Didn't get much done this arvo.
But decided that Depraz piece in Nat. Ph. argues not for an analogy, but for a (potential) convergence between emergentist cog sci and phenomenology.
She has a perspective of the relationship between ph. and sci. that reminds us of David Morris, although Depraz has a far more positive approach to sci, and Morris is far more Hegelian.
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Friday, May 07, 2004
Depraz hits her straps
I don't want to stop working, but its getting late, and I can feel my carefulness slipping.
Nonetheless, I'm very excited about continuing this tomorrow!
The section I've just completed (1st part of Depraz: Genetic to Generative) pretty much puts to bed the difficulties raised by Borrett et al and Dreyfus (although the hammer is yet to fall on the latter).
Fortunately, the next few pages of Depraz (from 472 onwards) promise to open up a whole range of themes (the following list is not comprehensive)
1 - the need to begin from architectonics while undermining a static layered conception (we need to introduce personal and prepersonal in order to move beyond the distinction - first to sedimentation and innovation, and then to an ethical demand that motivates cognition).
2 - static ph. is characterised by its activity (acts of consci immune to nature), while genetic phenomenology is characterised by its passivity. Generative phenomenology moves beyond these alternatives. (We can read Evans as saying: If cog sci fails to move to a generative persp. it threatens to impose a passive nihilism on spirit.)
3 - from the spectre of biologism to communitarian and historical perspective, anticipating the transformation of body-ethics in Diprose.
Nonetheless, I'm very excited about continuing this tomorrow!
The section I've just completed (1st part of Depraz: Genetic to Generative) pretty much puts to bed the difficulties raised by Borrett et al and Dreyfus (although the hammer is yet to fall on the latter).
Fortunately, the next few pages of Depraz (from 472 onwards) promise to open up a whole range of themes (the following list is not comprehensive)
1 - the need to begin from architectonics while undermining a static layered conception (we need to introduce personal and prepersonal in order to move beyond the distinction - first to sedimentation and innovation, and then to an ethical demand that motivates cognition).
2 - static ph. is characterised by its activity (acts of consci immune to nature), while genetic phenomenology is characterised by its passivity. Generative phenomenology moves beyond these alternatives. (We can read Evans as saying: If cog sci fails to move to a generative persp. it threatens to impose a passive nihilism on spirit.)
3 - from the spectre of biologism to communitarian and historical perspective, anticipating the transformation of body-ethics in Diprose.
Monday, May 03, 2004
Chapter One... or maybe One-And-A-Half
Thinking of this section as separate, it sets up a lot of the intuition of the following chapters.
This section moves around the various alternative reading strategies -
Heinamaa, from phenomenology as rigorous science to ph. as openness to the other (ethical moment)
Depraz, from genetic to generative ph. - from individual in nature to person within community
- could take this as meaning that the other in Heinamaa is not the world as nature.
Evans, from analytic observer to ph. observer (political moment)
- the loss of openness as nihilism, cog sci risks turning into technocratic rationality
Think of them as three proto-readings, hooks on which to hang my own attempt
Mine is really closest to Heinamaa's work on Beauvoir's proximity to Merleau-Ponty, though she has not yet brought that to bear on cognitive science directly.
Preface, outline of ch1, bottom pg 1
...Our discussion culminates in the realisation that we need a different strategy for reading Merleau-Ponty if we are to break out of this oscillation and enable a genuinely Merleau-Pontian engagement with cognitive science.
A first opportunity arises from Heinamaa's criticism of Dreyfus. Heinamaa challenges Dreyfus' opposing Merleau-Ponty and Husserl. While it allows enthusiasts and critics of cognitive science to articulate themselves, it is not an accurate representation of either Husserl or Merleau-Ponty.
This re-reading of Merleau-Ponty's relationship to Husserl has recently been taken up by Dan Zahavi, who also argues against Dreyfus' reading. Zahavi points out that Merleau-Ponty's familiarity with Husserl's later work, especially his generative phenomenology, allowed him a richer and more accurate interpretation than much contemporary Husserl scholarship.
Generative phenomenology is missing from the Dreyfusian reading of Merleau-Ponty. Interestingly, it is also what is missing from embodied, embedded cognitive science, according to Natalie Depraz. In Naturalizing Phenomenology, Depraz outlines very well what is at stake in producing an analogue to generative phenomenology in the cognitive sciences.
To be sure, Depraz believes that Merleau-Ponty's work neither can nor should provide such an analogue. But Depraz' article is important for two reasons. Firstly, it situates the other major protagonist in the cognitive science's reception of Merleau-Ponty's work: Varela, Thompson and Rosch, the authors of the Embodied Mind. Depraz regards the Embodied Mind, with its emphasis on emergent phenomena, as an analogue of genetic phenomenology. Where emergent cognitive science falls short, in Depraz' opinion, is that it threatens to fall into another interminable oscillation, but between a trascendental pan-psychism and a brute materialism. (Between Kant and Dennett? Check this out!)
Depraz' article is also important because it introduces us - and more importantly, the readership of Naturalizing Phenomenology - to a theme central to generative phenomenology: the placing of the the constitution of consciousness within the context of a intersubjective consititution, or generative community.
While neither Heinamaa's criticism of Dreyfus nor Depraz' programmatic ambition amount to a criticism of cognitive science per se, such a criticism is possible. Fred Evans shows us how it may from a political point of view.
This section moves around the various alternative reading strategies -
Heinamaa, from phenomenology as rigorous science to ph. as openness to the other (ethical moment)
Depraz, from genetic to generative ph. - from individual in nature to person within community
- could take this as meaning that the other in Heinamaa is not the world as nature.
Evans, from analytic observer to ph. observer (political moment)
- the loss of openness as nihilism, cog sci risks turning into technocratic rationality
Think of them as three proto-readings, hooks on which to hang my own attempt
Mine is really closest to Heinamaa's work on Beauvoir's proximity to Merleau-Ponty, though she has not yet brought that to bear on cognitive science directly.
Preface, outline of ch1, bottom pg 1
...Our discussion culminates in the realisation that we need a different strategy for reading Merleau-Ponty if we are to break out of this oscillation and enable a genuinely Merleau-Pontian engagement with cognitive science.
A first opportunity arises from Heinamaa's criticism of Dreyfus. Heinamaa challenges Dreyfus' opposing Merleau-Ponty and Husserl. While it allows enthusiasts and critics of cognitive science to articulate themselves, it is not an accurate representation of either Husserl or Merleau-Ponty.
This re-reading of Merleau-Ponty's relationship to Husserl has recently been taken up by Dan Zahavi, who also argues against Dreyfus' reading. Zahavi points out that Merleau-Ponty's familiarity with Husserl's later work, especially his generative phenomenology, allowed him a richer and more accurate interpretation than much contemporary Husserl scholarship.
Generative phenomenology is missing from the Dreyfusian reading of Merleau-Ponty. Interestingly, it is also what is missing from embodied, embedded cognitive science, according to Natalie Depraz. In Naturalizing Phenomenology, Depraz outlines very well what is at stake in producing an analogue to generative phenomenology in the cognitive sciences.
To be sure, Depraz believes that Merleau-Ponty's work neither can nor should provide such an analogue. But Depraz' article is important for two reasons. Firstly, it situates the other major protagonist in the cognitive science's reception of Merleau-Ponty's work: Varela, Thompson and Rosch, the authors of the Embodied Mind. Depraz regards the Embodied Mind, with its emphasis on emergent phenomena, as an analogue of genetic phenomenology. Where emergent cognitive science falls short, in Depraz' opinion, is that it threatens to fall into another interminable oscillation, but between a trascendental pan-psychism and a brute materialism. (Between Kant and Dennett? Check this out!)
Depraz' article is also important because it introduces us - and more importantly, the readership of Naturalizing Phenomenology - to a theme central to generative phenomenology: the placing of the the constitution of consciousness within the context of a intersubjective consititution, or generative community.
While neither Heinamaa's criticism of Dreyfus nor Depraz' programmatic ambition amount to a criticism of cognitive science per se, such a criticism is possible. Fred Evans shows us how it may from a political point of view.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Man and Adversity
"A man cannot receive a heritage of ideas without transforming it by the very fact that he comes to know it, without injecting his own always different way of being into it...
How would we dare enumerate acquired ideas, since even when they have gotten themselves almost universally accepted, they have always done so by also becoming different from themselves?
Furthermore, a catalogue of acquired knowledge would not suffice. Even if we were to lay the "truths" of this half-century end-to-end, in order to restore their hidden affinity, we would still have to revive the personal and interpersonal experience they are a response to, and the logic of situations in reference to which they were defined. The great or valuable work is never an effect of life, but it is always a response to life's very particular events or most general structures...
Yet this transformation of our understanding of man, which we cannot hope to determine by a rigorous method on the basis of works, ideas, and history, is sedimented in us. It is our substance... What we can try to do is to mark within ourselves, according to two or three selected relationships, modifications in the human situation." ('Man and Adversity', Signs, 224-5)
How would we dare enumerate acquired ideas, since even when they have gotten themselves almost universally accepted, they have always done so by also becoming different from themselves?
Furthermore, a catalogue of acquired knowledge would not suffice. Even if we were to lay the "truths" of this half-century end-to-end, in order to restore their hidden affinity, we would still have to revive the personal and interpersonal experience they are a response to, and the logic of situations in reference to which they were defined. The great or valuable work is never an effect of life, but it is always a response to life's very particular events or most general structures...
Yet this transformation of our understanding of man, which we cannot hope to determine by a rigorous method on the basis of works, ideas, and history, is sedimented in us. It is our substance... What we can try to do is to mark within ourselves, according to two or three selected relationships, modifications in the human situation." ('Man and Adversity', Signs, 224-5)
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