Consciousness and Mind - Essay Example

Consciousness and Mind Phenomenology Introduction When Descartes argues, "I think, therefore I am" (Hatfield, ), he lays significant emphasis on the faculty of reasons to decide and conclude on the issues that bother mankind. When Descartes or for that matter other philosophers were characterizing states of thought, perception and imagination, they were essentially practicing phenomenology. While reasoning became a key discipline of philosophy to understand the consciousness, phenomenology, as a first-person perspective, surfaced as an important aspect of philosophy of mind. Phenomenology "as the study of structures of experience, or consciousness" (Phenomenology, 2013) began to be widely recognized during the early part of 20th century through the works of Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger and others. The importance of phenomenology, in the current times, in the annals of consciousness is now well-established. The paper would explore why phenomenology is important in terms of the study of arts, literature and women. Phenomenology in Arts Every human being experiences numerous experiences that include thought, emotion, desire, imagination, perception. Phenomenology as a faculty encompasses a wide range of experiences that could be either passive such as hearing or active such as knocking or jumping. Humans live with these experiences and perform them too. Arts such as music, dance, acting, painting not only form a part of phenomenological experience in artist’s life but also they are deeply connected to each other. Husserl asserts that the phenomenologist and the artist both put efforts to study the world and in that process, both of them "experience the world as phenomena" (Meraud, 2010 p25). Husserl brings forth the term aesthetic consciousness, phantasy meaning a kind of mental ability to freely imagine. His commentary on the subject clearly sets artists apart as is evident from the following. “The experiences in which the artist sees his phantasy formations, or more precisely, that peculiar internal seeing itself or bringing to intuition of centaurs, heroic characters, landscapes, and so on, which we contrast to external seeing, to the external seeing that belongs to perception” (Meraud, 27). Husserl is of the opinion that phantasy is quite fairly evolved in the artist. While Husserl asserts “aesthetic consciousness” in artists, Noe (2000) argues, "Art can make a needed contribution to the study of perceptual consciousness" (123). He means that artwork of artists can provide us the opportunity to gain a reflective experience. That is how one can do phenomenological investigation. To put forth his point forward, Noe (2000) illustrates cases of Smith and Serra. Both create metal sculptures appropriate for outdoor installation. While Smiths works are created based on mathematical or geometrical ratios; Serras works are purely experiential. Smith’s creation attempts to combine certain shapes such as terahedrons so as to fill out space. They are demonstrative pieces to show that space can be filled. In contrast, Serras pieces depend upon their scale, their milieu and their complexity. Smiths pieces can be viewed as universal. Smith is more concerned with geometry, form and internal relationships while Serras sculpture invokes consciousness (Noe, 2000). He categorically emphasizes that works of some artists do qualify for phenomenological study meaning "Experiential art enables us to do this” (Noe, 2000 p134). Feminist Phenomenology – the Study of Women Like art, feminist phenomenology got its importance with the work of Andrea Dworkin, Iris Marion Young and Sandra Bartky during 1970s. Andrea Dworkins assertion in 1970s, "In our culture not one part of a womens body is left untouched, unaltered …From head to toe, every feature of a womans face, every section of her body, is subject to modification” (Feminist Perspectives on the Body, 2014) was enough to ascertain that feminist phenomenology was getting firmly established in the days to come. Feminists such as Wollstonecraft and Harriet Taylor Mill in the 18th and 19th century respectively would regard their bodies with suspicion. They presumed their bodies as commodities to engage in matrimony so as to live cozy material life. Women’s focused sole attention remained with their body in preserving their beauty because womens body perceived to be the property of another. Due to such ideas, women continued to live with an implicit dualism. Radical feminism took center stage after World War II and along with feminist phenomenology began surfacing. Iris Marion Youngs several essays such as "Breasted Experience", "Pregnant Embodiment" and "Menstrual Meditations" readily provided platform for feminist phenomenological experience. She emphasized that everyday ordinary experiences of embodiment helped establish womens identity as women. Simone De Beauvoir through her publication The Second Sex in 1949 exemplified the relation between the body and the self. She became the basis for sex/gender dichotomy. According to her "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" (Feminist Perspectives on the Body, 2014). Subsequently, Beauvoir provided a complete account of the body as lived in the changing stages of a womans life. For example, in childhood young girls body is given a different treatment than what is made available to the young boy. While boy climbs trees, girls are forbidden and made to live with as a doll – just a passive object with the aim to learn how to please others. At this instance, women were made to live as if they are showpiece to please others. Later on, Bartky and Marion Youngs work derived huge inspiration from Beauvoirs account depicting Phenomenology of female embodiment. Phenomenological Experiences in Literature While one can see art and feminism as two forms of phenomenological experiences, literature of 20th century is abound with this important faculty of philosophy. The novel Nausea published in 1936, Sartre narrates unusual kind of experience of transforming into a pure being or consciousness near a chestnut tree. In another work, Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre captures imagination of presenting phenomenological experiences vividly. For Sartre, self or ‘I’ propounds an array of acts of consciousness that are full of free choices to act upon. Sartres great literally skills leads him to depict interpretive description of varied kinds of experiences in a given situation. Merleau-Ponty, in Phenomenology of Perception, delves into experimental psychology when he reports experience of amputees feeling sensation in a ghost limb. Undoubtedly, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty took an expansive perspective of phenomenal consciousness meaning every kind of conscious experience can lead to its own distinct phenomenology. Husserl described in detail about the “lived body”, in Ideas II while Merleau-Ponty provided a rich account of embodied perception in his classic Phenomenology of Perception. Conclusion Thus, phenomenology aims at studying a variety of experiences such as thought, memory, perception, emotion, imagination, desire, bodily awareness, embodied action and much more. It is not that phenomenological experiences are known through only arts, literature or feminism; it goes much beyond. In a way, phenomenology can provide a wide account of awareness such as self-awareness, awareness of ones own experience, spatial awareness ( in perception), embodied action or kinesthetic awareness, empathy (awareness of other persons), social interaction including everyday activity in response to environmental stimuli. If I were to write a longer paper on the topic of phenomenology, I would add some new forms of phenomenological experiences such as near-death experiences. That will provide a vivid account of real life experiences as experienced in different cultures across the globe. Near-death experiences may lead to unusual visual phenomena such as lights or darkening, somatic sensations such as analgesia, warmth, unusual auditory phenomena (bizarre sounds, noises), olfactory phenomena, or unusual gustatory phenomena. Time sense is also another aspect that can be studied or experienced while coming across risky situation. Another subject that I would be interested in to write that how schizophrenic patient is subjected to phenomenological experience as far as his or her consciousness is concerned. References Hatfield, G. (2011). "René Descartes". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 14, 2014 from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2011/entries/descartes/ Noe, A. (2000). Experience and Experiment in Art. Journal of Consciousness Studies. 7(8). 123-35. [Also available at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~noe/art.pdf] Meraud, T. (2010). More than meets the eye: connections between phenomenology and art. Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics, 7(3). 25-35. Phenomenology (2013). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 14, 2014 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/#4 Feminist Perspectives on the Body (2014). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 14, 2014 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-body/#RetPhe Read More