Anschauung, Anschauen (Intuition)

Since Plato’s metaphor of the light of knowledge used in the “Allegory of the Cave” from his dialogue Politeia, the concepts of Anschauen or Anschauung (intuition) and their corresponding lexical field, including the terms light, sun, and eye, represent key notions and much-debated issues in philosophical thinking. In his literary, scientific, and philosophical writings, Goethe does not articulate a systematic and explicit theory of these concepts; on the contrary, most of his remarks on the topic of “intuition” are aphoristic or tacitly integrated into his poetic and scientific works. One of his main contributions to the philosophical debates surrounding Anschauen and Anschauung is that he developed and integrated into his works different modes of a specifically creative and productive—as opposed to a merely receptive and sensory—form of Anschauen. This productive form of Anschauen, for which he also uses the terms “Phantasie” (phantasy), “Einbildungskraft” (imagination), “exakte sinnliche Phantasie” (exact sensory phantasy or imagination) or “anschauende Urteilskraft” (intuitive power of judgment) in various contexts, can serve as both a creative faculty in his poetry and a precise scientific or philosophical instrument of cognition. Within the context of the philosophical tradition, and apart from the heritage of Plato and Platonism, Goethe’s notion of Anschauen can be understood, on the one hand, in the context of classical German philosophy and its debates on “anschauender Verstand” (intuitive understanding) and “intellektuelle” or “intellektuale Anschauung” (intellectual intuition). On the other hand, it is also phenomenologically grounded and anticipates the main insights of Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) and the phenomenological movement in the 20th century, one of the most important of which is the so-called phenomenological Wesensschau (eidetic intuition).

What is the How: Participatory Sense-making as Consensual Validation of Phenomenal Data

We propose a method of consensually validating phenomenal data. We believe such a method is necessary due to underreporting of explicit validation procedures in empirical phenomenological literature. We argue that descriptive science, exemplified by phenomenology and natural history, rely on nominalization for construction of intersubjectively accessible knowledge. We compare the epistemologies of phenomenology and natural history, pointing out that they differ in their attitudes towards the interpretation of texts and visual epistemology, however, they both rely on eidetic intuition of experts for knowledge construction. In developing our method, we started out with the prismatic approach, a method of researching embodied social dynamics. We then used debriefings on the experience of consensual validation to further refine the method. Importantly, we suggest that for a nominalization of experiential world to be intersubjectively accessible, a group of co-researchers has to independently construct said vocabulary. We therefore propose that during consensual validation, co-researchers be presented with composite descriptions of experiential categories, compare them with their experience, attempt to falsify them, and finally jointly name them. Our approach does not yield a single vocabulary for description of experience, but a number of commensurable vocabularies, contingent on a specific research setting.

The Phenomenological Method of Eidetic Intuition and Its Clarification as Eidetic Variation

This chapter investigates phenomenology’s “eidetic” methodology, which, when applied to the essential structures of consciousness, opposes an empirical psychology that must rest on empirical generalizations. It clarifies the sense in which eidetic intuition is a form of cognition and how it yields knowledge of a priori (necessary and universal) structures without falling into a kind of Platonism that hypostasizes what is essential to a type. It also explores the intimate connection between “free phantasy” or imaginative variation and the resultant eidetic intuition. In concluding, it discusses a series of potential difficulties with the notions of eidetic variation and intuition.

O diagnóstico psicopatológico fenomenológico da perspectiva dialético-essencialista

Resumo: A partir da concepção de psicopatologia como ciência humana básica autônoma, propomos nesse artigo um método qualitativo para exploração aprofundada das vivências psicológicas transtornadas. Nossa proposta metodológica ajusta-se à realização de uma ciência psicopatologia fenomenológica dialético-essencialista, cujos conceitos fundamentais são essência, proporção dialética e estrutura. Essa perspectiva centraliza o interesse científico psicopatológico nas tensões existenciais entre o individual e o geral e entre o movimento e a estabilidade. O processo de diagnóstico psicopatológico fenomenológico, calcado na interpessoalidade, será detalhado aqui em cinco etapas. São elas: relato do sujeito e descrição psicopatológica; ressonância afetiva; terceiridade dual; intuição eidética e redução fenomenológica; e compreensão transcendental da estrutura. Acredita-se que, com o uso dessa metodologia, possamos colaborar para o aprofundamento do ato diagnóstico, assim como fornecer subsídios mais consistentes para a compreensão da prática terapêutica e a produção da agenda de pesquisa científica.Palavras-chave: Psicopatologia; Fenomenologia; Metodologia; Dialética; Essência. The phenomenological psychopathological diagnosis from the dialetic-essencialist perspectiveAbstract: From the conception of psychopathology as an autonomous basic human science, we propose in this article a qualitative method for the deep exploration of disturbed psychological experiences. Our methodological proposal adjusts to the realization of a dialectic-essentialist phenomenological psychopathology, whose fundamental concepts are essence, dialectical proportion and structure. This perspective centralizes the psychopathological scientific interest in the existential tensions between the individual and the general and between the movement and the stability. The process of phenomenological psychopathological diagnosis, based on interpersonality, will be detailed here in five stages. They are: subjective report and psychopathological description; affective resonance; dual thirdness; eidetic intuition and phenomenological reduction; and transcendental understanding of structure. It is believed that with the use of this methodology, we can collaborate to deepen the diagnostic act, as well as provide more consistent subsidies for the understanding of therapeutic practice and the production of the scientific research agenda.Keywords: Psychopathology; Phenomenology; Methodology; Dialectics; Essence.

Un estudio exploratorio de la identidad nacional de los alumnos del nivel 900 de pedagogía en historia y geografía y de educación física de la Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez.

Resumen En el estudio que se presenta se exploraron, a través del método cualitativo en su vertiente fenomenológica husserliana, los contenidos de la representación de identidad nacional que tienen los estudiantes de Pedagogía en Historia y Geografía y Educación Física, del nivel 900, de la Universidad Católica Cardenal Silva Henríquez, así como las variables que inciden en la elaboración de dichas representaciones, cuyos rasgos fundamentales son la suspensión de la aceptación de todos los prejuicios y preconceptos del objeto o tema considerado, para observarlo sólo en sí mismo y extraer la significación fundamental del tema o del objeto estudiado, es decir, a lo que Husserl denomina “intuición eidética”. Del análisis de las entrevistas semi-estructuradas que se aplicaron se pudo concluir que la representación de identidad nacional es una construcción en la que intervienen factores de carácter natural, históricos, políticos, educativos, religiosos, deportivos, económicos, simbólicos, valóricos y locales. Palabras clave: representación de identidad nacional; Pedagogía en Historia y Geografía y Educación Física, del nivel 900, de la Universidad Católica Cardenal Silva Henríquez; intuición eidética An exploratory study on the national identity of fifth-year students from the History and Geography and the Physical Education teaching training programmes of Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez Abstract This study uses a qualitative Husserlian phenomenological method to explore the contents of national identity representations of fifth-year students from the History and Geography and the Physical Education teaching training programmes of Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez. It also tackles the variables which influence the elaboration of such representations and their main characteristic which is the end of the acceptance of all prejudices and misconceptions about an object or subject in order to observe it by itself and obtain its fundamental signification, what Husserl calls “eidetic intuition”. Semi-structured interviews were applied and analysed to conclude that national identity representation is a social construction influenced by natural, historical, political, educational, religious, sports, economic, symbolic, value-related and local factors. Keywords: National Identity Representation; Fifth-year History and Geography and the Physical Education teaching training programmes of Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez; Eidetic Intuition