Rejecting Dreyfus’ introspective ‘phenomenology’. The case for phenomenological analysis
Tóm tắt
I argue that Hubert Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background as well as his anti-representationalism rest on introspection. I denote with ‘introspection’ the methodological malpractice of formulating ontological statements about the conditions of possibility of phenomena merely based on descriptions. In order to illustrate the insufficiencies of Dreyfus’ methodological strategy in particular and introspection in general, I show that Heidegger, to whom Dreyfus constantly refers as the foundation of his own work, derives ontological statements about the conditions of possibility of phenomena not merely from descriptions, but also from analyses. I further show that deriving ontological statements directly from descriptions entails implausible results. I do so by discussing representative cases. Based on these general methodological considerations, I show that Dreyfus’ work on action, skill and understanding is introspective. First, I demonstrate that Dreyfus’ influential claim that rules and representations do not govern skillful actions is the result of introspection, because it is merely founded on the absence of rules and representations in representative descriptions of skillful actions. Second, I show that Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background is also based on introspection. These ontological structures are merely reifications of descriptions and are not further substantiated by analyses.
Tài liệu tham khảo
Bitbol, M., & Petitmengin, C. (2011). On pure reflection. A reply to Dan Zahavi. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18, 24–37.
Braver, L. (2013). Never mind: Thinking and subjectivity in the Dreyfus-McDowell debate. In J. K. Schaer (Ed.), Mind, reason, and being-in-the-world: The McDowell-Dreyfus debate. New York: Routledge.
Breivik, G. (2013). Zombie-like or Superconscious? A phenomenological and conceptual analysis of consciousness in elite sport. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 40(1), 85–106.
Christensen, C. B. (1998). Getting Heidegger off the west coast. Inquiry, 41(1), 65–87.
Dow, J. M. (2017). Just doing what I do. On the awareness of fluent agency. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 16, 155–177.
Dreyfus, H. L. (1988). The Socratic and platonic basis of Cognitivism. AI & SOCIETY, 2(2), 99–112.
Dreyfus, H. L. (1991). Being-in-the-world: A commentary on Heidegger's being and time, division I (Vol. 1). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Dreyfus, H. L. (1999). The primacy of phenomenology over logical analysis: A critique of Searle. Philosophical Topics, 27(2), 3–24.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2002). Intelligence without representation—Merleau-Ponty's critique of mental representation. The relevance of phenomenology to scientific explanation. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1(4), 367–383.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2007a). The return of the myth of the mental. Inquiry, 50(4), 352–365.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2007b). Why Heideggerian AI failed and how fixing it would require making it more Heideggerian. Philosophical Psychology, 20(2), 247–268.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2012). Introductory essay: The mystery of the background qua background. In Z. Radman (Ed.), Knowing without thinking: Mind, action, cognition and the phenomenon of the background. London: Palgrave McMillan.
Dreyfus, H. L. (2013). The myth of the pervasiveness of the mental. In J. K. Schaer (Ed.), Mind, reason, and being-in-the-world: The McDowell-Dreyfus debate. New York: Routledge.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. (1986). Mind over machine. The power of human intuition and expertise in the era of the computer. New York: The Free Press.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Kelly, S. D. (2007). Heterophenomenology: Heavy-handed sleight-of-hand. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 6(1–2), 45–55.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Taylor, C. (2015). Retrieving realism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Fernandez, A. (2017). The subject matter of phenomenological research: Existentials, modes, and prejudices. Synthese, 194(9), 3543–3562.
Gallagher, S., & Zahavi, D. (2012). The phenomenological mind. New York: Routledge.
Gardner, S. (2013). Transcendental philosophy and the possibility of the given. In J. K. Schaer (Ed.), Mind, reason, and being-in-the-world: The McDowell-Dreyfus debate. New York: Routledge.
Haugeland, J. (2013). Dasein Disclosed. John Haugeland’s Heidegger. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Sein und Zeit. Trans. as Being and Time, J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson. New York: Harper and Row.
Heidegger, M. (1975). Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Vittorio Klostermann: Frankfurt am Main.
Heidegger, M. (1982). Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie. Trans. as The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1990). Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. Trans. as Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, Richard Taft. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Heidegger, M. (2006). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Høffding, S. (2018). A phenomenology of musical absorption. London: Palgrave.
Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. K. Schuhmann (Ed.). Husserliana. Edmund Husserl. Gesammelte Werke. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1989). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites Buch. Phänomenologische Untersuchungen zur Konstitution. Trans. as Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy. Second book. Studies in the phenomenology of constitution. R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer (Trans.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Husserl, E. (2012). Die Krisis der Europäischen Wissenschaften und die Transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die Phänomenologische Philosophie. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Jeuk, A. A. (2017a). Constitution embodiment. Avant, Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies, 8(1), 131–158.
Jeuk, A. A. (2017b). Overcoming the disunity of understanding. META, Research in Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy, 9(2), 630–653.
Jeuk, A. A. (2019a). Concern and the structure of action: The integration of affect and understanding. Humana.Mente. Journal of Philosophical Studies, 12(35), 249–270.
Jeuk, A. A. (2019b). Care, social practices and normativity. Inner struggle versus Panglossian rule-following. Phenomenology and Mind, 17, 44–54.
Kant, I. (1998). Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. Trans. as Critique of Pure Reason, P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kelly, S. (2000). Grasping at straws: Motor intentionality and the cognitive science of skillful Behavior. In M. Wrathall & J. Malpas (Eds.), Heidegger, coping, and cognitive science: Essays in Honor of Hubert L. Dreyfus, volume 2. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Luft, S. (2008). The transcendental dimension of phenomenology. Diálogos, 91, 7–8.
McDowell, J. (2007). What myth? Inquiry, 50(4), 338–351.
Montero, B. (2016). Thought in action. Expertise and the conscious mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moran, D. (2007). Heidegger’s transcendental phenomenology in the light of Husserl’s project of first philosophy. In S. G. Crowell & J. Malpas (Eds.), Transcendental Heidegger. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Noë, A. (2012). Varieties of presence. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Noë, A. (2013). On Overintellectualizing the intellect. In J. K. Schaer (Ed.), Mind, reason, and being-in-the-world: The McDowell-Dreyfus debate. New York: Routledge.
Olafson, F. A. (1994). Heidegger à la Wittgenstein or ‘coping’ with professor Dreyfus. Inquiry, 37(1), 45–64.
Ratcliffe, M. (2012). There can be no cognitive science of Dasein. In J. Kiverstein & M. Wheeler (Eds.), Heidegger and cognitive science. Basingstoke: McMillan.
Rietveld, E. (2008). Situated normativity: The normative aspect of embodied cognition in unreflective action. Mind, 117(468), 973–1001.
Searle, J. R. (2000). Limits of phenomenology. In M. A. Wrathall & J. E. Malpas (Eds.), Heidegger, coping and cognitive science. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Stanley, J., & Williamson, T. (2017). Skill. Noûs, 51(4), 713–726.
Sutton, J., McIlwain, D., Christensen, W., & Geeves, A. (2011). Applying intelligence to the reflexes: Embodied skills and habits between Dreyfus and Descartes. The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 42(1), 78–103.
Vermersch, P. (2011). Husserl the great unrecognized psychologist! A reply to Zahavi. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 18(2), 20–23.
Vörös, S., & Prosen, T. (2018). Bearing one’s shadow: The architecture of the transcendental from Kant, through Husserl, to Merleau-Ponty. Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology, 7(1), 160–185.
Wheeler, M. (2005). Reconstructing the cognitive world. The next step. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zahavi, D. (2005). Subjectivity and selfhood. Investigating the first-person perspective. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Zahavi, D. (2010). Naturalized phenomenology. In S. Gallagher & D. Schmicking (Eds.), Handbook of phenomenology and cognitive science. Dordrecht: Springer.
Zahavi, D. (2013a). Mindedness, mindlessness, and first-person authority. In J. K. Schear (Ed.), Mind, reason, and being-in-the-world: The McDowell-Dreyfus debate. New York: Routledge.
Zahavi, D. (2013b). Naturalized phenomenology: A desideratum or a category mistake? Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 72, 23–42.