Avoiding Phenomenology
As I move toward a new psychology, I am aware of the pitfalls of the linguistically grounded and loosely defined constructs that populate this conceptual space. Like the explosive devices in a minefield, they are unseen in the landscape that lies before me. I have no choice but to use words to describe what I am trying to say, but the conceptual mines that lie ahead do not explode. I might continue on my way, thinking that I have avoided these linguistic traps and not realizing that I am caught in their sway. Instead of weaving a new cloth, only reweaving the threads of an old garment from the past.
The brightest minds have become trapped in this non-Whorfian problem of language that they do not see. It is nothing less than the mind-body problem disguised by and hidden within the garments of language. One hundred and fifty years ago, Franz Brentano, deeply entrenched in the teachings of Aristotle, carried his master’s assumptions forward in suggesting a phenomenological origin for both psychology and philosophy. He suggests that the “inner perceptions” of the mind can be used with “complete certainty” and that we can “describe them directly in words?”
The roots we establish in the physical core of experience provide the grounding for the conscious version of the world we develop. The beginning and ending points in the developmental sequence involved are both anchored in physical realities. The starting point resides in the physiological substrate that generates the pre-empirical core of experience at the first tier, and the end points are physically executed behaviors we either experience directly or observe. I will use the physical core of experience we develop as grounding for a new way of understanding the behaviors we initiate.
This process is fraught with uncertainty, and it risks being co-opted by the structures of language that infiltrate existing psychological constructs. The psychology that emerges from this process will look and feel different from what we are used to, but it will be organized in simple terms that should look and feel accessible.
The transition into Part II of my book revision exemplifies what Albert Hirschman means in his essay on the “hiding hand” that I describe in Of Two Minds #29a. He says that “we would not consciously engage upon tasks whose success clearly requires that creativity be forthcoming.” I am about to do exactly what he warned against. Do I “dare to believe in” the creative, intuitive processes I need to complete this task? I go forward despite feelings of trepidation and insecurity.
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