(Post)phenomenological Approach to Homo Sapiens Technicus

Vassil Vidinsky;

doi:10.5840/bjp20201215

(Post)phenomenological Approach to Homo Sapiens Technicus

Balkan Journal of Philosophy ◽

10.5840/bjp20201215 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 31-36

Author(s):

Vassil Vidinsky ◽

Keyword(s):

Body Image ◽

Structural Stability ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Body Schema ◽

Phenomenological Approach ◽

The Other ◽

Conceptual Analogy ◽

Fluid Boundary ◽

The One ◽

Cultural Expansion

In this paper I use a (post)phenomenological approach to clarify the objective cultural expansion of our technology. Thus, I establish a conceptual analogy between two different philosophical analyses of human–machine relations – one historical and one phenomenological. I develop the analogy between them and their corresponding concepts in several steps. (1) First, I present the Homo sapiens technicus tendency and then the phenomenological differentiation between body schema and body image. All of these elucidate our involvement with machines. (2) Then, I conceptualize the term ‘context’, coupling its structural stability with the idea of distextaulity in order to achieve a better empirical understanding of our technological contradictions. (3) I continue to develop and enrich the analogy by illuminating the functional similarities – fluid boundary, automation, complexity – between contextual structures on the one hand and body schemata on the other. (4) Finally, I explore a deeper causal and narrative connection between those strands, shedding light on an interesting twofold circularity: a circular causation and a double narrative within Homo sapiens technicus.

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Substance and Cognition of Biological Phenomena

Forum Philosophicum ◽

10.35765/forphil.1999.0401.4 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 55-71

Author(s):

Piotr Lenartowicz

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Chemical Substance ◽

The Other ◽

Natural Behavior ◽

Other Hand ◽

Biological Phenomena ◽

The One ◽

Living Being

Biologists are not used to the term „substance". They prefer to say „a living being", „an organism", a „specimen of species Homo sapiens'' - for instance. Chemists, on the other hand, when they say „this is a new substance" they usually mean the same Aristotle would mean - I think. The chemical meaning of the term „substance" is closest to the one I am going to discuss in this paper. To know a substance, one has to accumulate and store a multitude of different forms of evidence concerning this „natural behavior". So that concept of the „nature" of a given chemical substance is necessarily very complex and it cannot result from a single sensation, or a momentary observation

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Receptivity and Creativity in Hermeneutics

10.5840/djp2016815 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 225-239

Author(s):

Chung-ying Cheng

Keyword(s):

Phenomenological Approach ◽

The Other ◽

Human Beings ◽

Human Capabilities ◽

Moral Agents ◽

The World ◽

Human Understanding ◽

Positive Projection ◽

The One ◽

Coming To Know

There are two aspects of the hermeneutic: the receptive and the creative. The receptive of the hermeneutic consists in coming to know and acknowledge what has happened, observing what there is as historically effected, foretelling what will happen as a matter of projection of future possibilities, and disclosing / discovering transcendental conditions, fore-structures or horizons of human understanding and interpretation; the creative of the hermeneutic, on the other hand, consists in realizing and demonstrating human sensibilities and human capabilities and needs, conceptualizing what is factual and real based on human cognitive and volitional faculties and experiences, developing values and pursuing regulative ideals of actions, and searching for best possible ways or methods to reach for individual and communal end-goals which will enhance human beings as autonomous entities and moral agents in the world. The receptive is represented by the phenomenological approach to Being and reality whereas the creative is conveyed by an ontology of reflection of human being for self-definition and self-cultivation of human faculties. This amounts to bringing out an existing distinction between ming (what is imparted) and li (the presupposed ground) on the one hand and xing ( human potentiality for being in oneself) and xin (human understanding and interpretation toward action) on the other in the tradition of Confucian metaphysics.Next, I shall focus on Heidegger and Gadamer as taking ontological receptivity (as a matter of fore-structures of Being or Language of human understanding) as the source of meaning of existence and meaningfulness of texts. Th ere are of course creative elements to be identifi ed with forming investigative projects of the Dasein for disclosing truth of the Being, but the main tone is to realize the Being or Language as base structures of our hermeneutic consciousness or hermeneutic space of understanding. Because of spacelimitation, however, I shall leave to another occasion the discussion of the creative formation and positive projection of a transformative cosmological philosophy in the Yijing tradition as represented in my onto-hermeneutics which takes experiences of ≫comprehensive observation≪ (guan) and ≫feeling- refl ection≪ (gan) as two avenues toward human understanding and hermeneutic enterprise of interpretation.

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Body schema and body image in motor learning: refining Merleau-Ponty’s notion of body schema

10.1093/oso/9780198851721.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 69-84

Author(s):

Shogo Tanaka

Keyword(s):

Body Image ◽

Motor Learning ◽

Theoretical Perspective ◽

Body Schema ◽

Short Review ◽

Actual Process ◽

Fresh Perspective ◽

Push Forward ◽

The One ◽

Shed Light

The aim of this chapter is to explicate the interrelated roles of body schema and body image in motor learning and to shed light on the phenomenology of body image from a fresh perspective. The chapter revisits how Merleau-Ponty conceptualized body schema in terms of the lived body. Second, the chapter will have a short review of the scientific research on motor learning. And then, comparing with Gallagher and Cole’s analysis of Ian Waterman, the chapter examines the symptom of Schneider, the case of whom Merleau-Ponty referred to in considering the function of body schema. The argument presented in the chapter will show that Merleau-Ponty’s idea crucially lacked the theoretical distinction of body schema and body image, though his idea of ‘intentional arc’ involved a certain aspect of the latter. And finally, the chapter comes back to the theme of motor learning in order to describe the roles of body schema and body image in the actual process of motor learning. On the one hand, this chapter aims to brush up the phenomenology of embodiment by refining Merleau-Ponty’s notion of body schema. But on the other hand, it also aims to push forward the sciences of motor learning from a theoretical perspective.

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MARTIN HEIDEGGER E A MÍSTICA MEDIEVAL. EM BUSCA DE UMA COMPREENSÃO FENOMENOLÓGICA

Síntese Revista de Filosofia ◽

10.20911/21769389v43n136p279/2016 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 43 (136) ◽

pp. 279

Author(s):

Bento Silva Santos

Keyword(s):

Mystical Experience ◽

Phenomenological Approach ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

The Other ◽

Christian Theology ◽

Religion And Theology ◽

Philosophical Foundations ◽

History Of ◽

The One ◽

Do So

Resumo: O artigo comenta globalmente algumas anotações da Vorlesung não proferida – “Os Fundamentos Filosóficos da Mística Medieval” (1918-1919) – na tentativa ainda fragmentária de esboçar uma compreensão fenomenológica da experiência mística. Assim, destaco, primeiramente, as duas observações iniciais de Heidegger sobre o sentido ambíguo da formulação “fundamentos filosóficos da mística medieval” ora com base na história da filosofia (1), ora com base na abordagem fenomenológica. Em segundo lugar, optando pela mística medieval como expressão (Ausdruck) da religiosidade cristã, Heidegger estabelece uma dupla distinção: de um lado, a religiosidade se distingue tanto da filosofia da religião como da teologia; de outro lado, a separação entre o problema da teologia e problema da religiosidade cristã (2). Por fim, em função desta oposição problemática entre teologia escolástica e mística medieval, trato brevemente da permanência ambígua do esquema de pensamento da teologia cristã no Denkweg de Heidegger, que pressupõe inegavelmente suas origens católicas (3).Abstract: This article broadly discusses Heidegger’s notes for his undelivered Vorlesung - “The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism” (1918-1919) - in a still fragmentary attempt to outline a phenomenological understanding of the mystical experience. In order to do so, I first highlight the two initial observations of Heidegger concerning the meaning of the ambiguous wording “philosophical foundations of medieval mysticism”, sometimes referring to the basis of mysticism in the history of philosophy (1), sometimes to its phenomenological approach. Second, I discuss Heidegger’s option to consider medieval mystic as expression (Ausdruck) of Christian religiousness. Thus, the author establishes a double distinction: on the one hand, religiousness distinguishes itself from both the philosophy of religion and theology, and on the other hand, the problem of theology is separated from that of Christian religiousness (2). Finally, in light of this problematic opposition between scholastic theology and medieval mysticism, I briefly deal with the ambiguous persistence of the model of thinking of the Christian theology in Heidegger’s Denkweg, that unmistakably presupposes his Catholic origins (3).

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III.—The Place in Nature of the Tasmanian Aboriginal as deduced from a Study of his Calvarium.—Part I. His Relations to the Anthropoid Apes, Pithecanthropus, Homo primigenius, Homo fossilis, and Homo sapiens

Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ◽

10.1017/s0370164600025001 ◽

1912 ◽

Vol 31 ◽

pp. 41-69 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Richard J. A. Berry ◽

A. W. D. Robertson

Keyword(s):

Royal Society ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

The Other ◽

Present Material ◽

Australian Aboriginal ◽

The World ◽

The One ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship

IN our communication to the Royal Society of Victoria of the 11th March, 1909 (1), describing our recent discovery of forty-two Tasmanian crania hitherto quite unknown to the world of science, we stated that “one of the earliest purposes to which it is proposed to utilise the present material is the determination of the relationship of the Tasmanian to the anthropoids and primitive man on the one hand, and to the Australian aboriginal on the other hand. Schwalbe's study of Pithecanthropus erectus (2) may serve as a basis for the former purpose, and Klaatsch's recent work (3) for the latter, though it must be remembered that innumerable authors have contributed to both subjects.” The present work is the fulfilment of the first part of this undertaking, namely, the determination of the relationship of the Tasmanian to the anthropoids and primitive man.

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More Human than Human

Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics ◽

10.1017/s0963180116001158 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 476-490 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

DAVID LAWRENCE

Keyword(s):

Alone in the world? Indeed, and liberatingly so

Verbum et Ecclesia ◽

10.4102/ve.v42i2.2393 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 42 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Barend J. Du Toit

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Belief Systems ◽

Biological Evolution ◽

The Other ◽

Common Denominator ◽

Interdisciplinary Dialogue ◽

Religious Convictions ◽

Human Uniqueness ◽

Scientific Context ◽

The One

How do we know that we can trust our viewpoints, our dogmatic principles and our religious convictions to constitute veracity, if not truth? Where can an arbiter be found for our deliberations to establish the trustworthiness of our viewpoints or belief systems, when we differ one from the other on religious matters, and in the context of religious conviction also differ in political and social endeavours? Van Huyssteen deserves commendation for his contribution to this discourse in developing the concept of a postfoundationalist epistemology in an attempt to justify theology’s integrity, and endorse theology’s public voice within our highly complex and challenging world. He suggests that the concept of human uniqueness might be the common denominator in the contributions of theology (in its specific understanding of the unique status of humans in God’s creation) and science (in its understanding of the unique stature of Homo sapiens in terms of biological evolution). However, the author, in this article, argues that given the radically diverse disciplines of science in our highly developed technological – and indeed within our current Covid-dominated context (on the one hand) and the pre-scientific context of religion (on the other hand), it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine how it can remain possible to find something like a common issue, a shared problem, a kind of mutual concern or even a shared overlapping research trajectory that might benefit precisely from this envisaged interdisciplinary dialogue. Is it possible that ‘alone in this world’ could mean something different than what Van Huyssteen suggests?Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: How do we know that we can trust our viewpoints, and our religious convictions to constitute truth? Van Huyssteen develops the concept of a postfoundationalist epistemology in an attempt to justify theology’s integrity within the discourse with science. However, the author in this article argues that it has become increasingly difficult for systematic theology to find a shared overlapping research trajectory that might benefit this interdisciplinary dialogue.

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Perception and Passivity Can the Passive Pre-Givenness Be Phenomenalized?

Phainomenon ◽

10.2478/phainomenon-2017-0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 13-35

Author(s):

Pedro M. S. Alves

Keyword(s):

Phenomenological Approach ◽

Phenomenological Analysis ◽

The Other ◽

Phenomenological Method ◽

Other Hand ◽

Passive Synthesis ◽

Starting Point ◽

Primitive Forms ◽

The One ◽

As If

Abstract In what follows, I intend to address an issue which is at the boundaries of the phenomenological method of reflective explication, and that, in this sense, points to some limitations of the phenomenological approach to consciousness and mind. I am referring to an aporetic situation that is at the heart of the phenomenological analysis of passivity. On the one hand, phenomenology shows, at least indirectly, a passive life that is beyond the first steps of the activity of the ego in the receptive, affective life. This is something that is beyond the rising of an ego, and from which a phenomenology of the ego-form of subjective life could be addressed. On the other hand, the analytic and conceptual tools of the phenomenological method have no grips on this basic realm of subjective life. As a result, Husserl’s analysis of passivity starts with the evidence of a pre-affective, pre-egoic realm, from which a phenomenology of the ego could be developed. However, Husserl’s analyses end up with the denegation of this dimension, as if it was invisible for the phenomenological method. As a consequence, the starting point of the analysis is not passivity proper, but rather the primitive forms of receptivity, which is already a first layer of the activity of the ego. Instead of an analysis of the ego-polarization (the “birth” of the ego), the egoic layer of conscious life is simply presupposed. A phenomenology of the ego-form is, thus, at the same time promised and denied. This aporetic situation is visible in the alteration of the concept of a passive pre-givenness in Husserl’s Analysis Concerning Passive Synthesis.

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A Preview of Five Articles on Phenomenological Psychology

South African Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1177/008124638601600401 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 16 (4) ◽

pp. 107-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dreyer Kruger

Keyword(s):

Phenomenological Approach ◽

The Other ◽

Phenomenological Psychology ◽

The One ◽

Systematic Exposition

In introducing the five contributions to phenomenological psychology in this issue the phenomenological approach is described, on the one hand, as a naïve science which accepts the subject's explications of his own experience, but, on the other, as ambitious in that it strives towards a rigorous and systematic exposition. In order to make prereflective experience clear, it has always to struggle with the limitations of language.

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Heidegger and archaeology

Archaeological Dialogues ◽

10.1017/s1380203800000544 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 29-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Th.C.W. Oudemans

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

The Other ◽

Natural Evolution ◽

Blind Alley ◽

Metaphysical Foundation ◽

Mental Abilities ◽

The One ◽

The Brain

Under the title Triumphal procession from the blind alley, the German magazine Der Spiegel in the autumn of 1995 published a series of articles on the latest developments in the archaeology of Homo sapiens and its ancestors. These articles focus on mankind's evolution, and its relationship to the capacities of mankind's mind and culture. The question is posed: Did the prevailing circumstances force mankind to develop its mental abilities, or did evolution plant the seeds of culture in the brain of Homo sapiens? As soon as we hear a question like this, we have the suspicion that its rests on a shaky metaphysical foundation: the distinction between natural evolution on the one hand, and mind, culture, art, myth, religion, and language on the other.

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