Time, Intentionality, and a Neurophenomenology of the Dot

Summary

The paper addresses a bias in Husserlian phenomenology that favors the intuition of meanings over sensations, linked to Husserl's mind-body dualism. It proposes a neurophenomenology that combines insights from contemplation and neuroanthropology, suggesting that experience arises from interactions between brain processes and sensory inputs. The author argues that Husserl's understanding of time aligns with contemporary neurophysiology and can inform anthropological studies of consciousness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The purposes of this paper are twofold: first, I wish to correct a systematic bias in Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. This bias is in favor of intuition of essences of meaning and against the intuition of essences of sensation. This bias is explained as a product of Husserl's mind‐body dualism. Second, I suggest the possibility of a neurophenomenology from a biogenetic structural point of view. This neurophenomenology merges the knowledge of essences derived from mature contemplation with knowledge of the structures of experience derived from neuroanthropology. After addressing these two issues I proceed to describe the sensorium from a neurophenomenological perspective, and the constituent element of perception, the dot. I hypothesize fat experience arises in the dialogue between prefrontal cortical processes and sensorial processes, that experience is constituted within a field of sensorial dots that arise and dissolve in temporal frames. I conclude that Husserl's view of the phenomenology of time is essentially correct and is both in keeping with findings from current neurophysiology, and amenable to a modem scientific view of consciousness and to many of the religious traditions encountered by ethnographers. The implications of a neurophenomenology for the anthropological study of consciousness are suggested.