Dan Zahavi

• Managing Director at University of Copenhagen

Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post...

One of the aims of the 40th Annual Spindel Conference was to discuss whether the ongoing, but relatively distinct, investigations of relational autonomy and collective intentionality could crossfertilize. Whereas the concept of relational autonomy was developed to do justice to the relational character of selfhood, and as an alternative to traditio...

Husserl’s writings on sociality have received increasing attention in recent years. Despite this growing interest, Husserl’s reflections on the specific role of communication remain underexplored. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by reconstructing the various ways in which Husserl draws systematic connections between communication and communa...

Is selfhood socially constituted and distributed? Although the view has recently been defended by some cognitive scientists, it has long been popular within anthropology and cultural psychology. Whereas older texts by Marcel Mauss, Clifford Geertz, Hazel Rose Markus, and Shinobu Kitayama often contrast a Western conception of a discrete, bounded, a...

During the Covid-19 pandemic we increasingly turned to technology to stay in touch with our family, friends, and colleagues. Even as lockdowns and restrictions ease many are encouraging us to embrace the replacement of face-to-face encounters with technologically mediated ones. Yet, as philosophers of technology have highlighted, technology can tra...

Introduction: The concept of schizophrenia (SCZ) was originally associated with a disorder of formal strata of the self. During the last two decades, empirical studies have demonstrated a selective hyper-aggregation of self-disorders in the SCZ spectrum. As with other scientific research areas, the role of self-disturbances in SCZ has been up for...

The aim of this mini-review paper is to present an overview of work on consciousness from a philosophical perspective, and to argue for the continuing relevance of philosophy in consciousness research. After introducing some major philosophical positions about the relationship between consciousness and matter, we argue that the problem of conscious...

Although the importance of the psychiatric diagnostic interview is undeniable in the actual clinical practice, its peculiarities as a specific kind of interpersonal phenomenon have not attracted much attention in the literature. This chapter approaches the diagnostic interview from the perspective of research on social cognition, by drawing on disc...

Whereas classical Critical Theory has tended to view phenomenology as inherently uncritical, the recent upsurge of what has become known as critical phenomenology has attempted to show that phenomenological concepts and methods can be used in critical analyses of social and political issues. A recent landmark publication, 50 Concepts for Critical P...

La fenomenología ha sido atacada recientemente por los promotores del realismo especulativo. En este artículo presento y analizo estas críticas, y argumento que, o bien son superficiales y simplistas, o bien carecen de novedad.Key words: Phenomenology, speculative realism, correlationism, idealism, naturalism.

Disordered selfhood in schizophrenia was rediscovered at the turn of the millennium. In 2005, Psychopathology published the psychometric instrument, the Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE). In this article, we summarize the historical background of the creation of the EASE, explicate the notion of the disorder of basic or minimal self w...

Today, many philosophers write on topics of contemporary interest, such as emerging technologies, scientific advancements, or major political events. However, many of these reflections, while philosophically valuable, fail to contribute to those who may benefit the most from them. In this article, we discuss our own experience of engaging with nurs...

The question of whether a proper phenomenological investigation and analysis requires one to perform the epoché and the reduction has not only been discussed within phenomenological philosophy. It is also very much a question that has been hotly debated within qualitative research. Amedeo Giorgi, in particular, has insisted that no scientific resea...

Empathy is a topic of continuous debate in the nursing literature. Many argue that empathy is indispensable to effective nursing practice. Yet others argue that nurses should rather rely on sympathy, compassion, or consolation. However, a more troubling disagreement underlies these debates: There’s no consensus on how to define empathy. This lack o...

The Phenomenological Mind, Third Edition, introduces fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. One of the outstanding books in the field, now translated into eight languages, this highly regarded exploration of phenomenology from a topic-driven standpoint examines the following key questions and issues: • what is...

In this article, we describe the history and impact of the Center for Subjectivity Research ( cfs ) since its inception in 2002 and until 2020. From its very beginning, cfs was structured to facilitate and carry out interdisciplinary research on human subjectivity, taking phenomenology as an important source of inspiration. We cover some of the mos...

A point made repeatedly over the last few years is that the Locked-in Syndrome (LIS) offers unique real-life material for revisiting and challenging certain ingrained philosophical assumptions about the nature of personhood and personal identity. Indeed, the claim has been made that a closer study of LIS will call into question some of the traditio...

This article investigates the relationship between emotional sharing and the extended mind thesis. We argue that shared emotions are socially extended emotions that involve a specific type of constitutive integration between the participating individuals’ emotional experiences. We start by distinguishing two claims, the Environmentally Extended Emo...

The question of whether a proper phenomenological investigation and analysis requires one to perform the epoché and the reduction has not only been discussed within phenomenological philosophy. It is also very much a question that has been hotly debated within qualitative research. Amedeo Giorgi, in particular, has insisted that no scientific resea...

This article offers an account of the development of Husserl’s assessment of Hume’s position in the history of philosophy. In Husserl’s early treatment of Hume, Husserl’s interpretation was shaped by the anti-Kantian views of his teacher Franz Brentano. Later, however, Husserl concentrated on those themes in Hume’s philosophy that were of relevance...

The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought - edited by Peter E. Gordon August 2019

Since its inception, phenomenological philosophy has exerted an influence on empirical science. But what is the best way to practice, use and apply phenomenology in a non‐philosophical context? How deeply rooted in phenomenological philosophy must qualitative research be in order to qualify as phenomenological? How many of the core commitments of p...

In contemporary consciousness research, we have defended a position of experiential minim-alism, arguing that for-me-ness (or minimal selfhood) is a necessary, universal feature of phenomenal consciousness. The concept of for-me-ness refers to the fact that experiences are given first-personally to the subject of experience. To challenge the univer...

One of the central questions within contemporary debates about collective intentionality concerns the notion and status of the we. The question, however, is by no means new. At the beginning of the last century, it was already intensively discussed in phenomenology. Whereas Heidegger argued that a focus on empathy is detrimental to a proper underst...

Max van Manen and Jonathan Smith have recently had an exchange in Qualitative Health Research concerning their respective use of phenomenology. I welcome the attempt to get clearer on what phenomenology amounts to and I agree with van Manen that an overly arbitrary use of the term will lead to an erosion of the reputation of phenomenology. However,...

Review of Philosophy and Psychology has lately published a number of papers that in various ways take issue with and criticize my work on the link between consciousness, self-consciousness and selfhood. In the following contribution, I reply directly to this new set of objections and argue that while some of them highlight ambiguities in my (earlie...

It is not uncommon to read the Moomin tales through existentialist lenses. Although there might be natural reasons for focusing on and privileging the nine classical Moomin books, it would, however, be a mistake to overlook Jansson’s comic strips. This is so, not only because of the quality of Jansson’s drawings and because of the way she innovativ...

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology contains thirty-seven new essays by leading scholars in the field. The essays all highlight historical influences, connections, and developments and provide an in-depth coverage of the development of phenomenology; one that allows for a better comprehension and assessment of the continuity as well...

Esta entrevista tiene como objetivo mostrar los aportes de la fenomenología de Dan Zahavi a algunas temáticas fundamentales de filosofía de la mente. El filósofo danés expresa su interés en vincular la fenomenología con otras disciplinas y comenta su último proyecto, dedicado al vínculo intersubjetivo. Además, explica su posición con respecto a la...

Recently, a number of neuroscientists and philosophers have taken the so-called predictive coding approach to support a form of radical neuro-representationalism, according to which the content of our conscious experiences is a neural construct, a brain-generated simulation. There is remarkable similarity between this account and ideas found in and...

What is ultimately at stake in Husserl's phenomenological analyses? Are they primarily to be understood as investigations of consciousness, and if so, must they be classified as psychological contributions of some sort? If Husserl is engaged in a transcendental philosophical project, is phenomenological transcendental philosophy then distinctive in...

This article engages critically with Margaret Gilbert’s proposal that joint commitments are necessary for collective emotions. After introducing Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment (Section 2), and the joint commitment account of collective emotions (Section 3), we argue in Section 4 that research from developmental psychology challenges the nece...

In my discussion of Ganeri's [2018 Ganeri, J. 2018. Mental Time Travel and Attention. Australasian Philosophical Review 1/4: 353–73. [Google Scholar]] article, I first examine the sense of ownership: Is it post-hoc, backwards directed, and past-oriented? I then consider whether episodic memory, understood as a form of past-directed attention, has t...

Streszczenie Skala EASE jest listą objawów do częściowo ustrukturalizowanego fenomenologicznego badania subiektywnych lub empirycznych nieprawidłowości (anomalii), które można uznać za zaburzenia podstawowej, „minimalnej” samoświadomości. EASE opracowana została na podstawie samoopisów otrzymanych od pacjentów chorujących na zaburzenia ze spektrum...

What is a self? Plenty of competing and complementary definitions abound. Over the years, I have articulated and defended am experientially based minimal conception of selfhood. In the following short text, I reply to some objections and suggestions for revisions that Ratcliffe as well as Ciaunica and Fotopoulou offer in their contributions to this...

The question of the relation between the collective and the individual has had a long but patchy history within both philosophy and psychology. In this chapter we consider some arguments that could be adopted for the primacy of the we, and examine their conceptual and empirical implications. We argue that the we needs to be seen as a developing and...

In our brief comment, we discuss whether Fotopolou and Tsakiris’ article pays sufficient attention to development and to the way in which self-awareness and intersubjectivity influence each other. We raise questions about whether their position is able to accommodate something akin to a Gibsonian ecological self, and finally point to some ambiguiti...

Phenomenology has recently come under attack from proponents of speculative realism. In this paper, I present and assess the criticism, and argue that it is either superficial and simplistic or lacks novelty.

The chapter explores the topic of experiential sharing by drawing on the early contributions of the phenomenologists Alfred Schutz and Gerda Walther. It is argued that both Schutz and Walther support, from complementary perspectives, an approach to experiential sharing that has tended to be overlooked in current debates. This approach highlights sp...

Replies to the comments on Self and Other in this Review Symposium by O’Shea, Magri, Papazian and Stout

We argue that important insights regarding the topic of sharing can be gathered from phenomenology and developmental psychology; insights that in part challenge widespread ideas about what sharing is and where it can be found. To be more specific, we first exemplify how the notion of sharing is being employed in recent discussions of empathy, and t...

In recent years, the social dimensions of selfhood have been discussed widely. Can you be a self on your own or only together with others? Is selfhood a built-in feature of experience or rather socially constructed? Does a strong emphasis on the first-personal character of consciousness prohibit a satisfactory account of intersubjectivity or is the...

In order to get a sound grasp on the basic nature of Husserlian phenomenology, it is crucially important to recognize that, although Husserl used many traditional terms, the use of these terms was by no means traditional. This chapter exemplifies this by considering Husserl's notion of the transcendental. This focus necessitates some reflections on...

We used a phenomenological approach to gain insight into the experiences of self, other, and world in patients with hemispatial neglect within the first month following stroke. Comprehensive descriptions of circumstances were conjoined with open-ended interviews of 12 participants. The neglect experience was captured in the overarching theme, “gett...

When surveying recent philosophical work on the nature and status of collective intentionality and we-intentions, it is striking how much effort is spent on analysing the structure of joint action and on establishing whether or not the intention to, say, go for a walk or paint a house together is reducible to some form of I-intentionality. Much les...

This paper explores the complex answer to the question of whether the self is prior to the Other or the Other is prior to the self in Husserl’s phenomenology. Contrary to standard accounts of Husserl’s presumptive solipsism, this paper demonstrates how Husserl understands the self and the Other as essentially related while at the same time developi...

Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience (EASE) är en symtom-checklista för en semistrukturerad, fenomenologisk undersökning av upplevda eller subjektiva anomalier, som kan anses vara störningar av basalt eller ”minimalt” självmedvetande. EASE har utvecklats med utgångspunkt i självbeskrivningar från patienter med schizofreni-spektrumstörningar, oc...

Mirror self-experience is re-cast away from the cognitivist interpretation that has dominated discussions on the issue since the establishment of the mirror mark test. Ideas formulated by Merleau-Ponty on mirror self-experience point to the profoundly unsettling encounter with one’s specular double. These ideas, together with developmental evidence...

Mirror self-experience is re-cast away from the cognitivist interpretation that has dominated discussions on the issue since the establishment of the mirror mark test. Ideas formulated by Merleau-Ponty on mirror self-experience point to the profoundly unsettling encounter with one's specular double. These ideas, together with developmental evidence...

This time around, we have the chance of getting to know Prof. Dan Zahavi of the University of Copenhagen, one of phenomenology's top researchers, whose thought expresses a particular voice in the philosophy of mind and interdisciplinary cognitive research. Today, we shall explore topics regarding phenomenology in our present scientific context, Edm...

Bu makale Mantik Arastirmalari adli eserin ikinci cildinde yer alan Besinci Arastirma’da Husserl’in bilinc kavramini nasil irdelendigini ele almakta ve boylelikle Husserl’in erken donem yonelimsellik teorisini anahatlariyla serimlemektedir. Husserl’in yonelimsellik teorisiyle alternatif teoriler arasindaki farklarin gosterilmesi suretiyle fenomenol...

The article explores and compares the accounts of empathy found in Lipps, Scheler, Stein and Husserl and argues that the three latter phenomenological thinkers offer a model of empathy, which is not only distinctly different from Lipps’, but which also diverge from the currently dominant models.

If we want to assess whether or not a naturalized phenomenology is a desideratum or a category mistake, we need to be clear on precisely what notion of phenomenology and what notion of naturalization we have in mind. In the article I distinguish various notions, and after criticizing one type of naturalized phenomenology, I sketch two alternative t...

The notion of intersubjectivity is a relatively new concept. The German term Intersubjektivität made its first sporadic appearance in 1885 in a work by Johannes Volkelt. It was picked up by James Ward and first used in English in 1896. Initially, the concept was used to describe something with universal validity, something that was valid for everyb...

Questions concerning both the ontology and epistemology of the “psychiatric object” (symptoms and signs) should be at the forefront of current concerns of psychiatry as a clinical neuroscience. We argue that neglect of these issues is a crucial source of the stagnation of psychiatric research. In honor of the centenary of Karl Jaspers’ book, Genera...

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology presents twenty-eight chapters on the field of contemporary phenomenology, and gives an overview of the type of work and range of topics found and discussed in contemporary phenomenology. The chapters aim to articulate and develop original theoretical perspectives. Some of them are concerned with is...

In my short commentary, I dwell on the distinction between basic and complex empathy, and suggest that a basic perception-based form of empathy might point to the existence of a type of social understanding that is more direct and more fundamental than the types of social cognition normally addressed by simulation theory and theory theory.

L'échelle EASE décrit une série de symptômes qui permettent l'exploration semi-structurée, dans une orientation phénoménologique, d'anomalies de l'expérience subjective, considérées comme troubles de la conscience de soi, dans son niveau le plus élémentaire. EASE est développée sur la base de descriptions de soi par des patients souffrant de troubl...

How should one go about understanding the relation between time and self? In the following I will compare and contrast two philosophical conceptions of self that both stress the close connection between selfhood and temporality. Despite this shared conviction they happen to emphasize quite different aspects of self, however, partly because they ope...

Back in 1994 I defended my doctoral dissertation on Husserl und die transzendentale Intersubjektivität with Bernet as my supervisor. One of the central claims in this early work of mine was that Husserl’s distinct contribution to a phenomenology of intersubjectivity – in particular when compared to later phenomenologists – was to be found in his an...

The Phenomenological Mind is the first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. Key questions and topics covered include: • • what is phenomenology? • • naturalizing phenomenology and the cognitive sciences • • phenomenology and consciousness • • consciousness and self-consciousness • •...