THE ROLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AS MEANING MAKER IN SCIENCE, CULTURE, AND RELIGION

Two hundred years ago, Friedrich Schleiermacher took critical issue with Immanuel Kant's intellectual notion of intuition as applied to human nature (Wellmon 2006). He found it necessary to modify—"hermeneutically," as he said—Kant's notion of anthropology by enabling it to include as human the new and strange human tribes Captain Cook found in the Pacific South Seas. A similar hermeneutic move is necessary if physics is to include the local contextual empirical syntheses of relativity and quantum physics. In this hermeneutical revision the synthesis is formed around the notion of a Hilbert Vector Space as the universal grammar of physics, adding to it the dynamic of the Schrödinger equation, and representing empirical "observables" by projection operators that map the subspaces of definite measurable values. Among the set of observable projection operators, some pairs share the same subspace, commute with one another, and share a common laboratory setting. Other pairs do not share this property and are described as being mutually complementary. Complementary symmetries introduce into the discursive language of physics the commonsense notion of contextuality. The new synthesis, proposed by Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and (in his own way) Paul Dirac, brought physics into the community of common language and established it as a work of general human achievement. ¹     

Gustav Shpet and Phenomenology in an Orthodox Key

Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (1879--1937) is undoubtedly best known for introducing Husserlian phenomenology to Russia. He applied to aesthetics and the philosophy of language the principles he had discovered in Husserl's Logical Investigations and Ideas I. But, perhaps without knowing it, he modified the phenomenology he had found in Husserl. His modifications show a thinker who is thoroughly grounded in Russian religious thought of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The result is a philosophy that combines Husserl's analysis of the structure of consciousness with the fundamental Platonism of Orthodoxy, the doctrine of incarnation, and the related notion that matter is to be venerated.     

Husserl’s philosophy of mathematics: its origin and relevance

This paper offers an exposition of Husserl's mature philosophy of mathematics, expounded for the first time in Logische Untersuchungen and maintained without any essential change throughout the rest of his life. It is shown that Husserl's views on mathematics were strongly influenced by Riemann, and had clear affinities with the much later Bourbaki school.

Recognizing Racit Knowledge in Medical Epistemology

The evidence-based medicine movement advocates basing all medical decisions on certain types of quantitative research data and has stimulated protracted controversy and debate since its inception. Evidence-based medicine presupposes an inaccurate and deficient view of medical knowledge. Michael Polanyi’s theory of tacit knowledge both explains this deficiency and suggests remedies for it. Polanyi shows how all explicit human knowledge depends on a wealth of tacit knowledge which accrues from experience and is essential for problem solving. Edmund Pellegrino’s classic treatment of clinical judgment is examined, and a Polanyian critique of this position demonstrates that tacit knowledge is necessary for understanding how clinical judgment and medical decisions involve persons. An adequate medical epistemology requires much more qualitative research relevant to the clinical encounter and medical decision making than is currently being done. This research is necessary for preventing an uncritical application of evidence-based medicine by health care managers that erodes good clinical practice. Polanyi’s epistemology shows the need for this work and provides the structural core for building an adequate and robust medical epistemology that moves beyond evidence-based medicine.An erratum to this article can be found at     

How is the Other Approached and Conceptualized in Terms of Schutz's Constitutive Phenomenology of the Natural Attitude?<Superscript>1</Superscript>

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception' and “pairing' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other' in general and about the “stranger' in particular.     

Meaning, Truth, and Phenomenology

This essay approaches Derrida through a consideration of his writings on Saussure and Husserl. Derrida is right to insist, following Saussure, on a relational theory of meaning: words do not have a one-to-one correspondence with their referents. But he is wrong to insist on a purely differential theory of meaning: words can refer to reality within the context of a body of knowledge. Similarly, Derrida is right to reject Husserl's idea of presence: no truths are simply given to consciousness. But he is wrong to reject the very idea of objective knowledge: we can defend a notion of objective knowledge couched in terms of a comparison of rival bodies of theories. The essay concludes by considering the implications of the preceding arguments for the enterprise of phenomenology.     

The duality of non-conceptual content in Husserl’s phenomenology of perception

Recently, a number of epistemologists have argued that there are no non-conceptual elements in representational content. On their view, the only sort of non-conceptual elements are components of sub-personal organic hardware that, because they enjoy no veridical role, must be construed epistemologically irrelevant. By reviewing a 35-year-old debate initiated by Dagfinn Følledal, I believe Husserlian phenomenology can be updated to offer an important contribution to this discussion. On my interpretation, what Husserl calls “hyletic data” may be read as that subjective quality of experience inarticulable as a propositional attitude – and, thus, hyletic data are non-conceptual. In anticipation of the recent conceptualist position, Føllesdal and his adherents argued that what Husserl had called “noema” or representational content is, however, entirely conceptual. A closer inspection of the relevant texts, however, reveals that Husserl admits non-conceptual elements into his characterization of the noema. If that is correct, then Husserl must have been a dualist about non-conceptual content. In turn, I believe what explains this dualism is a non-foundationalist reconstruction of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction.An earlier version of this paper was delivered at Fordham University on the occasion of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle. I am grateful to Prof. Steven Crowell who, in his capacity as respondent, offered incisive and helpful commentary. I also thank Prof. John J. Drummond for organizing the meeting, and all those present during my talk; as well as two anonymous reviewers for Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, who offered helpful questions and comments.     

How experienced phenomena relate to things themselves: Kant,Husserl, Hoche,and reflexive monism

What we normally think of as the “physical world” is also the world as experienced, that is, a world of appearances. Given this, what is the reality behind the appearances, and what might its relation be to consciousness and to constructive processes in the mind? According to Kant, the thing itself that brings about and supports these appearances is unknowable and we can never gain any understanding of how it brings such appearances about. Reflexive monism argues the opposite: the thing itself is knowable as are the processes that construct conscious appearances. Conscious appearances (empirical evidence) and the theories derived from them can represent what the world is really like, even though such empirical knowledge is partial, approximate and uncertain, and conscious appearances are species-specific constructions of the human mind. Drawing on the writings of Husserl, Hoche suggests that problems of knowledge, mind and consciousness are better understood in terms of a “pure noematic” phenomenology that avoids any reference to a “thing itself.” I argue that avoiding reference to a knowable reality (behind appearances) leads to more complex explanations with less explanatory value and counterintuitive conclusions—for example Hoche’s conclusion that consciousness is not part of nature. The critical realism adopted by reflexive monism appears to be more useful, as well as being consistent with science and common sense.     

The Philosophical Role of Illness

This article examines the philosophical role of illness. It briefly surveys the philosophical role accorded to illness in the history of philosophy and explains why illness merits such a role. It suggests that illness modifies, and thus sheds light on, normal experience, revealing its ordinary and therefore overlooked structure. Illness also provides an opportunity for reflection by performing a kind of suspension (epoché) of previously held beliefs, including tacit beliefs. The article argues that these characteristics warrant a philosophical role for illness. While the performance of most philosophical procedures is volitional and theoretical, however, illness is uninvited and threatening, throwing the ill person into anxiety and uncertainty. As such it can be viewed as a radical philosophical motivation that can profoundly alter our outlook. The article suggests that illness can change the ways in which we philosophise: it may shape philosophical methods and concerns and change one's sense of salience and conception of philosophy.