Eidetic Variation: a Self-Correcting and Integrative Account

Edmund Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology seeks a priori knowledge of essences and eidetic laws pertaining to conscious experience and its objects. Husserl believes that such eidetic knowledge has a higher epistemic status than the inherently fallible empirical knowledge, but a closer reading of his work shows that even eidetic claims are subject to error and open to modification. In this article, I develop a self-correcting account of Husserl’s method of eidetic variation, arguing that eidetic variation plays a critical role in both challenging and improving upon the eidetic results in phenomenology. More specifically, I argue that the self-correcting account of eidetic variation 1) is consistent with Husserl’s own formulations of his eidetic methodology and epistemic principles; 2) captures the dual epistemic function of eidetic variation as means for both testing and intuitively validating eidetic claims; and 3) offers methodological support for contemporary attempts to integrate eidetic variation with non-eidetic methods and resources. To substantiate these claims, I first contrast the self-correcting account with the falsificationist interpretations of eidetic variation. Then, I turn to three applications of eidetic variation in order to examine how eidetic phenomenology could draw from real-life deviations, artificial variations, and critical–historical reflection. The goal is to lay the methodological groundwork for a self-correcting and integrative account of eidetic variation and illustrate its usefulness in research practice.

The Indian, The Mestizo, and The Impostor: The Fictionality of Race in Inca Garcilaso de la Vega

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is perhaps one of the most racially conscious authors of early modernity. In fact, he is the first American-born author to self-identify as a direct descendant of a colonized indigenous nation. As such, Inca Garcilaso understood well the epistemic implications of his biracial and bicultural status (his mestizo condition). Most literary critics have analyzed the incessant reiteration of his mestizaje throughout his texts as a way of countering the racist colonial labels imposed on Amerindians and their descendants. However, there is a complex and somewhat contradictory usage of racial terminology throughout his works. Sometimes Garcilaso claims to be a mestizo, sometimes an Indian, and at times he seems to only highlight his Spanish heritage, depending on the situation. In this sense, Inca Garcilaso’s depiction of his authorial persona is not a straightforward decolonial counter-discourse. Instead, I argue that the Inca Garcilaso that appears in his texts is a fictional author whose deliberately inconsistent use of the different racial labels amounts to a modern decolonial strategy: a critique that ironizes the traditional meaning of racial labels, thus destabilizing their epistemic status. In this paper, I aim to flesh out Garcilaso’s complex decolonial strategy, through a literary reading of his authorial persona.

Transformative Experience and the Problem of Religious Disagreement

Chapter 6 considers how peer disagreement over religion presents an epistemological problem: How can confidence in any religious claims including their negations be epistemically justified? Here, it is shown that the transformative nature of religious experience poses a further problem: to transition between religious belief and skepticism is not just to adopt a different set of beliefs, but to transform into a different version of oneself. It is argued that this intensifies the problem of pluralism by adding a new dimension to religious disagreement, for we can lack epistemic and affective access to our potential religious, agnostic, or skeptical selves. Yet, access to these selves seems to be required for the purposes of decision-making that is to be both rational and authentic. Finally, the chapter reflects on the relationship between the transformative problem and what it shows about the epistemic status of religious conversion and deconversion, in which one disagrees with one’s own transformed self.

The Role of Values in Nietzsche's Metaphilosophy

The goal of this essay is to show how we might gain new insight into the meaning of Nietzsche’s metaphilosophical lessons at the start of Beyond Good and Evil. Maudemarie Clark’s interpretation of these lessons is prima facie plausible and has gained widespread acceptance in the Anglophone community of Nietzsche scholars. According to this reading, Nietzsche thinks that philosophers cannot help but project their preferred values into their theories of the world and he thinks that this is true of his own theory of the world as will to power. I argue that there are severe problems with Clark’s supporting textual evidence and that we should therefore reconsider how we usually think today about the role of values in Nietzsche’s conception of philosophy and about the epistemic status that he grants to his own philosophical theories.

The Nature of Appearances

This chapter defends the view that seemings are experiences which have phenomenal force. It then examines different kinds of seemings and explains why some seemings have the potential to provide more justification than others. Three broad classes of seemings (and some variations among members of these classes) are distinguished: mere seemings, paired appearances, and presentational appearances. It is suggested that the strongest (i.e., most justifying) variety of seemings is the last one: those that have what Elijah Chudnoff calls “presentational phenomenology.” These seemings present the truth-maker for their content to the agent. Paired appearances––i.e., appearances that incorporate or are accompanied by sensations but lack presentational phenomenology––are less justifying. Finally, mere seemings—those that lack both sensations and presentational phenomenology––are the least justifying (though, it is argued, they still bestow a very weak positive epistemic status upon their contents).

Positionally-sensitive action-ascription

Schegloff (1996) has argued that grammars are “positionally-sensitive”, implying that the situated use and understanding of linguistic formats depends on their sequential position. Analyzing the German format Kannst du X? (corresponding to English Can you X?) based on 82 instances from a large corpus of talk-in-interaction (FOLK), this paper shows how different action-ascriptions to turns using the same format depend on various orders of context. We show that not only sequential position, but also epistemic status, interactional histories, multimodal conduct, and linguistic devices co-occurring in the same turn are decisive for the action implemented by the format. The range of actions performed with Kannst du X? and their close interpretive interrelationship suggest that they should not be viewed as a fixed inventory of context-dependent interpretations of the format. Rather, the format provides for a root-interpretation that can be adapted to local contextual contingencies, yielding situated action-ascriptions that depend on constraints created by contexts of use.

De discursieve constructie van emotionele problemen in het follow-up consult van hoofd-hals-kankerpatiënten

On the discursive construction of emotional problems in head-and-neck cancer follow-up consultations Cancer survivors often experience heightened emotional distress, resulting in reduced quality of life. However, previous research has shown that oncologists tend to avoid discussing emotional issues with these patients. In this paper we analyse doctor-patient interaction in follow-up head-and-neck cancer consultations in a major cancer centre in The Netherlands, comparing data from a Control group and a group that used the Distress Thermometer and Problem List (DT+PL) to stimulate the discussion of emotional concerns. We found that, although emotional problems were addressed in both conditions, the change in the doctors’ epistemic status occasioned by the DT+PL caused there to be a marked difference in who first nominated the concerns as topics. When and how which issues were discussed was mutually, discursively, negotiated by the participants in the situation. Doctors were seen to rely in these negotiations on their bio-medical knowledge, while patients and companions used their own lived experience and the experiences of third parties. Detailed analysis of the data shows that when there was a disjunct between the knowledge that patients and doctors relied upon, both doctors and patients were very diffident when expressing disagreement.

On Epistemic Justice

The paper deals with the concept of epistemic justice and analyses two types of epistemic injustice - testimonial and hermeneutical. The latter is given priority due to the fact that any individual inteгaction involves an individual as а member of а certain social group or community. This requires а study into collective epistemic attitudes, first of all - collective prejudices which Ыосk epistemic resources required for understanding and discussing personal and collective experience. The paper also looks into two related topics - the proЬlem of expertise and the phenomenon of post-truth. S. Fuller's charitaЫe interpretation of post-truth helps to show that this approach can solve the main proЬlem of epistemic justice - that of unequal epistemic status of knowers. However, the price of such levelling-down is too high and would require а complete overhaul of the expertise system.

The polyfunctional lexeme /fard/ in the Arabic dialects of Iraq and Khuzestan

The primary aim of this paper is to explore the functions of the word /fard/ in Iraqi and Khuzestani Arabic. The study is based on the analysis of various text corpora and the elicitation of further examples from native speakers of the varieties investigated. The analysis of these data has shown that /fard/ is a polyfunctional item. Its various functions are the result of several grammaticalization processes. In the first stage, the noun “individual” has become a quantifier that expresses singularity. From this stage it developed into an intensifier, a marker of approximation and the scalar adverb “only.” It has been demonstrated that, from its use as a presentative marker, it developed toward an indefinite article. In contrast to the definite article, which is a grammatical category in nearly every variety of Arabic, the use of an indefinite article is rarely found in spoken Arabic. In Iraqi and Khuzestani Arabic, /fard/ is an indefinite article that possesses a wide range of applications and only a limited set of constraints. Its use, however, remains optional to a very high degree. Its main function is that of a presentative—i.e., introducing a new referent into a discourse. In addition, it also functions as an individuation marker, as a marker for expressing the speaker’s epistemic status (knowledge/ignorance) regarding a referent, and indicating free choice from a set of potential referents. Related to this last function is its use as a mitigating device in imperatives and polite requests.