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Single Idea 22221

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds ]

Full Idea

Another person's consciousness is given to me through the expressive stratum of her body, which gives me access to her experience while making me realise that it is inaccessible to me. Empathy is a presentation of what is absent.

Gist of Idea

We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible

Source

report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203

Book Ref

'A Companion to Continental Philosophy', ed/tr. Critchley,S/Schroeder,W [Blackwell 1999], p.203

A Reaction

This is the phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds, by examining the raw experience of encountering another person. It is true that we seem to both know and not know another person's mind when we encounter them.

Related Idea

Idea 22220 The phenomena of memory are given in the present, but as being past [Husserl, by Bernet]

The 26 ideas from 'Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology'

22218 There can only be a science of fluctuating consciousness if it focuses on stable essences [Husserl, by Bernet]
22217 Phenomenology aims to validate objects, on the basis of intentional intuitive experience [Husserl, by Bernet]
22219 Husserl saw transcendental phenomenology as idealist, in its construction of objects [Husserl, by Bernet]
22216 Phenomenology studies different types of correlation between consciousness and its objects [Husserl, by Bernet]
19263 Imagine an object's properties varying; the ones that won't vary are the essential ones [Husserl, by Vaidya]
22220 The phenomena of memory are given in the present, but as being past [Husserl, by Bernet]
22221 We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet]
22201 The use of mathematical-style definitions in philosophy is fruitless and harmful [Husserl]
22202 The World is all experiencable objects [Husserl]
21218 The sense of anything contingent has a purely apprehensible essence or Eidos [Husserl]
22203 Only facts follow from facts [Husserl]
21221 Direct 'seeing' by consciousness is the ultimate rational legitimation [Husserl]
22204 Start philosophising with no preconceptions, from the intuitively non-theoretical self-given [Husserl]
22205 Feelings of self-evidence (and necessity) are just the inventions of theory [Husserl]
22206 Natural science has become great by just ignoring ancient scepticism [Husserl]
22207 Epoché or 'bracketing' is refraining from judgement, even when some truths are certain [Husserl]
22208 'Bracketing' means no judgements at all about spatio-temporal existence [Husserl]
22210 After everything is bracketed, consciousness still has a unique being of its own [Husserl]
22209 Our goal is to reveal a new hidden region of Being [Husserl]
22211 As a thing and its perception are separated, two modes of Being emerge [Husserl]
21220 The physical given, unlike the mental given, could be non-existing [Husserl]
22212 Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl]
22213 Absolute reality is an absurdity [Husserl]
22214 We never meet the Ego, as part of experience, or as left over from experience [Husserl]
22215 Phenomenology describes consciousness, in the light of pure experiences [Husserl]
21217 Phenomenology needs absolute reflection, without presuppositions [Husserl]