Title: Doing Phenomenology
Discipline(s) or Field(s): Philosophy
Authors: Eric Kraemer, Ken Maly, Sheri Ross, University of Wisconsin – La Crosse
Submission Date: January 24, 2006
Objective: Introduce Phenomenology as a Philosophical Method
Student Learning Outcomes:
a) students will have noticed the perspectival nature of attention/perception
b) students will become aware of how language and words bring something to the perception and how lived experience is historical and part of what we bring to perception.
c) students will note how structured absence makes us aware of the objects as perceived and aware of meaningful engagement in the world.
Conclusion:
We found a great benefit to the discussing the lesson and revising it. The students were very able to grasp the perspectival nature of attention. More examples would have helped the students understand that lived experience is historical and part of what we bring to perception, and that language and words bring something to the perception. It is not clear exactly how this exercise could be modified in our to show the social constructed-ness of parts of our experience and the concepts we use to describe our experience. The final section of the class, where the students had to draw what they took to be the relation between their “mind” and the “object perceived” helped students understand a key sub-discipline of philosophy, i.e., philosophy of mind. The last observation we had was that it is difficult to quantify for the purposes of rigorous study the understanding of this feature of philosophy.