In Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, Eugene Gendlin examines the edge of awareness, where language emerges from nonlanguage.

Body-environment (b-en) -- Functional cycle (fucy) -- An object -- The body and time -- Evolution, novelty, and stability -- Behavior -- Culture, symbol, and language -- Thinking with the implicit.

The first collection of Gendlin's groundbreaking essays in philosophical psychology, Saying What We Mean casts familiar areas of human experience, such as language and feeling, in a radically different light. Instead of the familiar emphasis on the conceptually explicit in an era of scientism, Gendlin shows that the implicit also comprises a structure available for recognition and analysis. In the tradition of American pragmatism, Gendlin forges a new path that synthesizes contemporary evolutionary theory, cognitive psychology, and philosophical linguistics.

Commentary on ‘The View from Within’, edited by Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear.

In this paper I will attempt to discuss linguistic analysis and phenomenology accurately so that the adherents of each can agree with what I say, and yet also the discussion of each method must be understandable to the adherents of the other. If I can really do that, the basic similarities will appear. I will attempt to state some propositions that apply to both frames of reference. The similarities which these propositions state are basic aspects of philosophic method, and they (...) also pose a major problem. (shrink)