{"id":434,"date":"2007-08-14T20:58:37","date_gmt":"2007-08-15T03:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/2007\/08\/14\/is-first-person-investigation-intrinsically-value-laden\/"},"modified":"2008-10-14T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2008-10-14T17:00:58","slug":"is-first-person-investigation-intrinsically-value-laden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/?p=434","title":{"rendered":"Is first-person investigation intrinsically value laden?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following Steve’s contribution, I find myself wondering whether first-person investigation is intrinsically value-laden.\u00c2\u00a0 Human experience cannot be emotion-free. This seems to me to have been in the background of a number of contributions to the meeting – I think of Walt’s particularly.\u00c2\u00a0 I also find myself thinking about something Nick pointed out: that many of us seemed to be rather at an angle to the conventional direction of research.<\/font>Perhaps this is because we share a feeling that the objectification of mental life has limits.\u00c2\u00a0 Now there is a wider historical perspective to this objectification, namely the rise of science and technology.\u00c2\u00a0 The damaging technological explosion unleashed in the last few centuries in Europe is possibly the major ethical\/political\/spiritual issue of our time.\u00c2\u00a0 This is value laden though perhaps in a more obvious sense than that Steve was exploring.\u00c2\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

Does first-person psychology have anything to say here?\u00c2\u00a0 If it is merely phenomenology with attitude, then no.\u00c2\u00a0 If, though, it helps to shift the focus of psychological inquiry towards the embodied encounter with the world, then yes.\u00c2\u00a0 This encounter is usually with the urban environment in which an increasing majority of the world’s population live.\u00c2\u00a0 But the encounter of with the world as it stands prior to human intervention is a deeper matter.<\/font><\/p>\n

Here, I think of James Hillman’s claim that there’s only one core issue for psychology, which is, in his words: “Where does ‘me’ stop and ‘the other’ begin?” This recalls Walt’s presentation again and especially his telling of his friend’s experience of ‘being lived by the All’ a feeling of unity with something greater than the self.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 How are we to move on past the restrictive objectification of psychology to address what was happening there?\u00c2\u00a0 Some links could be explored here with the ‘bodily’ poets that Susan used in her talk.<\/font><\/p>\n

What is the purpose of first-person inquiry?\u00c2\u00a0 There won’t be just one, but if it has nothing to say on the wider issues of the day, it begins to feel a little indulgent to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Exploring our experience directly need not just be a Proustian exploration of our lives with others.\u00c2\u00a0 It can also be a look into how the natural world reminds us that values do not simply arise within the human cultural arena.\u00c2\u00a0 Exploring how we perceive the boundary between ourselves and the world would be an opportunity to focus first-person investigation.<\/font><\/p>\n

A lst small thought is of a project that been on the back-burner for too long, namely an exploration of how Whitehead figures in some postumous work by Merleau-Ponty.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s beyond me at the moment, but I think there’s a possible arena for broadening the study of first-person towards a pan-semiotic view of Nature a la C.S. Peirce.
\nJohn Pickering<\/font><\/p>\n

John Pickering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following Steve’s contribution, I find myself wondering whether first-person investigation is intrinsically value-laden.\u00c2\u00a0 Human experience cannot be emotion-free. This seems to me to have been in the background of a number of contributions to the meeting – I think of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01_general","category-ratna-ling-consciousness-conferences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cciforum.dreamhosters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}