This chapter explores to what extent some core ideas of predictive processing can be applied to the phenomenology of time consciousness. The focus is on the experienced continuity of consciously perceived, temporally extended phenomena (such as enduring processes and successions of events). The main claim is that the hierarchy of representations posited by hierarchical predictive processing models can contribute to a deepened understanding of the continuity of consciousness. Computationally, such models show that sequences of events can be represented (...) as states of a hierarchy of dynamical systems. Phenomenologically, they suggest a more fine-grained analysis of the perceptual contents of the specious present, in terms of a hierarchy of temporal wholes. Visual perception of static scenes not only contains perceived objects and regions but also spatial gist; similarly, auditory perception of temporal sequences, such as melodies, involves not only perceiving individual notes but also slightly more abstract features (temporal gist), which have longer temporal durations (e.g., emotional character or rhythm). Further investigations into these elusive contents of conscious perception may be facilitated by findings regarding its neural underpinnings. Predictive processing models suggest that sensorimotor areas may influence these contents. (shrink)

In her introduction to this collection, Tymieniecka presents her phenomenology of life - the leitmotif of the three-volume anniversary publication of Analecta Husserliana - as something that stands out from preceding historical attempts to investigate life in an 'integral' or 'scientific' way. After an incubation lasting throughout the 2000 years of Occidental philosophy, this scientific phenomenology/philosophy of life at last uncovers the entire area of the 'inner workings of Nature', exposing the way in which the 'sufficient reason' and (...) the 'ground' of beingness as such crystallise out of the 'onto poietic' process. This onto-poietic process, continuing as it does in the human creative condition, also reveals the authentic genius of the works of the human spirit. This new and original philosophy, free of fallacious simplifications, speculations and reductionism, opens up a basic starting point for all philosophy. Life, 'the theme of our times', at last receives a profound philosophical treatment. (shrink)

A number of recent attempts to bridge Husserlian phenomenology of time consciousness and contemporary tools and results from cognitive science or computational neuroscience are described and critiqued. An alternate proposal is outlined that lacks the weaknesses of existing accounts.

The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness is a translation of Edmund Husserl's Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins. The first part of the book was originally presented as a lecture course at the University of Göttingen in the winter semester of 1904–1905, while the second part is based on additional supplementary lectures that he gave between 1905 and 1910. In these essays and lectures, Husserl explores the terrain of consciousness in light of its temporality. He identifies two categories of (...) temporality—retention and protention—and outlines how temporality provides the form for perception, phantasy, imagination, memory, and recollection. He demonstrates a distinction between cosmic and phenomenological time and explores the relevance of phenomenological time for the constitution of temporal objects. The ideas Husserl developed here are explored further in his Ideas and were pursued until the end of his philosophical career. (shrink)

It is difficult to develop a coherent conception of time on the basis of our experience of time. The philosophical analysis of our experience of time is a central topic in phenomenology. So one might expect phenomenology to deliver a contribution to the solution of the most challenging puzzles of the philosophy of time. This paper deals with some methodological issues related to such an expectation. It opposes two main conceptions of the role of (...) phenomenology in the philosophy of time. On the first conception phenomenology draws conclusions about the nature of time from the description of the qualitative features of our experience of time. On the second conception, phenomenology determines what we are rationally entitled to believe about the nature of time on the basis of the way we experience time. It is argued that if one aims at integrating different approaches in one’s philosophical conception of time, then it is the second conception one ought to choose. (shrink)

In this paper I offer four distinct but related suggestions: (1) That Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness is an adequate account of the concept of the specious present; (2) That the Querschtfftt o5 momentary phase of consdousness is genuinely only a Querschnittanskht; (3) That retention, primal-impression, and protention are functions of consciousness rather than phases or types o.f coasdousness; (4) That further conceptual clarification and terminological reformulation is needed.

The most salient aspect of memory is its role in preserving previously acquired information so as to make it available for further activities. Anna realizes that something is amiss in a book on Roman history because she learned and remembers that Caesar was murdered. Max turned up at the party and distinctively remembers where he was seated, so he easily gets his hands on his lost cell phone. The fact that information is not gained anew distinguishes memory from perception. The (...) fact that information is preserved distinguishes memory from imagination. But how do acquisition and retrieval of information contribute to the phenomenology of memory?The exclusive aim of this chapter is to sketch a map of the phenomenology of memory. It is structured as follows. In section 1, I introduce the contrast between content (what is remembered) and psychological attitude (remembering). This distinction will be helpful in disentangling issues in the phenomenology of memory. Section 2 is devoted to the contribution of memory content to phenomenology, section 3 to the contribution of the attitude of remembering. (shrink)

The kind of collective improvisation attained by the “free jazz” at the beginning of the sixties sets a challenge to analytic theories of collective intentionality, that emphasize the role played by future-directed plans in the interlocking and interdependent intentions of the individual participants, because in the free jazz case the performers’ interdependence or [interplay] stems from an intuitive understanding between musicians. Otherwise said: what happens musically is not planned in advance, but arises from spontaneous interactions in the group. By looking (...) at the way jazz improvisers take up the challenge of making music together without a pre-conceived notion as to what kind of effect they will achieve and without a pre-set code of agreements, my aim has been to clarify what kind of strategies — other than advanced action plans and joint commitments — are used by improvising musicians to integrate their improvisations into a unified shared activity. In developing this proposal I initially drawn pre-theoretically on one paradigmatic study case — Ornette Coleman’s double quartet Free Jazz, A collective Improvisation and brought it in conversation with Husserl’s phenomenology of time. In a final move, I brought this phenomenological frame into dialogue with some recent readings of the predictive coding model. All in all, what we learned from the Free Jazz case is that the interdependence and interlocking of attitudes among individual participants characteristic of shared intention is not determined by a future-directed plan and the rational pressure to be responsive to and coordinate with others, it typically engages. Rather, in the free jazz case, the performers’ connection and interplay depend on the players’ readiness to feel each other out, by listening to each other playing, in a way that no doubt presupposes the Husserlian retention-protention scheme. (shrink)

The world of scholarship on Husserl’s phenomenology of inner timeconsciousness is a small and very intense one. Most analyses focus either on developments in Husserl’s earliest works, published in Hua. X (Bernet, 1985; Brough, 1972), or on his latest writings on time, found in the unpublished notes called the “C-manuscripts” (Held, 1966). Some compare these two periods, and recently a small number of writings have appeared on Husserl’s analyses found in what are called the “L-manuscripts”, which were written (...) between these two periods (Bernet and Lohmar, 2001). Although these latter manuscripts were studied and written on prior to their publication in Hua. XXXIII, they seemed to have gained renewed interest lately, once they became more accessible. A few scholars may have worked through Husserl’s writings on time from earliest through to the latest on their own; but fortunately for everyone else, Toine Kortooms, in his Phenomenology of Time: Edmund Husserl’s Analysis of Time-Consciousness, presents an analysis of these works, from beginning to end, for us. His work at first appears primarily exegetical and historical; however, Kortooms also introduces some significant interpretations and arguments to the discussions on time-consciousness. (shrink)

The literature on time perception is discussed. This is done with reference both to the ''cognitive-timer'' model for time estimation and to the subjective experience of apparent duration. Three assumptions underlying the model are scrutinized. I stress the strong interplay among attention, arousal, and time perception, which is at the base of the cognitive-timer model. It is suggested that a multiplicative function of two key components (the number of subjective time units and their size) should predict (...) apparent duration. Implications for other cognitive domains are drawn, and in particular an analogy is suggested between apparent duration and apparent movement. (shrink)

I argue that our experience of time supports the B-Theory of time and not the A-Theory of time. We do not experience pastness, presentness, and futurity as mind-independent properties of events. My method in supporting this experiential claim is to show that our experience of presentness is like our experience of hereness--in neither case are we aware of a mind-independent property over and above the events or objects to which we ascribe the presentness or hereness.

This work celebrates the investigative power of phenomenology to explore the phenomenological sense of space and time in conjunction with the phenomenology of intentionality, the invisible, the sacred, and the mystical. It examines the course of life through its ontopoietic genesis, opening the cosmic sphere to logos. The work also explores, on the one hand, the intellectual drive to locate our cosmic position in the universe and, on the other, the pull toward the infinite. It intertwines science (...) and its grounding principles with imagination in order to make sense of the infinite. This book is the second of a two-part work that contains papers presented at the 62nd International Congress of Phenomenology, The Forces of the Cosmos and the Ontopoietic Genesis of Life, held in Paris, France, August 2012. It features the work of scholars in such diverse disciplines as biology, anthropology, pedagogy, and psychology who philosophically investigate the cosmic origins of beingness. Coverage in this second part includes: Communicative Virtues of A-T. Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life, Intentionality of Time and Quantum – Phenomenological Sense of Space, Consciousness of the Cosmos: A Thought Experiment Through Philosophy and Science Fiction, The Cosmos and Bodily Life on Earth Elucidated within the Historicity of Human Existence, Novel as Path - Mamardashvili's Lectures on Proust, and Comments on Max Scheler's Thought and Philosophical Counseling. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the methodical disclosure of the lowest level of the constitution of time in Husserl’s phenomenology of time (especially in the C-Manuscripts), following this leading question: is it at all possible to disclose phenomenologically the primal-phenomenal constituting stream of consciousness? First, I address the different levels of constitution in order to focus on the ultimate level. Second, I analyse the “intentionality” of the primal-stream, by means of differentiating it from act-intentionality. Third, I outline the (...) methodical function of the reduction and of the phenomenologizing ego. Fourth, I present Abbau as the methodical possibility of reaching primal-phenomenality. Fifth, I address the problem of grasping the primal-phenomenal dimension in its originality. I will argue that we can grasp this fundamental dimension by means of a “phenomenological deconstruction” of constituted experience and at the same time by putting this dimension in an intentional relationship with the phenomenologizing ego. (shrink)

By means of Vivian Sobchack’s semiotic film phenomenology, we may examine our immediate perceptual acts in film experience in order to determine the ways that the primordial language of embodied existence found at this primary level grounds the secondary level of the more explicit interpretations we give to the film’s elements. Although Gilles Deleuze is openly defiant toward the phenomenological tradition, his studies of film experience can serve this purpose as well, because he is interested in the direct and (...) pre-verbal significance of cinematic images. To bring his observations more fruitfully into film phenomenological studies, I will examine his notion of the discordantly operating body and offer a phenomenological interpretation for his notion of cinematic signs. I then apply this Deleuzian semiotic film phenomenology to his analysis of deep focus cinematography in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. When watching one particular scene, different layers of our film experience, namely, those of visual and of temporal depth, collide in such a way that they provide the phenomenal basis for us to produce a temporal interpretation of the spatial relations held between the displayed images. (shrink)

This article formulates the “enigma of time” as the paradoxical compatibility between the apparent completeness of a temporal object’s presence and the actual incompleteness of its manifestation. Proceeding with the methodological assumption that this paradox cannot be “solved” by positing an atemporal foundation, I point to a constant risk in Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology that the temporality of temporal phenomena is traced to an atemporal activity arranging equally atemporal contents—and thereby is explained away rather than explained. The risk was (...) already recognizable in the “schematic model” of apprehension, and it persisted in the foundationalist interpretation of “absolute time-consciousness.” By contrast, I suggest a hermeneutics that takes time seriously, which comprehends the paradox and make it the productive core of philosophizing. Only in this way can time cease to be a petrifying impasse and instead redefine the landscape of philosophy. (shrink)

The subjective experience of time is a fundamental constituent of human consciousness and can be disturbed under conditions of mental disorders such as schizophrenia or affective disorders. Besides the scientific domain of psychiatry, time consciousness is a topic that has been extensively studied both by theoretical philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. It can be shown that both approaches exemplified by the philosophical analysis of time consciousness and the neuroscientific theory of cross-temporal contingencies as the neurophysiological basis of human (...) consciousness implemented in the prefrontal cortex converge in 2 respects. Firstly, a tripartite conception of consciousness divides human cognition in 3 different temporal domains comprising retention, presentation, and protention and the past, the present, and the future corresponding to working memory, interference control, and preparatory set. Secondly, both concepts refer to the present as an extended duration that integrates information from the recent past and the future. We propose that the integration of phenomenological and neuroscientific approaches can stimulate the development of enriched pathophysiological concepts of mental disorders. This approach appears to be particularly fruitful with respect to schizophrenia that is interpreted as a structural disturbance of time consciousness. (shrink)

Outline by Section: I. INTRODUCTION: METHOD OF PHENOMENOLOGY II. REDUCTION FROM DOGMAS III. EXAMPLES OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION OF A. SENTENCE B. MELODY C. DIAGRAM OF TIME IV. MODIFICATIONS AS MODES OF TEMPORAL STRUCTURE V. RETENTION VI. CONSTITUTION OF EXTERNAL TIME Time present and time past.

This collection is the final volume of a four book survey of the state of phenomenology fifty years after the death of Edmund Husserl. Its publication represents a landmark in the comprehensive treatment of contemporary phenomenology in all its vastness and richness. The diversity of the issues raised here is dazzling, but the main themes of Husserl's thought are all either explicitly treated, or else they underlie the ingenious approaches found here. Time, historicity, intentionality, eidos, meaning, possibility/reality, (...) and teleology are the main concerns of this collection devoted to studies in aesthetics, metaphysics and literary interpretation, written by such authors as, among others, R. Cobb-Stevens, C. Moreno Marquez, J. Swiecimski, Sitansu Ray and M. Kronegger. These original studies of phenomenological aesthetics and literary theory by scholars from all parts of the world were gathered by the World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learn ing during the year 1988/89 during its assessment of the phenomeno logical movement, fifty years after Husserl's death. IX A -T. Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana, Vol. XXXVII, ix. (shrink)

One of the central debates in current analytic philosophy of time is whether time consists only of relations of simultaneity, earlier and later (B-relations), or whether it also consists of properties of futurity, presentness and pastness (A-properties). If time consists only of B-relations, then all temporal determinations are permanent; if at anyone time it is the case that birth is later than Homer's birth, then it is ever after the case that Dante's birth is later than (...) Homer's. The temporal position of Dante's birth vis a vis Homer's is permanently fixed. Moreover, if B-relations are the only temporal determinations possessed by events, then each event, regardless of when it occurs, is equally as real as each other event. Each event sustains B-relations to other events, and thus in respect of its temporal determinations is ontologically undistinguished from each other event. Why should Dante's birth be "more real" than Homer's just because it is later than it? But if time also consists of A-properties, then some events are ontologically distinguished by virtue of their temporal determinations; the events that are or exist in the tensed sense, the events that possess the A-property of present- ness, have a reality not possessed by other events. All other events are no longer (are past) or are not yet (are future), and in this respect are deprived of the being, the presentness, possessed by the events that are. The A-properties possessed by events are impermanent temporal determinations; if an event possesses a certain A-property at one time, then there is another time at which the event will not have that A-property but some other A-property instead. First an event is future, then it is present, and finally it is past. This shows that the issue between the defenders of the B-theory and the defenders of the A-theory is of fundamental ontological importance. But analytic philosophers discuss this issue ,almost exclusively in terms of the language we use to describe the temporal determinations of events. They engage in what Quine calls "semantic ascent", i.e., redirecting their concern from the "things themselves" to the words we use to describe things. Defenders of the A-theory argue that tensed sentences and their tokens, sentences containing tensed copulas like "is", "was" and "will be" and adverbs like "now" and "at present", are untranslatable or unanalyzable into tenseless sentences about B- related events, and therefore that the tensed copulas and ad- verbs refer to A-properties of events. Defenders of the B-theory argue that tensed sentences or their tokens are translatable or analyzable into tenseless sentences about B-related events, and hence that the tensed sentences or tokens refer only to B-related events. While this semantic ascent is not without its advantages, it seems to me that additional light can be thrown on this subject if it is approached from a nonlinguistic phenomenological perspective. This approach is all the more needed since this particular issue in the philosophy of time has not been explicitly addressed by any of the practitioners of "phenomenology" (in the wide sense), such as Husserl, Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty .Indeed, phenomenologists have generally seemed to be unaware of the debate between the A-theorists and B-theorists. This issue has been a concern exclusively of analytic philosophers (with the exception perhaps of the early 20th century British Idealist John McTaggart.) In this paper, I will point to a number of phenomenological facts that are pertinent to the debate. These facts all favor the A-theory. I shall make the case that the basic phenomenological truths about time simply cannot be accounted for by the B-theory . (shrink)

Bridging from Husserl to Iamblichus, this book contributes phenomenological readings of Plotinus, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, in which prevalent misconceptions about the very identity of time in the phenomena of motion are corrected, and time's role in Greek philosophy recovered.

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the _body_ to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others. Perhaps above all, (...) Merleau-Ponty's insights about the embodied mind are a bold and refreshing challenge to the new era of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, as scientists and psychologists discover the centrality of the body to mind and intelligence. (shrink)

This handsomely produced volume contains 22 contributions from international scholars, which were originally presented at the 2000 Conference of the International Society for Phenomenology, Fine Arts, & Aesthetics. The papers center around the theme of gardens and include a wide range of topics of interest to phenomenologists but also, perhaps, to gardeners with a philosophical bent. A sampling of topics: Leonardo's Annunciation Hortus Conclusus and its reflexive intent; hatha yoga--a phenomenological experience of nature; the Chinese attempt to miniaturize the (...) world in gardens; conflating and compressing time in commodified space and architecture; constructing the deconstructive landscape (the ruin aesthetic); and a phenomenological-anthropological aproach to Zen gardens. The volume is lightly indexed by name (mostly philosophers). Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com). (shrink)

The transition from “natural” sensation to “phenomenological” perception is revealed since the dynamic temporality within perception is elaborated by Merleau-Ponty. Inheriting Husserl’s phenomenology of time-consciousness and clarifying temporal elements within body schema, Merleau-Ponty assimilates phenomenological temporality into phenomenal body. With the analyses of spatial synthesis in terms of “depth,” the original unity between temporality of perception and spatiality of body is illuminated. It makes the transition from “temporality of consciousness,” to “temporality of body ” possible. Further, by introducing (...) the corporeal temporality and its dynamic model into the phenomenology of Nature that is considered as the foundation of phenomenology of body, Merleau-Ponty put forward a new concept of time. Time as Schema in this sense is integrated into symbiotic structure with Nature and flesh in the name of chiasme. (shrink)

Hoerl & McCormack claim that the temporal updating system only represents the world as present. This generates puzzles regarding the phenomenology of temporal experience. We argue that recent models of reinforcement learning suggest that temporal updating must have a minimal temporal structure; and we suggest that this helps to clarify what it means to experience the world as temporally structured.

This book is the first extensive treatment of Husserl's phenomenology of time-consciousness. Nicolas de Warren uses detailed analysis of texts by Husserl, some only recently published in German, to examine Husserl's treatment of time-consciousness and its significance for his conception of subjectivity. He traces the development of Husserl's thinking on the problem of time from Franz Brentano's descriptive psychology, and situates it in the framework of his transcendental project as a whole. Particular discussions include the significance (...) of time-consciousness for other phenomenological themes: perceptual experience, the imagination, remembrance, self-consciousness, embodiment, and the consciousness of others. The result is an illuminating exploration of how and why Husserl considered the question of time-consciousness to be the most difficult, yet also the most central, of all the challenges facing his unique philosophical enterprise"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Based on a creative use of the phenomenological method, we argue that a close examination of the temporality of objects reveals the future as genuinely open. Without aiming to decide the matter of phenomenological realism, we suggest that this method can be used to investigate the mode of being of objects in their own temporality. By bracketing the anticipatory structure of experience, one can get a sense of objects’ temporality as independent of consciousness. This contributes to the current Realism versus (...) Idealism debates, but it does so without taking sides. The starting point is neither an analysis of pure consciousness, nor attempts to describe objects in-themselves, but the idea that things can be phenomenologically grasped through the difference between their temporality and our own. By being methodically “open to the future,” one can become aware of the sui generis temporality of objects as different from the temporality shaped by our anticipation. (shrink)

The last century has been marked by numerous discussions about the concept of the temporality of the -Now-. The most essential elements of the topic of the -Now- are presented in atemporal analysis (and beyond) of <I>lebendige Gegenwart. In the author's analysis this notion is the core of phenomenology and a derivative phenomenologisation of the constitution of time. The first part of the book is dedicated to the necessary reconstruction of the category of the -Now-, the second treats (...) about the atemporality of the -Now-, the third one is an additional reference to Husserlian deepest transcendental reduction: the -Now- as being freed from temporality. Furthermore, the author compares his thoughts to the ideas and to the concept of the -modalization of the consciousness- that is present in the post-Husserlian temporalities.". (shrink)

The Ethics of Time" explores a rather uncharted field in philosophy, namely the ethical implications of time. It does so by utilizing the resources of phenomenology and hermeneutics. On the one hand, its rigorous analyses of such phenomena as waiting, memory, and the body are carried out phenomenologically, while on the other hand, it engages in a hermeneutical reading of such classical texts as, Augustine's Confessions and Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, among others. Nevertheless, this book makes a claim (...) to originality, as it does not provide a commentary on any single text or thinker. Even though a strictly philosophical endeavour, this book engages literature, theology and the arts more generally. It takes seriously phenomenology's claim of a consciousness both constituting time and being constituted by time. This claim has some important implications for the "ethical" self or, rather, for the ways in which such a self informed by time, might come to understand anew the problems of imperfection and ethical goodness. (shrink)

The author examines concepts of real time and real-time in relation to notions of perception and processes of sonification. He explores these relationships in three case studies and suggests that sonification can offer a form of reconciliation between ontology and phenomenology, and between ourselves and the flux we are part of.

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Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the body to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others.

First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition (...) of Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

This research investigates flow experiences and explores meaning construction for artistic practices that differ in haptic nature. In addition to the phenomenological analysis of interviews, videos of artistic practice and practice-based research were employed to obtain both retrospective and real-time records of the physicality of artistic practice. Drawing on authors who emphasise the automatisation of actions in flow and heightened body awareness flow is reconceptualised in non-representational terms as optimal precognitive engagement with the world. In this light meaning in (...) flow results not from bringing order to the mind as Csikszentmihalyi proposed, but through its embodied construction in activity. Analyses revealed that the sources of enjoyment and meaning, the relationship between artist, tools and artwork, and the nature and extent of self-differentiation differ between artists who work in two and three dimensions, and whose physical actions differ in the production of their artwork. 2D artists derive enjoyment from their creative process and meaning from capturing an atmosphere or place, and attribute artistic control to their artwork. 3D artists derive more enjoyment from the product of their artistic activity and meaning from the recreation of the self in material form, and do not attribute artistic control to the artwork. Consequently, embodied physicality of activity appears fundamental to similarities in flow experiences and meaning-making: accounts of flow and the meanings generated in activity differ between activities that differ in their haptic or performative nature but are similar among haptically similar activities. (shrink)

The goal of “Phenomenology of Distraction“ is to explore the imbrication of attention and distraction within existential spatiality and temporality. First, I juxtapose the Heideggerian dispersion of concern (which includes, among other things, the attentive comportment) in everyday life, conceived as a way to get distracted from one's impending mortality, to Fernando Pessoa's embracing of the inauthentic, superficial, and restless existence, where attention necessarily reverts into distraction. Second, I consider the philosophical confessions of St. Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as (...) evidence for the proto-phenomenological temporal synthesis that hinges upon distraction and dispersion, despite the confessors' best efforts to pay attention to their inner life and to concentrate it in the eternal present. The paper concludes with an assessment of the ethical effects of mutual distraction, outlining a model of “distracted intersubjectivity.“. (shrink)