I am interested in deepening the dialogue between Husserlian phenomenology and biology, not just to pair them in a superficial way but to pay respect to each other's aims. As an example, I am now working on a phenomenological critique of theories of attention in psychology. Besides, I am interested in pre-reflective consciousness and wish to distinguish inner awareness from self-awareness. I try to explain the much neglected phenomenon of the passage of time in terms of tendency structure. How to understand causation and probability is interesting for me as well. And I try to show how compatible Husserl can be with naturalism and why Husserl is not a dualist in the traditional sense: Husserl dismissed the causation between the objectual and the non-objectual, but objectual is not necessarily physical, and Husserl would leave open within the objectual realm whether mental causation is possible. I am now working on the generalization of will in Husserl, a framework which may cover all that I have spoken above.
Thinking Togetherness: Phenomenology and Society, 2023
Social reality is distinct from brute physical reality. Its irreality is neither fictional, eidet... more Social reality is distinct from brute physical reality. Its irreality is neither fictional, eidetic, nor idealized; nor is it irreducibly imposed on physical objects. Taking linguistic form as an example, I propose a transcendental, anti-naturalistic account: the irreality of social reality results from the higher visibility of intentional correlation, which is transcendental in the sense that it is not located in real spacetime; rather, the latter is located within the former. The article shows that mainstream accounts of collective intention (content, mode, subject, and relation) do not have to be mutually exclusive, and can complement each other. The article also proposes a mechanism for pre-reflective plural self-awareness in its most basic form: congruence with like-minded individuals. Our fear of the group mind is rooted in the metaphysical mystification of the mind-body relationship through naturalism, which rejects transcendentality in favor of an increasingly technological concept of humanity.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Feb 27, 2024
Husserl characterizes sleep with the idea of “the relaxation of the will.” One finds a similar ap... more Husserl characterizes sleep with the idea of “the relaxation of the will.” One finds a similar approach in the work of Maine de Biran, who explains sleep as “the suspension of the will.” More recently, Brian O’Shaughnessy and Matthew Soteriou have argued that mental actions constitute wakeful consciousness. In clinical practice, patients with disorders of consciousness who show “purposeful” behavior are classified as “minimally conscious,” while those in an “unresponsive wakeful state” merely behave reflexively. To what extent and how are these proposals justified? This question pushes both the first- and the third-personal approaches to their limits: in an unconscious state, like a coma, one cannot reflect upon oneself; likewise, one cannot infer from physiological data whether someone is phenomenally conscious. This work offers a critical review of these proposals regarding the constitutive role for agency in phenomenal consciousness. It then presents revised versions of O’Shaughnessy’s and Soteriou’s Arguments from Synthesis and from Self-Consciousness. The argument is that everything of which one is phenomenally conscious is either a potential reason for a possible agentive power exertion, or just that power exertion itself. The “self” referred to in “self”-consciousness is either the agent or a “non-agent,” carrying out functions for the agent. Agency is therefore constitutive of phenomenal consciousness. The resulting view helps to solve the Combination Problem for panpsychism, by suggesting that agency is what raises sub-personal micro-consciousness to the personal level. The view may also justify the notion of a “Minimally Conscious State” in clinical practice.
In philosophy of mind, bodily awareness refers specifically to interoception (of breath, stomach-... more In philosophy of mind, bodily awareness refers specifically to interoception (of breath, stomach-intestine and bodily temperature), proprioception (of bodily position, size and movement), and nociception, in contrast to exteroception. Whether bodily awareness is intentional is a subject of extensive debate in philosophy of mind. Both sides, however, share some problematic assumptions: (1) intentionality must be objectifying; (2) we have only one body, so the body that one is conscious of in bodily awareness is the physical body; (3) the localization of bodily awareness in the physical body and how bodily awareness informs us about our bodily state are the same matter. Although body and intentionality are much discussed in phenomenology, it cannot offer a systematic answer, either because it has paid no attention to this specific problem, or because phenomenologists have the same problematic assumptions. For this reason, I would introduce the intentionality problem of bodily awareness into Husserlian phenomenology, and argue that bodily awareness has a unique intentionality. It is intentional in a non-objectifying way. Its intentional correlate is neither experiential nor physical. A unified body that encompasses this intentional correlate and the physical body is an achievement of multimodal integration. This research serves as an example for dialogues between phenomenology and philosophy of mind, and provides an alternative explanation of bodily awareness to the representationalist one.
Current dialogues in neuroscience are limited to phenomenological psychology plus neuroscience, o... more Current dialogues in neuroscience are limited to phenomenological psychology plus neuroscience, or neurophenomenology. Within these dialogues, transcendental phenomenology is largely expelled. This article proposes a transcendental phenomenology of and through neuroscience. The “phenomenology-of” neuroscience is a philosophy that refuses to view the Experience-Body Relation and Life-Non-Life Ambiguity as if they were predetermined, unintelligible, metaphysical gaps. Instead, it attempts to understand them through a correlative intentional experience involving activities of neuroscientific investigation and their pre-theoretical prerequisites. This establishes the indispensability of self-report and highlights the failings of two naturalistic interpretations of intentionality (representationalism and enactivism). A “phenomenology-through” neuroscience is thus justifiable and necessary, as illustrated by the example of memory consolidation during sleep. The article finds that as phenomenology-plus, neurophenomenology can solve its problems only through a mutually constraining “phenomenology-of” and “-through.”
Husserl has made an explicit distinction between attention and the objectifying intention, but th... more Husserl has made an explicit distinction between attention and the objectifying intention, but the confusion between these two can be found in psychological models of attention like Gurwitsch’s and the Feature Integration Theory. Although many phenomenologists are aware of Husserl’s distinction, they just seem to forget about it when discussing attention theories in psychology. The incapability to apply this distinction to critiques on the latter probably results from the fact that it is rarely made clear what similarities lead to confusion and how they are distinct from each other. To fulfil this task, I propose that attention and the objectifying intention are two different kinds of will. In this way, one can explain their similarities in terms of their goal-directedness as well as the differences in terms of their different goals and paths. Treating attention as a kind of will is in fact a tradition represented by a bunch of psychologists including William James and Kreibig. It is also echoed by action theorists like Crowther who views attention as a kind of mental action. The distinguishing feature of Husserl is that he further distinguishes attention and the objectifying intention into two kinds of will. Nonetheless, neither Husserl nor the psychologists have elaborated how attention and intention are two kinds of will. This is the main task I would undertake. By synthesizing Husserl’s theories of will and attention, I argue that attention and the objectifying intention both have the structure of the will, but they have different aims and paths, and hence they are different kinds of will. Attention is grounded on the objectifying intention. Pre-attentively we already have the all-encompassing perception which is directed at the entire surrounding world, and it is within the latter that attention makes a distinction between the foreground and the objectual background. The aim of attention is to determine the object more closely, to make it clearer and into an independent object and to hold it fast (festhalten), and it takes the relevant objectual background as the path. The objectifying intention aims at identifying an object and positing e.g., its existence, through the path which is the manner of givenness. The view that attention and intention are two kinds of will belongs to a broader background: Husserl’s tendency to generalize the will. Many phenomenologists have already observed this tendency, but they have barely provided a thorough analysis. Importantly, they have not seen that when Husserl characterizes both attention and intention as will, it can risk a conflation on the one hand, but can also provide a solution that can clarify why they are confused on the other hand. Discussions on this tendency would be of value within phenomenology. Although attention should not be confounded with the classic notion of intention, the objectifying one, this does not imply that attention cannot be a kind of non-objectifying intention. I would answer yes. Attention is the non-objectifying intention to keep and deepen the experiential participation in an intentional experience. This can help illuminate the relation between attention and consciousness. Then I would offer a three-fold critique on the attention theories in cognitive psychology. The first one is on the confusion between attention and the non-objectifying intention in Feature Integration Theory. In her latter version, Treisman has to propose the notion of ‘global attention’ and admit that features are already pre-attentively conjoined before being analyzed into different dimensions. But the notion of ‘global attention’ is just self-contradictory, because it is of essence of attention to distinguish the entire surrounding world into foreground and the objectual background. What Treisman captures is in fact the intentionality of the all-encompassing perception. Also, the pre-attentive conjunction contradicts the early characterization of attention as the glue that binds the free-floating features onto the spatial location. If pre-attentively, features are bound already, then it is meaningless to continue speaking of ‘free-floating features’ and the binding function of attention. So-called illusory conjoin should rather be explained by attention’s function to enhance the resolution. Here, I argue that FIT conflates the pre-attentive synthesizing achievement of intention, the resolution-enhancing achievement of attention and the synthesizing achievement that is specifically attentional. The second critique is on the resource theory, which confuses different kinds of ‘forces’. But with the theory presented here, one can make a clear distinction based on the structure of the will. The final critique is on the mechanization of attention, and this reflects the humanistic value and methodological position of this article. Attention is taken as a part of a machine in cognitive science. Some postmodernists like Waldenfels embrace the very blurring of the boundaries between an organism and a machine. But there is an essential distinction between these two: life is intrinsically purposeful while a machine is only extrinsically. Since the goal is the intentional correlate of the will, treating attention as a kind of will can help us overcome the mechanization of life and mind. In contrast to the popular compromising and cooperative position which abandon the transcendental dimension when phenomenologists are in dialogue with cognitive science, I maintain the transcendental stance which comprehends various theories of attention as the intentional achievement of the researchers and takes the reflection upon their experiences as the task. I would show that although researchers have implicitly understood attention as a kind of will, their experimental design and theoretical interest abstracts away its intrinsic goal-directedness, which leads to the mechanization.
Proponents of phenomenal intentionality are half-hearted regarding phenomenology. On the one hand... more Proponents of phenomenal intentionality are half-hearted regarding phenomenology. On the one hand, they acknowledge that phenomenal intentionality is unique from the first-person perspective. On the other hand, considering how the intentional relation can have non-existent relata, they interpret the relationality of phenomenal intention using the notion of relation derived from the third-personal perspective, which requires the relata to exist. Surprisingly, Husserl is not so interested in these ontological problems of intentionality as Brentano and Meinong did, despite the central role of intentionality in his system. To overcome the phenomenal intentionalists’ half-heartedness and explain Husserl’s relative indifference, I propose that phenomenal intentionality is relational, but in a way that goes beyond ontology. A relation in ontology is unifying what exists to a totality. This does not apply to phenomenal intentionality. I argue for this from the metaontological status of an entity’s meaningfulness: the meaningfulness is not yet an entity, but what makes an entity intelligible as such an entity. It is substantialized in phenomenological reflection. Phenomenal intentionality is how the intentional experience and the intended entity become intelligible in a correlative way. It cannot be embedded in ontology; rather, it makes ontology intelligible – hence, it is metaontologically relational.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness is the best solution to the tension in Husserl’s theory of meaning. According to the post-Logical Investigations Husserl, meaning has ideality, but this ideality is neither the one of an essence (pace the West Coast Reading) nor the one of an idealized mathematical point. Rather, meaning is ideal but particular. Meaning, as Husserl argued, is discovered as the Intended as Such (das Vermeinte als solche) in reflection. This notion allows various interpretations. If we consider it as identical to the intended entity in the reflected state, then we have no idea how the reflection can mysteriously shed a new light on this entity (say, a physical one) that endows it with ideality (pace the East Coast Reading). An alternative interpretation is to take the Intended as Such as the meaningfulness in which one intends the entity. For the sake of analysis, this meaningfulness is treated as an entity during reflection, but pre-reflectively, it is not yet an entity. In this way, one can explain Husserl’s paradoxical descriptions: This meaningfulness is just at the same place as the intended entity but is neither identical to it nor a part of it. Hence, the metaontological status of meaningfulness provides the best explanation for Husserl’s theory of meaning.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness can dissipate the paradox around the notion of constitution, if constitution of an intentional object’ means that the subject contributes to the object’s meaning-obtaining rather than participates in its Dasein and Sosein. It also explains Husserl’s indifference regarding the ontological status of intentional objects, so long as Husserl is only concerned about how entities obtain their meaningfulness (namely, intentionality). It also justifies the transcendentality of subjectivity in the Husserlian sense: The subject is not a part of the world; rather, the world obtains its meaningfulness through the subject.
The conservative Husserl abided by the traditional classification of consciousness into intellect... more The conservative Husserl abided by the traditional classification of consciousness into intellect, emotion and will, and adopted an intellectualist position, arguing that emotion and will are superimposed separable subjective layers upon the objective intellect, while the radical Husserl criticized such a stance: beauty-value and drive-feeling do not variate with a modified intellectual quality and are hence not founded on the latter; ‘pure intellect’ abstracted away from emotion and will is in fact a result of attention, whereas sachliches Interesse or curiosity still functions as emotion in pure intellect, so that value-free intellect is merely an abstraction; feeling-sensations are not aroused by empirical ones, but are feeling-tone of every experience as its independent part; Husserl tends to generalize the will, which includes all kinds of consciousness in itself. To solve this conflict with the radical Husserl’s position, I attempt to clarify the meaning of intellectual, emotional and volitional quality and material: as demand for consistency, being moved and the realization of aim; these three are not layered upon one another but inseparable aspects of consciousness, so that pure intellect also has in its background the emotional and volitional character; with a modification of attention, every one of the three can cover the other, which explains the attempts to reduce emotion and will to intellect and Husserl’s tendency to generalize the will. The view that emotion and will are founded originates from the confusion of attention and separation, the limitation of emotion and will to special cases, the confusion of different senses of Vorstellung and misguidance by language. The reason why emotion and will seem to be more subjective roots not only in limitation to special cases, but also the different affinity of these three with three kinds of intentionality, three ways of being: intellect as the demand for consistency has affinity with consciousness-opposite to the identical invariant, will as the demand for the realization of aim with the synthetic consciousness-with, emotion as demand for being moved with the consciousness to involve-in. Keywords: intellect; emotion; will; Husserl; intentionality
[Abstract]: There is an apparent tension between Husserl’s discussions on mathematization and his... more [Abstract]: There is an apparent tension between Husserl’s discussions on mathematization and his definition of formal mathematics: On the one hand, Husserl thought formal mathematics to be the most universal discipline which handles ‘Etwas überhaupt’; on the other hand, Husserl criticised the mathematization of the living world and consciousness. Were formal mathematics indeed so universal that it applies to the living world and consciousness as well, then it is inappropriate to even speak of mathematization, let alone to criticise it. The paradox is probably because the current formal mathematics is still not universal enough; the more universal one which applies to the living world and consciousness has not been developed. Based on Husserl’s discussions on ‘horizon’ ‘background’ and ‘doxa’, I propose a more universal, ‘subjective’ and ‘relative’ formal mathematics which encompasses the exact mathematics as a mode. The exact and the inexact mode is only approximately identical, and mathematization lies in the pretension that the exact mode is the whole story. Such approximate identity contributes to the Platonic imitation theory and determinism in natural sciences etc. Other than the confusion of formalization, idealization and ideation, the reason why such a more universal formal mathematics is underdeveloped is the fact that to describe ‘Etwas überhaupt’ has never been taken as a task. [Keywords]: mathematization; universality; horizon; attention; idealization; exact
Abstract:
Passivity and activity are often used in phenomenology without a fundamental clarifica... more Abstract: Passivity and activity are often used in phenomenology without a fundamental clarification. Different understandings are often confused: (1) receptivity (affection) and spontaneity (free will) (2) controlled and uncontrolled (3) higher and lower level of consciousness. The first understanding risks falling into unfalsifiable metaphysical speculation about the affecter, whether it is Ding an sich, life or God. The second requires an explanation of control. The third lacks an apparent link to passivity and activity. (1) With attention, the passageway from passivity to activity, one may explain the activity of a higher consciousness level in terms of visibility of intentionality. The irreality of categorial moments (‘is’ ‘and’) is a result of the more apparent transcendental intentionality, whose transcendentality means that intentionality is not locate within real spacetime but encompasses the latter as a part. (2) With Shaftesbury’s theory, Husserl understood control or active motivation as the reflective (self)determination. Passive motivation like association and habit is non-reflective, which Husserl called elementary, non-objectual intention. (3) I propose an explanation of receptivity and spontaneity free from suspect of metaphysical speculation: both are contingency (Zufälligkeit) or asymmetric determination in consciousness: determining but is not fully determined. If the determining factor is reflective control, then we have ‘free will’; the non-reflective contingency would be affection. By contrast, symmetric determination like involuntary kinesthesia and association takes place ‘by itself’. It is because we strive to determinate the non-determined by ascribing to them an affecter or a subject of free will as the determinant that the contingency is explained away. Keywords: passivity, activity, spontaneity, receptivity, irreal, contingency
Abstract: Disputes may arise out of Husserl’s move to depict the non-objectual tendency between m... more Abstract: Disputes may arise out of Husserl’s move to depict the non-objectual tendency between mental events as both causal and intentional. A solution relies on the criteria for causation and intention. By interpreting the contrastive formal, I argue that causation is the double specification: to specify the actual against the inactual, to specify the causally relevant against the irrelevant. Intentionality in the broadest sense is a non-symmetrical relation that involves a subject qua subject. Two types of non-objectual intentionality can be defined. Through interpretation of Husserl’s notion of interest and emotional tone, I define depth-intentionality as the experiential participation of the subject. It helps illuminate the perspectival character of the first person and why subjectivity is proto-intersubjectivity. The tendency is intentional causation because the actual participation of some experiencing subject is necessary and sufficient for the actualisation of such causation. The non-objectual intentionality offers a promising alternative account of pre-reflective consciousness to self-affection. This account distinguishes inner awareness of an experience from self-awareness and addresses their intensity differences, as well as the case of plural self-awareness. The objectual intentionality cannot be causal because its relata do not share one actualisation-principle. Objectification can be comprehended as to specify through the experiential participation of what is not actualised with this experiential participation. Keywords: tendency; causation; intention; pre-reflective consciousness; non-objectual
Passage of time, a phenomenon often ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology which fo... more Passage of time, a phenomenon often ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology which focus on interval timing, is usually studied in social psychology. However, these investigations are hampered by lack of clear understanding of different research procedures, robust theories and a unified framework. To address these problems, this article offers firstly a loyal description of the passage of time and its correlation with the intensity of self-awareness, by analysing the situation of conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure and modification in arousal. Then I propose a framework to account for these phenomena: Tendency-structure as perspective, arousal and attention as ‘kinesthesis’ for the passage of time. The more solid a tendency-structure is in terms of stability and density, the faster time flows. In a more stable tendency-structure, the selves are more unified. This framework also helps illuminate the meaning of conventional time units and enables a critical examination of different research procedures, including the Internal Clock Theory and its alternatives.
Keywords: passage of time; tendency; attention; arousal; self-awareness
Long Abstract: Passage of time (e.g., the time passes slowly in boredom) is usually ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology (cognitive or neural) which focuses on interval timing. It is more often studied in social psychology by self-report and questionnaire, while both experimental and social psychology agree on the critical role of arousal and attention. However, these studies are unsatisfying, since methodologically (1) such untrained self-reports are phenomenologically naïve, and (2) researchers have hardly a clear understanding of different research procedures although they have distinguished them, while theoretically (3) theories in social psychology are no more than listing and grouping the relevant factors, and (4) models in cognitive and neural psychology cover only particular research procedures. Hence, it is necessary for phenomenology to do justice to the phenomenon of passage of time by a loyal description, a solid theoretical foundation and a critical examination of different research procedures and timing theories. To achieve this aim, Section 2 classifies different research procedures according to (A) the role of conventional time unit and (B) the distinction between prospective and retrospective timing. Section 3 provides a loyal description of the passage of time considering (3.1) the situation of conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure and (3.2) the correspondingly increased intensity of self-awareness, and (3.3) modification in arousal. One the one hand, a child who plays video games and does homework simultaneously experience slower passage of time than routine, while an artist in the flow state, dominated by a single aim, feels timelessness and selflessness. One the other hand, highly aroused mania patients experience a more rapid flow of time than depressed ones. Section 4 develops a systematic theory for the passage of time: (4.1) According to Husserl’s account of phenomenological time in Bernauer Manuskripte, through aufgefasste Daten, time consciousness presents phenomenological time in similar way as spatial perception presents a thing through sensation fields (e.g., Hua XXXIII: 35, 166). (4.2) According to Husserl’s theory of tendency, tendency is non-objectually directed (Hua XLIII/III: 310-311) and can therefore be considered as consciousness-with or synthetic intention, opposite to consciousness-of, the intention opposite to an object. The conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure means that the competing tendencies are in a loose relation. Such a loose tendency-structure can be considered as the perspective through which time consciousness presents a slower passage of phenomenological time. Attention as the tendency to observation (Tendenz zur Betrachtung) can modify such a structure. (4.3) Tendencies connect not only experiences, but also different corresponding selves. For Husserl, pre-reflective self-awareness can be regarded as the identity-synthesis of selves belonging to various experiences. Hence, an unstable tendency-structure implies a lower unity between selves and a higher effort to establish such unity again, which means a higher intensity of self-awareness. (4.4) The effect of a higher arousal level can be understood as deeper participation (Inter-esse) in more tendencies, which means a denser tendency-structure, through which time consciousness presents a faster passage of phenomenological time. (4.5) Therefore, we may conclude that tendency-Structure is the perspective for the passage of time while attention and arousal are ‘kinesthesis’ for the passage of time. Section 5 elucidates the meaning of conventional time units (objective time) as a medium for subjective and intersubjective coordination with normal, idealised, conventional tendency structure, and provides a unified explanation for different results obtained within various research procedures, especially different effects of arousal. This is achieved by analysing the deviation of tendency-structure, whether the subjects want to, how they are able to and what they do to coordinate with the conventional tendency structure or the one during standard reception. Section 6 critically examines the popular Internal Clock Theory and its alternatives (information density/storage size, decay line, climbing activities, energy expense and state-dependent network).
Traditional Husserlians' anti-naturalism has not directly dealt with the causal argument for onto... more Traditional Husserlians' anti-naturalism has not directly dealt with the causal argument for ontological naturalism, to which I give a Husserlian response in this article, based on his argument that there can be no causation between the objectual and the non-objectual realm: Were this the case, then the experienced mental event would be objectual in this very event, which is unfaithful to our actual experience. Through a reconstruction of this argument, I propose that (1) we have two reciprocally causally closed realms, the objectual and the non-objectual one, and (2) they are transcendentally parallel. The two realms are distinct according to the criteria whether the actual participation of some experiencing subject is necessary and sufficient for the actualisation of the causation. Meanwhile, they are both causal, and here I offer an interpretation of the contrastive causation: causation is the double specification, to specify the actual against the inactual and to specify the causally relevant against the irrelevant. Within these two specifications (without further specification of the prominent causation against background conditions), I defend a primitivist view on causation: causation is implicit in every regular temporal process so that it is ineliminable and irreducible. This general account sheds light on the non-objectual causation. Subjectivity is proto-intersubjectivity and the perspectival and finite character of subject roots in the essential ontological property of actualisation. The two realms are transcendentally parallel because every objectual causation requires some possible (not actual!) non-objectual causation (that is what Husserl meant by transcendental idealism) but the opposite is not true, and the objectual intentionality is not located within these two realms but encompasses them as parts so that it 'transcends' them in this way. Nonetheless, this view challenges our common-sense understanding of mental causation, so Husserl was obliged to explain why mental causation does not contradict his framework. I propose that mental causation is the result of the asymmetrical non-objectual determination (contingency) and the objectifying reflection thereupon for the sake of intelligibility by ascribing a cause to the contingent event. Husserl's endorses the reciprocally causal closure between the objectual and the non-objectual one. This does not render Husserl a dualist, because objectual is not necessarily physical, but can be psychophysical or endo-psychic as well. Besides, the objectual and the non-objectual realm are neither interactive nor are they independent entities coordinated by some predetermined harmony. One had better say 'intentional monism' rather than dualism, but this monism requires no identity between two realms or some underlying entity. Husserl dismissed mental causation qua the causation between the objectual and the non-objectual, but he would leave open within the objectual realm whether the physical sphere is causally closed or whether we should adopt some dualism, whether is acceptable, whether and how overdetermination and mental causation are possible. Therefore, this Husserlian response serves as the demarcation for naturalists: please continue with your debates around mental causation, but only within the objectual realm.
There are three problems with Husserlian transcendental phenomenology: (1) What does it mean to b... more There are three problems with Husserlian transcendental phenomenology: (1) What does it mean to be transcendental? Namely, how different is Husserl's version from Kant's? And is transcendentality necessarily idealistic, subjective (considering what Pradelle (2012) and Schnell (2020) depicted as "beneath subjectivity")? (2) Why is it legitimate to adopt a transcendental stance (instead of naturalism)? Can we provide arguments instead of claims? (3) How should Husserlians continue with transcendentalism in a fruitful and legitimate manner? Whilst restriction on the classical self-reflection renders the anti-anthropological Husserl paradoxically accused of anthropocentrism in biosemiotics, too much methodological freedom results in unexaminable speculations about affecter (Ding an sich, God or Life). This article attempts to offer a unified answer to these questions with a focus on the second one. Two arguments can be reconstructed for Husserlian transcendentalism. The first one is the rejection of mental causation: Were consciousness causally acting upon the world or acted upon by the world, then it should be located within the same objective real space as the object, which means the consciousness itself should be objective. The ridiculous result inconsistent with our experience shows that intentionality is not located within real space-time but encompasses the latter as a part of its intentional correlate-thus it 'transcends' the latter and is transcendental. The second argument is from the irreality of meaning: linguistic form in natural language appears to be more irreal than physical reality, not because it is eidetic, idealised or superimposed upon the latter, but because intentionality is made more explicit than at the empirical level. Hence, we obtain a sense of transcendentality in terms of intentionality, but this definition is not limited to the studies of sense-bestow (Bernet 2015) but includes whatever transcends real space-time in such a manner. If the rejection of mental causation forbids any attempt to reintroduce an affecter of givenness (Loidolt 2015), then one should reduce the talk of spontaneity, receptivity and automaticity to the determining relation between consciousness: whilst spontaneity and receptivity are asymmetrical determinations (contingencies), automaticity is the symmetrical regularity. What Pradelle and Schnell termed "pre-subjective" is in fact neutrally subjective, the middle voice.
Abstract: Pre-reflective consciousness is either understood as inner consciousness of an experien... more Abstract: Pre-reflective consciousness is either understood as inner consciousness of an experience or as self-consciousness, the consciousness of belongingness. There are two unexamined assumptions in the self-affection account posed by Henry and Zahavi :1. pre-reflective consciousness=self-awareness=inner consciousness of experience 2. pre-reflective consciousness has no intensity-difference. However, these presuppositions cannot withstand counterexamples like schizophrenia and flow-state, and ignores the correlation between pre-reflective consciousness and the passage of time. Therefore, one should distinguish self-awareness and inner awareness within pre-reflective consciousness: self-consciousness is the identity-synthesis of different selves. Conflicting selves result in a decreased unity and hence an intensified self-consciousness. Inner consciousness is inter-esse, as the depth of involvement in an experience. The passage of time is presented through the tendency-structure by time-consciousness. Conflicting aims means an unstable tendency-structure, while a lower arousal level means a reduced density in this structure. Both indicates a sparser tendency-structure, through which the phenomenological time is presented as flowing more slowly.. Keywords: pre-reflective consciousness; self-awareness; inner awareness; time; tendency
Attention is a well-researched central topic in cognitive science in terms of its relation to sti... more Attention is a well-researched central topic in cognitive science in terms of its relation to stimuli, control, memory, and consciousness. However, it suffers from the absence of a unified picture. A promising picture can be obtained via an understanding of attention, intention and attitude as the mode of will based on Husserl (his ethics in particular). (1) Attention is structurally and genetically isomorphic to the mode of will, with the structural correspondence a) between the foreground-background and the target-non-target on the one hand; and b) between the relevant background and the path on the other hand; with the genetic correspondence in their shared milieu as c) the guidance by interest and possible active control and d) the accordingly aroused ability for goal-realization. (2) The perplexing attention-intention/consciousness relation would be elucidated if considered as the mode of will towards difference aims. (3) How memory is related to attention is clarified through interpreting memorizing and forgetting as a dynamically holding (tenēre) and dropping down of wills on various levels. (4) The mode of will is also the origin of the seemingly challenged, traditional taxonomy between knowing, feeling, and acting as different attitudes. Further research is warranted in instinctive attention or memory to substantiate this picture.
Es mangelt der Diskussion über Individuation bei Husserl an der über Individuation vom Ich. Und d... more Es mangelt der Diskussion über Individuation bei Husserl an der über Individuation vom Ich. Und die Interpretation von Selbstbewusstsein als ein Ereignis im Zeitbewusstsein wie als Selbstaffektion hat zu Übersehen von tieferer Bedeutung des Selbstbewusstsein als das fundamentalste Individuationsprinzip geführt. Diese Mängel liegen darin, dass die das von der statischen und genetischen Phänomenologie vorausgesetzte Individuationsprinzip des Ego thematisierende Phänomenologie der monadischen Individualität, längst nicht betrieben wird, was als Naivität der bisherigen phänomenologischen Forschung gelten könnte. Deshalb versuchen wir zunächst, den Stufen von Reduktion entsprechend das letzte Individuationsprinzip vom Ich zu enthüllen, wobei das Ich und das Nicht-Ich auf jeder Stufe einen Zusammenhang im Ganzen bilden. Die Individuation von diesem Zusammenhang im Ganzen führt uns zum Selbstbewusstsein als dem fundamentalsten Individuationsprinzip. Außerdem haben wir zwei Argumente dafür, das eine um die Möglichkeit von Koexistenz der Wirklichen und der verschiedenen zusammenhangslosen Phantasierten geht, das andere um die Möglichkeit von Gegebenheit des dem Zusammenhang im Ganzen entsprechenden Wesens. Danach wird das Gegenüber zwischen der von Selbstbewusstsein angebotenen individuierenden Stelle als „Eins gegenüber Nichts“ und der von Zeit und Raum angebotenen als „Eins gegenüber Vielen“ gezeigt, was das alte Problem von Eins und Vielen erleuchten kann. Zugleich gewinnen wir eine neu Intersubjektivität, die zwischen dem individuellen Ich und nicht-individuellen Anderen. Letztlich gilt Selbstbewusstsein als Selbstaffektion als Bedingung des Selbstbewusstsein als des fundamentalsten Individuationsprinzips und der Versuch, vor Selbstbewusstsein, vor Individuation überhaupt zu sein, kann die Grenze von Phänomenologie zeigen, weil das Selbstbewusstsein vom Reflektierten eine Bedingung für phänomenologische Reflexion ist.
Either side, justifying or criticizing Husserl’s theory of intersubjectivity, would not understan... more Either side, justifying or criticizing Husserl’s theory of intersubjectivity, would not understand each other and the discussions might fall into chaos, if the ambiguous concept ‘I’ of Husserl has not been clarified. Therefore, it is an urgent need to distinguish four kinds of I in Husserl: The Carrier-I, the two kinds of primordial I, whose distinction is rarely mentioned, and the I defined by contrast with individual Other. A similar effort was made by Nam-in Lee, who has however misunderstood his discovery and improperly established a corresponding relationship between primordial Is and static and genetic phenomenology. Additionally, Lee has failed to accomplished his aim to give a thorough response to Theunissen, and therefore an ultimate response is required, through the intersubjectivity of the individual I with non-individual Other, and through the first-person perspective of the reflected as an essential condition of phenomenological reflection.
Thinking Togetherness: Phenomenology and Society, 2023
Social reality is distinct from brute physical reality. Its irreality is neither fictional, eidet... more Social reality is distinct from brute physical reality. Its irreality is neither fictional, eidetic, nor idealized; nor is it irreducibly imposed on physical objects. Taking linguistic form as an example, I propose a transcendental, anti-naturalistic account: the irreality of social reality results from the higher visibility of intentional correlation, which is transcendental in the sense that it is not located in real spacetime; rather, the latter is located within the former. The article shows that mainstream accounts of collective intention (content, mode, subject, and relation) do not have to be mutually exclusive, and can complement each other. The article also proposes a mechanism for pre-reflective plural self-awareness in its most basic form: congruence with like-minded individuals. Our fear of the group mind is rooted in the metaphysical mystification of the mind-body relationship through naturalism, which rejects transcendentality in favor of an increasingly technological concept of humanity.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Feb 27, 2024
Husserl characterizes sleep with the idea of “the relaxation of the will.” One finds a similar ap... more Husserl characterizes sleep with the idea of “the relaxation of the will.” One finds a similar approach in the work of Maine de Biran, who explains sleep as “the suspension of the will.” More recently, Brian O’Shaughnessy and Matthew Soteriou have argued that mental actions constitute wakeful consciousness. In clinical practice, patients with disorders of consciousness who show “purposeful” behavior are classified as “minimally conscious,” while those in an “unresponsive wakeful state” merely behave reflexively. To what extent and how are these proposals justified? This question pushes both the first- and the third-personal approaches to their limits: in an unconscious state, like a coma, one cannot reflect upon oneself; likewise, one cannot infer from physiological data whether someone is phenomenally conscious. This work offers a critical review of these proposals regarding the constitutive role for agency in phenomenal consciousness. It then presents revised versions of O’Shaughnessy’s and Soteriou’s Arguments from Synthesis and from Self-Consciousness. The argument is that everything of which one is phenomenally conscious is either a potential reason for a possible agentive power exertion, or just that power exertion itself. The “self” referred to in “self”-consciousness is either the agent or a “non-agent,” carrying out functions for the agent. Agency is therefore constitutive of phenomenal consciousness. The resulting view helps to solve the Combination Problem for panpsychism, by suggesting that agency is what raises sub-personal micro-consciousness to the personal level. The view may also justify the notion of a “Minimally Conscious State” in clinical practice.
In philosophy of mind, bodily awareness refers specifically to interoception (of breath, stomach-... more In philosophy of mind, bodily awareness refers specifically to interoception (of breath, stomach-intestine and bodily temperature), proprioception (of bodily position, size and movement), and nociception, in contrast to exteroception. Whether bodily awareness is intentional is a subject of extensive debate in philosophy of mind. Both sides, however, share some problematic assumptions: (1) intentionality must be objectifying; (2) we have only one body, so the body that one is conscious of in bodily awareness is the physical body; (3) the localization of bodily awareness in the physical body and how bodily awareness informs us about our bodily state are the same matter. Although body and intentionality are much discussed in phenomenology, it cannot offer a systematic answer, either because it has paid no attention to this specific problem, or because phenomenologists have the same problematic assumptions. For this reason, I would introduce the intentionality problem of bodily awareness into Husserlian phenomenology, and argue that bodily awareness has a unique intentionality. It is intentional in a non-objectifying way. Its intentional correlate is neither experiential nor physical. A unified body that encompasses this intentional correlate and the physical body is an achievement of multimodal integration. This research serves as an example for dialogues between phenomenology and philosophy of mind, and provides an alternative explanation of bodily awareness to the representationalist one.
Current dialogues in neuroscience are limited to phenomenological psychology plus neuroscience, o... more Current dialogues in neuroscience are limited to phenomenological psychology plus neuroscience, or neurophenomenology. Within these dialogues, transcendental phenomenology is largely expelled. This article proposes a transcendental phenomenology of and through neuroscience. The “phenomenology-of” neuroscience is a philosophy that refuses to view the Experience-Body Relation and Life-Non-Life Ambiguity as if they were predetermined, unintelligible, metaphysical gaps. Instead, it attempts to understand them through a correlative intentional experience involving activities of neuroscientific investigation and their pre-theoretical prerequisites. This establishes the indispensability of self-report and highlights the failings of two naturalistic interpretations of intentionality (representationalism and enactivism). A “phenomenology-through” neuroscience is thus justifiable and necessary, as illustrated by the example of memory consolidation during sleep. The article finds that as phenomenology-plus, neurophenomenology can solve its problems only through a mutually constraining “phenomenology-of” and “-through.”
Husserl has made an explicit distinction between attention and the objectifying intention, but th... more Husserl has made an explicit distinction between attention and the objectifying intention, but the confusion between these two can be found in psychological models of attention like Gurwitsch’s and the Feature Integration Theory. Although many phenomenologists are aware of Husserl’s distinction, they just seem to forget about it when discussing attention theories in psychology. The incapability to apply this distinction to critiques on the latter probably results from the fact that it is rarely made clear what similarities lead to confusion and how they are distinct from each other. To fulfil this task, I propose that attention and the objectifying intention are two different kinds of will. In this way, one can explain their similarities in terms of their goal-directedness as well as the differences in terms of their different goals and paths. Treating attention as a kind of will is in fact a tradition represented by a bunch of psychologists including William James and Kreibig. It is also echoed by action theorists like Crowther who views attention as a kind of mental action. The distinguishing feature of Husserl is that he further distinguishes attention and the objectifying intention into two kinds of will. Nonetheless, neither Husserl nor the psychologists have elaborated how attention and intention are two kinds of will. This is the main task I would undertake. By synthesizing Husserl’s theories of will and attention, I argue that attention and the objectifying intention both have the structure of the will, but they have different aims and paths, and hence they are different kinds of will. Attention is grounded on the objectifying intention. Pre-attentively we already have the all-encompassing perception which is directed at the entire surrounding world, and it is within the latter that attention makes a distinction between the foreground and the objectual background. The aim of attention is to determine the object more closely, to make it clearer and into an independent object and to hold it fast (festhalten), and it takes the relevant objectual background as the path. The objectifying intention aims at identifying an object and positing e.g., its existence, through the path which is the manner of givenness. The view that attention and intention are two kinds of will belongs to a broader background: Husserl’s tendency to generalize the will. Many phenomenologists have already observed this tendency, but they have barely provided a thorough analysis. Importantly, they have not seen that when Husserl characterizes both attention and intention as will, it can risk a conflation on the one hand, but can also provide a solution that can clarify why they are confused on the other hand. Discussions on this tendency would be of value within phenomenology. Although attention should not be confounded with the classic notion of intention, the objectifying one, this does not imply that attention cannot be a kind of non-objectifying intention. I would answer yes. Attention is the non-objectifying intention to keep and deepen the experiential participation in an intentional experience. This can help illuminate the relation between attention and consciousness. Then I would offer a three-fold critique on the attention theories in cognitive psychology. The first one is on the confusion between attention and the non-objectifying intention in Feature Integration Theory. In her latter version, Treisman has to propose the notion of ‘global attention’ and admit that features are already pre-attentively conjoined before being analyzed into different dimensions. But the notion of ‘global attention’ is just self-contradictory, because it is of essence of attention to distinguish the entire surrounding world into foreground and the objectual background. What Treisman captures is in fact the intentionality of the all-encompassing perception. Also, the pre-attentive conjunction contradicts the early characterization of attention as the glue that binds the free-floating features onto the spatial location. If pre-attentively, features are bound already, then it is meaningless to continue speaking of ‘free-floating features’ and the binding function of attention. So-called illusory conjoin should rather be explained by attention’s function to enhance the resolution. Here, I argue that FIT conflates the pre-attentive synthesizing achievement of intention, the resolution-enhancing achievement of attention and the synthesizing achievement that is specifically attentional. The second critique is on the resource theory, which confuses different kinds of ‘forces’. But with the theory presented here, one can make a clear distinction based on the structure of the will. The final critique is on the mechanization of attention, and this reflects the humanistic value and methodological position of this article. Attention is taken as a part of a machine in cognitive science. Some postmodernists like Waldenfels embrace the very blurring of the boundaries between an organism and a machine. But there is an essential distinction between these two: life is intrinsically purposeful while a machine is only extrinsically. Since the goal is the intentional correlate of the will, treating attention as a kind of will can help us overcome the mechanization of life and mind. In contrast to the popular compromising and cooperative position which abandon the transcendental dimension when phenomenologists are in dialogue with cognitive science, I maintain the transcendental stance which comprehends various theories of attention as the intentional achievement of the researchers and takes the reflection upon their experiences as the task. I would show that although researchers have implicitly understood attention as a kind of will, their experimental design and theoretical interest abstracts away its intrinsic goal-directedness, which leads to the mechanization.
Proponents of phenomenal intentionality are half-hearted regarding phenomenology. On the one hand... more Proponents of phenomenal intentionality are half-hearted regarding phenomenology. On the one hand, they acknowledge that phenomenal intentionality is unique from the first-person perspective. On the other hand, considering how the intentional relation can have non-existent relata, they interpret the relationality of phenomenal intention using the notion of relation derived from the third-personal perspective, which requires the relata to exist. Surprisingly, Husserl is not so interested in these ontological problems of intentionality as Brentano and Meinong did, despite the central role of intentionality in his system. To overcome the phenomenal intentionalists’ half-heartedness and explain Husserl’s relative indifference, I propose that phenomenal intentionality is relational, but in a way that goes beyond ontology. A relation in ontology is unifying what exists to a totality. This does not apply to phenomenal intentionality. I argue for this from the metaontological status of an entity’s meaningfulness: the meaningfulness is not yet an entity, but what makes an entity intelligible as such an entity. It is substantialized in phenomenological reflection. Phenomenal intentionality is how the intentional experience and the intended entity become intelligible in a correlative way. It cannot be embedded in ontology; rather, it makes ontology intelligible – hence, it is metaontologically relational.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness is the best solution to the tension in Husserl’s theory of meaning. According to the post-Logical Investigations Husserl, meaning has ideality, but this ideality is neither the one of an essence (pace the West Coast Reading) nor the one of an idealized mathematical point. Rather, meaning is ideal but particular. Meaning, as Husserl argued, is discovered as the Intended as Such (das Vermeinte als solche) in reflection. This notion allows various interpretations. If we consider it as identical to the intended entity in the reflected state, then we have no idea how the reflection can mysteriously shed a new light on this entity (say, a physical one) that endows it with ideality (pace the East Coast Reading). An alternative interpretation is to take the Intended as Such as the meaningfulness in which one intends the entity. For the sake of analysis, this meaningfulness is treated as an entity during reflection, but pre-reflectively, it is not yet an entity. In this way, one can explain Husserl’s paradoxical descriptions: This meaningfulness is just at the same place as the intended entity but is neither identical to it nor a part of it. Hence, the metaontological status of meaningfulness provides the best explanation for Husserl’s theory of meaning.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness can dissipate the paradox around the notion of constitution, if constitution of an intentional object’ means that the subject contributes to the object’s meaning-obtaining rather than participates in its Dasein and Sosein. It also explains Husserl’s indifference regarding the ontological status of intentional objects, so long as Husserl is only concerned about how entities obtain their meaningfulness (namely, intentionality). It also justifies the transcendentality of subjectivity in the Husserlian sense: The subject is not a part of the world; rather, the world obtains its meaningfulness through the subject.
The conservative Husserl abided by the traditional classification of consciousness into intellect... more The conservative Husserl abided by the traditional classification of consciousness into intellect, emotion and will, and adopted an intellectualist position, arguing that emotion and will are superimposed separable subjective layers upon the objective intellect, while the radical Husserl criticized such a stance: beauty-value and drive-feeling do not variate with a modified intellectual quality and are hence not founded on the latter; ‘pure intellect’ abstracted away from emotion and will is in fact a result of attention, whereas sachliches Interesse or curiosity still functions as emotion in pure intellect, so that value-free intellect is merely an abstraction; feeling-sensations are not aroused by empirical ones, but are feeling-tone of every experience as its independent part; Husserl tends to generalize the will, which includes all kinds of consciousness in itself. To solve this conflict with the radical Husserl’s position, I attempt to clarify the meaning of intellectual, emotional and volitional quality and material: as demand for consistency, being moved and the realization of aim; these three are not layered upon one another but inseparable aspects of consciousness, so that pure intellect also has in its background the emotional and volitional character; with a modification of attention, every one of the three can cover the other, which explains the attempts to reduce emotion and will to intellect and Husserl’s tendency to generalize the will. The view that emotion and will are founded originates from the confusion of attention and separation, the limitation of emotion and will to special cases, the confusion of different senses of Vorstellung and misguidance by language. The reason why emotion and will seem to be more subjective roots not only in limitation to special cases, but also the different affinity of these three with three kinds of intentionality, three ways of being: intellect as the demand for consistency has affinity with consciousness-opposite to the identical invariant, will as the demand for the realization of aim with the synthetic consciousness-with, emotion as demand for being moved with the consciousness to involve-in. Keywords: intellect; emotion; will; Husserl; intentionality
[Abstract]: There is an apparent tension between Husserl’s discussions on mathematization and his... more [Abstract]: There is an apparent tension between Husserl’s discussions on mathematization and his definition of formal mathematics: On the one hand, Husserl thought formal mathematics to be the most universal discipline which handles ‘Etwas überhaupt’; on the other hand, Husserl criticised the mathematization of the living world and consciousness. Were formal mathematics indeed so universal that it applies to the living world and consciousness as well, then it is inappropriate to even speak of mathematization, let alone to criticise it. The paradox is probably because the current formal mathematics is still not universal enough; the more universal one which applies to the living world and consciousness has not been developed. Based on Husserl’s discussions on ‘horizon’ ‘background’ and ‘doxa’, I propose a more universal, ‘subjective’ and ‘relative’ formal mathematics which encompasses the exact mathematics as a mode. The exact and the inexact mode is only approximately identical, and mathematization lies in the pretension that the exact mode is the whole story. Such approximate identity contributes to the Platonic imitation theory and determinism in natural sciences etc. Other than the confusion of formalization, idealization and ideation, the reason why such a more universal formal mathematics is underdeveloped is the fact that to describe ‘Etwas überhaupt’ has never been taken as a task. [Keywords]: mathematization; universality; horizon; attention; idealization; exact
Abstract:
Passivity and activity are often used in phenomenology without a fundamental clarifica... more Abstract: Passivity and activity are often used in phenomenology without a fundamental clarification. Different understandings are often confused: (1) receptivity (affection) and spontaneity (free will) (2) controlled and uncontrolled (3) higher and lower level of consciousness. The first understanding risks falling into unfalsifiable metaphysical speculation about the affecter, whether it is Ding an sich, life or God. The second requires an explanation of control. The third lacks an apparent link to passivity and activity. (1) With attention, the passageway from passivity to activity, one may explain the activity of a higher consciousness level in terms of visibility of intentionality. The irreality of categorial moments (‘is’ ‘and’) is a result of the more apparent transcendental intentionality, whose transcendentality means that intentionality is not locate within real spacetime but encompasses the latter as a part. (2) With Shaftesbury’s theory, Husserl understood control or active motivation as the reflective (self)determination. Passive motivation like association and habit is non-reflective, which Husserl called elementary, non-objectual intention. (3) I propose an explanation of receptivity and spontaneity free from suspect of metaphysical speculation: both are contingency (Zufälligkeit) or asymmetric determination in consciousness: determining but is not fully determined. If the determining factor is reflective control, then we have ‘free will’; the non-reflective contingency would be affection. By contrast, symmetric determination like involuntary kinesthesia and association takes place ‘by itself’. It is because we strive to determinate the non-determined by ascribing to them an affecter or a subject of free will as the determinant that the contingency is explained away. Keywords: passivity, activity, spontaneity, receptivity, irreal, contingency
Abstract: Disputes may arise out of Husserl’s move to depict the non-objectual tendency between m... more Abstract: Disputes may arise out of Husserl’s move to depict the non-objectual tendency between mental events as both causal and intentional. A solution relies on the criteria for causation and intention. By interpreting the contrastive formal, I argue that causation is the double specification: to specify the actual against the inactual, to specify the causally relevant against the irrelevant. Intentionality in the broadest sense is a non-symmetrical relation that involves a subject qua subject. Two types of non-objectual intentionality can be defined. Through interpretation of Husserl’s notion of interest and emotional tone, I define depth-intentionality as the experiential participation of the subject. It helps illuminate the perspectival character of the first person and why subjectivity is proto-intersubjectivity. The tendency is intentional causation because the actual participation of some experiencing subject is necessary and sufficient for the actualisation of such causation. The non-objectual intentionality offers a promising alternative account of pre-reflective consciousness to self-affection. This account distinguishes inner awareness of an experience from self-awareness and addresses their intensity differences, as well as the case of plural self-awareness. The objectual intentionality cannot be causal because its relata do not share one actualisation-principle. Objectification can be comprehended as to specify through the experiential participation of what is not actualised with this experiential participation. Keywords: tendency; causation; intention; pre-reflective consciousness; non-objectual
Passage of time, a phenomenon often ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology which fo... more Passage of time, a phenomenon often ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology which focus on interval timing, is usually studied in social psychology. However, these investigations are hampered by lack of clear understanding of different research procedures, robust theories and a unified framework. To address these problems, this article offers firstly a loyal description of the passage of time and its correlation with the intensity of self-awareness, by analysing the situation of conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure and modification in arousal. Then I propose a framework to account for these phenomena: Tendency-structure as perspective, arousal and attention as ‘kinesthesis’ for the passage of time. The more solid a tendency-structure is in terms of stability and density, the faster time flows. In a more stable tendency-structure, the selves are more unified. This framework also helps illuminate the meaning of conventional time units and enables a critical examination of different research procedures, including the Internal Clock Theory and its alternatives.
Keywords: passage of time; tendency; attention; arousal; self-awareness
Long Abstract: Passage of time (e.g., the time passes slowly in boredom) is usually ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology (cognitive or neural) which focuses on interval timing. It is more often studied in social psychology by self-report and questionnaire, while both experimental and social psychology agree on the critical role of arousal and attention. However, these studies are unsatisfying, since methodologically (1) such untrained self-reports are phenomenologically naïve, and (2) researchers have hardly a clear understanding of different research procedures although they have distinguished them, while theoretically (3) theories in social psychology are no more than listing and grouping the relevant factors, and (4) models in cognitive and neural psychology cover only particular research procedures. Hence, it is necessary for phenomenology to do justice to the phenomenon of passage of time by a loyal description, a solid theoretical foundation and a critical examination of different research procedures and timing theories. To achieve this aim, Section 2 classifies different research procedures according to (A) the role of conventional time unit and (B) the distinction between prospective and retrospective timing. Section 3 provides a loyal description of the passage of time considering (3.1) the situation of conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure and (3.2) the correspondingly increased intensity of self-awareness, and (3.3) modification in arousal. One the one hand, a child who plays video games and does homework simultaneously experience slower passage of time than routine, while an artist in the flow state, dominated by a single aim, feels timelessness and selflessness. One the other hand, highly aroused mania patients experience a more rapid flow of time than depressed ones. Section 4 develops a systematic theory for the passage of time: (4.1) According to Husserl’s account of phenomenological time in Bernauer Manuskripte, through aufgefasste Daten, time consciousness presents phenomenological time in similar way as spatial perception presents a thing through sensation fields (e.g., Hua XXXIII: 35, 166). (4.2) According to Husserl’s theory of tendency, tendency is non-objectually directed (Hua XLIII/III: 310-311) and can therefore be considered as consciousness-with or synthetic intention, opposite to consciousness-of, the intention opposite to an object. The conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure means that the competing tendencies are in a loose relation. Such a loose tendency-structure can be considered as the perspective through which time consciousness presents a slower passage of phenomenological time. Attention as the tendency to observation (Tendenz zur Betrachtung) can modify such a structure. (4.3) Tendencies connect not only experiences, but also different corresponding selves. For Husserl, pre-reflective self-awareness can be regarded as the identity-synthesis of selves belonging to various experiences. Hence, an unstable tendency-structure implies a lower unity between selves and a higher effort to establish such unity again, which means a higher intensity of self-awareness. (4.4) The effect of a higher arousal level can be understood as deeper participation (Inter-esse) in more tendencies, which means a denser tendency-structure, through which time consciousness presents a faster passage of phenomenological time. (4.5) Therefore, we may conclude that tendency-Structure is the perspective for the passage of time while attention and arousal are ‘kinesthesis’ for the passage of time. Section 5 elucidates the meaning of conventional time units (objective time) as a medium for subjective and intersubjective coordination with normal, idealised, conventional tendency structure, and provides a unified explanation for different results obtained within various research procedures, especially different effects of arousal. This is achieved by analysing the deviation of tendency-structure, whether the subjects want to, how they are able to and what they do to coordinate with the conventional tendency structure or the one during standard reception. Section 6 critically examines the popular Internal Clock Theory and its alternatives (information density/storage size, decay line, climbing activities, energy expense and state-dependent network).
Traditional Husserlians' anti-naturalism has not directly dealt with the causal argument for onto... more Traditional Husserlians' anti-naturalism has not directly dealt with the causal argument for ontological naturalism, to which I give a Husserlian response in this article, based on his argument that there can be no causation between the objectual and the non-objectual realm: Were this the case, then the experienced mental event would be objectual in this very event, which is unfaithful to our actual experience. Through a reconstruction of this argument, I propose that (1) we have two reciprocally causally closed realms, the objectual and the non-objectual one, and (2) they are transcendentally parallel. The two realms are distinct according to the criteria whether the actual participation of some experiencing subject is necessary and sufficient for the actualisation of the causation. Meanwhile, they are both causal, and here I offer an interpretation of the contrastive causation: causation is the double specification, to specify the actual against the inactual and to specify the causally relevant against the irrelevant. Within these two specifications (without further specification of the prominent causation against background conditions), I defend a primitivist view on causation: causation is implicit in every regular temporal process so that it is ineliminable and irreducible. This general account sheds light on the non-objectual causation. Subjectivity is proto-intersubjectivity and the perspectival and finite character of subject roots in the essential ontological property of actualisation. The two realms are transcendentally parallel because every objectual causation requires some possible (not actual!) non-objectual causation (that is what Husserl meant by transcendental idealism) but the opposite is not true, and the objectual intentionality is not located within these two realms but encompasses them as parts so that it 'transcends' them in this way. Nonetheless, this view challenges our common-sense understanding of mental causation, so Husserl was obliged to explain why mental causation does not contradict his framework. I propose that mental causation is the result of the asymmetrical non-objectual determination (contingency) and the objectifying reflection thereupon for the sake of intelligibility by ascribing a cause to the contingent event. Husserl's endorses the reciprocally causal closure between the objectual and the non-objectual one. This does not render Husserl a dualist, because objectual is not necessarily physical, but can be psychophysical or endo-psychic as well. Besides, the objectual and the non-objectual realm are neither interactive nor are they independent entities coordinated by some predetermined harmony. One had better say 'intentional monism' rather than dualism, but this monism requires no identity between two realms or some underlying entity. Husserl dismissed mental causation qua the causation between the objectual and the non-objectual, but he would leave open within the objectual realm whether the physical sphere is causally closed or whether we should adopt some dualism, whether is acceptable, whether and how overdetermination and mental causation are possible. Therefore, this Husserlian response serves as the demarcation for naturalists: please continue with your debates around mental causation, but only within the objectual realm.
There are three problems with Husserlian transcendental phenomenology: (1) What does it mean to b... more There are three problems with Husserlian transcendental phenomenology: (1) What does it mean to be transcendental? Namely, how different is Husserl's version from Kant's? And is transcendentality necessarily idealistic, subjective (considering what Pradelle (2012) and Schnell (2020) depicted as "beneath subjectivity")? (2) Why is it legitimate to adopt a transcendental stance (instead of naturalism)? Can we provide arguments instead of claims? (3) How should Husserlians continue with transcendentalism in a fruitful and legitimate manner? Whilst restriction on the classical self-reflection renders the anti-anthropological Husserl paradoxically accused of anthropocentrism in biosemiotics, too much methodological freedom results in unexaminable speculations about affecter (Ding an sich, God or Life). This article attempts to offer a unified answer to these questions with a focus on the second one. Two arguments can be reconstructed for Husserlian transcendentalism. The first one is the rejection of mental causation: Were consciousness causally acting upon the world or acted upon by the world, then it should be located within the same objective real space as the object, which means the consciousness itself should be objective. The ridiculous result inconsistent with our experience shows that intentionality is not located within real space-time but encompasses the latter as a part of its intentional correlate-thus it 'transcends' the latter and is transcendental. The second argument is from the irreality of meaning: linguistic form in natural language appears to be more irreal than physical reality, not because it is eidetic, idealised or superimposed upon the latter, but because intentionality is made more explicit than at the empirical level. Hence, we obtain a sense of transcendentality in terms of intentionality, but this definition is not limited to the studies of sense-bestow (Bernet 2015) but includes whatever transcends real space-time in such a manner. If the rejection of mental causation forbids any attempt to reintroduce an affecter of givenness (Loidolt 2015), then one should reduce the talk of spontaneity, receptivity and automaticity to the determining relation between consciousness: whilst spontaneity and receptivity are asymmetrical determinations (contingencies), automaticity is the symmetrical regularity. What Pradelle and Schnell termed "pre-subjective" is in fact neutrally subjective, the middle voice.
Abstract: Pre-reflective consciousness is either understood as inner consciousness of an experien... more Abstract: Pre-reflective consciousness is either understood as inner consciousness of an experience or as self-consciousness, the consciousness of belongingness. There are two unexamined assumptions in the self-affection account posed by Henry and Zahavi :1. pre-reflective consciousness=self-awareness=inner consciousness of experience 2. pre-reflective consciousness has no intensity-difference. However, these presuppositions cannot withstand counterexamples like schizophrenia and flow-state, and ignores the correlation between pre-reflective consciousness and the passage of time. Therefore, one should distinguish self-awareness and inner awareness within pre-reflective consciousness: self-consciousness is the identity-synthesis of different selves. Conflicting selves result in a decreased unity and hence an intensified self-consciousness. Inner consciousness is inter-esse, as the depth of involvement in an experience. The passage of time is presented through the tendency-structure by time-consciousness. Conflicting aims means an unstable tendency-structure, while a lower arousal level means a reduced density in this structure. Both indicates a sparser tendency-structure, through which the phenomenological time is presented as flowing more slowly.. Keywords: pre-reflective consciousness; self-awareness; inner awareness; time; tendency
Attention is a well-researched central topic in cognitive science in terms of its relation to sti... more Attention is a well-researched central topic in cognitive science in terms of its relation to stimuli, control, memory, and consciousness. However, it suffers from the absence of a unified picture. A promising picture can be obtained via an understanding of attention, intention and attitude as the mode of will based on Husserl (his ethics in particular). (1) Attention is structurally and genetically isomorphic to the mode of will, with the structural correspondence a) between the foreground-background and the target-non-target on the one hand; and b) between the relevant background and the path on the other hand; with the genetic correspondence in their shared milieu as c) the guidance by interest and possible active control and d) the accordingly aroused ability for goal-realization. (2) The perplexing attention-intention/consciousness relation would be elucidated if considered as the mode of will towards difference aims. (3) How memory is related to attention is clarified through interpreting memorizing and forgetting as a dynamically holding (tenēre) and dropping down of wills on various levels. (4) The mode of will is also the origin of the seemingly challenged, traditional taxonomy between knowing, feeling, and acting as different attitudes. Further research is warranted in instinctive attention or memory to substantiate this picture.
Es mangelt der Diskussion über Individuation bei Husserl an der über Individuation vom Ich. Und d... more Es mangelt der Diskussion über Individuation bei Husserl an der über Individuation vom Ich. Und die Interpretation von Selbstbewusstsein als ein Ereignis im Zeitbewusstsein wie als Selbstaffektion hat zu Übersehen von tieferer Bedeutung des Selbstbewusstsein als das fundamentalste Individuationsprinzip geführt. Diese Mängel liegen darin, dass die das von der statischen und genetischen Phänomenologie vorausgesetzte Individuationsprinzip des Ego thematisierende Phänomenologie der monadischen Individualität, längst nicht betrieben wird, was als Naivität der bisherigen phänomenologischen Forschung gelten könnte. Deshalb versuchen wir zunächst, den Stufen von Reduktion entsprechend das letzte Individuationsprinzip vom Ich zu enthüllen, wobei das Ich und das Nicht-Ich auf jeder Stufe einen Zusammenhang im Ganzen bilden. Die Individuation von diesem Zusammenhang im Ganzen führt uns zum Selbstbewusstsein als dem fundamentalsten Individuationsprinzip. Außerdem haben wir zwei Argumente dafür, das eine um die Möglichkeit von Koexistenz der Wirklichen und der verschiedenen zusammenhangslosen Phantasierten geht, das andere um die Möglichkeit von Gegebenheit des dem Zusammenhang im Ganzen entsprechenden Wesens. Danach wird das Gegenüber zwischen der von Selbstbewusstsein angebotenen individuierenden Stelle als „Eins gegenüber Nichts“ und der von Zeit und Raum angebotenen als „Eins gegenüber Vielen“ gezeigt, was das alte Problem von Eins und Vielen erleuchten kann. Zugleich gewinnen wir eine neu Intersubjektivität, die zwischen dem individuellen Ich und nicht-individuellen Anderen. Letztlich gilt Selbstbewusstsein als Selbstaffektion als Bedingung des Selbstbewusstsein als des fundamentalsten Individuationsprinzips und der Versuch, vor Selbstbewusstsein, vor Individuation überhaupt zu sein, kann die Grenze von Phänomenologie zeigen, weil das Selbstbewusstsein vom Reflektierten eine Bedingung für phänomenologische Reflexion ist.
Either side, justifying or criticizing Husserl’s theory of intersubjectivity, would not understan... more Either side, justifying or criticizing Husserl’s theory of intersubjectivity, would not understand each other and the discussions might fall into chaos, if the ambiguous concept ‘I’ of Husserl has not been clarified. Therefore, it is an urgent need to distinguish four kinds of I in Husserl: The Carrier-I, the two kinds of primordial I, whose distinction is rarely mentioned, and the I defined by contrast with individual Other. A similar effort was made by Nam-in Lee, who has however misunderstood his discovery and improperly established a corresponding relationship between primordial Is and static and genetic phenomenology. Additionally, Lee has failed to accomplished his aim to give a thorough response to Theunissen, and therefore an ultimate response is required, through the intersubjectivity of the individual I with non-individual Other, and through the first-person perspective of the reflected as an essential condition of phenomenological reflection.
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Thesis by Zixuan Liu
Treating attention as a kind of will is in fact a tradition represented by a bunch of psychologists including William James and Kreibig. It is also echoed by action theorists like Crowther who views attention as a kind of mental action. The distinguishing feature of Husserl is that he further distinguishes attention and the objectifying intention into two kinds of will. Nonetheless, neither Husserl nor the psychologists have elaborated how attention and intention are two kinds of will. This is the main task I would undertake. By synthesizing Husserl’s theories of will and attention, I argue that attention and the objectifying intention both have the structure of the will, but they have different aims and paths, and hence they are different kinds of will. Attention is grounded on the objectifying intention. Pre-attentively we already have the all-encompassing perception which is directed at the entire surrounding world, and it is within the latter that attention makes a distinction between the foreground and the objectual background. The aim of attention is to determine the object more closely, to make it clearer and into an independent object and to hold it fast (festhalten), and it takes the relevant objectual background as the path. The objectifying intention aims at identifying an object and positing e.g., its existence, through the path which is the manner of givenness.
The view that attention and intention are two kinds of will belongs to a broader background: Husserl’s tendency to generalize the will. Many phenomenologists have already observed this tendency, but they have barely provided a thorough analysis. Importantly, they have not seen that when Husserl characterizes both attention and intention as will, it can risk a conflation on the one hand, but can also provide a solution that can clarify why they are confused on the other hand. Discussions on this tendency would be of value within phenomenology.
Although attention should not be confounded with the classic notion of intention, the objectifying one, this does not imply that attention cannot be a kind of non-objectifying intention. I would answer yes. Attention is the non-objectifying intention to keep and deepen the experiential participation in an intentional experience. This can help illuminate the relation between attention and consciousness.
Then I would offer a three-fold critique on the attention theories in cognitive psychology.
The first one is on the confusion between attention and the non-objectifying intention in Feature Integration Theory. In her latter version, Treisman has to propose the notion of ‘global attention’ and admit that features are already pre-attentively conjoined before being analyzed into different dimensions. But the notion of ‘global attention’ is just self-contradictory, because it is of essence of attention to distinguish the entire surrounding world into foreground and the objectual background. What Treisman captures is in fact the intentionality of the all-encompassing perception. Also, the pre-attentive conjunction contradicts the early characterization of attention as the glue that binds the free-floating features onto the spatial location. If pre-attentively, features are bound already, then it is meaningless to continue speaking of ‘free-floating features’ and the binding function of attention. So-called illusory conjoin should rather be explained by attention’s function to enhance the resolution. Here, I argue that FIT conflates the pre-attentive synthesizing achievement of intention, the resolution-enhancing achievement of attention and the synthesizing achievement that is specifically attentional.
The second critique is on the resource theory, which confuses different kinds of ‘forces’. But with the theory presented here, one can make a clear distinction based on the structure of the will.
The final critique is on the mechanization of attention, and this reflects the humanistic value and methodological position of this article. Attention is taken as a part of a machine in cognitive science. Some postmodernists like Waldenfels embrace the very blurring of the boundaries between an organism and a machine. But there is an essential distinction between these two: life is intrinsically purposeful while a machine is only extrinsically. Since the goal is the intentional correlate of the will, treating attention as a kind of will can help us overcome the mechanization of life and mind. In contrast to the popular compromising and cooperative position which abandon the transcendental dimension when phenomenologists are in dialogue with cognitive science, I maintain the transcendental stance which comprehends various theories of attention as the intentional achievement of the researchers and takes the reflection upon their experiences as the task. I would show that although researchers have implicitly understood attention as a kind of will, their experimental design and theoretical interest abstracts away its intrinsic goal-directedness, which leads to the mechanization.
Conference Presentations by Zixuan Liu
The metaontological status of meaningfulness is the best solution to the tension in Husserl’s theory of meaning. According to the post-Logical Investigations Husserl, meaning has ideality, but this ideality is neither the one of an essence (pace the West Coast Reading) nor the one of an idealized mathematical point. Rather, meaning is ideal but particular. Meaning, as Husserl argued, is discovered as the Intended as Such (das Vermeinte als solche) in reflection. This notion allows various interpretations. If we consider it as identical to the intended entity in the reflected state, then we have no idea how the reflection can mysteriously shed a new light on this entity (say, a physical one) that endows it with ideality (pace the East Coast Reading). An alternative interpretation is to take the Intended as Such as the meaningfulness in which one intends the entity. For the sake of analysis, this meaningfulness is treated as an entity during reflection, but pre-reflectively, it is not yet an entity. In this way, one can explain Husserl’s paradoxical descriptions: This meaningfulness is just at the same place as the intended entity but is neither identical to it nor a part of it. Hence, the metaontological status of meaningfulness provides the best explanation for Husserl’s theory of meaning.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness can dissipate the paradox around the notion of constitution, if constitution of an intentional object’ means that the subject contributes to the object’s meaning-obtaining rather than participates in its Dasein and Sosein. It also explains Husserl’s indifference regarding the ontological status of intentional objects, so long as Husserl is only concerned about how entities obtain their meaningfulness (namely, intentionality). It also justifies the transcendentality of subjectivity in the Husserlian sense: The subject is not a part of the world; rather, the world obtains its meaningfulness through the subject.
Keywords: intellect; emotion; will; Husserl; intentionality
[Keywords]: mathematization; universality; horizon; attention; idealization; exact
Passivity and activity are often used in phenomenology without a fundamental clarification. Different understandings are often confused: (1) receptivity (affection) and spontaneity (free will) (2) controlled and uncontrolled (3) higher and lower level of consciousness. The first understanding risks falling into unfalsifiable metaphysical speculation about the affecter, whether it is Ding an sich, life or God. The second requires an explanation of control. The third lacks an apparent link to passivity and activity.
(1) With attention, the passageway from passivity to activity, one may explain the activity of a higher consciousness level in terms of visibility of intentionality. The irreality of categorial moments (‘is’ ‘and’) is a result of the more apparent transcendental intentionality, whose transcendentality means that intentionality is not locate within real spacetime but encompasses the latter as a part.
(2) With Shaftesbury’s theory, Husserl understood control or active motivation as the reflective (self)determination. Passive motivation like association and habit is non-reflective, which Husserl called elementary, non-objectual intention.
(3) I propose an explanation of receptivity and spontaneity free from suspect of metaphysical speculation: both are contingency (Zufälligkeit) or asymmetric determination in consciousness: determining but is not fully determined. If the determining factor is reflective control, then we have ‘free will’; the non-reflective contingency would be affection. By contrast, symmetric determination like involuntary kinesthesia and association takes place ‘by itself’. It is because we strive to determinate the non-determined by ascribing to them an affecter or a subject of free will as the determinant that the contingency is explained away.
Keywords: passivity, activity, spontaneity, receptivity, irreal, contingency
Keywords: tendency; causation; intention; pre-reflective consciousness; non-objectual
Keywords: passage of time; tendency; attention; arousal; self-awareness
Long Abstract:
Passage of time (e.g., the time passes slowly in boredom) is usually ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology (cognitive or neural) which focuses on interval timing. It is more often studied in social psychology by self-report and questionnaire, while both experimental and social psychology agree on the critical role of arousal and attention. However, these studies are unsatisfying, since methodologically (1) such untrained self-reports are phenomenologically naïve, and (2) researchers have hardly a clear understanding of different research procedures although they have distinguished them, while theoretically (3) theories in social psychology are no more than listing and grouping the relevant factors, and (4) models in cognitive and neural psychology cover only particular research procedures.
Hence, it is necessary for phenomenology to do justice to the phenomenon of passage of time by a loyal description, a solid theoretical foundation and a critical examination of different research procedures and timing theories.
To achieve this aim, Section 2 classifies different research procedures according to (A) the role of conventional time unit and (B) the distinction between prospective and retrospective timing.
Section 3 provides a loyal description of the passage of time considering (3.1) the situation of conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure and (3.2) the correspondingly increased intensity of self-awareness, and (3.3) modification in arousal. One the one hand, a child who plays video games and does homework simultaneously experience slower passage of time than routine, while an artist in the flow state, dominated by a single aim, feels timelessness and selflessness. One the other hand, highly aroused mania patients experience a more rapid flow of time than depressed ones.
Section 4 develops a systematic theory for the passage of time:
(4.1) According to Husserl’s account of phenomenological time in Bernauer Manuskripte, through aufgefasste Daten, time consciousness presents phenomenological time in similar way as spatial perception presents a thing through sensation fields (e.g., Hua XXXIII: 35, 166).
(4.2) According to Husserl’s theory of tendency, tendency is non-objectually directed (Hua XLIII/III: 310-311) and can therefore be considered as consciousness-with or synthetic intention, opposite to consciousness-of, the intention opposite to an object. The conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure means that the competing tendencies are in a loose relation. Such a loose tendency-structure can be considered as the perspective through which time consciousness presents a slower passage of phenomenological time. Attention as the tendency to observation (Tendenz zur Betrachtung) can modify such a structure.
(4.3) Tendencies connect not only experiences, but also different corresponding selves. For Husserl, pre-reflective self-awareness can be regarded as the identity-synthesis of selves belonging to various experiences. Hence, an unstable tendency-structure implies a lower unity between selves and a higher effort to establish such unity again, which means a higher intensity of self-awareness.
(4.4) The effect of a higher arousal level can be understood as deeper participation (Inter-esse) in more tendencies, which means a denser tendency-structure, through which time consciousness presents a faster passage of phenomenological time.
(4.5) Therefore, we may conclude that tendency-Structure is the perspective for the passage of time while attention and arousal are ‘kinesthesis’ for the passage of time.
Section 5 elucidates the meaning of conventional time units (objective time) as a medium for subjective and intersubjective coordination with normal, idealised, conventional tendency structure, and provides a unified explanation for different results obtained within various research procedures, especially different effects of arousal. This is achieved by analysing the deviation of tendency-structure, whether the subjects want to, how they are able to and what they do to coordinate with the conventional tendency structure or the one during standard reception.
Section 6 critically examines the popular Internal Clock Theory and its alternatives (information density/storage size, decay line, climbing activities, energy expense and state-dependent network).
Drafts by Zixuan Liu
Keywords: pre-reflective consciousness; self-awareness; inner awareness; time; tendency
Treating attention as a kind of will is in fact a tradition represented by a bunch of psychologists including William James and Kreibig. It is also echoed by action theorists like Crowther who views attention as a kind of mental action. The distinguishing feature of Husserl is that he further distinguishes attention and the objectifying intention into two kinds of will. Nonetheless, neither Husserl nor the psychologists have elaborated how attention and intention are two kinds of will. This is the main task I would undertake. By synthesizing Husserl’s theories of will and attention, I argue that attention and the objectifying intention both have the structure of the will, but they have different aims and paths, and hence they are different kinds of will. Attention is grounded on the objectifying intention. Pre-attentively we already have the all-encompassing perception which is directed at the entire surrounding world, and it is within the latter that attention makes a distinction between the foreground and the objectual background. The aim of attention is to determine the object more closely, to make it clearer and into an independent object and to hold it fast (festhalten), and it takes the relevant objectual background as the path. The objectifying intention aims at identifying an object and positing e.g., its existence, through the path which is the manner of givenness.
The view that attention and intention are two kinds of will belongs to a broader background: Husserl’s tendency to generalize the will. Many phenomenologists have already observed this tendency, but they have barely provided a thorough analysis. Importantly, they have not seen that when Husserl characterizes both attention and intention as will, it can risk a conflation on the one hand, but can also provide a solution that can clarify why they are confused on the other hand. Discussions on this tendency would be of value within phenomenology.
Although attention should not be confounded with the classic notion of intention, the objectifying one, this does not imply that attention cannot be a kind of non-objectifying intention. I would answer yes. Attention is the non-objectifying intention to keep and deepen the experiential participation in an intentional experience. This can help illuminate the relation between attention and consciousness.
Then I would offer a three-fold critique on the attention theories in cognitive psychology.
The first one is on the confusion between attention and the non-objectifying intention in Feature Integration Theory. In her latter version, Treisman has to propose the notion of ‘global attention’ and admit that features are already pre-attentively conjoined before being analyzed into different dimensions. But the notion of ‘global attention’ is just self-contradictory, because it is of essence of attention to distinguish the entire surrounding world into foreground and the objectual background. What Treisman captures is in fact the intentionality of the all-encompassing perception. Also, the pre-attentive conjunction contradicts the early characterization of attention as the glue that binds the free-floating features onto the spatial location. If pre-attentively, features are bound already, then it is meaningless to continue speaking of ‘free-floating features’ and the binding function of attention. So-called illusory conjoin should rather be explained by attention’s function to enhance the resolution. Here, I argue that FIT conflates the pre-attentive synthesizing achievement of intention, the resolution-enhancing achievement of attention and the synthesizing achievement that is specifically attentional.
The second critique is on the resource theory, which confuses different kinds of ‘forces’. But with the theory presented here, one can make a clear distinction based on the structure of the will.
The final critique is on the mechanization of attention, and this reflects the humanistic value and methodological position of this article. Attention is taken as a part of a machine in cognitive science. Some postmodernists like Waldenfels embrace the very blurring of the boundaries between an organism and a machine. But there is an essential distinction between these two: life is intrinsically purposeful while a machine is only extrinsically. Since the goal is the intentional correlate of the will, treating attention as a kind of will can help us overcome the mechanization of life and mind. In contrast to the popular compromising and cooperative position which abandon the transcendental dimension when phenomenologists are in dialogue with cognitive science, I maintain the transcendental stance which comprehends various theories of attention as the intentional achievement of the researchers and takes the reflection upon their experiences as the task. I would show that although researchers have implicitly understood attention as a kind of will, their experimental design and theoretical interest abstracts away its intrinsic goal-directedness, which leads to the mechanization.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness is the best solution to the tension in Husserl’s theory of meaning. According to the post-Logical Investigations Husserl, meaning has ideality, but this ideality is neither the one of an essence (pace the West Coast Reading) nor the one of an idealized mathematical point. Rather, meaning is ideal but particular. Meaning, as Husserl argued, is discovered as the Intended as Such (das Vermeinte als solche) in reflection. This notion allows various interpretations. If we consider it as identical to the intended entity in the reflected state, then we have no idea how the reflection can mysteriously shed a new light on this entity (say, a physical one) that endows it with ideality (pace the East Coast Reading). An alternative interpretation is to take the Intended as Such as the meaningfulness in which one intends the entity. For the sake of analysis, this meaningfulness is treated as an entity during reflection, but pre-reflectively, it is not yet an entity. In this way, one can explain Husserl’s paradoxical descriptions: This meaningfulness is just at the same place as the intended entity but is neither identical to it nor a part of it. Hence, the metaontological status of meaningfulness provides the best explanation for Husserl’s theory of meaning.
The metaontological status of meaningfulness can dissipate the paradox around the notion of constitution, if constitution of an intentional object’ means that the subject contributes to the object’s meaning-obtaining rather than participates in its Dasein and Sosein. It also explains Husserl’s indifference regarding the ontological status of intentional objects, so long as Husserl is only concerned about how entities obtain their meaningfulness (namely, intentionality). It also justifies the transcendentality of subjectivity in the Husserlian sense: The subject is not a part of the world; rather, the world obtains its meaningfulness through the subject.
Keywords: intellect; emotion; will; Husserl; intentionality
[Keywords]: mathematization; universality; horizon; attention; idealization; exact
Passivity and activity are often used in phenomenology without a fundamental clarification. Different understandings are often confused: (1) receptivity (affection) and spontaneity (free will) (2) controlled and uncontrolled (3) higher and lower level of consciousness. The first understanding risks falling into unfalsifiable metaphysical speculation about the affecter, whether it is Ding an sich, life or God. The second requires an explanation of control. The third lacks an apparent link to passivity and activity.
(1) With attention, the passageway from passivity to activity, one may explain the activity of a higher consciousness level in terms of visibility of intentionality. The irreality of categorial moments (‘is’ ‘and’) is a result of the more apparent transcendental intentionality, whose transcendentality means that intentionality is not locate within real spacetime but encompasses the latter as a part.
(2) With Shaftesbury’s theory, Husserl understood control or active motivation as the reflective (self)determination. Passive motivation like association and habit is non-reflective, which Husserl called elementary, non-objectual intention.
(3) I propose an explanation of receptivity and spontaneity free from suspect of metaphysical speculation: both are contingency (Zufälligkeit) or asymmetric determination in consciousness: determining but is not fully determined. If the determining factor is reflective control, then we have ‘free will’; the non-reflective contingency would be affection. By contrast, symmetric determination like involuntary kinesthesia and association takes place ‘by itself’. It is because we strive to determinate the non-determined by ascribing to them an affecter or a subject of free will as the determinant that the contingency is explained away.
Keywords: passivity, activity, spontaneity, receptivity, irreal, contingency
Keywords: tendency; causation; intention; pre-reflective consciousness; non-objectual
Keywords: passage of time; tendency; attention; arousal; self-awareness
Long Abstract:
Passage of time (e.g., the time passes slowly in boredom) is usually ignored by phenomenology and experimental psychology (cognitive or neural) which focuses on interval timing. It is more often studied in social psychology by self-report and questionnaire, while both experimental and social psychology agree on the critical role of arousal and attention. However, these studies are unsatisfying, since methodologically (1) such untrained self-reports are phenomenologically naïve, and (2) researchers have hardly a clear understanding of different research procedures although they have distinguished them, while theoretically (3) theories in social psychology are no more than listing and grouping the relevant factors, and (4) models in cognitive and neural psychology cover only particular research procedures.
Hence, it is necessary for phenomenology to do justice to the phenomenon of passage of time by a loyal description, a solid theoretical foundation and a critical examination of different research procedures and timing theories.
To achieve this aim, Section 2 classifies different research procedures according to (A) the role of conventional time unit and (B) the distinction between prospective and retrospective timing.
Section 3 provides a loyal description of the passage of time considering (3.1) the situation of conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure and (3.2) the correspondingly increased intensity of self-awareness, and (3.3) modification in arousal. One the one hand, a child who plays video games and does homework simultaneously experience slower passage of time than routine, while an artist in the flow state, dominated by a single aim, feels timelessness and selflessness. One the other hand, highly aroused mania patients experience a more rapid flow of time than depressed ones.
Section 4 develops a systematic theory for the passage of time:
(4.1) According to Husserl’s account of phenomenological time in Bernauer Manuskripte, through aufgefasste Daten, time consciousness presents phenomenological time in similar way as spatial perception presents a thing through sensation fields (e.g., Hua XXXIII: 35, 166).
(4.2) According to Husserl’s theory of tendency, tendency is non-objectually directed (Hua XLIII/III: 310-311) and can therefore be considered as consciousness-with or synthetic intention, opposite to consciousness-of, the intention opposite to an object. The conflicting aims or unstable aim-structure means that the competing tendencies are in a loose relation. Such a loose tendency-structure can be considered as the perspective through which time consciousness presents a slower passage of phenomenological time. Attention as the tendency to observation (Tendenz zur Betrachtung) can modify such a structure.
(4.3) Tendencies connect not only experiences, but also different corresponding selves. For Husserl, pre-reflective self-awareness can be regarded as the identity-synthesis of selves belonging to various experiences. Hence, an unstable tendency-structure implies a lower unity between selves and a higher effort to establish such unity again, which means a higher intensity of self-awareness.
(4.4) The effect of a higher arousal level can be understood as deeper participation (Inter-esse) in more tendencies, which means a denser tendency-structure, through which time consciousness presents a faster passage of phenomenological time.
(4.5) Therefore, we may conclude that tendency-Structure is the perspective for the passage of time while attention and arousal are ‘kinesthesis’ for the passage of time.
Section 5 elucidates the meaning of conventional time units (objective time) as a medium for subjective and intersubjective coordination with normal, idealised, conventional tendency structure, and provides a unified explanation for different results obtained within various research procedures, especially different effects of arousal. This is achieved by analysing the deviation of tendency-structure, whether the subjects want to, how they are able to and what they do to coordinate with the conventional tendency structure or the one during standard reception.
Section 6 critically examines the popular Internal Clock Theory and its alternatives (information density/storage size, decay line, climbing activities, energy expense and state-dependent network).
Keywords: pre-reflective consciousness; self-awareness; inner awareness; time; tendency