This is a partial phenomenological study of a phenomenon that I call “displaced feeling”, which is best illustrated through a concrete example. I am overcome by a strong desire to stop writing. For one reason or another, I reject the possibility of pursuing this desire. Instead of giving up the desire altogether, however, I may “speak to myself” as follows: “I feel like having a coffee” and, the chatter goes on in the background “of course to make coffee means to (...) stop writing”. I endorse the desire to get a cup of coffee. But the action through which I pursue this desire is coloured not by the feeling that anticipates the value associated with drinking coffee but by a feeling that anticipates the value associated with stopping writing. The latter feeling has displaced the former: I am in a state of displaced feeling. Here, I will elucidate two invariant structures of displaced feeling. First, I will show that displaced feeling involves the realisation of an endorsed state of affairs, the bringing about of a rejected state of affairs, and the belief that the former will determine the latter. Next, I will show that the endorsed state of affairs appears prominently as the end of an intention, that the rejected state of affairs appears inconspicuously in the horizon of the same intention, and that the belief appears twice: as a motive for this intention and as the “glue” that keeps its prominent and inconspicuous zones together. (shrink)

This work is best described as an endeavour to contribute to the phenomenology of intentions, the experiences of intending to do something. It finds its point of departure in the discussion of two ‘analytic philosophers’, John Searle and John McDowell, where two contrasting accounts of intentions are offered. The first task is to derive a hybrid account, according to which there are different kinds of intentions, each having the property of being a potential continuant with prior- and in-action phases. The (...) remainder of the discussion is a phenomenological justification of the hybrid account. Through a critical engagement with work of the classical phenomenologists, descriptions are advanced towards the end of demonstrating that the genus intention splits into the species projecting and willing and that each instantiates the property of being a potential continuant with prior- and in-action phases. This work does not offer a complete justification of the hybrid account; rather, the discussion culminates with the articulation of a concrete phenomenological problem, the answer to which is a condition for the evaluation of the phenomenological merit of the hybrid account. This problem functions as an invitation for other phenomenologists to return to thing themselves and engage in concrete phenomenological work. (shrink)

There is a consensus in the contemporary literature that mindfulness is a kind of attention. From here the literature divides into two opposing camps:the ‘Quietists’ and the ‘Cognitivists’. For the...

Abstract:This is a phenomenological study of mindfulness, a term commonly used to translate the Pāli term sati, and the practice that can lead to its establishment. It first attempts to account for mindfulness as a way of being-in-the-world. It then uses this description as a contrast to present an alternative and more satisfactory account. According to the alternative account, the practice of cultivating mindfulness is the practice of switching one's mode of being from being-in-the-world to 'nature-naturing'. From a different perspective, (...) this is the practice of tuning-out of our projects (the kind of possibility that is constitutive of being-in-the-world) and tuning-in to 'thingly possibilities' (the kind of possibility that is constitutive of nature-naturing). Mindfulness, the potential fruit of this practice, is the feeling of being tuned-in to naturenaturing and thingly possibilities. The study concludes with a description of how mindfulness gives rise to wisdom, the understanding of things as they are. (shrink)

The modern era has witnessed an extraordinary and unprecedented growth in our empirical knowledge regarding the human body. This raises the question: what, if anything, can phenomenology teach us about the body that the empirical sciences cannot? Whereas common sense and empirical sciences begin from the body as straightforwardly and obviously given and go on from there to think about what this thing is, what it is made up of, and how it originated, phenomenology steps back from the straightforward fact (...) in order to ask: what is the structure of the body as an appearance? This chapter considers how some of the main figures in phenomenology have tried to answer this question. The body is not explicitly discussed in what might be thought of as the two foundational works of phenomenology: Husserl’s Logical Investigations and Heidegger’s Being and Time. Nevertheless, these works set the stage for the subsequent phenomenology of the body by describing the phenomena of multidimensionality and horizontality. Our first task will be to sketch out how these phenomena were described in the foundational works. This sets up our exposition of the body as a multidimensional phenomenon. We consider Husserl’s treatment of the body in Ideas II. We also examine how the Husserlian insights were taken up and developed by Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In conclusion we raise some critical questions regarding a phenomenological focus on the body and its multidimensionality. (shrink)

This work develops a phenomenological account of mindfulness, and related phenomena. It is divided into two main parts. The aim of part one is to articulate a pre-phenomenological sketch of mindfulness by drawing on passages from some of the classic works of Western literature and everyday life, through an interpretation of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and by the means of a critical analysis of the contemporary attempts to account for these phenomena. Part two adds further detail to the sketch by entering (...) a dialogue with the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. A key distinctions made here is between the transcendental horizon and the open horizon. This difference allows cultivating mindfulness to be defined as the practice of tuning-out of the transcendental horizon and tuning-in to the open horizon. Mindfulness—the potential fruit of tuning-in-tuning-out—is defined as the feeling of being tuned-in to the open horizon.A key findings of this research is that tuning-in-tuning-out is a difference practice than the phenomenological epoché; whereas the latter discloses the transcendental horizon, the former discloses the open horizon—on which the transcendental horizon is dependent. These findings open up the possibility of a phenomenological description of certain phenomena that are closely related to mindfulness. Some of these phenomena are: Mindful attention, which is defined as the function of foregrounding a sub-horizon within the open horizon and the pushing of the other sub-horizons into the background. Concentration : the narrowing down of the open horizon to one of its sub-horizons. Insight : the activity of isolating a sub-horizon, discerning its thingly possibilities, zooming out, isolating a second sub-horizon and discerning its thingly possibilities, and then contrasting the two in such a way that their difference becomes vividly present. (shrink)