BSP Podcast

Here is the latest of our recordings from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 Annual Conference ‘The Theory and Practice of Phenomenology’. James Forrest is from the University of Copenhagen, and his paper is titled ‘The World from the Enactive Approach: Degrees of Transcendentalism’.

 

Abstract: “Enactivism and embodied cognition movements at large are gaining influence in diverse fields ranging from cognitive science to philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, and anthropology (Hutto 2017, p.378). As Francisco Varela’s dream of extending and expanding Merleau-Ponty’s work intertwining empirical research with phenomenological investigations comes further to fruition, it’s pertinent to pause and ask the question: what do different branches of enactivism have to say about the status of the world we inhabit? This paper proposes a conceptual taxonomy of varieties of enactivism with respect to their metaphysical claims of mind-(in)dependence of the physical world. This taxonomy would be orthogonal yet compatible with others such as Ward, Silverman, and David’s differentiation of autopoietic, sensorimotor, and radical enactivisms (2017, p.369). Consider that one finds explicitly transcendental and anti-foundationalist perspectives on the existence of world in texts like The Embodied Mind (Varela et al, 1991), echoing what some have called the correlationist metaphysics of the later Husserl (Beck 1928; Zahavi 2017, p.114). In these cases, what’s being enacted is the real world itself. An alternative possible reading of some texts, e.g. Mind in Life, suggest that what’s enacted is a ‘selection’ or ‘interpretation’ of an environing world to create a phenomenal world (Thompson 2007). Other branches, for instance O’Regan’s work, lend themselves to objective realist interpretations, where sensorimotor activity is taken to offer objective determinations of enacted phenomenal qualia (O’Regan 2012, p.180). Still others more or less explicitly bracket metaphysical commitments altogether (cf. Gallagher). I propose to call these four kinds of enactivism, respectively; (1) correlationist, (2) phenomenal, (3) objective, and (4) bracketed. Using this heuristic outline I will further raise the question of how naturalism and transcendentalism, or realism and anti-realism, are taken to combine coherently in versions 1-3.”

 

The British Society for Phenomenology’s Annual Conference took place at the University of Kent, in Canterbury, UK during July, 2018. It gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners exploring phenomenological theory and its practical application. It covered a broad range of areas and issues including the arts, ethics, medical humanities, mental health, education, technology, feminism, politics and political governance, with contributions throwing a new light on both traditional phenomenological thinkers and the themes associated with classical phenomenology. More information about the conference can be found at:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/conference-2018/

 

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

Here is the second of our recordings from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 Annual Conference ‘The Theory and Practice of Phenomenology’. Dr Niall Keane was a keynote speaker at the conference, and his paper is titled ‘Metaphysics and Nihilism’.

Niall Keane is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Philosophy at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. He has published widely in the areas of phenomenology and hermeneutics and is the co-author of The Gadamer Dictionary (Continuum 2012) and co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to Hermeneutics (Wiley-Blackwell 2016). In addition to his publications on Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Michel Henry, and in the field of ancient philosophy, he is Treasurer of the Irish Phenomenological Circle, and cofounder and coordinator of the Irish Centre for Transnational Studies. His current research project focuses on the transformed nature of the self in Heidegger’s thought.

Abstract: “This talk will examine the interconnected issues of metaphysics and nihilism in the works of Martin Heidegger and Ernst Jünger. Exploring the issues of metaphysics and nihilism through the lens of their respective analyses of being and nothing, it will assess Heidegger’s interpretation of Jünger’s position as modern and metaphysical in that it remains trapped within the Gestalt of the human being as the subject that sets in place and produces the world and by doing so secures further production possibilities for itself. However, in Heidegger’s dialogue with Jünger one can detect deep structural affinities, especially in Jünger’s description of nihilism and his attempt to reconceive the ontological question. It is the aim of this talk to explore the points of convergence and divergence and to argue for the necessity of reading Heidegger with Jünger and with metaphysics as opposed to understanding Heidegger’s thought as anti-metaphysical through and through. This talk will address whether Heidegger’s re-conception of being and nothing as one and the same, albeit not identical, is not itself a real expression of metaphysical orientation, that is, whether the cunning of metaphysics is not already operative in Heidegger’s attempts to sketch the contours of another way of thinking about the human being’s relation to the question of being. Taking Heidegger at his word, when he claims that there is no such thing as a last word, especially when it comes to the question of being, it is my contention that his thought is metaphysical to the core and that this becomes clear in his response to Jünger and in what he took from Jünger. If it is true, as Heidegger claimed, that metaphysics is nihilism proper, then surely his goal must be to confront metaphysics from within metaphysics and not to overcome it. In the end, the paper will argue that there is a problematic tension in Heidegger’s interpretation of the history of metaphysics and nihilism, such that Heidegger vacillates between not wanting to belong to the metaphysical tradition and recognizing that all thought must necessarily belong to this tradition.”

The British Society for Phenomenology’s Annual Conference took place at the University of Kent, in Canterbury, UK during July, 2018. It gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners exploring phenomenological theory and its practical application. It covered a broad range of areas and issues including the arts, ethics, medical humanities, mental health, education, technology, feminism, politics and political governance, with contributions throwing a new light on both traditional phenomenological thinkers and the themes associated with classical phenomenology. More information about the conference can be found at:
https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/conference-2018/

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:
https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

Here is the first of our recordings from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 Annual Conference ‘The Theory and Practice of Phenomenology’. Dr Luna Dolezal was a keynote speaker at the conference, and her paper is titled ‘Phenomenology and Intercorporeality in the Case of Commercial Surrogacy’.

Luna Dolezal is a Lecturer in Medical Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research is primarily in the areas of applied phenomenology, feminist philosophy, philosophy of embodiment, philosophy of medicine and medical humanities. She is the author of The Body and Shame: Phenomenology, Feminism and the Socially Shaped Body (Lexington Books, 2015) and the co-editor of Body/Self/Other: The Phenomenology of Social Encounters (SUNY Press, 2017) and New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment (Palgrave, 2018).

Abstract: “In this paper, I will attempt to put the maternal-foetal relation through pregnancy into the centre of the ethical questions that arise in the practice of commercial gestational surrogacy. I will proceed by drawing attention to the predominant logic regarding bodies, babies, pregnancy and motherhood that underpins most bioethical discussion regarding commercial surrogacy, making salient the dominant metaphoric and patriarchal landscapes which shape how we commonly understand pregnancy, surrogacy and parenthood in the present day. Following Emily Martin, I argue that key metaphors about the body and bodily events can shape one’s experience and the logic of the practices which surround those experiences. Through describing aspects of the metaphoric landscape within which the practices of commercial surrogacy are primarily thematized, I will demonstrate that a phenomenology of pregnancy, or a theorizing of pregnancy as a complex existential intercorporeal and lived experience, is most often omitted or effaced in bioethical discussions about commercial surrogacy. As such, I will suggest that what is missing in the discourse and bioethical literature on surrogacy is an adequate theorizing of pregnancy. In order to suggest how we might introduce a theory of pregnancy, I will turn to recent phenomenological ontological accounts of pregnancy and intercorporeality, using the insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as a conceptual ground. In doing so, I will describe the phenomenology of the affective maternal-foetal relationship, engaging with Iris Marion Young’s classical discussion of pregnant embodiment alongside recent accounts of the phenomenology of pregnancy from Jane Lymer and Sara Heinämaa. Ultimately I will argue that the role of the surrogate is phenomenologically and existentially significant in foetal development and in the creation of a new human subject through communicative intercorporeal relations. Overall, my aim is to put the maternal-foetal relation and pregnancy, as a complex life-generating and kinship-generating experience with substantial social, developmental and existential significance, at the centre of conversations about commercial gestational surrogacy and to disrupt the predominant logic that surrogate mothers are merely ‘human incubators,’ or a special type of container or vessel for the foetuses that they gestate.”

The British Society for Phenomenology’s Annual Conference took place at the University of Kent, in Canterbury, UK during July, 2018. It gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners exploring phenomenological theory and its practical application. It covered a broad range of areas and issues including the arts, ethics, medical humanities, mental health, education, technology, feminism, politics and political governance, with contributions throwing a new light on both traditional phenomenological thinkers and the themes associated with classical phenomenology. More information about the conference can be found at:
https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/conference-2018/

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:
https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

This is the final recording from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 workshop 'Embodied Subjects: Phenomenology, Literature, and the Health Humanities'. This paper is given by Ms Moujan Mirdamadi, a PhD Candidate working in the field of the philosophy of psychiatry, and associate lecturer at Lancaster University’s Department of Politics, Philosophy & Religion. Moujan’s paper is titled ‘Death-conscious culture and experiences of depression in Iran’. The workshop took place in Manchester, UK, during the summer of 2018, and gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners to discuss the significance of embodiment for the health humanities. More information about the workshop can be found at:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/embodied-subjects-workshop/

 

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

Here is the fourth of our recordings from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 workshop 'Embodied Subjects: Phenomenology, Literature, and the Health Humanities'. Dr Ullrich Haase is Principle Lecturer in the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University; and he is the editor of the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. His paper is titled ‘Understanding the Historical Body’. The workshop took place in Manchester, UK, during the summer of 2018, and gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners to discuss the significance of embodiment for the health humanities. More information about the workshop can be found at:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/embodied-subjects-workshop/

 

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

Patrick O’Connor is Senior Lecturer at the School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University, UK. Pat teaches philosophy at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, is the programme leader for the MA in Philosophy, and recently was voted in as the new acting-president of the British Society for Phenomenology (BSP). His paper ‘Knausgaard, Bodies and The Terrible Beauty of Brain Surgery’ is taken from the BSP’s workshop 'Embodied Subjects: Phenomenology, Literature, and the Health Humanities'. The workshop took place in Manchester, UK, during the summer of 2018, and gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners to discuss the significance of embodiment for the health humanities. More information about the workshop can be found at:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/embodied-subjects-workshop/

 

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

 

 

Here is the second of our recordings from The British Society for Phenomenology’s 2018 workshop 'Embodied Subjects: Phenomenology, Literature, and the Health Humanities'. Dr Christopher Eagle is Senior Lecturer in Health Humanities, Emory University in the Druid Hills neighbourhood of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. His paper is titled ‘Brain Stories: On the Limits of Neuro-Fiction’. The workshop took place in Manchester, UK, during the summer of 2018, and gathered together philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners to discuss the significance of embodiment for the health humanities. More information about the workshop can be found at:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/embodied-subjects-workshop/

 

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast. You can support the society by becoming a member, for which you will receive a subscription to our journal:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/about/

This is a recording of a paper given from our 2018 workshop on the title 'Embodied Subjects: Phenomenology, Literature, and the Health Humanities'. This workshop gathered philosophers, literary scholars, phenomenologists, and practitioners to discuss the significance of embodiment for the health humanities. More information about the workshop can be found at:

https://www.britishphenomenology.org.uk/embodied-subjects-workshop/

The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, conferences and other events, and its podcast.

This is one of the papers from our 2017 Annual Conference. Information and the full conference booklet can be found at www.britishphenomenology.org.uk

A careful reading and interpretation of Max Scheler’s work highlights a thinker concerned with the diversity and multiplicity of human life. As a vehement critic of reductionism, determinism and the focus of phenomenology on the individual subject, Scheler offers trenchant insights and arguments which retain their power today.

This paper begins by outlining Scheler’s conception of the human being, highlighting its distinction from a classical Husserlian model. For Scheler, it is wrong to conceive of the mind as reason alone. Instead, he offers a broadly tripartite division of mind into the drives and instincts common to the lowest forms of life, habitual and adaptive intelligent behaviours developed by higher animals, and finally self-reflective, rational spirit as the specifically human achievement. Perceptions, and especially intentions, operate on a pre-rational level. Pure experience, free of intentionality and interpretation, is therefore impossible: meanings are hardwired into any conscious experience and any attempt to bracket them away will fail.

Sympathy likewise works at a pre-rational level; it is, for Scheler, the means through which we come to know ourselves. We recognise the other as an individual, and it is through our interaction with them (in particular, through love) that we come to be an individual ourselves. ‘Our’ world is therefore not our own. It is given form and substance by our social–cultural environment and the interactions we have with others. The problem of other minds, which so plagued Husserl, is thereby dissolved. We have, for Scheler, simply got it the wrong way around.

Evaluating Scheler’s arguments, I conclude that it is important not only to see Scheler as a contributor to the grand phenomenological tradition, but to appreciate his role as an original and insightful critic of that tradition, with much to contribute to current problems.

This is one of the papers from our 2017 Annual Conference. Information and the full conference booklet can be found at www.britishphenomenology.org.uk

Phenomenology entered the field of cognitive sciences in the early 90s of the 20th century (Varela 1993). Since then, several proposals for introducing phenomenology to the cognitive sciences have been produced e.g. front-loaded phenomenology (Gallagher 2003), formalization of phenomenological description (Marbach 2010), neurophenomenology (Lutz & Thompson 2003). In my paper, I would like to propose another approach, namely non-reductive theoretical integration with mechanistic explanations.

Mechanistic explanations are applied widely in life sciences especially in biology (e.g. Craver & Derden 2013). However, in recent years there have been attempts at introducing mechanistic thought to cognitive sciences (e.g. Bechtel 2008, Craver 2007) including an attempt to mechanistically explain consciousness (e.g. Oizumi et al. 2014). I will argue that this attempt is doomed to failure due to its phenomenological naivety. However, it can be improved by incorporating a phenomenological approach.

In my paper, firstly, I will discuss the background of practicing phenomenology in the cognitive sciences. Secondly, I will characterize mechanistic explanations and show why the mechanistic naturalization of consciousness will fail if it refuses to incorporate phenomenology. Then, in order to prove that phenomenology can be integrated with mechanistic explanations, I will argue for a new reading of Husserlian phenomenology, namely that it can be read as a kind of functionalism. The main objective of Husserlian phenomenology was to give adequate descriptions of the functions of consciousness. Furthermore, phenomenologically described functions of consciousness are congruent to some extent with a mechanistic approach - they are autonomous, multi-level, and decomposable. Finally, I will argue that phenomenological practice can be inspiring and deliver explananda to researchers working on mechanistic explanation of consciousness.