploring minimal mind from a phenomenological perspective. Thematically, the essay has three main parts. In Sect. 2, I present an overview of how minimal mind is framed in contemporary philosophy of mind and empirical research. I then analyse Husserl’s conception of embodiment with regard to the problem of minimal mind in Sect. 3. Finally, I present a more detailed investigation into Husserl’s account of minimal mind, highlighting features from his descriptions of animal mind and consciousness in early infancy (Sects. 4 and 5 ). (shrink)

In this article, we endeavour to lay the theoretical fundaments of a phenomenologically based project regarding the origins of conscious experience in the natural world. We assume that a phenomenological analysis (based upon Edmund Husserl’s philosophy) of first-person experience could substantially contribute to related empirical research. In this regard, two phenomenological conceptions provided by Husserl are of fundamental importance. The first relates to the essential and necessary _embodiment_ of every subjective experience; the second concerns the intrinsically _holistic and concrete character (...) of consciousness_. These considerations have two crucial implications. First, every mental content and capability ultimately refers to a bodily basis as its carrier and realizer (‘embodied manifestation thesis’). Second, there is a minimal set of bodily structures that carries and realizes the minimal mind (‘minimal context thesis’). Based upon these assumptions, _we can use phenomenology to select from the empirical theories of consciousness_. We argue that currently, Bjorn Merker’s _subcortical theory of consciousness_ appears to be the best candidate for a phenomenological approach. In phenomenological regard, however, it is highly challenging to test a subcortical theory; therefore, we suggest that certain experiments based upon emergence from general anaesthesia might help test such a theory in a phenomenologically legitimate way. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl’s ultimate aim was to give an overall philosophical explanation of the totality of Being. In this endeavour, the term “absolute” was crucial for him. In this paper, I aim to clarify the most important ways in which Husserl used this notion. I attempt to show that, despite his rather divergent usages, eventually three fundamental meanings and coordinated levels of the “absolute” can be differentiated in his thought: the epistemological, the ontological, and the theological or metaphysical level. According to (...) Husserl, we can approach this ultimate level of the Absolute, through the method of phenomenological construction. A closer reading of Husserl’s texts shows that his conception of the absolute was astonishingly modern. The main features of the conception—on all three levels—were non-foundationalism, contextualism, openness, and circularity. Each level mutually founds and determines the others. It is a non-foundational Absolute, the moments of which constitute an organic and open totality which is essentially processual. In my interpretation, this theory opens a fruitful working area, which has enormous philosophical potential and is surprisingly up-to-date. (shrink)