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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

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'Naturalism' seems still to be a vague concept in this thread, and elsewhere in contemporary intellectual culture, with the exception of this attempt we're discussing to unify or integrate 'naturalism' with 'consciousness'. I also need to add that the 'successfulness' of many ideas, 'memes', impulses, and behaviors in the general culture we are living in does not mean much. Take the success of Donald Trump as an example.




Those expectations and assumptions stand in the absence of needed critique in our culture as a whole. Our culture is in general, at this point in time, driven by 'memes' and sound-bites rather than informed and critical thought.

You said: What's wrong with the naturally evolved consciousness we possess?

And that's what I was responding to - that I didn't think anything was wrong with the naturally evolved consciousness that we possess. I think what many people perceive as the "success" of naturalism (and here empirical science or applied science, engineering, is probably better) in terms of the technology it has produced (to my mind a mixed bag - leads to a wanting of a technology of consciousness, though this might not be fully articulated. Cosmetic psychiatry is an early example. Biophobia is in the mix too - as is the eroticization/fetishization of technology (handguns, sports cars, etc). This is why I think we might move more toward a customization of the body using biological and cybernetic technology first rather than creating pure AI.
 
That is what appears to be the gist of it, naturalization meaning to make phenomenology part of the natural sciences, which includes life sciences, which includes psychology and the various other studies intimately associated with it such as neuroscience. So I suppose, technically speaking, it isn't only about psychology, but I'm sure you get the idea. Psychology is where the main focus is in the natural sciences with respect to studying mental phenomena.

The history of psychology since Freud and Jung includes a variety of approaches to mental health, some prominent ones based in phenomenology and existentialism. Like other disciplines of thought, the field of psychology as a whole has nevertheless remained susceptible to the lure of materialism and 'physicalism' dominant in the hard sciences. Phenomenology cannot be reduced to psychology, though they can inform one another.

Steve had asked you:

"What do you see as the consequences? And what do you make of the "transcendental facets"?

And you replied:

"Interesting question. I suppose that all depends on one's attitude ;-)"

I think you are confusing Transcendence in the theological or spiritual senses with transcendence as the term is used in philosophy in general and particularly in phenomenological philosophy.
 
Apologies for the wall of text copied below. I'll insert (restore) the paragraph breaks in it for ease of reading after I get back home a few hours from now.

This should be helpful, from the Zahavi paper I linked earlier today:

Phenomenology and the project of naturalization
DAN ZAHAVI The Danish National Research Foundation, Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (E-mail: [email protected]) 34

Abstract. In recent years, more and more people have started talking about the necessity of reconciling phenomenology with the project of naturalization. Is it possible to bridge the gap between phenomenological analyses and naturalistic models of consciousness? Is it possible to naturalize phenomenology? Given the transcendental philosophically motivated anti-aturalism found in many phenomenologists such a naturalization proposal might seem doomed from the very start, but in this paper I will examine and evaluate some possible alternatives.
Key words: anti-naturalism, consciousness, naturalization, phenomenology, transcendental


". . . In my view, it is a serious misunderstanding to suggest that Husserl’s opposition to naturalism is mainly based on his so-called scientific motives, i.e. on his rejection of the attempt to mathematically formalize the structures of experience. Husserl’s opposition to naturalism is not primarily based on what he takes to be the morphological structures of experience. Rather, it is mainly based on a number of philosophical reasons, or to be more exact, on a number of transcendental philosophical reasons, which are more or less ignored by the editors [of a 1999 volume of essays titled Naturalizing Phenomenology, ed. Jean Petitot et al]. I am here mainly thinking of Husserl’s rejection of objectivism and of his very idea of a transcendental subjectivity.4 It would, of course, be something of a slight exaggeration to claim that the notion of transcendental subjectivity is universally accepted in contemporary philosophy, but in my view much of the criticism is based on something that approaches a complete misunderstanding of the term. Often transcendental subjectivity is taken to be some kind of other-worldly, ghostly, homunculus. Confronted with such ignorance, it is crucial to demythologize the notion. The empirical subject and the transcendental subject are not two different subjects, but rather two different ways of conceiving one and the same subject. It is a difference between being aware of oneself as a causally determined known object, as a part of the empirical world, and being aware of oneself as a knowing subject, as—to paraphrase Wittgenstein—the limit of the world. In short, it is the difference between being aware of oneself as an object in the world, and being aware of oneself as a subject for the world. As such it is not a notion that is completely foreign to contemporary analytical philosophy. As Thomas Nagel acknowledges in a footnote in The View from Nowhere his own reflections on the first-person perspective (what he, somewhat paradoxically, calls the “objective self”) has a good deal in common with Husserl’s discussion of the transcendental ego (Nagel 1986, 62). Part of Husserl’s ambition is to provide an adequate phenomenological description of consciousness. He is not concerned with finding room for consciousness within an already well established materialistic or naturalistic framework. In fact, the very attempt to do the latter, thereby assuming that consciousness is merely yet another object in the world, might very well prevent one from disclosing let alone clarifying some of the most interesting aspects of consciousness, including the true epistemic and ontological significance of the first-person perspective. For Husserl, the problem of consciousness should not be addressed on the background of an unquestioned objectivism, but in connection with overarching transcendental considerations. Frequently, the assumption has been that a better understanding of the physical world will allow us to understand consciousness better and rarely, that a better understanding of consciousness might allow for a better understanding of what it means for something to be real. However, one of the reasons why the theory of intentionality has often assumed a central position in phenomenological thinking is exactly because a study of the world-directedness of consciousness has been claimed to provide us with insights into not only the structure of subjectivity, but also into the nature of objectivity. That something like a conscious appropriation of the world is possible does not merely tell us something about consciousness, but also about the world. But of course, this way of discussing consciousness, as the constitutive dimension, as the place in which the world can reveal and articulate itself, is quite different from any attempt to treat it naturalistically as merely yet another (psychical or physical) object in the world. To rephrase: Phenomenology is not concerned with empirical consciousness, but—to use the traditional term—with transcendental subjectivity. Thus, what needs to be emphasized is that phenomenology aims at disclosing a new, non-psychological dimension of consciousness. As Husserl writes in the early lecture course Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie from 1906–7: “If consciousness ceases to be a human or some other empirical consciousness, then the word loses all psychological meaning, and ultimately one is led back to something absolute that is neither physical nor psychical being in a natural scientific sense. However, in the phenomenological perspective this is the case throughout the field of givenness. It is precisely the apparently so obvious thought, that everything given is either physical or psychical that must be abandoned” (Husserl 1984b, 242).

Phenomenology has affinities with psychology in so far as both disciplines are interested in consciousness. But as Husserl also points out, although the distinction between phenomenology on the one hand and psychology and natural science on the other can be difficult to draw, and might at first even appear as an unnecessarily subtle distinction, we are in fact confronted with an absolute crucial nuance that is fundamental to the very possibility of doing philosophy (Husserl 1984b, 211).

Husserl takes psychology to be an empirical science about the nature of the psyche, and therefore to be a science about psychical life understood as a real occurrent entity in the natural world (Husserl 1987, 75). In contrast, phenomenology is not empirical, but eidetic and a priori. And even more importantly, phenomenology is not interested in consciousness as a natural occurrence. Phenomenology seeks to describe the experiential structures in their phenomenal purity and does not psychologize them, that is, it does not objectify and naturalize them (Husserl 1987, 117). Although phenomenology and psychology differ (and to suggest that phenomenology is in reality merely a kind of descriptive psychology is a momentous error) this does not make them unrelated. Not surprisingly, Husserl characterizes phenomenology (a phenomenology not misled by naturalistic prejudices, as he adds) as a foun- dation and presupposition for a truly scientific psychology (Husserl 1984b, 251 383–384; 1987, 39). Every phenomenological analysis of conscious life is of pertinence to psychology, and can through a change of attitude be transformed into a psychological insight.

The problem at hand cannot only be phrased in terms of a distinction between empirical subjectivity and transcendental subjectivity, but also in terms of the contrast between positive science and (transcendental) philosophy. A traditional way of viewing this contrast has been by saying that the positive sciences are so absorbed in their investigation of the natural (or social/cultural) world that they do not pause to reflect upon their own presuppositions and conditions of possibility. For Husserl, natural science is (philosophically) naive. Its subject matter, nature, is simply taken for granted. Reality is assumed to be out there, waiting to be discovered and investigated. And the aim of natural science is to acquire a strict and objectively valid knowledge about this given realm. But this attitude must be contrasted with the properly philosophical attitude, which critically questions the very foundation of experience and scientific thought (Husserl 1987, 13–14). Philosophy is a discipline which doesn’t simply contribute to or augment the scope of our positive knowledge, but which instead investigates the basis of this knowledge and asks how it is possible. Positivism has denied the existence of a particular philosophical method, and has claimed that philosophy should employ the same method that all strict sciences are using, the natural scientific method. But for Husserl this line of reasoning merely displays that one has failed to understand what philosophy is all about. Philosophy has its own aims and methodological requirements; requirements that for Husserl are epitomized in his notion of phenomenological reduction (Husserl 1984b, 238–239). For Husserl, the reduction is meant to make us maintain the radical difference between philosophical reflection and all other modes of thought. As he writes in 1907: “Thus, the ‘phenomenological reduction’ is simply the requirement always to abide by the sense of the proper investigation, and not to confuse episte- mology with a natural scientific (objectivistic) investigation” (Husserl 1984b, 281 410). Every positive science rests upon a field of givenness or evidence that is presupposed but not investigated by the sciences themselves. In order to make this dimension accessible, a new type of inquiry is called for, a type of inquiry which “precedes all natural knowledge and science and points in a quite different direction than natural science” (Husserl 1984b, 176). To thematize the objects in terms of their givenness, validity, and intelligibility calls for a reflective stance quite unlike the one needed in the positive sciences. This, of course, is one reason why the phenomenological attitude has frequently been described as an unnatural direction of thought (cf. Husserl 1984a, 14). But to describe phenomenology as unnatural is of course also to deny any straightforward continuity between philosophy and natural science.

Given this outlook, it has been customary to consider philosophy as an autonomous discipline whose transcendental investigation of the condition of possibility for knowledge and experience takes place in a sphere which is separate from that of the sciences. But in this case, the very proposal to 295 naturalize phenomenology must strike one as being fundamentally misguided. 296 In a recent article—which actually defends the project of naturalization— 297 Murray has nicely captured this traditional critical attitude: 298 [P]henomenological descriptions and neurobiological explanations can not be viewed as a 299 set of mutually enriching methodological options which, together, will allow us to build 300 up a picture of cognition, aspect by aspect, as it were, because the two kinds of accounts 301 have an entirely different status. For in seeking to lay bare the fundamental structures of 302 experience, phenomenology is also seeking to establish the foundations of any possible 303 knowledge. Consequently, phenomenological accounts cannot simply be conjoined to neu- 304 robiological ones, because the ultimate purpose of the former is to ascertain the validity of 305 the latter. In other words, to suppose that naturalising phenomenology is simply a matter of 306 overcoming some traditional ontological divide is to fail to see that the difference between 307 phenomenology and neurobiology is not just a difference with respect to the objects of their 308 investigations, but a fundamental difference in their theoretical orientation – a difference 309 which is taken to be typical of philosophical and scientific investigations in general. For 310 while the neuroscientist allegedly takes for granted the possibility of understanding the 311 world, the philosopher believes there is a need for some kind of preliminary investigation 312 into how such an understanding might arise. Consequently, a phenomenologist who em- 313 braced naturalisation might be seen as having, in effect, ceased to be a philosopher. (Murray 314 2002, 30–31). 315 Where does this leave us? Is the entire naturalization proposal doomed 316 from the very start due to its misunderstanding of what phenomenology is all 317 about? It might look that way, but in the rest of my paper I will briefly sketch 318 some possible ways out. 319

Phenomenological psychology and transcendental phenomenology................................

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ralization/links/0c960517e1ba00d66a000000.pdf
 
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... I think you are confusing Transcendence in the theological or spiritual senses with transcendence as the term is used in philosophy in general and particularly in phenomenological philosophy ..
Nope. I am aware that there are differing interpretations and my comment was a play on words to that effect ( hence the wink ) because, especially when it comes to Kant, who is relevant here, the interpretations can be applied in ways that allow for some fairly deep reflection with respect to the issue.
 
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Nope. I am aware that there are differing interpretations and my comment was a play on words to that effect ( hence the wink ) because, especially when it comes to Kant, who is relevant here, the interpretations can be applied in ways that allow for some fairly deep reflection with respect to the issue.

Can you elaborate?
 
Apologies for the wall of text copied below. I'll insert (restore) the paragraph breaks in it for ease of reading after I get back home a few hours from now.

This should be helpful, from the Zahavi paper I linked earlier today:

"In my view, it is 169 a serious misunderstanding to suggest that Husserl’s opposition to naturalism 170 is mainly based on his so-called scientific motives, i.e. on his rejection of the 171 attempt to mathematically formalize the structures of experience. Husserl’s 172 opposition to naturalism is not primarily based on what he takes to be the 173 morphological structures of experience. Rather, it is mainly based on a number 174 of philosophical reasons, or to be more exact, on a number of transcendental 175 philosophical reasons, which are more or less ignored by the editors. I am 176 here mainly thinking of Husserl’s rejection of objectivism and of his very idea of a transcendental subjectivity.4 177 178 It would, of course, be something of a slight exaggeration to claim that the 179 notion of transcendental subjectivity is universally accepted in contemporary 180 philosophy, but in my view much of the criticism is based on something that 181 approaches a complete misunderstanding of the term. Often transcendental 182 subjectivity is taken to be some kind of other-worldly, ghostly, homunculus. 183 Confronted with such ignorance, it is crucial to demythologize the notion. 184 The empirical subject and the transcendental subject are not two different 185 subjects, but rather two different ways of conceiving one and the same subject. 186 It is a difference between being aware of oneself as a causally determined 187 known object, as a part of the empirical world, and being aware of oneself as a 188 knowing subject, as—to paraphrase Wittgenstein—the limit of the world. In 189 short, it is the difference between being aware of oneself as an object in the 190 world, and being aware of oneself as a subject for the world. As such it is not 191 a notion that is completely foreign to contemporary analytical philosophy. As 192 Thomas Nagel acknowledges in a footnote in The View from Nowhere his own 193 reflections on the first-person perspective (what he, somewhat paradoxically, 194 calls the “objective self”) has a good deal in common with Husserl’s discussion 195 of the transcendental ego (Nagel 1986, 62). 196 Part of Husserl’s ambition is to provide an adequate phenomenological 197 description of consciousness. He is not concerned with finding room for 198 consciousness within an already well established materialistic or naturalistic 199 framework. In fact, the very attempt to do the latter, thereby assuming that con- 200 sciousness is merely yet another object in the world, might very well prevent 201 one from disclosing let alone clarifying some of the most interesting aspects 202 of consciousness, including the true epistemic and ontological significance of the first-person perspective. For Husserl, the problem of consciousness should 203 not be addressed on the background of an unquestioned objectivism, but in 204 connection with overarching transcendental considerations. Frequently, the 205 assumption has been that a better understanding of the physical world will 206 allow us to understand consciousness better and rarely, that a better under- 207 standing of consciousness might allow for a better understanding of what it 208 means for something to be real. However, one of the reasons why the theory 209 of intentionality has often assumed a central position in phenomenological 210 thinking is exactly because a study of the world-directedness of conscious- 211 ness has been claimed to provide us with insights into not only the structure 212 of subjectivity, but also into the nature of objectivity. That something like a 213 conscious appropriation of the world is possible does not merely tell us some- 214 thing about consciousness, but also about the world. But of course, this way of 215 discussing consciousness, as the constitutive dimension, as the place in which 216 the world can reveal and articulate itself, is quite different from any attempt to 217 treat it naturalistically as merely yet another (psychical or physical) object in 218 the world. To rephrase: Phenomenology is not concerned with empirical con- 219 sciousness, but—to use the traditional term—with transcendental subjectivity. 220 Thus, what needs to be emphasized is that phenomenology aims at disclosing 221 a new, non-psychological dimension of consciousness. As Husserl writes in 222 the early lecture course Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie from 223 1906–7: “If consciousness ceases to be a human or some other empirical con- 224 sciousness, then the word loses all psychological meaning, and ultimately one 225 is led back to something absolute that is neither physical nor psychical being 226 in a natural scientific sense. However, in the phenomenological perspective 227 this is the case throughout the field of givenness. It is precisely the apparently 228 so obvious thought, that everything given is either physical or psychical that 229 must be abandoned” (Husserl 1984b, 242). 230 Phenomenology has affinities with psychology in so far as both disciplines 231 are interested in consciousness. But as Husserl also points out, although the 232 distinction between phenomenology on the one hand and psychology and 233 natural science on the other can be difficult to draw, and might at first even 234 appear as an unnecessarily subtle distinction, we are in fact confronted with 235 an absolute crucial nuance that is fundamental to the very possibility of doing 236 philosophy (Husserl 1984b, 211). 237 Husserl takes psychology to be an empirical science about the nature of 238 the psyche, and therefore to be a science about psychical life understood as 239 a real occurrent entity in the natural world (Husserl 1987, 75). In contrast, 240 phenomenology is not empirical, but eidetic and a priori. And even more 241 importantly, phenomenology is not interested in consciousness as a natural 242 occurrence. Phenomenology seeks to describe the experiential structures in 243 their phenomenal purity and does not psychologize them, that is, it does not objectify and naturalize them (Husserl 1987, 117). Although phenomenology 246 and psychology differ (and to suggest that phenomenology is in reality merely 247 a kind of descriptive psychology is a momentous error) this does not make 248 them unrelated. Not surprisingly, Husserl characterizes phenomenology (a 249 phenomenology not misled by naturalistic prejudices, as he adds) as a foun- 250 dation and presupposition for a truly scientific psychology (Husserl 1984b, 251 383–384; 1987, 39). Every phenomenological analysis of conscious life is of 252 pertinence to psychology, and can through a change of attitude be transformed 253 into a psychological insight. 254 The problem at hand cannot only be phrased in terms of a distinction be- 255 tween empirical subjectivity and transcendental subjectivity, but also in terms 256 of the contrast between positive science and (transcendental) philosophy. A 257 traditional way of viewing this contrast has been by saying that the positive 258 sciences are so absorbed in their investigation of the natural (or social/cultural) 259 world that they do not pause to reflect upon their own presuppositions and con- 260 ditions of possibility. For Husserl, natural science is (philosophically) naive. 261 Its subject matter, nature, is simply taken for granted. Reality is assumed to 262 be out there, waiting to be discovered and investigated. And the aim of nat- 263 ural science is to acquire a strict and objectively valid knowledge about this 264 given realm. But this attitude must be contrasted with the properly philosoph- 265 ical attitude, which critically questions the very foundation of experience and 266 scientific thought (Husserl 1987, 13–14). Philosophy is a discipline which 267 doesn’t simply contribute to or augment the scope of our positive knowl- 268 edge, but which instead investigates the basis of this knowledge and asks 269 how it is possible. Positivism has denied the existence of a particular philo- 270 sophical method, and has claimed that philosophy should employ the same 271 method that all strict sciences are using, the natural scientific method. But for 272 Husserl this line of reasoning merely displays that one has failed to understand 273 what philosophy is all about. Philosophy has its own aims and methodologi- 274 cal requirements; requirements that for Husserl are epitomized in his notion 275 of phenomenological reduction (Husserl 1984b, 238–239). For Husserl, the 276 reduction is meant to make us maintain the radical difference between philo- 277 sophical reflection and all other modes of thought. As he writes in 1907: 278 “Thus, the ‘phenomenological reduction’ is simply the requirement always 279 to abide by the sense of the proper investigation, and not to confuse episte- 280 mology with a natural scientific (objectivistic) investigation” (Husserl 1984b, 281 410). Every positive science rests upon a field of givenness or evidence that is 282 presupposed but not investigated by the sciences themselves. In order to make 283 this dimension accessible, a new type of inquiry is called for, a type of in- 284 quiry which “precedes all natural knowledge and science and points in a quite 285 different direction than natural science” (Husserl 1984b, 176). To thematize 286 the objects in terms of their givenness, validity, and intelligibility calls for areflective stance quite unlike the one needed in the positive sciences. This, 287 of course, is one reason why the phenomenological attitude has frequently 288 been described as an unnatural direction of thought (cf. Husserl 1984a, 14). 289 But to describe phenomenology as unnatural is of course also to deny any 290 straightforward continuity between philosophy and natural science. 291 Given this outlook, it has been customary to consider philosophy as an 292 autonomous discipline whose transcendental investigation of the condition 293 of possibility for knowledge and experience takes place in a sphere which 294 is separate from that of the sciences. But in this case, the very proposal to 295 naturalize phenomenology must strike one as being fundamentally misguided. 296 In a recent article—which actually defends the project of naturalization— 297 Murray has nicely captured this traditional critical attitude: 298 [P]henomenological descriptions and neurobiological explanations can not be viewed as a 299 set of mutually enriching methodological options which, together, will allow us to build 300 up a picture of cognition, aspect by aspect, as it were, because the two kinds of accounts 301 have an entirely different status. For in seeking to lay bare the fundamental structures of 302 experience, phenomenology is also seeking to establish the foundations of any possible 303 knowledge. Consequently, phenomenological accounts cannot simply be conjoined to neu- 304 robiological ones, because the ultimate purpose of the former is to ascertain the validity of 305 the latter. In other words, to suppose that naturalising phenomenology is simply a matter of 306 overcoming some traditional ontological divide is to fail to see that the difference between 307 phenomenology and neurobiology is not just a difference with respect to the objects of their 308 investigations, but a fundamental difference in their theoretical orientation – a difference 309 which is taken to be typical of philosophical and scientific investigations in general. For 310 while the neuroscientist allegedly takes for granted the possibility of understanding the 311 world, the philosopher believes there is a need for some kind of preliminary investigation 312 into how such an understanding might arise. Consequently, a phenomenologist who em- 313 braced naturalisation might be seen as having, in effect, ceased to be a philosopher. (Murray 314 2002, 30–31). 315 Where does this leave us? Is the entire naturalization proposal doomed 316 from the very start due to its misunderstanding of what phenomenology is all 317 about? It might look that way, but in the rest of my paper I will briefly sketch 318 some possible ways out. 319

Phenomenological psychology and transcendental phenomenology................................

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ralization/links/0c960517e1ba00d66a000000.pdf

Very helpful.
 
Can you elaborate?
Follow the breadcrumbs and venture into the forest yourself. I'll get you started:

Kant reflected heavily on the subject of God, who as a hypothetical being is transcendent ( in one sense ) of the world of humans and Husserl didn't discount the possibility of religious experiences such as being in God's presence, even if one has never had such an experience themselves, which means that the concept of god or godhood might be seen as transcendental ( in a second sense ), with the answer to that question hinging on whether or not the reasons for believing there is such a deity corresponds to its objective reality.

To quote Kant: "I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them.", which leads to the idea that in phenomenology transcendental objects transcend consciousness by way of their objective existence ( a third sense ), unless you get into Sartre, who talks about imaginary objects, which sort of brings us back around to the question of whether or not God is an imaginary object ... so as I suggested, it all depends on your attitude, your personal perspective and approach to what you meant by the word "transcendental" when you posed the question.
 
Responding here to this post by @Usual Suspect, responding to Steve's question 'Can you elaborate?'


Nope. I am aware that there are differing interpretations and my comment was a play on words to that effect ( hence the wink ) because, especially when it comes to Kant, who is relevant here, the interpretations can be applied in ways that allow for some fairly deep reflection with respect to the issue.


What is "the issue" you refer to at the end of your post?

Kant's transcendental philosophy is indeed 'relevant' to the later development of phenomenological philosophy, but one cannot understand the latter simply by reading Kant.

ETA: my impression is that you have read as little of Kant as you have of phenomenological philosophy, an impression confirmed by your most recent post.
 
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I've paragraphed (and removed the text line numbers from) the first few pages of the Zahavi text I posted earlier and re-post that material in readable form below. I'll continue to improve the readability of the rest of the extract I posted after the news.


Phenomenology and the project of naturalization
DAN ZAHAVI The Danish National Research Foundation, Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark (E-mail: [email protected]) 34

Abstract. In recent years, more and more people have started talking about the necessity of reconciling phenomenology with the project of naturalization. Is it possible to bridge the gap between phenomenological analyses and naturalistic models of consciousness? Is it possible to naturalize phenomenology? Given the transcendental philosophically motivated anti-aturalism found in many phenomenologists such a naturalization proposal might seem doomed from the very start, but in this paper I will examine and evaluate some possible alternatives.
Key words: anti-naturalism, consciousness, naturalization, phenomenology, transcendental

EXTRACT

". . . In my view, it is a serious misunderstanding to suggest that Husserl’s opposition to naturalism is mainly based on his so-called scientific motives, i.e. on his rejection of the attempt to mathematically formalize the structures of experience. Husserl’s opposition to naturalism is not primarily based on what he takes to be the morphological structures of experience. Rather, it is mainly based on a number of philosophical reasons, or to be more exact, on a number of transcendental philosophical reasons, which are more or less ignored by the editors [of a 1999 volume of essays titled Naturalizing Phenomenology, ed. Jean Petitot et al]. I am here mainly thinking of Husserl’s rejection of objectivism and of his very idea of a transcendental subjectivity.4

It would, of course, be something of a slight exaggeration to claim that the notion of transcendental subjectivity is universally accepted in contemporary philosophy, but in my view much of the criticism is based on something that approaches a complete misunderstanding of the term. Often transcendental subjectivity is taken to be some kind of other-worldly, ghostly, homunculus. Confronted with such ignorance, it is crucial to demythologize the notion.

The empirical subject and the transcendental subject are not two different subjects, but rather two different ways of conceiving one and the same subject. It is a difference between being aware of oneself as a causally determined known object, as a part of the empirical world, and being aware of oneself as a knowing subject, as—to paraphrase Wittgenstein—the limit of the world. In short, it is the difference between being aware of oneself as an object in the world, and being aware of oneself as a subject for the world. As such it is not a notion that is completely foreign to contemporary analytical philosophy. As Thomas Nagel acknowledges in a footnote in The View from Nowhere his own reflections on the first-person perspective (what he, somewhat paradoxically, calls the “objective self”) has a good deal in common with Husserl’s discussion of the transcendental ego (Nagel 1986, 62).

Part of Husserl’s ambition is to provide an adequate phenomenological description of consciousness. He is not concerned with finding room for consciousness within an already well established materialistic or naturalistic framework. In fact, the very attempt to do the latter, thereby assuming that consciousness is merely yet another object in the world, might very well prevent one from disclosing let alone clarifying some of the most interesting aspects of consciousness, including the true epistemic and ontological significance of the first-person perspective. For Husserl, the problem of consciousness should not be addressed on the background of an unquestioned objectivism, but in connection with overarching transcendental considerations. Frequently, the assumption has been that a better understanding of the physical world will allow us to understand consciousness better and rarely, that a better understanding of consciousness might allow for a better understanding of what it means for something to be real. However, one of the reasons why the theory of intentionality has often assumed a central position in phenomenological thinking is exactly because a study of the world-directedness of consciousness has been claimed to provide us with insights into not only the structure of subjectivity, but also into the nature of objectivity. That something like a conscious appropriation of the world is possible does not merely tell us something about consciousness, but also about the world. But of course, this way of discussing consciousness, as the constitutive dimension, as the place in which the world can reveal and articulate itself, is quite different from any attempt to treat it naturalistically as merely yet another (psychical or physical) object in the world. To rephrase: Phenomenology is not concerned with empirical consciousness, but—to use the traditional term—with transcendental subjectivity. Thus, what needs to be emphasized is that phenomenology aims at disclosing a new, non-psychological dimension of consciousness. As Husserl writes in the early lecture course Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie from 1906–7: “If consciousness ceases to be a human or some other empirical consciousness, then the word loses all psychological meaning, and ultimately one is led back to something absolute that is neither physical nor psychical being in a natural scientific sense. However, in the phenomenological perspective this is the case throughout the field of givenness. It is precisely the apparently so obvious thought, that everything given is either physical or psychical that must be abandoned” (Husserl 1984b, 242).

Phenomenology has affinities with psychology in so far as both disciplines are interested in consciousness. But as Husserl also points out, although the distinction between phenomenology on the one hand and psychology and natural science on the other can be difficult to draw, and might at first even appear as an unnecessarily subtle distinction, we are in fact confronted with an absolute crucial nuance that is fundamental to the very possibility of doing philosophy (Husserl 1984b, 211).

Husserl takes psychology to be an empirical science about the nature of the psyche, and therefore to be a science about psychical life understood as a real occurrent entity in the natural world (Husserl 1987, 75). In contrast, phenomenology is not empirical, but eidetic and a priori. And even more importantly, phenomenology is not interested in consciousness as a natural occurrence. Phenomenology seeks to describe the experiential structures in their phenomenal purity and does not psychologize them, that is, it does not objectify and naturalize them (Husserl 1987, 117). Although phenomenology and psychology differ (and to suggest that phenomenology is in reality merely a kind of descriptive psychology is a momentous error) this does not make them unrelated. Not surprisingly, Husserl characterizes phenomenology (a phenomenology not misled by naturalistic prejudices, as he adds) as a foun- dation and presupposition for a truly scientific psychology (Husserl 1984b, 251 383–384; 1987, 39). Every phenomenological analysis of conscious life is of pertinence to psychology, and can through a change of attitude be transformed into a psychological insight.

The problem at hand cannot only be phrased in terms of a distinction between empirical subjectivity and transcendental subjectivity, but also in terms of the contrast between positive science and (transcendental) philosophy. A traditional way of viewing this contrast has been by saying that the positive sciences are so absorbed in their investigation of the natural (or social/cultural) world that they do not pause to reflect upon their own presuppositions and conditions of possibility. For Husserl, natural science is (philosophically) naive. Its subject matter, nature, is simply taken for granted. Reality is assumed to be out there, waiting to be discovered and investigated. And the aim of natural science is to acquire a strict and objectively valid knowledge about this given realm. But this attitude must be contrasted with the properly philosophical attitude, which critically questions the very foundation of experience and scientific thought (Husserl 1987, 13–14). Philosophy is a discipline which doesn’t simply contribute to or augment the scope of our positive knowledge, but which instead investigates the basis of this knowledge and asks how it is possible. Positivism has denied the existence of a particular philosophical method, and has claimed that philosophy should employ the same method that all strict sciences are using, the natural scientific method. But for Husserl this line of reasoning merely displays that one has failed to understand what philosophy is all about. Philosophy has its own aims and methodological requirements; requirements that for Husserl are epitomized in his notion of phenomenological reduction (Husserl 1984b, 238–239). For Husserl, the reduction is meant to make us maintain the radical difference between philosophical reflection and all other modes of thought. As he writes in 1907: “Thus, the ‘phenomenological reduction’ is simply the requirement always to abide by the sense of the proper investigation, and not to confuse episte- mology with a natural scientific (objectivistic) investigation” (Husserl 1984b, 281 410). Every positive science rests upon a field of givenness or evidence that is presupposed but not investigated by the sciences themselves. In order to make this dimension accessible, a new type of inquiry is called for, a type of inquiry which “precedes all natural knowledge and science and points in a quite different direction than natural science” (Husserl 1984b, 176). To thematize the objects in terms of their givenness, validity, and intelligibility calls for a reflective stance quite unlike the one needed in the positive sciences. This, of course, is one reason why the phenomenological attitude has frequently been described as an unnatural direction of thought (cf. Husserl 1984a, 14). But to describe phenomenology as unnatural is of course also to deny any straightforward continuity between philosophy and natural science.

Given this outlook, it has been customary to consider philosophy as an autonomous discipline whose transcendental investigation of the condition of possibility for knowledge and experience takes place in a sphere which is separate from that of the sciences. But in this case, the very proposal to naturalize phenomenology must strike one as being fundamentally misguided. In a recent article—which actually defends the project of naturalization— Murray has nicely captured this traditional critical attitude:

"[P]henomenological descriptions and neurobiological explanations can not be viewed as a set of mutually enriching methodological options which, together, will allow us to build up a picture of cognition, aspect by aspect, as it were, because the two kinds of accounts have an entirely different status. For in seeking to lay bare the fundamental structures of experience, phenomenology is also seeking to establish the foundations of any possible knowledge. Consequently, phenomenological accounts cannot simply be conjoined to neurobiological ones, because the ultimate purpose of the former is to ascertain the validity of the latter. In other words, to suppose that naturalising phenomenology is simply a matter of overcoming some traditional ontological divide is to fail to see that the difference between phenomenology and neurobiology is not just a difference with respect to the objects of their investigations, but a fundamental difference in their theoretical orientation – a difference which is taken to be typical of philosophical and scientific investigations in general. For while the neuroscientist allegedly takes for granted the possibility of understanding the world, the philosopher believes there is a need for some kind of preliminary investigation into how such an understanding might arise. Consequently, a phenomenologist who em- braced naturalisation might be seen as having, in effect, ceased to be a philosopher. (Murray 314 2002, 30–31).

Where does this leave us? Is the entire naturalization proposal doomed from the very start due to its misunderstanding of what phenomenology is all about? It might look that way, but in the rest of my paper I will briefly sketch some possible ways out. . . . ."

At this point, though I'll continue paragraphing and removing line numbers from the text I copied above, I'd suggest that everyone go to the link and read the paper there.
 
[UOTE="Constance, post: 252327, member: 6124"]my impression is that you have read as little of Kant as you have of phenomenological philosophy, an impression confirmed by your most recent post.[/QUOTE] Your impression doesn't invalidate the content of my post or serve any useful purpose.
 
[UOTE="Constance, post: 252327, member: 6124"]my impression is that you have read as little of Kant as you have of phenomenological philosophy, an impression confirmed by your most recent post.
Your impression doesn't invalidate the content of my post or serve any useful purpose.[/QUOTE]

I took it as her calling you on your BS....and that's always helpful.

But if you have read a substantial amount of Kant, we could explore why your response nonetheless gives that impression?
 
Follow the breadcrumbs and venture into the forest yourself. I'll get you started:

Kant reflected heavily on the subject of God, who as a hypothetical being is transcendent ( in one sense ) of the world of humans and Husserl didn't discount the possibility of religious experiences such as being in God's presence, even if one has never had such an experience themselves, which means that the concept of god or godhood might be seen as transcendental ( in a second sense ), with the answer to that question hinging on whether or not the reasons for believing there is such a deity corresponds to its objective reality.

To quote Kant: "I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them.", which leads to the idea that in phenomenology transcendental objects transcend consciousness by way of their objective existence ( a third sense ), unless you get into Sartre, who talks about imaginary objects, which sort of brings us back around to the question of whether or not God is an imaginary object ... so as I suggested, it all depends on your attitude, your personal perspective and approach to what you meant by the word "transcendental" when you posed the question.

Venture into the forest of Wikipedia ...

Transcendence (philosophy) - Wikipedia

The quote by Kant you posted precedes the discussion of JPS ... Just as in your post.

Coincidence?

The Prolegmona to Any Future Metaphysics is a relatively short and acccessible place to begin a study of Kant.
 
I took it as her calling you on your BS....and that's always helpful. But if you have read a substantial amount of Kant, we could explore why your response nonetheless gives that impression?
Calling a person on their BS requires that one demonstrate how what they are claiming is BS is actually BS rather than simply making unsubstantiated proclamations. Failing to do so is the same as flaming someone, and since we're going that route, why don't you both try some original thinking for once instead of posting reams of content by other people and then thinking that puts you in some sort of superior position to unconstructively criticize ( because it doesn't ).
 
Calling a person on their BS requires that one demonstrate how what they are claiming is BS is actually BS rather than simply making unsubstantiated proclamations. Failing to do so is the same as flaming someone, and since we're going that route, why don't you both try some original thinking for once instead of posting reams of content by other people and then thinking that puts you in some sort of superior position to unconstructively criticize ( because it doesn't ).

Lol.

Man up! You got called out ... just own it and move on.
 
Dermot Moran also has a paper on the project of 'naturalizing phenomenology' at the link below. While first listening to Zahavi's lecture posted a page or two back I connected (somehow) with a page that linked two further lectures in that symposium, one by Moran and another by David Morris, a phenomenologist at Concordia University in Canada, several of whose papers I have linked in one of the last two parts of our thread. I can't find that page now and hope someone else can. In the meantime here is a paper by Moran that likely expresses what he said in his lecture following Zahavi's. I'll look for a relevant paper by Morris if we can't find the lecture he presented on that occasion.

https://philpapers.org/archive/MORLLA.pdf
 
[UOTE="Constance, post: 252327, member: 6124"]my impression is that you have read as little of Kant as you have of phenomenological philosophy, an impression confirmed by your most recent post.
Your impression doesn't invalidate the content of my post or serve any useful purpose.[/QUOTE]

I don't think you should take my comment as a personal insult. All we are trying to do here is to make progress in comprehending the possibilities of integrating the contributions of phenomenology and 'naturalism' as explored in recent consciousness studies. To do so, we need to rely on the texts written by the philosophers engaging with this project/attempt, and to do that we need to establish an understanding of what they have to contribute to this project (which requires reading their texts together with mutually developing comprehension).
 
I don't think you should take my comment as a personal insult. All we are trying to do here is to make progress in comprehending the possibilities of integrating the contributions of phenomenology and 'naturalism' as explored in recent consciousness studies. To do so, we need to rely on the texts written by the philosophers engaging with this project/attempt, and to do that we need to establish an understanding of what they have to contribute to this project (which requires reading their texts together with mutually developing comprehension).

I didn't take your comment as a personal insult. It's @smcder who's climbed his way back onto my ignore list. My response to you was simply to point out that your assumption about what I have or haven't read is irrelevant to the validity of my post. I would elaborate with a view to addressing your comment above, but are you really interested? Or do you just think I should do everything your way?

 
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