Book review of: Aleksandra K. Przegalińska, Istoty wirtualne. Jak fenomenologia zmieniła sztuczną inteligencję, Wydawnictwo Universitas, Kraków 2016, ss. 268.
PL
Recenzja książki: Aleksandra K. Przegalińska, Istoty wirtualne. Jak fenomenologia zmieniła sztuczną inteligencję, Wydawnictwo Universitas, Kraków 2016, ss. 268.
Starting from studies included in Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology, the author unfolds the thesis that Patočka was fundamentally a thinker in the tradition of the Enlightenment and of the Czech humanist revival. According to the author, Patočka sets out from Husserl’s phenomenology (in the spirit of Austrian positivism), deals with Heidegger’s objections (in the spirit of German idealism), and forges his own synthesis (in the spirit of French phenomenological vitalism). The author considers Patočka’s nihilistic phase, between the heartbreak of the Soviet occupation and the hope of Charta 77, as an extreme attempt to keep faith with the hopes of the Enlightenment in an age that offered no hope.
The aim of the article is to attempt to present Husserl’s phenomenology as it is understood in the books of Ivan Blecha, especially in Proměny fenomenologie (Transformations of Phenomenology). Husserl’s phenomenology is, in these books, described from a standpoint which treats it as a philosophy enabling a certain kind of realism. Blecha’s position is thus characterised as a transformation of Husserl’s phenomenology, stressing a certain realist perspective. A critical analysis of several moments in this conception is completed first by an excursion into the work of one of the first interpreters of the “other”, non-classical, Husserl, that of Ludwig Landgrebe, and then by an excursion into the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, which is no longer a mere interpretation of Husserl, but a step beyond in the direction of a specific understanding of phenomenology. The author of the article finds a similar tendency in the work of Ivan Blecha.
The problem of intersubjectivity has, in modern philosophy, been traditionally bound up with the so-called problem of other (human) minds. This present study attempts to show that phenomenological approaches to the problem of intersubjectivity overcome the traditional intellectualist and mentalistic conceptions of intersubjectivity, and further that in some of their many varieties, they provide a promising way of overcoming the anthropocentric framework of this problem. Posing the question of the sense and character of animal-bodily co-existence leads to a phenomenology that transcends the concept of intersubjectivity in favour of the concept of interanimality. It also leads to the discovery of the phenomenon of bodily co-existence which shows itself to be fundamental for, among other things, the clarification of intersubjectivity in the narrow sense of experience with an inner aspect of the life of others.
The article presents Andrzej Półtawski’s criticism of the concept of experience, aimed primarily at Husserl’s theory of perception. This critique led Półtawski to the concept of a personal conceptual model of the world. It was only from this perspective that it became possible to combine the cognitive, moral, and spiritual aspects into one coherent concept of man. Półtawski has repeatedly emphasized the importance of phenomenology in understanding the foundations of knowledge, values, and the human position in the world. Phenomenology was his constant point of reference, and in it he sought inspiration to answer questions about the sources and certainty of knowledge, principles of conduct, and the concept of man. He strongly rejected idealistic trends in phenomenology and unfounded claims of certainty. He argued for its realistic interpretation and tried to develop it creatively, referring to the evolutionary theory of cognition, psychology, and psychiatry.
This review study analyses Martin Nitsche’s monograph devoted to Heidegger’s Contributions to philosophy (Beiträge zur Philosophie), primarily addressing the question of whether Nitsche succeeds in displaying the phenomenological character of the Contributions. It identifies a key step in Nitsche’s interpretation; that is, Heidegger’s shift from emphasising the specific entity of Dasein to emphasising the distinctive “phenomenological” or “relational field”, which is understood as an “ontological locality”. The study focuses on the question of whether it is possible, subsequent to this shift, to preserve the phenomenological character of (Heidegger’s) thought, and it arrives at a negative conclusion in this regard: Heidegger does not offer a phenomenological description - nay, he presents a conceptual, or perhaps even narrative, structure, in which he lays claim to the possibility of speaking from a principled position of (the experienced) “enowning”.
Vivian Sobchack claims in Carnal Thoughts that human bodies are continually remade by the “technologies of photography, cinema, and the electronic media” (2004, 135). One such sphere of contemporary media that continuously redefines the notion of the human body is horror cinema. The recent advent of so-called ‘gorenography,’ spearheaded by James Wan and Leigh Whannel’s Saw (2004), issues conceptual and philosophical challenges to the presentation and conceptualization of the phenomenal body. Following in the scope of frameworks advanced by both Sobchack and Jennifer Barker this paper aims to explore how the body of the Saw series is constructed and how it emulates both the conceptualized bodies of its viewers and the state of modern information flow in a technological age. It will be argued that the Saw series not only recognises viewers’ enjoyment of its genre conventions but also acknowledges and manipulates their engagement with the film as a phenomenological object through which a sense of re-embodiment can be enacted
In the humanitarian field, conventional institutions and existing institutes of knowledge give place to the paradoxical experience of knowing the obvious reality by means of art. This non-discursive experience does not have access to the sphere of linguistic forms and paradigms; however, it receives a logistic embodiment in the word that can be heard in real time. It is the task of phenomenological linguistics to learn the motives and reflexes of the invaluable experience of a person’s meeting with the true reality embodied in the living word. The article addresses the issue of the orthodox inconsistency of traditional linguistics in understanding linguistic essences. Phenomenology paves the way for an antinomical study of the language, supplementing the existing paradigms of analysis with its characteristic principles. In the light of the principle of simultaneity, the meaning of derivations characteristic of linguistic creativity becomes accessible, not excluding mythology.
„The body as a subject – this paradox which is a phenomenon at the same time,“ writes Patočka in the article entitled „Phenomenology and Metaphysics of Movement“. In this article, Patočka develops the given paradox on the phenomenological basis, presenting the theses concerning the non-objectifiable foundation of the constitution of the world and its givenness. According to Patočka, the world conforms, in a certain sense, to the intentions of subjective movement. Thus, the subjective movement of the body and the movement of the apparition of the world, i.e. the entry of the invisible to the realm of the apparition, correspond to each other. In different contexts, Patočka goes even further and interprets the subjective movement of the body from the perspective of vital structures. The primary „feeling“ of finitude takes place in the instinctive-affective motricity of the body, in the so-called first movement of existence. It is here, in the sensory perception and affectivity, below the threshold of consciousness and understanding of being that the resonance with the world takes place, as well as the perception of this world as a strange and destructive power. In this sense, it is already the body and its anxiety rather than the anticipation of death in the understanding of being that represents the basis of our feeling of finitude.
The legendary work of young Rozanov, largely considered incomprehensible, and thematically about meaning, can, rather, be seen as a certain kind of ontologism. After its re-release in 1995, those researchers who familiarized themselves with the text had been known to read the treatise carefully. However, at present, there is no consensus, as to the nature of the ontologism contained in it. Rather, there are radically different interpretations of the treatise and its organization and these range from phenomenology of symbolic thought to the continuation of Aristotelian realism. In the following paper, the author attempts, therefore, to read again the ontological concept of Rozanov and to resolve this conflict of interpretation.
This paper provides a close reading of Erwin Straus’ “The Upright Posture” from a disability studies perspective. Straus argues that the upright posture dominates the human world. But he excludes those who dwell in it otherwise. By reviewing phenomenological disability literature, this paper asks what a disabled phenomenology would look like, one rooted in the problem of inclusion from the outset. Disabled phenomenology addresses ‘subjectivity’ critically, asking: what socio-material arrangements make subjectivity possible in the first place? This project is, I argue, equal parts political economy and existential phenomenology. I conclude with some suggestions for future research.
The paper attempts to provide an interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenology which can clarify the character of its basic metaphysical commitment. It deals, above all, with the problem of the ontological status of phenomenology, and with the question of whether we should understand phenomenology as being compatible with common realism or as leading inevitably to some kind of idealism. In the discussion here it becomes evident that Husserl’s phenomenology is not compatible either with realism or idealism and that phenomenology is a specific philosophical position of its own. Based on a radical and peculiar conception of appearance, Husserl’s phenomenology actually leads to a kind of ontological pluralism, which holds that self-evident experience of that which is given is the only ground for any possible genuine theory whatsoever.
“What is experience?” asks phenomenology, so as to uncover the essential structure of experiencing, and founding experience, from which true and philosophically defensible thinking may be derived. “What is dream?” asks Maurice Merleau-Ponty in The Visible and the Invisible so that he may complicate the first question of phenomenology and sketch an absolutely non-trivial topology of the experiential field. A partial description of this topology will be the theoretical starting point of my reflection. From this point of departure I will embark on a phenomenological analysis of the concrete experience of dreaming and of falling asleep. On the basis of this analysis I will then follow the implications – backwards so to speak – to the consequences for the nature of Merleau-Ponty’s topology of experience. At the same time I would like to show how the phenomenon of dreaming and the imaginary has a central place in the description of the structure of experience, because without it we cannot give a description of the chiasm of the soul (consciousness) nor of the perceiving and the perceived body. I present dreaming as a phenomenon that unfolds at the blind spot of the waking self-concious consciousness and embodiment, and thus also as a specific basis (Stiftung) of Being, which is the concern of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology.
The article attempts to present the role and accompanying genealogy of the category of site in art - proceeding from a phenomenological understanding of the site, through the materialist investigations of institutional critique and towards a discursive model extending beyond familiar art contexts. Since the reconfiguration of the site precipitates the reconfiguration of the place the artist occupies, it is attempted to designate an intricate situation of the artist, who departs from a modernist paradigm and assumes the role of a cultural-artistic service provider rather then a producer of artistic objects. This issue implicates the problem concerning the status of originality, authenticity, and authorship in site-specific art. Under these new circumstances art has become one of the many cultural practices that binds individuals into the social tissue, where the link between the work and its site has ceased to reflect the physical durability of the relations and consists in acknowledging its transience and impermanence. Accordingly, various cultural debates, theoretical concepts, social issues, political dilemmas, events of significance for a given community have assumed the role of new sites of art.
In 1914, the year World War I broke out, Adolf Reinach, one of Edmund Husserl’s most notable students, a teacher and mentor of the young generation of phenomenologists, abandoned his work at the university and enlisted in the army. At the front, as a result of various experiences, he went through a vehement turn to religion. He left traces of his conversion in the notes about the religious act he made most probably while in the trenches. In them, Reinach conducted a thorough analysis of the human encounter with the Absolute, discussing the conditions for the opening up of the finite being to infinity and the detailed structure of the religious act. The latter, according to the phenomenologist, is constituted in the feeling consisting in the sense of dependence and safety experienced in the presence of God and the response to it, the sense of gratitude and trust. The conclusion of the whole act is the moment of affirmation of the human being who “in” God finds peace and happiness, not desiring to aspire to or strive for anything else.
This text examines the oft-neglected difference in Heidegger’s philosophy between Dasein as it is analysed in Being and Time and as it is (das Da-sein) thought from Being (das Seyn) after the turn (die Kehre). Both periods show a common endeavour to renew and think through the question of being. In Being and Time the path to being is found by virtue of the explicit distinction of being (das Sein) and entity (i.e. ontological difference), with the help of phenomenological analyses that have an enduring relation to being (and thus man is das Dasein). After the turn, on the other hand, Being (das Seyn) is thought from Being, or rather from the history of being. The history of the first beginning is the history of metaphysics ending in the forgetting of being in positivism and nihilisim. Our historical moment is characterised as becoming aware of the forgetting of being and as a preparation for the passage to another or different beginning. All this takes place where Being happens, to that which Being (as the event of adoption, das Ereignis) gives and by which it is adopted, and becomes thus the place of Being (das Da-sein, or rather das Da-seyn) a person may become Dasein as the place of Being (das Da-sein). After the turn, or rather in the passage to the second beginning, in distinction to Being and Time, god (gods) is thematised, which certainly belongs to the history of metaphysics and is present at the end of that history as absent. In Being and Time being is thought from the entity which has an enduring relation to being (das Dasein), while after the turn Being (das Seyn as das Ereignis) is thought from the history of the first beginning – Being needs a place to happen, and this place can become a person (as das Da-sein).
In this essay I take issue with Derrida's interpretation of Husserl's phenomenology of internal time-consciousness in Speech and Phenomena. Derrida's critique of Husserl's phenomenology of time also forms the basis for what Derrida regards to be an undermining of phenomenological philosophy itself. After first disagreeing with Derrida's interpretation of Husserl's understanding of time I proceed to object to his “undermining” of phenomenology. I attempt to illustrate that his critique of phenomenology is unconvincing.
Disability has become an increasingly important field of investment for modern welfare policy-visible in architecture for wheelchair users as well as in budgets for health care. This documents a gain in solidarity, but it implies also some challenges of practical and philosophical character. Play and games (of, for, and with disabled people) make these challenges bodily. These challenges will here be explored in three steps. In the first step, we discover the paradoxes of equality and categorization, normalization and deviance in the understanding of disability. Ableism, a negative view on disability, is just around the corner. The Paralympic sports for disabled people make this visible. However, play with disabled people shows alternative ways. And it calls to our attention how little we know, so far, about how disabled people play. The second step leads to an existential phenomenology of disablement. Sport and play make visible to what degree the building of “handicap” is a cultural achievement. All human beings are born disabled and finally die disabled-and inbetween they create hindrances to make life dis-eased. Dis-ease is a human condition. However, and this is an important third step, disablement and dis-eased life are not just one, but highly differentiated. These differences are relevant for political practice and have to be recognized. Attention to differences opens up a differential phenomenology of disablement and of disabled people in play-as a basis for politics of recognition.
The article offers a systematic interpretation of the turn to embodiment in continental philosophy based on the distinction of two different lines of thought: the phenomenological and the ontological. The first of these, which involves the shift of the intensional structures of consciousness into embodied existence, is connected with a tendency to the spiritualisation of the body. The second line returns to the theme of bodily substance as the element of thinking which is endowed with its own causal activity: this line rejects any analogy between embodiment and transcendental subjectivity. In considering the first line, the article works with Husserlian motifs, including the adoption of an Aristotelian analogy of sense perception and the rational faculties, and it traces the development of these motifs up to the attempt at an erotic reduction in the work of J.-L. Marion. In considering the second line attention is given to the link between Deleuze’s conception of the body and Stoic ontology, and to Deleuze’s radicalisation of Spinoza’s conception of the structure of the body as a scheme that is co-extensive with the ideas of the human mind. The article also tackles the question of the connection between cogitative and bodily happening in Merleau-Ponty, in whose work we find elements of both the lines that we have described.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.