Analysis of phenomenological conceptualizations of consciousness in the context of empirical research of experience

Viktorija Lipič (2018) Analysis of phenomenological conceptualizations of consciousness in the context of empirical research of experience. MSc thesis.

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Abstract

In this master's thesis, we carry out an empirical phenomenological study in an attempt to answer the research question: what happens to the phenomena, which cannot be reflected, when we attempt to reflect upon them. The reflective dimension is immediately accessible, whereas the prereflective dimension, as understood by phenomenologists, cannot be directly observed – i.e. it is consciously lived through, without being the object of explicit awareness. The first part of the thesis is a comparative analysis of the structures of consciousness. We examine authors from the field of philosophy, emphasizing the phenomenological tradition and contemporary empirical phenomenological research. In the second part we present results of our empirical phenomenological research. It is a practical approach, employing a multiple phenomenological case study, where we examine the experiential dynamics of a phenomenon called gist, which is part of knowledge enaction. Gist is an exaple of a phenomena usually found on the periphery of awareness. Its main characteristic is that it cannot be observed within the focus of attention. We use the technique second-person in-depth phenomenological inquiry. Based on the obtained experiential data, we present a dynamical structure of the experience of gist, which helps us shed light on the characteristics of phenomena usually found on the periphery of awareness.

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