Genetic phenomenology is Husserl's philosophical successor to his earlier eidetic phenomenology; it represents the highest development in Husserl's project. Husserl's eidetic phenomenology holds that both the structure of intentional acts and the intentional object are given (Detmer 165). Husserl later comes to doubt the givenness in eidetic phenomenology; these structures and objects of consciousness must have developed throughout history (Detmer 166). This is the process of sedimentation: patterns of understanding and expectations gradually influence later experiences (Zahavi 94). Intentional acts themselves have eidetic structures that are not immediately given; they must be analyzed if the phenomenological project is to continue. A close …show more content…
analysis of subjectivity and objectivity reveals that pre-objective and pre-subjective experience must exist as a condition of possibility. An important aspect of genetic phenomenology is passive synthesis; this part of the intentional constitution precedes the more explicit, active synthesis of intentional consciousness (Detmer 166). This passive synthesis is based upon the nature of the experiencer. The experiencer is a living body; she is shaped by history of past experience and shares meaning in an intersubjective life-world (Detmer 166). The pre-objective experience in genetic phenomenology is an intersubjective one; genetic phenomenology emphasizes transcendental intersubjectivity. The object is no longer directly given; it is socioculturally and historically mediated. How does a genetic phenomenology reveal temporality as the form of consciousness? Genetic phenomenology begins by positing that temporality precedes the distinction between intentional act and intentional object.
Husserl begins his critique of eidetic phenomenology by positing that consciousness does not have a direct relationship with itself; consciousness always leaves ripples behind. The temporal relationship between intentional acts and intentional objects was largely ignored; temporality must exist as a condition of possibility for intentionality itself (Zahavi 80). When analyzing a temporal object (such as a melody), Husserl finds that temporal consciousness contains not just the current temporal moment (or primal impression); it also contains a retention of the previous temporal moment and a protention of a future temporal moment (Smith 203). In consciousness of retention, one is aware of both the past tone and the past hearing of the tone; an analogous process occurs for retention (Smith 203). Time consciousness is complex; one is conscious of the melody and their own experience of the melody (Smith 204). Temporal consciousness is thus a flow of current retentions and original impressions that could not be pointedly doubted …show more content…
(Beyer). The first flow of consciousness is "inner-time consciousness"; it constitutes the flow of time within the flowing stream itself (Smith 206). This form is consciousness represents the pre-reflective, basic and implicit self-awareness that is the condition of possibility for reflective self-awareness (Zahavi 87). The second form of time-consciousness is the manifold of appearances; each sensible form of an object can appear in a different way and the different possible perceptions constitute the object (Smith 207). The third form of time-consciousness are the material objects themselves; this includes sensible qualities that may appear differently from various perspectives (Smith 208). Genetic phenomenology reveals that streaming consciousness and the enduring object are given together interdependently; there is no isolated primal impression or pure self-presence (Zahavi 97). This means that the self-giveness of the subject must occur due to an encounter with foreignness (Zahavi 98). This undermines static phenomenology's emphasis on the immediacy of self-giveness. Genetic phenomenology reveals this key aspect of time consciousness. This leads to the eventual realization that the body is what constitutes time; perception of the body is traversed continuously through and is the movement of temporalization (Franck 163). The Kinesthetic field that is produced by the body is what makes the multiple profiles of an object within time possible in the first place (Zahavi 96). This body also necessitates the existence of other bodies; the appresentation of the other is interconnected with the presentation of the body itself (Franck 107). There is also a striking relationship between empathy and recollection (Zahavi 124). Thus the body and intersubjectivity are essential for time-consciousness itself; the only exception being the most basic, inner time-consciousness (Zahavi 124). How does this revelation lead to the new problem of the "lifeworld"? The realization of intersubjectivity as a condition of possibility for time-consciousness leads Husserl to elaborate on the lifeworld as a means of explaining the nature of intersubjectivity.
Husserl uses the lifeworld as a means to explain the rational structures underlying transcendental intersubjectivity; the structures are initially unconscious to us (Beyer). Act ascription is ultimately based upon and epistemically justified by the lifeworld. The lifeworld is the unthematic sociolcultural world shaped by normativity, historicity and tradition (Zahavi 133). The lifeworld is shaped by certain morphological structures that are historically mediated by communities; the lifeworld would be chaotic otherwise. (Zahavi 130). The lifeworld that is shared by a single community of subjects is known as the homeworld (Beyer). Subjects from different lifeworlds can share a general a priori framework; this allows for translation between the lifeworlds (Beyer). The subjective-relative lifeworld exists as the condition of possibility for our scientific and epistemological claims, yet is rooted in practical experience (Franck
29). Husserl's analysis of the lifeworld is about the relationship between the natural attitude and prescientific, practically oriented experience (Zahavi 133). The natural attitude refers to the lifeworld when it makes the claim that the thing perceived in the lifeworld can express an external physical truth that can be signaled by the lifeworld (Franck 29). Our scientific claims also impact and shape our view of the lifeworld; an example of this being on how the theory of evolution has changed the way that we view other animals (especially other primates). When scientific disputes occur, there seems to be no other means of mediation other than recourse to the lifeworld (Beyer). Even the most abstruse sciences (such as abstract geometry), inevitably must make recourse to our practical, ethical world of experience. The problem is that the natural attitude and the sciences have divorced themselves from the lifeworld, by claiming an objectivism that that subverts the lifeworld (Zahavi 126). This is problematic because scientific claims can only be ontologically and epistemically justified on the basis of a lifeworld. Mathematical and reified explanations of the world are alienated from our practical experience (Smith 222). Science is just one "form of life" and the problem is that the natural attitude claims that it is the only epistemically valid pursuit (Beyer). By failing to recognize its dependence on the lifeworld, science will continue to descend into ethical and epistemic irrelevance (Zahavi 126).
In ¨Hope, Despair, and Memory¨ a lecture by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel talks about a few significant memories. He is a holocaust survivor, he wrote this speech and won a Nobel Peace prize. He takes his readers back in time by using imagery. Some know, memory is a powerful tool, Wiesel uses this tool in this text. As you continue to read, think of where you would be without memory.
ABSTRACT: Phenomenology and logical positivism both subscribed to an empirical-verifiability criterion of mental or linguistic meaning. The acceptance of this criterion confronted them with the same problem: how to understand the Other as a subject with his own experience, if the existence and nature of the Other's experiences cannot be verified. Husserl tackled this problem in the Cartesian Meditations, but he could not reconcile the verifiability criterion with understanding the Other's feelings and sensations. Carnap's solution was to embrace behaviorism and eliminate the idea of private sensations, but behaviorism has well-known difficulties. Heidegger broke this impasse by suggesting that each person's being included being-with, an innate capacity for understanding the Other. To be human is to be "hard-wired" to make sense of the Other without having to verify the Other's private sensations. I suggest that being-with emerged from an evolutionary imperative for conspecific animals to recognize each other and to coordinate their activities. Wittgenstein also rejected the verifiability criterion. He theorized that the meaning of a term is its usage and that terms about private sensations were meaningful because they have functions in our language-games. For example, "I'm in pain," like a cry of pain, functions to get the attention of others and motivate others to help. Wittgenstein's theory shows how Dasein's being-with includes "primitive" adaptive behavior such as cries, smiles, and threatening or playful gesture. As Dasein is acculturated, these behaviors are partially superseded by functionally equivalent linguistic expressions.
Traditionally Empiricists claim that all knowledge and all basic concepts are derived from experience. At the same time they argue that all experience is reducible to private entities, the so-called 'sense data'. Phenomenologists claim that there is nothing in experience itself to suggest that it is reducible to sense data, and that this doctrine is derived from metaphysical prejudices, the so-called 'assumptions of the natural attitude'. They argue that if we could in some way 'bracket' these assumptions and reflect only on our experience of perceiving and on the results of scientific measurements of our perceptual powers, we would discover that perception, rather than presenting us with private entities or 'data', 'opens up' to the world itself. (1)
This paper will take a look at Salvador Dali’s painting, The Persistence of Memory, painted in 1931. As the viewer can tell, this is a story of time and life. The memories start in the background where all is well and things are straight and calm. Moving on to the cliff, the observer possibly sees a well-behaved teenager. There is nothing horrible here that leads the spectator to gasp, and the viewer knows this person made it through that time in their life. Then the picture moves on to the age of about twenty, the memories are fond but in the distant past. The memories are protected by a white blanket so that they do not just fall into the background. Then something happened where the person had some times in their life that had not been so great. They are there as a reminder, but they are part of a very dead place. The person’s being becomes full of life again as the clock on the shelf seems to be newer. The clock is placed on the shelf and the numbers are able to be read. This tells of a recent time, yet starting to decay by the fly being there. The pocket watch is there to let the observer know the story is not done; there are more wonderful memories on their way.
The unheard sounds came through, and each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, and waited patiently for the other voices to speak. That night I found myself hearing not only in time, but in space as well. I not only entered the music, but descended, like Dante, into its depths (Ellison 7).2
Rosenthal D 2002, 'Explaining Consciousness', in Philosophy of mind classical and contemporary readings,Chalmers D J (eds), Oxford University press, New York
In this paper I will examine and criticize the arguments David Chalmers gives for rejecting a materialistic account of consciousness in his book The Conscious Mind. I will draw upon arguments and intuitions from the three main schools of thought in the philosophical study of consciousness(a) forms of dualism, (b) materialism, and (c) eliminativism. Chalmers' book deals with what are currently the most controversial issues in the study of consciousness, especially among these three schools of thought, so it provides a good guide to the important issues. This paper will concentrate on the debate between dualist and materialist theories of consciousness. I will draw on the views of Joseph Levine and discussions with Ken Taylor for materialist theories, on Chalmers' book for a dualist perspective, and I will use Dennett's writings for eliminativist considerations.
Creo que no es una mala estrategia a la hora de abordar qué entiende Husserl por cultura, el comenzar por la bipartición ontológica que hace del mundo en naturaleza (Natur) y espíritu (Geist). Son muchos los lugares donde se nos habla profusamente de ello. Haciendo un resumen sumario del tema, podríamos decir que el ámbito de la naturaleza es el de las cosas materiales, el de los entes vistos desde la pura exterioridad espaciotemporal, siendo la ley en base a la cual se rigen la necesidad causal. En contraposición a ello, el mundo del espíritu es aquel en el que lo esencial no viene dado por las relaciones exterior-causales que se dan entre los objetos, sino por la significatividad humana que conforma nuestro primer y primordial contacto con la realidad. Es decir, el mundo del espíritu es el mundo del significado, del sentido, aquello que constituye propiamente nuestro cosmos y nos es dado, en primera instancia, como un regalo por nuestros antepasados. Semejante mundo sólo puede brotar del yo y su vida de conciencia o, mejor dicho, de un yo (no entro aquí en la distinción yo, hombre, persona, subjetividad trascendental) y una vida de conciencia que se encuentran siempre en constante interrelación con otros yoes.
The relation between the self and the otherness is necessary to define human awareness and more importantly desire. This desire is part of the primordial human experience. The problem is that, the consciousness respond...
Husserl's Phenomenology can be seen as a response to the intrusion of psychology into the essential studies of man; he felt that the study of man should, instead be conducted on a purely philosoph...
Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between each other and towards that which they represent, and a perception of the order of those relations has always been found connected with a perception of the order of the relations of thoughts. Hence the language of poets have ever affected a certain uniform and harmonious recurrence of sound, without which it were not poetry, and which is scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its influence, than the words themselves, without reference to that peculiar order. (Shelley 92)
ABSTRACT: Most versions of the knowledge argument say that if a scientist observing my brain does not know what my consciousness 'is like,' then consciousness is not identical with physical brain processes. This unwarrantedly equates 'physical' with 'empirically observable.' However, we can conclude only that consciousness is not identical with anything empirically observable. Still, given the intimate connection between each conscious event (C) and a corresponding empirically observable physiological event (P), what P-C relation could render C empirically unobservable? Some suggest that C is a relation among Ps which is distinguishable because it is multi-realizable; that is, C could have been realized by P2 rather than P1 and still have been the same relation. C might even be a 'self-organizing' process, appropriating and replacing its own material substrata. How can this account explain the empirical unobservability of consciousness? Because the emotions motivating attention direction, partly constitutive of phenomenal states, are executed, not undergone, by organisms. Organisms-self-organizing processes actively appropriating their needed physical substrata-feel motivations by generating them. Thus, experiencing someone's consciousness entails executing his or her motivations.
Throughout Beyond Nature and Culture Philipe Descola presents an ontological fourfold seeking to describe and account for the continuities and discontinuities experienced by humans and non humans. In other words, he lays out a new approach to making the empirical completely intelligible. Included in his model are what he calls the four modes of identification; naturalism, animism, totemism, and analogism. He distinguishes between these four modes of identification by describing whether the “interiorities” and “physicalities” of humans and non humans are similar or dissimilar to one another (interiority consisting in the universal belief that a being has characteristics that are internal to it or that take it as their source). Animism being an identification of similar interiorities, but dissimilar physicalities.
“There are in each of us, as we have said, two forms of consciousness: one which is common to our group as a whole, which consequently, is not ourself, but society living and acting within us; the other, on the other hand, represents that in us which is person...
Such theoretical discovery is crucial to the my argument in that it entails that as part and parcel of embodied cognition, sound is never just sound, but it also and always-already refers to a past and a space-time constellation of individual and collective sense-making: “acoustemology means that as a sensual space-time, the experience of place potentially can always be grounded in acoustic dimension.”