From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wupost!gumby!destroyer!ncar!uchinews!harris Thu Oct  8 10:11:16 EDT 1992
Article 7119 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: harris@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Adam Harris)
Subject: Constitutional Phenomenology:
Message-ID: <1992Oct5.063409.6019@midway.uchicago.edu>
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Organization: Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 06:34:09 GMT
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I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with the methods of constitutional
phenomenology, esp. as found in Edmund Husserl's _Ideas_ vol.2
and Merleau Ponty's _Phenomenology of Perception_.  I know
that in recent years (~10 years?) there has been some cross-over
between A.I./Cognitive Science/Psychology and the phenomenological
models (even though all the Germans and Frenchmen in question are
dead, or just about).

Pardoning the tribal tongue, I'd like to mention what my central 
concern there is. To start with, I'm studying the first section
of Ideas vol.2. Those chapters are concerned with the constitution
of Nature---i.e., the world.  If your still reading this post you
probably know that Husserl uses a peculiar "reverse epistemology,"
for instance, by arguing that it is only the inclusion of the body
into the sensorial network of "causal" and "psycho-physical" relations
which allows us to have the idea of a world which is fundamentally
independent of the body.  Likewise, those of you familiar with
the _Logische Untersuchungen_ know that Husserl tried to show
that logic is something in the world and not a psychological 
phenomenon by re-situating the psychological sphere as a
necessary precondition of "objective" phenomenon.

These are my questions:
(1)  On the critical side, what are the sorts of intervention that
language makes on the noemata, down to the "lowest" level of
perceptual filling, if one can speak of such things.  This question
is critical because Husserl puts language on one of the highest 
levels (or strata), almost as if it were an adjunct to 
intersubjectivity in general.  This is clearly unacceptable, but
I find it difficult to argue that language intervenes on, say
the interaction between the world and the body, or the consequent
formation of a norm of perception.

(2)  Does anyone know of any other investigations that use
the technique of signification strata?  Husserl's method
of constituting the world (for him, how does the signification
"the world" achieve the weight it has for us) is via
a series of intentional/signification strata: The material
thing, characterized by "causal" interactions, the somatological
(psycho-physical relations, the norm) and the intersubjective.
Does anyone else use this technique?


----------------
Adam Harris, harris@cs.uchicago.edu


