Towards the Epistemology of the Non-trivial: Research Characteristics Connecting Quantum Mechanics and First-Person Inquiry

Kordeš, Urban; Demšar, Ema

doi:10.1007/s10699-019-09638-z

“…As mentioned above, the peculiarity of experience as an object of observation and description, and the consequent peculiarity of the study of experience as a research field have already been recognized in the earliest texts on neurophenomenology and its call for first-person investigation. Recently, the failure of the objectivist view to accommodate the dynamic, transformative and self-referential features of inquiring into experience has led several researchers to more specifically examine alternative, non-objectivist and non-representationalist epistemological and methodological frameworks for understanding and evaluating first-person research (e.g., Petitmengin & Bitbol, 2009; Bitbol & Petitmengin, 2013; Kordeš, 2016; Kordeš & Demšar, 2018; 2019; Valenzuela-Moguillansky et al, 2021). In line with the idea of enaction, these examinations stress that it is in principle impossible to assess first-person accounts in terms of their supposed correspondence to the intended, but ultimately unattainable “original” experience.…”

Section: The Enactive Approach and The Epistemological Bases For The ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a science of experience: Outlining some challenges and future directions

Valenzuela-Moguillansky

¹

,

Demšar

²

2022

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In recent decades, empirical study of experience has been installed as a relevant and necessary element in researching cognitive phenomena. However, its incorporation into cognitive science has been largely done by following an objectivist frame of reference, without reconsidering the practices and standards involved in the process of research and the interpretation and validation of the results. This has given rise to a number of issues that reveal inconsistencies in the understanding and treatment of some crucial aspects of first-person research. In this article, we will outline a research direction aiming at contributing to the establishment of a framework for the study of experience that addresses these inconsistencies. Specifically, we will identify some challenges facing the study of experience—in particular those linked to the understanding of memory, expression and description, and intersubjectivity in exploring experience—and propose to reframe them under the epistemological framework of the enactive approach. Moreover, we will explore the prospect of gaining insight into theoretical and methodological strategies for dealing with these issues by extending our vision beyond the field of cognitive science to its neighboring fields, focusing in particular on the field of somatic practices.

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“…However, if we are to form a theory of experience that takes into account the properties of experience, rather than imposing upon them a framework of natural sciences [30][31][32][33][34], we must learn how to separate ourselves from the natural attitude. We can do this by performing the act of bracketing.…”

Section: Consensual Validation As Intersubjective Accessibility: the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory Sense-making as Consensual Validation of Phenomenal Data

Oblak¹

2021

Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems

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This article proposes a method for consensually validating phenomenal data. Such a method is necessary due to underreporting of explicit validation procedures in empirical phenomenological literature. The article argues that descriptive sciencesexemplified by phenomenology and natural historyrely on nominalization for construction of intersubjectively accessible knowledge. To this effect, epistemologies of phenomenology and natural history are compared. The two epistemological frameworks differ in terms of their attitudes towards the interpretation of texts and visual epistemology, however, they both rely on eidetic intuition of experts for knowledge construction. In developing the method of consensual validation, I started out with the prismatic approach, a method for researching embodied social dynamics. I then used debriefings on the experience of consensual validation to further refine the method. The article suggests that for a nominalization of experiential world to be intersubjectively accessible, such a vocabulary must be independently constructed by the entire group of co-researchers. I therefore propose that during consensual validation, co-researchers be presented with composite descriptions of experiential categories, compare them with their experience, attempt to falsify them, and finally jointly name them. This approach does not yield a single vocabulary for description of experience, but several commensurable vocabularies, contingent on a specific research setting.

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“…In relation to consensual validation, this means that we as co-researchers do not agree on what objectively exists in our experience, but rather that we collectively create a contingent body of knowledge about our experience. It is not knowledge about experience as is, but experiential reports as constructed in a given study [34]. This epistemology can be specified further: the proposed method of consensual validation follows constructivist epistemology augmented by process-oriented ontology [64], developed by Alfred North Whitehead.…”

Section: The Epistemic Status Of Consensually Validated Phenomenal Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Participatory Sense-making as Consensual Validation of Phenomenal Data

Oblak¹

2021

Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems

2

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article proposes a method for consensually validating phenomenal data. Such a method is necessary due to underreporting of explicit validation procedures in empirical phenomenological literature. The article argues that descriptive sciencesexemplified by phenomenology and natural historyrely on nominalization for construction of intersubjectively accessible knowledge. To this effect, epistemologies of phenomenology and natural history are compared. The two epistemological frameworks differ in terms of their attitudes towards the interpretation of texts and visual epistemology, however, they both rely on eidetic intuition of experts for knowledge construction. In developing the method of consensual validation, I started out with the prismatic approach, a method for researching embodied social dynamics. I then used debriefings on the experience of consensual validation to further refine the method. The article suggests that for a nominalization of experiential world to be intersubjectively accessible, such a vocabulary must be independently constructed by the entire group of co-researchers. I therefore propose that during consensual validation, co-researchers be presented with composite descriptions of experiential categories, compare them with their experience, attempt to falsify them, and finally jointly name them. This approach does not yield a single vocabulary for description of experience, but several commensurable vocabularies, contingent on a specific research setting.

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Towards the Epistemology of the Non-trivial: Research Characteristics Connecting Quantum Mechanics and First-Person Inquiry

Cited by 6 publications

References 46 publications

Toward a science of experience: Outlining some challenges and future directions

Toward a science of experience: Outlining some challenges and future directions

Participatory Sense-making as Consensual Validation of Phenomenal Data

Participatory Sense-making as Consensual Validation of Phenomenal Data

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