Comments on the stream of consciousness, or the events under observation
Richard Davies
Routledge eBooks October 9, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9781351232319-9 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues, following Paolo Bozzi, that an adequate phenomenology of perception must extend beyond laboratory procedures that place subjects in artificial stress and pose yes/no questions. Bozzi's ethological reference supports gathering phenomenological data with the relevant facts present, since people asked questions without those facts in front of them give what he calls an "evasive and physicalistic answer." |
Abstract
One of the risks of a rhetorical question is that the hearer or reader will give an answer different from that presupposed by the posing of the question. And, in this case, one might wonder how Paolo Bozzi’s reference to ethology bolsters his case for thinking that an adequate phenomenology of perception must take account of much more than what can be ticketed by the standard procedures of holding laboratory subjects in unnatural positions of stress to answer artificial yes/no questions, and of drawing up diagrams on a blackboard. As regards Bozzi’s characteristic approach to gathering phenomenological data, perhaps a key point comes out when he says that “people who are asked the question without having the facts in front of them produce an evasive and physicalistic answer”.