Aufbau to Animism: A sketch of the alternate methodology and major discovery in Dorion Cairns's revision of Edmund Husserl's “Fifth Cartesian Meditation”

After a review of his revisions of Husserl's methodology, Cairns's new version of the procedure of Abbauor unbuilding is followed from the Objective world down to the primordial world and then from there down to the phantom world within which sensa fields can be analyzed. Then the abstractive epochēs by which lower strata were reached are successively relaxed in the Aufbau or upbuilding procedure and, most interestingly, the sense “psychophysical thing” originally constituted within primordial automaticity is found to be transferred automatically and with presumptive certainty to everything in the Objective world. Any differences between “animate” and “inanimate” things are only constituted at a higher level and pertain then to culture and not nature.     

What is the Question to Which Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation is the Answer?

Interpreters generally agree that the Fifth Cartesian Meditation fails to achieve its task, but they do not agree on what that task is. In my essay, I attempt to formulate the question to which the Fifth Cartesian Meditation gives the answer. While it is usually assumed that the text poses a rather ambitious question, I suggest that the text asks, “How is the Other given to me on the most basic level?” The answer would be that the Other is given as accessible in the mode of inaccessibility. Husserl’s failure to convey this question clearly seems rooted in ambiguities concerning the concepts of solipsism and the sphere of ownness.     

Meditation—Psychologically and theologically considered

Considerable recent research on the psychology of meditation provides valuable guidance to religious meditators and pastoral counselors. The present paper summarizes this research under six topic headings, moving from the most common effects of regular meditation to the most subtle and rare: inducement of relaxation, gradual alleviation of anxieties, release of repressed psychic material, spontaneous physical adjustments, dissolution of habitual patterns of perception and cognition, and the attainment of an abiding state of altered consciousness. Contemporary research confirms traditional wisdom and suggests that meditation is recommended under ordinary circumstances only for those who have a stable personality and a supportive social environment. Such psychological material represents an initial, viable understanding of mysticism. Theological considerations do not invalidate psychological conclusions. Rather, the faith-filled appropriation of scientific findings draws them into a broader context that highlights their full significance.Dr. Helminiak pursues research in spirituality through study of psychology at Boston University and in-patient service at McLean Hospital. His address is 2 Mt. Vernon Street, Dorchester, Massachusetts 02125.     

Binocularity and visual search—Revisited

Binocular rivalry is a phenomenon of visual competition in which perception alternates between two monocular images. When two eye’s images only differ in luminance, observers may perceive shininess, a form of rivalry called binocular luster. Does dichoptic information guide attention in visual search? Wolfe and Franzel (Perception & Psychophysics, 44(1), 81–93, 1988) reported that rivalry could guide attention only weakly, but that luster (shininess) “popped out,” producing very shallow Reaction Time (RT) × Set Size functions. In this study, we have revisited the topic with new and improved stimuli. By using a checkerboard pattern in rivalry experiments, we found that search for rivalry can be more efficient (16 ms/item) than standard, rivalrous grating (30 ms/item). The checkerboard may reduce distracting orientation signals that masked the salience of rivalry between simple orthogonal gratings. Lustrous stimuli did not pop out when potential contrast and luminance artifacts were reduced. However, search efficiency was substantially improved when luster was added to the search target. Both rivalry and luster tasks can produce search asymmetries, as is characteristic of guiding features in search. These results suggest that interocular differences that produce rivalry or luster can guide attention, but these effects are relatively weak and can be hidden by other features like luminance and orientation in visual search tasks.     

Somatic Apprehension and Imaginative Abstraction: Cairns’s Criticisms of Schutz’s Criticisms of Husserl’s Fifth Meditation

Dorion Cairns correctly interprets the preconstituted stratum of Edmund Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation to be the primordial ego and not the social world, as was thought by Alfred Schutz, who considered Husserl to be insufficiently attentive to the social world’s hold upon us. Following Cairns’s interpretation, which involves recovering and reconstructing strata that may never exist independently, one better understands how the transfer of sense “animate organism” involves automatic association, or somatic apprehension. This sense-transfer extends to any animate organism, not just humans, and draws on extensive unreflected-upon similarities despite the distinctive fact that the other’s body is never given to oneself as is one’s own. Following Cairns’s interpretation, one can also understand the second epoché as an imaginative, reconstructive abstraction rather than as an example of failed ascesis. Consequently, Husserl appears as less intellectualized in his approach to empathy than often thought to be and more confident in the phenomenologist’s capacity to imagine and attend selectively to experience.     

Husserl's noema and the internalism‐externalism debate

In a number of papers, Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre have claimed that Husserl is an internalist. In this paper, it is argued that their interpretation is based on two questionable assumptions: (1) that Husserl's noema should be interpreted along Fregean lines, and (2) that Husserl's transcendental methodology commits him to some form of methodological solipsism. Both of these assumptions are criticized on the basis of the most recent Husserl‐research. It is shown that Husserl's concept of noema can be interpreted in a manner that makes his theory far more congenial to a certain type of externalism, but ultimately it is argued that his phenomenological analysis of intentionality entails such a fundamental rethinking of the very relation between subjectivity and world that it hardly makes sense to designate it as being either internalist or externalist.     

On Failing to be Cartesian: Reconsidering the ‘Impurity’ of Descartes’s Meditation

Abstract

This paper begins from the observation that in the Meditations, Descartes never achieves the ‘pure’, thoroughly decontextualized kind of thinking he famously promoted. Some commentators have used this observation to promote pure inquiry more diligently and to criticize Descartes for failing to achieve it. Other commentators have simply called for greater historical fairness and urged that we renew our efforts to understand how Descartes’s inquiry actually does operate. This paper, although sympathetic with this second group of commentators, argues that in revisiting the tensions between what Descartes actually accomplished and what he said he was trying to accomplish, we should see a contemporary lesson, not just better historical understanding. It is argued that in spite of the strong presence in his writings of the imagery of the ‘Cartesian’ ideal of a perfectly presuppositionless philosophical standpoint, not only does Descartes himself never become a Cartesian, but his own practice provides perhaps the best evidence against the very possibility of the Cartesian ‘project of pure inquiry’ to which he aspired.     

Superego Revisited—Relevant or Irrelevant?

The superego has become a great and encompassing symbol that cannot be abolished without much concern. It is a symbol for the subjective experience of moral systems, as an inner part-person in conflict with other parts, a symbol for their various functions, affects, and contents, and a symbol for their objective genesis as discovered in introspective work and observation of children. Its images, like “conscience” and “inner judge,” are mental contents of great evocativeness.     

The Function and Intentionality of Cartesian Émotions

Abstract

A study of what Descartes calls émotions in his Passions of the Soul (1649) suggests that, rather than just a theory of passions—as Descartes himself explicitly claims to be proposing—he was in practice putting forward a more comprehensive theory of passions-émotions, a unified theory which would be closer to what today should properly be called Descartes’ theory of emotions. I try here to make explicit the grounds of this unity by showing that émotions both (1) fit within the functional account Descartes attributes to what he calls passions; and (2) complement the intentionality of passions by expanding it to new objects. In order to show this I offer also a tentative distinction, functionally and intentionally, between passions and émotions in general, on one hand, and, on the other, between the two apparent types of émotions Descartes refers to in the treatise—interior or internal [intérieure] and intellectual [intellectuelle] émotions.     

Perceived Control,Family Environment,and the Etiology of Child Anxiety—Revisited

In 1998, Chorpita, Brown, and Barlow published a now seminal study in Behavior Therapy examining the development of anxiety in children and adolescents using Barlow’s 1988 model of the development of anxiety in adults. Mindful of developmental considerations, parental control and children’s perceptions of control were considered key factors in this revised model. Since that study, mixed support has accumulated for the role of control, both parental control and children’s perceptions of that control, in the development of childhood anxiety. As a result, the measurement of these constructs has been critically examined and refined in recent years and encouraging findings have been obtained. Unfortunately, however, the Chorpita and colleagues study as well as the studies that have followed have used cross-sectional designs and the directionality of effects has not been clearly established. Longitudinal studies are required. Here, we present a qualitative review of these developments and provide directions for future research.     

Piaget and Vygotsky Revisited: Dialogue or Assimilation?

In response to suggestions for merging Piagetian and Vygotskian psychology on the basis of their apparent similarity (e.g., Glassman, 1994), it is argued that numerous differences between the two paradigms constitute fundamental principled disagreements, and that these ought not to be minimized or simplified. Some fundamental differences involve underlying philosophy, social influences on development, the nature of the developmental process itself, developmental stages, and universality of cognitive structures. It is argued that a project of combining Piagetian and Vygotskian psychology would be premature at best, and that continued dialogue between these two distinct perspectives would be of greater value.     

Meditation,well-being and cognition in heartfulness meditators – A pilot study

Meditative practices can vary considerably in technique as well as their effects. Heartfulness is a popular meditation technique that includes in its repertoire, a unique passive form of meditation. We carried out a pilot study recruiting male heartfulness meditators (proficient n = 24, with 6–28 years of meditation experience; novice n = 24, 5 to 16 months of experience) and subsequently recruited matched controls (n = 15). We examined well-being, and carried out high-density EEG recordings to examine indices of meditation and cognition in these groups. Well-being scores were significantly higher for the proficient meditators as compared to novice and intermediate for the controls. We did not find any group differences in cognitive processing. During meditation, enhanced occipital gamma was found in proficient meditators as compared to controls. We discuss the findings from this pilot study and suggest avenues for future research.