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A Phenomenological Account of Embodied Understanding

Jeuk, Alexander A
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0226-2269
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1490350522636921

Abstract Details

2017, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Philosophy.
This dissertation is a phenomenological account of embodied understanding that is located in the theoretical context of contemporary phenomenology (Dreyfus 1972, 2002, 2007a, 2007b; Kelly 2002; Ratcliffe 2002, 2008, 2015) and phenomenologically-inspired embodied cognition (Varela et al. 1991; Noe 2004, 2012, 2013, 2015; Thompson 2007; Chemero 2009; Rietveld and Kiverstein 2014). This dissertation is a phenomenological account in that I apply the phenomenological method as it has been in particular developed by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time (Heidegger 1962). This means that I provide a careful analysis of phenomena which I then analyze in terms of the conditions of their possibility. This phenomenological account is an account of embodied understanding in that it is only about those forms of understanding that are body-relational. This means that I am concerned here only with those forms of understanding that are responsive to the world in relation to the bodily structures of an agent, her bodily needs and her ability to sense and move. My dissertation identifies and analyzes two central structures of embodied understanding. Embodied understanding is body-relationally spatiotemporally schematic and integrated with affective concern. That embodied understanding is body-relationally spatiotemporally schematic means that embodied understanding exhibits a structure that allows it to be responsive to the experience of a world in space and time that is itself reflective of one’s embodied ability to move and sense; i.e. that is reflective of an agent’s embodiment (Husserl 1989; Noe 2004; Merleau-Ponty 2012). This responsiveness is possible, since embodied understanding shares characteristics with embodied experience by means of what Kant (1998) called `schemata’; a priori space and time determinations that allow embodied understanding to respond to the spatial and temporal characteristics of experience. That embodied understanding is integrated with affective concerns means that understanding exhibits a structure that enables it to be responsive to a world that is not, as Dreyfus and Taylor (2015) would call it, `neutral’, but that is `always already familiar’, to use Heidegger’s (1962) famous phrase (Dreyfus 2007b; Ratcliffe 2010; Noe 2015). This responsiveness is possible, since embodied understanding shares characteristics with embodied experience that are in both cases co-constituted by affective concern.
Anthony Chemero, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Peter Langland Hassan, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Thomas Polger, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
174 p.
Philosophy
Understanding; Action; Phenomenology; Immanuel Kant; Embodied Cognition; Transcendental method

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jeuk, A. A. (2017). A Phenomenological Account of Embodied Understanding [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1490350522636921

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jeuk, Alexander. A Phenomenological Account of Embodied Understanding. 2017. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1490350522636921.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jeuk, Alexander. "A Phenomenological Account of Embodied Understanding." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1490350522636921

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1490350522636921
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.