Toward a Phenomenology of Mood

Martin Heidegger's account of attunement [Befindlichkeit] through mood [Stimmung] is unprecedented in the history of philosophy and groundbreaking vis‐à‐vis contemporary accounts of emotion. On his view, moods are not mere mental states that result from, arise out of, or are caused by our situation or context. Rather, moods are fundamental modes of existence that are disclosive of the way one is or finds oneself [sich befinden] in the world. Mood is one of the basic modes through which we experience the world and through which the world is made present to us. Moreover, moods are the lenses through which things, people, animals, events, and aspects in the world matter to us. In this paper, I make the case that Heidegger's insights with respect to mood can and ought to be extended beyond the narrow scope of his fundamental ontology (in Being and Time) in which they were developed. I argue that contemporary accounts of mood within psychology ought to take these Heideggerian insights seriously and use them when defining, studying, evaluating, and drawing conclusions about the nature of moods. There are three sections to my paper. In section 1, I delineate Heidegger's account of mood. In section 2, I turn to some key studies on mood in psychology, and I elaborate upon some of the main shortcomings in this literature. In section 3, I suggest how psychology might benefit from understanding and utilizing a Heideggerian‐inspired phenomenology of mood.     

Affectively Driven Perception: Toward a Non-representational Phenomenology

While classical phenomenology, as represented by Edmund Husserl’s work, resists certain forms of representationalism about perception, I argue that in its theory of horizons, it posits representations in the sense of content-bearing vehicles. As part of a phenomenological theory, this means that on the Husserlian view such representations are part of the phenomenal character of perceptual experience. I believe that, although the intuitions supporting this idea are correct, it is a mistake to maintain that there are such representations defining the phenomenal character of low-level perception. What these representations are called on to explain, i.e., the phenomenal character of perceiving objects in their full presence, can be more parsimoniously explained by appealing to certain affective states or affect schemas that shape the intentional directedness of low-level perceptual experience and define its phenomenal character in a non-representational way. This revision of the Husserlian view, it is shown, also helps us understand the normative character of perception.     

经验现象学心理学:乔治对胡塞尔现象学的继承与发展

美国现象学心理学家阿米多·乔治基于科学和心理学视角所提出的经验现象学心理学是对胡塞尔现象学的继承和发展。这表现为:在批判对象上,从胡塞尔的反二元论细化为反自然科学心理学;在出发点和基本原则上,将胡塞尔的生活世界、意向性、还原等概念从超验层面放置到经验层面;在研究方法上,从胡塞尔的描述还原过程转向具体的描述现象学心理学方法。本质上,乔治的经验现象学心理学与胡塞尔的现象学一脉相承,不仅完美地展示了后者的基本原理,更在具体概念和操作应用上充实且超越了后者。     

Toward an Expansive Phenomenology of Religious Existence

This review of Kevin Schilbrack’s—Philosophy and the study of religions: a manifesto—is part of a review symposium featuring reviews by Andrew Irvine, J. Aaron Simmons, and James McLaughlin and a reply by Kevin Schilbrack.     

弗洛伊德无意识创造力理论及现象学方法论释义

无意识理论是弗洛伊德精神分析理论的核心内容.追溯了弗洛伊德无意识理论的思想渊源,着重阐发了弗洛伊德无意识创造力理论的基本内容,并揭示其现象学方法论蕴涵.进而指出弗洛伊德无意识创造力理论在现象学创造力研究中的地位与价值.     

Technology,Phenomenology and the Everyday World: A Phenomenological Analysis on How Technologies Mould Our World

Technology always provides a new perception of the world. However, it is not clear when technology produces “mere” new informations and when it provides something more such as a production of new objects in our world which start to “live” around us. The aim of this paper is to study how technology shapes our surrounding world. The questions which we are going to answer are: Is it really adding new objects to our world? If yes, does every technology have this potentiality? We are going to tackle the problem using a phenomenological and post-phenomenological approach focussing our attention on the perceptual level. Using Husserl’s philosophy we will study how technology are deeply involved in our perception and, thanks to post-phenomenology and its concept of “embodiment relations,” we will be able to determine which kind of technologies have the potentiality to change our surrounding world introducing and producing new objects in it.     

现象学和宗教现象学:对一种宗教学方法的思考

本文拟通过对哲学意义上的现象学和宗教现象学核心概念的整理,考查二者之间的联系与区别,并试图从哲学现象学的角度反观宗教现象学,重新思考宗教现象学的可能性及宗教研究的方法问题。     

The Phenomenological Life-World Analysis and the Methodology of the Social Sciences

This Alfred Schutz Memorial Lecture discusses the relationship between the phenomenological life-world analysis and the methodology of the social sciences, which was the central motive of Schutz’s work. I have set two major goals in this lecture. The first is to scrutinize the postulate of adequacy, as this postulate is the most crucial of Schutz’s methodological postulates. Max Weber devised the postulate ‘adequacy of meaning’ in analogy to the postulate of ‘causal adequacy’ (a concept used in jurisprudence) and regarded both as complementary and, in the context of sociological analysis, critical. Schutz extracted the two postulates from the Neokantian epistemology, dismissed the concept of causality, and reduced Weber’s two postulates of adequacy into one, namely, the adequacy of meaning. I discuss the benefits and shortcomings of this reduction. A major problem, in my view, is that Schutz’s reformulation lost the empirical concern that was inherent in Weber’s ‘causal adequacy’. As a result, the models of economics (which shaped Schutz’s conception of social science) are considered to be adequate if they are ‘understandable’ to an everyday actor, even when they are based on the most unrealistic assumptions. To recapture Weber’s empirical orientation I recommend a more restrictive interpretation of the postulate of adequacy that links it to qualitative research and unfolds the critical potential of Schutz’s phenomenological life-world analysis. My second goal is to report on some current developments in German sociology in which a number of approaches explicitly refer to Schutz’s analysis of the life-world and attempt to pursue ‘adequate’ empirical research. This lecture focuses on three approaches: ethnophenomenology, life-world analytic ethnography, and social scientific hermeneutics.     

Artificial Life and Ethics

Reports of the successful creation of artificial life usually garner considerable interest from philosophers. This paper argues that the worries philosophers have about artificial life do not, for the most part, depend on the artificiality of a given organism. In particular advances in synthetic biology will make the distinction between artificial and natural life a difficult and fluid one. Philosophers should hence refrain from making their arguments depend on a distinction between artificial and natural life.     

Toward a Methodology of Experimental Analysis and Treatment of Aberrant Classroom Behaviors

A behavior analytic methodlogy for linking assessment and intervention for aberrant classroom behavior is presented. This methodology assists the behavioral consultant and classroom teacher in looking at the environmental variables that support undesirable behavior in three ways: structurally, functionally, or through some combination of the two approaches. Treatment strategies arising from the analysis may then be implemented. The methodology consists of the following steps: (a) problem identification, (b) data collection to generate hypotheses, (c) formulation of hypotheses regarding structural and functional relations, (d) design of analogue conditions to test the hypotheses, (e) conducting the analysis, and (f) treatment development and evaluation. An example of a structural analysis and treatment of the stereotypic behavior of an 8-year-old girl functioning in the severe-profound range of mental retardation conducted by her teacher in a special education classroom is presented.     

现象学视角下中医研究方法论的思考

面对中医的困境,作者立足于现象学的姿态,反思科学的施虐,科学控制的中医不再是一种自主性的过程和目的本身;正视中医自我的悲哀因无法负起自己的责任,在跟从的胆怯中失支自我.受启于植根理论的研究方法,探究中医自身不同于西医科学的哲学基础、研究工具和研究方法,求得中医的自我实现.     

现象学视角下中医研究方法论的思考

面对中医的困境,作者立足于现象学的姿态,反思科学的施虐,科学控制的中医不再是一种自主性的过程和目的本身;正视中医自我的悲哀因无法负起自己的责任,在跟从的胆怯中失支自我。受启于植根理论的研究方法,探究中医自身不同于西医科学的哲学基础、研究工具和研究方法,求得中医的自我实现。     

Toward a Life Course Framework for Studying Vulnerability

Interest in the study of vulnerability has experienced impressive growth across various disciplines. To contribute to this major but scattered development in the study of vulnerability, this article argues for a multidisciplinary life-course framework. This framework promotes a systemic and dynamic perspective focused on three complementary research directions: multidimensional, multilevel, and multidirectional. On the basis of this life course perspective, the authors also propose a definition of vulnerability as a dynamic process of stress and resources across various domains of life (i.e., work, family, health, migration, etc.), levels (i.e., person, group, collective), and time (i.e., long-term processes).