Micro-phenomenology is an interview and analysis method for investigating subjective experience. As a research tool, it provides detailed descriptions of brief moments of any type of subjective experience and offers techniques for systematically comparing them. In this article, we use an auto-ethnographic approach to present and explore the method. The reader is invited to observe a dialogue...
Abstract The experiences described in the Voices in Psychosis transcripts are incredibly varied and yet frequently explicitly labelled by participants as ‘voices’. How can we make sense of this? If we reflect carefully on uses of the word ‘voice’, we see that it can express at least two entirely different concepts, which pick out categorically different phenomena. One concept picks out a speech...
Abstract In this paper the relationship between phenomenology of perception and synthetic phenomenology is discussed. Synthetic phenomenology is presented on the basis of the issues in A.I. and Robotics that required to address the question of what enables artificial agents to have phenomenal access to the environment. Phenomenology of perception is construed as a theory with autonomous...
Hofstadter [ 1979 , 2007 ] offered a novel Gödelian proposal which purported to reconcile the apparently contradictory theses that (1) we can talk, in a non-trivial way, of mental causation being a real phenomenon and that (2) mental activity is ultimately grounded in low-level rule-governed neural processes. In this paper, we critically investigate Hofstadter’s analogical appeals to Gödel’s [...
Abstract Chapter 5 is concerned with the phenomenological dimensions of perceptual experience. Building on the idea that all awareness is constitutively representational, it infers that awareness is always governed by a Kantian appearance/reality distinction—there is the way that awareness represents entities as being, and the way that represented entities are in themselves. It follows that...
Voice-hearing in clinical and nonclinical groups has previously been compared using standardized assessments of psychotic experiences. Findings from several studies suggest that nonclinical voice-hearing is distinguished by reduced distress and increased control. However, symptom-rating scales developed for clinical populations may be limited in their ability to elucidate subtle aspects of...
The purpose of this paper is to holistically comprehend the concept of nen 念in the Zen philosophy of Dōgen (道元 1200–1253), which is one of the origins of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, in relation to his principal concepts. This article specifically investigates its usages in his masterpiece, Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵), according to each step of the threefold wisdom...
This article describes the history of modern metaphysics as the history of the immanentization of transcendence. We show this from the concept of the “idea of god”, which is the phenomenon that violently separates subjectivity from transcendence and opens up a tear in it that we call “psycho-theological”: the divine violently leaves a trace in us by its very distance. We describe this...
Phenomenology is the rigorous descriptive study of conscious experience. Recent attempts to formalize Husserlian phenomenology provide us with a mathematical model of perception as a function of prior knowledge and expectation. In this paper, we re-examine elements of Husserlian phenomenology through the lens of active inference. In doing so, we aim to advance the project of computational...
In trying to make sense of the extensive phenomenological variation of first-personal reports on auditory verbal hallucinations, the concept of pseudohallucination is originally introduced to designate any hallucinatory-like phenomena not exhibiting some of the paradigmatic features of "genuine" hallucinations. After its introduction, Karl Jaspers locates the notion of pseudohallucinations into...