Phenomenal consciousness, attention and accessibility

This article re-examines Ned Block??s (1997, 2007) conceptual distinction between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness. His argument that we can have phenomenally conscious representations without being able to cognitively access them is criticized as not being supported by evidence. Instead, an alternative interpretation of the relevant empirical data is offered which leaves the link between phenomenology and accessibility intact. Moreover, it is shown that Block??s claim that phenomenology and accessibility have different neural substrates is highly problematic in light of empirical evidence. Finally, his claim that there can be phenomenology without cognitive accessibility is at odds with his endorsement of the 'same-order-theory' of consciousness.     

Speculative foundations of phenomenology

This essay tries to account for a certain ??speculative turn?? in contemporary philosophy (Q. Meillassoux, G. Harman, M. Gabriel, etc.) from a phenomenological point of view. A first objective of it will consist in exposing the link between, on the one hand, the methodological sense of Husserl??s concrete phenomenological analyses (concerning, for example, time and intersubjective structure of transcendental subjectivity,) and on the other hand, the consequences that follow from the grounding of phenomenology as first philosophy. This will allow a largely underestimated research angle to be opened up, one that I call a ??constructive phenomenology,?? that constitutes an essential and original figure of transcendental philosophy in general. A second objective will then consist in the attempt to sketch the foundation of knowledge as knowledge, the core of a ??phenomenological metaphysics.?? Whereas the first part will remain within a Husserlian framework, the second will develop some elements of a ??speculative transcendentalism?? in a phenomenological perspective.     

Shame,Belonging, and Biopolitics: Agamben Among the Phenomenologists

How are we to understand Agamben’s philosophical anthropology and his frequent invocations of the relation between bios and zoe? In Remnants of Auschwitz Agamben evokes a quasi-phenomenological account of shame in order to elucidate this question thus implying that the phenomenon of shame carries an ontological significance. That shame has an ontological significance is also a belief held in current debates on moral emotions and the phenomenology of intersubjectivity, but despite this common philosophical intuition phenomenologists have criticized Agamben’s account of shame. In this paper, I will try to show how these criticisms often rely on misreadings of Agamben’s (at times rather confusing) terminology. Once Agamben’s analysis of shame have been properly placed in the broader context if his work, I will outline how Agamben’s analysis of shame and his ontology of life feeds into a rethinking of community and belonging.     

Our element: Flesh and democracy in Merleau-Ponty

Although Merleau-Ponty??s early phenomenology of perception and his essays on art, politics, and language already showed an affinity between the aesthetic phenomena of expression and style and the political and cultural dynamics of society at large, this paper specifically focuses on his late theorizing of the notion of flesh and its relevance to his late understanding of politics and democracy. The emergence of flesh as a concept was contemporary to Merleau-Ponty??s break with Marxism as a philosophical model and with revolutionary dialectics as a political project. It is by showing that such a break was consistently grounded on his theorizing of the being flesh of both the body and of society that this paper shows Merleau-Ponty??s unique contribution to democratic theory and to contemporary political philosophy. In the course of this analysis, it will become clear that in philosophically breaking with the position of a ??no that is a yes????i.e. the model of the revolution, which implies a total negation of the given that becomes a total affirmation of the new order (dictatorship) once in power??he would politically embrace the Weberian ??heroic liberalism????or his ??non-communist left????of parliamentary democracy.     

Psychotherapy Supervision in the New Millennium: Competency-Based, Evidence-Based, Particularized, and Energized

Psychotherapy supervision has increasingly become or is on the fast track to becoming competency-based, evidence-based, particularized, and accountable. In this paper, I explore how that appears to be so by: (1) briefly considering the concepts of ??competencies?? and ??evidence-based practice?? as preeminent guides for psychotherapy supervision practice and training; and (2) briefly reviewing the current status, pressing needs, and future possibilities of psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, humanistic-existential, and integrative psychotherapy supervision. Based on my examination, the following conclusions are proposed: (1) the supervision relationship, individualization, developmental differentiation, and self-reflection (for supervisee and supervisor) appear to be crucial cornerstones for the conceptualization and actuation of supervision process and practice across psychotherapy-based supervision approaches; (2) all indications suggest that three emphases??competency-based supervision, evidence-based practice, and accountability??will continue to substantially influence, affect, and inform psychotherapy supervision practice for its near and distant future; (3) psychotherapy-based supervision approaches will need to be and indeed appear to now be in the process of becoming increasingly particularized in how each of their respective approach-specific competencies are defined and explicated; and (4) psychotherapy supervision has come to be increasingly viewed as an educational process and practice that is best facilitated by: (a) a rich and enriching supervision training environment that vigorously addresses and attempts to meaningfully integrate declarative, procedural, and reflective knowledge bases throughout the supervisory endeavor; and (b) the considered and deliberate utilization of facilitative technology that has the potential to substantially enhance and expand the value of the supervisee??s training/supervision experiences. Some discussion is provided about those four conclusions, and a retrofitted psychotherapy supervision for the new millennium is considered.     

The Causal Efficiency of the Passage of Time

Does mere passage of time have causal powers? Are properties like ??being n days past?? causally efficient? A pervasive intuition among metaphysicians seems to be that they don??t. Events and/or objects change, and they cause or are caused by other events and/or objects; but one does not see how just the mere passage of time could cause any difference in the world. In this paper, I shall discuss a case where it seems that mere passage of time does have causal powers: Sydney Shoemaker??s (1969) possible world where temporal vacua (allegedly) take place. I shall argue that Shoemaker??s thought-experiment doesn??t really aim at teaching us that there can be time without change, but rather that if such a scenario is plausible at all (as I think it is) it provides us with good reasons to think that mere passage of time can be directly causally efficient.     

On A- and B-theoretic elements of branching spacetimes

This paper assesses branching spacetime theories in light of metaphysical considerations concerning time. I present the A, B, and C series in terms of the temporal structure they impose on sets of events, and raise problems for two elements of extant branching spacetime theories??McCall??s ??branch attrition??, and the ??no backward branching?? feature of Belnap??s ??branching space?Ctime????in terms of their respective A- and B-theoretic nature. I argue that McCall??s presentation of branch attrition can only be coherently formulated on a model with at least two temporal dimensions, and that this results in severing the link between branch attrition and the flow of time. I argue that ??no backward branching?? prohibits Belnap??s theory from capturing the modal content of indeterministic physical theories, and results in it ascribing to the world a time-asymmetric modal structure that lacks physical justification.     

Weltanschauung as a priori: sociology of knowledge from a ‘romantic’ stance

In this paper I reconstruct the central concept of the young Lukács??s and Mannheim??s sociology of knowledge, as they present it in their writings in the early decades of the twentieth century. I argue that this concept, namely Weltanschauung, is used to refer to some conceptually unstructured totality of feelings, which they take to be a condition of possibility of intellectual production, and this understanding is contrasted to an alternative construal of the term that presents it as logically structured, quasi-theoretical background knowledge. This concept has Kantian reminiscences: it is a condition of possibility of intellectual production in general. The young Mannheim and Lukács rely on ??Weltanschauung?? so understood as a phenomenon mediating between the facts of society and individual intellectual production and reception: it is seen as being conditioned by sociological facts and therefore as a historical and sociological category through which, and therefore indirectly, society enters into intellectual production.     

Confucian Ritual as Body Language of Self, Society, and Spirit

This article explains how li ?Y or ??ritual propriety?? is the ??body language?? of ren ?? or the authentic expression of our humanity. Li and ren are interdependent aspects of a larger creative human way (rendao ???) that can be conceptually distinguished as follows: li refers to the ritualized social form of appropriate conduct and ren to the more general, authentically human spirit this expresses. Li is the social instrument for self-cultivation and the vehicle of harmonious human interaction. More, li must mean something that is effectively communicated to others for an authentic, human (ren) interaction to occur. Li is the body language of ren in being the ritual vehicle for its?? expression; however, li is underdetermined by ren and so must be distinguished from it in on further grounds: authentic human activity must not just be equivocated with social convention because conclusively establishing whether a particular action is li (or is a truly ren action) is impossible. As a result, li is often confused with social power and privilege that is easier to empirically identify than ren conduct is, but this is a mistake since li has to express ren or it is not li at all. The inescapable ambiguity of li ?C an ambiguity that attaches to any language ?C can be critiqued by the Western view that sees something ??essential?? to the ??self,?? and that makes one a ??self?? in and of oneself and not in a way that depends on others. I show that such Western individualism ?C while resting on a fundamentally different way of thinking of being a person and living a good life ?C does not reduce Confucian ritual to being an instrument for social discrimination and subordination. My argument is indebted to twentieth-century philosophy of language in the West that offered the idea that some words are actions.     

Predictions from a model of global psychophysics about differences between perceptual and physical matches

A well-known phenomenon is that ??matched?? successive signals do not result in physical identity. This phenomenon has mostly been studied in terms of how much the second of two signals varies from the first, which is called the time-order error (TOE). Here, theoretical predictions led us to study the more general question of how much the matching signal differs from the standard signal, independent of the position of the matching signal as the first or second in a presentation. This we call non-equal matches (NEM). Using Luce??s (Psychological Review, 109, 520?C532, 2002, Psychological Review, 111, 446?C454, 2004, Psychological Review, 115, 601, 2008, Psychological Review, 119, 373?C387, 2012) global psychophysical theory, we predicted NEM when an intensity z is perceived to be ??1 times a standard signal x.?? The theory predicts two different types of individual behaviors for the NEM, and these predictions were evaluated and confirmed in an experiment. We showed that the traditional definition of TOE precludes the observation, and thus the study, of the NEM phenomenon, and that the NEM effect is substantial enough to alter conclusions based on data that it affects. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the custom of averaging data over individuals clearly leads to quite misleading results. An important parameter in this modeling is a reference point that plays a central role in creating variability in the data, so that the key to obtaining regular data from respondents is to stabilize the reference point.     

Beyond Establishment and Separation: Political Liberalism, Religion and Democracy

Does John Rawls??s political liberalism require the institutional separation between state and religion or does it allow space for moderate forms of religious establishment? In this paper I address this question by presenting and critically evaluating Cécile Laborde??s recent claim that political liberalism is ??inconclusive about the public place of religion?? and ??indeterminate about the symbolic dimensions of the public place of religion??. In response to Cécile Laborde, I argue that neither moderate separation nor moderate establishment, intended as regimes of religious governance that fix specific interpretations of principles of social and economic justice, are compatible with Rawls??s political liberalism. Furthermore, I claim that a state can ensure that both its religious and non-religious citizens enjoy a sense of self-respect and identification with their polity by leaving issues of symbolic establishment and separation open to democratic debate. I conclude that Rawls??s political liberalism transcends the standard distinction between moderate establishment and moderate separation and leaves the public place of religion open to the democratic contestation of ordinary legislative politics.     

Animal Experience: A Formal-Indicative Approach to Martin Heidegger’s Account of Animality

In the present paper I attempt an interpretation of Martin Heidegger’s analysis of animality, developed in winter semester 1929/1930. My general purpose is to examine Heidegger’s analysis in the wider context of formal-indicative phenomenology as such. Thus I show that in order to develop a phenomenology of animality, Heidegger must tacitly renounce the re-enactment of animal experience in which the formal-indicative concepts of his analysis could gain concreteness, and he resorts instead to scientific concepts and concrete experiments in biology or zoology. This is due to the fact that what I call the a-logical bursts into the field of the phenomenological regard when it is oriented toward animality. I therefore argue that the phenomenology of animality presents us with a paradigmatic case of a tension that is at work in any phenomenon, one between logos and a-logos, between hiddenness and unhiddenness—constituting a basic problem of future research in phenomenology and its approach to intersubjectivity and alterity.     

Exemplarization and self-presentation: Lehrer and Meinong on consciousness

Alexius Meinong??s specific use of the term ??self-presentation?? had a significant influence on modern epistemology and philosophical psychology. To show that there are remarkable parallels between Meinong??s account of the self-presentation of experiences and Lehrer??s account of the exemplarization of experiences is one of this paper??s main objectives. Another objective is to put forward some comments and critical remarks to Lehrer??s approach. One of the main problems can be expressed by the following: The process of using a particular experience as a sample, that is, an exemplar that we use to stand for and refer to a plurality of experiences, Lehrer calls ??exemplarization??. As concrete experiences are multifarious (red and round, for example), how can we single out a specific sort of experiences (the red ones) by the process of exemplarization when we use such a multifarious experience as a sample?     

Kant on Duty in the Groundwork

Barbara Herman offers an interpretation of Kant??s Groundwork on which an action has moral worth if the primary motive for the action is the motive of duty. She offers this approach in place of Richard Henson??s sufficiency-based interpretation, according to which an action has moral worth when the motive of duty is sufficient by itself to generate the action. Noa Latham criticizes Herman??s account and argues that we cannot make sense of the position that an agent can hold multiple motives for action and yet be motivated by only one of them, concluding that we must accept a face-value interpretation of the Groundwork where morally worthy actions obtain only when the agent??s sole motive is the motive of duty. This paper has two goals, one broad and one more constrained. The broader objective is to argue that interpretations of moral worth, as it is presented in the Groundwork, depend on interpretations of Kant??s theory of freedom. I show that whether we can make sense of the inclusion of nonmoral motives in morally worthy actions depends on whether the ??always causal framework?? is consistent with Kant??s theory of freedom. The narrow goal is to show that if we adopt an ??always causal?? framework for moral motivation, then Herman??s position and her critique of the sufficiency-based approach fail. Furthermore, within this framework I will specify a criterion for judging whether an action is determined by the motive of duty, even in the presence of nonmoral motives. Thus, I argue Latham??s conclusion that we must accept a face-value interpretation is incorrect.     

The Retentional and the Repressed: Does Freud's Concept of the Unconscious Threaten Husserlian Phenomenology?

This paper investigates the claims made by both Freudian psychoanalysic thought and Husserlian phenomenology about the unconscious. First, it is shown how Husserl incorporates a complex notion of the unconscious in his analysis of passive synthesis. With his notion of an unintentional reservoir of past retentions, Husserl articulates an unconscious zone that must be activated from consciousness in order to “come to life.” Second, it is explained how Husserl still does not account for the Freudian unconscious. Freud's unconscious could be called, in phenomenological terms, a repressed retentional zone that differs from both near and far retention. Finally, an analysis is offered for the significance of this psychoanalytic argument for phenomenology. Does phenomenology provide a complete account of the psychical life of the subject without the Freudian unconscious? Does phenomenology suggest, as is often done, that Freud's “discovery” of the unconscious is a fantastical invention? Or, does the Freudian unconscious represent a true stumbling block for phenomenology?     

Hegelians Axel Honneth and Robert Williams on the Development of Human Morality

An individual is in the lowest phase of moral development if he thinks only of his own personal interest and has only his own selfish agenda in his mind as he encounters other humans. This lowest phase corresponds well with sixteenth century British moral egoism which reflects the rise of the new economic order. Adam Smith (1723?C1790) wanted to defend this new economic order which is based on economic exchange between egoistic individuals. Nevertheless, he surely did not want to support the moral theory of British egoism. His book The Wealth of Nations suits well into the world view of British moral egoism, but in the book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he presents a moral theory which is the total opposite of moral egoism. Contemporary German intellectuals saw contradiction in Adam Smith??s moral (social) philosophy which they called as Das Adam-Smith-Problem. Smith himself didn??t think that there is any contradiction in a situation where in economic sphere (civil society) individual act egoistically and in ethical sphere (encounter with the imagined Other) he feels humanity and compassion toward his fellow men. Hegel was a passionate reader of Adam Smith and he acknowledged Das Adam-Smith-Problem. He set the task of his social philosophy to overcome this paradox. He wanted to create a theory of a social totality where economic egoism and feelings of humanity are not in contradiction. In the same time Hegel wanted to create a theory on Bildung process where human spirit develops from moral un-freedom (heteronomy) to moral freedom and maturity (autonomy) taking care both aspect of love and reason. In certain Hegel??s texts notion of recognition plays crucial role. That is why modern Hegelians Ludwig Siep, Axel Honneth and Robert Williams consider the notion of recognition to be elementary in Hegel??s threefold theory of developing human spirit from family via civil society to sittliche state. For Hegel family is a sphere where people love their ??concrete other?? and where feeling surpasses reason. Civil Society is a sphere of private contracts and economic exchanges where cold egoistic and calculative reason surpasses feelings. In the sphere of State the contradiction between family and Civil Society (Das Adam-Smith-Problem) is solved by ??rational feeling??. According to Hegel State should protect citizens from alienating effect of egoistic reason of Civil Society and cultivate ??family-feelings?? to rational feelings which integrate citizen into ??sittliche community?? through reciprocal process of recognition. In this article I want to consider Hegelians Honneth??s and Williams??s relevance to the theory of moral development.     

Intentionality and Presence: On the Intrinsic Of-ness of Consciousness from a Transcendental-Phenomenological Perspective

This paper discusses the nature of consciousness?? intrinsic intentionality from a transcendental-phenomenological viewpoint. In recent philosophy of mind the essentially intentional character of consciousness has become obscured because the latter is predominantly understood in terms of ??qualia?? or the ??what-it-is-like-ness?? of mental states and it is hard to see why such subjective ??feels??, of all things, could bestow states with objective reference. As the paper attempts to demonstrate, this is an inadequate understanding of consciousness, which should instead be defined in terms of presence. Consciousness essentially takes place as presence-of, i.e., consists in something coming to appearance. This presence-of is not only a fundamental, irreducible phenomenon, but also in a radical sense un-naturalisable. Naturalism only knows ??nature??, as the world of objects, and the question of intentionality then seems to be how certain inner-worldly objects can be ??representations?? of other inner-worldly objects. In fact, no object is ever intrinsically ??about?? anything. This is exclusively the nature of subjectivity qua consciousness, which is not an object alongside other objects but rather exists as the manifestation of objects.     

Keith Lehrer on the basing relation

In this paper, we review Keith Lehrer??s account of the basing relation, with particular attention to the two cases he offered in support of his theory, Raco (Lehrer, Theory of knowledge, 1990; Theory of knowledge, (2nd ed.), 2000) and the earlier case of the superstitious lawyer (Lehrer, The Journal of Philosophy, 68, 311?C313, 1971). We show that Lehrer??s examples succeed in making his case that beliefs need not be based on the evidence, in order to be justified. These cases show that it is the justification (rather than the belief) that must be based in the evidence. We compare Lehrer??s account of basing with some alternative accounts that have been offered, and show why Lehrer??s own account is more plausible.     

Ludwik Fleck and the concept of style in the natural sciences

Ludwik Fleck is a pioneer of the contemporary social constructionist trend in scientific theory, where his central concept of thinking style has become standard fare. Yet the concept is too often misunderstood and simplified with serious consequences not only for Fleck studies. My essay situates Fleck??s concept of thinking style in the historical context of the 1920s and ??30s, when the notion of style was first applied to the natural sciences, in order to illustrate the uniqueness of Fleck??s concept among the uses of style by his contemporaries and, finally, to examine the epistemological, methodological, and political consequences of this distinction.