When things are in your mind, are they also in your body? If yes, is your body anything more than a physical container for your mind? If not, how can there be things like painful memories, hurtful words or wounds of history? Western traditions of thought have a long history of contrasting mind and body. … Continue reading Thoughts on Embodied Understanding and Carnal Hermeneutics
Can We Suspend Our Assumptions?
Edmund Husserl, the founder of the philosophical tradition called phenomenology, introduced the idea of bracketing or suspending our habitual assumptions about the world. He called this method by the Greek word epoché, which has deep historical roots stretching to the ancient Greek philosophy of scepticism that emphasised suspension of judgments. Importantly for Husserl, his method … Continue reading Can We Suspend Our Assumptions?
Human: a Continuous Project
Michel de Montaigne, in his essay 'That Men by Various Ways Arrive at the Same End', paints a conflicted portrait of human nature: "Man (in good earnest) is a marvelous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment."Michel de Montaigne Very hard indeed - … Continue reading Human: a Continuous Project
Humans as Liminal Beings
German philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels - a recognised phenomenologist interested, among other things, in the theme of a 'stranger' or 'alien' - suggests that humans are liminal beings. He presents this idea in his book Phenomenology of the Alien: Basic Concepts. What does Waldenfels mean? In the first chapter of the book, he introduces and explains … Continue reading Humans as Liminal Beings
A Thought On Change
In a recent conversation about the need for change in view of the multitude of global challenges we face in this, our lifetime, I was reminded of the quote I read in a wonderfully thought-stimulating novel by Matt Haig, The Humans. Indeed, are we not curious creatures? We fear change and crave it, avoid it … Continue reading A Thought On Change
Self-Knowledge Is Never Complete
"We always find ourselves within a situation, and throwing light on it is a task that is never entirely finished. This is also true of the hermeneutic situation—i.e., the situation in which we find ourselves with regard to the tradition that we are trying to understand. The illumination of this situation—reflection on effective history—can never … Continue reading Self-Knowledge Is Never Complete
Importance of Gaps
In the traditional Japanese art of arranging flowers - ikebana, "living flowers", or kado, "the way of flowers" - special attention is paid to the so-called negative space. How can a gap, an empty space be important, valuable, and even beautiful? With its history of more than 1,500 years, ikebana, unlike Western flower arrangement practices, … Continue reading Importance of Gaps
Obligation to Be Clear
In this passage from his 1953 book "The Captive Mind", Czeslaw Milosz tells us about the experiences of artists in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries that came under its influence. In particular, the effects of the dictatorship of the one Method manifest in individual self-censorship and the gradually sedimenting conviction that things cannot … Continue reading Obligation to Be Clear
Critical Problem of Universal Theories
As attractive as theories promising to explain everything may be, any theory that claims universality faces a critical challenge. This challenge is built into its very claim of universality and consists in the following. A theory is elaborated and posited by someone, perhaps a group of people, maybe with the help of AI. No matter … Continue reading Critical Problem of Universal Theories
Merleau-Ponty on the Perceived World
"The perceived world is the always presupposed foundation of all rationality, all value and all existence. This thesis does not destroy either rationality or the absolute. It only tries to bring them down to earth." Merleau-Ponty ("The Visible and the Invisible", 1968) keep exploring! P.S. Thank you for visiting me here on the humanfactor.blog! If you enjoyed … Continue reading Merleau-Ponty on the Perceived World
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