Natural Attitude Research Articles

Husserl: Psychological Epoché and Pure Psychology

Abstract The experience error is the fallacy of attributing to our experience of a thing what we know to be true of that thing from an objective point of view. This paper argues that the “method of purification” advocated by Edmund Husserl for psychology is nothing other than avoidance of the experience error. The purity of psychology is not philosophical (transcendental) purity. Psychology remains in the natural attitude; it is pure if it is true to the subjective, psychical, genuinely lived content of experience and thus is purely descriptive. But that is easier said than done. Due to the dominance of the modern scientific outlook, the experience error is so insidious that, as the paper argues in a final section, Husserl himself was not immune to it.

Epoché as the Breakthrough of the Natural Attitude

Epoché as the Breakthrough of the Natural Attitude

Technology and pronouns: disrupting the ‘Natural Attitude about Gender’

I consider how video conferencing platforms have changed practices of pronoun sharing, how this development fits into recent philosophical work on conceptual and social disruption, and how it might be an effective tool to disrupt the ‘natural attitude about gender’.

『주역』의 생명철학으로 보는 ‘생명 존중’에 대한 고찰

Nowadays, phenomenons such as pandemic, war, infanticide, etc. make us realize the severity of disregards-for-life and the importance of value-of-life. The term life-value includes the meaning of respect-for-life. Respect-for-life is an idea that values all living things and gives value to all life. Respect for life naturally leads to fear of life, which is called ‘reverence-for-life’ or ‘fear-for-life’. Life is extremely precious and deserves to be fully protected, but humanity is immature and often fails to maintain its natural attitude towards life and neglects or damages life. In 『Zhouyì』, the idea of respect-for-life is described as ‘Ceaseless Production(生生)’. 『Zhouyì』 understands the world and the entire universe as an eternal cycle with no beginning or end. Ceaseless Production(生生) means living and living. In this study, the structure of life philosophy is discussed focusing on 「Gyesajeon」, one of Ten Wings(十翼) of 『Zhouyì』. In 「Gyesajeon」, the cyclical process of Ceaseless Production(生生不息), in other words ‘birth and birth again’, is revealed based on the communion of heavenandearth-QianKun(天地乾坤) and Virtuous Concordance of Yin and Yang(陰陽合德). The study also reviews the essence and principles of life in the universe and how it changes and circulates based on the life principles of Qiando(乾道) and Kundo(坤道) and the principles of Yi-jian(易簡) from 「Gyesajeon」, the practice of Doeui(道義) through Cheng-seong (成性), the reality of gwisin(鬼神), and an analysis of the philosophical concept of life circulation. Furthermore, the role and significance of life philosophy from 『Zhouyì』 were considered in regards to social issues related to life occurring in modern society and the way to move from disregards-for-life to Respect-for-life was suggested.

The Spirit of Happiness: The Universal Manifestation of Life

Happiness is the manifestation of positive contemplation and consciousness. It is a way of demonstrating positive thinking and intuition. The spirit of happiness is a collaboration of life contentment, positive effect, and high thinking in the subjective nature. The study delves into the sources of happiness globally, revealing mental health, physical wellbeing, living conditions, behaviors, personal safety, and life expectancy. The feeling of life has the most delighted meaning, leading to the divine inspiration of happiness. The objective of the paper is to state the spirit of happiness, encompassing feelings of contentment, positive vibes, and supportive life. The paper covers the World Happiness Report since 2012 when it was started, its background, factors, reports, and findings. The emancipation of happiness is multifaceted, covering positive emotions and cognitive feelings. Social connection, natural attitude, fiscal support, socio-culture, pragmatic sign, and mental healing are key terms, creating a vibrant evolution of happiness, and leading to the contentment of consciousness and self-awareness. Happiness is not only a personal pursuit but also a societal measure of progress, manifesting emotional intelligence, individualism, idealism, and perfectionism.

The Phases of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Italian Sociology: Institutionalisation, Social Engagement, and Emerging Problems

AbstractThis article reflects on the qualitative and quantitative methods developed and adopted by Italian sociology and the historical circumstances that have led researchers to focus on some fields rather than others. It will highlight how different research groups have articulated, over time, their reflection on the methods and techniques of social research, which can be said to be characterized by four phases. The first phase is formation, in which the methodological debate takes place against the epistemological contrast between positivist positions and anti-positivist traditions. The second phase is commitment, marked by the consolidation of both quantitative and qualitative research approaches and the dissemination of medium-range research focused on specific issues in certain areas of the country. The third is the stabilization phase, in which the choice of one field over the other is linked to a process of institutionalization of the discipline within academia, now mature. Finally, the contemporary phase highlights the need to combine approaches with the characteristics of a society in constant evolution, particularly after the advent of the digital age.

Conceptions of bibliographic managers in university teachers. An approach in Latin American.

Due to the accumulation of information generated by the information society, it is necessary to establish scientific criteria for its systematization. The objective of the research was to understand the implicit theories on the use of bibliographic managers in the organization of scientific information in university teachers in Latin American university teachers (Colombia, Ecuador and Peru). The interpretative paradigm, phenomenological method and qualitative approach were used. The key informants were defined by fifteen teachers with research experience. The technique was the semi-structured interview, and the instrument was the interview script. The study was based on four cyclical-recursive moments, the first was the natural attitude, where information was obtained from the key informants as a result of the interviews. The second moment allowed the epoche-eidetic reduction, consisting of the analysis of each interview. The third moment originated the transcendental epoche-reduction, analyzing each attribute and their consistency. The fourth moment revealed the constitution of the study, integrating in a semantic network the categories, subcategories, and attributes that emerged. Even when it is recognized from the cognitive conception about the concept of bibliographic managers, its applicability or use, it seems not to be so effective in scientific academic spaces and activities, because teachers are still anchored to the traditionalist vision of organizing information through "drive, folder or excel", reflecting the resistance to change. The imperative need for continuous training in the use of bibliographic managers in both students and teachers is asserted, reflected as a transversal strategy throughout all academic cycles and semesters and internalized as a research policy that leads to generate a new change in the conception of researching reliable scientific sources, optimizing time, organizing information and guaranteeing quality research.

Pensando, Rápido e Lento, no Mundo-de-Vida: Uma Comparação das Interpretações de Senso Comum de D. Kahneman e A. Schutz


 This article comparatively examines the renditions of common sense Daniel Kahneman (K) provides in his New York Times bestselling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (TFS) (2011) and Alfred Schutz harvests through his phenomenology of the life-world (Lebenswelt) of the natural attitude. The project reviews K and S’s interpretations of common sense, lays out their basic correspondences and differences, and concludes with observations about their complementarity.

Exploring the ‘Everyday’ in Colin Wilson’s The Black Room and The Personality Surgeon: A Phenomenological Perspective

The English existentialist writer Colin Wilson explores different dimensions of human consciousness in his fictional works to understand the nature of consciousness. Wilson professes the doctrine of “affirmation” and contends that beneath the surface of everyday triviality, which generates pessimistic nihilism and ennui, there is an ever-refreshing reality to which every individual must get access so as to bring value and purpose to life. Hebelieves that this triviality is a result of the narrowness of consciousness. In this state, we take life for granted, and instead of living, we drift. This state resembles how Husserl describes consciousness in its ‘natural attitude’ —a state which is characterised by inattention and unreflectiveness. In this state, one fails to comprehend the experience at hand, thereby losing its meaning and essence. The recognition of this naïve attitude is one of the basic tenets of Wilson’s philosophy. Both Husserl and Wilson show a deep concern with the perception and the perceiver and their fate in all modes of consciousness, which are inextricably linked to human will and imagination and crucial to the evolution of consciousness. Wilson, like Husserl, rose against cultural pessimism engendered by earlier philosophies and envisaged phenomenology as a potent tool to overcome this failure and crisis. Both believe in the spiritual power of phenomenology, which provides new insights into human subjectivity and its sense of bestowing achievements. Wilson’s phenomenological pursuit is anendeavour to solve the existential meaninglessness of life. With a focus on the question of what makes up human values, Wilson’s new existentialism entails a phenomenological analysis of consciousness. His phenomenology of life devaluation is the most relevant area of study because moods of insight and optimism are less accessible than moods of everyday consciousness. Like Husserlian phenomenology, Wilson’s new existentialism lays bare the different layers of human consciousness. In his The New Existentialism,he avers that the ‘new existentialist’ “accepts man’s experience of his inner freedom as basic and irreducible” and ‘the new existentialism’ concentrates the full battery of phenomenological analysis upon the everyday sense of contingency ... it uncovers the complexities and safety devices in which freedom dissipates itself” (180). And therein lies the first step towards understanding the nature of consciousness. Husserlian phenomenology, with its implicit existentialist concerns, too begins with this recognition of the prejudiced consciousness which flattened under the triviality of everyday life characterises our ‘natural attitude’. Both Wilson and Husserl contend that ‘normal’ consciousness is partial, and it is not possible to make any sense of life from this partial mode of being. There is only a dull acceptance of how things apparently seem to us from our ‘natural standpoint’. Wilson conveys this state as the problem of ‘Robot’, which engenders an empty, meaningless and mechanical life where we act with passive intentionality and where the possibility of moving to other modes of being is reduced and thus limited.Wilson gives us a fresh and clear picture of man’s position in what Husserl calls the ‘natural standpoint’ or what he himself terms the ‘fallacy of insignificance’ —man’s inability to find meaning or significance in life. It is the everyday state of consciousness which Wilson calls the ‘Robot.’ Gnostics would call this Robot ‘Duality’, Gurdjieff calls it ‘sleep’, and Nietzsche labels it ‘Mechanical Intentions’. Heidegger would call such an existence ‘inauthentic’. It is Blake’s ‘Spectre’ —a stronghold of one’s own identity, personality, habits, etc. It is the concept of man as “an empty consciousness that passively receives data from the outside world” (Tredell Web). Robot is a human psychic condition which has become more complicated in modern culture. According to Wilson, “the Robot” is how our consciousness operates on ‘auto-pilot’, narrowing our perception so as to enable us to handle everyday life and least concerned about the need to get beyond it. He believed that “the Robot” controlled the part of our brains that, in our modern culture, has become over-used and over-developed.

On Schutz’s Reception of James’s Psychology

Alfred Schutz’s Constitutive Phenomenology of the natural attitude was completed under the influence of Edmund Husserl Phenomenology, Henri Bergson’s Vitalism and William James’ Psychology. Schutz used James’ psychology mainly to analyze acts, their intentional modifications and the modifications found in finite realities of meaning. While the phenomenology of Husserl was important for the topics discussed, Schutz’s appreciation of James’s psychology is due to the fact that he makes these analyses without resorting to reduction, i.e. he explores worldly consciousness. Despite these differences, Schutz values the contact points between the two theories. Indeed, the first one of these contact points refers to the election of perception as the privileged act in the experience of the world. Such coincidence originated in Brentano’s basis that sustains both theories, particularly in relation to the concept of intentionality. On the other hand, the second contact point can be noticed in the use of the term “horizon” in Husserl and “fringes” in James. These notions influenced the Schutzian theory of Multiple Realities and provided significant support for that theory. This paper is intended to stress the coincidences that Schutz analyzes in detail in “William James’s ‘Concept of the Stream of Thought Phenomenologically Interpreted” contained in CP III, and also as an exegesis of the way these authors cooperated with the Schutzian notion of “the world of everyday life” or “world of working” (Wirkwelt).

Semantics of Nonviolence

In the article, we consider the approaches to the ethics of nonviolence suggested by Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed. Butler's project is rooted in Monique Wittig's concept of “material violence”. By extending the meaning of this term to gender and normative violence, Butler articulates the ethics of nonviolence. The latter involves concepts of radical equality and interdependence. A practical complement to the Butler project can be found in the works of Sara Ahmed, who investigates the possibility of opposing violence within institutions. She develops the concept of the “feminist ear”, based on phenomenology, which we suggest considering as a tool to implement the ethics of nonviolence. Being an attitude that can be adapted due to methodology requirements or in political practice, Ahmed's feminist ear refers to Bourdieu's metaphor of the “sharped eye” by which a researcher can objectivate their doxic (or “native”) experience. Considering these parallels, we investigate his theory of symbolic violence, internalized and reproduced in systems of dispositions. Bourdieu's striving to reveal a material side of ideology confronting that of intellectualist tradition partly matches Wittig's intuitions. By introducing the notion of habituality, we can reconsider the very question of ideology's potential overcoming that cannot be performed using intellectual endeavor. This impossibility leads Bourdieu to criticize classic phenomenology because of its ignorance of social conditions and the natural attitude. Inverting the usual working strategy of Husserlian phenomenology, he takes a natural attitude as a framework of his research, revealing the initiation rituals to the symbolic structure. The article suggests some strategies to overcome it.

Minding the Gap

Grounded in and influenced by the work of thinkers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Frantz Fanon, Iris Marion Young, and Lewis Gordon, critical phenomenologists such as Lisa Guenther, Linda Martín Alcoff, George Yancy, and Sara Ahmed have recently provided accounts of whiteness through a phenomenological lens. In these analyses, whiteness is often figured as a "transcendental norm," a "background to experience," a "natural attitude," and a "sociogenic force," which remains invisible while structuring the world. In this article I suggest that such accounts ultimately collapse whiteness and the white subject, imagining the latter simply as an embodiment of the former. Consequently, these approaches to whiteness lack explanatory power. I argue that a critical phenomenological account of whiteness must examine more closely the relationship between white subjects and whiteness, and specifically point to the tensions, gaps, and contradictions between them, as these are not accidental but central to the very constitution of whiteness and to the power it wields over its subjects.

The Significance of Philosophical Anthropology in Determining the Methodology of Modern Scientific Research

Purpose. This research involves revealing the methodological significance of the anthropological understanding of values for conducting modern scientific research. Theoretical basis. Philosophical anthropology acts as an epistemological basis for answers to ontological questions that are part of the structure of such problems in modern science as the construction of a scientific picture of the world, the ordering of data of natural attitude, and anthropocosmism. The ontological basis for the formation of the anthropological theory of values is the teaching of Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf Lotze, and Martin Heidegger. Originality. The creation of a scientific picture of the world, the research of natural attitude, and an anthropological approach to cosmology carried out from the viewing angle of the philosophy of values show the close mutual conditioning of these scientific issues. A successful determination of one’s value positions by a scientist-researcher is impossible without his/her agreeing with his/her picture of the world with the prevailing ideas about the world in their society. Such ideas are studied by anthropocosmism, which researches not so much the world in itself, but a view of this world from the standpoint of the existing state of society and the main intentions of its development. Conclusions. The value attitude of scientists at a certain stage of the development of scientific knowledge forms their picture of the world, which has the form of self-explanatory scientific provisions. The facts of modern physics must always, one way or another, receive their legitimation through the world of the human natural attitude. Even the unobservable characteristics of the microcosm are explained by appealing to knowledge about the observable characteristics of the world. The anthropocentric nature of cosmology is determined by the fact that in modern philosophy, the values of a person explain not only the way of one’s cognition but also the way of one’s inclusion in the world.

A conversation analytic approach to schizophrenic interaction: methodological reflections on disruptions of the common-sense world.

Certain schools of phenomenological psychiatry conceive of schizophrenia as a pathology of common-sense. Ethnomethodological enquiry, with its roots in Schutzian social phenomenology, takes as its domain, topic, and substance of study the ongoing achievement of a common-sense world between social members. Yet, dialogue between psychiatry and ethnomethodological approaches is thin. In this article, we discuss a conversation analytic approach to schizophrenic interaction which has generated and utilized a model of a five-world manifold to frame analyses of talk-in-interaction. 'Worlds' are conceived, after Schutz, as finite domains of meaning, and the model operates as a breach of natural attitude assumptions to examine mechanisms of the constitution of the one-world-in-common of common-sense. It is suggested that certain aspects of schizophrenic talk might receive account in terms of a loss of integration between these five domains of meaning. Conversation Analytic methods were applied to transcripts of audio recordings of psychiatric interviews but encountered hurdles that motivated the broadening of methodological scope. Such hurdles included a weakening of the next turn proof procedure, implicit reification of the schizophrenia construct, and problems of translation presented by the analyst's normative membership encountering non-normative life-worlds of schizophrenic experience. Strategic responses to these hurdles included exploring linkages between phenomenological psychiatry and ethnomethodological approaches, as well as an engagement of ethnomethodological self-reflection and conceptual clarification of the schizophrenia construct in line with Garfinkel's unique adequacy requirement. The manifold model is glossed, and interaction between two of its worlds - a world of concrete, situational immediacies and another of abstract organizations - is explored in more detail via analysis of conversational data. It is suggested that the five-world model, along with further micro-analysis of talk-in-interaction, might have implications in psychiatry for topics such as autism, double bookkeeping, concretism, theories of disturbed indexicality, and insight attribution. We conclude that the consideration of atypical interaction obliges the interaction analyst to take account of their own implicit normative world-frames and that the use of domain-specific top-down models in conjunction with the inductive approach of Conversation Analysis may extend the reach of CA to facilitate productive dialogue with other disciplines.

On the Personal, Intersubjective, and Metaphysical Senses of Death: An Inquiry into Edmund Husserl’s Transcendental Phenomenological Approach to Death

In this short study, I attempt to reconstruct the main conceptual components of Edmund Husserl’s concept of death following the leading clue of his late transcendental phenomenological methodology. First, I summarise his thoughts on death, from the point of view of “the natural attitude”, as an event in the world. Then, I try and explore the manifold senses of the limit phenomenon of death as a multidimensional transcendental phenomenological problem in all of its intersubjective-world constitutive, personal-primordial, and metaphysical-constructive layers of meanings, respectively. By doing so, I also hope that the path we travel can serve the reader as an opportunity for a personal and reflective confrontation with death.

Mindfulness and the Paradoxes in Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology

Although some claim that phenomenology and mindfulness have much in common, others hold that these comparisons are based on a flawed understanding of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction. This article addresses the debate on the alleged similarities and differences between phenomenology and mindfulness practice. It first illustrates the differences by contrasting a pair of key ideas in Husserl’s philosophy and in Kabat-Zinn’s conception of mindfulness, respectively, that appear to be similar, but turn out to be quite different: the natural attitude versus the mind’s natural tendency. A Merleau-Pontian turn is then proposed, away from Husserl’s philosophy, toward the paradoxes which Merleau-Ponty regards as inherent to the phenomenological reduction and the phenomenon of expression. This article claims that it is not so much the phenomenological reduction as such that resembles mindfulness practice, but that a more helpful comparison can be found in their shared paradoxes: the paradox of productive unachievability and the paradox of expression. In the end, it is discussed how these shared paradoxes matter for the debate on phenomenology and mindfulness.

Conceptualism Philosophy of the “Biblical Time” in the Works of Jacob Druskin

In the article the author analyzes the time ontology as noumenal relation, developed in the treatises of Ja.S. Druskin and genetically associated with the “leap” to biblical thinking implemented by L.I. Shestov. It is shown that the path of “conversion” of consciousness described by Ja.S. Druskin has the character of “inner mystery” of the soul, ascending to the counter gifts of the Spirit. This is a kind of “inner ritual” that the soul performs in every momentary effort to stand before the Creator and Judge, seeking reciprocal grace. Methodologically Ja.S. Druskin radicalizes the way of overcoming the “natural attitude” of consciousness, started by E. Husserl, and characterizes it as “philosophical paganism”, which can be overcome only by the biblical attitude of consciousness. The latter is a relation that transcends any ontology of the created world and carries out the act of returning the created “I” to its uncreated image, which is assumed as a relation to the absolute “Thou” of the Creator. This is the “personal eternity” that opens not as a logical timelessness, but as a special vision – as being in the Face of God. Exploring the architectonics of the noumenal “I – You” relationship, Ja.S. Druskin develops the philosophy of dialogue as new Philosophia prima, which includes the whole gamut of the traditional metaphysical problematics in the context of the primary absolute “I – Thou” relationship, including rethinking the category of time. In this context, the category of time acquires new eschatological meaning, since it is fi lled not with just simple duration, but with the process of human transformation – the transition from the “shadow of death” into eternity, from the state of immanent lies to the recovery of the gift of grace and the rediscovery of the image of God in man.

The Metaphysical Magnificence of Reduction: The Pure Ego and Its Substrate According to Phenomenology and Vedanta

This article examines relationships between the absolute being of the universal ego (Ātman-self) according to the Indian religious philosophy of Vedanta (V) and the phenomenological, irreal being of the transcendental ego in Husserl’s phenomenology (P). Both Ātman and the transcendental ego are accessed in the first-person perspective by onto-phenomenological reductions. Such reductions, as stated by Husserl, have absolute freedom of positing and, thus, can reveal or conceal states of being. In contrast with P-reduction, which renders the being of the ego-pole invisible, V-reduction penetrates into the being of the ego-pole and opens a horizon of unique, non-intentional mental states. Following the dialectics in pre- and post-reduction givenness of being, there emerges a picture of connection between the intentional phenomenological being of the transcendental ego and the non-intentional being of the pure ego of Vedanta (Ātman-self). The pure ego of Vedanta manifests as a substrate for the transcendental ego of phenomenology. From this, we can conclude that reductions function as the loci of dialectical syntheses of being, whereby the unity of being has a fuller, more complex and multi-sided sense than the one intended in the natural attitude. In their breaking of theoretical habits conditioned by the substance metaphysical tradition, reductions are truly indispensable in the revelation of being that grounds the theory of knowledge.

Patient-Centeredness in Pharmaceutical Care

Background information: Pharmacy is a longstanding profession, although there have been changes in pharmacists’ roles over time. The change toward a patient-centered approach is recognized as an entirely different concept from the technical concept of dispensing.
 The pharmacist’s natural attitude primarily relies on pharmacologic knowledge of medications, the product, the use of counseling as the major approach with patients, and an emphasis on medication adherence as a goal. Though, besides a pharmacologic understanding, the knowledge of the patient and the knowledge of the experience of the patient, from his or her own perspective, are essential to help the pharmacist assess and ensure that a medication is indicated, effective, safe, and convenient. Therefore, to be able to work with patients in a patient-centered manner, the pharmacist must acknowledge a broader scope of knowledge that will account for a more comprehensive approach.
 Conclusion: To practice in a truly patient-centered manner, pharmacist must understand that patients want to be heard and seen as individuals with unique experiences and responses to medications. This knowledge is needed to enhance pharmacists’ basic pharmacotherapeutic understanding and provide for care of patients as individuals with unique experiences and stories and situated in community, culture, and society. Likewise, to help patients with their medications, pharmacist must begin to understand medications as patients experience them. This includes understanding their experiences with illness as well as their feelings about medications.

Christian Philosophy facing Naturalism

The dispute between naturalism and anti-naturalism has been underway almost since the very beginnings of philosophy. Christian thinkers, by proclaiming that God as Creator transcends the reality He has created, and that human beings as persons transcend the material world, have entered this dispute on the anti-naturalist side. The contemporary dominance in culture of the naturalistic paradigm requires Christian philosophy to reflect on naturalism in the broadest sense (in its various forms), together with its conditions and consequences, and to rethink its relationship to this philosophical tradition. Naturalism rejects the possibility of something existing, being known, or being explained that is separate from the material reality given in empirical cognition. Along with this, it denies human beings transcendence with respect to the natural or social world. In its contemporary iteration, this tradition appeals to the solutions and methods of domain-specific forms of scientific inquiry, relying on them for its own authority. For Christian philosophy, naturalism represents a powerful challenge. It is possible to see in it a threat to Christian philosophy, but it is also possible to discern in it an opportunity for a more critical evaluation of Christian philosophy’s previous solutions, and an opportunity to develop new ones. There is a need for a better understanding of naturalism itself, as well as of what the various domain-specific sciences (including the natural and social sciences, as well as the humanities and, currently, neuroscientific research in particular) have to say about the world and about human beings. Systematic and historico-philosophical questions equally still call for debate – in relation to the centuries-old dispute between naturalism and anti-naturalism, as well as the changing place of Christian thought within it. In our own time, one can witness diverse attempts by Christian thinkers both to critically discuss naturalistic positions and to implement naturalistic approaches or solutions within Christian thought itself. Certainly, the latter cannot ignore the fact that naturalism allows philosophy to maintain cognitive contact with domain-specific forms of scientific inquiry. The organizers plan to conduct this conference in hybrid mode, combining both online and onsite elements. This model will allow all interested persons to participate, while also offering those wishing to actually come to Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow the possibility of doing so.