Jean-Luc Petit

A Husserlian, Neurophenomenologic Approach to Embodiment

Normally, we perfectly know where we are: we know that we are viewing the world from a particular and unique point of view. We know that we inhabit the physical body that is situated precisely at this same point of space. We localize ourselves in an absolute manner: definitely, we are ‘here’! We know where our hand is without having to watch it constantly, and we move our body without having to look around to know where it went. We can reach out for an object close at hand without having to fix it attentively in advance in order not to miss it. Such ‘knowledge’ (a misnomer) is indispensable in order for us to deal in a rapid, silent, adaptive and efficacious way with our customary occupations and duties. It is only when anomalies occur linked to cerebral lesions which make unreliable this implicit ‘knowledge’ and distort our experience that we become aware of the fact that this experience is contingent upon unknown conditions. Conditions that neuroscience help us understand by linking them to dysfunctions of the mechanisms underlying our sense of the moving body: ‘kinaesthesia’.

Pathological Experience: A Challenge for Transcendental Constitution Theory?

Husserl’s theory of transcendental constitution relies on the idea that the intentional subject – particularly the subject of motor acts orientated towards a goal – has within itself the resources needed to make sense of objects and, in general, of all salient aspects, all confi gurations and formations invested with meaning in his lifeworld ( Lebenswelt ). Already anticipating the naturalization of phenomenology as embodied cognition (Petitot 1999 ; Petit 2015 ), transcendental constitution places special emphasis on the role of kinaesthesia, the body’s intimate feeling of doing, and in so doing, it makes of the kinaesthetic system the source of the meaning structures of the Lebenswelt , and the guide to its systematic description. From a narrowly naturalistic point of view one might object to this programme on the grounds that it remains dependent upon the transcendental idealism of the Cartesian tradition, to the extent that it seems to suppose that the subject of motor acts necessarily enjoys an optimal control of the use of its motor system, as if it were exempt from disabilities. Hence the objection: surely the programme of transcendental constitution simply makes of successful voluntary movement the rule for all of human experience without regard to the pathological experience? This despite the fact that the empirical approach of biomedical sciences shows how very precarious and limited our capabilities to make sense are using only the normal resources of the body. JeanLuc Petit 1

Naturalizing Husserlian Phenomenology along a Leibnizian Pathway

A contribution to the history of a formerly hotly discussed, but short-lived scientific project: neurophenomenology 52 , the proposal of weaving together Husserlian phenomenology of consciousness and the neuroscience of brain functioning, this article traces back the opening and closing of an apparent window of opportunity, both in phenomenology and in neuroscience, for the eventually unfulfilled realization of that project.

Communication with aliens, as an opening of the horizon of a scientific Humanity. A philosopher's reflections

In this article, we reflect on the motives underlying the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life (SETI) with a view to show that far from turning away from humanity it is profoundly rooted in human aspirations. We suggest that those motives derive their driving force from the fact that they combine two powerful aspirations of humanity. On the one hand, there is the transcendental motive that drives history of science, the human enterprise that claims to escape any communitarian closure of horizon and brings our humanity to transcend itself toward the other, which was formerly referred to under the title Universal Reason. On the other hand, there is the anthropological motive by virtue of which the human being tends to project on the other and even in inanimate nature a double of himself. The mixture of both motives is deemed responsible for a remarkable bias in the current understanding of the SETI programme. Despite the fact that such a programme might well be aimed at any biological formation which could be arbitrarily different from all known forms, it is focused instead on a very special kind of being: beings that possess both the natural property of the type of mentality we identify with: intelligence, and the ideal one of being possible co-subjects for a Science of Nature.