In
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
,
phenomenology is used to refer to
subjectiveSubjective may refer to:* Subjectivity, a subject's perspective, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires*Subjective experience, the sensory buzz and awareness associated with a conscious mind*Subjective case, grammatical case for a noun...
experienceExperience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.The concept of experience generally...
s or their study. The experiencing
subject-In knowledge and education:* An area of knowledge, a topic, an area of interest or study*Course , a unit of academic instruction**List of academic disciplines*Subject , one of two main constituent parts of a sentence...
can be considered to be the
personA person is a legal concept both permitting rights to and imposing duties on one by law. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term has specialised context-specific meanings....
or
selfA self is an individual person, from his or her own perspective.Self may also refer to:* Self , by Yann Martel* Self , a US magazine* Bill Self, American college basketball coach at the University of Kansas...
, for purposes of convenience. In phenomenological
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
(and particularly in the work of
HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher who is deemed the founder of phenomenology...
, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty) 'experience' is a considerably more complex concept than it is usually taken to be in everyday use. Instead, experience (or Being, or existence itself) is an 'in-relation-to' phenomena, and it is defined by qualities of directedness, embodiment and worldliness which are evoked by the term 'Being-in-the-World' .
Nevertheless, one abiding feature of 'experiences' is that, in principle, they are not directly observable by any external
observerObservation is either an activity of a living being , consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any datum collected during this activity.-Observation in science:A scientific method...
.
In
psychologyPsychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the systematic, and sometimes scientific, study of human or animal mental functions and behavior...
,
phenomenology is used to refer to
subjectiveSubjective may refer to:* Subjectivity, a subject's perspective, particular feelings, beliefs, and desires*Subjective experience, the sensory buzz and awareness associated with a conscious mind*Subjective case, grammatical case for a noun...
experienceExperience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment.The concept of experience generally...
s or their study. The experiencing
subject-In knowledge and education:* An area of knowledge, a topic, an area of interest or study*Course , a unit of academic instruction**List of academic disciplines*Subject , one of two main constituent parts of a sentence...
can be considered to be the
personA person is a legal concept both permitting rights to and imposing duties on one by law. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term has specialised context-specific meanings....
or
selfA self is an individual person, from his or her own perspective.Self may also refer to:* Self , by Yann Martel* Self , a US magazine* Bill Self, American college basketball coach at the University of Kansas...
, for purposes of convenience. In phenomenological
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
(and particularly in the work of
HusserlEdmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher who is deemed the founder of phenomenology...
, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty) 'experience' is a considerably more complex concept than it is usually taken to be in everyday use. Instead, experience (or Being, or existence itself) is an 'in-relation-to' phenomena, and it is defined by qualities of directedness, embodiment and worldliness which are evoked by the term 'Being-in-the-World' .
Nevertheless, one abiding feature of 'experiences' is that, in principle, they are not directly observable by any external
observerObservation is either an activity of a living being , consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any datum collected during this activity.-Observation in science:A scientific method...
. The quality or nature of a given experience is often referred to by the term
qualia"Qualia" , singular "quale" , from the Latin for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective quality of conscious experience. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the redness of an evening sky...
, whose archetypical exemplar is "redness". For example, we might ask, "Is my experience of redness the same as yours?" While it is difficult to answer such a question in any concrete way, the concept of
intersubjectivityIntersubjectivity is something which is shared by two or more subjects.-Definition:Intersubjectivity is "The sharing of subjective states by two or more individuals." The term is used in three ways:...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjectivity is often used as a mechanism for understanding how it is that humans are able to empathise with one another's experiences, and indeed to engage in meaningful communication about them. The phenomenological formulation of Being-in-the-World, where person and world are mutually constitutive, is central here.
Phenomenological psychology
The concepts of phenomenological philosophy have influenced at least two main fields of contemporary psychology: the qualitative psychology of
GiorgiGiorgi may refer to:* Francesco Giorgi , Venetian Franciscan friar and author* George I of Georgia * George II of Georgia * George III of Georgia * George IV of Georgia...
,
Jonathan SmithJonathan Smith may refer to:*Jonathan Smith , American professional race car driver*Jonathan Smith , British psychology professor*Jonathan Smith , American professional wide receiver...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretative_Phenomenological_Analysis, Kvale,
KöhlerKöhler is a German surname and may refer to:*August Köhler, microscopist and inventor of the Köhler illumination*Benjamin Köhler, football player*Ernesto Köhler, flute player and composer*Eva Köhler, First Lady of Germany*Georges J. F...
and others; and the experimental approaches associated with
VarelaVarela is a common Spanish and Portuguese surname of Galician origin. It May refer to:-People:*Adrián Varela, Mexican reality show contestant*Adriana Varela, Argentine tango singer*Amancio Amaro Varela, Galician footballer...
,
Gallagher-People:*Gallagher , the stage name of American stand-up comedian Leo Gallagher*Benny Gallagher, Scottish singer/song writer and member of Gallagher and Lyle*Bob Gallagher, baseball player*Catherine Gallagher, literary critic...
,
Thompson-Places:In Bulgaria:* Thompson, Bulgaria, a village in Sofia ProvinceIn Canada:* Thompson, Manitoba* Thompson , an electoral district in the above location* Thompson River, a river in British Columbia...
, and others
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition.
Difficulties in considering subjective phenomena
The philosophical psychology prevalent before the end of the nineteenth century relied heavily on
introspectionIntrospection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious mental and usually purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...
. The speculations concerning the mind based on those observations were criticized by the pioneering advocates of a more scientific approach to psychology, such as
William JamesWilliam James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher trained as a medical doctor. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism...
and the behaviorists
Edward ThorndikeEdward Lee Thorndike was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on animal behavior and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism and helped lay the scientific foundation for modern educational psychology...
, Clark Hull,
John B. WatsonJohn Broadus Watson is an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism, after doing research on animal behavior. He also conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment...
, and
B. F. SkinnerBurrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974...
. However, not everyone agrees that introspection is intrinsically problematic, such as
Francisco VarelaFrancisco Javier Varela García , was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology.-Biography:...
, who has trained experimental participants in the structured 'introspection' of phenomenological reduction .
Philosophers have long confronted the problem of "
qualia"Qualia" , singular "quale" , from the Latin for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to describe the subjective quality of conscious experience. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, or the redness of an evening sky...
". Few philosophers believe that it is possible to be sure that one person's experience of the "redness" of an object is the same as another person's, even if both persons had effectively identical genetic and experiential histories. In principle, the same difficulty arises in
feelingFeeling is the nominalization of "to feel". The word was first used in the English language to describe the physical sensation of touch either through experience or perception. The word is also used to describe experiences, other than the physical sensation of touch, such as "a feeling of warmth"...
s (the subjective experience of emotion), in the experience of effort, and especially in the "meaning" of concepts. As a result, many qualitative psychologists have claimed phenomenological inquiry to be essentially a matter of 'meaning-making' and thus a question to be addressed by interpretive approaches.
Psychotherapy and the phenomenology of emotion
Carl RogersCarl Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
'
person-centered psychotherapyPerson-centered therapy is also known as person-centered psychotherapy, client-centered therapy and Rogerian psychotherapy....
theory is based directly on the "phenomenal field" personality theory of
Combs-Geography:*Combs, Derbyshire, a small village in Derbyshire, England within the Peak District National Park*Combs, Suffolk, a hamlet in the English county of Suffolk*Combs, Kentucky, a US community...
and Snygg (1949). That theory in turn was grounded in phenomenological thinking. Rogers attempts to put a therapist in closer contact with a person by listening to the person's report of their recent subjective experiences, especially emotions of which the person is not fully aware. For example, in relationships the problem at hand is often not based around what actually happened, but instead is based around the perceptions and feelings of each individual in the relationship. The phenomenal field focuses on "how one feels right now".
Dennett's Heterophenomenology
Daniel DennettDaniel Clement Dennett is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the co-director of the Center for Cognitive...
has developed a phenomenological philosophical approach which he calls
heterophenomenologyHeterophenomenology , is a term coined by Daniel Dennett to describe an explicitly third-person, scientific approach to the study of consciousness and other mental phenomena...
. It provides a philosophical basis for a scientific psychology of subjective experience.
Other approaches
The psychotherapeutic and scientific approaches to the phenomenology of subjective conscious experience do not seem to exhaust the possibilities. In some realms of
psychotherapyPsychotherapy or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.It aims to increase the individual's sense of their own well-being...
and
self-helpThe term self-help refers to self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis....
different phenomenological approaches continue..
See also
- Stream of consciousness (psychology)
Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of can form the content of this stream, not just verbal thoughts...
- Associationism
Associationism in philosophy refers to the idea that mental processes operate by the association of one state with its successor states. The idea is first recorded in Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories...
- Association of Ideas
Association of Ideas, or Mental association, is a term used principally in the history of philosophy and of psychology to refer to explanations about the conditions under which representations arise in consciousness, and also for a principle put forward by an important historical school of thinkers...
- Ideology
An ideology is a set of aims and ideas that directs one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a...
, PrejudiceA prejudice is a preconceived belief, opinion or judgment especially toward a group of people characterized by their race, social class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or religion...
External links