Tag: Heidegger

The Problem of Being

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: July 6th 2020

A potential state of human inquiry is into the nature of our very being, and what it means “to be”. For many of us, if not all of us, this very being which we subjectively experience, the totality of who we are, that conscious experience of being a subject, that conscious experience of content as it arises and passes away, the totality of our psyche, our body, the unity of time, space, and consciousness, all of which falls under our synthesis of the unity of the Being which we are, becomes itself a problem, insofar as we don’t understand it, nor know how to modify it to the most optimal subjective experience. Our being becomes a problem for us, because we are able to recognize, first of all, that we are something. This something, insofar as it is unknown, unconceptualized, yet experienced, is altogether unknown to us. While our Being is that from which any action or content of the present moment is able to be brought into our awareness, we find trouble pinning down its process. Why am I experiencing one thing and not another? Why does my experience have a mood of dissatisfaction and suffering? How do I optimize this being, and why is it not the way I want it to be? Even if it was optimal, or is currently producing a mode of being which is content, or at peace, we know it won’t last, it is of the nature of our Being to be transient, alterable, subject to change.

 Given our desirous, transmutable, and altogether unreliable Being which is the very thing that we are, it is the source of our experience, and in the recognition of that experience, it becomes a problem for us, insofar as our experience is always lacking. Given the nature of our Being, that it is conditioned by prior causes, that it is always projecting itself into the future through the will for things to be otherwise, given the dissatisfaction and desire which are ceaseless, this Being becomes a problem for us. How can who we are, pose itself to be a problem? How could it be otherwise? If it couldn’t be otherwise, why do we still see it as a problem?

It is a problem by its very nature. Being biological organisms, in our corporeality, we are the literal survival machines of our genome, the very carrier that is tasked with propagation. This is the lowest core value that drives us, and as far as our Being is comprised of this body, which it is, the relative biological imperatives rise into our conscious experience, a manifestation of a mode stemming from the synthetic unity of Being, in whichever way they may be modified by our milieu, with the original desirous implications which are an expression of that core value. The complexity of our current milieu in which expression of the genomes wishes to be accomplished, and our ability to be acutely aware of the navigation of the milieu, and our place in it, gives rise to the complexity that arises in conscious awareness. Thus, based solely on the core value, we have a complex navigation issue that is further complicated by the more and more complex social environment and cultural conditions which we must orient ourselves around in order to succeed in accomplishing the survival machines task. This is the world “we”, as the subjective experiencers of this navigation, are “thrown into”. We experience the orientation provided to us by our embodied Being, that is modified by everything within our sphere of experience and influence. This constant modification, and our constant inherent desire, provides a large number of factors and potential orientations towards the world which we may find ourselves inhabiting. The problem with our Being is the dissatisfaction in not being properly equipped for the world we didn’t choose to be a part of, in inhabiting a body with a mode of Being that is sub-optimal in providing pleasure and contentment, as its instantiated final cause is that which necessarily must be driven towards. Our experience poses a navigation problem, that of seeking for the proper orientation, seeking the proper way of Being in the world we are thrown into. The problem is, it is never clear, it is never straightforward, we are always pushed and pulled, attracted to and aversive to the content which arises in our perceptually integrated directedness which presents itself in conscious awareness.

The directedness which comprises the gaze of consciousness towards perceptually filtrated content that is filled with a sense, a significance, a meaning, presents novel problems (novel in that every present moment is novel, always renewing itself) in how to orientate ourselves with the given content selected for. This continually updated system, itself continually updating, and our conscious experience “updating” in that it is mutable and constantly fluctuating, overwhelms the Being which believes it has the power, or the right, or the ability, to dictate the successive content, and our orientation towards it. While consciously directed Being is able to manifest actions in alignment with desire, those very desires, and the very perceptual system which injects content into conscious awareness, is itself outside of our will (The Causal Tethers Which Bind Us). As we are filled with choices, and “decisions” in regards to the choices, the entire enterprise is ran through by processes which go unnoticed in an unreflexive moment-to-moment experience. This dragging along into a world we are thrown into, for him who recognizes it as such, poses a problem, a problem of fatalism, that of being along for a ride which we didn’t choose to take, that we can’t stop, and we have no say over where it goes.

Prior to any realization of the characteristics which compromise our being such as its necessary meaning structure, its directedness, its inherent desire and dissatisfaction with the present, its projection towards the future and its immutable connectivity to the past, comes the preliminary underlying issue of our own Being being unknown to us, of Being something which we do not know. While these characteristics seek to impose some order in conceptual form, or experientially realized pre-conceptual form, they are merely a way of our Being coming to terms with what it is. Any unknown which we are directed upon poses a sort of issue for us, a problem, insofar as it has yet to be put in formation, yet to be transferred from mere content to “information”. This presents itself in any content that manifests itself in a novel, or wholly unintuitable way, it invites us to seek a way of categorizing it, of putting ourselves in orientation towards it in a way that makes sense of it, that has meaning. While this is done subconsciously with visual, auditory, tactile, and in general, all sensorious content, the mental content that arises poses the same exact issue, but it requires an orientation that is more than just perceptually integrated and embodied – as it itself is the production of the perceptual filtration system – it requires an abstract orientation of the mind in being able to make sense of the content. We often attempt to impose order upon mental content through the linguistically developed capabilities we contain. We tie concepts to phenomena and use language in order to reference it, placing a structure of understanding within ourselves in relation to the content that is manifesting. When it comes to the unknown that is itself this very Being which is orientating itself in the world, we find the same problem, but amplified in its scope, in that it is the Being which orients which seeks to orient itself. We, being the totality of the system which does the orientating, experience the awareness of conscious content in its directedness towards something, and can reflexively conclude that it is the manifestation of conditioned phenomenal forces acting in the presenting of the present. In seeking to uncover the attributes, the mode of being which comprises the enterprise is itself directed towards that which is directing, towards the directionality itself.

This Being poses a problem in that it is unknown, and in seeking to order it, to tie linguistic representations and structure ourselves towards it, the very mechanism from which we are doing so is that which we are attempting to reflexively orientate ourselves towards. Thus we prose a problem for ourselves, in that we seek to uncover a way of organizing the chaos which we are, through the chaos that is that which is to be understood. Thus the fundamental human condition, that of operating from a presupposition of chaotic potentiality, the unknown that is known by the conscious observer as being unknown, and which fails to impose order upon it.

Thus the role of phenomenology arises from this deficiency, as that which takes this issue of Being, attempts to impose order in the formulation and comprehension of its characteristics, through the recognition of its manifestations, through the examination of its content and the ties which predispose our Being to act and Be in certain ways. It is recognizing the characteristics of this Being which we find ourselves as, that we are reflexively turning the gaze upon itself, and delineating its features. This Being which we are, is the necessary precondition to any enterprise that arises into experience, whether it is movement, sensation, mental aggregates such as thought, ideas, pre-conceptual experience, and, the way in which we are situated in the world, and what we do in the world. All human endeavor, whether it be scientific, technological, social, or philosophical, stems from the human Being which is a mystery unto itself. Yet we make truth-claims about these domains, we impose order in the form of descriptions of objects, and we know not from whence the description came, we know not why and how such manifestations of linguistic organization is produced, we know not the meaning, the sense, the significance that has orientated us towards the world in the way which produces the experience which we take for granted. We attribute agency, and conscious control, in the place of embodied orientation towards the world, we take ownership for conceptual abstract representations, knowing not why we are orientated toward such content, nor how such linguistic representations are produced, and why they are produced in a way towards content which we find enough importance to dedicate time to. We opt either for empiricism in regarding all that is experienced as being subjugated to the sensory received datum, or intellectualism in the conscious interpretation of all phenomenon. We ought to see the transcendence of both systems, in the unity of the totality of our Being, and see both perspectives as merely modes of interpreting ourselves, which need not be diametrically opposed, but rather two modes of interpretation which are themselves manifesting out of the same Being which seeks to orientate itself towards the world, they are two answers to a question which calls for the transcendence of both.

Why do we dedicate time towards the directedness of our gaze, and for what purpose? Why does our gaze move, and what drives us to orient ourselves in the manner which we find ourselves in the present? We ought to, in the first place, pose the questions. We ought to admit the unknown through admonition of its place as the unknown, and, if we want to find the answers that solve the questions we must look in the direction of solving the question of how the question itself is arising. In order to find the characteristics and order necessary to deal with existence itself, to manage Being in an optimal way, we must seek to understand it. In the process of understanding it, we must return to the thing’s themselves, to the phenomena as they are so presented to us, and work with the only tools we have, with the Being which is closest to us, that Being which we find ourselves as being. This is the task of the philosopher, of the seeker of truth, and more specifically, of the phenomenologist.

On Phenomenology – Continued

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: March 10th 2020

Mindfulness in its traditional application is a mode of being in which the practitioner becomes aware of the awareness of consciousness in the present moment, i.e. the practitioner becomes aware of the contents of consciousness as they present themselves to the field of consciousness. Attention is directed toward phenomena as they arise, and subsequently fade away to be replaced. Important insights are gleaned from such practice, such as the impermanence of mental phenomena and their inherent transitoriness, the lack of a self – as the contents being ushered into consciousness’s gaze are not being determined by the subject (the practitioner) – and the root of such phenomena is found to be in the very general care structure, or ability to desire. Upon closer introspection and further development of the practice, the root of suffering, and the all-pervasive nature of suffering, are discovered. While mindfulness is useful to the realization in first-hand experience of such immutable truths, experientially we solely are limited to insights gleaned from the gaze into the present moment. Mindfulness enables further recognition of the nature of consciousness, but the story is not completed by such pursuits, it is only partially informed. (Mindfulness and Phenomenology)

In practicing mindfulness, or Vipassana, we become aware of the noema (Husserl’s terminology), or the conscious mental manifestation of phenomena as viewed subjectively. The noema is the experiential aspect of the present moment, whatever content may arise is a given noema. It is the act itself of what is intentioned by our conscious directing in the present moment. It is the content of experience, as we are able to view it. We can push mindfulness to a higher resolution image of these contents through retrospective phenomenological analysis of the content manifested in the present moment. This analysis is done through discrimination, retrospectively, upon the mode of Being, the field of consciousness, which gives rise to the phenomena available to be gleaned in mindfulness.

The pursuit of this content, that of the noesis, is purely the job of the phenomenologist, for purposes which range from psychological to metaphysical, from the advance of our understanding to our personal development. In discerning phenomena using a mindfulness process, we direct our attentional gaze using both subjective intuition and logical reduction of the phenomena to find their essence, i.e. we seek to discover the noesis which is present in the manifestation of the noema, which is available to us introspectively. The groundwork for such phenomena can be found tricky to reduce from the neomatic content, which are ever transient in their appearing, yet philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Hegel have sought to classify, organize, describe, and relate the different modes of being and their progression through their influential works.

While the phenomenological method has been dictated in many forms, the practical implementation of a phenomenological examination in the course of a detailed practice has been lacking in a structure which is available to be practiced by the general public.

This is a topic which I am seeking to pursue, how to conceptualize a process for the identification of noeses behind noema, and for the ability to utilize such information once it is acquired towards the promotion of the wellbeing of the individual, as well as a higher resolution of the truth of our own, of my own, of the phenomenologist’s own, consciousness, and thus of reality. This is truly a task for those who wish to seek the truth of their Being, and while mindfulness meditation and practice opens the door, phenomenological analysis into the groundwork of conscious modes of Bring which lays behind the phenomena is truly stepping through the door. While science can depict aspects of the neural underpinnings of the cortical mass which can be linked to emotion, thought, and relational hierarchical reasoning, and other modes of sensual representation in their displays to consciousness, the phenomenologists and thus the philosopher seeks a task which only he himself can pursue. These grounds are subjectively discoverable and give us an insight into the objective realization of the structure of our consciousness, and our Being. Only through retrospective phenomenological analysis into the information gleaned through a mindfulness practice is it to be acquired.

The implications of such pursuit are vast, what insight and beneficiality there is to be gained through recognition of structural modes of being which lay behind the perceived phenomena arising in consciousness is something to be discovered, which can be discovered, and we would be wise not to ignore them. The directing of our current mode of being towards such content necessarily places us in a new mode of being separate from the (time/content) to be analyzed, allowing for an infinite regress of content to be explored. What immediately is clear is that modes of being can overlap, and several can be present within the present moment, dependent upon the content thus produced. It is the task of the philosopher to parse out the constituent defining characteristics of such modes of beings, and furthermore to the interrelatedness of the modes, viz. how they interact, and how the separate thesis’s which are used to describe them overlay in their totality to form the synthesis which comprised the synthetic unitary mode of consciousness which contains them. This synthetic unitary mode is all encompassing in its definition, and applies to the field of which all modes of Being are connected, yet they are discretionary in their arising, due to causal factors which we can also further elaborate on. It is clear that this enterprise is vast in its scope and deep in its implications, but the utilization of it, and the insights which are possible to be discovered, appear to be ever vaster.

In reference to the beneficiality of such practice, here noted as phenomenological practice, we are going to base the further discussion upon the insights gleaned through Vipassana, or as will further be described as mindfulness (as the insight meditation practice focusing attention upon the contents of consciousness). In mindfulness we learn how certain contents, and habitual formations arise, and in response to what triggers them. We learn how to cope with such phenomena in a way which is beneficial to us, or in alignment with our morals, or preconceived value and care structures. We can apply our value, moral, and care structures to the navigation not only in response to the shifting contents of our consciousness, but to the modes of being discoverable and thus subsequently recognizable in their manifestation through phenomenological practice. E.g. we discover through the exclamation of certain truths, or of conceptual exertions of truth-claims (valued as certain through our doxic (belief) structure) as being contained in a mode of being of certainty. Thus we state something with absolute confidence, perhaps in a conversation, as being categorically true. Upon reflection upon that content which manifests itself in our awareness through being mindful of the moment, we can later reflect upon such memory, or stored representation of the present moment, and seek to reduce the mode of consciousness which we inhabited in the moment of exertion. Of course the topic on hand is relevant to the mode of being we find ourselves in, but we strip that away further, and find that beneath the content, beneath the circumstances, beneath the external and internal causality which conditions the response in us of exerting what we believe to be a truth-claim, that we are inhabiting a mode of consciousness of “certainty”.

If our moral and value structure is thus formulated to be one of fallibility (Intro to Fallibilism), in the spirit of continual progression and abhorrence to dogmatic claims, we find the mode of certainty to be truly dissonant in respect to our value structure. Thus we can consciously direct our efforts to avoid pursuing the mode of being thus recognized as “being certain” and through conscious training become habitualized to act otherwise than the prior causally condition habitual response. We are not looking in grounding our actions to be counter to the manifestation of the content which is elicited by the mode of being of certainty, but instead to be counter to the mode of “being certain” itself. Such an effort in affecting our mode of being will subsequently produce actions and intentions which are directed from a mode of being counter to the original mode of being, and properly in line with our conscious value structure of remaining fallible.

In a similar sense as the Buddhist works at conditioning himself away from unwholesome thoughts and towards the propagation of wholesome thoughts, and likewise in speech, views, and actions, we seek to condition ourselves towards wholesome modes of being, and away from unwholesome modes of being. Thus in the case where such further encounters with the mode of being of certainty, we can quickly recognize the triggers to its manifestation, its formal manifestation, and in response, move away from making neomatic claims (actual acts) and seek to inhabit the mode of being fallible, in order to produce a reactive response which is in line with our moral and value structure, which isn’t overpowered by the “archetype”, so to speak, of certainty, but instead that of fallibility. This mode of being more accurately represents the synthetic unitary mode of Being, to me at least (in this personal example) which is a more authentic representation of the totality of who we are, rather than the one dominant mode being which seeks to overexert itself, namely, that mode of “certainty”.

In this way we can, in addition to mindfulness, consciously direct ourselves towards the implication of a phenomenological practice, the fruits of which can be used in a practical manner not only to provide information depicting a higher resolution image of the truth of our Being, and thus reality, not only towards the beneficiality of our wellbeing in the navigation away from dominant modes of being which we contain yet don’t desire to be prominent, but we additionally can give a more authentic representation of ourselves in our thoughts, speech, and actions, through the practical application of its findings, and work towards habitualized, consciously directed, practice. The progression of our understanding, in our pursuit for truth, and in the realization and authentication of our moral and hierarchical value structures is of paramount importance for the individualization, and progression of the individual, to becoming more fully actualized in his conduct and cognitive apprehension of reality (Value System Instantiation). Thus if we seek to be moral, and seek truth, we should endeavor to push past mindfulness practice into the newly discovered field of phenomenological practice.

In summary, what underlies the present moment act, or mental activity, which presents itself in mindfulness, is the type or mode of acting which is taking place. Here we are defining the content as the noema, and the acting, or mode of consciousness producing the noema, as noesis. (Husserl’s Terminology) The noema is consciously directed toward an object, whether in that moment it be memory, a thought, a perception, a feeling of sensual origination, etc. The mode of being giving rise to such content, is described linguistically as remembering, thinking, perceiving, feeling, etc. What we seek to discover in our analysis is first, the noema, secondly, the noesis, thirdly, the conditions and essential nature of the noesis, fourthly, the causal connectedness of underlying factors producing the noesis (external circumstances, inner disposition, biological/hereditary/cortical processing (neuroscientific explanations)), fifthly, how to navigate the reduction and the instigation of modes of being or noesis in a consciously directed way in order to give an optimal result in our experience of life and the manifestations of our actions, which is dictated by acquired knowledge, and implemented using practical wisdom (phronesis).

Where the intention from which acts in the noema stem from are to be uncovered through discovery of the noesis present in their manifestations, we can also look to what is manifesting the noesis itself. This entails seeing the causal relation between modes of being changing, whether it be directed through conscious instigation, environmental factors, or necessary progression. We can seek to reduce from the given information present to us what are the causal conditions which allow the synthetic unitary consciousness, or the Totality of our Being, to give rise to the mode of being discoverable in the noesis. We can find this to be conditioned through unconsciously formulated pathway of reciprocity to present situations, which has roots in biological processes and, in short, the totality of our experience through life (starting with hereditary and environmental factors).

While these are surely relevant to us, what is more valuable is the course correcting away from sub optimal, or dissonance causing modes of being (in contrast to our consciously formulated value structure). Consciousness is constantly undergoing an updating process as new experience and data is collected through our perspectival horizon, this datum enters into its triage, which is collected through the value system’s discrimination, and in turn the filtration system itself is modified. This modification of the value structures filtration of perceived content subsequently affects the relevant experience presented to us in our subjective experience of consciousness itself. We are interested in how to affect this system consciously, in the most optimal way for our Being, that which we are in our entirety. This is to be done through the aforementioned noesis recognition, a conscious system of noeses which are discerned as more optimal, and the consciously directed self-conditioning of the instigation of modes of being in line with the pre thought-out value structure. Just as we learn anything through experience, practice, and self-training, the same principle applies to the adjustment of our mode of being. Once we learn to recognize the manifestation of an unwanted or wanted mode of being, and are able to conscious recognize such content through the noema present to us in proper mindfulness, we are able to utilize that information towards the cessation of unwanted modes of being, and the arising of wanted modes of being. The desire structure which is inherent in all content is not able to be avoided, or replaced by simply the “denial of the will” as Schopenhauer puts it, as even such a denial is a manifestation of the desire structure – such phenomena as our desire structure we must learn to live with, and utilize to our benefit, through the phenomenological practice directed towards the modes of being which are of greater interest to us in our hierarchical structure. Thus we can utilize the tool which causes us suffering, in order to minimize, or move to a mode of being which contains less suffering, through directing our mode of being in this way.

Where is the proper direction to head? Which modes of Being do we value more than others? How do we manifest different modes of Being? How do we find the synthetic unitary consciousness with which we should seek to authentically represent in our speech and actions through instigation of proper modes of Being? All these questions are relevant and discoverable to the philosopher. And thus an existential question is posited, towards which end ought we head? And using which metric should we follow? It is here that the individual philosopher must make a stand. He must formulate answers to these questions, and seek to embody them, for the development and authentic representation of his being depends on it. We can move in degrees towards the peak of the mountain which we so choose to climb, while one may choose a pathway designated by the current cultural zeitgeist, another may choose the hedonistic peak, while another may follow a whim, it is up to us to decide. There is morality in question, there is truth in question, and there is living in alignment with what we will, there is also, most importantly, that pathway which leads to optimal wellbeing for us. This path towards optimal wellbeing may necessarily involve suffering in its formulation, and is in no way opting for a utopia of the mind which is universal, what is truly the best mode to inhabit for one person, may not be for another, and there is no form in which to generalize such conclusions.

While moral realism holds ground if it is based upon solid foundations, as formulated by Sam Harris, that doesn’t mean that we all will be competent enough to discover what is truly best for us, although our degree of success will always be placed upon a spectrum towards the unknowable height of perfection. What phenomenological analysis enables us to do is to discover the roots of our mode of Being, and what phenomenological practice does is allow us to condition ourselves in the direction we wish to head. While every path objectively is meaningless, and it always is full of meaning to us, subjectively. Thus it is of paramount importance that we discover what is meaningful to us, which modes of being we as the individual who has to subjectively experience this life must further experience. This information, and this uncovering, will allow us to formulate the location in which we are to direct our phenomenological practice towards achieving.

 The expression of our inner state in the form of our actions / content of consciousness isn’tof primary importance to us here, what we are more interested in is the mode of being from which all content stems from. For we can alter our speech and actions within a given domain of Being, and they will all reflect the same state, albeit in slightly altered forms. What we must optimize is the mode of Being which we inhabit given a certain set of problems / circumstances which we seek to oppose. There are better or worse solutions to the problems in our lives, navigable to lesser or greater degrees. What we must seek to find is an optimal mode of being from which the appropriate response can flow from.

I find the danger in strict dogmatism in regards to moving forward with utmost confidence in a frame of mind of infallibility. This, I believe, is a trademark of the modern man, and of utmost importance to be corrected from. The archetype of the tyrant, the man who claims to know the answer, the soul who seeks to dominate reality with his current understanding. This mode of Being runs rampant, and plagues the development of the individual to grow, learn, and optimize his current understanding. It is not merely the claim that we know the best solution, nor is it solely claiming that we simply “don’t know”, which is surely true but inconclusive. The mode of being I think that can best correct, and improve the individual, is to have logically conclusive beliefs, in which harmonize with the conceptual unity of the individuals metaphysical doxic structure, yet, simultaneously, the individual must hold that these beliefs are merely beliefs. This doesn’t mean that knowledge is unattainable, it solely means that whether we have true knowledge, or are ignorant, that there is a possibility that at the very most this information is partial. There is always more “background” truths to be uncovered, there is always more information to be had, more time to be spent, more “wisdom” to be encountered and utilized towards a “better” optimal solution. We may be truly correct, objectively, yet when one maintains a fallibilistic mode of being in regard to truth claims, what happens is that we gain a pragmatic advantage in every area with which we are ignorant, whether it be in areas of known unknowns, or unknown unknowns, yet while passionately holding a belief, we do not resign from action and evaluation, or in decisiveness. We lose certainty and we gain every possibility for ever growing inner expansion. If we don’t hold this mode of being close, we risk losing out, on something we may not even know we are missing. The only knowledge and information we have to work with in response to novel problems arising necessarily stems from experience, and it is natural to seek to move forward with preconceived knowledge in the confrontation with chaos. While we must not stagnant, we must also hold firmly in mind that any decision we make, any truth-claim we state, can be improved upon, can be better informed, can come from a mode of being which altogether transcends our current one. The amount of time taken in pursuit of more optimal solutions, and towards which issues we direct our conscious attention to analyzing, falls under the domain of wisdom. While we must look to overcome challenges, if something is a challenge to us, it necessarily implies an unknown. In order to combat it we must seek to recognize that there is an unknown, and transfer it into our conceptual framework for “known unknown”. This requires relinquishment of the mode of being of absolute certainty.

Phenomenological Bracketing, Analysis, and Insights Gleamed

On By Chris Shuttleworth1 Comment
Originally Written: March 2nd 2020

We begin a phenomenological analysis by bracketing all that is included in the transcendent domain of experience, as that which is wholly external to the subjective experience of consciousness, which here is defined as “immanent”. We bracket judgments, perceptions, beliefs, scientific truths, and externally gained insights (includes forms of speech). External content isn’t our focus, neither is our perception of appearances, only what the content of the consciousness doing the perceiving is essentially consisting of. In short, we do not deny or affirm the validity of the transcendent world (of that which exists beyond consciousness) we merely remove ourselves from the domain of the consistent striving to describe it, in order to focus on the essential nature of consciousness. In so doing, we neutralize any belief and judgment, and remove any causal explanation for conscious phenomena which we had acquired from a non-phenomenological method. What is left over after the bracketing is the space of immanent consciousness, which, unfortunately, if we wish to convey the experience of, and relate an essential structure, we must use a form of communication such as language which itself is not implicitly originating in consciousness, but is itself produced by consciousness as a coherent string of symbolic representation of any kind (mathematic, scientific, logical).

Although the objects in the “bracketed world” to which the form of communication we use is directed at describing isn’t itself part of the phenomenological structure which we are seeking to analyze, the object of the “unbracketed world” is for us, it does exist for us, in that it lies within the perceptible horizon of our gaze. The communication used in that representation is an experiential representation of the underlying subconscious structure, and the only insight we can gleam in a conceptual form of which produces a logically shareable structure depicting this inner immanent domain requires the use of the communication system which we contain in the acquired skill of language (used in tangent with other cortical structures in representation). To represent accurately phenomena outside of the immanent domain that isn’t itself part of the phenomenological Being “of consciousness”, is wholly the job of the Sciences. Thus the language which arises in conscious experience (thought / speech) is a phenomenon which is an acquired trait through social and biological conditioning methods, and is an output of the Being which we are in the way any intentional act, or content of our psyche (which is available in awareness, self-reflectively), also respectively is. The phenomena of language itself in its relation to the foundational, essential aspect of our psyche which gives rise to it, is a direct expression of that subconscious structure and bears a direct relation to it. In analyzing its arising in the manner just described, we can look for ways in which the experience of language in thought, in its manifestation, can point to truths about the nature of consciousness in its essential aspects.

The consciousness which gives rise to language in the form of thought, which we probably recognize as conceptualization of other phenomena, whether past, present or future, is contained in a mode of consciousness specific to the content of the thought just produced, and has many traits which separate it from other modes of non-conceptual mental states, or modes of Being, which is an area for deep inquiry and further expansion. The causal and correlative nature of different modes of Being in respect to each other, and their relation to the unit of the synthetic whole, is a web of causal interconnections which, if properly differentiated and sufficiently analyzed, we can tease apart to recognize individual relations as they relate to a phenomena available in experience.

So, we opt to attempt a description of the essentiality of consciousness and its different modes of which we are able to experience, and we can discover phenomenological truth which, due to bracketing, is far from verifiable outside of the context of our own experience, but since we have discovered it in our own experience, its validity is therefore never to be diminished as the truth of our perception of our own consciousness. We must use the gaze of conscious awareness in order to grasp conscious manifestations, or phenomena arising in consciousness (Mindfulness and Phenomenology), and we must use language to attempt to give a description of the phenomena and their arising and subjectively verify their place within the realm of consciousness. The findings in such a realm of inquiry are potentially limitless as the quantity of experience, place in time which we discover, and the reduction towards the isolation of experience is continually progressing. In other words, every moment of conscious experience is potentially a subject to phenomenological analysis, on the first degree, but even an analysis upon the consciousness which itself is performing the “first level” phenomenological analysis (a phenomenally directed mode of Being) is possible to be undertaken, in a “second level” phenomenological analysis, ad infinitum. Therefore, every moment which contains content in consciousness can be subject to a reduction and separation from the external world, and viewed “as it is itself” and thus we can discover thematic elements which constitute its essence and place within the sphere of the synthetic unity of consciousness.

Upon further work, we can later document the discoveries in the phenomenological sphere, and post analysis unbracket the scientific tools and discoveries which conventional knowledge has provided us with. The application and attempt of explanation of the phenomenologically derived “fact” by means of the now unbracketed realm of resources may provide insightful into the application, lineal development, causation, origination, and biological constituents which can be related to the phenomena. That being said, it would in practice be the applying of objective knowledge to subjectively acquired datum. Thus we can look at the intentionality, belief structure, or value structure, which we find to be acting upon our consciousness of a certain object, found to be characteristic of all experience in a phenomenological depiction of the present moment, and look for a description in evolutionary biology towards how the genes would benefit in survivability or profundity by the ability to manifest such behaviors in its host organism’s survival machine. We can apply psychological tools towards the optimization of such mechanisms, and test the efficiency of said modifications upon the subjective structure (how different value/belief structures affect subjective wellbeing). The realm of application for subjectively discovered and philosophically expounded descriptions of the nature of consciousness has real, objective consequences which, other than a mere depiction of reality as initially posited by the philosopher, can be used for practical expansion in every other domain of inquiry.

The conceptualization of phenomenological truths which we can discover in the essence of modes of Being which constitute consciousness, allows us to visualize the foundations for which every objective realm of inquiry necessarily stems from. The thought, the idea, the perception, the action, the speech, the phenomena, is only manifested through the human consciousness. The essential components of consciousness are metaphorically the filter between reality and our conscious understanding of reality, and it is here which is the root of all objective discovery. It is therefore not only beneficial but wholly necessary to have a phenomenological grasp of the Being which is the “background” to the arising of all subjective experience, and thus the point of departure towards which any truth-statement or conceptualization of reality must pass through. Consciousness itself must be thoroughly described as an aspect of the reality which it is part of, it is essential in any truth-statement, and it is always there lurking as the mediator between what is objectively discoverable and what is able to be subjectively experienced (including thoughts / formulations of transcendental reality i.e. what is not immanent consciousness, what is other than consciousness itself).

Original, naive, “natural” beliefs about the conditions of consciousness erode under further scrutiny when the proper aspects of understanding are bracketed. Ideas such as free will, or the positing of a self who controls consciousness, can become intuited as nonsensical when one is mindful of the essence of consciousness in its separateness from preconceived beliefs. Free will isn’t a phenomenon, and thus never presents itself phenomenologically, it only appears to be a concept that makes sense on surface level subjective intuition. There is no sense of the universe or logical explanation as to how such a thing could even exist, it simply is impossible and at a conclusively demonstrated (through phenomenological analysis) level its non-existence could be no clear. This doesn’t mean the idea of “freewill”, or a belief in it doesn’t exist, as we can obviously gleam from social interaction, most people act as if they have freewill, and it’s arising as a concept is merely a subjective misuse of language, and a fundamental misunderstanding into the nature of the organism which inhabits our consciousness.  In the unbracketed sphere of the “natural world” we find use of the concept of referring to “ourselves” and of the notion that “I” am in control of this organism’s manifestations, and we use such forms of speech to interact with others in a way that holds meaning in terms of practicality of ownership and responsibility. But, as to the essence of consciousness producing such states, and to the fact of the matter itself, we find that a confusion is found in the distinction “I am directing my attention”, from the true notion of the phenomena being “attention is directional, and being directed”.

A similar line of thought holds true for other contents produced by our fundamental belief and language structures, such as the belief in the existence of ideas such as depicted in supernatural claims, as well as religious certainties and the notion of a “self”. Different modes of consciousness are related to different degrees of “certainty” in form of “possibility”, “probability”, and “doubt”. The problem I see which should be crucially examined is our mode of being in “certainty”, which leaves us closed off for further investigation and truth-revelation. As long as we avoid any state of “certainty” and always acknowledge the probability of the relationship between our conceptualization of reality in its matching up to reality itself, including probability of inaccuracy, we remain in a state of consciously instituted fallibility, and thus are open to error correction and further development. In discovering which beliefs are more or less likely (in a probabilistic way) to be accurate depictions of reality, we can harken back to a phenomenological approach in order to analyze if the grounds for such claims are truly present in our experience, our experience being the formal dictator of all logical and necessary truths, through which we must thoroughly seek to remove any falsehood from, and actively seek to better inform the beliefs which underlie the modes of consciousness which direct our life the most. Due to the inherent belief structure which is actively present in our actions, thoughts, Being, and which work to manifest our subjective experience, and thus our wellbeing, we are wise to examine that the beliefs from which our behavior and thus our mental state arises from, are wholly in tune with reality in a way that is logically explainable to us, without which we run the risk of being prey to false notions of belief, and thus less than optimal experience and manifestation of a truth expressing character. As belief plays an optimal role in the formations of the path of our lives, and our experience is limited by the time in which we are alive on this path, we would be remiss to not work to form a foundation of belief which is on firm ground, at least, insofar as we are philosopher, and lovers of truth.

What is the best way to which discover our doxic (intellectually discoverable belief) structure and its validity in corresponding to the reality which we find ourselves in? (Value Structure Instantiation) Through a phenomenological analysis, and later through a psychological examination, and lastly, through usefulness, beneficiality, and accurate truth-representing in everyday life situations. Through differentiations in input (of belief), and output (psychological state), together with real, meaningful results (real life application and usefulness), we can determine which beliefs we desire to contain, desire being used in a way to describe which we would most like to contain. Of course it is impossible to consciously believe in something we do not bodily believe in, analysis into the validity of our beliefs will necessarily close us off from this possibility, to the ability that we as human Beings, are able to accurately conceptualize the truth, and the proximity we have to it will be in direct proportion to our environmental factors, experience, and knowledge. The production of this process would be the foundation derived through wisdom, in the production of wisdom, which can be used to guide our behavior in life, and therefore affect others, and thus produce a system I have described elsewhere as “wisdom ethics”. The component of wisdom ethics thus described in this portion of writing is upon the foundational belief structure, and the phenomenological analysis used to uncover it, which would give rise to the most optimal wisdom schemata, if we wish for the implications of our ethical conduct to be grounded upon the truth, to the best of our ability in uncovering it. 

On the Phenomenological Method

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: February 14th 2020

The phenomenologists method of discovering the in itself of an object within consciousness (any phenomena) isn’t properly explained through an empirical or rational methodology, but rather through using an eidetic (internal intuition) reduction to reveal the essential nature of an object. This is done through taking the known characteristics of a phenomena as they are understood by consciousness (science, philosophy, psychology aides us in discovering the attributes relating to an “object”), and discarding any attributes or perceptions or judgments which do not constitute the nature of the object so as to not alter its form. This means any characteristic that is able to be removed from or altered within the object, while the object is able to retain its structure and “Being” after the reduction, is removed, and the essential characteristics are what remains. By removing the transient, we can gain intuition into the concrete essence of a phenomena. We, in part, are able to do this through applied knowledge of the phenomenological method, in concordance with our developed logical and rational capacities, the data called into question acquired through our perceptive system selecting content through a value hierarchy structure. We must have knowledge of, and consciously employ a phenomenological method to properly carry out the eidetic reduction, and this, if carried out sufficiently, can provide us with foundational features which we can verify subjectively through experience. The ability to linguistically describe a process, and its accuracy in being a symbolic representation of that content, relies on our conceptual vocabulary and our ability to articulate the abstract essence into a relatable and meaningful content. Through the positing of a questionable concrete phenomena within the realm of consciousness, we are able to cognitively model the content and imaginatively vary its attributes until a limitation found within the object of desire is reached so that any further reduction or alteration would fundamentally not apply to the object, revealing the invariable, or essential necessary form or shape or pure essence of the content in question.

We must not mistake the Being of our own consciousness employed in the act of cognition with the content within consciousness, both are separate phenomena in which the phenomenologist is able to scrutinize. The mode of Being which is able to employ an eidetic reductionist method is itself an object which can be analyze by the phenomenologist, as is any other content that is able to be imagined by us. The conceptualization of objects allows us to properly bracket the content and organize it into our mental framework, allowing a ready-to-hand language in which to work with in our efforts. As we become aware of a content arising within consciousness (can even be the awareness of awareness in a meta sense) we can run that object through the eidetic reduction to be able to apply a description to the content in a fashion that reveals its essential nature in a way that is clear and objective, albeit, if experientially intuited then the content uncovered in the reduction is true to its nature, an symbolic representation is necessarily related to this true nature by degrees of precision according to our ability to articulate and preciseness of concepts in denoting their represented phenomena. This defining, or application of a description which relates the essence of a phenomena, isn’t a material or empirical fact, as science can discover, but more of a hypothesis into the nature of an “object”. This hypothesis can in turn be objectively validated in its externalizing through applying logic and reason, as well as philosophical argumentation, to prove its usefulness and beneficiality. This explanation of a phenomena produced through the eidetic reduction, due to its abstract nature, is discoverable solely by the philosopher in his ability to clarify an abstract phenomenon. It is the job of the philosopher to transmit a clear and articulate description, and must not, in my opinion, ever claim the depiction as being more than a hypothesis. While certain hypotheses properly discovered using this methodology are surely to be miscalculated, varied by biases and judgments, or wrongly concluded upon based on the limited perceptibility and the mental substratum’s natural limitations, we can conversely discover descriptions of essences which prove to be logically non-contradictory, as well as useful or beneficial within the philosophical realm of comprehension.

Thus the discoveries of phenomenology can be used to inform our belief and value structures, and reveal aspects of reality not able to be unveiled through a strictly empirical, deductionistic, inductionistic, or scientific methodology. This standard methodology, science of psychology, deals with facts and truth seeking of phenomena in their perception to us in the external world (also material phenomena constituting the foundations for our internal world – consciousness), what phenomenology allows us to do is take a lower resolution image of the Being which is engaged in scientific endeavors, analyze the theoretical explanations of scientific discoveries, methodologies, and allows us to conceptualize the makeup of scientific findings so that the content is more accurately represented to our human perspective, from the human perspective, to the human perspective. The perceptible system is the foundation for which datum arises in consciousness, the essence of which is discovered in phenomenology. This consciousness, therefore, is necessarily presupposed in any scientific endeavor, and always modifies the endeavor and interprets it through biological lens. The facts of science are truly external facts, while our conceptual representations of them are merely models. Phenomenology allows us to parse the data discovered in science while simultaneously analyzing the description which we apply to such data through the use of our language, or mathematical logic, in order to not only give a more truthful representation of it, but also to differentiate and isolate specific components in a way that gives insight into the specific nature of each separable piece, or as the whole (the totality of aspects which makeup the essentially of a concept if it has constituent parts).

While a particle can be scientifically and mathematically theorized to exist, and can be found in a laboratory to exist, the perception of such an object is always altered by the observer, not only in the conscious content arisen in experience, but in the very ability to perceive, and the necessary value structure through which it is filtered. The significance, or sense, that we don’t seek out, but for which we find to constitute the intentionality of our being towards the data, is posited in the revelation of the data, and we become aware of content through the system which selects for it. Aside from conceptualizing content discovered in the phenomenological lens, in the natural mode of being we also come across difficulty in parsing data and affecting it based upon the mode of being which we inhabit in our directedness towards it.The microscope used, the light interference upon the particle and upon the instrumentation used to record it, our own eye sight and mental reflection of it, our mental state of recognizing such data and symbolizing them consciously, is all variants in interpreting the particle. From every perspective, from every moment, the content of such depictions is altered, yet theoretically, the object exists objectively. To describe it as it truly is, being that we are humans located in time at which both us (our conscious mode of Being) and the object in its essential nature are constantly in a state of flux and impermanence, requires philosophical and grammatical cohesion with the application of logic to really nail down the underpinnings of what makes something what it is, the in-itself of an object thus can only be articulated, or the sense of it experienced, only in partial relation to the fullness of its actuality. The natural way of interpreting data, and thinking of scientific discovery, is by just taking the data as they are discovered at face value, without analyzing the aspect of human intervention which always is a variable in the perception of any content, being that we are limited to our human state. Recognizing the indeterminateness of our experience and how it relates to the analysis of scientific discovery, leaves us open to the normal way of viewing and describing phenomena, without taking into account the human experiential aspect which is side-by-side to the present moment awareness and creation of the object of inquiry. We ignore the essence of the content in our naturally progressing and transient conscious experience, and therefore lose our own possibility of deeper insight into the nature of the content of consciousness and the mode of Being which coincides with the awareness of such content. In science, this can amount to the improper conceptualization of phenomena, creating an obfuscated description (inarticulate, not properly described or defined concept or group of concepts) which misses out on the possibility of a more accurate representation, which would be, for us, possible through a phenomenological investigation. 

The phenomenological conclusion, taken to its limit (the limit of an investigation with itself as object) produces a result that was discovered through a much less vigorous method – without our current understanding of logic and reduction (as well as a lack of science) – over two thousand years ago. The concluding remark upon the essential aspects of phenomena themselves prove to be unsatisfactory, as is the natural state of our conscious experience, by the very absence of integral essence to phenomena. All phenomena, outside of the bounds of our conceptualization, are at their core essence less, as they are interdependent with every other conceptually described phenomena. All phenomena are impermanent, transient, timeless, and lacking a core structure in their facticity. All phenomena as we discover them in our conscious experience are constantly in a state of change, and exist due to a causal structure predicated upon a conditioned nature. They appear as they do now because of factors which preceded them, and they are being altered within the present moment, and will be different in the future in regard to how they appear to us, as they are themselves not concrete entities. What can become a concrete entity, for us, in our experience, isn’t a truth about the content of reality (a phenomenon) but rather a truth about our mode of being as it represents phenomenon to itself, even if that intentioned content is itself. This is only stable in an abstract manner, about metaphysical concepts, such absolute truths appear foreign to the natural mode of Being, yet are discoverable through introspection and philosophical analysis – namely phenomenology. Such absolute metaphysical and representational truths are such as the statements “all phenomena are conditioned” “all conditioned phenomena are impermanent and subject to change” “all phenomena is absent of an essential nature” etc.

In conclusion, philosophy, and the phenomenological process, cannot produce a factual representation of the essence of a phenomena existing in reality or our experience, because by its very nature, it is a representation. That the representation works to provide a logically successful result, that is inherent within the structure, such as deductive truths, are rather abstract truths about logic, than being a phenomenon that exists in the world

What I refer to as the content that is unfindable as a fact in reality would be in reference to the essence or permanence of such phenomena such as the mode of Being which underlies the ability to produce the consciousness positing the logical truth aforementioned. The argument that a representation is factually in its alignment with reality is a perversion of the word fact, or truth, in the way I am using it here. While facts about the world do exist, their nature is purely abstract and general, and not existing in the conscious minds of humans. What this means is that phenomenology doesn’t produce facts, but logical descriptions in the correlation between conceptualized groupings of reality (into concepts, language, or mathematical formulations). These groupings or descriptions aren’t merely mental constructs, as their existence (such as mathematical numbering) isn’t merely a product of our mentality, but rather such things are merely to be taken as a mental construct arising in consciousness in the form of language and symbols which themselves (the symbols) are representative of an abstract way of perceiving reality. These symbols in their ordering and relation can produce a result that is logically true, but this isn’t the unfindable empty essence of a phenomena which phenomenological inquiry is aimed at discovering. Nevertheless, the inquiry isn’t fruitless, it can strip away the unnecessary and variable content to find an invariable shape of a concept which is representing a phenomenon, to better understand the phenomena, and how it relates to our picture of reality or how it relates to us in our lives, etc.

The mode of Being which is perceiving reality, must be understood as it is, as just that, a mode of our consciousness producing a perception using mentally constructed language (symbology) to represent a perceived phenomenon within the world. This is an accurate prediction. Now in the logical and seemingly objective venture of phenomenology to be able to produce conclusive statements as to the essence of a phenomena in its concrete invariable form, isn’t a fact, as all phenomena themselves are constantly changing, impermanent, and inherently “empty of an essence”, rather what phenomenology can profess to produce is the logical ordering and articulation of the symbology which is a mental representation as it relates to the phenomena as it appears to us in reality, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on its clarity and depth and scope of comprehension. This means that it can be beneficial and useful to us in our human endeavors, as we are a conceptualizing, experiencing, living, Being, with modes of consciousness that are able to use value systems and interpret reality in a more or less beneficial way to be better in line with its actuality. The phenomenological method aids us in progression along this path, and any deep inquirer can use it to better articulate the state of reality, but the point I wish to stress here is of the nature of its conclusion must not be posited as a fact, or as having concrete existence, but rather, its utility, or pragmatic usefulness, in aiding us in the human experience of understanding reality, which is great, considering were human.

If the contents herein seem to be contradictory, they are, as a progressive comprehension of the use of phenomenology itself is being presented. The contrast between our normal mode of intuiting (regular perception) and a phenomenological examination of a transcendent essence, necessarily refers to two different modes of Being, and consequently two different modes of Being, characterizes by different attributions. And thus different rules and conclusions support and follow from their exploration. The logical formulation of concepts which led to their conclusion is a building process, through which diametrically opposed beliefs are found in succession, and through a Hegelian dialectic, the contradicting truths are superseded to produce a picture which contains both truths within. This process occurs across the span of all conscious development, and this holds true for the process of phenomenological methodology and understanding, the discoveries found and understood through eidetic reduction might contradict the discoveries of other inquiries, and the summation of both contradictory “truths” may necessarily be transcended by a further conceptualization which in its formulation can include both aspects of reality. Thus in phenomenology we are absurdly (Camus’ definition) seeking the meaning to the essence of an object within a meaningless world, finding truths about aspects of reality in content which has no concrete immutable truths, without illogically being unreasonable in our discoveries. There is a place and a usage to these terms that is both deeper and more transcendental than immediately meets the eye. Phenomenology can find the essential structure to phenomena as to their representation in our consciousness, yet recognize the essence less of the actual phenomena themselves.

Mindfulness and Phenomenology

On By Chris Shuttleworth3 Comments
Originally Written: February 12th 2020

Mindfulness and Phenomenology

Here I wish to delineate several related terms to better differentiate their usage and respective attributes. The terms in question are that of mindfulness, philosophical phenomenology, and psychological phenomenology. Edmund Husserl pointed to key differences between psychological phenomenology and philosophical phenomenology, but here, for clarification and ease of understanding, I wish to additionally employ the use of mindfulness or Vipassana in the Buddha’s conception. These terms are used in the study of our own experience, and all are different possible states of Being we may enter into, and can potentially be used towards specific aims once they are unveiled to us within our own experience. They are Hiedeggerian “modes of Being” which can become open options to us (due to deterministic causality) in the exploration and truth seeking in the direction of comprehending and conceptualizing our own experience.

We begin with an analysis of the content of our consciousness, through introspective awareness, this is defined as mindfulness. Through mindfulness we can direct our consciousness to become aware of the contents within its sphere of awareness within the present moment (Basic Vipassana and Samatha Meditation). When we knowingly are aware (meta awareness – aware of our awareness) of what is happening within consciousness within this presentment, we can learn about the nature of consciousness, and gain insights into its fundamental nature (philosophical phenomenology) as well as its development, prior and post causality, what brings certain aspects into awareness and how we act and behave in response to them, and what effect that experience has upon us (psychological phenomenology). Thus we use mindfulness as a groundwork structure to gain insight into the two fields of further application. Mindfulness allows us to be aware of what content enters into our consciousness, and with enough practice in being in this mode of Being, certain insights can become clear to us (recognized as True).

Such insights available to be gleaned and recognized firsthand through the practice and training of mindfulness are broadly grouped into three useful, essential, basic truths about our inner experience. These are delineated by the Buddha, and while they are not comprehensive as to the content which is able to be uncovered, they are immediately intuitable, and beneficial to recognize. Those I speak of are the nature of non-self, impermanence, and the unsatisfactory underpinnings of our existence. The lack of a definite self, or ego, or non-self is to be discovered through the coinciding insight of impermanence, as their being no content or no phenomena to be found as being permanent. We find upon investigation that the content of our consciousness is in constant flux from moment to moment, and is characterized by its transient arising and fading away nature, as objects of consciousness (inner subjective content within the realm of consciousness within each moment) come into view and are replaced by new content. This causally led chain of content is discovered as modal changes to being without an anchor or headmaster, what we find to be its basis is simply Being as Being, rather than as Being as Self. Being becomes conceptualized, or experientially seen as, an active happening, lacking the “self” which we normally attribute as being an agent acting as the contributing subject to the content of our experience. Lack of “free will”, or, lack of control over what is the next content of consciousness, becomes apparent as a negative attribute of our experience. Mindfulness has the ability to allow the mindful practitioner to realize the suffering, or unsatisfactory nature of his being, through the experiencing of a consistently present desire, or craving, or clinging which propels the consciousness to become dissatisfied with its current state, and to be directed towards future states of the present moment. This is what Husserl terms intentionality, or the directedness or pointlessness of consciousness towards something. This intentionality, spurred by desire and dissatisfaction, is acted the content of our perceptual environment, including mental content, under the fundamental concern, importance, value, of what the perceived horizon presents as optimal to the totality of our Being. This directedness towards value is what Heidegger defines as fundamental to our Being, that of “care” (Heideggarian Terminology).

From the findings of mindfulness stems the scientific study of phenomenological psychology, which is a variant upon, and later rediscovery, of the very methodology which Buddha painted the picture of two thousand years prior. In psychological phenomenology, we take the experience of consciousness, and analyze them in a way towards an aim of giving description to the content found within. The describing of such content allows us to classify and arrange experiential content (psychologically phenomenological) in a cohesive and useful manner, in which to recognize and give a conceptual understanding to the causality of such states arising, as well as towards goal-directed states of optimization. This is the role of psychology within the phenomenological subfield, to identify states as falling into discovered groups of classification, and towards the arising of future states with a goal in mind towards the state of Being with which we wish to embody.

As to the nature of the Being which is able to experience mindfulness, we must employ a “science” of objective philosophical phenomenology to analyze and interpret its foundation structures. The role of philosophy is to describe the nature, essence, limit, scope, and characteristics of the Being which is able to experience, the being which we analyze, that which is necessarily most readily available to us, is our own, a “human being”, defined as “Dasien” in Hiedeggerian terms. When we seek to know what is universal about such consciousness, and its ability to experience, its ability to enter into different modes of Being, we seek the use of philosophy in its depiction. We find explanations attempting to attribute essential foundational, objective, universal, consistencies that form the basis of Human Being. Hiedegger finds our being inextricably linked to a tripartite temporality, as existing within a structure of time we didn’t choose to inhabit, the “thrown” of our existence (past creating a present creating a future). We are found within this period of temporality with the primary characteristic of having a foundational “care structure” (comparable to desire in Buddhism) which affects our entire existence. We find ourselves “thrown” into an existence which is unprecedented, and we have an anxiety towards death, a constant anticipation of future inexistence, and we embody the will to escape it (Buddhist dissatisfaction). The answer is to heed the call of conscience and to live authentically while seeking to understand our Being.

In Hegel we find that human consciousness exhibits a form of Being which is able to be in distinctive general modes, or forms of Being, which can progress itself through a dialectical method to higher states of more comprehensive knowledge and understanding of itself and reality. As contradictory truths are discovered in our experience, we seek to transcend them through forming a synthesis which contains opposing facts about our existence, allowing us to supersede our prior mode of consciousness. Subsequent philosophy is able to analyze and depict the Being which we are, Dasien, as containing infinite modes of Being which give rise to the experiences which shape these forms of Being, and which can progress.

Philosophy is able to generalize about the steps taken in the conscious development, or of a hypothetical ideal conscious development as derived from the objective nature of experience which itself is discovered through the use of reason and conceptualization within this consciousness, which is, the objective study of subjectively discovered philosophical phenomenology.