Notes on the phenomenology of interiority and the foundations of psychology

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Roger Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
The Self ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
The World ◽  
Dialectical Tension ◽  
Developmental Significance

Interiority and any reference to an inner life have been radically deconstructed by the philosophical anthropologists, who find in the psychological constructions of the self and the theories of mental life the legacy of Descartes and Galileo. This critique is argued in some detail. However, the language of interiority is not merely an epistemological error on the part of the speaker. Psychoanalysis and psychopathology have documented the developmental significance of interiority and its absence. A phenomenological analysis of interiority, based in part on a clinical example, reveals several interrelated themes: temporal continuity; imagination; responsibility and ownership; privacy; self-reflection. Each of these themes is interpreted existentially in terms of being in the world. A critical discussion of interiority in Giegerich's work concludes the paper. It is argued paradoxically that the dialectical tension between interiority and exteriority – psyche and its grounding in events and relations to others – is a dimension within interiority itself.

Epistemic media and critical knowledge about the self: Thinking about algorithms with Habermas

2021 ◽  
pp. 089692052110441
Author(s):  
Eran Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The Self ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Critical Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

This article explores the ontology of personal knowledge that algorithms on digital media create by locating it on two axes: historical and theoretical. Digital platforms continue a long history of epistemic media—media forms and practices, which not only communicate knowledge, but also create knowledge. As epistemic media allowed a new way to know the world, they also facilitated a new way of knowing the self. This historical perspective also underscores a key difference of digital platforms from previous epistemic media: their exclusion of self-reflection from the creation of knowledge about the self. To evaluate the ramifications of that omission, I use Habermas’s theory of knowledge, which distinguishes critical knowledge from other types of knowledge, and sees it as corresponding with a human interest in emancipation. Critical knowledge about the self, as exemplified by psychoanalysis, must involve self-reflection. As the self gains critical knowledge, deciphering the conditions under which positivist and hermeneutic knowledges are valid, it is also able to transform them and expand its realm of freedom, or subjectivity. As digital media subverts this process by demoting self-reflection, it also undermines subjectivity.

James and Hume

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yumiko Inukai
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ordinary Sense ◽  
Discrete Elements ◽  
Temporal Continuity ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Pure Experience ◽  
The Subject

James contends that the rejection of conjunctive relations in experience leads Hume to the empirically groundless notion of discrete elements of experience, which James takes as the critical point that differentiates his empiricism from Hume’s. In this chapter, I argue that James is not right about this: Hume not only allows but employs experienced conjunctive relations in his explanations for the generation of our naturally held beliefs about the self and the world. There are indeed striking similarities between their accounts: they both use the relations of resemblance, temporal continuity, constancy, coherence, and regularity, and the self. Also, objects are constructed out of basic elements in their systems—pure experience and perceptions, respectively. Although collapsing the inner and outer worlds of the subject and object into one world (of pure experience for James and of perceptions for Hume) may seem unintuitive, this is exactly what allows them to preserve our ordinary sense of our experiences of objects.

Phenomenology of Interior Life and the Trinity

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Robert Farrugia
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Self ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Michel Henry ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Static Nature

Michel Henry radicalises phenomenology by putting forward the idea of a double manifestation: the “Truth of Life” and “truth of the world.” For Henry, the world turns out to be empty of Life. To find its essence, the self must dive completely inward, away from the exterior movements of intentionality. Hence, Life, or God, for Henry, lies in non‑intentional, immanent self-experience, which is felt and yet remains invisible, in an absolutist sense, as an a priori condition of all conscious experience. In Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity illuminates the distinction between the immanent Trinity (God’s self‑relation) and the economic workings of the Trinity (God‑world relation). However, the mystery of God’s inmost being and the economy of salvation are here understood as inseparable. In light of this, the paper aims to: 1) elucidate the significance of Henry’s engagement with the phenomenological tradition and his proposal of a phenomenology of Life which advocates an immanent auto‑affection, radically separate from the ek‑static nature of intentionality, and 2) confront the division between Life and world in Henry’s Christian phenomenology and its discordancy with the doctrine of the Trinity, as the latter attests to the harmonious unity that subsists between inner life and the world.

scholarly journals The Way into Transcendental Philosophy from the Argument in Suhrawardī’s Philosophy of Illumination

Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 278-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Unity Of The Self ◽  
Visual Light ◽  
Transcendental Unity ◽  
Metaphysical Principle

Abstract This paper presents a phenomenological analysis of the argument in The First Discourse of Part 2 of Suhrawardī’s Philosophy of Illumination. Specifically, this argument is considered with regard to temporal extension of its logos, i.e., the succession of logical steps. Contrary to traditional views of Suhrawardī as a Neoplatonizing proponent of the primacy of essence over existence, the steps of his argument convey a much more nuanced picture in which ligh t emerges as the main metaphysical principle. First, Suhra wardī explicates full evidentiality in visible light (which is the most patent, ’aẓhar, from the Arabic root ẓ-h-r = ‘to appear, be [made] manifest’): this light gives us the world as “this-there”; and second, as self-evidentiality (ẓuhūru-hu, ‘being obvious to itself by itself’) in the first-person consciousness of the knower. Suhrawardī accesses these modes by reduction(s) which liberate the transcendental character of light. The correlation in the evidential mode of light between the knower and the objects serves as a ground for the claims of transcendental unity of the self and the world, and as a condition of possibility for knowledge. A juxtaposition of this approach with phenomenological philosophy suggests that in Suhrawardī’s analysis, the evidentiality of visual light plays a role of a new universal a priori. I show that under the phenomenological reduction, this a priori participates in constitution of ontological validities; and within the transcendental empiricism of the physics of light, this a priori underlies the construction of causality. Thereby, the Philosophy of Illumination suggests a new horizon of entry into transcendental phenomenological philosophy. The paper also contains a justification of a phenomenological reading of Suhrawardī’s work, including explanation of the historical reduction.

scholarly journals Remarkable Reframing

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Mental Structure ◽  
International Mediation ◽  
The World ◽  
National University ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Negative Sentiment

This paper arises from a presentation at the International Mediation and Restorative Practice Conference held at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth on 5th September 2014. The topic is the technique known as reframing. To reframe is to bring about a change in someone’s mental perspective by altering their tacit underlying viewpoint to create different meaning. It is an attempt to release the parties from a blame and counter-blame cycle, and to focus on more useful ways of viewing the conflict. It is not about over-looking or evading some negative sentiment - this needs to be included to maintain the context. What reframing does, however, is to introduce new meaning, co-existent with the negative perspective, which shifts the mind-set towards a more constructive future. A ‘frame’ is a cognitive shortcut that people use to make sense of the world. It is a complex mental structure of unquestioned beliefs, values and ideas that is used to simplify our understanding of the world around us and thus to infer meaning. If a part of that frame is changed – for example through self-reflection, education or reframing - then the inferred meaning may also change. When parties are in conflict their frames help them to interpret what has happened, what the intentions of the other party are, and their own role in what has taken place. This is usually positively disposed to the self and negatively disposed to the other. This lens, or frame, provides meaning for the conflict. Reframing upsets this frame and introduces a different, and potentially more helpful way to look at the conflict so that the parties will work on resolution rather than being stuck on set, negative, unproductive or toxic ways of viewing matters, or being defensive and closed-minded.

scholarly journals Myth Actualization as a Way to Build the Self-Reflective Plot of the Film “Ilyich’s Gate”

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 595-605
Author(s):  
Aleksey O. Bezzubikov
Keyword(s):  
Historical Development ◽  
The Self ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Third ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Fourth Part ◽  
The World ◽  
The Moment

The article provides the analysis of mytho­logical dimension of the film “Ilych’s Gate” (Zastava Ilycha) by M.M. Khutsiev. The author concludes that the text of this film represents self-reflexive structure. Firstly, the plot of the film quite clearly depicts the mythological perception of reality. Secondly, the course of narration reproduces the influence of mytho­logical codes on the perception of the audience. The text of the film contains a description of its own mechanism of influence on the viewer as well as the processes taking place in the minds of the audience at the moment of viewing.The first part informs of the main principles of mytho­logical thinking and the idea of time and space in the myth, referring to the works by C. Lévi-Strauss, R. Barthes, M. Eliade, A. Losev, E. Cassirer and others. Special attention is paid to the role of myth and initiation ritual in the psychological formation of a personality, as, based on the following, this is the theme that forms the basis of the film plot.The second part deals with the methods by which the mythological dimension is manifested in the text of the film.In the third part, the researcher shows how the contrast of secular and sacral becomes the main semantic opposition promoting the motion of the plot.In the fourth part, the author proves that the reflection of reality in the characters’ minds is a referent of the images shown on the screen. The characters’ development lies in the actualization of the sacral and mythological perception of the world. In turn, the cultural codes contained in the text of the film are designed to evoke a kind of response in the minds of the audience — to actualize the same sacred modus of perception in its ideas, the achievement of which is the ultimate goal of the characters. Thus, the inner path of the characters in the film reflects the processes that excite the studied film in the perception of the audience.The relevance of the article lies in the discovery and description of the principle of self-reflection in the structure of the film “Ilych’s Gate”, which allows us to understand at a qualitatively new level its structure and place in the historical development of Russian cinematography.

Der biblische Glaube

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Held
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Pure Form ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

This book uses the means of a phenomenology of the world based freely on Husserl and Heidegger to design a new systematic interpretation of the belief in the one God that originated in Israel and persists in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The phenomenological analysis of monotheism, as compared to other methods of interpretation, is able to render both its origin and its conceivable future more distinct and clear. The main feature of this origin is the self-distinction of the biblical belief in the one desert God, who deliberately withholds himself from any lifeworldly intuition, from the (at least in this respect) somewhat more plausible polytheism. A possible future is marked by a tragedy: antipolytheist faith, in its Christian variety, drives itself into ruin precisely because, in the age of the globalized experience of the one world, it eventually attains its pure form and in so doing succumbs to a radical oblivion of the lifeworld.

THE REFLECTION OF OWN ABSENCE IN THE WORLD BY LYRICAL SUBJECTS OF LATE WORKS BY EGOR LETOV

2020 ◽  
pp. 92-101
Author(s):  
Zinaida G. Stankovich ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
The Self ◽  
Deceased Person ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
World Vision ◽  
The World ◽  
Lyrical Subject ◽  
Real Person ◽  
Late Works ◽  
Centripetal Movement

t. The article is dedicated to the late works of Yegor Letov and explores the lyrical subject’s perception of the world in which he himself and people like him will no longer exist. The topic touches on the theme of death which is clearly manifesting itself in all works of the rock poet. It reveals that Letov’s lyrical subject fixes his absence in the world turning to images of nature that remain unchanged, to elements of people’s everyday life that persist without him and to the space of artistic work the contemporary to the poet. In parallel there is the self-reflection of Letov’s lyrical subject as a people’s rock poet who values living life and does not aim for pecuniary well-being. The lyrical subject of Letov when thinking about the life that will continue after the passing of his generation realizes that the world will turn upside down and become uncomfortable and unacceptable for him. The world of a deceased person will separate from the big world and begin a centripetal movement while the reverse of return will no longer be possible. An important motive is the distortion of memory about a real person, which will inevitably occur after an individual leaves the general world. Human himself will not be able to influence his posthumous fate. However shortly before his death Letov comes to a rather optimistic conclusion that he managed to transmit to living humans an undistorted healthy element of his world vision.

scholarly journals Miłosz: Self-Reflection as the Topic of a Poetic Description

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Stelmaszczyk
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Strong Sense ◽  
Poetic Language ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Simultaneous Existence ◽  
Individual Consciousness

Czesław Miłosz’s poetry displays two reverberating topics which may be defined as contradictory existence and world experiences. One of those is the admiration for the beauty of the world and awe consequent upon capturing the simultaneous existence of individual entities (Amazement), whilst the other is the topic of the lack of fulfilment, torment, the feeling of lack of authenticity, blame, and shame (This).Miłosz depicted his “I” (represented by various personae), the split between individual consciousness, a strong sense of individuality, distinct from the commune of ordinary people (a strand salient in the pre-war volume Three Winters), at the same time nurturing a feeling of strong bonds with the society.The poet’s self-reflection holds for both topics, while the autobiographic discourse is orientated to the questions about the functions of the poetic language and about the status and sense of poetry, thereby addressing the self-topicality.

scholarly journals Interiority and The Conditions of Interior

Interiority ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Pimlott
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Individual Subject ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

Interiority pertains to the individual’s inner life, rich and set in opposition to the pressures of the world. This interiority has been allied with notions of the exclusive space or refuge of the interior. As a realm of privacy and subjectivity, of projections and receptions, the interior has come to be considered as a realm that, although profoundly affected by infiltrations of the world without, is ‘responsive’ to the individual at its centre. As such, it is a realm of illusions. However, there is another order of interior, a condition of interior, wherein spaces, settlements and territories are ideological realms of constructed narratives and imagery within which the individual subject is given illusory impressions of freedom. Interiority’s turn toward the imagination suggests that freedoms can be found despite these determinations. Public interiors have the obligation to realise this, and exemplars have offered places for gathering and interaction, promoted freedoms of movement, association and action, and advocated consciousness of the self and others.

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