From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 07:02:19 EDT Subject: Devastating Confusion of Phenomenology In a message dated 19/07/2003 05:16:00 GMT Daylight Time, crifasi-AT-hotmail.com writes: Subj: Re: Devastating Confusion of Heidegger? Date: 19/07/2003 05:16:00 GMT Daylight Time From: crifasi-AT-hotmail.com (Anthony Crifasi) Sender: owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Reply-to: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu To: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu Jud wrote: Ok. forget the passion bit - [I'll come back to that later] that leaves us with the scientists who are UTTERLY absorbed and INTENSELY interested in the subjects of their study bit - what about that? Anthony: That is not part of the scientific rigor of the subject. The scientists' degree of fascination, interest, or involvement with the subject is SCIENTIFICALLY irrelevant to the objective results or methodology of a properly done experiment. Jud: Thank you for your well-explained resume of the relative positions of Heidegger and Husserl on this matter. However, there is a suggestion here, with your choice of the terms: 'properly done' and objective', that a scientist who was fascinated, interested, and involved with the subject of his enquiry might render the experiment non-rigorous, non-objective and not properly done - how can this be so? How for example can the emotional state of a scientist who mixes together two compounds affect the nature of their chemical interaction? How can the fact that an animal biologist who feels a heightened interest or concern or affection for a certain chimpanzee, affect the performance and outcome of that individual as part of an experimental breeding-pair? Anthony: In fact, experiments are designed to filter out all possible external factors which could skew the results, including a scientist's personal bias. Jud: We are not discussing bias here, [a different though equally interesting subject] but rather the absorption and interest shown by the scientist in the phenomena which is most familiar to him as the scientist, as in your original note on what Heidegger says on this question. Here it is again. 'How does he say that the phenomena are most familiar to us? Insofar as we are absorbed and interested in them, not in the detached mode of knowing or science. ' Anthony: If someone who is completely fascinated and interested in the subject matter does an experiment, and someone else who couldn't care less does the same experiment, they should get exactly the same result. Jud: This is true - so why is it necessary for a scientist not to be absorbed and interested in the subject of his experiment? What benefit can a detached mode of knowing or a deliberate disinterest in the object of study or the outcome of the experiment provide? Is not Heidegger confusing interest and absorption with INTERVENTION by the scientist for personal reasons, designed to skew the procedure and apparent results? [By interference with equipment, methodology, materials, data etc.,] Heidegger's agenda appears to depict scientists as cold, disassociated, remote, disinterested automatons, who robot-like mix powders and potions, adjust screws and tighten nuts without caring one way or the other what the outcome of their tinkerings might be? Now come on Anthony, have you EVER met a scientist like that? Anthony: That is what both Husserl and Heidegger mean when they say that science is objective and detached - the factual content is supposed to be independent of any subjective disposition on the part of the scientist or anyone else. Jud: But we are not talking about THE FACTUAL CONTENT we are talking about the demeanour of the people who carry out the experiments, it is THEY who experience the absorption and interest in the factual content - the factual content is incapable of feeling anything, [unless it be a biological experiment] ammonium chloride and oligosaccharide feel no emotions whatsoever? Jud [previously] Are phenomenologists allowed passion in their observations where it is forbidden to scientists? If so why? Anthony: Husserl held that phenomenology must be scientific and dispassionate. Jud: Surely he meant that phenomenologists must be scientific and dispassionate? How can a noun which describes a philosophical doctrine proposed by Edmund Husserl based on the study of human experience in which considerations of objective reality are not taken into account be scientific and dispassionate? And why if what you say or Heidegger says is true, that if someone who is completely fascinated and interested in the subject matter and does an experiment, and someone else who couldn't care less does the same experiment, they should get exactly the same result, why then does it matter if a scientist curtails and suppresses any interest and absorption in his subject? Anthony: In order to approach the phenomena objectively, he said that the phenomenologist must first do what he called the epoche or phenomenological reduction, which suspends what he considered the primary prejudice of our absorption in the world - our naive assurance that what we experience exists independently of us (after all, he says, it might all be a dream...). Jud: But surely if Husserl urges us to suspend our absorption in the world, [complete attention; intense mental effort - the mental state of being preoccupied by something,] he is in fact urging us not to be interested in phenomenological enquiry at all, for how is one expected to conduct a phenomenological enquiry if we are not to be interested in whether the object of our observation actually exists or not? If this is to be the case, why bother with observing real objects at all? Why not simply dream up objects in the mind and observe only imaginary phenomena, and [after suspending our primary prejudice and absorption concerning their apparent existence or non-existence] not bother a hoot whether they were the objects of our mind or real objects which had been materialised by some mysterious process of our non-absorbtion? If Husserl meant what he said, that we should suspend our absorption and interest in the world, why bother doing phenomenology at all - why not simply bracket oneself out and crawl into a corner and [leaving oneself free of any prejudice] comport oneself towards death that way? At least, if Husserl wasn't convinced that he really existed in the world in the first place, he could at least dream himself up to be any entity he wished - perhaps a teapot on Heidegger's dining-table? That is of course if Husserl was convinced that there were indeed such things in the world as teapots - or a dining tables - or a man called Heidegger to own a dining table - or a man called Husserl who had crawled into a corner? Anthony: The phenomenological reduction is simply the suspension of that belief in world-existence, leaving the phenomena free of any prejudice on our part, and therefore scientifically objective. Jud: But [following Husserl] does not the suspension of that belief in 'world-existence' also include the observing phenomenologist who is also part of 'world-existence?' And if we correctly follow his methodology we would be also suspending our belief in our own existence, and not to do so would be not to free ourselves from any prejudice on our part, therefore rendering the phenomenological experiment valueless and place us in a position, [if indeed we existed in order to be placed in a position] where we remained unsure as to whether we or the phenomena or the world actually existed in the first place? Anthony: As a consequence, however, Husserl's entire analysis was limited to the phenomena as present to consciousness, forever cut off from any analysis of beings as they are in themselves Jud: But how could he embark on such an analysis if he wasn't sure whether he and the world existed or not, or whether his consciousness or imagined consciousness, or the phenomena he imagined, or didn't imagine to be present to his assumed consciousness to be cut off from any analysis of beings as they are in themselves? Anthony: (belief in which is suspended by the reduction), which is why Husserl himself called his own phenomenology "transcendental idealism." THAT is what Heidegger escaped, by basically questioning Husserl's assumption that the phenomena must be approached scientifically and objectively in the first place. Jud: If what you are now saying is that Heidegger's wheeze was to urge people to approach phenomena non-scientifically and non-objectively, well that would be perfectly in tune with the general tenor of Heidegger's approach, for if Heidegger also banned the involvement and interest of the human enquirer he would also be abandoning his little ontological box of tricks Dasein. But if Heidegger objects to the scientific method, then he must object to being absorbed and interested in the objects of his enquiry, for being absorbed and interested in the phenomena of their research is part and parcel of being a scientist and participating in the scientific method, and that is what compels them to become scientists in the first place. If they were not interested in the objects and processes of what they were involved with we wouldn't have any scientists, and we wouldn't have any phenomenologists either, for according to Heidegger phenomenologists ought to be absorbed and interested in the objects and processes of what they were involved with - and that is plainly a scientific characteristic, as explained above? Heidegger and Husserl just cannot have or have not their imagined cake, and imagine themselves eating it - or not eating it. Cheers, Jud. <A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ ">http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A> Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY. <A HREF="http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com">http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com</A> --- StripMime Warning -- MIME attachments removed --- This message may have contained attachments which were removed. 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