Appendix B 

B1

Husserlian Phenomenology: The Possibility of the Science of Essences

For an in-depth and technical explanation of Edumond’s Husserl’s phenomenological methodology, see Dr. Mark Thorsby’s lectures. Thorsby goes through Husserl's introduction to phenomenology in "Ideas" (pdf) section by section. In "Ideas " (section, 19, or pdf., p. 29) Husserl gives a powerful critique of naturalistic empirical positivistic methodology and its assumptions (Naturalistic Misinterpretations video @ 11 min. 43). He presents a good summary to the different types of phenomenologies. 

I have attended course lectures by Phenomenologist, Dr. Jitendra Mohanty, on Husserl’s critique of psychologism and the epistemological problems of naturalistic scientific empiricism. Dr. Thorsby gives an excellent lecture on this fundamental issue underlying all cognitive science, logic, and mathematics (Part II). Also, he teaches a complete symbolic logic course in another series of free videos on his channel. 

Phenomenology is the most radical form of empiricism for it describes the living stream of experience in meaning-reality; however, no pure phenomenological description is possible.

Mark Thorsby: Part I on Phenomenology: Types of phenomenology.
The Encyclopedia of Phenomenology (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997) features separate articles on the following seven types of phenomenology.

1. Transcendental Constitutive Phenomenology: studies how objects are constituted in pure or transcendental consciousness.

2. Naturalistic Constitutive Phenomenology: how consciousness takes in the world of nature.

3. Existential Phenomenology: studies concrete human existence.

4. Generative Historicist Phenomenology: studies how meaning is generated in historical processes of collective experience over time.

5. Genetic Phenomenology: studies the genesis of meanings of things.

6. Hermeneutic Phenomenology: studies interpretive structures of experience.

7. Realistic Phenomenology: studies the structure of consciousness, assuming a real world.

Appendix B2

Don’t forget about the Good Professor, Dr. John Vervaeke! I watch all of his videos. His monthly Question and Answer session for April, 17, 2020 is particularly good because it succinctly contains much of the content of his lectures and discussions during the last few months.

Each video lecture gets clearer and more concise on the themes of idolatrous objectification, self -deception, consciousness, paradigm entropy, the Logos, phenomenological existentialism, Kairos, Wisdom, dialectical meaning epistemology, Being Modes, and Mythic-Poetic thinking. 

I go crazy with excitement whenever he mentions Paul Tillich because his systematic theology unifies all those philosophical methodologies that we have been studying. Dr. Vervaeke incorporates the methodologies of Dialectics (Heteronomy vs. Autonomy), Critical Science (Kantian Criticism), and phenomenology (Heidegger, Tillich) in his scientific studies that require clear expression and terms. The professor's working vocabulary reminds me of the careful use of language by Husserl in his 1913 book introducing phenomenology, Ideas (pdf).

Appendix B3

Dr. Cornel West On Being A Revolutionary Christian 
April 23, 2020

Appendix B4

The Philosopher’s Stone

Dr. John Vervaeke discusses Carl Jung with cognitive scientists and practicing psychotherapist Anderson Todd who also teaches courses at the University of Toronto.

Speaking of synchronicity….

Todd demonstrates the use of all three methodologies of dialectical reasoning, critical philosophy, and phenomenology while discussing Jung and other philosophers. In addition, he integrates historical empirical research of past proto-cognitive science and classic philosophy. In other words, Anderson Todd is way ahead working on rich philosophical grounds.

I first encountered this concept of synchronicity in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment as ‘coincidence,’ and never seriously researched the concept further. Todd has an insightful and plausible interpretation of synchronicity. Synchronicity could also be understood as an experience of paradigmatic induction: the formation, or re-enforcing, or a weakening re-interpretation (thus inducted) of an ontological paradigm. Reason always demands coherence and completeness. A ‘coincidence’ is remembered and highly selective, but not meaningless. Coincidence can be a metaphor for transcendence. Is this a paradigmatic circularity any rational person can escape?

Also, I wondered why Isaac Newton spent many years experimenting with alchemy: he was not a gold speculator, but searching for something more valuable—the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. Rarely, is this side of Newton discussed. The alchemist is experimentally applying the categories of reason (Spirit) to matter, and attempting the reverse.

I am still holding on to the concept of telos, as “ethical telos,” or the “telos for the divine double,” seeking relevance realization, and transformative experience, which is compatible with historical telos, but not the Cold War trope of deterministic historical teleology.  

Appendix B5

The Book People

That ending scene from Fahrenheit 451 is so frightening, and so beautiful.

Eventually, I will link up each appendix to a specific topic in this strange collection of essays. And I wrote them: you can see all the spelling errors as evidence!

Contemporary books on phenomenology are expensive, and so most of my studies focus on primary sources, free online libraries, and my own small book collection. I have found YouTube’s online lecture series freely contributed by scholars, universities (St. John’s College Nottingham, NYC Union Theological Seminary, Goethe-Institute), and philosophers to be very good quality.

There are online lectures on Husserl, and Heidegger given by some of the scholar mentioned already in the other appendixes: Dr. John Veraeke, Dr. Gregory B. Sadler (I finally made it to Lordship and Bondage in Phenomenology of Spirit), Dr. Mark Thorsby (also goes to primary texts of Husserl and Heidegger with expert commentary), and Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser.

Since contemporary books on Heidegger are so expensive, and I don’t read the German language, my knowledge of the later Heidegger is relatively weak. Dr. Johannes A. Niederhauser insightfully speaks in the language of the later Heidegger and is particularly helpful explaining his further philosophical development. Heidegger’s complete writings are massive in volume.

Lecturer Eric Sean Nelson, formerly at University of Massachusetts Lowell before locating to China, gives a lecture on the later Heidegger and his studies of non-Western religions. Paul Tillich also was doing the same type of exploration of other religions during the 1950s meeting with Daisetz Suzuki and Shin’ichi Hisamatsu to discuss Japanese Buddhism in New York and Kyoto, Japan at various times (Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich, p. 254)(pdf).

The later Heidegger thought philosophy should be replaced by discourse. The Ancient Greeks had no word for language, but instead used the term "διάλογ-ος “ meaning “dialogue,” “conversation,” “debate,” or “argument.”

Philosopher Hannah Arendt was alive when phenomenology became a philosophical school of thought, and commented that it was “a time when talking became alive.” I think I know what she meant. 

This lecture by Eric S. Nelson ends at 54 minutes, but the question answer period is excellent also.

Husserl and Heidegger: Phenomenology, Eurocentrism, and Buddhism

Appendix B6

The Swimmer (1968)

 (Full movie)

"The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called."—George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four, Chap. 5

The moral of the film is complete self-deception destroys the concept of Truth itself.

This very literary story was first written by John Cheever as a short story appearing in the The New Yorker magazine in 1964.

“The Swimmer” is about self-deception in American society during the heyday of capitalist growth and the extreme optimism that characterized the American mind. This frame of mind, or the shape of consciousness, in this era of suburban expansion and post-War II domination of the world economy was the Neo-liberal free market ideology beginning to emerge as unquestioned conventional knowledge.

We can see today’s corporate culture, which I have experienced, as motivational positive thinking pop psychology to manipulate people into conformity and to enforce ideological harmony masked by a cheerful fake veneer. This unrealistic optimism is strongly pointed out in the film. However, this consciousness is complete self-deception and delusion. Corporate positive psychology instills a false enthusiasm and happy conformity that denies truth itself not unlike Chinese Maoist revolutionary joyful extremists. Notice the excessive smiling of the characters which we see in North Korea. Excessive smiling has even become a syndrome for some Japanese businessmen. Face crimes are serious in authoritarian environments. Ned Merrill, the movie’s protagonist, is a wealthy, middle-aged advertising man trying to “swim” to his home in suburban Connecticut by skipping to his wealthy neighbors’ swimming pools along the way while ignoring the truth exposing his delusions and unconscious lies with his socialite friends, and ultimately with the film viewers. Ned lives a life of complete contradiction. Listen carefully to the dialogue as the truth will sometimes slip out. 

The dead in the Underworld would drink from the mythological river Lethe in order to forget they were dead.

In ancient Greek, λήθη (Lethe) means “forgetfulness,” or “oblivion.” Those that drank from the river Lethe would become oblivious to their true state of Being. The letter ἀ is a negative prefix, or alpha privative. The Greek word for "Truth" is ἀληθείᾳ (alethea) meaning the negation of forgetting, or knowledge is remembrance (early Plato). 

Most people have heard of Hegel’s famous “Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis” dialectical tirade of thought and historical change, but what is often not mentioned is that the suffering of self-delusion, or illusion of consciousness struggling with itself. This agony and spiritual internal violence is a central concept of Hegel’s historical account of the evolution of consciousness in time. Because of these internal contradictions Ned is unconsciously forced to seek unity in his fragmented life by swimming in each of his neighbor’s pools until reaching home. His journey isn’t a river as he images for rivers are a unified whole. The swimming pool is the human conception of nature’s Walden pond except that 99.99 percent of impurities are filtered away. Self-deception is easy to embrace because of our desires, but a difficult state of mind to escape. Both Ned, and the film viewers will reach what is known in Hegel’s thought as emerging self-consciousness at the end of Ned’s journey of untruth to truth.

Ned first appears in the film walking alone in a forest nearly naked, only wearing a bathing suit. Is he Adam exiting the Garden alone as post-lapsarian man?  Or is Ned the free Rousseauan “state of nature” good human being that transforms into an impostor by life’s shaping internal and external forces? This analysis could be developed further.

This is not a true story, but as myth it is the truest story.

I chose “The Swimmer” for review because of the current pandemic, but also this film as been interpreted by some as a critique of “postmodernism” which it clearly is not, but rather about the individualist social paradigm in American capitalist society.  Some of the postmodern interpretations make many of the same conceptual errors and fallacies identified in my last polemical essay titled, “The Ayn Randian Propagandistic Trope Concerning Postmodernism.”