The Phenomenology of Near-Death Consciousness in Past-Life Regression Therapy: A Pilot Study

Although past-life regression therapy has not been shown to be the re-experiencing of a verifiable previous biological existence, therapists have noted similarities between the phenomenology of post-death awareness reported by regressed subjects and the phenomenology of near-death experiences (NDEs). This paper reports the results of a pilot study exploring those similarities as far as the therapeutic modality normally accommodates post-death phenomena. Similarities and differences between NDEs and post-death regression phenomena suggest new avenues of research.     

梦意识现象学初探——关于想象、梦与超越论现象学

文章试图运用"双重自我"的概念,结合想象现象对一般梦现象进行现象学上的考察,并期望借助考察的结论给清明之梦一个现象学的解释。在文章的最后,还将用梦作比喻,探讨它对超越论现象学的启示。     

Visual Consciousness and The Phenomenology of Perception

Ideally, psychological and phenomenological studies of visual experience should be mutually informative. In that spirit, this article outlines parts of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty's phenomenological view of visual experience as a kind of independently active opaque bodily synthesis, and uses those views to (a) help ground and extend Alva Noë's rejection of the “snapshot” theory of visual experience in favor of a more enactive view of visual content, (b) critique a failing of Noë's account, and (c) show how the assumptions underlying more internalist and Cartesian views of visual experience can illegitimately creep in even when they are being carefully criticized.     

Physically Transcendent Awareness: A Comparison of the Phenomenology of Consciousness Before Birth and After Death

Veridical evidence of a physically transcendent source of consciousness comes from both extremes of the life span when central nervous system functioning is compromised, suggesting that some form of personhood can exist independently of known cellular processes associated with the body. In pre- and perinatal accounts, veridical memories have surfaced of events in the first two trimesters, long before the central nervous system is fully functional, continuing through the third trimester, when measurable brain activity begins, until just after birth. In the empirically verifiable out-of-body phase of near-death experience (NDE) accounts, a source of consciousness has been shown to record events when measurable metabolic processes, including brain activity, have ceased altogether. These two states have similar phenomenologies, suggesting that a physically transcendent source representing individual consciousness predates physical life at the moment of conception and survives it after death, and that its maturity and functioning do not directly reflect the level of central nervous system functioning in the body.     

道德谱系学与道德意识现象学

一尼采于1887年发表《论道德的谱系》。此后谱系学的哲学著作便开始日趋增多。连胡塞尔这位在其一生中看起来从未与尼采发生直接联系的思想家①,也会在1933年有意无意地以逻辑谱系学研究为副标题,来发表他生前最后一部著作《经验与判断》,遑论眼下最重要的谱系哲学家福柯等     

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。     

Discussion about the Triple Foundational Relationship between Intellect,Emotion, and Willing from the Perspective of the Phenomenology of Consciousness

There are at least three foundational relationships between the three conscious acts of intellect, emotion, and willing. Section 2 covers the structural foundational relationship (Brentano and Husserl in his early period): all conscious acts are intentional and can be divided into objectifying (intuition and representation) and non-objectifying acts (emotion and willing). Because a non-objectifying act cannot constitute an object, things must be based on objectifying acts and the object constituted by the latter; in this sense, a non-objectifying act is rooted in an objectifying one. Section 3 explains the genetic foundational issue with consciousness (Husserl in his later period, Scheler, and Heidegger): the stream of consciousness has its earliest origins and follows a process where it gradually unfolds. The earliest origin is the intentional willing, followed by nonintentional feelings, and, finally, the representation and thinking of willing. Intentional activity taking place afterward must be based on the conscious activity that has come already. Section 4 points out that, apart from the two aforementioned kinds of foundational relationships (i.e. structural and genetic), a third foundational relationship (i.e. dynamic) can also be found between the conscious acts of intellect, emotion, and willing in the Consciousness-only school (a Buddhist tradition in the East). In a continuous activity, the foundational relationship between the three aspects of intellect, emotion, and willing always remains encased in dynamic changes, and the change of primary and secondary roles (i.e. a change in the foundational relationship) could happen at any time. From this perspective, one can explain and resolve the confrontation and conflicts between the two former foundational relationships.     

Autopoietic Enactivism,Phenomenology, and the Problem of Naturalism: A Neutral Monist Proposal

In this paper, I compare the original version of the enactive view—autopoietic enactivism—with Husserl’s phenomenology, regarding the issue of the relationship between consciousness and nature. I refer to this issue as the “problem of naturalism.” I show how the idea of the co-determination of subject and object of cognition, which is at the heart of autopoietic enactivism, is close to the phenomenological form of correlationism. However, I argue that there is a tension between an epistemological reading of the subject-object correlation that renounces to search for its metaphysical ground, and the enactivist focus on the biological basis of cognition, which seems to imply a view of nature as the metaphysical ground of the conscious mind. A similar problem arises in Husserl’s phenomenology in the contrast between the idea of the fundamental subject-object correlation, the concept of nature as a correlate of transcendental constitution, and the investigation of the corporeal and material grounding of consciousness. I find a way out of this problem by drawing on the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology. I argue that the investigation of the temporality of experience in genetic phenomenology leads us to investigate the metaphysical ground of the subject-object correlation, understood dynamically as co-constitution and co-origination. Then I propose to complement phenomenology and enactivism with a form of neutral monism, which conceives of the co-constitution of subject and object as grounded in a flow of fundamental, pre-phenomenal qualities.

     

Phenomenology in Mexico: A historical profile

The paper presents a journey along the history of phenomenology (Husserlian Phenomenology or phenomenology derived from Husserl) in Mexico, dealing mainly with its appropriation in the field of philosophy proper. The survey covers almost the whole century, leaving out only the last years and the present situation. Although all those philosophers who came in touch with phenomenology in a significant way in that period are mentioned here, particular attention is laid upon three figures and their meaning in Mexican philosophical culture: they are Antonio Caso, the first influential thinker and professor to dedicate a book to Husserl's philosophy; José Gaos, who enjoys a well-deserved fame as teacher and translator of phenomenological works, and Jorge Portilla, the author of a most valuable phenomenological essay: Phenomenology of Relajo. Thus, in these three cases, their contributions are explored in a somewhat more detailed way.     

Phenomenology and dialogue: A methodological consideration

Dialogue between religions, if it is to advance beyond polite posturing and into the arena whereby mutual mis‐perceptions are corrected and old dogmas transcended, requires a particular framework for discourse, a language that belongs to neither religion in isolation but to both in the context of the dialogical encounter. With the specifics of Christian‐Muslim dialogue in mind this paper asks the question: What methodological tools are required such that dialogical engagement may take place at the conceptual and ideological level? We argue that the theological dimension of dialogue requires the particular tools of the phenomenologist of religion; indeed that the path to a dialogue that seeks to address the deep and thorny issues requires, in fact, the complementary methodologies of the theological and phenomenological approaches. To this end, the matter of defining the term ‘religion’ is addressed, various approaches to the study of religion are noted, and the phenomenological method outlined and discussed.     

现象学作为一种第一哲学:马里翁、雅尼科与里希尔

文章围绕现象学能否作为第一哲学这一热点问题,展现了多米尼克·雅尼科、马克·里希尔与让-吕克·马里翁之间的争论.雅尼科忠实于现象学还原的观念,反思它具体给予我们的意义关联,坚决反对将现象学作为第一哲学,而提倡一种极简主义的现象学.马里翁则从尝试设置对现象的范畴分析之基础出发,进一步澄清现象学的偶然性的特异性,在现象学的意义上使另一种第一哲学的轮廓清晰可见.但是,马里翁的给予现象学暗示着只有一种把握凭自身出现和显示的现象的可能方式,这是为里希尔所不能赞同的,里希尔自发的意义构成的现象学在此提供了另外一种选择.