Monthly Phenomenology: Hayden Kee (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

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A series of online workshops organized on behalf of the Network for Phenomenological Research: Next talk Friday, 11 March 2022.

MONTHLY PHENOMENOLOGY
An online forum of discussion on recent work in phenomenology

Description: This series of talks gathers together scholars interested in phenomenology and its relation to contemporary issues in philosophy, especially in the philosophy of mind. It establishes a forum of discussion where people can meet on a regular basis and present their work-in-progress or recent publications. The topics addressed will stretch from the history of early phenomenology to the systematic application of phenomenological insights in recent debates in analytic philosophy.

Schedule: The talks will take place once a month on a Friday from September to June. Time: 10:15am ET, 3:15pm GMT, 4:15pm CET. Talks last 90 minutes, including a 45 minutes Q&A.

Participation: Talks are held on zoom. To participate, please send an email to [email protected] with the heading “Registration Monthly Phenomenology”. A zoom link will be sent to you the day preceding each talk.

Next talk:
Hayden Kee (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Unsymbolized Thinking? A Reinterpretation Through the Horizonality of Linguistic Experience
Friday, 11 March 2022
10:15am ET, 3:15pm GMT, 4:15pm CET

Abstract: Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) is a method for describing inner experience. DES subjects carry a beeper that sounds at random intervals. Subjects take notes of what they were experiencing at the moment of the beep, then develop their descriptions through expositional interviews with DES researchers. Many DES subjects report experiences of Unsymbolized Thinking (UT): explicit, differentiated thinking that does not include the experience of words, images, or any other symbols (Hurlburt and Akhter 2008). Many philosophers and cognitive scientists deny the existence of UT. I offer a reinterpretation of UT in terms of the horizonal character of experience. All present experience contains horizonal references to further possible continuations of experience. DES subjects’ reports of UT, I propose, are retroactive reconstructions and light falsifications of experiences that contained strongly motivated horizonal possibilities of linguistic expression at the moment of the sampled experience. I explain how DES’ theory and methods obscure the nature of experience and lead to unreliable reports. I conclude by discussing how my account compares to alternative explanations of UT.

Upcoming talks:

Elisa Magrì (Boston College)
TBA
29 April 2022

Clare Mac Cumhaill (Durham University)
Anscombe and Murdoch on the Phenomenology of Scale and Distance
20 May 2022

Kyle Banick (Chapman University/California State University Long Beach)
Husserl, Experiential Conceptualism, and Stone Duality
3 June 2022

Convenors:
Guillaume Fréchette (University of Geneva)
Marta Jorba (University Pompeu Fabra)
Alessandro Salice (University College Cork)
Hamid Taieb (Humboldt University Berlin)
Íngrid Vendrell-Ferran (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Organized on behalf of the Network for Phenomenological Research