Monday, June 28, 2010

Bracketing the theories

I started out to read "Phenomenological Mind" by Gallagher and Zahavi. Their explanation on phenomenology is very clear. Phenomenology sets aside the questions such as, 'Consciousness is generated by brain processes?''The mind is the brain or something immaterial?'. Phenomenology does not deny or affirm any metaphysical assumption. It simply brackets them and requires us to go back to the experiences. They write;

[A]s we indicated, many philosophy of mind textbooks start off by reviewing various theories about the mind - dualism, identity theory, functionalism, etc. It is also the case that psychology and cognitive science may already be informed by specific theories of the mind. Phenomenology, however, does not start with a theory, or with a consideration of theories. It seeks to be critical and non-dogmatic, shunning metaphysical and theoretical prejudices, as much as possible. It seeks to be guided by that which is actually experienced, rather than by what we expect to find given our theoretical commitments.
[Gallagher, S., Zahavi, D. (2008) The Phenomenological Mind. New York: Routledge, p.10]

I'm looking forward to reading the following chapters.