Summary of article
This name of this chapter is Philosophical Issues: Phenomenology. Evan Thompson and Dan Zahavi explored consciousness and its relation to body and the processes of the brain. There are relations between “conscious experience and cognitive processes” (Thompson, and Zahavi 67). This article deals with the concepts of method of phenomenology, the understanding of intentionality and phenomenal consciousness and self-awareness.
There is a difference between imagination and visualization and perception. Bodily experience and self-consciousness are related. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) researched phenomenology in detail.
Husserl introduced phenomenology which has the best methods for studying and explaining consciousness. Other philosophers who addressed this issue were Heidegger, Sartre and Merlo-Ponty. Other thinkers who were influenced by phenomenology are Adorno, Habermas, Derrida and Foucault. Existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction have all developed after phenomenology and rely on its basics.
Phenomenology is the cornerstone of Continental philosophy. Husserl’s analyses are essential for further experiments.
Method of phenomenology
Phenomenology presumes that people have different mental attitudes towards the life and the world. Experience is different for each individual. We have different roles in everyday life situations. “Husserl calls this attitude of being straightforwardly immersed in the world “the natural attitude” (Thompson, and Zahavi 68). The world exists independently of us and it is on its own.
We have to implement the phenomenological attitude in order to distant ourselves from the natural attitude. this kind if investigation is critical. Natural attitude has to be put aside as well as other prejudices, such as metaphysical or scientific.
Our investigation should “focus on the way in which reality is given to us in experience” (Thompson, and Zahavi 69). We observe the world in its manifestation without thinking about theory. This process has to be non-dogmatic.
“Our investigation becomes the correlational structure of our subjectivity and the appearance or disclosure of the world” (Thompson, and Zahavi 69). We also have to use the philosophical procedure called phenomenological reduction. It means that attention should only be paid to the way in which the world is manifested to us. We examine things that are in front of us, but in the way that we perceive them, without any prior judgment.
We are not interested in what things are, but in how they appear to us according to our experience. Phenomenology is perceived as being transcendental. “Transcendental phenomenology focuses not on what things are, but on the ways in which things are given” (Thomson, Zahavi 69). Things are disclosed to experience because of the way consciousness is structured.
Systematic analysis is applied to all of these observations and experiences.
The restriction is applied to the way the world shows itself to us. It is called phenomenal manifestation and the appearance of things. Another important thing is that we perform logical reduction in the first person.
Husserl uses the term epoché to explain the way a person experiences the object rather than just looking at the way the object appears. It literally means to put the perception and the mental activity into “brackets”.
Husserl intended phenomenology to be a new “philosophical foundation for science” (Thompson, Zahavi 71). He paid much attention to experience which was intended for analytic description through the phenomenological reduction.
Epoché is a „first-person method“ used to investigate consciousness. First-person method is also used in cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology.
How phenomenology understands intentionality
Husserl believes that consciousness is intentional. It means that it has an aim beyond itself. There are different types of intentionality. It can be directed to an object or is can be defined as alterity or being open towards otherness. Consciousness is not self-enclosed.
Object-directedness means that we are conscious of our feelings for example. We have feelings towards something. These are all forms of consciousness and are intended towards an object. The intentional object and the mental act that intends it are in correlation. This is called “correlational structure of intentionality” (Thompson, and Zahavi 72).
“The noema” is a term that stands for the object as intended. There is also the object itself. These two are related. According to non-representational interpretation the object-as-intended is the-object-that-is-intended.
There are also numerous experiences that are not directed towards object. They are directed towards feelings and moods. Phenomenologists make a distinction between moods and intentional feelings. Moods are also a reaction to the world.
Another important issue involving intentionality is “the distinction among signitive (linguistic), pictorial, and perceptual intentionalities” (Thompson, Zahavi 73).
There is also a difference between recollection and imagination on one side and perception on the other side. Recollection is a form of object-directed intentionality which is mediated and involves remembering and reproducing. Imagination means that one can imagine something that exists and well as something non-existent. Husserl describes perception and recollection as positional acts and imagination as non-positional.
Perception is presentational because the object is experienced and present. There is also the difference between activity and passivity in perceptual intentionality. Husserl indicates that one has to be also passive when they are active in order to have a reaction to some experience. There is also the difference between receptivity, which means to notice something and affectivity, which makes us alert.
How phenomenology understands phenomenal consciousness and self-awareness
“Phenomenal consciousness refers to mental states that have a subjective and experiential character” (Thomson, and Zahavi 74). There is a relation between phenomenal properties and properties of mental states. The phenomenal aspect of experience also involves conscious thought.
“Husserl considered cognitive difference to be also experiential differences” (Thomson, and Zahavi 75). Phenomenally conscious states have subjective characters. Perceptual experience is only the starting point.
Each individual has their own perception of the same object. It can be a cherry for example. Two different people perceive it differently and that is called first-personal giveness. “This first-personal quality of experience leads to the issue of self and self-awareness” (Thompson, and Zahavi 75).
Self-awareness is not the same as reflective self-awareness. because it is connected to immediate experience. Self-consciousness is intransitive and it doesn’t require introspection.
Works cited
Zelazo, Philip, Moscovitch, Morris, and Thompson, Evan. The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
