This essay will refer only to the three texts given here:
M.M.P - Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Primacy of Perception and Its Philosophical Consequences
E.H - Edmund Husserl, Pure Phenomenology, Its Method, and Its Field of Investigation
M.H - Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Discoveries of Phenomenology, Its Principle, and the Clarification of Its Name
Pure phenomenology takes as given the existence of an intersubjective world(1), ("the totality of perceptible things and the thing of all things" M.M.P), and the existence of perceptual subjects who perceive the phenomena(2) of the world. (This does not necessarily mean the existence of the self, ."..all consciousness is perceptual, even the consciousness of ourselves." Objectively it is possible for the self to remain a phenomenon that could exist outside of consciousness, and can therefore be perceived and analysed phenomenologically).
Phenomenology attempts to describe the structures of experience as they present themselves to consciousness and is based on a perceptual understanding of the world. This is not to disregard logic, geometry, mathematics or the sciences in general as mere tautology. Phenomenology is the study of our subjective experience, the experience of perception. This is not however an empirical thesis because it does not disregard ideal knowledge acquired through reason, or logic, but seeks to ground them in perception. Because perception is the first truth through which we are able to make truth statements, knowledge always comes to us via perception. In Husserlian terms we are taking the Cartesian method, cogito ego sum, but disregarding its aims (namely; proving the existence of God, proving the existence of self,) and using it as the starting p...
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...e chair itself that it came from a factory. We draw no conclusions, make no investigations, but we simply see this in it, even though we have no sensation of a factory or anything like it."
4.That is to use Heidegger's own definition, "lived experiences taken in the broadest sense," or:
"The comportments of life are also called acts: perception, judgement, love, hate," where act "simply means intentional relation. Acts refer to those lived experiences which have the character of intentionality. We must adhere to this concept of act and not confuse it with others."
5.Intentio "the way something is intended... also understood as the act of presuming."
Intentum "the intended, is to be understood in the sense just developed, not the perceived as an entity, but the entirety in the how of its being-perceived, the intentum in the how of its being intended
nature, and what is true of nature is true of action, if nothing prevents it. Now actions are
Heidegger’s idea of how we have to realize ourselves, by saying that we are in a state of falleness and that during this we are the slaves to the one or human drama. Heidegger explains that we are included in this creature and for that we are categorized. This leads us to being constricted to Daesin and this will not lead us to reach our full potential as beings. We are part of this public creature and we are categorized for being as such.
Following in the path of Kant and Fichte, Hegel has become one of the most influential philosophers in history. His philosophy has influenced important people, such as Karl Marx, and influential schools of thought, such as the Frankfurt School. This influence rides heavily on the chapter, Master and Slave in his book Phenomenology of Spirit. This chapter examines the relationship between two self-consciousnesses, and the process of self-creating. The relationship between the two self-consciousnesses and the eventual path to ‘acknowledgment’ or recognition of the self is outlined in the first line of the chapter: “Self-consciousness exists in itself and for itself, in that, and by the fact that it exists for another self-consciousness; that
Kraus, Peter. "Heidegger on nothingness and the meaning of Being." Death and Philosophy. Ed. Jeff Malpas and Robert C. Solomon. New York: Routledge, 1998.
In this term paper, I have tried to tackle the metaphysical issues of consciousness by first defining consciousness and doing a thorough study about the term. Then I proceeded to the metaphysical aspects of consciousness, examining and understanding them.
Experience is the power-house where purposes and will, thought and ideals, are being generated. I am not of course denying that the main process of life is that of testing, verifying, comparing. To compare and to select is always the process of education. . . When you get to a situation it becomes what it was plus you; you are responding to the situation plus yourself, that is, to the relation between it and yourself... Life is not a movie for us; you can never watch life because you are always in life... [T]he 'progressive integrations,' the ceaseless interweavings of new specific respondings, is the whole forward moving of existence; there is no adventure for those who stand at the counters of life and match samples. (Follett 1924: 133-134)
“a person does not ‘inhabit’ a static object body but is subjectively embodied in a fluid, emergent, and negotiated process of being. In this process, body, self, and social interaction are interrelated to such an extent that distinctions between them are not only permeable and shifting but also actively manipulated and configured”
...ed in it's course is fixed by the nature of the being's life. For the human being's life, what is inevitable, inescapable, and predetermined in its course is that for one's own life to exist it must be sustained and generated by itself.
In his Phenomenology of Spirit, G.W.F. Hegel lays out a process by which one may come to know absolute truth. This process shows a gradual evolution from a state of "natural consciousness" (56) (1) to one of complete self-consciousness - which leads to an understanding of the "nature of absolute knowledge itself" (66). By understanding the relation between consciousness and truth, one may come to know the true nature of our existence. Hegel proposes to answer these questions in one bold stroke; he relates them in such a way as to make an infinitely complex and indiscernible universe a unitary whole. This process from a natural state to a kind of transcendence leads one from the chaos of the immediate to the sublimity of the universal.
Husserl dubbed his famous transcendental phenomenology as the “new, twentieth century Cartesianism” and quoted Descartes on the insistence that the only fruitful renaissance is considered as one that reawakens. Husserl discussed Descartes in almost all his published works during his mature period. How can people characterize the Cartesianism that is found on Husserl’s Cartesian meditations? One recent scholar made the argument that Husserl derived one idea from Descartes that can he altered profoundly. The deepest affinity that exists between Husserl and Descartes is their common diagnosis regarding the state of affairs regarding the contemporary sciences that were found in their respective times. Husserl found a rather deep affinity with the optimism and pessimism that were associated with Descartes. He shared the pessimism regarding the then state of science and the optimism of the unlimited prospects of a reformed science and the role philosophy would play in such reforms. In recent philosophy of mind, phenomenology is prized as the basic foundation that philosophy is founded on, as opposed to disciplines such as metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. The methods used in the characterization of this disciplines were debated widely by Husserl as well as his successors, debates that continue to
the way in which we come to find out what actions are right and which
Consciousness is one of those topics that are in the position of trying to understand one’s own organism with one’s own organism. The topic of consciousness is so elusive that it mirrors child hood games of trying to catch your own shadow. In the World of philosophy, discerning the truth about consciousness is no childish game. Materialist J.J.C Smart and philosopher Thomas Nagel agree that qualia exist, but are diametrically opposed when it comes to what consciousness is. In this paper I will argue for Nagel’s point of view that consciousness falls outside the nucleus of scientific explanation. Physicalism cannot objectively uncover consciousness using scientific methods because consciousness cannot be reduced to material parts. If Smart’s reductionist view points were correct, where as physics can explain all there is to know about everything in the universe, then why does consciousness seem to evade physical laws of investigation? Explaining consciousness provides physicalism with challenges that place limits on scientific knowledge, and what it can uncover about consciousness.
The highest level of awareness of consciousness is what is referred as Absolute, in Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’. The phrase might be an adequate hint for the intention behind the title of the article. Nonetheless, my interest in the article will still be to illustrate why Hegel has said that the Absolute is essentially a result.
The psychophysical dualism or mind-body distinction is the counterposition between two essentially irreducible elements: soul and body. Such dualism implies, as we will show, the more discussed issue of philosophy of cognitive science and philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem (MBP, henceforth) whose the en...
Deep in the minds of human beings lies a vast ocean of emotions and experiences. The human mind is often misconstrued and simplified by those who possess one, but delving deeper into the mind and it’s processes you see a whole other world that is veiled beneath the surface. One of the most famous examples of the human mind is the image of an iceberg, what is on the surface is so minimal compared to the immense body that lies underneath. Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis and believed in the idea of the unconscious and subconscious that help power who we are. Through psychoanalysis Freud began to reclaim the self as an individual and stressed the importance of the external world and it’s direct role with the internal realm of an individual. Although it was originally found to be a sort of therapy for those with mental illnesses, it has an interesting and analytical and philosophical view of the self, and through this spawned new beliefs in philosophy. Through the establishment of the id, superego, and ego, and the past’s affect on the shaping the present state of the self, psychoanalysis reclaims the self for an individual and is successful in doing so.