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Eidetic Reduction
Eidetic reduction is a technique in the study of essences in Edmund Husserl's phenomenology whose goal is to identify the basic components of phenomena. Eidetic reduction requires that a phenomenologist examine the essence of a mental object, be it a simple mental act, or the unity of consciousness itself, with the intention of drawing out the absolutely necessary and invariable components that make the mental object what it is. This is achieved by the method known as eidetic variation. It involves imagining an object of the kind under investigation and varying its features. The changed feature is ''inessential'' to this kind if the object can survive its change, otherwise it belongs to the ''kind's essence''. Overview One can take for example Descartes's piece of wax (not as a mental object, but as a demonstration of the concept of reduction). It appears to be opaque, flat, hard, extended to certain dimensions in space. It has a certain feel, smell, taste. Most of these quali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Essence
Essence () has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property (philosophy), property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the entity it is or, expressed negatively, without which it would lose its Identity (philosophy), identity. Essence is contrasted with accident (philosophy), accident, which is a property or attribute the entity has metaphysical contingency, accidentally or contingently, but upon which its identity does not depend. Etymology The English language, English word ''essence'' comes from Latin language, Latin ''essentia'', via French language, French ''essence''. The original Latin word was created purposefully, by Ancient Roman philosophers, in order to provide an adequate Latin translation for the Greek language, Greek term ''ousia''. The concept originates as a precise technical term with Aristotle, who used the Ancient Greek, Greek expression ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. In his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called Bracketing (phenomenology), phenomenological reduction. Arguing that Transcendence (philosophy), transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserl redefined phenomenology as a Transcendental idealism, transcendental-idealist philosophy. Husserl's thought profoundly influenced 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond. Husserl studied mathematics, taught by Karl Weierstrass and Leo Königsberger, and philosophy taught by Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf. He taught philosophy as a ''Privatdozent' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenology (philosophy)
Phenomenology is a philosophical study and movement largely associated with the early 20th century that seeks to Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy), objectively investigate the nature of subjective, consciousness, conscious experience. It attempts to describe the universal features of consciousness while avoiding assumptions about the external world, aiming to describe Phenomenon, phenomena as they appear, and to explore the meaning and significance of lived experience. This approach, while philosophical, has found many applications in qualitative research across different scientific disciplines, especially in the social sciences, humanities, Phenomenology (psychology), psychology, and cognitive science, but also in fields as diverse as health sciences, Phenomenology (architecture), architecture, and Human–computer interaction, human-computer interaction, among many others. The application of phenomenology in these fields aims to gain a deeper understanding of subjectiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenon
A phenomenon ( phenomena), sometimes spelled phaenomenon, is an observable Event (philosophy), event. The term came into its modern Philosophy, philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be directly observed. Kant was heavily influenced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in this part of his philosophy, in which phenomenon and noumenon serve as interrelated technical terms. Far predating this, the Ancient Greek Philosophy, ancient Greek Pyrrhonism, Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus also used ''phenomenon'' and ''noumenon'' as interrelated technical terms. Common usage In popular usage, a ''phenomenon'' often refers to an extraordinary, unusual or notable event. According to the ''Dictionary of Visual Discourse'':In ordinary language 'phenomenon/phenomena' refer to any occurrence worthy of note and investigation, typically an untoward or unusual event, person or fact that is of special significance or otherwise notable. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mental World
The mental world is an ontological category in metaphysics, populated by nonmaterial mental objects, without physical extension (though possibly with mental extension as in a visual field, or possibly not, as in an olfactory field) contrasted with the physical world of space and time populated with physical objects, or Plato's world of ideals populated, in part, with mathematical objects.Metaphysics, Richard Taylor, ''Foundations of Philosophy'' series''History of Western Philosophy'', Bertrand Russell Properties The mental world may be populated with, or framed with, intentions, sensory fields, and corresponding objects. The mental world is usually considered to be subjective and not objective. In psychologism, mathematical objects are mental objects. Relation to physical world Descartes argued for a mental world as separate from the physical world.''Meditations'', Renes Descartes Debates regarding free will include how it could be possible for anything in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, and theologians. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of it. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination, and volition (psychology), volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling, or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, metacognition, or self-awareness, either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions, and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked. Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: ordered distinc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
René Descartes
René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Dutch Reformed Church, Protestant state and was later counted as a Deism, deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic. Many elements of Descartes's philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the Neostoicism, revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine of Hippo, Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the Scholasticism, schools on two major point ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wax Argument
The wax argument or the sheet of wax example is a thought experiment that René Descartes created in the second of his ''Meditations on First Philosophy''. He devised it to analyze what properties are essential for bodies, show how uncertain our knowledge of the world is compared to our knowledge of our minds, and argue for rationalism.Newman, Lex"Descartes' Epistemology", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)/ref> The thought experiment Descartes first considers all the sensible properties of a sheet of wax such as its shape, texture, size, color, and smell. He then points out that all these properties change as the wax is moved closer to a fire. The only properties that necessarily remain are extension, changeability and movability: These properties are, however, not directly perceived through the senses or imagination (the wax can be extended and moved in more ways than can be imagined). Instead, to grasp the essence of the wax, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imaginative Variation
Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes. Imagination helps apply knowledge to solve problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process. Imagination is the process of developing theories and ideas based on the functioning of the mind through a creative division. Drawing from actual perceptions, imagination employs intricate conditional processes that engage both semantic and episodic memory to generate new or refined ideas. This part of the mind helps develop better and easier ways to accomplish tasks, whether old or new. A way to train imagination is by listening to and practicing storytelling (narrative), wherein imagination is expressed through stories and writings such as fairy tales, fantasies, and science fiction. When children develop their im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists, by contrast, maintain th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phenomenological Reduction
Bracketing (; also called phenomenological reduction, transcendental reduction or phenomenological ''epoché'') means looking at a situation and refraining from judgement and biased opinions to wholly understand an experience. The preliminary step in the philosophical movement of phenomenology is to suspend judgment (''i.e.'', epoché) about the natural world and instead, to focus on analysis of experience. Suspending judgement involves stripping away every connotation and assumption made about an object. Its earliest conception can be traced back to Immanuel Kant who argued that the only reality that one can know is the one each individual experiences in their mind (or Phenomena). Edmund Husserl, building on Kant’s ideas, first proposed bracketing in 1913, to help better understand another’s phenomena. Overview Immanuel Kant Though it was formally developed by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), phenomenology can be understood as an outgrowth of the influential ideas of Immanuel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
