Un Ecart Infime (Part I): Foucault's Critique of the Concept of Lived-Experience ( Vécu)

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Leonard Lawlor
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Positive Logic ◽  
Phenomenology Of Perception ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this essay, I start from Foucault's last text, his "Life: Experience and Science." Speaking of Canguilhem, Foucault makes a distinction between "le vécu" (lived-experience) and "le vivant" (the living). I then examine this difference between "le vécu" (lived-experience) and "le vivant" (the living); that is, I examine the different logics, we might say, of immanence that each concept implies. To do this, I reconstruct the "critique" that Foucault presents of the concept of vécu in the ninth chapter of The Order of Things (Les Mots et les choses): "Man and His Doubles." I try to show how this critique applies to the early Merleau-Ponty, the Merleau-Ponty of the Phenomenology of Perception. Then, I construct the positive logic of Foucault's relation of immanence by means of another text, which is contemporaneous with Les Mots et les choses: This is not a Pipe. The critique of the concept of vécu is based on the fact that the relationship in vécu is a mixture (un mélange) that closes "un écart infime." Conversely, Foucault's conception of the relationship in "le vivant" is one that dissociates and keeps "l'écart infime" open. At the end, I suggest, through three "landmarks," how Foucault's critique might be applied to the later Merleau-Ponty. This essay is Part I of a trilogy on Merleau-Ponty and Foucault. Part II concerns Merleau-Ponty's "mixturism," while Part III concerns "the blind spot" in Foucault. These three texts complete the work necessary to open the problem of memory and life.

scholarly journals From Johann to Maurice: Science and Expression in the Philosophical Praxis of Medicine

Human Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timm Heinbokel
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Case Reports ◽  
Embodied Perception ◽  
Phenomenology Of Perception ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractPhenomenology’s return to lived experience and “to the things themselves” is often contrasted with the synthesized perspective of science and its “view from nowhere.” The extensive use of neuropsychological case reports in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, however, suggests that the relationship between phenomenology and science is more complex than a sheer opposition, and a fruitful one for the praxis of medicine. Here, I propose a new reading of how Merleau-Ponty justifies his use of Adhémar Gelb and Kurt Goldstein’s reports on Johann Schneider for his phenomenology of embodied perception. I argue that for Merleau-Ponty these neuropsychological case reports represent a coherent deformation of the intercorporeally expressed existence of Schneider that through speech fall again onto the common ground of perception, thereby allowing Merleau-Ponty to understand, in the equivalent sense delivered by language, Schneider’s total being and fundamental illness. I then discuss what Merleau-Ponty’s method implies for a phenomenological praxis of medicine, and for the role of science in this praxis.

Dualism and Its Discontents II: Philosophical Tinctures

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Irvine ◽  
Danielle Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Cartesian Dualism ◽  
Phenomenology Of Perception ◽  
Edmund Pellegrino ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Richard Zaner ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

Part II of II: This chapter explores philosophical responses to Cartesian dualism—notably Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s elaboration of phenomenology—and its relevance to medicine. With close reading of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, phenomenology’s attentiveness to lived experience and to embodiment is described. Next, discussion of the work of philosophers, clinicians, ethicists and patients—including Havi Carel, S. Kay Toombs, Richard Baron, Edmund Pellegrino, Richard Zaner, and Fredrik Svenaeus—demonstrates the influence of phenomenological perspectives in healthcare, addressing the dissociation and alienation often experienced by clinicians and patients alike. Counter-examples to the philosophical narrative presented here are then offered, demonstrating the rich complexity of philosophical enquiry. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of the poem “Soul” by David Ferry, which offers a means of approaching the age-old issue of the relationship between body, mind, and spirit. Thus the authors argue that philosophical understanding—particularly in combination with literature—offers particular insight into the challenges and possibilities of healthcare today.

Cultural Labour

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brahma Prakash
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Folk Performance ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

Folk performances reflect the life-worlds of a vast section of subaltern communities in India. What is the philosophy that drives these performances, the vision that enables as well as enslaves these communities to present what they feel, think, imagine, and want to see? Can such performances challenge social hierarchies and ensure justice in a caste-ridden society? In Cultural Labour, the author studies bhuiyan puja (land worship), bidesia (theatre of migrant labourers), Reshma-Chuharmal (Dalit ballads), dugola (singing duels) from Bihar, and the songs and performances of Gaddar, who was associated with Jana Natya Mandali, Telangana: he examines various ways in which meanings and behaviour are engendered in communities through rituals, theatre, and enactments. Focusing on various motifs of landscape, materiality, and performance, the author looks at the relationship between culture and labour in its immediate contexts. Based on an extensive ethnography and the author’s own life experience as a member of such a community, the book offers a new conceptual framework to understand the politics and aesthetics of folk performance in the light of contemporary theories of theatre and performance studies.

The voice of others: Identity, alterity and gender normativity among gay men in Israel

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erez Levon
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Male Sexuality ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Gay Male ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice

AbstractThis article presents an analysis of a slang variety, called oxtšit, as it is described and used by a cohort of gay men in Israel. Unlike many previous analyses of gay slang, I argue that the men described do not use the variety to help construct and affirm an alternative gay identity, but rather that they use it as a form of in-group mockery through which normative and nonnormative articulations of Israeli gay male sexuality are delineated. It is suggested that this discussion has implications for sociolinguistic understandings of “groupness” more broadly, and particularly the relationship between macro-level social categories (like “gay”) and individual lived experience. (Gay slang, Israel, vari-directional voicing, identity/alterity)*

scholarly journals Health(care) in the Crisis: Reflections in Science and Society on Opioid Addiction

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Roxana Damiescu ◽  
Mita Banerjee ◽  
David Y. W. Lee ◽  
Norbert W. Paul ◽  
Thomas Efferth
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Opioid Abuse ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
Opioid Misuse ◽  
Post Surgery ◽  
Patient Narratives ◽  
The Relationship

Opioid abuse and misuse have led to an epidemic which is currently spreading worldwide. Since the number of opioid overdoses is still increasing, it is becoming obvious that current rather unsystematic approaches to tackle this health problem are not effective. This review suggests that fighting the opioid epidemic requires a structured public health approach. Therefore, it is important to consider not only scientific and biomedical perspectives, but societal implications and the lived experience of groups at risk as well. Hence, this review evaluates the risk factors associated with opioid overdoses and investigates the rates of chronic opioid misuse, particularly in the context of chronic pain as well as post-surgery treatments, as the entrance of opioids in people’s lives. Linking pharmaceutical biology to narrative analysis is essential to understand the modulations of the usual themes of addiction and abuse present in the opioid crisis. This paper shows that patient narratives can be an important resource in understanding the complexity of opioid abuse and addiction. In particular, the relationship between chronic pain and social inequality must be considered. The main goal of this review is to demonstrate how a deeper transdisciplinary-enriched understanding can lead to more precise strategies of prevention or treatment of opioid abuse.

A Qualitative Study Exploring Well-Being and the Potential Impact of Work-Related Stress Among Commercial Airline Pilots

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Paul Cullen ◽  
Joan Cahill ◽  
Keith Gaynor
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Participatory Design ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Related Stress ◽  
Airline Pilots ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Commercial Airline ◽  
Related Stress ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract. Increasing evidence suggests that commercial airline pilots can experience physical, mental, and social health difficulties. Qualitative interviews with commercial airline pilots explored the relationship between work-related stress and well-being. Participatory workshops involving pilots were conducted. The methodology of this action-based research involved a blend of person-centered design approaches; specifically, “stakeholder evaluation” and “participatory design.” The findings further support the hypothesis that pilot well-being is being negatively affected by the nature of their work. The biopsychosocial model of the lived experience of a pilot, as presented in this paper, provides a useful structure to examine pilot well-being, and to identify and scope potential coping strategies to self-manage health and well-being issues associated with the job of being a pilot.

Informality, Class Structure, and Class Identity in Contemporary Argentina

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Elbert
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
Self Employment ◽  
America Latina ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Los Grupos

The dynamics of peripheral capitalism in Latin America includes the employment or self-employment of a significant proportion of the working class under informal arrangements. The neoliberal transformations of the 1990s deepened this feature of Latin American labor markets, and it was not reversed during the period of economic growth that followed the collapse of neoliberalism. In this context, sociological debates have focused on the relationship between the formal and the informal fractions of the working class. Examination of the biographical and family linkages between formal and informal workers in Argentina and the effect of these connections on the patterns of class self-identification of individuals shows that lived experience across the informality boundary makes formal workers similar to informal workers in terms of class self-identification. This research provides preliminary evidence that the two kinds of workers belong to the same social class because of the fluidity of the boundary that separates them. Instead of a class cleavage, this boundary is better defined as the separation between fractions of the working class. La dinámica del capitalismo periférico en América Latina implica la informalidad laboral (sea entre trabajadores contratados o autónomos) de una sustancial parte de la clase obrera. Las transformaciones neoliberales de los años noventa profundizaron esta característica de los mercados de trabajo latinoamericanos, y el problema no se revirtió durante el período de crecimiento económico que siguió al colapso del neoliberalismo. En este contexto, los debates sociológicos se han centrado en la relación entre los grupos formales e informales de la clase obrera. Un análisis de los vínculos biográficos y familiares entre los trabajadores formales e informales en Argentina y el efecto de dichas conexiones en los patrones individuales de autoidentificación de clase muestra que la experiencia vivida en los límites de la informalidad hace que los trabajadores formales se consideren similares a los informales en términos de identificación de clase. Esta investigación brinda evidencia preliminar de que los dos tipos de trabajadores pertenecen a la misma clase social.

scholarly journals "Yes, the Evil Queen is Latina!": Racial dynamics of online femslash fandoms

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rukmini Pande ◽  
Swati Moitra
Keyword(s):  
Racial Identity ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Multiple Loci ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
Queer Spaces ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Communicative Space

Online media or participatory fandom has long been theorized as a unique creative and communicative space for women. Further, scholarly work has highlighted the possibility of it functioning as a space that is conducive to the articulation of queerness—both through transformative work and participant identity. However, this theorization has failed to account for the differential operations of these spaces when they are forced to deal with issues of race and racism. This essay argues that this is a significant blind spot as fannish spaces cannot but negotiate with the multiple loci of privilege and intersectional concerns that underpin their functioning. It therefore proposes a significant intervention in the study of the same, drawing our attention to the historically queer and oft-sidelined fannish spaces of femslash fandoms. This analysis seeks to locate the ways in which such queer spaces grapple with critiques of misogyny and homophobia in popular cultural texts and online spaces, as well as the problematics of race and racial identity within such spaces, focusing on the queer fan community built around the relationship of Regina Mills and Emma Swan, eponymously known as Swan Queen, in the television show Once Upon a Time (2011–).

scholarly journals Bodily disintegration and successful ageing in Body Bereft by Antjie Krog

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoinette Pretorius
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Older Age ◽  
Successful Ageing ◽  
Ageing Body ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

Antjie Krog’s Body Bereft (2006) details both the bodily changes brought about by older age and the ways in which these changes fracture a person’s previously-stable sense of self. This article reads Krog’s depiction of the ageing body in a small selection of poems from this collection in relation to the unavoidable reality of bodily decay and what is referred to in gerontological theory as ‘successful ageing’. This tension dominates large parts of the gerontological field, and can be seen in Krog’s ambivalent representation of older age in Body Bereft. Through close readings of a number of poems, I will investigate the ways in which Krog problematises the relationship between the lived experience of older age with its concomitant sense of deterioration, and the societal impetus to age well and accept ageing with magnanimity. I will demonstrate that this collection foregrounds the poet’s refusal to accept pre-existing discourses that delimit ageing as something either to bemoan or celebrate. I will conclude that this refusal finds particular expression in her poems “dommelfei / crone in the woods” and “how do you say this”.

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