Because I’m but a novice in both phenomenology and Integral Theory, these series of posts will present more of a summary than a critical analysis of Wendlin Kupers’ paper (reference below).
This post summarises the first part of the paper, up to reviewing Husserlian phenomenology.
In this paper Kupers distinguishes a role for phenomenology that is broader than the role typically ascribed to phenomenology in the AQAL (all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types) models developed by Ken Wilber. Typcially, in describing the ‘domains of knowing’ that are the ground of the AQAL approach to human consciousness, Wilber presents subjective, objective, intersubjective and interobjective means of discourse as the four critical, and valid perspectives that must be considered in an all-encompassing framework of consciousness. Phenomenology is located in the subjective, or upper-left quadrant, in these models.
Kupers begins with an examination of Husserlian phenomenology, to move onto examining phenomenology via an inter-subjective lens. The work of Merleau-Ponty is reviewed to assess the possibilities for remedy for not only limitations to earlier models of phenomenology, but also for remedy of limitations with respect to integral theory, itself. Finally, Kupers offers an approach called ‘pheno-practice’ which seeks to enhance integral research in an empirical way.
Phenomenology is introduced by Kupers as per Merleau-Ponty’s definition as a flexible and vivid way of inquiry, which consistently explores new ways of reasoning. Phenomenology deals with the appearances of things, specifically ‘things that appear in human experience’. This is not only a realism, it is a reasoned enquiry as to the appearances in consciousness that humans encounter. Phenomenon means ‘that which reveals itself’ – and as per Heidegger, phenomenologists typically seek to let a thing speak for itself.
Phenomenology therefore examines the content of our consciousness (it’s meaning) and also the way that we perceive things (how we know). Phenomena in this way are not located in a theoretical nexus, but an embedded personal and cultural context. As personal, a phenomenological account is also a subjective account.
Husserl introduced a process called ‘bracketing’ in an attempt to overcome the Cartesian divide between subject and object, and to set aside psychologism, historicism and scientism to explore the subjective position. In this way the objective world is ‘proved’ through subjective account – ontology becomes epistemology.
Per Kupers, Husserl tried to investigate the formal qualities of reality which human beings become aware of in experience. He was searching for a way to uncover the experiencing of phenomena in their most primordial roots of pre-reflective consciousness to their exemplification in science. Correspondingly, a phenomenologist distinguishes between how phenomena are experienced (noesis) from how they appear in a subject’s awareness (noemata), distinguishing structures of consciousness from essences. Thus does phenomenology examine objects, and how we relate to these objects, as a content of consciousness.
Following Brentano, Husserl explored intentionality as the notion that consciousness is always oriented to things in the world – consciousness always being of or about something or someone. The mode of directing our consciousness to something is distinct from what is represented – consciousness reaches out beyond it’s own acts to the phenomena (otherwise known as the anti-representationalist stance). In this way, objectivity of things is co-constituted by structures that have meaning value.
What we observe in phenomenology is not the object itself, but how it is given in intentional acts.
Transcendental phenomenology becomes the study of the basic components of the meanings that are made possible by intentionality – as accomplished by transcendental subjectivity. In phenomenology, we are not concerned with situating consciousness within a naturalistic framework – rather consciousness arises within an overarching transcendental dimension, with non-psychological reflection. There is no otherworldly homunculus – the empirical subject and the transcendental subject are but two ways of conceiving the same subjectivity. In the first one is aware of oneself as causally determined known object, in the other we are aware of ourselves as knowing subjects, at the limit of the world.
For phenomenology, to know essences, all assumptions about the existence of the external world must be suspended. We do this by bracketing – framing out the ubiquitous background of everyday life. A personally or socially significant phenomena is investigated as an experience, not as a conceptualisation.
Phenomenological methodology includes techniques of epoche, bracketing, reduction and free variation (see ‘Phenomenology Definitions’ post, to follow). These become the cornerstones of suspended judgement, necessary for phenomenological inquiry. For Husserl a methodological freeing from culturally prevalent habits of thought brought a ‘new universal direction for our interest’, which he compared to spiritual conversion.
‘By consciously investigating the phenomena of life that we habitually take for granted, the world changes before our eyes and reveals the mysterious lining of the all embracing world horizon and the entwining of each thing with universal being. The world then becomes the universal field into which all our experiencing, understanding and doing are directed. To investigate the relational structure of consciousness and meaning of this plenum of the world as they reveal themselves to reflective consciousness became the task of phenomenology ever since Husserl.’ (p. 58)
Naive unexamined experience is thus transformed into a reflexive or second-order one, a one made more vivid in highlighting consciousness to itself.
As a transcendental philosophy, Husserlian phenomenology is interested in possibility conditions and foundations for knowledge moreso than psychological process. It tries to uncover the invariant formal principles by which consciousness operates in order to be constitutive. After investigation, the intuited object is communicated beyond private ascertainment, usually via language or symbolic inscription. The description however is a constitutive part of the phenomenological approach and is accepted to shape experience as much as the experience shapes the distinction. We are not talking about an ‘encoding’, rather an ‘embodiment’ that incarnates precisely what we experience. For Husserl, the objective truths of science must be recognised as grounded in living acts of human consciousness in relation to worldly phenomena. Man and world are first and foremost in relation – only at the second level, the reflective level of logic do we divide subject and object into separate entities.
The life-world is the ground of established scientific activity, the place where common-sense phenomena become the object of investigation. Modern science to an extent conceals the life world under scientific representations. Life-worldly phenomena has intersubjective and socio-cultural relationship, and in this way can be seen to extend outside of Wilber’s upper left quadrant in the AQAL framework.
Ref:
Kupers, W. (2009). The Status and Relevance of Phenomenology for Integral Research, Integral Review, 5 (1), 51-95.
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