Die Erfahrung des Anderen. Phänomenologie,Behaviorismus und Spiegelneuronen

The recent discovery of a mirror neuron system sets a challenge for a philosophy of experience such as phenomenology, because in humans and monkeys the mirror system seems to transform seen actions into an inner representation of these actions. This paper tries to outline the guidelines of a transcendental-phenomenological analysis of alterity, different from empirical research. The transcendental research must provide a criterion for interpreting the results of empirical science. On this basis the paper compares the phenomenological analysis of alterity with some results of neuroscientific research. It is argued that Edmund Husserl presents an analysis that enables us to avoid misinterpretations of the role and function of the mirror neuron system.

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Von ,Listenwissenschaft‘ und ,epistemischen Dingen‘. Konzeptuelle Annäherungen an altorientalische Wissenspraktiken

Traditionally, Ancient Mesopotamian epistemic practices resulting in the vast corpus of cuneiform ‘lexical lists’ and other, similarly formatted treatises have been conceptualized as “Listenwissenschaft” in Assyriology. Introduced by the German Assyriologist Wolfram v. Soden in 1936, this concept has also been utilized in other disciplines of the Humanities as a terminological means to describe epistemic activity allegedly inferior to ‘Western’ modes of analytical and hypotactic scientific reasoning. Building on the exemplary evidence of a bilingual list of cuneiform compound graphemes from the early 2nd millennium BCE as well as on recent conceptualizations of ‘epistemic cultures’ and the instrumental function of material ‘representations’ in the context of epistemic practices, the present paper attempts to replace the essentialistic and teleological concept of an Ancient Mesopotamian “Listenwissenschaft” with a new epistemological model describing the underlying epistemic practices as highly adaptive non-linear epistemic practices comparable to what has been described as ‘practices with »epistemic things«’ in recent epistemology and practice theory.     

Das Leibgedächtnis. Ein Beitrag aus der Phänomenologie Husserls

Die Unterscheidung von verschiedenen Ged?chtnisformen und -systemen sowie die Beziehung zwischen Ged?chtnis und Leiblichkeit stehen sowohl im Fokus der kognitionswissenschaftlichen, als auch der ph?nomenologischen Debatte. In diesem Artikel wird versucht, beide Ans?tze zum Thema in einen Dialog zu bringen. Das Leibged?chtnis wird hier zun?chst ph?nomenologisch als der konkreteste Ausdruck des impliziten Ged?chtnisses bestimmt. Basierend auf Edmund Husserls Analysen zum Zeitbewusstsein und zur leiblichen Erfahrung werden folglich die Strukturen und die Dynamik des Leibged?chtnisses hervorgehoben. Dabei wird gezeigt, dass das Leibged?chtnis sowohl in den Wahrnehmungsprozessen als auch in der Gestaltung des pr?reflektiven leiblichen Selbstbewusstseins eine unentbehrliche Rolle spielt. Schlie?lich wird die Relevanz der durchgeführten ph?nomenologischen Analysen im Rahmen der aktuellen Debatte über Ged?chtnissysteme in den Kognitionswissenschaften diskutiert.     

Das „Problem“ der Habituskonstitution und die Spätlehre des Ich in der genetischen Phänomenologie E. Husserls

Der vorliegende Aufsatz behandelt zwei Bereiche, deren Zusammenhang in der aktuellen Husserlforschung zu Unrecht in Vergessenheit geraten zu sein scheint: Zum einen konturiere ich den Habitusbegriff und das damit verbundene Problem der Habituskonstitution im Spätwerk E. Husserls. Zum anderen dient das Ergebnis dieser ersten Untersuchung dann als Grundlage für die Frage nach dem Wesen des Ich in der genetischen Phänomenologie. Die Untersuchung besteht (nach einer kurzen Einleitung) aus drei Teilen: Zuerst stelle ich, um die Bedeutung des Begriffs ?Habitus“ zu klären, Ingardens Interpretationsalternativen der Habituskonstitution vor. Im Anschluss daran werde ich mich mit dem sogenannten ?transzendentalen Okkasionalismus“ befassen, der eine der zuvor vorgestellten Alternativen Ingardens aufgreift und weiterführt. Der ?transzendentale Okkasionalismus“ vertritt die These, dass die habituellen Eigenschaften des Ich durch den einfachen Vollzug der Akte entstünden. Weil diese These als Interpretation des Habitusbegriffs bei Husserl weit verbreitet ist, muss sie als Lösungsansatz in Erwägung gezogen werden. Jedoch zeigt eine genaue Lektüre der Forschungsmanuskripte Husserls, dass dieser scheinbare Lösungsansatz einen dort wichtigen Begriff außer Acht lässt: die ?Geschichte des Ich“. Diese wird im dritten und letzten Teil dieses Aufsatzes näher betrachtet und erläutert. Husserl selbst hob nämlich einen wesenhaften Zusammenhang zwischen den mannigfaltigen Erfahrungen des Ich hervor, durch den die Bezeichnung der Habituskonstitution als ?Okkasionalismus“ nicht zutreffend sein kann. Aus diesem Grund geht dieser Beitrag über die reine Wiedergabe der Habitusproblematik in Husserls Phänomenologie hinaus und beschreibt eine Auffassung der transzendentalen Subjektivität, die aus dem Spätwerk Husserls stammt.     

Das prädiskursive Einverständnis. Wissenschaftlicher Wahrheitsbegriff und prozedurale Rechtfertigung

The pre-discoursive agreement. Theory of scientific truth and procedural justification. — On basis of the constructive philosophy of science, the attention is focussed to the pre-discoursive elements of discoursive theories of truth. By using a pragmatic approach it is shown that foundation of those pre-discoursive elements, like discourse rules or the basic terminology, is possible though the discourse rules are not available at this level. Propositions which can be shown in the presented theory to be true, always describe a know-how instead of a knowledge about the world. As a result, the relevance of the presented analysis for prototheories of scientific disciplines is investigated. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Der Phänomenologe in der Galerie. Husserl und die Malerei

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Sensualistischer Phänomenalismus und Denkökonomie. Zur Wissenschaftskonzeption Ernst Machs

Sensationalistic Phenomenalism and Economy of Thought. On Ernst Mach's Concept of Science. Ernst Mach, natural scientist and major precursor of the Vienna Circle, never wants to be a philosopher. Nevertheless his writings are full of valuable hints for a modern theory of human knowledge – with respect to economical, historical and evolutionary aspects. His kind of phenomenalism is sensationalistic, monistic and instrumentalistic. This article deals with some contributions of his approach to actual debates in the general philosophy of science. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Täuschungsstrategien von Kindern, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen

Criteria-Based Content Analysis (22) is part of the Statement Validity Assessment (SVA), a method used for assessing the credibility of witness’ statements. CBCA relies on two assumptions, one referring to the cognitive strain of inventing a complex false declaration, the other being related to self presentation as a competent, reliable and truthful person by avoiding potentially “damaging” contents. When evalutating statements, forensic experts take into account that cognitive capacity - and thus potential content quality of a false declaration - increases with age. On the other hand there is no empirical evidence for an improvement of deceptive self-presentation strategies so far. Recent studies on content-related deceptive strategies with children and adults support the assumption that children as well as adults do apply specific deception strategies. Due to methodological differences, however, a direct comparison between these studies to obtain results on possible age effects has not been possible. The aim of this study was to investigate whether children, adolescents and adults differ in the content-related deceptive strategies they apply. Children (n = 48), adolescents (n = 73) and adults (n = 50) were given an age appropriate standardized questionnaire about their content-related deception strategies. Results show age differences in the strategic value assigned to certain content characteristics.     

Strukturniveau,Abwehr und Merkmale von Träumen

Attempts were made early on to associate certain human characteristics with dreams. The psychoanalytical notion of structure encompasses a fully differentiated construct, which in particular is characterized by basic mental capabilities. The structural level of a person derived from this reflects their ability for communicative exchange and dealing with themselves as well as with social partners.Within the framework of the project “Affectivity, relationship and mental disorder” operationalized psychodynamic diagnostic (OPD) interviews were carried out, from which the reports of dreams were evaluated for this investigation using the dream generation model of Moser and von Zeppelin. The aim was to investigate associations between features of dreams and the structural level. A total of four different indicators of structure were investigated, e.g. number of personality disorders, OPD-2 structural level, inventory of personality organization (IPO) and the defence maturity quotient, with reference to the association with dream characteristics according to Moser and von Zeppelin.In this investigation only a few associations between dream characteristics and structural level could be identified. The clearest was the association between the degree of maturity of defence and the dream characteristics. Dreams from persons with a more mature defence appeared more complex and livelier. Dreams from persons with a good structural integration according to OPD-2 are also characterized by more “animation” than dreams from less structured persons. The dreams from persons with a moderate structural level do not show any significant differences to those with low structural integration.The results are first and foremost critically discussed with reference to the methods.     

Das Image von Psychologen, Psychotherapeuten und Psychiatern in der Öffentlichkeit

This is a systematic review of studies about the public image of or attitudes toward mental health professionals, particularly psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists (including psychoanalysts) on the basis of computerized medical and psychological databases (PsycLIT, Pub Med, Google Scholar) and their cross-references with 43 new articles. It is an update of an older meta-content analysis of the same topic (N= 60 primary studies) which analyzed studies, published between 1948 and 1995. Data about their perceived social status, field of activity and clinical expertise, their sex/gender and physical appearance, personality and social interaction (especially those between therapists and clients), their work setting and about differential effects are presented. It becomes obvious that there exists a “shrink”-stereotype, which refers equally to psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, and which differs from the stereotype of physicians. The appearance of the “shrink” stereotype is male and psychoanalytically influenced (looking as Sigmund Freud in the setting “couch”). The stereotypes of “shrink’s” personality are partially idealisations (warm, intelligent, understanding parental figures) and partially very negative images (the neurotic; the dangerous, manipulative abuser). Public image of “shrinks”, research deficits, methodological problems, and sex/gender issues are critically discussed.     

Phänomenologie und Realismus. Die Frage nach der Wirklichkeit im Streit zwischen Husserl und Ingarden

I deal with the relation between phenomenology and realism while examining Ingarden’s critique towards Husserl. I exhibit the empiricist nucleus of Husserl’s phenomenology, according to which the real is what can be sensuously experienced. On this basis, I argue that Husserl’s phenomenology is not idealistic, in opposition to the realistic phenomenology, according to which reality consists in entities which cannot be sensuously experienced and are thus ideal. Finally I attempt to show that the idealistic elements of Husserl’s thinking do not originate from the transcendental turn, but from a remainder of psychologism that contradicts his empiricism.