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Ten years of viewing from within : the legacy of Francisco Varela
Abstract
The View from Within, edited by the late Francisco Varela in collaboration with Jonathan Shear, was published in 1999 and has proved a major stimulus to the scientific investigation of first-person methodologies in psychology and philosophy of mind. Ten years on, Claire Petitmengin has organized a collection of essays that examine and refine the research program on first-person methods defined in The View from Within, with contributions based on empirical research. She has kept close to the spirit of the earlier book, in which Varela encouraged a precise description of the very process of becoming aware of one's experience and describing it.
... In such risky activities, the safety question is fundamental and is emphasized when performance is enhanced. In order to respect action ecology, we will follow a phenomenological (Vermersch, 2009(Vermersch, , 2012 investigation (situated analysis) to understand safetyperformance building during spearfishing activity. The particularity of the situated analysis resides in the importance of the context. ...
... The scientific interest was to construct, in collaboration with the spearfisher, imprints of his activity. Afterwards, in order to understand his activity organization, the participant was invited to describe his activity from the diary notes through elicitation interviews (the phenomenological approach; Vermersch, 2009Vermersch, , 2012. He was then invited to describe his activity from video recordings. ...
... In this procedure, the spearfisher was asked to describe and comment upon his own activity related to his recorded performance. This level of pre-reflection can be reached using an elicitation interview (Vermersch, 2009). This places actors in a dynamic situation where behavior, language, and expressions are good indicators to assess whether athletes are in To explore spearfishing dynamics with temporal markers evocation mode. ...
... While Husserl uses a method of Beidetic variation^consisting in varying in one's imagination the characteristics of an experience considered as an example, in order to identify a priori and conceptually its invariant essence, micro-phenomenological analysis proceeds by iterative unfolding and refinement of the structure of the experience under study from the description of singular lived experiences. 2 It should be noted that the micro-phenomenological method was not initially created with the aim of identifying generic structures, but to describe singular lived experiences (Vermersch 1994(Vermersch /2017. But whenever we have analyzed a corpus of descriptions of singular experiences collected for a given study, we have been able to discover generic structures (see references below). ...
... While Husserl uses a method of Beidetic variation^consisting in varying in one's imagination the characteristics of an experience considered as an example, in order to identify a priori and conceptually its invariant essence, micro-phenomenological analysis proceeds by iterative unfolding and refinement of the structure of the experience under study from the description of singular lived experiences. 2 It should be noted that the micro-phenomenological method was not initially created with the aim of identifying generic structures, but to describe singular lived experiences (Vermersch 1994(Vermersch /2017. But whenever we have analyzed a corpus of descriptions of singular experiences collected for a given study, we have been able to discover generic structures (see references below). ...
... Petitmengin 2017) are detected at the most fine-grained levels of description, corresponding to the most persistently prereflective aspects of experience. 1 This article is the continuation of (Petitmengin 2006) which describes the interview method. The French Bentretien d'explicitation^ (Vermersch 1994(Vermersch /2017, previously translated as Belicitation interview^, is now translated as Bmicro-phenomenological interview^. 2 Husserl invites us to scroll through in our minds, for example the different types of red, until the essence of red emerges from this process. But this process corresponds to an imaginary variation which is situated at the level of possible and not actual facts. ...
This paper describes a method for analyzing a corpus of descriptions collected through micro-phenomenological interviews. This analysis aims at identifying the structure of the singular experiences which have been described, and in particular their diachronic structure, while unfolding generic experiential structures through an iterative approach. After summarizing the principles of the micro-phenomenological interview, and then describing the process of preparation of the verbatim, the article presents on the one hand, the principles and conceptual devices of the analysis method and on the other hand several dimensions of the analysis process: the modes of structural unfolding of generic structures, the mutual guidance of the processes of structural and experiential unfolding, the tracking of analysis processes, and finally the assessment of analysis results.
... Accordingly there have been a growing number of attempts to go beyond standard questionnaires and informal post-experimental debriefs in efforts to understand the lived experience of our subjects in the science of consciousness (e.g. Varela & Shear, 1999a;Roepstorff & Jack, 2004a;Overgaard, 2006;Overgaard et al., 2008;Petitmengin, 2009). Some of the most striking contributions in this new area of research have been made in the context of Varela's (1996) neurophenomenology research program, where a key element is the use of specialized methods of 'becoming aware'. ...
... And, biases aside, second-person methods are now sufficiently established for broad usage (e.g. Depraz et al., 2003;Petitmengin 2009). Moreover, as we have argued already, the validity of the experiential reports that are generated by such methods can be assessed and validated, at least indirectly, by relating them to relevant behavioural and/or neurological measures. ...
... Petimengin-Peugeot, 1999), to listen to a sound (e.g. Petitmengin et al., 2009), or in 'second-order' terms by guiding them to become aware of becoming aware of such an experience (e.g. , does not reduce the scientific worth of these results by placing the participant in an artificial experimental setting rather than allowing their experiences to occur naturally in the field: Science should do all it can to minimize the forces away from personal truths; in particular, at this stage in the science, we think it is quite risky to believe that observing manipulated experience will reveal the important features of consciousness. Observing manipulated experience might be adequate, but that should have to be shown, not assumed. ...
... The process of becoming aware of one's pre reflective experiences consists of coming into closer contact with something that was previously unknown. Describing these can be facilitated at two levels; the level of experience, and at the level of becoming aware of the how of this experience (Petitmengin, 2009). The how can be reached by incorporating interview techniques which access the "pre-reflective micro-structure" of subjective processes (Petitmengin et al., 2007, p. 746). ...
... The how can be reached by incorporating interview techniques which access the "pre-reflective micro-structure" of subjective processes (Petitmengin et al., 2007, p. 746). Elicitation interview techniques (Petitmengin, 2009) facilitate a finely detailed and guided exploration of important elements of people's recent experiences so that they can become aware of pre reflexive processes and develop their phenomenological descriptions of these (Gallagher & Sørensen, 2006). These techniquesmuch like Wundt's participants in his experiments on introspection in the 19th century and who were asked to describe the "pure" perceptions as they appeared in 'their consciousness, (Gallagher & Sørensen, 2006) render the descriptions of lived experience reproducible thus offering scientific validity (Petitmengin, 2009). ...
... Elicitation interview techniques (Petitmengin, 2009) facilitate a finely detailed and guided exploration of important elements of people's recent experiences so that they can become aware of pre reflexive processes and develop their phenomenological descriptions of these (Gallagher & Sørensen, 2006). These techniquesmuch like Wundt's participants in his experiments on introspection in the 19th century and who were asked to describe the "pure" perceptions as they appeared in 'their consciousness, (Gallagher & Sørensen, 2006) render the descriptions of lived experience reproducible thus offering scientific validity (Petitmengin, 2009). Memories, images, sensations, sounds and the fragmentation of the temporal course of an experience all have the potential to be evoked by an elicitation interview. ...
This article proposes a methodological stance, an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of participants’ drawings as one that is useful for research into people’s experiences of seizure consciousness. Using empirical examples located in an original, larger study, this article offers a rationale for, and illustrates the analytic potential of, this combination. It also considers that elicitation interviewing techniques and methods from the field of neuro - phenomenology could take this work further in terms of deepening the analysis by reaching people’s pre - reflexive conscious experiences. This theoretical and practical combination has the potential to develop this work significantly.
... Our thinking about this kind of phenomenological interview has been influenced by Claire Petitmengin (2006Petitmengin ( , 2009 and the work of Depraz, Varela and Vermersch (2003). Petitmengin (2006Petitmengin ( , 2009) provides a set of clear and rigorous instructions regarding setting up the interview. ...
... Our thinking about this kind of phenomenological interview has been influenced by Claire Petitmengin (2006Petitmengin ( , 2009 and the work of Depraz, Varela and Vermersch (2003). Petitmengin (2006Petitmengin ( , 2009) provides a set of clear and rigorous instructions regarding setting up the interview. She highlights the fact that, during the interview process, it is easy to drift away from the precise description of lived experience and to start providing reasons or theories about the experience. ...
... The task of the interviewer is to bring the subject back to the lived experience. Petitmengin's (2006Petitmengin's ( , 2009 focus highlights an aspect of phenomenological interviewing that is not often mentioned. In reading Husserl or his commentators, it is possible to get the impression that performing the phenomenological reduction is a first step, and that once this step is taken we are suddenly in a different (transcendental) realm where we can proceed with the phenomenological work. ...
The authors examine several issues in teaching phenomenology (1) to advanced researchers who are doing qualitative research using phenomenological interview methods in disciplines such as psychology, nursing, or education, and (2) to advanced researchers in the cognitive neurosciences. In these contexts, the term "teaching" needs to be taken in a general and non-didactic way. In the case of the first group, it involves guiding doctoral students in their conception and design of a qualitative methodology that is properly phenomenological. In the case of the second, it is more concerned with explaining the relevance of phenomenology to an audience of experimental scientists via conference presentations or published papers. In both cases, however, the challenge is to make clear to the relevant audience what phenomenology is and how it can relate to what they are doing.
... The comprehensive measurement of conscious experience with assessment instruments has been a rare topic in psychological research, perhaps because psychologists could not find a method to reach a satisfactory level of significance of the results (Natsoulas, 1992;Petitmengin, 2009). Yet, there are many assessment instruments that have been in use for some time, with good results in evaluating various facets of the conscious experience; for example, Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein et al., 1975), Psychological Well-Being Scales (Ryff and Keyes, 1995), The Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (Pekala, 1982), Mindfulness Attention and Awareness Scale-MAAS (Brown and Ryan, 2003), Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (Walach et al., 2001, Toronto Mindfulness Scale (Bishop et al., 2004), Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Scale (Baer et al., 2004), Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1992), Emotional Quotient Inventory (Bar-On, 1997), Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003), Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (Mehling et al., 2012), Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MacLean et al., 2012), Leadership Maturity Assessment Instrument and Loevinger's Washington University Sentence Completion Test (Cook-Greuter, 2000), Troyer Level of Consciousness Inventory (Troyer, 2012), and various transpersonal psychology scales (MacDonald and Friedman, 2002). ...
... In this research, our approach was focused on studying the conscious experience, not the philosophical concept of consciousness. From the psychological perspective, the conscious experience is just another variable that describes first-person experiences (Baars et al., 2003;Petitmengin, 2009). We did not analyze theories of consciousness or propose a new theory of consciousness; instead, we indexed the repertoire of experiences already classified as "conscious/explicit." ...
This study is an exploration of collective patterns of conscious experience, as described by various psychological models, using a self-report questionnaire: The Consciousness Quotient Inventory (CQ-i). The CQ-i evaluates patterns of behaviors, attitudes, and attentional styles as well as the usage of conscious skills, awareness, and the capacity to “feel awake and alive,” providing a complex exploration of conscious experience. A set of 237 items covering major aspects of the subjective conscious experience was selected to detect the phenomenal patterns of subjective conscious experience. An exploratory factor analysis on a large sample (N = 2,360), combined with our previous meta-research on conceptual convergence of conscious experiences, revealed that these experiences appear to have 15 patterns common to all of us. A sample with a quasi-normal distribution (n = 2,266) was employed for standardization and classification of scores (M = 100; SD = 15). The study provides a conceptual framework for future in-depth studies on collective patterns of self-awareness, inner growth dynamics, and psychological maturity.
... Estos investigadores están tan interesados en convertirse en mejores artistas corporales e improvisadores, como en obtener algún tipo de conocimiento in-corpóreo. Lo cual es un paradigma de investigación que incluye y valida las perspectivas en primera persona, en el contexto de lo que queramos definir como objetividad (Petitmengin, 2009). ...
... They are as interested in becoming better movers, bodyworkers and improvisers as they are about gaining some sort of disembodied knowledge. This a paradigm of research that includes first person perspectives within whatever we might want to call objectivity (Petitmengin, 2009). ...
En el interior mismo del poder normativo del concepto de ‘equilibrio’, reciden sus múltiples capas material-semióticas. Las cuales nos invitan a entenderlo como la idea transformadora de un tipo ideal de movimiento. La manera en que “nosotros” aprendemos e incorporamos el concepto-práctica del equilibrio da forma a nuestro mundo-vida en términos políticos, históricos, gimnásticos y prácticos. Así, entonces, comprendemos el equilibrio como una forma de ofuscación o ideología que está en el centro de la manera cómo vivimos nuestras vidas en sociedad. En gran parte, hemos colaborado con este aparato ideológico por la forma en que nos entendemos a nosotros mismos como cuerpos-mentes que se equilibran. Con todo, no es el punto oponer el concepto a la práctica: los conceptos también son la práctica-como-investigación, tanto de manera baladí como profunda. Por su parte, la biología también está habitada por metáforas en movimiento, un sistema viviente receptivo que requiere la perspectiva de la práctica-como-investigación. Aprendiendo con el Contact (danza contacto), podemos atender a la postura denominada ‘The Stand’ (quedarse de pie), y observar como nos mantenemos erguidos, y cómo esta posición puede llegar a experimentarse como un constante perder el equilibrio para volver a recobrarlo. En la presente investigación, al pedirle a las personas que hagan algo atentamente, se ha evidenciado como estas se ven movidas por los conceptos o metáforas que las habitan, y como al moverse de manera diferente, las metáforas pueden llegar a cambiar. Bailar con conceptos es un tipo de filosofía empírica. Así, encontramos más maneras de quedarnos quietos, descubriendo toda la gama de posibilidades implicadas en el concepto del equilibrio. Las metáforas de la quietud se multiplican, como también los detalles del concepto. A través de este vocabulario vivo, podemos convertirnos en pensadores con nuestros cuerpos. En la práctica-como-investigación, descubrimos no lo que es un concepto, sino lo que éste puede hacer, en este momento, y luego, en otro momento, una vez más.
... Microphenomenology is a method of descriptive phenomenology inspired by the "Explicitation interview" initially developed by Pierre Vermersch to help persons engaged in professional practices to become aware of the implicit part of their mental or physical actions (Vermersch, 1994(Vermersch, /2014(Vermersch, , 2009(Vermersch, , 2012. This interview method was then adapted to the domain of cognitive science research for describing experiences associated with any kind of cognitive process, including manifestly embodied processes such as perception or emotion (Petitmengin 2006), and complemented by a method for analyzing verbal reports and detecting regularities in the form of generic structures (Petitmengin, 1999;Petitmengin et al., submitted), and methods of validation of these results (Petitmengin & Bitbol, 2009;Petitmengin et al., 2013;Bitbol & Petitmengin, 2013, 2016. ...
... Microphenomenology is a method of descriptive phenomenology inspired by the "Explicitation interview" initially developed by Pierre Vermersch to help persons engaged in professional practices to become aware of the implicit part of their mental or physical actions (Vermersch, 1994(Vermersch, /2014(Vermersch, , 2009(Vermersch, , 2012. This interview method was then adapted to the domain of cognitive science research for describing experiences associated with any kind of cognitive process, including manifestly embodied processes such as perception or emotion (Petitmengin 2006), and complemented by a method for analyzing verbal reports and detecting regularities in the form of generic structures (Petitmengin, 1999;Petitmengin et al., submitted), and methods of validation of these results (Petitmengin & Bitbol, 2009;Petitmengin et al., 2013;Bitbol & Petitmengin, 2013, 2016. ...
... La micro-phénoménologie est une méthode de phénoménologie descriptive inspirée de "l'entretien d'explicitation" initialement développé par Pierre Vermersch (1994Vermersch ( /2014Vermersch ( , 2009Vermersch ( , 2012) pour aider des personnes engagées dans des pratiques professionnelles à prendre conscience de la part implicite de leurs actions physiques et mentales. Cette méthode d'entretien a ensuite été adaptée à la recherche en sciences cognitives pour décrire l'expérience associée à tout processus cognitif, y compris des processus impliquant le corps comme la perception ou l'émotion ( Petitmengin 2006). ...
... La micro-phénoménologie est une méthode de phénoménologie descriptive inspirée de "l'entretien d'explicitation" initialement développé par Pierre Vermersch (1994Vermersch ( /2014Vermersch ( , 2009Vermersch ( , 2012) pour aider des personnes engagées dans des pratiques professionnelles à prendre conscience de la part implicite de leurs actions physiques et mentales. Cette méthode d'entretien a ensuite été adaptée à la recherche en sciences cognitives pour décrire l'expérience associée à tout processus cognitif, y compris des processus impliquant le corps comme la perception ou l'émotion ( Petitmengin 2006). ...
Résumé : Dans notre société où l'intérêt pour la méditation Bouddhiste connaît un engouement considérable, de nombreuses études sont maintenant menées sur les effets neurophysiologiques de la pratique méditative, et sur les corrélats neurophysiologiques des états méditatifs. Mais très peu d'études ont été conduites sur l'expérience de la pratique contemplative : ce que vit le méditant, instant après instant, aux différents stades de sa pratique, demeure presque invisible dans les sciences contemplatives contemporaines. Récemment, des méthodes d'entretien "micro-phénoménologiques" ont été développées pour nous aider à prendre conscience de notre expérience et à la décrire avec rigueur et précision. Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude pilote visant à appliquer ces méthodes à la description de l'expérience méditative. La première partie de l'article décrit ces méthodes et leur adaptation à l'étude de l'expérience méditative. La seconde partie fournit des descriptions micro-phénoménologiques de deux processus dont la pratique permet au méditant de prendre conscience : le processus de perte de contact avec la situation présente et de génération d'une scène virtuelle dans les épisodes de "dérive attentionnelle", et le processus d'émergence d'une pensée. La troisième partie met en évidence l'intérêt de telles descriptions pour les pratiquants et pour les instructeurs de méditation, définit le statut de ces résultats, et propose des pistes de recherche. Cet article ne décrit pas un état de conscience extraordinaire qui pourrait être induit par la pratique méditative, mais l'état de conscience modifié très ordinaire consistant à s'absenter de la situation présente pour s'absorber dans une situation virtuelle. Il propose une méthode permettant de produire une description "micro-phénoménologique" de la dynamique d'émergence et de résorption d'un état de conscience modifié.
... 1997Varela's works (e.g. , 1999Varela & Shear, 1999), he was informed by Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, James, and Heidegger. He was also influenced by philosopher/psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin's 'focusing' method and psychiatrist Daniel Stern's work on prereflective experience in infants, expressions of meaning, and self-constitution (Petitmengin, 2009). Moreover, Varela was a committed practitioner-scholar of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist meditation, psychology, and philosophy. ...
... Third-person methods refer to neurophysiological measurements and analyses of large-scale sensorimotor brain processes, and cognitive testing. (Also, second-person perspectives, the interpersonal, intersubjective, and empathetic aspects of conscious experience are, like first-person experience, investigated via phenomenological strategies borrowed from non-Western epistemology and works by Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty (Petitmengin, 2009;Thompson, 2001a;Varela & Shear, 1999). ...
Alan Watts (1915–1973) was a religious philosopher and interpreter of Zen Buddhism and Indian and Chinese philosophy to the West. Francisco Varela (1946–2001) was a biologist, a neuroscientist, and practitioner-scholar of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Watts and Varela share common interest in Buddhist and phenomenological approaches to human experience. In this article, I explore intersections of Watts and Varela regarding their phenomenologically grounded radical empiricisms, particularly: (1) embodied cognition; and (2) the specious present. This exploration is prefaced by establishing Watts’ phenomenological place in Humanistic Psychology, and delineating Varela's neurophenomenological research agenda.
... Phenomenological methods allow observation of internal states of consciousness using a meditative focus to loosen presumptions, so that we may begin to understand the essence of lived experience. Neurophenomenology has attempted to naturalize phenomenology (Petitot, Varela, Pachoud, & Roy, 1999) training neuroscientists to become refl ectively aware of the structure of experience in the conduct of research (Petitmengin, 2009;Varela & Shear, 1999, Zahavi, 2008. ...
... Third-person methods refer to the analysis of neurophysiological data from the measurement of large-scale sensorimotor processes in the brain using fMRI, EEG, MEG, and cognitive testing. Second-person perspectives , the empathic, intersubjective, interpersonal dimensions of conscious experience, are also investigated using phenomenological studies that borrow primarily from non-Western epistemology and the work in philosophy by Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (e.g., Varela & Shear, 1999;Petitmengin, 2009;Varela, Lachaux, Rodriguez, & Martinerie, 2001;Thompson, 2001a). ...
This book explores the meaning and import of neurophenomenology and the philosophy of enactive or embodied cognition for psychology. It introduces the psychologist to an experiential, non-reductive, holistic, theoretical, and practical framework that integrates the approaches of natural and human science to consciousness. In integrating phenomenology with cognitive science, neurophenomenology provides a bridge between the natural and human sciences that opens an interdisciplinary dialogue on the nature of awareness, the ontological primacy of experience, the perception of the observer, and the mind-brain relationship, which will shape the future of psychological theory, research, and practice. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York. All rights are reserved.
... Before adopting the term "microphenomenology", which refers to the fine-tuned granular level of description and the phenomenological philosophy dimension of the discipline, P. Vermersch had used the expression "psycho-phenomenology" (Vermersch 1996;Depraz, Varela, Vermersch 2003 in order to underline his adoption of Husserlian phenomenology as intentional and eidetic "phenomenological psychology", and to place his research in the framework of a reciprocal renewal of the relations between psychology and phenomenology. Thus Vermersch proposes a historical genealogy of the technique of the micro-phenomenological interview (Vermersch 1999;2009). Some psychologists like W. Wundt, O. Külpe and E. Titchener, who were Husserl's contemporaries, called "introspection" (Selbstbeobachtung) the internal movement of contact with one's lived experience. ...
This contribution seeks to place itself in the lineage of the Husserlian transcendental gesture, which operates the epoche of pre-given positive contents, and reveal, from this self-aware attitude, the subjectivation inherent in objectivation. Indeed the recent discipline of microphenomenology proposes to implement an epoche of the unquestioned contents that are active not only in sciences now called cognitive but also (although specifically) unquestioned by the founding of phenomenology itself. It does this by re-questioning what is called subjectivity, i.e. by placing once more the subject at the core of the living experience of his singular hic et nunc real life, and then by proposing a rigorous and fine-tuned description of this subject's specific lived experiences. One therefore has to make clear what microphenomenology is: what it borrows from Husserlian phenomenology, how it places itself within its filiation and establishes its difference, what exactly does the prefix "micro" mean. This will be the first step of the presentation. On this basis I will come back to some aspects of the complex situation of phenomenology as a science describing the structures of lived experience in its relationship to the various psychologies of introspection (esp. Titchener's and Külpe's), and particularly the emblematic example of attention, which is situated at their crossroads. This will enable us to testify, in the act, to the intimate bond between phenomenology and psychology. In a third stage, I will return to the project of microphenomenology, in relation with Varela's research program of the naturalization of phenomenology and also from my own proposal, which is to confer it with the status of a dimension-a transcendental one-of a possible overhaul of Husserlian phenomenology, and this through an epoche carried out on the subject herself.
... A recent book edited by neurophenomenologist Claire Petitmengin reviews six different approaches, including: 1) the explicitation interview; 2) meditation and mindfulness; 3) the technique of focusing and thinking at the edge; 4) descriptive experience sampling; 5) neuro-linguistic programming; and 6) empathy and deduction. 21 This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it demonstrates how the field of academic research employing lived experience as a source is burgeoning. ...
... Prvoosebne metode se navezujejo na fenomenološko živo izkustvo, kontemplativno raziskovanje pozornosti, zavesti tu in zdaj, telesne podobe, volje, zaznave, intencionalnosti, obrobja in središča ter čustev, povezanih s subjektivnimi duševnimi stanji. Tretjeosebne metode pa se ukvarjajo z analizo nevrofizioloških podatkov, pridobljenih z merjenjem senzornomotoričnih procesov v možganih s pomočjo fMRI, EEG, MEG in kognitivnega testiranja (Varela in Shear, 1999;Petitmengin, 2009;Varela, Lachaux, Rodriguez in Martinerie, 2001;Blom in Sommer, 2012). ...
Ta pregledni članek se osredotoča na razpravo, ki se vedno znova pojavlja že od antike: Je slišanje glasov (medicinsko »slušna besedna halucinacija (SBH)«) simptom duševne motnje ali dragocen vir? Je ustrezen odgovor družbenega okolja na slišalce glasov utišanje glasov z zdravili ali sprejemanje in njihova uporaba za okrevanje? V članku se tej razpravi pridružujem z vidika kibernetske oziroma konstruktivistične epistemologije, kot jo je definiral Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). Po kratkem povzetku zgodovine slišanja glasov so opisane epistemološke težave z definicijo SBH. Potem ko s pomočjo nevroznanstvenih odkritij in epidemioloških podatkov utemeljim, da smo potencialni slišalci glasov prav vsi, nadaljujem z bolj podrobnim prikazom nevrofenomenološkega projekta, ki bi lahko povezal prvo-in tretjeosebno raziskovanje halucinacij. Dodatno ga pojasnim s prikazom možnosti za sobivanje objektivistično nomotetične, hermenevtično konstruktivistične in transformativne epistemologije. Zaključujem z utemeljitvijo, kako je to sožitje lahko koristno za raziskovanje halucinacij in bolj osveščeno odzivanje na slišalce glasov, pa tudi širše za razvoj znanosti in korekcijo patologij epistemologije, ki ogrožajo nas same, bližnje, družbo in celotno ekologijo našega planeta.
Ključne besede: slušna besedna halucinacija, slišanje glasov, epistemologija, kibernetika, konstruktivizem, nevrofenomenologija, hermenevtika, resničnost, duševno zdravje
... First-person methods refer to phenomenological lived experience, the contemplative study of attention, present-time consciousness, body image, volition, perception, intentionality, fringe, centre, and emotion associated with subjective mental states. Third-person methods refer to the analysis of neurophysiological data from the measurement of large-scale sensorimotor processes in the brain using fMRI, EEG, MEG, and cognitive testing (Varela & Shear, 1999;Petitmengin, 2009;Varela, Lachaux, Rodriguez & Martinerie, 2001;Blom & Sommer, 2012). ...
This review article focuses on the debate which is once again resurfacing in western culture : is hearing voices (»auditory verbal hallucinations« (AVH) in psychiatric vocabulary) a symptom of mental disorder or valuable resource? What is the appropriate reaction to voice hearers and their social context: endeavours to silence the voices with medication or acceptance and their utilization for recovery? The author is contributing to this debate from the viewpoint of cybernetic or constructivist epistemology as it was defined by Gregory Bateson (1904-1980). After a short summary of the history of voice hearing the epistemological problems with the definition of AVH are presented. With neuroscientific discoveries and epidemiological data it is shown that we are all potential voice hearers. Then the neurophenomenological project is presented in a more detailed way, which could connect first-and third-person research of AVHs. Additionally this is explained with the presentation of possibilities for the coexistence of objectivist nomothetic, hermeneutic constructivist and transformative epistemology. The article concludes with a consideration of not only how this coexistence could be helpful for a better quality of response to voice hearers, but also in a broader sense for the development of science and correction of pathologies of epistemology which are threatening ourselves, our close relatives, society and indeed the whole ecology of our planet.
... Yet, accessing one's experience is challenging because, according to Petitmengin, "usually, we have only a very partial awareness of the way we proceed. And when we have to describe these experiences, it is much easier for us to express what we know, what we have heard or read about them, than the way we have really lived them" [54] (similar to Polanyi's concerns of inability to immediately access tacit dimension [61]). Moreover, translating one's subjective experience into verbalized form and in precise detail that preserves the subtleties and particulars of the experience from post-hoc descriptions requires an ability of self-observation that is, in most of us, neglected [66]. ...
... Depraz et al. (2003) In recent decades, the field of cognitive science has witnessed the rise of interest in the research of lived experience. As many researchers now recognize, studying the mind cannot rely on neurobiological and behavioral data alone, but must also take into account the way in which researched mental phenomena are experienced from the first-person point of view (Varela 1996;Varela et al. 1991;Thompson 2007;Petitmengin 2009;Gallagher and Zahavi 2012). Systematic exploration of the structure and aspects of lived experience, which we here refer to as first-person research, has thus come to present an important part of contemporary cognitive science. ...
The present article discusses shared epistemological characteristics of two distinct areas of research: the field of first-person inquiry and the field of quantum mechanics. We outline certain philosophical challenges that arise in each of the two lines of inquiry, and point towards the central similarity of their observational situation: the impossibility of disregarding the interrelatedness of the observed phenomena with the act of observation. We argue that this observational feature delineates a specific category of research that we call the non-trivial domain. Unlike the trivial domain, non-trivial research cannot assume the view from nowhere on which the observed phenomena could be regarded as existing independently of the process of observation. Presenting first-person inquiry and quantum mechanics as two of its examples, we show that non-trivial research violates several fundamental observational presuppositions of the trivial domain, exemplified in the principles of classical physics. Drawing on Niels Bohr’s philosophy of quantum mechanics and the constructivist notion of enaction, we stress the constructive, participatory, and irreversible nature of observation in the non-trivial domain. We discuss the possibility of developing a non-representationalist epistemology of the non-trivial, and consider the implications of our discussion for research in the non-trivial domain, as well as for the general understanding of the scientific inquiry.
... Obviously, this is dependent on a well-designed protocol. In this study we used the following fourstep procedure based on Vermersch (1994, regarding the preanalysis), Petitmengin (2001Petitmengin ( , 2006Petitmengin ( , 2009, regarding time analysis and analysis proper), and especially Depraz et al. (2017, regarding the generative aspects of the analysis proper and the constructive analysis). ...
Play and playfulness have repeatedly been suggested to promote learning and performance, also in environments traditionally not connotated with play. However, finding empirical evidence for these claims has been aggravated by the lack of a definition of play and playfulness fitting to this description. This paper proposes to consider playfulness as an attitude, mode or mental stance, that can be modulated independent of the activity pursued and of the general character of the person. It furthermore introduces the micro-phenomenological method to assess the process and outcome of such modulation. To explore this, we devised a simple building task in a controlled within-subject design, interviewing each participant on how they accomplished the task when asked to perform it so that it either felt playful or not playful. The outcomes of this data driven approach supported this notion of playfulness as a stance, and allowed for specific hypotheses about the temporal course and mechanisms of becoming playful. They suggest that an experience of autonomy and self-expression may be key to the success of the modulation. They furthermore indicate that the resulting playful state may allow for an exploratory engagement with materials that can lead to surprising results. Such unexpected results seem to enhance participants’ feeling of competence which, in turn, may increase the motivation for the task. We discuss these results within the framework of Deci and Ryan’s motivational theory and in relation to current research on gamification and learning.
... Nos debates atuais, muito esforço já foi despendido para alçar a experiência singular ao estatuto de dado científico relevante e objeto de conhecimento (Overgaard, Gallagher & Ramsøy, 2008;Petitmengin, 2009). Porém, resta ainda uma questão importante a ser considerada e que coloca a experiência no lugar da dinâmica de gênese do próprio dado, a saber: não seria a experiência também o plano de coemergência do mundo experimentado e daqueles que o experimentam? ...
Resumo Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa que objetivou comparar metodologias de pesquisa no campo de estudos da memória, no contexto da retomada do tema da consciência e da experiência na Psicologia cognitiva. Assumindo a perspectiva da teoria da enação de Francisco Varela, entendemos que a experiência não é representação de um mundo pré-dado e que sujeito e objeto são coemergentes. O projeto pretendeu comparar as metodologias quanto às suas possibilidades de acesso à experiência. Para tanto, buscamos comparar uma metodologia de terceira pessoa e uma de primeira pessoa no estudo do fenômeno denominado “falsa lembrança”. Utilizamos como metodologia de terceira pessoa um protocolo experimental baseado num experimento de desinformação formulado por Belli e, como metodologia de primeira pessoa, desenvolvemos uma técnica de entrevista inspirada na Entrevista de Explicitação de Pierre Vermersch, denominada entrevista cartográfica. Este artigo apresenta alguns dos resultados desse projeto, sobretudo no que diz respeito ao acesso à experiência de lembrar nas entrevistas. A metodologia de terceira pessoa mostra restrições no acesso à experiência mesma do lembrar, uma vez que ela não se refere diretamente à experiência, mas às variáveis de “tempo de reação” e “escore de acertos” a questões pré-definidas. Há, portanto, uma tendência judicativa em relação à experiência subjetiva. Já nas entrevistas, pudemos observar diferentes movimentos de maior ou menor acolhimento da coemergência. Definimos três categorias como indicadores desses movimentos: automatismo, controle egoico e autonomia coletiva, que são descritas no artigo.
... This is knowledge pertaining to a second degree of cybernetics. In other words, this is knowledge that I can change myself by observing myself, knowledge from within (Petitmengin, 2009;Varela, 2000b). This is knowledge that I have inherited from an alternate history. ...
In this paper, I further develop Rodolfo Kusch's concept of ‘negation’. I argue that it is an affirmative tool that enables us to sense and feel the other sides or domains of what we call reality and allows us to approach a plateau negated as a horizon of possibilities for conviviality and coexistence. Kusch's concept of negation brings forth an image of the emotions as being intimately interconnected to the values and ethos that form the basis of our behaviours. This paper also argues that Kush's concept of negation must be considered together with Kusch's development of ‘ estar ’ as a philosophical concept which underpins ‘ América profunda ’ ways of being in the world (or the multiverse). Finally, I propose that this ‘ estar ’ requires a ‘ corazonar ’ of our ways of bringing forth ourselves and our territories to life.
... Le but était de comprendre ce qu'était le raid, d'en identifier les risques, mais aussi de repérer les habitudes de fonctionnement, les manières de procéder, l'organisation, le fonctionnement des matériels et la technologie déployée à bord, en lien avec la prévention des risques. Dans un second temps, des entretiens d'explicitation (Vermersch, 2009) avec le concepteur répartis sur ces trois dernières années nous ont permis de revenir sur la conception d'origine du raid et sur son évolution. Il s'agissait de l'aider à mettre en mots son expérience en lien avec les intentions recherchées de l'époque, notamment en termes de conscience des risques et des actions préventives. ...
... Varela, Depraz and Vermersch call this practical phenomenology (Depraz et al. 2003), and similar work has been done by, e.g. Varela (1996), Varela and Shear (1999a), Shusterman (2008), Gendlin (1962), Stern (2004), Van Manen (1990, Ihde (2012), Petitmengin (2009), and others (see also Froese et al. 2011;Høffding and Martiny 2015). What connects all this work is a common concern with lived experience as it plays out in our daily lives, in relation to our capacities for understanding the world, our social and cultural practices, as well as our intersubjective and ethical engagements. ...
Underlying the recent focus on embodied and interactive aspects of social understanding are several intuitions about what roles the body, interaction processes, and interpersonal experience play. In this paper, we introduce a systematic, hands-on method for investigating the experience of interacting and its role in intersubjectivity. Special about this method is that it starts from the idea that researchers of social understanding are themselves one of the best tools for their own investigations. The method provides ways for researchers to calibrate and to trust themselves as sophisticated instruments to help generate novel insights into human interactive experience. We present the basics of the method, and two empirical studies. The first is a video-study on autism, which shows greater refinement in the way people with autism embody their social interactions than previously thought. The second is a study of thinking in live interactions, which provides insight into the common feeling that too much thinking can hamper interaction, and into how this kind of interactional awkwardness might be unblocked.
... These scales ask about general traits, habits and conditions, and not about the character of presently-lived feelings. although the situation is gradually changing (see Colombetti, in press, for more details), it is still fair to say that affective neuroscience has so far hardly been affected by the recent wave of renewed interest in first-and second-person methods for the study of consciousness (see, for example, varela & shear 1999;velmans 2000;Jack & roepstorff 2003;Petitmengin 2009;Price & Barrell 2012). at the moment, it wavers between recognition of the need to ask subjects how they feel (see the use of questionnaires mentioned above), and the fear of relying "too much" on their reports. ...
This chapter introduces the enactivist research program of “neurophenomenology”, and argues that it should be applied to the scientific study of emotion experience. Affective neuroscience so far has focused primarily on developing third-person methods for the generation of data about brain and bodily activity during emotion, but has paid relatively less attention to the possibility of developing first- and second-person methods for the generation of data about experience. Drawing on neurophenomenology, I argue that affective neuroscientists should also focus on developing first- and second-person methods, and on integrating them with already existing third-person methods. I argue further that such an integrated “affective neuro-physio-phenomenology” could help answer some longstanding questions in affective science. For example, it could help scientists understand whether emotions such as fear, anger, etc. come in different experiential varieties, which would in turn help interpret concomitant brain and bodily activity; and it could help investigate the bodily nature of emotion experience, including how experience relates to actual brain and bodily activity.
... it was founded by Pierre vermersch (1994) under the name: "elicitation interview" (entretien d'explicitation). it was carried on and developed further by Claire Petitmengin (2009Petitmengin ( , 2011). it was then further unfolded by vermersch with a new method of elicitation as "self-elicitation" (auto-explicitation), which for example emerged from 2006 onwards in the framework of a small research group around the "sens se faisant," where i myself first experienced the possibility of first-person self-explicitating, nevertheless having difficulties, on my side, with the form of the secondperson "elicitation interview." 4 What does the elicitation technique consist of? ...
In earlier joint work with Varela and Vermersch, we began the elaboration of a methodological and epis-temological framework for a practical experiential phenomenology.> Problem. I here wish to update and further develop that earlier work.> Method. I present the framework of a practical, as distinct from a conceptual-theoretical, phenomenology. I update that framework, arguing for a shift in emphasis from consciousness to vigilant attention. I offer a still preliminary investigation of the important phenomenon of surprise. I link these results with ongoing scientific research conducted by myself and others.> Results. Attention-as-vigilance is a key operator of experience. Attention has an antinomic dynamic with surprise.> implications. Attention and surprise are key participants in the generative process of the experience of novelty. Elaboration of this thesis enables the further development of practical, first-person methodologies.> constructivist content. This paper outlines certain key features of first-person, lived experience, and elaborates a method for linking these results directly to ongoing scientific research.
... As contribuições de Antônio Damasio (2000), Gilbert Simondon (2008) e Francisco Varela (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 2003) estabelecem a base da discussão sobre o conceito de imagem mental, sublinhando sua dimensão processual e inventiva. No contexto das investigações que utilizam metodologias de primeira pessoa (Petitmengin, 2009), entrevistamos quatro pessoas adultas (três mulheres e um homem) com idades entre 44 e 60 anos. Duas eram cegas congênitas (P1 e P2), uma ficou cega com um ano (P3) e uma aos dois anos de idade (P4). ...
This paper aims to identify some of the characteristics and the structural dynamics of mental images of early blind persons, and to analyse the components of non-visual imaging in image-memories and dreams. Contributions by Antonio Damasio, Gilbert Simondon and Francisco Varela establish the base of the discussion on the concept of mental image, highlighting its processing and inventive dimensions. Using first-person methodology, four early blind adults were interviewed. The technique of explicitation interview was used for the description of pre-reflective experiences. The article analyses excerpts of the interviews that reveal the presence of multi-sensorial imaging, the importance of the tactile platform and the presence of distal tactile images-both in dreams and memories-that are described as close to the experience of vision. The article highlights the hybridity visuo-tactile of distal tactile images as well as the presence of elements of the language of the seers.
... According to Vermersch (2009 ), elicitation interviews could be called retrospective introspection. The interviewer uses a non-inductive guidance of the experience formulation by trying to evoke past experiences by fragmenting time and actions in questioning. ...
... These scales ask about general traits, habits and conditions, and not about the character of presently-lived feelings. although the situation is gradually changing (see Colombetti, in press, for more details), it is still fair to say that affective neuroscience has so far hardly been affected by the recent wave of renewed interest in first-and second-person methods for the study of consciousness (see, for example,varela & shear 1999;velmans 2000;Jack & roepstorff 2003;Petitmengin 2009;Price & Barrell 2012). at the moment, it wavers between recognition of the need to ask subjects how they feel (see the use of questionnaires mentioned above), and the fear of relying " too much " on their reports. ...
Context: Affective neuroscience has not developed first-person methods for the generation of first-person data. This neglect is problematic, because emotion experience is a central dimension of affectivity. > Problem: I propose that augmenting affective neuroscience with a neurophenomenological method can help address long-standing questions in emotion theory, such as: Do different emotions come with unique, distinctive patterns of brain and bodily activity? How do emotion experience, bodily feelings and brain and bodily activity relate to one another? > Method: This paper is theoretical. It advances ideas for integrating neurophenomenology and affective neuroscience, and explains how this integration would allow progress on the above questions. > Results: An integrated "affective neuro-physio-phenomenology" may help scientists understand whether discrete emotion categories come in different experiential varieties, which would in turn help interpret concomitant brain and bodily activity. It may also help investigate the bodily nature of emotion experience, including how experience relates to actual brain and bodily activity. > Implications: If put into practice, the ideas advanced here would enrich the scientific study of emotion experience and more generally further our understanding of the relationship of consciousness and physical activity. The paper is speculative and its ideas need to be implemented to bear fruit. > constructivist content: This paper argues in favor of the neurophenomenological method, which is an offshoot of enactivism. >.
... If you try to reduce or eliminate one in favour of the other you leave something out." [16] Regrettably, the spectacular advances of neurological technologies left far behind the study of the consciousness" lived experience, and hence the belief in the possibility of a disciplined approach to the investigation of conscious experience at personal level, by means of introspection, phenomenology, and meditative psychology [17,18]. In the absence of such rigorous scientific approach any judgment on the development of computers that are "aware" and superhumanly intelligent is a guessing claim. ...
One of the most underestimated aspects of human intelligence is its creative component. The complexity of cognitive system reaches a point where the trial and error conduct is unsatisfactory. The human level of intelligence achieved a superior level of (self-)awareness. The self-reflective loop produced by decision-makings converts to self-reflexivity as soon as two conditions are met: certain level of self-awareness and one’s recognition in ‘the other’. The achieved self-reflexive stance and act upgrade the process of knowledge from the order of discovery and arbitrary invention to the order of creation and self-creation. The self-created identity and self-supporting knowledge are the minimal conditions for the emergence of the spiritual transcendence sense and the self-creative character of this spiritual understanding requires creativity as prerequisite. Herein lays one of the most essential queries for artificial intelligence design with the consequent essential questions: The self-creation spiral of future collective consciousness includes artificial intelligence as a means or as fundamental element? Artificial intelligence is part of spiritual evolution in Universe or just its co-generic companion? This article shows that the answer lays in the very meaning of Spirituality.
... (a) Phenomenology as a methodological tool: the phenomenological approach, as a method that focuses on the bodily level of experience, enables us to penetrate the traumatic experience precisely because this experience is stored as sensory fragments without a coherent semantic component and hence remains "without semantic representations" (van der Kolk & Fisler, 1995, p. 8). Bearing this in mind, it is clear why the phenomenological method, which is characterized by its ability to reach into the depths of the bodily experience (Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003;Petitmengin, 2006;Petitmengin, 2009;Varela & Shear, 1999), can improve our understanding of the traumatic experience in general and dissociation during trauma in particular. ...
... By contrast, in the case of experienced meditators such as those in this study, little effort of this sort is necessary. In fact, the methodology that attempts to reveal pre-reflective bodily level experience has been adopted from the world of mindfulness meditation (Depraz et al., 2003; Petitmengin, 2009; Varela & Shear, 1999), so there is no need to guide the meditators on how to introspect on their bodily level of experience—they do this naturally and intuitively. No less importantly, it seems that meditators are able to accurately describe this bodily level of experience. ...
This paper examines the experience of where we end and the rest of the world begins, that is, the sense of boundaries. Since meditators are recognized for their ability to introspect about the bodily level of experience, and in particular about their sense of boundaries, 27 senior meditators (those with more than 10,000 hours of experience) were interviewed for this study. The main conclusions of this paper are that (a) the boundaries of the so-called "physical-body" (body-as-object) are not equivalent to the individual's sense of boundaries; (b) the sense of boundaries depends upon sensory activity; (c) the sense of boundaries should be defined according to its level of flexibility; (d) the sense of body ownership (the sense that it is one's own body that undergoes an experience) cannot be reduced to the sense of boundaries; nevertheless, (e) the sense of ownership depends on the level of flexibility of the sense of boundaries.
... This can have practical clinical consequences, for example in talking cures such as cognitive-‐behavioral therapy and the mindfulness practices that are currently used efficaciously in the treatment of depression, anxiety and many other
areas
of
clinical
practice. Handled
appropriately,
they
can
also
contribute to a form of " neurophenomenology " , or of an " experiential neuroscience " in which first-‐ and third-‐person data are treated as complementary and mutually irreducible (see e.g. Petitmengin, 2009, Price & Barrell, 2012). In
sum,
Dehaene's
analysis
pulls,
uncomfortably,
in
two
opposing
directions. ...
This online version of my review of Stanislas Dehaene’s (2014) book on Consciousness and the Brain adds a descriptive title, but is otherwise as it appears in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. In it, I conclude that the book offers an excellent introduction to the neuropsychology of consciousness that focuses largely on developments that have taken place over the last 15 years or so. The book ranges widely, starting with an account of how the processes that support consciousness in the brain have become increasingly open to experimental study, giving a fresh analysis of the extent of preconscious/unconscious processing, moving on to suggest what consciousness is good for when it appears, how to detect its presence by use of third-person observable neurophysiological signatures, incorporating these signatures into a version of the currently popular “global workspace model” of consciousness—and finally, suggesting some clinical application of the emerging research and some speculations about new frontiers, for example how the emerging science might be applied to the assessment of consciousness in babies and non-human animals. Dehaene also does not shy away from fundamental philosophical questions, adopting an unashamedly materialist-reductionist view of the nature of consciousness and mind, which, he believes, follows naturally from the advances in research that he surveys. In my review I accordingly address the book’s three central themes: (a) the advances in neuropsychological understanding of the conditions for consciousness in the human brain, (b) whether the emerging research leads naturally to a materialist-reductionist view of the nature of consciousness and mind, and (c) the scope and possible limits of the global workspace model of consciousness. Overall, I applaud the science that the book describes, but unravel the problems associated with Dehaene’s materialist reductionism.
... According to Vermersch (2009 ), elicitation interviews could be called retrospective introspection. The interviewer uses a non-inductive guidance of the experience formulation by trying to evoke past experiences by fragmenting time and actions in questioning. ...
-This study described elite football (soccer) goalkeepers' activity and performance in critical game situations. The 11 best French players (M age = 15.5 yr., SD = 0.5) participated in the study. Interviews focused on goalkeepers' experiences were conducted to identify meaningful events involved in failed actions. Players formulated 23 critical game situations. Verbatim encoding using a thematic analysis indicated that four main categories (coming off the line, goal-line clearance, one-on-one, and diving) represented the most critical situations encountered during matches. The relations among experience and action, inner states, background, attention contents, and intentions were elucidated. The discussion is grounded on the properties of such critical game situations and their implications for improving goalkeepers' performance.
... No entanto, recentemente, as ciências cognitivas, que habitualmente baseiam suas pesquisas em métodos experimentais de terceira pessoa, têm buscado incluir métodos de primeira pessoa para estudar a experiência , 2006Jack & Roepstorff, 2003Petitmengin, 2006aPetitmengin, , 2006bPetitmengin, , 2007Petitmengin, , 2009; Thompson, Lutz, & Cosmelli, 2005;Varela, 1996;Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 2003;Vermersch, 1994Vermersch, , 2004. A crescente utilização de metodologias de primeira pessoa tem colocado o problema de como acionar e mobilizar uma atenção a si, acessando aquilo que se apresenta como experiência. ...
Resumo A atenção é habitualmente investigada como um processo voltado para o mundo exterior. Nos últimos vinte anos tem aumentado nas ciências cognitivas o interesse por metodologias de primeira pessoa para investigar a experiência. A crescente utilização de tais metodologias tem colocado o problema de como acionar e mobilizar uma atenção a si, acessando aquilo que se apresenta como experiência. A partir da abordagem enativa de Francisco Varela, o objetivo do artigo é discutir como a mobilização da atenção a si depende da maneira como ela é corporificada num contexto e situação concreta. Através da abordagem da enação, ampliamos a noção de atenção e concluímos que a atenção a si não se resume a um processo de auto-observação, mas pode constituir um processo de autoprodução. Palavras-chave: cognição; atenção a si; metodologias de primeira pessoa. Abstract Inward attention: from Self-observation to Self-production. Attention is usually investigated as a process toward the outside world. In the last twenty years has increased in the cognitive sciences interest for first-person methodologies to investigate the experience. The increasing use of such methodologies has placed the problem of how to activate and mobilize inward attention, by accessing what is presented as experience. From the enactive approach of Francisco Varela, the article aims to discuss how the deployment of inward attention depends on how it is embodied in a context and situation. With the enactive approach, we broaden the notion of attention and conclude that attention turned inward is not just a process of self-observation, but may be a process of self-production.
... What is the effect of extensive meditation training on hypnotic response? We compared scores of twelve expert meditators on the Waterloo Stanford Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (WGSC; Bowers, 1998) with scores of over 500 screened participants in the University of Sussex database; our preliminary findings show that meditators, passing on average 3/12 suggestions, were less susceptible than the average of all subjects in the database combined (average 5.5 * Accurate higher order thoughts depend as much on having a good theory of mental states as on cultivating the process of noticing mental states -just as accurate observation of the world depends crucially on good theory (consider telescopes) (cf Hurlburt andSchwitzgebel, 2007, andPetitmengin, 2009, for a discussion of the capabilities and limits of introspection). In Bayesian terms, accurate beliefs about one's mental states are improved by having good priors. ...
Meditation and hypnosis might be regarded as involving similar processes and skills. For example, both meditation and hypnosis are associated with high levels of absorption and imaginative capac-ity, and both can be used for self-regulation. Research has also shown that meditation improves attentional functioning, and that hypnotic response can involve attentional strategies. However, we argue that hypnosis and mindfulness meditation are essentially different. Crucially, hypnotic experience results from a lack of awareness of mental states (specifically, of intentions); by contrast, mindfulness meditation aims to develop accurate meta-awareness. Hypnosis is a form of self de-ception; meditation a way of getting to know your mind. We discuss the empirical relation of both meditation and hypnosis to higher order awareness of mental states, and suggest further research.
... No entanto, recentemente, as ciências cognitivas, que habitualmente baseiam suas pesquisas em métodos experimentais de terceira pessoa, têm buscado incluir métodos de primeira pessoa para estudar a experiência , 2006Jack & Roepstorff, 2003Petitmengin, 2006aPetitmengin, , 2006bPetitmengin, , 2007Petitmengin, , 2009; Thompson, Lutz, & Cosmelli, 2005;Varela, 1996;Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 2003;Vermersch, 1994Vermersch, , 2004. A crescente utilização de metodologias de primeira pessoa tem colocado o problema de como acionar e mobilizar uma atenção a si, acessando aquilo que se apresenta como experiência. ...
Attention is usually investigated as a process toward the outside world. In the last twenty years has increased in the cognitive sciences interest for first person methodologies to investigate the experience. The increasing use of such methodologies has placed the problem of how to activate and mobilize inward attention, by accessing what is presented as experience. From the enactive approach of Francisco Varela, the article aims to discuss how the deployment of inward attention depends on how it is embodied in a context and situation. With the enactive approach, we broaden the notion of attention and conclude that attention turned inward is not just a process of self-observation, but may be a process of self-production.
... It is hoped that this essay can be part of a larger effort to investigate these and additional topics from a combined introspectionist and neuroscientific point of view. As called for elsewhere (Petitmengin, 2009;Wallace, 2007a,b) this line of investigation could be part of a reinstatement of introspection as a proper part of psychological and neuroscientific methodology. ...
Buddhist philosophy asserts that human suffering is caused by ignorance regarding the true nature of reality. According to this, perceptions and thoughts are largely fabrications of our own minds, based on conditioned tendencies which often involve problematic fears, aversions, compulsions, etc. In Buddhist psychology, these tendencies reside in a portion of mind known as Store consciousness. Here, I suggest a correspondence between this Buddhist Store consciousness and the neuroscientific idea of stored (Hebbian) synaptic weights. These weights are strong synaptic connections built in through experience. Buddhist philosophy claims that humans can find relief from suffering through a process in which the Store consciousness is transformed. Here, I argue that this Buddhist ‘transformation at the base’ corresponds to a loosening of the learned synaptic connections. I will argue that Buddhist meditation practices create conditions in the brain which are optimal for diminishing the strength of our conditioned perceptual and behavioral tendencies.
Chapter 3 focuses on hypotheses regarding how consciousness and subjectivity relate to the brain and body, the relationship between objective knowledge and subjective experience, the phenomenology of consciousness, philosophy of mind, neurophenomenological approaches to cognition, psychodynamic neuroscience, and the role of the brain as mediator and transformer. Combining Western Anglo-American thought, Continental phenomenology, cognitive science, and Eastern contemplative philosophy, neurophenomenology offers a bridge that neither reduces the mind to the physiology of the brain, nor the living organism to cause and effect relationships. It provides a potential answer to the problem of qualia and methodological reductionism in which cognition, as embodied action, is a relational domain enacted by the person’s autonomous agency and autopoietic mode of coupling with their environment. It is argued that the kinesthetic, sensorimotor, perceptual, non-conceptual, lived world is tacit, pre-reflective, affective, and intersubjective—an enactive exploration of the coextensivity of the lived body and physical body.
Musical Sense-Making: Enaction, Experience, and Computation broadens the scope of musical sense-making from a disembodied cognitivist approach to an experiential approach. Revolving around the definition of music as a temporal and sounding art, it argues for an interactional and experiential approach that brings together the richness of sensory experience and principles of cognitive economy. Starting from the major distinction between in-time and outside-of-time processing of the sounds, this volume provides a conceptual and operational framework for dealing with sounds in a real-time listening situation , relying heavily on the theoretical groundings of ecology, cybernetics, and systems theory, and stressing the role of epistemic interactions with the sounds. These interactions are considered from different perspectives, bringing together insights from previous theoretical groundings and more recent empirical research. The author's findings are framed within the context of the broader field of enactive and embodied cognition, recent action and perception studies, and the emerging field of neurophenomenology and dynamical systems theory. This volume will particularly appeal to scholars and researchers interested in the intersection between music, philosophy, and/or psychology.
In this article we seek to explain how safety mechanisms and risks evolve over time. The article focuses on a sociotechnical system, that of a polar traverse (a transport operation in a polar environment). In the study spanning a period of 27 years data were collected with ethnographic participative observations on three traverses. Activities were traced using 1398 daily reports and scale models of the convoy vehicles were used to reconstruct events during the traverses. Self-confrontation interviews were also conducted. A traverse feedback process was carried out which revealed that (1) whereas proactive safety is aimed at maintaining the continuous improvement of a system, reactive safety makes it possible to maintain the system's level of safety; (2) the development of redundancy and mixed technology contribute positively to the safety system. Improvements made to the safety system, its dynamics, and embodied resilience are discussed as well as the study limitations and implications.
Practitioner summary: This article seeks to understand how safety has been ensured in logistical transport in extreme conditions in a case study extending over a period of more than 27 years. The study investigates how risks and safety mechanisms have evolved and the benefits of developing a traverse feedback process to improve safety.
In this very moment, our attention is being captured, tracked and traded as a commodity in the commercial market. As a global community, we are facing one of the most serious cultural crises of our time yet we are too distracted to be aware of it and for that simple reason we are ill-prepared to deal with its consequences. This is the challenging landscape of the Attention Economy where managers are expected to make responsible, ethical decisions every day and where organisations are fighting a battle to maintain focus on what matters. This reality is the backdrop of this study and the environment in which I explore what a deliberate practice of attention means for the development of self and others in the workplace.
I present a case for why a conscious engagement with attention is essential for management learning and how the development of a deliberate practice plays an important role for human self-transformation and connection to purpose. It starts with a review of historic and contemporary academic literature on different aspects of attention and proceeds to present the findings of an eighteen-month longitudinal study comprising the stories of ten managers as they explore their emerging practice of attention in the context of everyday life. A five-year record of autoethnographic accounts weaves through the research and reveals that not only is a regular, rigorous self-examination a necessary condition for maintaining a deliberate practice of attention – the deliberate practice of attention is a necessary condition for being on a path to self-knowledge. In exploring the epistemic significance of attention, this study reconstructs the bridge between attention and ethics – a connection that, in light of our current situation, is far too rarely made explicit.
This study is, itself, an exercise in attention practice. Through the reflexive engagement with the literature, the lived experience of the participants and the autoethnographic accounts, the reader is invited to experience the phenomenology of being on a path to self-knowledge by attending to attention in a deliberate manner. This research is a contribution to management learning and a call for a new ethics of attention in which managers develop ways of choosing and discerning to what and to whom they attend as they go about their daily lives in the workplace.
Projects designed to respond to complex and wicked problems, such as sustainability and international development, may be significantly supported by a developmental evaluation approach that supports practitioners to optimise their experiential learning to innovate under complex conditions. However, as Mitchell argues, while developmental evaluation supports learning under complexity, it has yet to articulate an epistemological framework which accounts for how learning occurs under dynamic and uncertain circumstances. To address this, Mitchell draws on enactive cognitive science concepts to understand how we participate in constructing our own experience, and uses these insights to interact orthogonally with project practitioners to facilitate projects in becoming second-order learning systems, to learn both how to learn and the conditions under which such learning holds as relevant and valid.
Due to the relevance of subjective reports in cognitive neuroscience, it is presently needed to acknowledge the kind of data that can be subjectively observed and reported. One stance of these data is found in first and second person methodologies, developed in Neurophenomenology since the nineties. The history of these developments, sometimes ignored or denied, may clarify their relevance to cognitive science. The roots of these methodologies are found in cognitive biology, husserlian phenomenology, cognitive psychology and Eastern Buddhist and Vedic meditation techniques, but later included a wide range of related fields such as psychotherapies and different approaches to methods for "becoming aware". Research in all those areas allowed finding common patterns among the different fields as a result of exemplary interdisciplinary cooperation.
For most phenomenological philosophers such a question will appear pointless in virtue of its obviousness. What would be a phenomenological approach that would not be a first-person one? Phenomenology is in the first person or is not at all. Tautological proposition, taken-for-granted question: the answer is in the question, which is rhetorical. And what? Are we actually there? The obvious argumentation of the philosopher is the following: as soon as the transcendental I is mentioned, we have to do with a first person proper. Since Husserl’s phenomenology is exemplarily the science of a unique object, the subject, understood as the functional core of emergent lived experiences (which are to be experienced and described), phenomenology is ipso facto a first-person investigation.
Attention is an acknowledged component of the therapeutic relationship that forms the heart of clinical work. Yet it is rarely studied. This study explored the structure of clinical attention with a focus on internal processes occurring within the clinician, not on actions or interventions taken in sessions. Fourteen experienced clinicians participated in an elicitation interview. Data analysis followed a modified phenomenological methodology. The structure of clinical attention was discovered to consist of a dynamic and iterative process of intention and intuition based in distinct, recursive and iteratively related attentional levels. Attention is a process grounded in inner psycho-physiological awareness providing clinicians with abilities to reflect on practice and regulate affective experience.
How the phenomenology of empathy in Husserl and beyond and the second-person approach of cognition are able to mutually enrich and constrain each other? Whereas the intersubjective empathy is limited to face-to-face inter-individual relational experiences or, when socially embedded, results a non-individualized understanding of others in general, the second person approach of cognition opens the way for a plural relational yet individualized understanding of the other. I would like to show in this paper how the integration of both phenomenological and cognitive fields paves the way for the more encompassing description of intersubjective experience as a “relational multiplicity,” which I will ultimately describe through the empirical practice of an emergency psychiatric unit.
Every performing art has its caesura a resting pause a potent stillness in the rhythmic flow of action. For western contemporary dance, stillness is a powerful aesthetic tool. Far less understood are the physiological and behavioural benefits of rest. While rest intervals routinely
are prescribed in sports science to promote physiological recovery and improve performance, such protocols are unknown in dance. Somatic approaches (somatics) purposely embed intervals of stillness and rest for active listening and reflection. This kind of intentional reduction in action alters
typical space-time-effort values of a dance technique class, shifting attention to an array of kinaesthetic qualities, thoughts and feelings. While dance customarily relegates somatics to a wellness role, the larger behavioural implications of intentional rest within dance pedagogy merit further
investigation. Although the purposes are not fully clarified, intentional rest potentially allows a deeper level of embodied knowledge to surface and be directed towards self-regulation and change. This article addresses the somatic function of intentional rest within the context of dance
training. The author provides an overview of the scientific evidence substantiating rest. Further, the author opens an inquiry into the behavioural values of intentional rest as gleaned from written reflections of Master's degree dance students in a seminar on somatics. These narratives appear
to advance not only with those benefits advocated by sports science, but also psychophysical embodiment and personal autonomy, values essential to becoming a dance artist.
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