Defragmenting experience – from James to Merleau-Ponty

Until recent decades, William James was rarely mentioned in the context of the thought of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger or Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The mentioning of James coincided more with the views of pragmatism, radical empiricism, or pluralism, so it was on rare occasions that the word phenomenology was used in connection with the great American philosopher. But recently, James’ findings are increasingly used in attempts to understand phenomenological thought, where he is also considered as a philosopher who contributed to the development of some phenomenological concepts, such as the notion of Husserl’s “horizon”, “object of thought”, and “intentionality”. His findings are mentioned both in empirical research of experience and in psychological circles. Given the rise of interest in James and the use of his concepts in the theoretical queries of phenomenology, as well as in empirical approaches to the study of consciousness and experience, I want to explore the ideas of the stream of thought and fringe awareness from James’s corpus by approaching the idea through the lens of Merleau-Ponty’s thought. My overall goal in this text is to show how the latter’s phenomenological explorations can help to enrich the former’s endeavours. Continue reading Defragmenting experience – from James to Merleau-Ponty

Listening to myself singing: The structural constitution of musical absorption

“Before this position [in the gallery] there was without doubt nothing. And certainly nothing will remove it. This position is not, as Husserl would have it, a captured-understanding between intuitions or presentations. No perception of a bright day of presence outside the gallery is given to us, and certainly not promised. The gallery is a labyrinth which itself contains its own exits: we have never fallen into it as into some special casus of experience, the one that Husserl then thinks he is describing. It then remains for us to speak, for the voice to echo down the corridors, to replace the glamour of presence. The phoneme, the acumen, is the phenomenon of the labyrinth. It is the casus phone. It rises to the sun of presence, but it is Icarus’ way.” – Jacques Derrida, Glas, p. 85 Continue reading Listening to myself singing: The structural constitution of musical absorption

Od zaznave do jezika: Merleau-Pontyjev (skorajšnji) obrat k fenomenologiji jezika

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) je študentom filozofije večinoma znan po svoji kritiki tradicionalnih empirističnih in intelektualističnih teorij zaznave v uvodu Fenomenologije zaznave (1945). Manj študentov pa je verjetno seznanjeno s tem, da se je Merleau-Ponty v poznih letih svojega filozofskega ustvarjanja začel pospešeno posvečati fenomenu jezika. Akademskemu zanemarjanju te plati Merleau-Pontyjevega opusa verjetno botruje dejstvo, da je francoska državna knjižnica (Bibliothèque nationale de France) šele v zadnjem desetletju izdala številna dela (večinoma transkribirana predavanja), v katerih Merleau-Ponty razpravlja o povezavah med jezikom in zaznavo. Z objavo teh del je Bibliothèque nationale de France raziskovalcem Merleau-Pontyjevega opusa tlakovala pot za študij integracije njegovih zgodnjih in zrelih del. Poprej so se učenjaki pri raziskovanju njegovih razmislekov o jeziku zanašali predvsem na dve zbirki esejev, Signes (1960) in La prose du monde (1969), deloma pa tudi na njegova transkribirana predavanja o otroški psihologiji in pedagogiki, ki so izšla v knjigi Psychologie et pédagogie de l’enfant (2010). A šele novejša dela nam odkrivajo Merleau-Pontyjev pogled na vprašanje odnosa med jezikom in zaznavo. Continue reading Od zaznave do jezika: Merleau-Pontyjev (skorajšnji) obrat k fenomenologiji jezika

Neobjektivna znanost? Fenomenološka kritika objektivne misli

V prispevku obravnavam fenomenološko kritiko klasične (objektivne) znanosti. Prispevek sestoji iz šestih razdelkov. Po kratkem pretresu vprašanja o (ne)relevantnosti in motivih fenomenološke kritike znanosti (prvi razdelek) se lotim njenega orisa v delih Edmunda Husserla (drugi razdelek) in Merleau-Pontyja (tretji razdelek), pri čemer se posebej osredotočim na naravo in vlogo t. i. »objektivne misli«, metafizično »podstat« klasične znanosti. V četrtem in petem razdelku se nato lotim razmisleka o naravi in dinamiki neobjektivne misli, ki mi služi kot osnova za zaključno refleksijo o (ne)možnosti neobjektivne znanosti (šesti razdelek). Namen prispevka je reaktualizirati fenomenološko kritiko klasične (objektivne) znanosti ter spodbuditi k nadaljnjim razmislekom in razgovorom o njenih filozofskih temeljih. Continue reading Neobjektivna znanost? Fenomenološka kritika objektivne misli