## Metadata - Author: [[Yuko Ishihara and Steven A. Tainer]] - Full Title: Intercultural Phenomenology - Category: #books ## Highlights - When we believe in something, we often find ourselves getting caught up in the belief, investing much effort to believe in our belief, instead of using that same effort to check the belief against reality. ([Location 319](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=319)) - Playing with reality means you become co-players with reality. It doesn’t mean that you mess around with reality by creating your own versions of it. It is quite the opposite. You let reality speak for itself, to show itself from itself, rather than you speaking for it. ([Location 348](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=348)) - You tune in to the natural rhythm of things and let things unfold according to their own way of being. ([Location 351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=351)) - the most important point that is common to both Husserl’s original version and my version of the epoché is the idea that the epoché is essentially a method of cultivating an openness towards phenomena, namely the appearance of things just in the way they present themselves to us. ([Location 627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=627)) - Edmund Husserl’s philosophical project was to clarify the essential structures of our experience. He did this not by appealing to logical arguments or by introducing some theory of the mind. Rather, the general principle, which he called the “principle of all principles,” was to appeal to what is directly given to us in our experience just as it presents itself to us, nothing more and nothing less. ([Location 656](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=656)) - In order to secure the field of “phenomena,” namely the appearance of things just in the way they present themselves to us, Husserl introduced a method that allowed him to distance from various theories that attempt to explain how we experience the world. This was called the “phenomenological epoché.” It is the method of suspending judgment on the basic belief which all theories of the mind assume, namely the belief in the existence of the world and the objects in it. ([Location 664](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=664)) - As Husserl would say, we “bracket” or “put out of play” the belief in the existence of objects and the world. ([Location 668](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=668)) - Once we have suspended judgment regarding the existence of objects and the world, we can re-engage with them in a new light. Husserl called this re-engagement the “phenomenological reduction.” ([Location 670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=670)) - Their means of expressing the discovered reality differ and so do their aims, but both the phenomenologist and the artist know that we are usually seeing much less than what reality actually has to offer. ([Location 689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=689)) - The phenomenological epoché and reduction can open us up to engage with the world in a way that is free from the basic assumption that colors most of our engagements. This is the assumption that the external world is out there, existing apart from us. This assumption seduces us with the usual baggage which our sense of “existing” usually carries, namely “existing as such and such” or “existing in the way we know of.” ([Location 692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=692)) - Essences are the structures of a phenomenon without which it would not be that phenomenon. They are not mysterious things that are hidden somewhere behind our experiences. Rather, they can be directly apprehended by us in our experiences. ([Location 700](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=700)) - Phenomenology is therefore thoroughly empirical and scientific in the sense that it relies on the method of reproducibility of experiments by peer phenomenologists. ([Location 705](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=705)) - As we go deeper into the phenomenological analysis of our relation to the world, we begin to realize something remarkable about our experience. Namely, we realize that the world would not be what it is without our experience or consciousness. Consciousness gives the world meaning. ([Location 706](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=706)) - In this way, Husserl discovered the sense-giving consciousness or subjectivity (he called this “transcendental subjectivity”) at the base of our relation to the world. ([Location 711](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=711)) - Husserl’s discovery of transcendental subjectivity has some things in common with Descartes’ discovery of the “cogito” or the thinking subject. While Descartes’ methodological doubt is not the same as Husserl’s method of bracketing, both methods were employed towards the aim of discovering the foundation upon which our knowledge and experience of the world would be based. ([Location 713](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=713)) - For Husserl, phenomenology is an open-ended endeavor that seeks to ground our relation to the world in the essential structures of our experience. It is open-ended because such an endeavor requires us to constantly check with our experience and with each other whether we have got the phenomena right. ([Location 718](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=718)) - For Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur, who developed what they call “hermeneutic phenomenology” (which was a direction of phenomenology Martin Heidegger opened up), phenomenology was primarily a way of interpreting and understanding the historical meanings that are present in cultural media, both linguistic (like written texts) and non-linguistic (like art). ([Location 738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=738)) - An important point that both Gadamer and Ricoeur underline is how understanding involves letting go of control and becoming playful in turn. This means that if we want to seriously understand another text, tradition, or a person for its own sake, then we must loosen our grip on our commitments to our views and positions and begin playing with understanding. And most importantly, if we are to seriously play, then we must realize that as players of understanding, we are not in charge of the game. As Gadamer would say, the subject of play is not the players but the play itself.14 So to play with understanding is to let the understanding play itself out. ([Location 804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=804)) - When I reflect on my experience, say, of seeing a flower, I set up a divide between the subject and the object. I become aware of myself, the subject, who is looking at the flower, the object. Once this subject is established, it wants to think that it was always there even prior to reflection. That is the power of reflection! It interprets the original experience as already divided into the subject-object duality. ([Location 829](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=829)) - For Husserl, phenomena were always an experience of something for someone (Husserl called this “intentionality”). When Nishida suspends reflection, he is suggesting that we suspend intentionality. In doing so, not only is he taking a distance to our activity of reflection, but he is also distancing from this subject-object duality that pervades much of our way of understanding experience. ([Location 837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=837)) - Suspending judgment about the existence of the world was already an unnatural move that requires discipline and persistence. Suspending reflection and letting reality play itself out is even more demanding since most of the time we don’t even realize that we are seeing reality through the lens of the subject-object duality. It is especially challenging for academic philosophers for whom taking a distance from reflection and conceptual articulation would even be considered as a threat to their discipline. ([Location 921](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=921)) - If we just let ourselves tune in to the natural rhythm of things, whether it is the pine tree or our interpersonal relationships, and stop trying to make it into something it is not or control its course of development, then the play of reality will reveal itself quite naturally. And we’ll happily find ourselves to be more open, playful, and freer than before. ([Location 928](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=928)) - But when people say they are adopting a phenomenological perspective, or applying phenomenology, they’re usually taking the first-person point of view seriously. ([Location 1631](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=1631)) - The same thing happened sometimes in Asian contemplative traditions, emphasizing doctrine or dogma, history, and specific textual issues, instead of actually investigating it and seeing its real meaning, beyond the words, for oneself. I guess it’s just a human tendency to narrow-focus on words and concepts rather than using them as an entry or pointer into the primary, experiential aspect. ([Location 1902](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=1902)) - For Husserl it’s just one line: “we bracket our belief in the existence of the world.” It sounds very simple and straightforward. But really doing that and living it requires a huge effort. Just trying that by itself took me a long time to understand. The process of trying was similar to sitting and meditating. ([Location 1931](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=1931)) - The Confucian–Daoist–Buddhist traditions would each relate naturalness to a different thing, specific to their tradition’s emphasis—being more mature in a human/humane sense, participating more fully in the human relationship to Nature, and awakening from the perverse grip of samsaric habits to the awakened Nature of Mind that’s central in Ch’an/Zen. But they all agree that what’s on the right track is natural in some sense. ([Location 1952](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=1952)) - We learn to stay with what is present, in a sense “prior,” to the add-ons imported by the ordinary mind. ([Location 1967](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=1967)) - In a sufficiently direct, untainted form, this phenomenological reduction is what Buddhists would call “Suchness.” It’s central, but usually missed by our being caught up in representations of “me and them,” “this and that,” “now and then.” ([Location 1980](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=1980)) - It’s not about having a novel experience of some esoteric sort or a highly technical insight about our experience. Rather, it’s a very broad-spectrum awareness of all the ways the mind is contributing to our sense of selfhood and the world around us. This awareness impacts our understanding of our emotions, our attachments, habits, recognitions and identifications, judgments, certainties—everything! And to really look into those, or even just to be willing to see them at all, and to understand the implications regarding their shaping influence, and that there’s room to go beyond that influence and have a new view … this is already a classic kind of conversion experience precisely because it encompasses everything familiar that we normally take for granted. ([Location 2036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2036)) - For Husserl the epoché specifically involved bracketing our belief that the world exists outside of us. But what we’ve been doing in this book is presenting a more liberal interpretation of the epoché, not just bracketing the existence of bracketing our belief in the existence of the world, but bracketing any belief, really. So yes, it’s a very broad scope. And I’ve interpreted the bracketing as loosening our grip. I think this gets at the essence of what the epoché really does—first acknowledge that you have a belief, some kind of idea. And this doesn’t have to be just about the world. It can be about yourself, as you just said, or about anything. So, acknowledge that belief, and then loosen your grip on it. ([Location 2043](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2043)) - Yes, for Kant the categories are not something we can see, he derives them through a “transcendental argument.” And this is where Husserl criticizes Kant severely. For Husserl, these categories cannot be derived from an argument, or at least not solely. They are something we can directly see, you find them in your experience. This is Husserl’s notion of “categorial intuition” he develops in his early two-volume work, Logical Investigations (first edition 1900–1901). ([Location 2058](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2058)) - So, this brings up the sequence bearing on what’s special in your approach and how we should locate it relative to Kant or Husserl and also relative to contemplative traditions. First, both before and after applying the epoché, there’s the point about seeing. Kant would reject that possibility, Husserl insists on it, and you also agree with me regarding its use. Then the next step is relaxing or loosening your grip on the use of some beliefs or structures that are seen. And that step is another point of departure—Husserl would not agree with it, but you accept it. ([Location 2067](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2067)) - OK, so “loosening” is central to your view, but not meaningful for Husserl. And it’s also central to the traditions as an initial stage leading to various further realizations, depending on the specific tradition. Confucian and Daoist schools would be more a middle position here, since there are limits to how far they would take the “loosening.” But for a Buddhist school like Zen, some subsequent stage along the Zen way would involve completely opening up beyond all limiting views and structures at all levels. So that’s a fourth step that’s central to some traditions, but I believe this is where your emphasis differs, since you are not concerned with such a total opening across the board … nothing too ambitious. ([Location 2074](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2074)) - For Zen in particular, it’s considered possible, relevant, and even essential to relax or open up sufficiently to find a higher cognition that is itself always free from some of the ordinary mind’s limitations … possibly even all of them! ([Location 2092](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2092)) - Examples the traditions would consider important to see, loosen, and even open completely, would be selfishness, heedless grasping beyond truly natural needs, immature reactivity or compulsions, and negative emotions like anger if they’re actually proving to be harmful. ([Location 2112](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2112)) - And we’ve also mentioned how for Husserl, phenomenology was a discipline that evolved. Early on it was more of a foundation for science, but later, Husserl wanted to put life in the equation. Finally, we’ve said his turn to transcendental phenomenology was a big shift—the path opened up. To go transcendental, for me, essentially, is to put the self into the equation. And so, the path, at least in principle, opens up to a larger sense of practice. ([Location 2284](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2284)) - The point of the epoché is to play with reality. And playing with reality can have various dimensions and depth. Letting nature play is one way in which we can play with reality. And tuning into nature is one way of practicing the epoché. ([Location 2317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2317)) - Nishitani adds that scientific knowledge has become the predominant form of knowledge. “Scientific knowledge” here refers to knowledge of objects, where even subjects are taken to be objects. And there’s no longer the kind of knowledge where knowledge of things and knowledge of the self are inseparable. By the latter, he’s describing a way of getting to know things where the self is transformed from within. This transformed self, in turn, allows for a deeper understanding of things, which further transform the self, and so on. This kind of knowledge is very different from scientific knowledge, where again, the self doesn’t come into the equation. He discusses two features that are unique to this knowledge, which is practice-based. The first one is that an important part of this knowledge is knowing the self, or self-awareness. The second important feature is that it is always embodied—the body is always an important part of this kind of knowledge. ([Location 2393](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2393)) - thinking can itself be focused, precise, and probing deeper and deeper, stripping away distracting add-ons and then sensing, intuiting, revealing very important things. And this in turn can be a door into higher contemplative awareness. Many philosophers in history have reported passing through this door. ([Location 2498](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2498)) - If you come across a passage that somehow speaks to you, I would advise to just stop there, put the book down, and just think about it for some time. Go for a walk or a coffee, think more about it and how it relates to your life. This is basically what I do when I read philosophy books. I go over the same passage over and over again or I come back to it after thinking about it for a few weeks, months, and sometimes years. ([Location 2517](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2517)) - In order to understand things as they unfold according to their own nature, we need to tune out of our projects and tune in to the thingly possibilities. And we too have our own thingly possibility that we need to listen to since most of the time we’re not in tune with it. A good indication that you may not be in tune is when you’re putting a lot of effort trying to make things a particular way, a way that is imposed from without, based on our projects. ([Location 2763](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0CKT7XGLX&location=2763))