Editorial — Making the Familiar, Strange

Edition #1, 2018 — The Art of Phenomenology.

Nietzsche called on the ‘philosophers of the future’ to use wisdom as a form of disruption — as a way to re-imagine the possibilities of human thinking, living, being. Don’t we need this now, more than ever? As we look to change the future, so much of our wisdom is in the past, a grand repository calling for our exploration, our inner transformation.

This edition explores the question — what is it to have a philosophical attitude? What could such an orientation mean for how we view our relations to ‘reality’, the world, others, or ourselves?

For the French phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty, philosophy and perception are one and the same. As soon as we begin to engage with objects in our visual field, we find ourselves “weaving dreams into things”. Traditional Western metaphysics has fed us a lie — we think of ourselves as ‘subjects’ over and above a world of ‘things’ or resources that we seek to know and master as objects within schemes of knowledge, to serve our purposes.

But before we can even ask the question, “what is the diameter of this coin on my table?”, the coin must already exist as something meaningful in our world. How else could it have come to be there? We can use it to weave dreams into things, as we imagine what we could buy. Yet even then, we can suspend this utilitarian view, and see it as a very curious thing. The way its silver reflects the light and makes it look like gold. Perhaps it is a cherished part of a collection. We could dream even further, and reveal the grounds of our entire culture, in this coin.

The philosophical attitude can give us a way to break free of the subject/object divide that separates us from nature, to see in order to reveal new possibilities of connection, question, beauty or relation. This is the beginning of the philosophical journey. And one way of practicing this, is through phenomenological thinking and writing.

The philosophical attitude is a concept which can be generalized and be defined, however, in being an attitude, it must also be personalized to whoever is engaging the philosophical attitude for themselves. In seeking input from our entire classes’ personal definitions of what it means to have or obtain a philosophical attitude, a collaborated definition has been created as follows:

The philosophical attitude consists of a general pattern in which we question our basic knowledge to engage and deepen our understanding, resulting in clarity and new perspectives. To have a philosophical attitude one must first question everything that they know which surrounds their world. In questioning things or concepts that already exist in our mind, we can unlock unknown aspects of our existing knowledge. In furthering our understanding, we become more alert and aware to the world around us and the way in which everything within it exists and interacts.

Phenomenology views the world in a subjective, and objective sense. Every object in the world has a meaning, one we attach to it. We attach the concept of sitting, to chairs. We attach cutting, to knives, and swords. But individually, we attach a more specialized meaning. Every perception of an object varies, even slightly. Knives and swords are for fighting, but when we attach a greater meaning to them, like “gifted from father”, we change the meaning.

How we perceive an object is based on the meaning we attach to it. As such, all experiences are structurally the same, but are perceived in a different manner in each of us. In summary, we are setting out to explore a description of our subjective experience, through phenomenological writing and the philosophical attitude.

The personalization of the task has resulted in a wide range of views, personal philosophies, questions and discussions throughout the collection of articles written by our class. To give a brief insight into what we have been exploring, some key themes discussed in the articles include subjectivity, perception, the nature of freedom, understanding other beings, and projection into the future.

Through this personal writing, we are practicing phenomenological thinking, by exploring philosophical concepts grounded in the foundation of our personal experiences.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Philosophers of the Future, as we endeavor, each in our own way, to make the familiar, strange.

Editors: Sophia Pascoe, Sean McNamara, Tom Sutton and Ben Reeves.