Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31192/np.21.2.2
On the Possibility and Modes of Naturalizing Phenomenology
Nebojša Mudri
orcid.org/0000-0001-8419-8234
; University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
The naturalization of phenomenology is a project of integrating philosophical analyses of conscious experiences into the explanatory framework of natural sciences. Prominent members of the phenomenological movement had divided attitudes on the possibility of implementing such a project. Martin Heidegger strictly separated »essential thinking«, which lets beings show themselves in their modes of being, from methodologically guided scientific research, while Edmund Husserl remained ambivalent on the question of naturalization by criticizing psychologism and later pointing to the foundation of sciences in the life-world, but also requiring rigorous scientificity, adherence to the methodological steps of reductions, and refrainment from metaphysical prejudices. Only in the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty did the naturalization of phenomenology become accepted as a positive possibility which should improve both science and philosophy by connecting empirical research with transcendental analyses. Contemporary currents of formalized, experimental, and neurophenomenology, although different from each other, follow Merleau-Ponty in this sense, pointing to the indispensability of phenomenological descriptions when studying complex aspects of the conscious mind. We believe that the fruitful cooperation between phenomenological philosophy and integrative cognitive science is conditioned by the necessity of a multi-perspective and interdisciplinary approach in order to fully understand and explain our world-conscious life implemented in a dynamic system of interactive processes occurring in the brain, body and environment.
Keywords
cognitive science; consciousness; integration; naturalization; phenomenology
Hrčak ID:
306160
URI
Publication date:
17.7.2023.
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