Gurwitsch’s non-Egological ‘Phenomenology of the Thematics’ and its Significance for Social Sciences
Mathelet, S.L. (University of Quebec at Montreal)
We argue that Gurwitsch’s non-egological phenomenology can form what Durkheim (1894) called forth as a “general psychology” ancillary to the study of both psychological and “collective representations”. This opens a path for sociology not yet accessible by Durkheim’s time. As it brings phenomenology closer to group dynamics and functionalist sociology, or Moscovici’s social representation theory.
As a reminder, Gurwitsch capitalized on the first edition of the Logical Investigations to reject Husserl’s later stance towards idealism and subjectivism. He rejected the frame of a “pure” phenomenology, and privileged a descriptive psychology assessing sensitive perception and the correlation of the activity of consciousness with contents arousing from the effective temporal world. He assumed that cultural meaning was prior to subjective and occasional meaning. He questioned the status of what is to be obtained under the reduction. And rectified Husserl’s concepts of a noematic point and his relation between hyle and morphe. He thus replaced Husserl’s theory responsible for intra- and inter-noematic unity by a relational explanation relying on Gestalt principles (such as “good continuation” and “mutual self-qualification”).
Interestingly, from this stance, Gurwitsch (1936-37) explained the constitution of “functional meanings” rooted in possibilities emerging from concrete social reality and accessed by mere perception. And as he didn’t need the idea of a pure Ego, he attributed the constitution of meaning directly to the correlational dynamic of acts of consciousness (noesis) to a theme or topic (noema). Therefore, the contents and relations analysed under the reduction are no more tied to the acts of pure consciousness of an individual ego. Thus, do we argue, these schemes of contents can be related directly to complexes of acts within an effective social process of cultural representation based on group dynamics, rather than to individual psyches. So, phenomenology can explore the content of Durkheim’s collective representations or of Moscovici’s social representations.
We argue that Gurwitsch’s non-egological phenomenology can form what Durkheim (1894) called forth as a “general psychology” ancillary to the study of both psychological and “collective representations”. This opens a path for sociology not yet accessible by Durkheim’s time. As it brings phenomenology closer to group dynamics and functionalist sociology, or Moscovici’s social representation theory.
As a reminder, Gurwitsch capitalized on the first edition of the Logical Investigations to reject Husserl’s later stance towards idealism and subjectivism. He rejected the frame of a “pure” phenomenology, and privileged a descriptive psychology assessing sensitive perception and the correlation of the activity of consciousness with contents arousing from the effective temporal world. He assumed that cultural meaning was prior to subjective and occasional meaning. He questioned the status of what is to be obtained under the reduction. And rectified Husserl’s concepts of a noematic point and his relation between hyle and morphe. He thus replaced Husserl’s theory responsible for intra- and inter-noematic unity by a relational explanation relying on Gestalt principles (such as “good continuation” and “mutual self-qualification”).
Interestingly, from this stance, Gurwitsch (1936-37) explained the constitution of “functional meanings” rooted in possibilities emerging from concrete social reality and accessed by mere perception. And as he didn’t need the idea of a pure Ego, he attributed the constitution of meaning directly to the correlational dynamic of acts of consciousness (noesis) to a theme or topic (noema). Therefore, the contents and relations analysed under the reduction are no more tied to the acts of pure consciousness of an individual ego. Thus, do we argue, these schemes of contents can be related directly to complexes of acts within an effective social process of cultural representation based on group dynamics, rather than to individual psyches. So, phenomenology can explore the content of Durkheim’s collective representations or of Moscovici’s social representations.
The Dialogical Self in Affective Life- World Relationships
Wasik, E. M (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan)
Developing the leitmotif of this conference, the author departs from delineating the theory of the self as a “time-binding class of life” and a “semantic reactor” who is able to comprehensively respond to internal and external stimuli. Accordingly, this model of the human individual, coined by Alfred Korzybski in Science and Sanity (1933). is described in terms of extra-/intraorganismic properties consisting of mutually related activities, such as electrochemical, kinetic/moving, emotional/affective, and thinking/speaking. Given that human behavior depends not so much on the actual situation in which it occurs but rather on the significance of its constituents at a certain moment of time, one has to employ the depiction of the self as a tripartite unity of cognitive, affective and conative components, complementing one another and co-determining reactions of particular individuals to external events in order to show the complexity of their psychic conditionings as language speakers and communication participants. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is on the conception of the dialogical self, known from the works of Hubert Hermans since the 1990s, which has been subsequently made popular by himself and his collaborators in their publications. In this conception, the states of intrapersonal awareness of humans entering into mutual relationships are characterized in terms of a narrative structure, i.e., a dynamic multiplicity of voices of which their internal monologs consist. It is argued that the human self, being affected by others and affecting others, usually moves, as a mental subject, between different stances, identifying him-/herself or not with persons he/she meets in his/her imaginary and/or actual worlds. In the end, the paper highlights the role of natural language both in the phenomenological acts of experiencing the reality and in the formation of the reality of everyday life that is shared by human individuals in effect of interpersonal communication
Developing the leitmotif of this conference, the author departs from delineating the theory of the self as a “time-binding class of life” and a “semantic reactor” who is able to comprehensively respond to internal and external stimuli. Accordingly, this model of the human individual, coined by Alfred Korzybski in Science and Sanity (1933). is described in terms of extra-/intraorganismic properties consisting of mutually related activities, such as electrochemical, kinetic/moving, emotional/affective, and thinking/speaking. Given that human behavior depends not so much on the actual situation in which it occurs but rather on the significance of its constituents at a certain moment of time, one has to employ the depiction of the self as a tripartite unity of cognitive, affective and conative components, complementing one another and co-determining reactions of particular individuals to external events in order to show the complexity of their psychic conditionings as language speakers and communication participants. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is on the conception of the dialogical self, known from the works of Hubert Hermans since the 1990s, which has been subsequently made popular by himself and his collaborators in their publications. In this conception, the states of intrapersonal awareness of humans entering into mutual relationships are characterized in terms of a narrative structure, i.e., a dynamic multiplicity of voices of which their internal monologs consist. It is argued that the human self, being affected by others and affecting others, usually moves, as a mental subject, between different stances, identifying him-/herself or not with persons he/she meets in his/her imaginary and/or actual worlds. In the end, the paper highlights the role of natural language both in the phenomenological acts of experiencing the reality and in the formation of the reality of everyday life that is shared by human individuals in effect of interpersonal communication
Gaston Bachelard’s poetics (As a model for human science researches)
Thiboutot, C. (Université du Québec à Montréal)
The Poetics of Space, published in 1957, is a late, but decisive input in Gaston Bachelard’s anthropology of the imaginary. this phenomenological “coming out”, far from coinciding with a speculative and theoretical vision of phenomenology, rather engaged it on a path toward a poetical development. With Bachelard, this association of the phenomenological with the poetical however implies a form of critic of phenomenology; he indeed affirms, not without irony and audacity, that phenomenology too often rests on an “agglutinating language”, on concepts that “purify abstractly” and ultimately, on “philosophical propositions that are impossible to live” (The poetics of space, 1957, Paris, Fr. : PUF, p. 192 and following). It’s thus rather freely that Bachelard went looking for phenomenology away from a style that is often abstruse, made of conceptualities that mostly speaks to insiders and more generally, a philosophical project where many formulations, when we think of it along with him, sometimes brings us closer to abstraction then to the actual things! Hence his openness to a poetical home that he recognizes, alongside van den Berg, makes poets, romancers and painters who dwells in it “born phenomenologists” (The poetics of space, ibid, p. 11). In this presentation, we’ll take Bachelard at his word and consider his poetics as a model for human sciences phenomenological research, which, in over a century, got estranged from this poetical home where man have however always been narrating to himself who he is.Firstly, it’s in this book that the philosopher openly (and for the first time) claimed phenomenology for himself. Furthermore,
The Poetics of Space, published in 1957, is a late, but decisive input in Gaston Bachelard’s anthropology of the imaginary. this phenomenological “coming out”, far from coinciding with a speculative and theoretical vision of phenomenology, rather engaged it on a path toward a poetical development. With Bachelard, this association of the phenomenological with the poetical however implies a form of critic of phenomenology; he indeed affirms, not without irony and audacity, that phenomenology too often rests on an “agglutinating language”, on concepts that “purify abstractly” and ultimately, on “philosophical propositions that are impossible to live” (The poetics of space, 1957, Paris, Fr. : PUF, p. 192 and following). It’s thus rather freely that Bachelard went looking for phenomenology away from a style that is often abstruse, made of conceptualities that mostly speaks to insiders and more generally, a philosophical project where many formulations, when we think of it along with him, sometimes brings us closer to abstraction then to the actual things! Hence his openness to a poetical home that he recognizes, alongside van den Berg, makes poets, romancers and painters who dwells in it “born phenomenologists” (The poetics of space, ibid, p. 11). In this presentation, we’ll take Bachelard at his word and consider his poetics as a model for human sciences phenomenological research, which, in over a century, got estranged from this poetical home where man have however always been narrating to himself who he is.Firstly, it’s in this book that the philosopher openly (and for the first time) claimed phenomenology for himself. Furthermore,