All Is Burning: Buddhist Mindfulness as Radical Reflection

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part (Section 1, part of Section 2), I put forward a critique of what I refer to as the ‘received’ or ‘standard’ view of mindfulness in the Western cultural milieu. According to the received view, mindfulness is the acontextual ‘core’ of Buddhism whose determining characteristic is bare (present-oriented, non-judgmental) attention to the flow and content of experience. As noted by many researchers, this conception is in stark contrast to the traditional Buddhist understanding, where mindfulness is not only embedded in a broader context that provides it with a specific philosophico-existential orientation (normative aspect) but is also construed as a reflective activity (noetic aspect). In the second part (part of Sections 2–4), I argue that one of the main issues with the standard view is that it frames experience in terms of what Maurice Merleau-Ponty calls ‘objective thought’ (using objectivity, or ‘thinghood’, as an onto-epistemological standard of reality), which makes the two aspects of the traditional conception (normative and noetic) unintelligible. I then provide an alternative view based on the phenomenological work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty that attempts to integrate the two aspects into a broader conception of experience. By drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s notions of ‘phenomenal field’ and ‘radical reflection’, I argue that mindfulness needs to be understood as a reflective attitude that allows one to discern not only the content but also, and primarily, the context of each experience, and that this also includes seeing itself—the act of reflection—as an act that stems from, and returns back into, the pre-reflective current of existence.

Transactional Self Care and Empathy Theory in Nursing (A Perspective)

Theory development as one of the highest forms of knowledge development that provides opportunity among health providers to identify new and modern approaches of understanding human transformation. This theory uprooted from the mere encounter between the nurse and the one nursed in the phenomenal field called “nursing situations.” The context clearly defines the major components of nursing as the person, environment, and health and how they interact to generate meanings, ideals, and intentions in nursing. The recognition of empathy as a critical essential of caring is highlighted in the theory. The expression of transactional caring and empathy as unending expression of caring in nursing becomes the pillar in the nurse-patient human encounters.

Existe um antepredicativo pático? Uma possível leitura do percurso heideggeriano

Although the term “pre-predicative” (vorprädikativ) is used only two times in Being and Time, it qualifies in an essential way the hermeneutical process in which the existentials of understanding, interpretation and discourse cooperate to structure the phenomenal field into a meaningful horizon. This hermeneutical function represents for Heidegger the precondition for every theoretical-predicative behaviour of Dasein towards being. By means of a conceptual-historical analysis throughout the Twenties, it is possible to point out that Heidegger considers the domain of the pre-predicative identical to the hermeneutical process. Nevertheless, on the basis of some indications that are to be found in Heidegger’s writings, we can trace the contours of a different history of the concept of “pre-predicative”, in which the latter hints at a deeper dimension of the human being – a dimension that can be designated as “pathic” or “prehermeneutical”. To this purpose, it is essential to investigate the concept of “pre-worldly” (vorweltlich), introduced by Heidegger in his first lecture course, his analysis of anxiety in 1929 and, finally, the image of the “great silence” (große Stille) in the later Contributions to Philosophy.

Ethnomethodological Misreading of Aron Gurwitsch on the Phenomenal Field

Editors’ AbstractDuring the 1992–1993 academic year, Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011) offered a graduate seminar on Ethnomethodology in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. One topic that was given extensive coverage in the seminar has not been discussed at much length in Garfinkel’s published works to date: Aron Gurwitsch’s treatment of Gestalt theory, and particularly the themes of “phenomenal field” and “praxeological description”. The edited transcript of Garfinkel’s seminar shows why he recommended that “for the serious initiatives of ethnomethodological investigations […] Gurwitsch is a theorist we can’t do without”. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological “misreading” is not a mistaken reading, but is more a matter of taking Gurwitsch’s phenomenological demonstrations of Gestalt contextures in phenomenal fields and transposing them for making detailed, concrete observations and descriptions of organizationally achieved social phenomena. Where Gurwitsch addresses the organization of perception as an autochthonous achievement, inherent to the stream and field of individual consciousness, Garfinkel extends and elaborates this field into the social world of enacted practices. The April 1993 seminar also is rich with brief asides and digressions in which Garfinkel comments about his use of Alfred Schutz, his attitude toward publishing, his relationship with Erving Goffman, and many other matters.

Introduction to Harold Garfinkel's Ethnomethodological "Misreading" of Aron Gurwitsch on the Phenomenal Field

This article is the editors’ introduction to the transcript of a lecture that Harold Garfinkel delivered to a seminar in 1993. Garfinkel extensively discusses the relevance of Aron Gurwitsch’s phenomenological treatment of Gestalt theory for ethnomethodology. Garfinkel uses the term “misreading” to signal a respecification of Gurwitsch’s phenomenological investigations, and particularly his conceptions of contextures, functional significations, and phenomenal fields, so that they become compatible with detailed observations and descriptions of social actions and interactions performed in situ. Garfinkel begins with Gurwitsch’s demonstrations with line drawings and other abstract examples, and suggests how they can be used to suggest original procedures for investigating the vicissitudes of embodied practical actions in the lifeworld. This introduction to the lecture aims to provide some background on the scope of Gurwitsch’s phenomenological critique and elaboration of Gestalt theory and Garfinkel’s “misreading” of it in terms of his own conceptions of indexicality and accountability, and ethnomethodological investigations of the production of social order.

El problema de la donación en la reflexión de Patočka

Esta contribución presenta como el concepto filosófico de “donación” es reinterpretado en la reflexión de Patočka. Partiendo de la lección husserliana, gracias a la cual las cosas son dadas en la pura inmanencia de la consciencia, él critica esta orientación “subjetivista” porque no desarrolla adecuadamente el tema del aparecer en el campo fenomenal. La segunda sección analiza tres desplazamientos metódicos que abarcan: el rol del sujeto, su relación con la trascendencia, el darse a sí mismo del mundo en su totalidad. La tercera sección compara la reflexión de Patočka con dos referencias cruzadas a algunos intentos similares en la historia de la fenomenología. El tema de “la donación”, por tanto, nos traslada al mayor problema con el que ha trabajado siempre la filosofía: la manifestación del mundo. Patočka intentó esclarecer este problema mediante dos metáforas (el espejo y la pintura), pero también subrayó cómo concierne el modo en el que el hombreinterpreta la propia existencia.This paper presents how the philosophical key concept of givenness is reinter-preted in Patočka's reflection. Starting from the Husserlian idea, according to which things are given in the pure immanence of consciousness, Patočka criticized this "subjectivist" orientation because it doesn’t adequately develop the appearing in the phenomenal field. The second section analyzes three main methodical shifts concerning: the nature and the role of the subject, its relationship with the transcendence, the self-giving of the world as a whole. The third section compares Patočka's reflection and two cross-references to similar undertaking in the history of phenomenology. The theme of givenness brings us back in the end to the biggest problem within which philosophy has always worked: world manifestation. Patočka tried to clarify this issue through two metaphors (the mirror and the painting), but he also highlighted as it concerns the way in which man interprets his existence.

Leituras de Práticas como um modo de pensar a Educação Matemática na formação continuada de professoresReadings of practices as a way of thinking about mathematics education in teacher continuing education

ResumoEste artigo, orientado pela pergunta “O que é isto, Leituras de Práticas na educação matemática como fenômeno formativo?”, apresenta aspectos de uma pesquisa que teve por objetivo estudar práticas de alfabetização matemática de professoras da rede pública de ensino, adotando para isso uma abordagem fenomenológica. O dispositivo formativo Leituras de Práticas tem semelhanças com os que foram estudados por João Pedro da Ponte e seus colaboradores sob o título de Estudo de Aula e Investigação sobre a Própria Prática. Escolheu-se direcionar a atenção à contribuição das Leituras de Práticas para a formação de professores, por terem se revelados potenciais tanto no estudo teórico quanto na análise dos dados constituídos pela expressão de três alfabetizadoras. Do estudo analítico reflexivo, constatou-se que as ações intencionais para o ensino da matemática e o cuidado com a alfabetização matemática são favorecidos ao se evidenciar as leituras de práticas como fenômeno formativo.Palavras-chave: Formação do professor de matemática, Leituras de práticas, Campo fenomenal escolar.AbstractThis article, guided by the question “What is this, Reading of Practices in mathematics education as a formative phenomenon?”, presents aspects of a research that aimed to study mathematical literacy practices of public school teachers, adopting for this purpose a phenomenological approach. The formative device Readings of Practices has similarities to those studied by João Pedro da Ponte and his collaborators under the title Estudo de Aula e Investigação Sobre a Própria Prática (Classroom Study and Research on Own Practice). Iwe chose to focus on the contribution of the Readings of Practices to teacher training, as they proved to be potential both in the theoretical study and in the analysis of the data constituted by the expression of three literacy teachers. From the reflective analytical study, we found that intentional actions for mathematics teaching and care for mathematical literacy are encouraged when evidencing the readings of practices as a formative phenomenon.Keywords: Mathematics teacher education, Readings of Practices, School phenomenal field. ResumenEste artículo, guiado por la pregunta “¿Qué es esto, la Lectura de Prácticas en educación matemática como fenómeno formativo?”, presenta aspectos de una investigación que tuvo como objetivo estudiar las prácticas de alfabetización matemática de docentes de escuelas públicas, adoptando para ello un enfoque fenomenológico. El dispositivo formativo Lecturas de Prácticas tiene similitudes con las estudiadas por João Pedro da Ponte y sus colaboradores bajo el título Estudo de Aula e Investigação Sobre a Própria Prática (Estudio de aula e investigación sobre la propia práctica). Elegimos centrarnos en el aporte de las Lecturas de Prácticas a la formación docente, pues resultaron ser potenciales tanto en el estudio teórico como en el análisis de los datos constituidos por la expresión de tres alfabetizadoras. A partir del estudio analítico reflexivo, encontramos que las acciones intencionales para la enseñanza de las matemáticas y el cuidado de la alfabetización matemática se fomentan al evidenciar las Lecturas de Prácticas como fenómeno formativo.Palabras clave: Formación de profesores de matemáticas, Lectura de prácticas, Campo fenomenal escolar.

The Phenomenology of Time Following Husserl

Phenomenology is concerned not only with the study of the intentional correlation but also the structures of intentional subjectivity, the most important of which for Husserl is the nontemporal structure of the living present that underlies the temporalization of the subject’s experiences (and of objective time). This chapter considers Husserl’s account of the consciousness of inner time in order to provide a critique of Husserl’s discussions of the temporality of the phenomenal field. Focusing on the latter allows one to articulate more clearly both the structure of time as the dimensional character of the phenomenal field and the manner in which transcendent objects and their temporality are disclosed within the phenomenal field.