Phenomenological Critique Research Articles

The Precarious Relationship Between Embodiment and Digital Religion

This article presents a critique of the prevalent notion that the digital realm is characterized by a condition of disembodiment and excarnation. In order to substantiate its argument, this article initially presents an example of the discourse surrounding the disembodiment thesis, namely Richard Kearney’s considerations of touch in the digital age. In this context, the article uncovers a dominant discursive framing of harmonization vs. over-problematization. It then proceeds to examine the work of Thomas Fuchs and his phenomenological critique of virtuality, which also emphasizes the aspect of disembodiment. Lucy Osler presents a counterargument to the thesis of disembodiment, simultaneously contributing to both phenomenological and embodiment research. Following Osler, this article argues that embodiment is inherently precarious and that the digital sphere requires a theory of multiple modes of embodiment rather than the creation of a dichotomy between embodiment and the digital. The article concludes with some theoretical considerations of digital religion and theological reflections on the possibility of an online Eucharist, a topic that was prevalent in Christian theology during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Focusing on an object or reflexive self-awareness? Mindfulness, phenomenology and the Pāli suttas

ABSTRACT The concept of mindfulness within the contemporary mindfulness movement was the subject of a recent phenomenological critique. The present article confronts that critique in order to develop a phenomenologically viable interpretation of mindfulness that corresponds with how the word sati is used in the Pāli suttas. By clarifying the distinction between intentional objects and intentional acts, it can be shown that mindfulness was not originally conceived of as an exercise in focusing on a meditation object, but as reflexive self-awareness. Consequently, it is wrong to describe mindfulness as ‘bare attention’. Mindfulness was originally a philosophical enterprise, an attitude that can be cultivated only when one is attending to things while remaining aware of the broader context. Furthermore, an ordinary person (puthujjana) cannot cultivate what the Buddha called ‘right mindfulness’ (sammāsati). This is the province of the noble ones who have acquired the right view and are accomplished in virtue.

Idea of Man by Max Sheler and Modern World

The paper is dedicated to the critical reconstruction of the project of philosophical anthropology drafted by German philosopher Max Sheler at the beginning of XX century in his article “On the Idea of Man” (“Zur Idee des Menschen”). The author tries also to show the contemporary relevance of the main notions and ideas of the anthropological conception which is drafted in this article. From the very title of the article, it becomes clear that Max Sheler based his philosophical anthropology on the phenomenological methodology. According to this methodological approach, we should grasp the idea of man in the act of ideation, which is a result of phenomenological reduction. In accordance to the phenomenological critique of the psychologism, Sheler shows that we cannot find the peculiar idea of man in the natural reality, since from this point of view a man is just an animal among other animals. Being human means overcoming yourself every movement of your existence. The “self-transcendence” is the main feature of the human being. One of the main instrument of the self-transcendence is a human language that gives world a chance to articulate itself. The human self-transcendence can lead to development and creation, but at the same time, it can lead to degradation and destruction. In the modern world, we can find many examples of the both processes.

Something other than its own mass: Embodiment as corporeality, animality, and materiality

Anthropological concern with embodiment began in part with consideration of Merleau-Ponty's theory of perception, and this essay continues in that vein by considering his theory of nature. Embodiment from this standpoint is our general existential condition and an indeterminate methodological field for a cultural phenomenology attuned to the immediacy of lived experience. Without claiming to define nature or human nature, the essay offers an outline of embodiment as a framework for integrating corporeality, animality, and materiality. These three domains have generated lively bodies of literature that do not always speak to one another, and that invite phenomenological critique in a world where the existential and ethical position of humanity is increasingly in question and precarious.

Back to sensuality itself. Jocelyn Benoist’s anti-phenomenological turn?

The article presents Jocelyn Benoist’s criticism of phenomenology as an epistemological project that reduces sensuality to a tool of reference to meaning, and his proposal to supplement phenomenology with an ontology of perception that does justice to sensuality itself. Following the philosopher, the parallels between formal and material phenomenology and modern aesthetics and poetics as a practice that reveals sensuality are drawn. The phenomenology of sound and the discussion of the avant-garde revolution in music (atonality, microtonality, concrete music) point to the limitations of modern aesthetics and illustrate possible directions for the development of a phenomenology of sensuality.

Phenomenology After Deconstruction: "Voice and Phenomenon" as a Prolegomenon to Husserl’s Genetic Method

Reading Voice and Phenomenon from a phenomenological perspective, this paper argues that the book is an internal criticism of Husserlian phenomenology that, among other things, can serve as an introduction to Husserl’s genetic method. Derrida’s most powerful arguments are delivered by turning the Cartesian method of Logical Investigations and Ideas I to Husserl’s inquiries into time-consciousness; as such, it is a phenomenological criticism through and through. An analysis of Husserl’s later manuscripts and lectures published posthumously shows that driven by what Derrida calls the radicality of intuitionism, Husserl has developed a genetic phenomenological method that breaks free from the metaphysics of presence and arrived at a conception of meaning and language that is similar to Derrida’s.

An Alternative to Cognitivism: Computational Phenomenology for Deep Learning

We propose a non-representationalist framework for deep learning relying on a novel method computational phenomenology, a dialogue between the first-person perspective (relying on phenomenology) and the mechanisms of computational models. We thereby propose an alternative to the modern cognitivist interpretation of deep learning, according to which artificial neural networks encode representations of external entities. This interpretation mainly relies on neuro-representationalism, a position that combines a strong ontological commitment towards scientific theoretical entities and the idea that the brain operates on symbolic representations of these entities. We proceed as follows: after offering a review of cognitivism and neuro-representationalism in the field of deep learning, we first elaborate a phenomenological critique of these positions; we then sketch out computational phenomenology and distinguish it from existing alternatives; finally we apply this new method to deep learning models trained on specific tasks, in order to formulate a conceptual framework of deep-learning, that allows one to think of artificial neural networks’ mechanisms in terms of lived experience.

Overlivings and the complexity of the lives we live

The book consists of an Introduction, Three Parts (Part One “Lifetime and Society's Suffering: A Sociology of Generativity”; Part Two “The Generative World: Perspectives on Genetic Phenomenology” and Part Three “Promulgation of Generative Time: Towards a Phenomenological Critique of Biocapitalism”) and Epilogue. As the exhibition progresses, there is an increasing relevance of the subject of research, reaching a socio-analytical and critical review of fully presented events in contemporary times such as the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 (2020 – 2022) and the war in Ukraine (2022 – 2023). Special emphasis in the review are the socalled “aporias” of the category of property when it is applied to one's own body. They are the subject of exposition in Chapter Seven, entitled “Biocapitalism and the World of Life”.

Marcuse’s critique of technology today

Marcuse was the face of the Frankfurt School during the 1960s and '70s. His eclipse led, among other unfortunate consequences, to the disappearance of his critique of science and technology. That critique is based on an experiential ontology that derives in part from Marcuse’s background in phenomenology. In this paper I trace the roots of that ontology in his early interpretation of Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. One-Dimensional Man takes up the phenomenological critique in a Marxist vein. This critique is newly relevant now that we face impending environmental catastrophe due to climate change. Thus the study of Marcuse today is not simply academic, but once again politically significant.

Hitlerjugend Waffen-SS Division. Faces of Fanaticism

Research into the different types of fanaticism that animated some of the most notorious elite forces of the Third Reich represents a key investigation tool for any historian who applies hermeneutic and phenomenological criticism of combat motivation and morale among warriors belonging to Waffen‑SS troops. The study below addresses the very specific features of the ordinary fighter conscripted to the 12th SS Panzer Division ‘Hitlerjugend.’ The fierce battles that compounded the Normandy Campaign (also known as Operation Overlord) of June – August 1944 were particularly shaped by the committed and uniquely involved units belonging to the Hitlerjugend Division, alternatively called the Baby Division by their Canadian, Australian and British opponents. These youngsters had been battle‑hardened before their ‘fire‑baptism’ due to a tough and professionally delivered military and propagandistic program aimed at transforming young soldiers into efficient killing machines, sufficiently indoctrinated so that they could perform outstanding duties through morale disengagement under contextual forces. Both theoretical and military training were delivered by a professional officer’s corps, assisted by NCO’s formed of veterans with a long battle experience on the Eastern Front. Cross investigation analyses were conducted with the purpose of gaining a complex view and better understanding of all social, psychological and military mechanisms that worked together in order to obtain Hitler’s ultimate warrior: ‘the Hitlerjugend soldier.’

Towards a Radical Phenomenological Critique: Anonymity, Bodily Being, and the Intersubjective Field

Quelle est la signification du « corps anonyme » ou, plus simplement, de l’anonymat dans l’usage qu’en fait Merleau-Ponty? Peut-elle offrir des ressources pour une critique féministe radicale et une politique émancipatrice? Certaines philosophes féministes en ont traité comme un idéal universel abstrait du corps qui est à la fois exempt de toute particularité et qui présume tacitement que le corps blanc masculin servirait de norme et aurait une puissance normative. D’autres ont voulu montrer que l’anonymat éclaire les manières dont la domination et la normativité sont intrinsèques à la constitution corporelle. Je soutiens que le « corps anonyme » peut être lu d’une manière productive pour la compréhension des manières dont le corps vécu est fondamentalement constitué par des relations concrètes de pouvoir. Plus particulièrement, je reprends deux lectures de l’anonymat, l’une comme temporalité vécue – un passé sédimenté – et l’autre comme intériorité corporelle. Prises ensemble, ces lectures montrent que l’anonymat soutient le champ intersubjectif, qui joue un rôle clé dans la description de la constitution corporelle de Merleau-Ponty. Je reprends ensuite cette description pour lire la théorie du schéma corporel de Frantz Fanon et les histoires autobiographiques de l’écrivaine et activiste yankton Zitkála-Šá, le tout afin de montrer que le déni de l’anonymat, qui dérange le champ intersubjectif, a pour résultat une violence et des maux considérables. Le tout servira à montrer que la description du corps anonyme par Merleau-Ponty fournit d’importantes ressources pour une politique émancipatrice et une critique philosophique radicale.

THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL OUTLOOK ON CRITIQUE OF IDEOLOGY

The article further elaborates on a project of phenomenological critique of ideology and reveals its potential for the discourse of literature. Since the paradigm of studying ideology as a ‘false consciousness’ set in classical Marxism run into several problems connected with the transition from being in ideology to performing its critique, a genuine way out of it became impossible due to the totality of a discursive structure common to them. The articulation of this paradox in Karl Mannheim, Louis Althusser, Paul Ricœur, Michel Pecheux, and Mikel Dufrenne changed the way of statement of the question, shifting the emphasis from the content of ideology and its characteristic features to the status of a critic who is inevitably hypostatizing his thinking. The change of perspective, in turn, entailed a transformation of the method: while the previous tradition focused on finding a connection between the distorted representation of reality in ideological consciousness and the social position of its bearer, structuralist and phenomenological approaches tend to consider the contingent content of consciousness as an inevitable consequence of its structuring always-already-given horizon of meaning. Working with the latter, Mark Richir introduces the concept of a symbolic institution—the domain of meaning, which determines the human habitus, providing it with linguistic and cultural practices that have lost their phenomenological origin. In this framework, the criticism of ideology is understood as an exit from a symbolic institution, albeit temporary. Mark Richir thematizes this exit as an encounter between symbolic and phenomenological registers, i. e. a phenomenological challenge that assumes the agent of the reduction. Nevertheless, gaining a foothold 'outside' the symbolic institution is impossible: the overcome symbolic order undergoes recoding over time. Therefore, the phenomenological criticism of ideology cannot offer a normative program of a presumed non-ideological field to which the previous tradition aspired. The work hypothesizes that such critique is given as a trace of a once-perfect exit from a symbolic institution and is subject to interpretation as evidence. The development of this hypothesis is presented in the final, practical part of the work.

The sociologization of the concept of the inner form of the word by Gustav Speth and Vladimir Bibikhin

Speths (Gustav Spet/Speth/Spth) theory of language, which subjects W. von Humboldt's linguistics, rooted in the semantic production of Indo-European languages, to phenomenological criticism, problematizes the limits of linguistic expression. For Speth, the inner form of the word is not just a matter of etymological image, capable of generating other, more efficacious images, actualized in poetic invention. Speth understands the poetic already on the basis of the distinction between the content of consciousness and the object of consciousness in the school of F. Brentano, and therefore interprets poetic speech as a resource of constant interpretation of language data. Inner form then turns out to be the very content of consciousness that exists before interpretations - whereas interpretation is produced by the very energy of language, by its social existence itself, and the social being of language coincides with the making of stable images with a form of their own. Ways of writing, then, may not be limited to the familiar script, but may convey a sustained syntax of the imagination that differs from the school syntax that goes back to the Aristotelian understanding of predication. Speth's rejection of the doubling of consonants within a morpheme and V. Bibikhin's rejection of the comma as a separating rather than intonational sign belongs to the general line of rejection of the separation of the similar, which contradicts the new understanding of the sociality of language. Bibikhin sees Speth as an administrator, but of a new type, knowing the internal form as the basis of correct scientific production and giving ritual duty to the internal form, whereas Potebnya took ritual seriously. But this administrative experience is what allowed Spet to formulate all those prerequisites for a sociological understanding of internal form, which Bibikhin interprets in light of Speths biography. Understanding Speth as a virtuous administrator, Bibikhin reveals Speths doctrine of internal form as a doctrine of the creation of new disciplinary boundaries, as opposed to the avant-garde overcoming of boundaries. A close reading of Shpeths work shows that his particular apophatic approach to inner form was the source of the generation of new disciplines and practices within disciplines, which Bibikhin understood as the project of a new Renaissance, the rebirth of productive scholarship.

De l’affectivité sauvage aux passions artificielles : Maine de Biran et la critique phénoménologique de l’idéologie

The goal of this essay is to suggest some elements for a phenomenological critique of ideology, based on the philosophy of affectivity proposed by Maine de Biran at the beginning of the XIX century. It also draws on the work of the Belgian phenomenologist Marc Richir, who developed some of the concepts postulated by Maine de Biran into a theory of intersubjective affectivity centered on the concept of contagion. The last part is an attempt to use these concepts for a critical analysis of the influence advertisements have on our affective disposition and how said influence modifies our phenomenological comprehension of the world.

Lines made by walking—On the aesthetic experience of landscape

Landscape is often seen as a predominantly visual aesthetic phenomenon, which is closely connected to painting. Georg Simmel calls landscape “a work of art in statu nascendi.” Yet from a phenomenological point of view, landscape can also be seen as something we do not only view but also experience bodily, as something we walk through and live in. In this respect, there are many connections between landscape and the experience of space and place. For Edward Casey, it is important to recognize that a landscape consists of places, which thus function as “its main modules, its prime numbers.” Consequently, the aesthetic experience of landscapes will have to take its located and situated character into account. In my contribution, I will draw on this line of thought and try to point out some key aspects of a phenomenological critique of reductive accounts of landscape and consider its relevance for the arts. As landscape and nature have become a prominent theme in artistic practices since the 1960s and 1970s, this paper will relate the philosophical discussion to artistic projects such as Richard Long’s art of walking. In his practice, the status of the work of art as well as a solely pictorial idea of landscape is questioned.

Althusser and Derrida at the Limits of Transcendental Philosophy

In this paper I address Jacques Derrida's consistent phenomenological critique of his colleague Louis Althusser. Over the course of many decades, Derrida explicitly draws attention to what he takes to be Althusser's problematic pre-critical scientism, which is the direct result of the latter's failure to engage with Husserl and Heidegger. However, as I attempt to show, Althusser sought to reveal deeper problems associated with transcendental-critical questions in post-Kantian philosophy. For Althusser, questions concerning the ‘conditions of possibility’ of knowledge and experience reproduce the idealist problematic that he calls ‘empiricism’. Charting a different trajectory within contemporary French philosophy, Althusser combines insights from Spinoza, Marx, and other figures often unmentioned by Derrida to produce a novel, non-transcendental philosophical approach to key problems that arise in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Realizing potentiality. Donut stones in ancient Maya society

Archaeologists often encounter tools whose primary functions are difficult to pinpoint. The expectation of a function separates tool uses from ancient users and their practices. The phenomenological critique of the Cartesian subject-object binary has led to new conceptualizations of the ways in which people interact with and are entangled by the objects around them. Instead of Heidegger’s deterministic thingness, we discuss the enabling potential of things. Our case study are ancient Maya donut stones. These ring-shaped and relatively heavy artifacts were commonly made of limestone. Interpretations cover subsistence, food preparation, crafting, architectural applications, weapons, and other uses. We gathered published data on 125 donut stones from ten Maya sites, dating from 300 B.C.E. to 900C.E. After omitting entries with insufficient data, multivariate data analyses of fifty-five Classic donut stones allow distinguishing two groups of donut stones. These groups differentiate some functions, notably cordholders. Our discussion of in situ donut stones from rapidly abandoned buildings at Aguateca, Copan, and Ceren challenge the interlinked binaries of private vs public, subsistence vs craft specialization, and male vs female division of labor in ancient Maya society. We outline a culture-specific tasksphere in which people employed versatile tools for subsistence- as well as craft-related activities.

Phenomenological Critique of the Esports Experience: Focusing on Similarities with Drone Weapons

Phenomenological Critique of the Esports Experience: Focusing on Similarities with Drone Weapons

Social Interaction Style in Autism: An Inquiry into Phenomenological Methodology

Abstract Autistic difficulties with social interaction have primarily been understood as expressions of underlying impairment of the ability to ‘mindread.’ Although this understanding of autism and social interaction has raised controversy in the phenomenological community for decades, the phenomenological criticism remains largely on a philosophical level. This article helps fill this gap by discussing how phenomenology can contribute to empirical methodologies for studying social interaction in autism. By drawing on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and qualitative data from an ongoing study on social interaction in autism, I discuss how qualitative interviews and participant observation can yield phenomenologically salient data on social interaction. Both, I argue, enjoy their phenomenological promise through facilitating attention to the social-spatial-material fields in and through which social interactions and experiences arise. By developing phenomenologically sound approaches to studying social interaction, this article helps resolve the deficiency of knowledge concerning experiential dimensions of social interaction in autism.

Levinas, Adorno, and the Light of Redemption: Notes on a Critical Eschatology

It seems natural to suppose that the burgeoning field of critical phenomenology would come to bear at least some affinities or resemblances (whether implicitly or explicitly) to critical theory, insofar as both are deeply concerned with directing a rigorous critical eye towards the most pressing political, economic, cultural, and social issues of our time. Yet critical theory has also had its share of critics of phenomenology itself, not least of which was the foremost member of the first-generation Frankfurt School critical theorists, Theodor W. Adorno. Adorno’s critique of phenomenology was, for historical reasons, confined to Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, and might be concisely put as follows: for Adorno, classical phenomenology is insufficiently critical towards contemporary realities of oppression and domination (an insufficiency variously attributed to an alleged pernicious idealism, solipsism, methodological individualism, descriptivism, or ahistoricism in classical phenomenology). On this count, critical phenomenologists today may very well agree—at least to the point of affirming that phenomenology’s critical potential remained largely “untapped” in its classical formulations. However, in a twist of historical fate, Adorno failed to engage with a contemporaneous phenomenologist with whom he perhaps had more in common than anyone else: Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas himself was also notably critical of Husserl and Heidegger (while of course also being enormously indebted to them), for reasons not altogether dissimilar to Adorno’s. For Levinas, phenomenology had hitherto neglected the fundamental ethical or moral dimensions of experience—in particular our ethical responsibility towards the Other in the face of the manifold evils and injustices of the world. What might Adorno have thought of Levinas’s work, and Levinas of Adorno’s? What might they have learned from one another? And how might this exchange have affected the trajectories of critical theory, phenomenology, or critical phenomenology?