phenomenological approaches to personality_2009

8/14/2019 Phenomenological Approaches to Personality_2009

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PhenomenologicalApproaches to

Personality(Ch. 5 & 6)

Humanistic Psychology&

Existential Psychology


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Phenomenology at Samford

2006 Society of Continental Philosophy and Theology Conference:The Theological Turn in French Phenomenology March 31-April 1, 2006

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What is Phenomenology? In the broadest sense, phenomenology is

the investigation or description ofconscious experience. In psychology, it is an approach to the

study of people that emphasizes their first-person experience of the world.

Unlike psychoanalysis, where what is importantpsychologically is outside of conscious experience,i.e., unconscious.

Also not prominent in trait theories, behavioraltheories, biological theories, and social cognitive

theories. It is also a general qualitative research

method found in nursing, communication,education, theology, and many otherfields.


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It started with philosophy. Phenomenology began as a school of

philosophy originated by Edmund Husserl(1859-1938).

Psychologists and others who take aphenomenological position always justifytheir methods with an appeal to thephilosophy.

Phenomenology is presented as a solution toprevious philosophical problems, namely Cartesian Dualism

What this mean? We will start with a candle.


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Michael Faraday (1791-1867)lectures to young children...


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A candle as publicly observed.

Faraday taught students to carefully observe a variety of candles, to takemeasurements, record observations, conduct experiments.He demonstrated laws of chemistry and physics, showing how chemistrycould explain relationships among flame size and color, quality of smoke,candle composition, etc.Masterful exposition of objective scientific method.


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Beyond candlesto humans Suppose you are a psychologist rather

than a chemist. Your object of study ispeople, not candles.

Shall we study human psychology just as

we studied chemistry, using the samemethods as Faraday?

We might still use candles in ourresearch, but only as stimuli. We might,for example, want to study how a personresponds to a candle.....

.


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Observe..


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What can we observeobjectively?

can observe and measure the candle (as before).

We can observe, measure and record the persons behavior, words,neurochemistry, and brain activity.Is that all we think is going on with the human? Are we missing some aspect

of psychological reality?


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What are we missing?

Most peoples intuitions scream out forsomething else: this something else isgenerally called consciousness or experience.

But where does it go in our picture? Howshould we represent it?

Cartoonists to the rescue.


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The Rise of Thought Bubbles

A container


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A dualism: Two candles

Audience

The public candle

The publicly observable person

Where and what is this?


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Descarte and Cartesian Dualism

Rene Descartes (1596-1650; French philosopher and

mathematician) is noted for formulating thedualism problem in its modern form. Descarte argued that mind and body are separate

substances (minds are not in space like physical bodies).

Problem 1: How do mind and body influence each other?

Problem 2: If we begin philosophy with thought bubbles,we can be lead to radical skepticism about knowledge. From a first-person perspective, we each have access only to the

contents of our conscious bubble.

How can we know that whats in the bubble reflects something real

outside the bubble?


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Descartes Demon

Descartes said we could imagine that ademon was deceiving us at all times aboutreality. The demon puts contents in ourconscious bubble, but these contents aremerely illusions with no reality behind them.

Modern Version: How do you know you arenot a brain in a vat?

You dont have a body. You are a brain suspended influid, attended to by scientists.

When scientists stimulate your brain, you experiencea candle, you experience touching a candle, etc. But there is no candle, no body, etc. All is illusion, a

mere appearance.


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Descartes Solution

Descartes started with the thoughtbubble problem.

He attempted to reason his way out ofthe bubble into certain knowledge.

He began by doubting everything he could. He wanted to find first principles, a

proposition (or a few), that could not bedoubted.

On the basis of his first principles, he woulduse reason and logic to deduce other truepropositions and provide universally validknowledge about reality.


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What Descartes could not doubt

After doubting all he could, Descartes

concluded that the one thing he couldnot doubt was that he was doubting.

If he doubted that he was doubting, he

was doubting. Descartes then made a deduction: since

I am doubting, I must exist. Doubtingrequires a doubter.

Descartes famous conclusion: Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I

am.


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Was this a sure foundation? No. All philosophers agree that Descartes

did not succeed in reasoning his way out ofthe bubble.

Nietzsche: Descartes began with I think.

This was already an assumption, not a necessity. The I in I think was forced by the structure of

language (Nietzsche was a philologiststudiedhistory of languages).

Descartes could have begun with there isthinking or some other construction.

Consider: It is raining. (What is raining?)


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Even if you grant Descartes his I think(and his existence), he never provided

a universally compelling argument forthe existence of anything else. Many of his arguments were based on

theological claims about God and His

nature (e.g., God would not deceiveanyone) that even some of his fellowChristians might not accept.

No one has yet found an argument out

of thought bubbles that convinceseveryone. Even Husserl, as we will see, did not

argue his way out of thought bubbles.


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Enter Husserl.

Husserl did not find a way out ofthought bubbles.

Instead, his approach did not begin with

thought bubbles in the first place. In this sense, he did not solve the

problems, but rather dissolvedor by-passed them.

(My false start.)


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Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl thought dualism wasplague on Western society.

He believed they were the

source of too many philosophical,

personal, and social perplexities.


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Cartesian Dualism and the WesternSoulIn addition to the well-known

philosophical problems, thecontemplation of thought bubbles givesrise to alienation and a violation of oursense of reality.

Alienation: We are no longer athome in the world. We are

alienated from our surroundingsand from other people (thereality of which we might doubt).


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Husserls diagnosis: Thought bubbles are not a necessary starting place for

doing philosophy. We have thought ourselves into our predicament by our

assumptions and methods. We can change ourassumptions and methods to avoid the problems.

Thought bubbles arise (are postulated) only when weapproach consciousness from a certain perspective: Whenwe begin with the objective, third-person perspective.

(as we did in the Faraday example; at some point we hadto introduce the bubble because of our starting point:

what can we see objectively)


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The Naturalistic Attitude

It is the objective, third-person startingpointthe objective scientific methodapplied to peoplethat gives rise tothought bubbles.

H. called this starting point thenaturalistic attitude.

We dont have to start from thisperspective. If we start elsewhere, with

our own consciousness, our Cartesianproblems will disappear: Patient: Doc, it hurts when I do this. Doctor: Well, dont do that.


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Where to begin? Husserl said we must begin by

suspending, or bracketing, thenaturalistic attitude.

We must even bracket the question

of the reality of what we experience,starting with no presuppositions. We must then describe our implicit,pre-

theoretical experience from our first-

person point of view. When we do so, thought bubbles are

nowhere to be found in our experience.


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Pre-theoretical Experience

Waking in the morning as the alarmclock goes off, before we are reflecting. Before thinking and conceptualizing, we

simply experience the world

(phenomena). But our experience of phenomena is

always from a point of view

The world-from-a-point-of-view isexperienced as a whole.


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Intentionality

This is the first result ofphenomenology: CSness isconsciousness ofsomething. No experience of consciousness per se, an

empty bubble, or a container. No experience of the world from nowhere or

everywhere at once. No in-here vs. out-there in our immediate

given experience. Only after our first cup of coffee do we think

ourselves into bubbles and becomeCartesians.

I t ti lit th ld f i t f


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Intentionality: the world from a point ofview

The worldFrom a pointof view

Pre-conceptual Experience


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No more bubbles.

Audience

rchers and subjects are conscious of the same candle in the world.r researchers or subjects have thought bubbles.


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The Naturalistic Attitude as Filter

Experience Scientific Knowledge

+

Thought BubblesSkepticismSubstanceDualismsAlienataionAnd other Mind-Clots


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Phenomenology as Prism

Experience

Intentionality

No thoughtbubblesor their

problems

Many newexperiencesopen up to us,which would

have been

Prism

Piet Hutt on photography

Bracket naturalisticattitude;describe experience.


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According to Husserl

The naturalistic attitude is a choice or

act.

To split what is the case into the duality of subjectiveand objective is to make a distinction, very useful, even

essential for many purposes. But believed, the world is abroken egg. R.D. Laing (The Voice of Experience)

Phenomenology does not want to do away with scientificnaturalism; it wants to put it in its place, to view it as

one perspective in a broader world of experience. Wecan acknowledge its usefulness, but we must recognizethat we can always return home to our pre-scientificLebenswelt(Life World).


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One way of seeing

There are scientists who are fond ofrepeating that they are not philosophers,theologians, ontologists, metaphysicians,moral philosophers or even humble

psychologists. When this is a testament totheir modesty it is becoming and appropriate,but more commonly it is a cursory dismissalof whatever they cannot see with their way of

seeing. It is ironical that such scientistscannot see the way they see with their way ofseeing. -- Laing


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Existential Phenomenology

Phenomenology can be used to describe your first-person experiences of a candle, how it manifests itselfin your experience.

Some philosophers use phenomenology as a startingpoint for describing human existence.

What is my conscious experience of my existence?

What does experience reveal about what isfundamental about human being?

c


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Martin Heidegger German philosopher Husserls research assistant

In Being and Time, Heideggerdescribed the fundamentalcharacteristic of the humanway of being as

Dasein: being-there(a fancy way of saying thathumans are conscious andconsciousness is intentional)

Human being is being-in-the-world

c


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Heidegger

Thrownness: We findourselves in-the-world

Not our choice to be Not a world of our choosing Dont know where we are going

Dasein must question its ownexistence: we are the beings for whom

being is a question. Humans seek meaning.


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Jean-Paul Sartre

French Philosopher Being and Nothingness

Sartre emphasized the radical freedom

of human being. Phenomenologically, we are free.

Scientific determinism, like thoughtbubbles, are constructions.


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Sartre For humans, Existence precedes

essence. An essence is a defining characteristic of

something.

Human beings define themselves; wechoose our essence because we areradically free.

With freedom comes responsibility and

anxiety; people will therefore attempt toescape or deny their freedom.

But: You are free; therefore choose.


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Maurice Merleau-Ponty

French philosopher Main work: The Primacy of Perception

Phenomenologically, human experienceis always embodied. We experience the world from an

embodied perspective: we feel our

bodies from the inside. Our embodiment is experienced as

boundary: we are not completely free.


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Clinical PhenomenologyThe detailed description of the

subjective experience of people withpsychological disorders (i.e., theinsiders guide to psychopathology).

The DSM-IV is largely an outsidersguide to disorders: emphasis onbehavioral description, with a grudging

mention of experience when necessary. c


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Clinical Phenomenology

In clinical phenomenology, we ask What is itlike to be X?

X is a mental disorder In the DSM-IV, there are over 400 mental

disorders. In theory, we could have over 400

phenomenological descriptions to accompanythese classifications.

In fact, we have very few. Everyone talksabout phenomenology, but no one seems todo it.

Obsessive Compulsive


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Obsessive-CompulsiveDisorder Obsessions are defined by:

Recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, orimages that are experienced as intrusive andinappropriate and that cause anxiety or distress.

Germs, dirt, smells, contamination, symmetry,sexual or violent impulses

Compulsions are defined by: Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that the person

feels driven to perform in response to an obsession,or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.

Washing, cleaning, checking, counting, organizing


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What is it like to be Monk?

Ch.6. The World of the Compulsive,

V.E. von Gebsattel


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Phenomenology of OCDThe common core experience in OCD:

Anti-eidos (eidos=form): In OCD, theperson feels the constant presence of aforce acting on the world that destroys ordisorders the form of the world.

Physical order: dirt, debris, clutter, asymmetry Biological order: decay, disease, germs, pollutants Moral order: dirty thoughts, nasty actions,

destruction of purity Social order: breakdown of formality; broken rules

Causal Order: actions dont take. Must check,repeat.

Order of time: Past haunts the present (as clutterhaunts the perfect room). Persons with OCD areactive, making up for lost time, ruminating aboutthe past.


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Phenomenology of OCD A phenomenological description makes

no causal claims. OCD might be based on brain

dysfunction or anal fixation.

Descriptions can still be helpful: Increased empathy Can help OCD person feel understood (they

are often ashamed, feel like freaks)


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Schizoid Personality Disorder A pervasive pattern of detachment from social

relationships and a restricted range of expression of

emotions in interpersonal settings. neither desires nor enjoys close relationships almost always chooses solitary activities lacks close friends or confidants other than first-

degree relatives

appears indifferent to the praise or criticism ofothers

shows emotional coldness, detachment, orflattened affectivity

Do not confuse with shyness and normal introversion


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What is it like to be a schizoidpersonality?


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Schizoid from inside (according to Laing)

The basic experiential phenomenon:Ontological Insecurity Most people are ontologically secure: the

self, others, and the world are experiencedas substantial, real, enduring, andmeaningful. Self: feel real, with unique identity, feel embodied

in control of actions. Others: others same as yourself, real and alive,

can share experiences, enrich each other, acttogether in the world. The world: natural processes are reliable and

predictable; you are at-home in the world.


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For Schizoids Ontological insecurity (insecurity about

existence) give rise to 3 forms of existentialanxiety: Engulfment: feeling that ones selfhood, identity,

and autonomy will be smothered, absorbed,

engulfed by others. Petrification: fear of being turned into a thing, a

tool, a function for others. Implosion: physical reality as such is experienced

as threatening or hostile. (Winnicott: the

impingement of reality) E.g., flu and fever: covering head: world is too much

d f


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In defense

Real Self(in here)

False self/ body

(out there)

Othersroles/unreal

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