The Science of Consciousness | Phenomenology
Summary
TLDRLa fenomenología, nacida con Edmund Husserl, es una corriente filosófica que explora una aproximación alternativa a la verdad, con similitudes con las escuelas orientales. Se centra en el estudio de la conciencia en su forma más pura, tomando la experiencia subjetiva como punto de partida. La metodología fenomenológica incluye el 'bracketing' para reducir la experiencia a su esencia y la 'reducción eidética' para identificar la esencia de los fenómenos. Heidegger, su principal discípulo, dio un giro ontológico a la fenomenología, enfocándose en la naturaleza del ser. Esta corriente también se relaciona con tradiciones orientales como el budismo zen y el taoísmo.
Takeaways
- 🎓 La fenomenología es una escuela filosófica originada en la obra del filósofo alemán Edmund Husserl a fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX.
- 🔄 Se trata de un enfoque alternativo para la verdad, divergente al utilizado tradicionalmente en la filosofía occidental durante más de dos mil años.
- 🌱 La raíz de la fenomenología se remonta al siglo XVIII, con la distinción kantiana entre el mundo nouménico y el fenoménico.
- 🌟 Husserl desarrolló la fenomenología como una escuela filosófica, seguidamente heredada por su estudiante Martin Heidegger, cuya obra 'Ser y Tiempo' fue crucial en el siglo XX.
- 📚 Posteriormente, la fenomenología se expandió a Francia, influenciando la filosofía existencialista de Sartre y Merleau-Ponty, y más tarde a pensadores como Foucault, Derrida, Zizek y Butler.
- 🌐 La palabra 'fenomenología' proviene del griego 'phainomenon', que significa 'lo que aparece', y se centra en entender la conciencia en su forma pura y la experiencia subjetiva.
- 🕒 Ejemplos como la percepción del tiempo o el miedo ilustran cómo la fenomenología se centra en la experiencia subjetiva más que en la realidad objetiva.
- 🔄 La fenomenología representa un giro radical en la tradición filosófica occidental, desafiando la teoría representacional de la conciencia y la separación mente-cuerpo.
- 🧠 Husserl propuso la intencionalidad como alternativa a la teoría representacional, donde la conciencia siempre está relacionada con algo y se centra en la interacción con las experiencias.
- 🛠 El método fenomenológico incluye la 'reducción fenomenológica' para aislar la experiencia pura de un fenómeno y la 'reducción eidética' para identificar su esencia fundamental.
- 🤔 Heidegger diverge de Husserl, argumentando que la experiencia consciente está intrínsecamente enlazada con el ser y el mundo, y que la fenomenología es una investigación ontológica más que una ciencia.
Q & A
¿Qué es la fenomenología y qué hace diferente a otras escuelas filosóficas?
-La fenomenología es una escuela filosófica que se originó en la obra del filósofo alemán Edmund Husserl. Se caracteriza por explorar un enfoque alternativo hacia la verdad, en contraste con el que la filosofía occidental ha utilizado durante más de dos mil años. En lugar de centrarse en el mundo objetivo, la fenomenología estudia la experiencia subjetiva y la conciencia en su forma más pura.
¿Cómo se relaciona la fenomenología con las escuelas filosóficas orientales?
-La fenomenología comparte mucho con las escuelas filosóficas orientales, más que con otras tradiciones occidentales. Ambas se enfocan en la experiencia subjetiva y la conciencia, en lugar de en la realidad objetiva que se percibe a través de los sentidos.
¿Quién fue Edmund Husserl y qué aportó a la fenomenología?
-Edmund Husserl fue el filósofo alemán que formuló la fenomenología a finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. Su enfoque en el estudio de la conciencia y la experiencia subjetiva fue revolucionario y dio lugar a un nuevo desarrollo en la filosofía.
¿Qué es la intencionalidad en la fenomenología de Husserl?
-La intencionalidad es el concepto central en la filosofía de la fenomenología de Husserl. Se refiere a la idea de que la conciencia siempre está relacionada con algo, siempre está 'sobre algo'. Es el estudio de cómo la conciencia interactúa con los objetos de su experiencia.
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre la fenomenología trascendental de Husserl y la existencial de Heidegger?
-La fenomenología trascendental de Husserl busca desarrollar una ciencia pura y rigurosa que captura 'el conocimiento de las esencias'. En contraste, la existencial de Heidegger se enfoca en la ontología y en entender la naturaleza del ser. Heidegger argumenta que las experiencias en la conciencia no pueden separarse del contexto en el que surgen.
¿Qué es el método de la fenomenología y cómo se realiza?
-El método de la fenomenología comienza con el 'aparteamiento' o 'reducción fenomenológica', donde se reduce la experiencia a su forma más pura, eliminando prejuicios y juicios. Luego, se utiliza la 'reducción eidética' para encontrar la esencia del fenómeno a través de la 'variación imaginaria', que consiste en variar todos los atributos posibles del fenómeno.
¿Cómo se relaciona la fenomenología con la meditación vipassana?
-La meditación vipassana es un práctica fundamentalmente fenomenológica. Consiste en observar el cuerpo de manera no juzgativa, sin generar aversión a las sensaciones negativas ni anhelo por las positivas, con el objetivo de experimentar la impermanencia de las sensaciones.
¿Por qué la fenomenología puede ser relevante para entender sistemas como los meridianos de la medicina china y los chakras de la tradición india?
-La fenomenología puede ser relevante para estos sistemas porque ofrece una manera de abordar la experiencia subjetiva del cuerpo, como los mapas de energía en el cuerpo que se describen en la medicina china y la tradición india, más allá de la perspectiva anatómica y racionalista.
¿Cómo se relaciona la filosofía de Heidegger con la filosofía oriental?
-La filosofía de Heidegger, particularmente su concepto de Dasein, puede haber sido influenciada por su lectura sobre filósofos orientales como Zhuangzi. Hay una creciente literatura que explora la conexión entre la fenomenología y las tradiciones filosóficas orientales, como el budismo zen y el daoísmo.
¿Qué es la 'reducción eidética' y cómo se utiliza en la fenomenología?
-La 'reducción eidética' es un paso en el método fenomenológico que busca encontrar la esencia del fenómeno. Se utiliza la técnica de 'variación imaginaria', variando todos los atributos posibles del fenómeno para identificar lo esencial y separarlo de lo contingente.
¿Cuál es la diferencia entre el tiempo objetivo y el tiempo subjetivo según la fenomenología?
-El tiempo objetivo es el tiempo medido en segundos, minutos y horas, independientemente de la experiencia humana. En cambio, el tiempo subjetivo es la experiencia personal del tiempo, que puede variar según las circunstancias, como se ilustra en el ejemplo de Einstein sobre el tiempo en una estufa caliente y con una persona atractiva.
Outlines
📚 Fundamentos de la Fenomenología
La Fenomenología es una escuela filosófica que surgió a fines del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX con la obra del filósofo alemán Edmund Husserl. Se trata de un desarrollo filosófico radicalmente nuevo que explora una aproximación alternativa a la verdad, diferenciada de la que la filosofía occidental ha utilizado durante más de dos milenios. La Fenomenología tiene mucho en común con las escuelas filosóficas del este, más que con otras de la tradición occidental. Esta disciplina se centra en el estudio de la conciencia en su forma más pura, tomando la experiencia subjetiva directa como punto de partida en lugar del mundo objetivo. Husserl y su discípulo Martin Heidegger fueron fundamentales en el desarrollo de esta corriente, la cual fue luego influenciada por figuras como Sartre y Merleau-Ponty, y ha dejado su huella en la filosofía continental, incluyendo a pensadores como Foucault, Derrida, Zizek y Butler.
🧠 Metodología de la Fenomenología
La Fenomenología se enfoca en el estudio de la conciencia y sus interacciones con los fenómenos, sin importar si estos son reales o producto de la imaginación. Husserl introdujo la noción de 'intencionalidad', que describe la relación inherente de la conciencia con los objetos de su experiencia. La metodología fenomenológica comienza con el 'bracketing', un proceso de aislar la experiencia para examinarla en su forma más pura, independientemente de juicios o preconceptos. Posteriormente, se realiza una 'reducción eidética' para identificar la esencia del fenómeno a través de la 'variación imaginaria', un ejercicio que permite discernir las características esenciales del fenómeno. La Fenomenología busca llegar a una verdad universal científica a través de la comprensión de estas esencias.
🌏 Conexiones con la Filosofía Oriental
La Fenomenología ha encontrado puntos de conexión con las tradiciones filosóficas del este, como el budismo zen y el taoísmo, lo que no es común en otras escuelas occidentales. La meditación vipassana, por ejemplo, es un ejercicio fundamentalmente fenomenológico que promueve la observación imparcial de las sensaciones y experiencias sin generar aversiones o anhelos. La obra de Heidegger, influenciada en parte por textos de Chuang-Tzu, sugiere que su filosofía de Dasein podría haberse visto influenciada por la lectura de la filosofía oriental. La Fenomenología, en su enfoque en la experiencia subjetiva y la interacción con el mundo, ha establecido un puente con las tradiciones del este que valoran la experiencia individual y la conexión con la realidad más allá de la lógica racionalista.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Fenomenología
💡Edmund Husserl
💡Martin Heidegger
💡Intencionalidad
💡Reducción fenomenológica
💡Eidética reducción
💡Experiencialismo
💡Filosofía oriental
💡Vipassana
💡Ser y Tiempo
Highlights
Phenomenology is a philosophical approach that diverges from traditional Western philosophy, offering a new path to understanding truth.
Edmund Husserl is credited with the foundation of phenomenology, marking a significant shift in philosophical thought.
Phenomenology shares commonalities with Eastern philosophical schools, unlike other Western traditions.
Immanuel Kant's distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds laid early groundwork for phenomenology.
Husserl's student, Martin Heidegger, became the principal heir to phenomenology, particularly with his work 'Being and Time'.
Post-World War II, phenomenology's influence spread to France, impacting existentialism and the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty.
Phenomenology is rooted in the Greek term 'phainomenon', emphasizing the study of appearances.
The phenomenological perspective prioritizes subjective experience over objective reality.
Phenomenology contrasts with rationalism by focusing on the experiential aspects of phenomena like time and fear.
Husserl's concept of intentionality is central to phenomenology, emphasizing consciousness's inherent 'aboutness'.
Intentionality in phenomenology examines the relationship between consciousness and its experiences, regardless of reality.
Phenomenology's methodology involves 'bracketing' to isolate the pure experience of a phenomenon.
Eidetic reduction is a technique used to identify the essential qualities of a phenomenon.
Heidegger diverged from Husserl by focusing on ontology and the nature of being, rather than a pure science of consciousness.
Phenomenology's connection with Eastern philosophy, particularly in its approach to subjective experience, is a growing area of study.
Vipassana meditation is described as a fundamentally phenomenological practice, aligning with phenomenology's focus on experience.
Heidegger's existential phenomenology is contrasted with Husserl's transcendental approach, emphasizing being over essence.
Transcripts
Phenomenology is a school of philosophy that originated in the late 19th century and early
20th century with the writing of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl. It was a radical
new development in philosophy. What phenomenology explores is an alternative approach to the
truth from that which philosophy has been applying for the past two and half thousand
years. It is as if Husserl went all the way back to Plato and took a different turnoff
along the path to truth. This turnoff has resulted in phenomenology have much more in
common with the Eastern schools of philosophy than any other school of the Western tradition.
In this video we are going to look at the history and method of phenomenology and explore
its kinship with eastern philosophy in more depth.
The seeds of phenomenology can be traced back to the 18th century and Immanuel Kant's distinction
between the noumenal world of things-in-themselves and the phenomenal world of reality as experienced
through our senses. This thread was picked up in the early 19th century by Hegel but
the birth of Phenomenology as a philosophical school dates to the works of German philosopher
Edmund Husserl in the last decade of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century.
His formulation of Phenomenology was taken up by a circle of followers at several universities
in Germany but the real heir to Phenomenology's throne was undoubtedly Husserl's star-student
Martin Heidegger whose 1928 work Being and Time was a defining moment in 20th century
philosophy. After the Second World War Phenomenology's
centre of gravity moved West from Germany to France and there it became a foundational
aspect of Sartre's existentialist philosophy and the philosophy of Maurice Merlau-Ponty.
Its influence is written across the landscape of continental philosophy in everyone from
Foucault and Derrrida to Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler.
The word Phenomenology comes from the Greek phainomenon meaning "that which appears".
The school of Phenomenology is dedicated to understanding consciousness in its raw form,
taking first hand subjective experience as its starting point rather than starting with
the objective world of nature. It is an experientialist rather than a rationalist philosophy.
To illustrate this let's use a couple of examples. So if we were to study time from a rationalist
perspective we would look at it in terms of seconds, minutes and hours. That is the objective
noumenal time that runs at the same speed regardless of the human experience of it.
But the phenomenological perspective would look at the subjective first-person experience
of time more like that saying attributed to Einstein:
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty
girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute." To the rationalist, time is the same but to
the phenomenologist it can appear very different. Another example is fear. A rationalist might
look at fear for the physiological changes that occur such as the activation of sympathetic
nervous system and the increased heartrate or else they might talk about the observable
behaviours of the fearful. But the phenomenological perspective talks about what the actual experience
of fear is like-the movements and dynamics of consciousness and how it colours the perception
of the experience . What is really remarkable about phenomenology
is that it is a complete reversal of the course of Western philosophy since Plato. Most philosophers
offer minor adjustments in the flow of the great conversation. They will criticise their
near contemporaries and adjust the course slightly. But what's fascinating with phenomenology
is that in many ways it goes back to Plato and takes an alternative course.
Since Plato's analogy of the cave, philosophy has been riding the rationalist wave with
what's called the representational theory of consciousness. This representational theory
holds that we have incomplete access to reality because our senses are creating a representation
of what is real and so we are missing out on this reality because our senses are spoonfeeding
us a warped, personalised version of what is real. This is the true beginning of the
mind-body separation that crystallised in the work of Ren Descartes. There is a sense
of tragedy in the Western philosophical tradition at humanity's inability to access this objective
Truth. Instead we are stuck in the cave of mere appearances which is devalued as a poor
copy of the objective reality. Phenomenology takes a different tact. Instead
of devaluing this phenomenal world of subjective experience, it studies it. What Husserl was
trying to do with phenomenology was to make an objective study of the subjective. He was
looking to make a science out of consciousness by using systematic reflection to determine
the essence of consciousness-its properties and its structures.
Instead of the Platonic representational theory of consciousness, Husserl offers an alternative
theory called intentionality. Intentionality is at the core of Husserl's
philosophy of phenomenology. And as is all too often the case with philosophy you have
to be careful not to think of this word in its everyday use. The term originally comes
from the Scholastic medieval philosophical tradition and was resurrected by Husserl's
teacher Franz Brentano. Husserl took the concept and made it the cornerstone of his philosophical
school Phenomenology. Intentionality is often summed up as "aboutness".
This relates to the fact that consciousness is not a thing that can be isolated; consciousness
is always about something. It is always in some kind of relationship and interaction
with the contents of its experiences. What is interesting with this intentional
conception of consciousness is that it works just as well for the dream world as it does
for the waking world. Whether the phenomenon is a fantasy or a reality is irrelevant; the
focus is on the interaction between the phenomenon and consciousness. It is not about the external
existence of the object but about the study of consciousness and how it interacts with
the phenomena presented to it-whether those phenomena come from the external world, a
memory or a dream. This meeting between the phenomenon and consciousness
is what Husserl calls Intentionality-it's the interplay between the content of consciousness
and the structures of consciousness. These structures are called intentionalities
and they are the many ways that consciousness interacts with the objects of its experience.
They are the different relationships consciousness can have with the object it is "about". These
structures of consciousness are numerous and include perception, memory, protention, retention
and signification among many others.
Now that we know the basics let's talk about the methodology of phenomenology. How does
one go about doing phenomenology? The first step is what Husserl called bracketing
(or alternatively phenomenological reduction or epoch ). What this means is that when we
are approaching a phenomenon let's say a fire we work to set aside all filters and all judgements.
We hone in on the experience of the fire by reducing the phenomenon to its rawest experience.
The fire you're seeing could be in your imagination, it could be in a dream or it could be a real
fire. To the phenomenologist it's all the same and this this all comes back to the idea
of Intentionality and the aboutness of consciousness-the relationship it has to the phenomenon fire.
Once the phenomenon has gone through this process of bracketing and we have reduced
it to its raw form, the next stage is called Eidetic reduction. This comes from the Greek
word eidos which is the same word that Plato uses for his metaphysical Forms or Ideas.
The goal of this eidetic reduction is to find the essence of the phenomenon. This is done
using a technique known as imaginary variation whereby the phenomenologist varies all the
possible attributes of the phenomenon in order to figure out what its fundamental essence
is. So let's say you've bracketed off the phenomenon
of fear and now you're applying an eidetic reduction to it. With imaginary variation
you would mess with the attributes of this fear until you boil it down to what its essence
is. So after this sort of investigation you would be left with -as Jose Arcaya noted in
his paper on the phenomenology of fear attributes like: a feeling of lacking choices and the
sense of freezing that accompanies the fear. What you are doing is separating the necessary
parts of the phenomenon from the contingent parts.
This essence is the end goal of the phenomenological investigation. For Husserl, at this point
we have arrived at a universal scientific truth. We have reached the essence of the
phenomenon and this should be as true for you as it is for a Kalahari bushman.
But Husserl's successor disagreed. Husserlian phenomenology aims at developing
a pure, rigorous science that seeks to capture "knowledge of essences" by bracketing all
conditions that may make one's consciousness of something partial.
But with Heidegger, the project of phenomenology takes a different direction. Husserl's phenomenology
was aimed at developing a pure rigorous science that would capture the knowledge of essences.
Phenomenology was to be a scientific discipline. With his ontological twist however Heidegger
has a different perspective. For him science is just one way of knowing. Philosophy goes
a layer deeper; it is prior to science and provides it with its foundation.
Whereas Husserl's primary concern was formulating the science of consciousness, for Heidegger
it was ontology and understanding the nature of being. He didn't believe in Husserl's quest
for knowledge of essences and argued that the experiences in consciousness cannot be
separated from the context in which they arise. You can't give an objective account of consciousness
because it is entangled in the world, it is entangled in being and the conditions of this
entanglement vary between individuals, between ages and between different species. Your fear
in the 21st century is different from the fear of an ancient Aztec warrior and both
are different from the fear of a dog or a gazelle. There is no essence that can be caught
and magically bottled. Phenomenology is not a science but something more fundamental-it
is an investigation into being itself. This philosophy of Heidegger is called existential
phenomenology over against the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl.
There is a growing literature on the connections between phenomenology and eastern philosophy.
It seems that phenomenology has somehow found a bridging point with the eastern philosophical
traditions of India and China that other schools of Western philosophy have not.
Even at a cursory glance it makes sense. If we look at things like the meridian system
of Chinese medicine and the chakra system of the Indian tradition, we see something
that looks bizarre from the rationalist point of view. Anatomically speaking there is no
heart chakra or third eye chakra to be found. But approached from the phenomenological perspective,
we find that we now have a way of approaching these systems. They are maps of the first-person
subjective experience of energy in the body. The ancient phenomenologists of China and
India mapped out their embodied experience into these models of the human body.
And having been at a number of 10 day vipassana retreats, the phenomenological overlap becomes
apparent. The work of meditation is to observe the body non-judgementally and not to generate
aversion to negative sensations or craving for positive sensations. The goal is just
to observe to look at the experience objectively and experience the impermanence of the sensations.
The process of vipassana meditation is bracketing-it's just to observe the sensations, the biases,
the judgements, the resistances and cravings that are constantly bubbling up every moment.
Vipassana meditation is a fundamentally phenomenological practice.
There is a growing literature on the relationship between phenomenology and these eastern philosophical
traditions in particular with Zen Buddhism and Daoism and it even seems that Heidegger's
philosophy of Dasein may have been influenced by his reading about the Chinese Daoist philosopher
Chuang-Tzu. That's everything that I wanted to cover on
this episode of the living philosophy. I hope you've enjoyed it if you have any thoughts
insights of feedback I'd love to hear from you down below and please remember to like
and subscribe if you've enjoyed it and yeah I shall see you next time thanks for watching
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