Human Studies
January 1, 2021
Anya Daly
7 citations
Feminist socio-political critiques often rely on social constructionism, which holds that oppressive structures are real but contingent—meaning they could be different. Some philosophers argue that without a metaphysical grounding, such critiques lack substance. This paper contends that current debates on this issue rest on flawed assumptions rooted in monist or dualist ontologies and a view of subjects as purely rational agents. The author proposes enactivism, inspired by phenomenology, as an alternative: it advances an ontology of interdependence and sees subjects as organisms embedded in a meaningful world. Enactivism reconciles contingency with fundamentality by defining fundamentality through radical contingency, thereby legitimizing feminist critiques without reducing their substantive force.
Human Studies
December 2, 2024
Cătălina Condruz
1 citation
Mental illness is often seen as a dissolution of the ego, confronting the psychotic with frightening limits of perception, understanding, vulnerability, and intersubjectivity. This paper examines mental illness phenomenologically as both a limited and an unlimited experience of intersubjectivity. On one hand, it limits access to the Other; on the other, it opens a new world that can be transposed into artistic expression. Drawing on clinical studies by Marguerite Sechehaye and Rosemarie Samaritter, the author identifies three disturbed experiential layers in schizophrenia: the affective, the symbolic, and the kinesthetic, where spatial presence and body movements shape the sense of self. The paper then explores art and schizophrenia to consider how psychotics transcend experiential limits.
Human Studies
June 1, 2026
Marilyn Stendera
Synaesthesia, where sensory or cognitive stimuli trigger additional sensations, is difficult to explain and challenges embodied accounts of cognition. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's claim that "synaesthetic perception is the rule," this paper argues that synaesthesia and embodied sense-making illuminate each other because synaesthesia's strangeness reveals the complexity of normal sense-making. Unlike Heidegger's broken hammer, synaesthesia is not a failure of practical engagement but, like Cézanne's art, discloses and amplifies key dynamics of Being-in-the-world. Examining synaesthetic dynamics—especially the 'difference in union' of embodied sense-making—in motivation, temporality, and intersubjectivity enriches understanding of both general Being-in-the-world and the phenomenon called synaesthesia.
Human Studies
March 1, 2026
Bence Peter Marosan
Affections and emotions are central and foundational for organizing conscious mental life; consciousness cannot be concrete without emotions. Drawing on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and its followers, the article argues that the affective sphere serves as the organizing center of concrete life and consciousness. It then examines neurophysiological foundations, supporting subcortical theories of emotions and consciousness that extend the capacity for consciousness at least to all vertebrates.
Human Studies
January 1, 2022
Anya Daly
Starting from Merleau-Ponty's call to begin again in both philosophy and politics, this paper examines how his later ontological ideas—radical interdependence (the reversibility thesis and 'flesh') and radical contingency—carry political implications for humanism, democracy, and progress. The author argues that recognizing ontological interdependence and contingency can support a flourishing democracy, and that ontology is inherently political: getting ontology right is a matter of discovery, not choice. The paper traces Merleau-Ponty's shift from early political engagements with Nazism, Marxism, and humanism toward later ontological concerns, noting his distancing from Marxism after revelations of Stalin's gulags and the Korean War, while maintaining no rupture in his philosophical vision.