The once animated efforts in medical phenomenology to integrate the art and

science of medicine (or to humanize scientific medicine) have fallen out of philosophical fashion. Yet the current competing medical discourses of evidencebased medicine and patient-centered care suggest that this theoretical endeavor requires renewed attention. In this paper, I attempt to enliven the debate by discussing theoretical weaknesses in the way the “lived body” has operated in the medical phenomenology literature—the problem of the absent body—and highlight how evidence-based medicine (...) has refigured medical phenomenology’s historical nemesis, “biomedicine.” What we now need is a phenomenology of the embodied subject in the age of evidence-based medicine. (shrink)

This book explores the empirical evidence for Mocombe's consciousness field theory, which describes the origins and nature of consciousness in the universe/multiverse in his overall structurationist theory of phenomenological structuralism. Mocombe utilizes a logical metaphysical materialist approach to understanding the ontological question regarding the nature and origins of consciousness in the universe/multiverse. The work argues that the consciousness field emanates from an emerging fifth force of nature, the absolute vacuum, which constitutes and reproduces human consciousness and practical activities (...) in the multiverse as a frequency wavelength. The work offers three pieces of empirical evidence for Mocombe's consciousness field theory: the Garyian equation, psychonic wave, and life after life. In the end, the book contextualizes the aforementioned evidence within Mocombe's larger theory of phenomenological structuralism, which offers a resolution to the structure/agency problematic of the social sciences. The work concludes by applying Mocombe's phenomenological structural theory to understanding the constitution of contemporary neoliberal identity capitalism under American hegemony from the consciousness field to societal organization and reproduction. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been adapted for use in qualitative health research, where it’s often used as a method for conducting interviews and analyzing interview data. But how can phenomenologists study subjects who cannot accurately reflect upon or report their own experiences, for instance, because of a psychiatric or neurological disorder? For conditions like these, qualitative researchers may gain more insight by conducting observational studies in lieu of, or in conjunction with, interviews. In this article, we introduce a phenomenological approach to (...) conducting this kind of observational research. The approach relies on conceptual grounding to focus a study on specific aspects of the participants’ experiences. Moreover, the approach maintains the openness to novel discoveries that qualitative research requires while also providing a structured framework for data collection and analysis. To illustrate its practical application, we use examples of hemispatial neglect—a neurologic disorder in which patients characteristically lack awareness of their own illness and bodily capacities. However, the approach that we describe can be applied more broadly to the study of complex illness experiences and other experiential alterations. (shrink)

In bringing together this special edition we wish to contribute to a conversation concerning the meaning of 'evidence-based practice'. We are nurses and phenomenological researchers interested in lifeworld approaches and in the many ways of knowing that are relevant to everyday caring practice. In the context of the ever-increasing specialisation of knowledge, we wish to widen the embrace of current notions of evidence and point to ways of knowing that are inclusive of the 'head, hand and heart'. (...) This wider embrace of evidence does not excessively exclude kinds of knowledge that include the aesthetic, empathic, embodied and relational dimensions of understanding. (shrink)

At first glance, Moritz Geiger’s reaction to Husserl’s Ideas I appears to be neither systematically articulated nor particularly original. Geiger talks about Husserl’s idealism in Ideas I in just a few passages from his book Die Wirklickheit der Wissenschaften und die Metaphysik, and in a short essay in praise of Alexander Pfänder, Alexander Pfänders Methodische Stellung. There, Geiger seems to follow a general line of criticism shared by several so-called early phenomenologists, and most fully articulated by Jean Hering, Roman Ingarden, (...) Theodor Celms and Max Scheler. In this paper I argue that Geiger’s reaction to Ideas I contains some well-developed and original contributions to phenomenological thought. In particular, I defend three theses. First, Geiger’s criticism of Husserl’s idealism is much more original and sophisticated than it at first appears, because it rests on a complex phenomenology of “attitudes” [Einstellungen]. Second, Geiger offers a unique account of phenomenology as a variation of “stance” [Haltung], rather than a variation of attitude. Third, Geiger points to an alternative kind of phenomenology, which I call certainty-based phenomenology as opposed to an evidence-based phenomenology. Elements of this certainty-based phenomenology can be found in thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur, but many of their views are significantly anticipated by Geiger. (shrink)

This book examines Husserl's concept of necessary, a priori, and absolutely certain indubitable evidence, which he terms apodictic, and his related concept of complete evidence, which he terms adequate. To do so it explicates some of the more general relevant features of phenomenology as a whole.

The article deals with the problem of phenomenological interpretation of Cartesian idea of evidence. The author demonstrates that implicit but constitutive characteristic of evidence is a property of excessiveness. The analysis of its conceptual versions and methodological representations in Husserl, Marion and Derrida’s philosophies deconstructs some stereotype interpretations of evidence as an attribute of I-centric philosophical systems and also as a carrier of qualities of fullness and presence. The author claims that excessiveness of evidence has (...) two main aspects: (1) non-belonging to the system assured by this very evidence and (2) tendency to self-surpassing (hyperbolization). The excessiveness of evidence is shown in particular with regard to the system of thinking governed by the “truth-falsehood” opposition. The author brings to light a trend to the increasing of degrees of evidence as a consequence of phenomenological critique and deconstruction as methodological hyperbolizations of Cartesian doubt. The common ground between Marionian and Derridian critiques of Husserl’s conception of evidence is found that is inconsistency between the principle of fulfillment of intention and the unrealizable regulative of the “Idea in Kantian sense” as two main ways of representation of evidence idea in Husserlian phenomenology. It is shown that in accordance with the paradigm of possibility as the common denominator of phenomenological attitude in general the very same criticized evidence becomes assimilated in Marion’s conception of “saturated phenomena” (a principle of hyperbolical givenness) and in Derridian deconstruction (hyperbolicity-excessiveness as heterogeneity and impossibility within the framework of his critique of presence). The author uncovers the essential connection between the idea of evidence and basic elements of deconstructive discourse, such as the metaphorical concept of secret and the quasi-concept différance. (shrink)

This article is devoted to a phenomenological analysis and interpretation of the basic concepts involved in phenomenology. The first concept that deserves our attention is that of “apodicticity” along with the related concept of “apodictic evidence”. The next concept is that of “correlation,” which manifests its apodictic character in bringing together all transcendental facts. With the transition from traditional discourses to modern discourse, the concept of apodicticity continues to deepen; at the same time, it is accepted that some (...) metaphysical presuppositions continue to lurk at the foundation of this concept. Apodicticity, as the principle of knowledge, is an idea that lies in the infinity of universal experience, which includes both agreed and mismatched moments. This mismatch, in turn, refers to correlative connections between the transcendental Ego, the world and intersubjectivity. Transcendental subjectivity has a correlative nature, which is due to its self-transcending character, resulting in gaps and distinctions being found within subjectivity. (shrink)

This chapter addresses Immanuel Kant and the potential impasse of any philosophical account of religious experience. Various attempts within phenomenology are explored to broaden the notion of givenness and evidence beyond the parameters of object-givenness. Then, the chapter deals with a phenomenology of religious experience as an irreducible sphere of human experience, and its unique style of evidence and modalisations. For Kant, experience is limited to one mode of givenness in which objects of knowledge are actively constituted with (...) the direct implication that one cannot meaningfully speak of a religious experience. The recognition of the different quality of givenness in religious experience implicated the significant matter of religious evidence. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to highlight the nature of the fundamental moments of phenomenological research, such as evidence and description, and the ambivalence of their relationship to each other. On the one hand, both evidence and description are related to Husserl’s attempt to ‘return to the things themselves’. Evidence is understood by the founder of phenomenology as a relation to an object in which the meaning of that object is given to us immediately in (...) the object itself. Description, on the other hand, avoids what is characteristic of any interpretation-oriented methodology: the ‘substitution’ of an explanatory reconstruction for the object under study. A certain discrepancy between phenomenological evidence and phenomenological description becomes apparent when we take into account the reception of the text in which the experience of the evidence is described. What is usually overlooked is that an experience whose content is the text being read is not an experience whose content is the phenomenon described in the text. This confusion leads to a turning away from ‘the things themselves’ and a restriction of phenomenology to the realm of texts. The way to avoid this deformation is through a phenomenological reduction, which must be carried out not only by the phenomenologist-researcher but also by the reader of the texts that provide a description of phenomenological experience. (shrink)

_Phenomenology of Perception: Theories and Experimental Evidence_ presents an interpretation of phenomenology as a set of commitments to discover the immanent grammar of perception by reviewing arguments and experimental results that are still important today for psychology and the cognitive sciences.

Set against a background of calls for evidence-based practice, this paper explores the role of evidence and argument in phenomenological research. Drawing on Smith’s (1998) analysis of original argument, the author considers how evidence can be discerned, understood, and communicated, and the resulting kinds and contexts of knowledge that may be constituted in the practice of phenomenological research. Linking Churchill’s (2012) discussion of researcher perspectivity with Smith’s analysis of original argument, contrasts are drawn between rhetorical, (...) demonstrative, and dialectical approaches to argument, with proposed parallels to first-person, second-person, and third-person perspectives explored. Implications for argument-based phenomenological research are discussed. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 12, Special Edition July 2012. (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of the phenomenological reduction is often explained by a radicalchange of attitude. Such an explanation is useful but sometimes misleading. TheIdea of Phenomenology clearly shows that the original idea of the reduction wasachieved through a radicalized critique of evidence. Although Husserl’s appealto evidence has often been criticized as an unjustified limitation of philosophicalthinking, a close examination of Husserl’s lectures reveals that the very ‘limitation’ to the phenomenological evidence breaks our naturalinclination toward objective identities (...) and liberates our thinking from the naturalbut misleading division between ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence.’ Thus, thephenomenological reduction can be interpreted as a transition from the thinkingwithout regard to evidence to the philosophizing intrinsically mediatedby evidence, which can secure access for intuitive analysis to every conceivabletype of givenness insofar as it manifests itself. (shrink)

Dennett’s recent defense in this journal of the heterophenomenological method and its supposed advantages over Husserlian phenomenology is premised on his problematic account of the epistemological and ontological status of phenomenological states. By employing Husserl’s philosophy of science to clarify the relationship between phenomenology and evidence and the implications of this relationship for the empirical identification of ‘real’ conscious states, I argue that the naturalistic account of consciousness Dennett hopes for could be authoritative as a science only by (...) virtue of the very phenomenological evidences Dennett’s method consigns to the realm of fiction. Thus heterophenomenology, qua scientific method, is incoherent. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine, in five parts, the nature and function of evidence in Husserl’s phenomenology of existence. By “evidence” I understand the intentional achievement of self-giving in Husserl’s sense, and by “phenomenology of existence” I understand the branch of his philosophy that addresses the question concerning a meaningful life. In Part One, I propose that Husserl’s philosophy includes a phenomenology of existence. In Part Two, I employ a selection of texts from Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie to sketch (...) the basic outlines of his phenomenology of existence. In Part Three, I demonstrate that Husserl develops a concept of evidence rich enough to encompass the evidence appropriate to his phenomenology of existence. In Part Four, I investigate the way in which Husserl appeals to what one may describe as “existential evidence” to ground his manner of apprehending the world as he sees it. In Part Five, I expand the horizon of the investigation by situating “existential evidence” – the “given” that keeps on giving – in the context of other kinds of evidence more familiar to scholars and students of Husserl’s phenomenology. (shrink)

Can phenomenological evidence play a decisive role in accepting or rejecting social cognition theories? Is it the case that a theory of social cognition ought to explain and be empirically supported by our phenomenological experience? There is serious disagreement about the answers to these questions. This paper aims to determine the methodological role of phenomenology in social cognition debates. The following three features are characteristic of evidence capable of playing a substantial methodological role: novelty, reliability, and (...) relevance. I argue that phenomenological evidence lacks all three criteria and, consequently, should not play a substantial role in debates about social cognition. (shrink)

Medical discourse currently manages two broad visionary movements: "evidence-based medicine," the effort to make clinical medicine more responsive to the medical research, and "patient-centered care," the platform for a more humane health-care encounter. There have been strong calls to synthesize the two as "evidence-based patient-centred care" (Lacy and Backer 2008; see also Borgmeyer 2005; Baumann, Lewis, and Gutterman 2007; Krahn and Naglie 2008), yet many question the compatibility of the two competing programs.This might sound to some like a (...) new version of an old story. Despite the fact that evidence-based medicine and patient-centered care are relatively new programs, the story of their oppositional .. (shrink)

In this book, Michael Madary examines visual experience, drawing on both phenomenological and empirical methods of investigation. He finds that these two approaches—careful, philosophical description of experience and the science of vision—independently converge on the same result: Visual perception is an ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. Madary first makes the case for the descriptive premise, arguing that the phenomenology of vision is best described as on ongoing process of anticipation and fulfillment. He discusses visual experience as being perspectival, (...) temporal, and indeterminate; considers the possibility of surprise when appearances do not change as we expect; and considers the content of visual anticipation. Madary then makes the case for the empirical premise, showing that there are strong empirical reasons to model vision using the general form of anticipation and fulfillment. He presents a range of evidence from perceptual psychology and neuroscience, and reinterprets evidence for the two-visual-systems hypothesis. Finally, he considers the relationship between visual perception and social cognition. An appendix discusses Husserlian phenomenology as it relates to the argument of the book. Madary argues that the fact that there is a convergence of historically distinct methodologies itself is an argument that supports his findings. With Visual Phenomenology, he creates an exchange between the humanities and the sciences that takes both methods of investigation seriously. (shrink)

Phenomenology, Uncertainty and Care in the Therapeutic Encounter is the latest in a series of books where Mark Leffert explores the therapeutic encounter as both process and situation; looking for evidence of therapeutic effectiveness rather than accepting existing psychoanalytic concepts of theory or cure without question. Phenomenology, Uncertainty and Care in the Therapeutic Encounter contributes a new understanding of familiar material and brings a new focus to the care-giving and healing aspects of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy leading to a shift (...) in the analyst's identity from that of one who analyses to one who cares for and heals. This book will be of interest to Psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, neuroscientists and academics in the fields of psychiatry, comparative literature and literature and the mind. (shrink)

There have been several attempts of late to read Yogācāra through the lens of Western phenomenology. I approach the issue through a reading of the Cheng weishi lun, a seventh-century Chinese compilation that preserves the voices of multiple Indian commentators on Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikāvijñaptikārikā. Specifically, I focus on the “five omnipresent mental factors” and the “four aspects” of cognition. These two topics seem ripe, at least on the surface, for phenomenological analysis, particularly as the latter topic includes a discussion of (...) “self-awareness”. Yet we find that the Cheng weishi lun account has little in common with the tradition associated with Husserl and his heirs. The categories and modes of analysis in the Cheng weishi lun do not emerge from or aver to a systematic reflection on the nature of “lived experience” so much as they are focused on subliminal processes and metaphysical entities that belong to the domain of the noumenal. In my conclusion I suggest that the later pramāṇa tradition associated with Dignāga and Dharmakīrti—a tradition that profoundly influenced later Yogācāra exegesis in Tibet—did indeed take a “phenomenological turn.” But my comparison shows that both traditions falter when it comes to relating conceptual content to non-conceptual experience, and thus there is reason to be skeptical about claims that phenomenology is epistemologically grounded in how the world presents itself first-personally. (shrink)

Il presente articolo si propone di mettere in luce la rilevanza teorica della fenomenologia per la psicopatologia. A tal fine, l’argomentazione sarà focalizzata sul lavoro dello psichiatra tedesco Wolfgang Blankenburg. Nel concepire e sviluppare la sua cosiddetta “psicopatologia del senso comune”, Blankenburg fa costantemente appello alla fenomenologica husserliana ed instaura con essa un dialogo proficuo sul piano teorico ed epistemologico. Questo confronto consente a Blankenburg, da un lato, di elaborare un approccio alla psicopatologia fondato fenomenologicamente e, d’altro lato, di ridefinire (...) lo statuto della psicopatologia stessa come disciplina scientifica. Attraverso l’analisi critica dei lavori di Blankenburg e la valutazione del suo reinvestimento di alcuni momenti centrali del pensiero di Husserl, si mostrerà come questi possano avere un impatto di rilievo nell’ambito della psicopatologia. In particolare, si discuterà come i due pilastri del metodo fenomenologico husserliano, l’epoché e la descrizione eidetica, possano svolgere un ruolo considerevole nelle ricerche di psicopatologia. (shrink)

Hany metaethicists have all but abandoned the possibility that ordinary value language has any sort of universal logic. But careful phenomenological reflection indicates that we call something “good” only if we tacitly believe that it is disposed to be “pragmatically attractive” in some way. Conversely, “bad” things must be “pragmatically repellent”. Linguistic and phenomenological evidence supports these observations. Differences in the meanings of diverse value judgments seem to be due to variations in the practical context in which (...) the attraction or repulsion is judged. The fact that we can legitimately request clarification regarding each of five practical dimensions tends to indicate that a common structure underlies all senses in which something can be said “good” or “bad.”. (shrink)

Distinguished feminist philosophers consider the future of their field and chart its political and ethical course in this forward-looking volume. Engaging with themes such as the historical trajectory of feminist phenomenology, ways of perceiving and making sense of the contemporary world, and the feminist body in health and ethics, these essays affirm the base of the discipline as well as open new theoretical spaces for work that bridges bioethics, social identity, physical ability, and the very nature and boundaries of the (...) female body. Entanglements with thinkers such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, and Arendt are evident and reveal new directions for productive philosophical work. Grounded in the richness of the feminist philosophical tradition, this work represents a significant opening to the possible futures of feminist phenomenological research. (shrink)

Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions—St. Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and Rzbihn Baql—Anthony J. Steinbock provides a complete phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. He relates a broad range of religious experiences, or verticality, to philosophical problems of evidence, selfhood, and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience, Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry—as pride, secularism, and fundamentalism—and suggests that (...) contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller, more open view of religious experience. (shrink)

Some fundamental aspects of the lived body only become evident when it breaks down through illness, weakness or pain. From a phenomenological point of view, various breakdowns are worth analyzing for their own sake, and discussing them also opens up overlooked dimensions of our bodily constitution. This book brings together different approaches that shed light on the phenomenology of the lived body—its normality and abnormality, health and sickness, its activity as well as its passivity. The contributors integrate phenomenological (...) insights with discussions about bodily brokenness in philosophy, theology, medical science and literary theory. Phenomenology of the Broken Body demonstrates how the broken body sheds fresh light on the nuances of embodied experience in ordinary life and ultimately questions phenomenology’s preunderstanding of the body. (shrink)

We are particularly interested in how poetry and phenomenological research come together to increase understanding of human phenomena. We are further interested in how these more aesthetic possibilities of understanding can occur within a community context, that is the possibility of a process in which understanding is shared through an ongoing process of participation. In this way phenomenologically-oriented understandings may meaningfully speak of that which is common between us as well as that which may be uniquely lived for each (...) of us in terms of its individual context and nuance. In this paper we reflect on a process by which we engaged with participants to poetically re-present a description of an experiential phenomenon. As part of this process we offered an evocative description of a health care scenario, and facilitated collectively created ‘embodied responses’ inspired by the interactive form of Japanese Renga. We ask the question: “What kind of phenomenology is this?” Through so doing we attempt to address the theme of this special issue, namely, a focus on a wide embrace of the notion of evidence. We do this by drawing out the epistemological implications of a phenomenological approach that attends to the ‘awakening of presences’ in embodied and linguistic ways. In this pursuit we are assisted by the writings of Gendlin, Gadamer, Levinas and Shotter. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology , Volume 12, Special Edition July 2012. (shrink)

Husserl saw the Cartesian critique of scepticism as one of the eternal merits of Descartes’ philosophy. In doing so, he accepted the legitimacy of the very idea of a universal doubt, and sought to present as an alternative to it a renewed, specifically phenomenological concept of self-evidence, making it possible to obtain an unshakable foundation for the edifice of knowledge. This acceptance of the skeptical problem underlies his entire conceptual framework, both before and after the transcendental turn, and (...) especially the immanence/transcendence distinction, i.e., the very basis of intentionality. In taking as its starting point an analysis of perception, the article puts forth a certain number of phenomenological arguments in order to put into question the validity of the skeptical problem and, therefore, of the Husserlian conceptual framework; it defends, in the first place, a disjunctive conception of perception and, in the second place, a holism of experience. (shrink)

The contemporary revival of interest in the Sacred as a category of philosophico-religious reflection here finds a radical reversal of the traditional direction, taking the Sacred as the starting point of the itinerary toward the Divine. The wide variety of essays contained in this volume attempt to ground philosophy of the Sacred and the Divine in phenomenological evidence. Though employing different methodologies, the contributors register by and large the contribution of A-T. Tymieniecka's phenomenology of life in providing a (...) significant 20th century vision for the accomplishment of this task. Its pursuit finds here expression in philosophical, historical, literary and political explorations leading to construing phenomenology of the Sacred as a prerequisite to the investigation of the Divine. The contributors to this extraordinary collection are: C. Bédard, A. Ales Bello, Gerard Bucher, D. Chidester, D. Conchi, M. Kronegger, S. Laycock, Ph. Liverziani, J.N. Mohanty, E. Moutsopoulos, A.M. Olson, Y. Park, G. Penzo, B. Ross, C. Osowiec Ruoff, Th. Ryba, J. Smith, A-T. Tymieniecka and E. Wyschogrod. (shrink)

Evidence and theory ranging from traditional philosophy to contemporary cognitive research support the hypothesis that consciousness has a two-part structure: a focused region of articulated experience surrounded by a field of relatively unarticulated, vague experience.William James developed an especially useful phenomenological analysis of this "fringe" of consciousness, but its relation to, and potential value for, the study of cognition has not been explored. I propose strengthening James′ work on the fringe with a functional analysis: fringe experiences work to (...) radically condense context information in consciousness; are vague because a more explicit representation of context information would overwhelm consciousness′ limited articulation capacity; help mediate retrieval functions in consciousness; and contain a subset of monitoring and control experiences that cannot be elaborated in focal attention and are "ineffable." In general, the phenomenology of the fringe is a consequence of its cognitive functions, constrained by consciousness′ limited articulation capacity. Crucial to monitoring and control is the feeling of "rightness." Rightness functions as a summary index of cognitive integration, representing, in the fringe, the degree of positive fit between a given conscious content and its parallel, unconsciously encoded context. Rightness appears analogous to the connectionist metric of global network integration, known variously as goodness-of-fit, harmony, or minimum energy. (shrink)

In this dissertation I develop a structural model of phenomenal consciousness that integrates contemporary experimental and theoretical work in philosophy and cognitive science. I argue that phenomenology must be “naturalized” and that it should be acknowledged as a major component of empirical research. I use this model to describe important phenomenal structures, and I then employ it to provide a detailed explication of tip-of-tongue phenomena. The primary aim of “structural phenomenology” is the creation of a general framework within which descriptions (...) of experiences may be organized. The work of Husserl, Gurwitsch, the Gestalt psychologists, and many contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists reveals several basic parameters underlying subjectivity. Chapter I argues that Husserlian methodology possesses problems both of praxis and of internal logic, and that its phenomenological descriptions cannot have the certainty he claimed. Consequently, an adequate phenomenology must incorporate empirical studies. This conclusion enables explicit transitions between empirical investigations and phenomenological insights. Chapter II introduces the theoretical framework underlying my model. I identify four parameters applicable to all experiences: 1) the degree of volitional emphasis with which something is experienced, i.e., the intensity of our focus on it, 2) the degree of non-volitional emphasis, i.e., the degree to which it is salient, 3) a variant of intentionality I term “directionality”, and 4) the property of recursion. Experiences are embedded within a complex set of relationships that unify and direct a layered phenomenal structure. I support these claims with evidence discovered over the past two centuries of research. Chapter III applies my model to the tip-of-tongue (TOT) state, in which difficulty remembering is accompanied by a sense of active searching. I show that a phenomenological description of the TOT experience is dependent on cognitive data, and that a phenomenological analysis is necessary to properly interpret these data. By showing how structural phenomenology offers a perspective from which to elucidate the results of experimental studies, I hope to clarify and establish the explicit role of introspection in empiricism, and of empiricism in phenomenology. (shrink)

In this article, the authors use the context of childbirth to consider the power that is endemic in certain forms of evidence within maternity care research. First, there is consideration of how the current evidence hierarchy and experimental‐based studies are the gold standard to determine and direct women's maternity experiences, although this can be at the detriment of care and irrespective of women's needs. This is followed by a critique of how the predominant means to assess women's experiences (...) via satisfaction surveys is of limited utility, offering impartial and restricted insights to assess the quality of care provision. A counter position of hermeneutic phenomenology as research method is then described. This approach offers an alternative perspective by penetrating the taken‐for‐granted ordinariness of an event (such as childbirth) to elicit rich emic meanings. Whilst all approaches to understanding maternity care have a place, depending on the question(s) being asked, the contribution of phenomenology is how it can uncover a depth of contextual understanding into what matters to women and to inform and transform care delivery. (shrink)

Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology is first and foremost a science of the structures of consciousness. Since it is intended to yield eidetic, i. e., a priori insights, it is often assumed that transcendental phenomenology and the natural sciences are totally detached from each other such that phenomenological investigations cannot possibly benefit from empirical evidence. The aim of this paper is to show that a beneficial relationship is possible. To be more precise, I will show how Husserl’s a priori investigations (...) on consciousness can be supplemented by research in experimental psychology in order to tackle fundamental questions in epistemology. Our result will be a phenomenological conception of experiential justification that is in accordance with and supported by empirical phenomena such as perceptual learning and the phenomenon of blindsight. Finally, I shall shed light on the systematic limits of empirical research. (shrink)

The intentional analysis devised by phenomenology was first used to explain the meaningfulness of expressions; it aimed at exhibiting the original primary substrates that expressions refer to, and at exhibiting the subjective acts that make signs expressive. The explanation of predicative expressions was then extended to the antecedent layer of prepredicative, perceptual experiences, explaining these by locating, with peculiar kinds of immanent intuitions, the original sensile data which evidence the bodily presence of the real - and by reactivating the (...) informin- formulating, interpreting and the informing-forming subjective acts that make of the sensile data, or material, perceived things. Intentional analysis explains by decomposing the derivate references back to the original references, and by leading the mind's intentions back to the givens they refer to. Can this kind of explanation be extended? The investigations of this book have taken this question in different directions. Can phenomenological explanation be extended to exhibit not only the act-character of the mind, but its substance, its affective materiality, its locomotion, its impressed haecceity, in short, its corporeality (Chapter I)? Shall not the explanation explain that if the terra firma of being, in the maximum proximity where distance no longer introduces indeterminability, is never reached, this is not because of the defects and the finitude of our mind, but because being itself is not there as the answer, positive and affirmative - being itself is in the interrogative mood (Chapter II)? If the given being itself is in the x Preface. (shrink)

Conventional accounts like the deductive‐nomological model suppose that high‐level theories couched in abstract language encompass or imply more low‐level laws expressed in more concrete language. The truth of phenomenological laws is then supposed to provide evidence for the truth of the theory. This chapter argues that, to the contrary, approximations are required to arrive at phenomenological laws and generally these approximations improve on theory and are not dictated by the facts. Examples include an amplifier model, exponential decay (...) and the Lamb shift. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of a phenomenological method in the field of philosophy of science. It reconstructs the idea of scienticity, which is significant both for philosophy as a science and for philosophy's relationship to nonphilosophical sciences. The concepts of intentionality, eidetic objectness, and absolute evidence are discussed as conditions for the possibility of philosophy as a rigorous science. The concepts of constituting, objectivation, and regional ontology are examined in the context of the possibility of founding of (...) sciences with a dogmatic standpoint in philosophy. It is suggested that the phenomenological program of philosophy of science remains current, though it also continues a tradition of thinking about science that stretches back to Plato. Phenomenological philosophy of science is a clarification of the meaning of scienticity, the very principles of a scientific relationship to the world. (shrink)

To a first approximation, self-representationalism is the view that a mental state M is phenomenally conscious just in case M represents itself in the appropriate way. Proponents of self-representationalism seem to think that the phenomenology of ordinary conscious experience is on their side, but opponents seem to think the opposite. In this paper, I consider the phenomenological merits and demerits of self-representationalism. I argue that there is phenomenological evidence in favor of self-representationalism, and rather more confidently, that (...) there is no phenomenological evidence against self-representationalism. (shrink)

The two eminent metaphysicians Armstrong and Grossmann exchanged letters for ten years in which they discussed crucial points of their respective ontologies. They have a common basis. Both do metaphysics proper and not linguistic philosophy. Both advocate universals and acknowledge the key position of the category of states of affairs. However, they differ on the simplicity of universals and the nature of states of affairs. There is also a fundamental methodological disagreement between them. Armstrong accepts only the evidence of (...) natural science and has a materialist view on mind while Grossmann is a dualist and grants also the same evidential status to the phenomenological data of perception and introspection. The letters are grouped into three phases. The first is the issue of universals, the second the ontological analysis of laws of nature and the third the ontology of numbers. The book contains also longer comments and reviews, partly not published until now. (shrink)

In this paper we assume that ‘theory’ is important for Clinical Ethics Support Services (CESS). We will argue that the underlying implicit theory should be reflected. Moreover, we suggest that the theoretical components on which any clinical ethics support (CES) relies should be explicitly articulated in order to enhance the quality of CES.A theoretical framework appropriate for CES will be necessarily complex and should include ethical (both descriptive and normative), metaethical and organizational components. The various forms of CES that exist (...) in North-America and in Europe show their underlying theory more or less explicitly, with most of them referring to some kind of theoretical components including ‘how-to’ questions (methodology), organizational issues (implementation), problem analysis (phenomenology or typology of problems), and related ethical issues such as end-of-life decisions (major ethical topics).In order to illustrate and explain the theoretical framework that we are suggesting for our own CES project METAP, we will outline this project which has been established in a multi-centre context in several healthcare institutions. We conceptualize three ‘pillars’ as the major components of our theoretical framework: (1) evidence, (2) competence, and (3) discourse. As a whole, the framework is aimed at developing a foundation of our CES project METAP.We conclude that this specific integration of theoretical components is a promising model for the fruitful further development of CES. (shrink)

I extend cognitive science research to phenomenological philosophy to argue that there are three distinct organizational principles coordinate with three dimensions of attention.

In this paper, I defend a pluralistic view of phenomenological method which will provide evidence for particular accounts of experience without relying exclusively on the reflective method or on intuition as a criterion for truth. To this end, I discuss the prospects for indirect phenomenology. I argue that phenomenology ought to be defined by its object of investigation, first-person experience, and not by any particular method of gaining access to this object of investigation. On this view, an integration (...) of naturalized phenomenology into the cognitive sciences is far more feasible than we might have expected. (shrink)