Scepticism about phenomenology typically begins with worries concerning the reliability of introspection. Such worries concern the accuracy or fidelity of descriptions of experience to the experience itself, although if pressed, such worries ultimately call into question the very idea of the experience itself. This chapter considers scepticism in both its epistemological and ontological varieties and questions whether either form genuinely engages phenomenological method, properly understood. Starting from the problematic identification of phenomenology with introspection and drawing upon considerations from the work (...) of Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the chapter argues that phenomenological reflection, in its concern for essential structures, is largely unaffected by worries concerning how best to capture the details of particular episodes of experience. Moreover, many of the sceptical challenges phenomenology is alleged to face presuppose an overly objective understanding of experience that phenomenology typically rejects. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the underlying motives for phenomenological scepticism. These motives have little if anything to do with worries about introspection and the like, but instead involve scepticism about the viability of transcendental philosophy. The real challenge phenomenology confronts is one of establishing the legitimacy – and authority – of its distinctive methods in opposition to naturalism. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Heidegger explicitly defers any consideration of ourselves (Dasein) as embodied. I try to account for Heidegger's reluctance to talk about 'the body' in connection with his explication of Dasein, by arguing that doing so would be at odds with the kind of investigation his 'phenomenology of everydayness' is meant to be. That Heidegger omits discussion of the body in Being and Time might lead one to think of the human body in terms of the other categories (...) Heidegger deploys: readiness-to-hand and presence-at-hand (Being and Time) and biological organisms (Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics). I argue that any such identification ought to be resisted, as these categories serve only to deprive our bodies of their specifically human dimension. Indeed, by surveying the failure of these categories as proper to the human body, we gain further insight into Heidegger's initial deferral: only given the existential analytic can one begin to offer a proper account of ourselves in bodily terms. (shrink)

Interpretations of Heidegger's Being and Time have tended to founder on the question of whether he is in the end a realist or an idealist, in part because of Heidegger's own rather enigmatic remarks on the subject. Many have thus depicted him as being in some way ambivalent, and so as holding on to an unstable combination of the two opposing positions. Recently, William Blattner has explained the apparent ambivalence by appealing to Kant's transcendental/empirical distinction. Although an ingenious reading of (...) Being and Time, there are a number of difficulties involved in cashing out its central claims. I argue that it fails, moreover, to capture Heidegger's avowed animus toward both realism and idealism. After criticizing Blattner's reading, I recount several features of Heidegger's ?existential analytic? of Dasein in Division I of Being and Time and connect them with his (slightly later) notion of world?entry. This latter notion provides a way of explaining how Heidegger retains a realistic conception of natural entities, while offering an overall view that cannot be identified with either realism or idealism. (shrink)

"Understanding Phenomenology" provides a guide to one of the most important schools of thought in modern philosophy. The book traces phenomenology's historical development, beginning with its founder, Edmund Husserl and his "pure" or "transcendental" phenomenology, and continuing with the later, "existential" phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book also assesses later, critical responses to phenomenology - from Derrida to Dennett - as well as the continued significance of phenomenology for philosophy today. Written for anyone coming to (...) phenomenology for the first time, the book guides the reader through the often bewildering array of technical concepts and jargon associated with phenomenology and provides clear explanations and helpful examples to encourage and enhance engagement with the primary texts. (shrink)

Naturalism in twentieth century philosophy is founded on the rejection of ‘first philosophy’, as can be seen in Quine’s rejection of what he calls ‘cosmic exile’. Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology falls within the scope of what naturalism rejects, but I argue that the opposition between phenomenology and naturalism is less straightforward than it appears. This is so not because transcendental phenomenology does not involve a problematic form of exile, but because naturalism, in its recoil from transcendental philosophy, creates a new form (...) of exile, what I call in the paper ‘exile from within’. These different forms of exile are the result of shared epistemological aspirations, which, if set aside, leave open the possibility of phenomenology without exile. In the conclusion of the paper, I appeal to Merleau-Ponty as an example of what phenomenology without epistemology might look like. (shrink)

This chapter explores Wittgenstein’s contrast between attitudes and opinions in characterizing my relation toward the other as ensouled. I begin with what I call a privileging reading, which accords to the notion of attitude a kind of depth in relation to opinions. On this reading, the attitude Wittgenstein gestures toward provides the backdrop for the kinds of opinions that make sense in my relation to the other. Read with only a slight shift of emphasis, Wittgenstein’s remark allows for a similar (...) sounding, but ultimately quite different, reading, which is exemplified in Daniel Dennett’s notion of the intentional stance. The different ways of construing Wittgenstein’s contrast make a difference in terms of how we understand Wittgenstein’s thought in relation to—and as having some bearing upon—scientific naturalism. (shrink)

This paper examines Moore’s account of Husserl in chapter 17 of The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics. I consider in particular the threat of a gap between natural sense-making, which takes place within what Husserl calls the “natural attitude,” and phenomenological sense-making, which is made from within the perspective afforded by the phenomenological reduction. Moore’s concerns are an echo, I suggest, of the radical account of Husserlian phenomenology developed by Husserl’s student and final assistant, Eugen Fink, in his Sixth Cartesian Meditation. (...) Fink’s account shows just how wide a gap there is between natural and phenomenological sense-making. Given that gap, I argue that it is not clear whether phenomenological sense-making really can make sense of natural or ordinary sense-making, nor is it clear that we can even make sense of that kind of sense-making at all. (shrink)

David Bloor has claimed that Wittgenstein is best read as offering the beginnings of a sociological theory of knowledge, despite Wittgenstein's reluctance to view his work this way. This leads him to dismiss Wittgenstein's many self?characterizations as mere ?prejudice?. In doing so, however, Bloor misses the import of Wittgenstein's work as a ?grammatical investigation?. The problems inherent in Bloor's interpretative approach can be discerned in his attitude toward Wittgenstein's use of imaginary scenarios: he demands that they be replaced by (...) real natural history and real ethnography. This demand is misplaced. The very self?characterizations Bloor dismisses show how imaginary scenarios have a place in his philosophical project simply by being imagined. Three examples are examined and presented in such a way as to make Bloor's demand for replacement increasingly more difficult to comprehend: while in the first case, the demand seems simply beside the point, in the second and third cases, it becomes difficult to say just what would count as replacements. Wittgenstein's imaginary scenarios are thus best read not as suggestions for further empirical research, but as devices to aid in recovering the naturalness and familiarity of our concepts, which is precisely what one would expect from them as part of a grammatical investigation. (shrink)

In her 1988 paper, “Losing Your Concepts,” Cora Diamond explores the interplay and overlap among different forms of conceptual loss. Diamond’s discussion emphasizes the difficulty of measuring the effect of conceptual loss, owing in part to the difficulty of determining the extent of a concept’s entanglement with other aspects of the life where that concept has its home. Diamond’s remarks are instructive for gathering and assessing Wittgenstein’s scattered remarks on the concept of hope and the questions he raises regarding what (...) it would mean to lack the concept of hope altogether. The problem Wittgenstein’s remarks reveal is the instability between the notion of a life without hope and the putatively different notion of a life without the concept of hope. I argue in the paper that the case of Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus provides a vivid illustration of this instability. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Overview Epistemology and Explanation Subject and Object; Dasein and World Dasein, Reality, and Explanatory Priority Truth and Being True.

As the title – Husserl’s Legacy – and subtitle – Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Transcendental Philosophy – make clear, Dan Zahavi’s new book is centrally concerned with developing and defending a particular account of Husserl’s legacy. Rather than tracing lines of influence or measuring the impact of various of Husserl’s ideas, Zahavi is interested in Husserl’s legacy in a different and more demanding sense that pertains to what he refers to as ‘the overarching aims and ambitions of Husserlian phenomenology’. He is (...) interested in the continued significance and relevance of Husserl’s philosophy as a comprehensive philosophical system that accordingly stakes out a position on fundamental questions concerning the mind, experience, and the nature of reality; hence the subtitle’s trio of phenomenology, metaphysics, and transcendental philosophy. The legacy that concerns Zahavi lies here, with how the first two notions find their completion in the third: properly understood, Husserl’s transcendental philosophy, which offers a phenomenological form of transcendental idealism, offers a powerful philosophical vision that is directly relevant to contemporary philosophical concerns.1 1 Thus Zahavi is interested in Husserl as a systematic philosopher, whose system is not just of historical interest, a relic from our philosophical past; in keeping with the notion of a legacy, Husserl’s philosophy is something whose inheritance might profit us here and now. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Wittgenstein’s frequent and pervasive of the adjective “complicated.” I begin by comparing and contrasting the adjective’s use in the Tractatus and the much later manuscripts on the philosophy of psychology. While there are a number of important and illuminating affinities between these uses, I argue that these need to be balanced against the wide disparities between them: in contrast to the Tractatus, the later philosophy preserves a sense of “surface” complexity while jettisoning the idea of (...) a deep—but hidden—simplicity that logical analysis promises to reveal. The notion of a surface must thus be reconceived as complicated in terms of its “spread” rather than in relation to what lies “beneath” it. Wittgenstein’s later appeals to what is complicated need to be read in tandem with his critique of the idea of there being an “absolute sense” of “simple.” Doing so prevents our seeing in his later appeals to complexity a new, more substantive notion of complexity that a more adequate philosophical theory must capture or reflect. On the contrary, the appeal to something as complicated plays a recollective and corrective role that challenges the viability of a theoretical-explanatory perspective. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Wittgenstein’s frequent and pervasive of the adjective “complicated.” I begin by comparing and contrasting the adjective’s use in the Tractatus and the much later manuscripts on the philosophy of psychology. While there are a number of important and illuminating affinities between these uses, I argue that these need to be balanced against the wide disparities between them: in contrast to the Tractatus, the later philosophy preserves a sense of “surface” complexity while jettisoning the idea of (...) a deep—but hidden—simplicity that logical analysis promises to reveal. The notion of a surface must thus be reconceived as complicated in terms of its “spread” rather than in relation to what lies “beneath” it. Wittgenstein’s later appeals to what is complicated need to be read in tandem with his critique of the idea of there being an “absolute sense” of “simple.” Doing so prevents our seeing in his later appeals to complexity a new, more substantive notion of complexity that a more adequate philosophical theory must capture or reflect. On the contrary, the appeal to something as complicated plays a recollective and corrective role that challenges the viability of a theoretical-explanatory perspective. (shrink)

“Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?” What would it have looked like if we looked at all (...) sciences from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all of them have written in an accessible style that demands little specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the deep issues at hand. (shrink)

This book puts forward a radical, unorthodox thesis with respect to the Anthropocene, the philosophy of Deleuze/Guattari and education. This book analyses the Anthropocene for its unconscious drives and develops a parallel mode of education and social change.

Offers a thorough, multidisciplinary picture of the informational challenges of our media ecosystem, as well as collaborative strategies for addressing them.

The world as perceived by human beings is full of colour. The world as described by physical scientists is composed of colourless particles and fields. Philosophical theories of colour since the scientific revolution have been primarily driven by a desire to harmonize these two apparently conflicting pictures of the world. Any adequate theory of colour has to be consistent with the characteristics of colour as perceived without contradicting the deliverances of the physical sciences. Given this conception of the aim of (...) a theory of colour, there are three possibilities for resolving the apparent conflict between the scientific and perceptual facts. The first possibility is to deny that physical objects have colours. Theories of this kind admit that objects appear coloured but maintain that these appearances are misleading. The conflict is resolved by removing colour from the external world. Second, it might be that colour is a relational property. For an object to possess a particular colour it must be related in the right way to a perceiver. One common version of this view analyzes colour as a disposition to cause particular kinds of perceptual experiences in a human being. Since the physical sciences deal only with the intrinsic properties of physical objects and their relations to other physical objects and not their relations to perceiving subjects, the possibility of conflict is removed. A third possible response to the conflict is to maintain that colour really is a property of external objects and that the conflict is merely apparent. Some theories of this form maintain that colour is identical to a physical property of objects. Others maintain that colour is a property that physical objects possess over and above all their physical <blockquote> 1 </blockquote> properties. Philosophical discussions of colour typically take the form of either elaborating on one of these three possibilities or attempting to show more generally that one of these three types of responses is to be preferred to the others.. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Linguists who work within the tradition of transformational generative grammar tend to regard semantics as an intractable, perhaps ultimately ...

An authoritative and accessible book by a qualified scientist, showing incredible proof of the mind-body connection. There is no longer any doubt that the way we think affects our bodies: countless scientific studies have shown this to be true. For former pharmaceutical scientist Dr David Hamilton, the testing of new drugs highlighted how profoundly the mind and body are connected. Time and time again, the control group of patients in drug trials improved at similar rates to those who actually (...) received the medicines. Astounded, Dr Hamilton decided to change the direction of his work to explore the relationship between the mind and the body. This bestselling acclaimed book was first published 10 years ago. In it, Dr Hamilton explores the effect of visualization, belief and positive thinking on the body, and shows how using our imagination and mental processes can stimulate our own defences and healing systems to combat disease, pain and illness. In this new edition, Dr Hamilton has added four new chapters to discuss the latest cutting-edge information and extraordinary new techniques. These include using imagery to stimulate the immune system - a method that can benefit cancer patients undergoing conventional treatment - effectively using the mind to speed up rehabilitation from stroke, and powerful visualization strategies to help facilitate recovery from injury and illness. (shrink)

Colour has often been supposed to be a subjective property, a property to be analysed orretly in terms of the phenomenological aspects of human expereince. In contrast with subjectivism, an objectivist analysis of color takes color to be a property objects possess in themselves, independently of the character of human perceptual expereince. David Hilbert defends a form of objectivism that identifies color with a physical property of surfaces - their spectral reflectance. This analysis of color is shown to provide (...) a more adequate account of the features of human color vision than its subjectivist rivals. The author's account of colro also recognises that the human perceptual system provides a limited and idiosyncratic picture of the world. These limitations are shown to be consistent with a realist account of colour and to provide the necessary tools for giving an analysis of common sense knowledge of color phenomena. (shrink)

"Understanding Phenomenology" provides a guide to one of the most important schools of thought in modern philosophy. The book traces phenomenology's historical development, beginning with its founder, Edmund Husserl and his "pure" or "transcendental" phenomenology, and continuing with the later, "existential" phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book also assesses later, critical responses to phenomenology - from Derrida to Dennett - as well as the continued significance of phenomenology for philosophy today. Written for anyone coming to (...) phenomenology for the first time, the book guides the reader through the often bewildering array of technical concepts and jargon associated with phenomenology and provides clear explanations and helpful examples to encourage and enhance engagement with the primary texts. (shrink)