Heidegger Against Embodied Cognition

2023

The essence of human cognition lies in its situatedness and purposiveness, and it is toward this understanding that modern psychopathology and the philosophy of cognition turn to the phenomenological tradition. In view of a "positive turn" toward a common dialogue between phenomenology, psychopathology, and cognitive research, the question arises as to how the existential-phenomenological analysis of Human beings as Social being can most fruitfully engage in such a discourse. The philosophy of Martin Heidegger and his formulation of Dasein provides a much needed conceptual framework. The prominent role Heidegger played in the first movement of metaphysical and phenomenological criticism cannot be overlooked aswell. The question, then, is how best to promote a joint dialogue between phenomenology and cognitive science. We must acknowledge, however, that the possibility of such a confluence might be doubted or rejected by some. Heidegger's project poses its own challenges to reconciling naturalistic and phenomenological perspectives, but nevertheless, for the purposes of this seminar paper, I will start from the assumption that a fruitful and viable collaboration is indeed possible, and deserving of our attention. With this in mind, I will address the specifics of the cognitive model that might prove to be a suitable interlocutor for Heidegger's early phenomenology. I will argue here that we can identify in the enactivist tradition a particularly appropriate candidate for participation in a Heideggerian conversation. The history of phenomenological engagement with psychopathology, while extensive, focuses primarily on the works of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty; however, the potential of applying a Heideggerian perspective to this intersection of perspectives has been proposed, but not fully developed. A key challenge is how to approach this intersection of Heidegger and psychopathology - should one start with a Heideggerian psychopathology or with a psychopathological Heidegger? Starting with the presupposed, already-established idea of mental disorders and trying to describe them using Heidegger's terms is in line with the goals of the Zollikon Seminars, but may not be innovative enough. Instead, it may be more fruitful to begin with Heidegger's concept of Dasein, which describes human existence and thus cognition, and view mental disorders as phenomena, as something that is experienced. This approach involves starting with Heidegger's phenomenology, then "naturalizing" its conceptual framework to create a model of cognition based on phenomenological inquiry, and using this as a lens to examine mental disorders and what they can tell us. One important caution in applying Heidegger's concepts is to avoid using them in a framework that does not align with his phenomenology of everydayness and existential analysis of Dasein. An example of this is the description of the body as Zeug, tool-being, which can be either ready-to-hand or present-at-hand. While it is at first completely reasonable to conceptualize the body as something ready-to-hand, which becomes present-to-hand when it “breaks” or we become sick, the danger lies in inadvertently creating a dualistic understanding of the self and body. Heidegger's phenomenology, as in the "experience of the world" does not reveal any kind of duality; there are only givens for consciousness. Furthermore, it is impossible to have a disembodied perception of something because the very essence of external perception is that things are given in adumbrations that are revealed only through bodily interaction with them. Thus a conceptualization of body as ready-to-hand is in principle completely contradictory, and this is exactly the reason why we need a Heideggerian approach since we too commonly entrap ourselves unknowingly in such contradictions. To avoid such misuses of Heidegger's concepts, as well as to avoid positions that can not be based in phenomenology, it is crucial to ground our understanding of his ideas in his phenomenology of everydayness and existential analysis of Dasein. In this seminar paper I will show why I believe there are compelling reasons to explore this relationship and attempt to formulate a phenomenology of psychopathology in the context of Heideggerian enactivism. In this paper, I will focus primarily on the possibility of bringing together Valera's concept of embodied cognition with Heidegger's existential analysis of Dasein. To support my argument, I will make the main claim that the emphasis on the mutually reinforcing interdependence of actor and world inherent in enactive models of cognition makes them particularly suitable for a dialogue with Heidegger's account of intentionality. In highlighting these convergences, however, I intend to contribute to further research with the goal of a dissertation, rather than to provide a summary. The purpose of this term paper, then, is to contribute to a discussion that, once underway, can go much further. Consequently, my explanation is subject to a number of limitations: For one thing, writing about Heidegger in English is a challenge of its own; his emphasis on language and the precision of its usage play a significant role in his work. Heidegger believed that language “emerges from nature itself” and thus that the etymology of certain concepts and words is of great importance. This makes it difficult to translate certain key terms, such as the fundamental concept of Dasein, which can be translated as "here-being" or "there-being." However, "Dasein" is a common term in the German language, whereas "here-being" has absolutely no meaning. Another thing is that I must approach each of the perspectives I discuss interpretively rather than interrogatively in order to identify the connections I intend to make. My goal of making these intersections visible prevents me from thoroughly exploring the additional insights and, in particular, the tensions they may create. But, if the notion of a sustained Heideggerian theory of embodiment is a promising avenue for exploration, then I have accomplished what I set out to do here.

janushead.org, 2011

Current approaches in psychology have replaced the idea of a centralized, self-present identity with that of a diffuse system of contextually changing states distributed ecologically as psychologically embodied and socially embedded. However, the failure of contemporary perspectives to banish the lingering notion of a literal, if fleeting, status residing within the parts of a psycho-bio-social organization may result in the covering over of a rich, profoundly intricate process of change within the assumed frozen space of each part. In this paper I show how thinking from this more intimate process may transform current views of metaphor, the unconscious, and the relation between affect and cognition. [email protected]

Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, 2019

In this article, I respond to important questions raised by Gallagher and Jacobson (2012) in the field of cognitive science about face-to-face interactions in Heidegger's account of 'intersubjectivity' in Being and Time. They have criticized his account for a lack of attention to primary intersubjectivity, or immediate, face-to-face interactions; he favours, they argue, embodied interactions via objects. I argue that the same assumption underlies their argument as did earlier critiques of a lack of an account of the body in Heidegger (e.g. Sartre 1989; Krell 1992); namely that because the body is not explicitly discussed in Being and Time, embodiment, rather than stressing the immediacy of experience, is insufficiently acknowledged in his emphasis on 'being-in-the-world'. Through placing Gallagher and Jacobson's accounts of intersubjectivity and the body alongside Heidegger's accounts of Mitsein and Leib, this article shows Heidegger's radical position on the body as immersed in a holistic environment, and its reverberations on his account of intersubjectivity. I argue that Dasein's embodied engagement in the world is always one of immediacy and that the body of the other is perceived as 'tied into' its context, as well. In so doing, I offer an Heideggerian account of ecstatic involvement which moves away from the distinction between primary and secondary intersubjectivity toward an immediate engagement with objects and people always already 'tied into' a context; an account that, through the concept of Fürsorge, includes shifts of attention between objects and people that allow for the ethical distinctions Gallagher and Jacobson are looking for.

Política Común, 2019

Introduction: The Problem of Language "We shall make no progress today," Jacques Derrida announces to open the third session of "Heidegger: The Question of Being & History," a course the French-Algerian philosopher presented at the École normale supériure on the rue d'Ulm in Paris between November 16, 1964 and March 29, 1965. We shall make no progress. "We shall be marking time today," Derrida continues, "and we shall dwell almost the whole time on a problem that last time we were getting ready to leave behind us" (Heidegger: The Question of Being & History 47).

Philosophy Compass, 2015

Philosophy Compass, 2015

2011

This thesis offers a critical interrogation of the relationship between and co-production of bodies, texts and spaces. It introduces and develops the concept of the embodied imagination through the philosophy of Spinoza and recent Spinozist thinkers as a way of informing a materialist account of the production of experience. The embodied imagination, as material and affective, can supplement a Foucauldian account of subjectivation through its ability to offer an account of experience 'after the subject'-of experience as the surface effects of the movement of affect through and across bodies, texts and spaces that are productive of transsubjective social imaginaries. This can contribute to a fuller account of subject production and to a formulation of embodied politics based on a political analytic of feeling. These conceptual arguments are mobilised through exemplars from ethnographic fieldwork based on the geographical concerns of landscape, embodied practice and place imaginaries. In particular, I point to specific outdoor practices, techniques and regimes that, in their imbrication in certain imaginaries, contribute to a sense of place and belonging. Through a 'thoroughly materialist' approach to these concerns, bodies' involvement in material relations with other bodies and with the world are shown to be central to experience-production. I argue too that this approach can expose the relations of power that produce the very materialities of bodies, and as such can shed light on the politics of the nonrepresentational and its centrality to the production of embodied subjectivities. In doing so, a postfoundational sociology of embodied experience is formulated that operates according to a politics of radical contingency. This postfoundational perspective foregrounds an ontology of the encounter over presence: an ontogenetic account of the emergence of bodies, texts and spaces from their material imbrication in a world charged with affective resonance.

Heidegger on Affect, 2019

Philosophers in Depth is a series of themed edited collections focusing on particular aspects of the thought of major figures from the history of philosophy. The volumes showcase a combination of newly commissioned and previously published work with the aim of deepening our understanding of the topics covered. Each book stands alone, but taken together the series will amount to a vast collection of critical essays covering the history of philosophy, exploring issues that are central to the ideas of individual philosophers. This project was launched with the financial support of the Institute for Historical and Cultural Research at Oxford Brookes University, for which we are very grateful.

Martin Heidegger and Otto Friedrich Bollnow’s essential contribution to the phenomenology of emotions is their discovery of the primordial role of Stimmung (attunement) for human intentionality and the intelligibility of the world. In his characterization of Dasein’s being-in- the-world, Heidegger introduces Befindlichkeit (the ontological condition of being attuned) together with understanding and discourse as three equiprimordial existentiale of Dasein. Bollnow builds on Heidegger in developing his main contribution to philosophical anthropology: the introduction of attunement as the most primordial level of human life.1 I will begin by introducing Heidegger’s account of Befindlichkeit and attunement in Being and Time. Heidegger’s conception of Befindlichkeit has served as the kernel of a productive philosophical perspective on affectivity (Ratcliffe 2008, 2013; Slaby and Stephan 2008; Withy 2014, 2015). In contrast, the work of Bollnow has not received much attention. I will use the second section to discuss his seminal work Das Wesen der Stimmungen (The Nature of Attunements). In the third section, I will come back to Heidegger and discuss his idiosyncratic understanding of fundamental attunements, which shows the close link between Befindlichkeit and the core of his overall philosophical project.