Colors in the life-world

Continental Philosophy Review -     

Virtualization of the life-world

Building on Alfred Schütz’s work, this essay conceptually scrutinizes virtual worlds with an aim to clarify what is at stake with the virtualization of the late modern society. The diffusion of technological artifacts, devices of communication and the Internet in particular, have transformed the life-world of essentially everyone. In the past few years our everyday life, including its livelihoods, has seen a proliferation of activities within virtual worlds, such as games and virtual social networks. We can now live and experience actively in different virtual realms, as compared to being mere passive receivers in the era of television and radio. This has direct implications for what is inherently relevant for people and, in consequence, we have to take such transformation into account also in conceptual terms. This article makes a major contribution to the conceptual understanding of phenomenological sociology that due to the virtualization, we can no more equate the paramount reality as the zone of primary relevance. The paramount reality as conceived as the sensorily perceivable, physical world of concrete objects is increasingly far from being equated to that part of the world within our reach which we can immediately observe and also at least partially dominate, that is, the zone of primary relevance. It is furthermore argued that the ongoing virtualization of societies urges us to conceive of virtual worlds as transforming the chief finite province of meaning, that of the world of working, instead of seeing virtual worlds merely as other sub-universes of reality.     

Hermeneutics in science and medicine: A thesis understated

Drew Leder's “Clinical Interpretation: The Hermeneutics of Medicine” [1] is an essay which understates its case and thereby opens itself to misinterpretation. This response to Leder argues for a more thorough-going hermeneutic for both medicine and science. At the conceptual as well as the practical level, modern medicine and its scientific foundations are hermeneutic enterprises. The purpose of this essay is to argue that we should not back away from this more radical thesis. Embracing it will result in less alienation of physicians from patients, and of physicians from the tasks of medicine.     

The sound of the life-world

Husserl's investigations of internal time-consciousness take sound as the primary temporal object. However, in these investigations, the structure of the flux of temporal subjectivity is established to the detriment of the rich tonal content of sound. Just as Husserl has enlarged the significance of the spatial object of mathematical physics to include the historically-sedimented layers of its appearance, so the temporal object will receive additional intelligibility if the rich texture of musical sound is taken into consideration. Particularly useful for this task is Bergson's philosophy of the listening experience. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A further investigation of the life-world

Conclusions My personal way to phenomenology revealed to me qualities that seem to be essential to one's sense of everyday social reality. Having been victimized I became aware of some of the basic elements that lie beneath the intersubjectivity of the taken-for granted life-world.Death is the ultimate problematic event and the individual is shielded from it by his or her life-world. We hope that actions are repeatable and that others are trustworthy so that we will not confront our own isolation and our own mortality. Although one is alone in death, we act as if we are, and always will be, fundamentally with others within a shared and orderly social world. In short, we avoid our finite individuality through the hopeful construction of a sense of permanent and fundamental sociability. By sheltering ourselves within the life-world, we are, in essence, hoping that we will not die. In this sense, the life-world is a fundamentally deceptive construction. Yet, in this same sense, the life-world is also the source of social and cultural progress. Paradoxically, our sense of everyday reality is both deceptive and productive.The author wishes to express his gratitude to Susan Meisenhelder, George Psathas, and Richard Zaner for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

Psychological science in a postmodern context.

Postmodern scholarship poses significant challenges to pivotal assumptions of individual knowledge, objectivity, and truth. In their place, an emphasis is placed on the communal construction of knowledge, objectivity as a relational achievement, and language as a pragmatic medium through which local truths are constituted. Although these developments in understanding may seem opposed to psychological science, they are not. Rather, they invite a new range of questions about the potentials of traditional research. These questions are vitally concerned with the significance of such inquiry in cultural life. More importantly, this emerging view of psychological science opens new and exciting vistas of theoretical, methodological, and practical significance. Increasing manifestations of movement in these directions suggest the possibility of profound change in the profession.     

Engagement for progress: applied philosophy of science in context

Philosophy of science was once a much more socially engaged endeavor, and can be so again. After a look back at philosophy of science in the 1930s–1950s, I turn to discuss the current potential for returning to a more engaged philosophy of science. Although philosophers of science have much to offer scientists and the public, I am skeptical that much can be gained by philosophers importing off-the-shelf discussions from philosophy of science to science and society. Such efforts will likely look like efforts to do applied ethics by merely applying ethical theories to particular contexts and problems. While some insight can be gained by these kinds of endeavors, the most interesting and pressing problems for the actual practitioners and users of science are rarely addressed. Instead, I recommend that philosophers of science engage seriously and regularly with scientists and/or the users of science in order to gain an understanding of the conceptual issues on the ground. From such engagement, flaws in the traditional philosophical frameworks, and how such flaws can be remedied, become apparent. Serious engagement with the contexts of science thus provides the most fruit for philosophy of science per se and for the practitioners whom the philosophers aim to assist. And if one focuses on contexts where science has its most social relevance, these efforts can help to provide the thing that philosophy of science now lacks: a full-bodied philosophy of science in society.     

Comments on cognitive science in the experimental analysis of behavior

Arguments are increasingly being made for the inclusion of cognitive science in the experimental analysis of behavior (TEAB). These arguments are described, and a critical analysis of them is presented, especially in regards to the logic of objective inference and the renewed use of cognitive intervening variables. In addition, one particular defining feature of cognitive processes (i.e., the absence of an immediate controlling stimulus) is described, along with alternative points of view stressing molar-molecular levels of analysis and historical causation. Finally, comments are made on the use of cognitive concepts and language in the behavioral sciences. On all of these issues, counter-arguments are based on available material in behavior analysis metatheory, concepts, and experimental practices.     

Integrating the ethical and social context of computing into the computer science curriculum

This paper describes the major components of ImpactCS, a program to develop strategies and curriculum materials for integrating social and ethical considerations into the computer science curriculum. It presents, in particular, the content recommendations of a subcommittee of ImpactCS; and it illustrates the interdisciplinary nature of the field, drawing upon concepts from computer science, sociology, philosophy, psychology, history and economics.     

从伽达默尔哲学诠释学看朱熹经典诠释学

伽达默尔是西方诠释学顶峰时期的代表人物,朱熹的经典诠释学也达到了中国经典诠释的高峰。两者在理论上有着相似性,如哲学诠释学与经典诠释学的本体、伽达默尔的前见理论与朱熹关于理解之蔽的论述、实践智慧等。由此分析并比较两位大师的诠释理论,从中找出共同之处与互补之处,可以促进中西方诠释理论的发展。     

怀疑的解释学

本文从利科的"怀疑的解释学"引出一个对解释学的怀疑问题的更加宽泛的思考,强调任何解释学都是对怀疑意识的克服,从近代到现代的西方解释学的发展都表明了这一点。当代的现象学的出发点是直观的"被给予性",而不是某种先入为主的基础。现象学的被给予性是超越传统基础主义的,它同时也是对怀疑主义的超越,它的怀疑是笛卡尔似的。伽达默尔似乎不满于利科过于执着于怀疑的解释学与信心解释学的对峙和差别,而要将两者统一起来,即置怀疑的解释学于信心解释学之中,虽然他在本文中并没有明确使用"信心解释学"这个词。对于伽达默尔来说,从怀疑到信心,是通过辩证法来实现的,而他眼里的辩证法被解释学化了,并与现象学对接,它涵盖对话、解释学的应用、实践智慧和视域融合等因素,伽达默尔突出从中引发出来的"分享"概念,强调理解作为一种参与是"分享",而不是独占,它不是获取部分,而是获取整体,人类的文明、文化就是这样发展起来的,类似滚雪球,越滚越大。     

Towards an experimental cognitive science of CBT

The increasing focus on cognitive processes as therapeutic targets has not yet been matched by a cognitive science base sufficiently developed to guide clinical practice. It is argued that the papers in this special issue represent evidence of progress towards this desirable goal. Collectively, they illustrate research techniques aimed at specifying the nature of cognitive operations likely to increase the risk of emotional disorders, and the introduction of experimental methods for their modification. Emergent themes include the suggestion that negative thought content, such as that experienced in rumination, is an unintended but maladaptive product of underlying biases in selective processing. Despite often operating outside awareness, this biased processing can be changed, for example by strengthening incompatible alternatives. Beyond providing evidence for the causal role of selective cognitive processes, this approach offers a potentially powerful method for investigating and developing new therapeutic tools.