<div dir="ltr">Commenting upon Maxine's presentation:<div><br></div><div>
<p class=""><span class="">S: I think Maxine should make clear distinction between phenomena viewed from an evolutionary perspective (e.g. comparing your hand with a chicken’s foot, which even a child can puzzle over) and evolutionary <i>theory</i>. It is the former she wishes to address.</span></p>
<p class="">By the way, evolutionary theory does not address origins at all -- this was even denied by Darwin despite the title of his famous book. It deals with change of already existent forms.<br><span class=""></span></p>
<p class="">Then, many of the living do not ‘move’ in the sense that we automatically think of (monkeys jumping). Plants move slowly by growth. How could a phenomenologist view this at all?<br><span class=""></span></p><p class="">STAN<br></p></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Pedro C. Marijuan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>Dear FISers and New Colleagues,<br>
<br>
For travel reasons, Maxine could not post her presentation. On her
behalf, I am attaching a file with the whole text and also copying
below the Intro and the Final Section, in order to facilitate
discussion. For those interested in further reference material,
there is a folder in the FIS web pages, at the section
"resources": <a href="http://fis.sciforum.net/fis" target="_blank">http://fis.sciforum.net/fis</a>
The folder can also be accessed by clicking on the announcement of
this specific session (<a href="http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/" target="_blank">http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/</a>).
In due time, the other presenters will have similar arrangements.
<br>
<br>
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and attachments are unwelcome, except for presenters. <br>
<br>
Reading the whole text of this presentation is strongly
encouraged. It is a fine and rigorous essay that deals
with fundamental issues not always within the focus of
natural and computer scientists (and of many other
tribes). It is interesting that Maxine's views in Sections
2 and 3 are not far from two previous discussion sessions
in this list: "Informational Foundations of the Act"
(2015), and "The Sociotype: Social Relationships and
Beyond" (2013). Intriguingly, in Section 4 about
Descriptive Foundations (below), is there a cryptic
message for the Foundations of Information Science too?<br>
<br>
Best regards to all,<br>
<br>
--Pedro<br>
fis coordination<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%" align="center"><small><b><span lang="EN-US"><big><big>Phenomenology
and Evolutionary Biology</big></big><u></u><u></u></span></b></small></p>
<small>
<br>
</small>
<div align="justify"><b><span lang="EN-US"><span></span></span></b><span lang="EN-US"><b>(1):
Phenomenology<br>
</b>As written in the Preface to the 2<sup>nd</sup> edition
(1979)
of The Phenomenology of Dance, “Certainly words carry no
patented meanings, but
the term ‘phenomenology’ does seem stretched beyond its limits
when it is used
to denote either mere reportorial renderings of perceptive
behaviors or
actions, or <i>any</i>
descriptive rendering
at all of perceptible behaviors or actions. At the least,
‘phenomenology’
should be recognized as a very specific mode of epistemological
inquiry, a
method of eidetic analysis invariably associated with the name
Edmund Husserl,
the founder of phenomenology; and at the most ‘phenomenology’
should be
recognized as a philosophically-spawned terms, that is, a term
having a rich
philosophical history and significance.” <u></u><u></u></span><small><br>
</small>
<small><br>
</small><span lang="EN-US">A
phenomenological analysis of movement given in The Phenomenology
of Dance
follows the rigorous methodology set forth by Husserl. The
methodology is
integral to understandings of phenomenology as well as to its
practice. Husserl
distinguished two modes of the methodology. One mode is termed
“static,” the
other is termed “genetic.” The aim in static phenomenology is to
uncover the
essential character of the phenomenon in question or under
investigation. The
aim in genetic phenomenology is to uncover the source and
development of
meanings and values we hold. <u></u><u></u></span><small><br>
</small>
<small><br>
<span lang="EN-US"><big>The
abbreviated phenomenological analysis of movement set forth
below follows a
static phenomenology. The abbreviated phenomenological
analysis of the origin
of tool-making follows a genetic phenomenology. The first
analysis elucidates
the inherently dynamic character of movement, and in ways
quite contrary to the
idea that movement is a force in time and in space and quite
contrary as well
to the dictionary definition of movement as a “change of
position.” The second
analysis answers questions that paleoanthropologists,
archaeologists, and
anthropologists leave unanswered. The analyses present basic
aspects of
animation that anchor the relationship between phenomenology
and the life
sciences. In particular, the point of departure for both
phenomenology and the
life sciences is <i>animate</i>
being not
just in the sense of <i>living</i>
creatures, but in the sense of <i>moving</i>
creatures, creatures who, in and through movement, are
sustaining their lives,
mating and reproducing, and so on. In short, movement is
fundamental to
animation, a decidedly significant entrée to understanding
basic aspects
anchoring a relationship between phenomenology and the life
sciences. Following
these analyses is a final section on the descriptive
foundations of both
phenomenology and evolutionary biology and on their common
concern with
origins... <br>
<br>
(cont., see attached file) </big></span><font face="Arial"><br>
</font><br>
<br>
</small>
<div align="justify"><b><span lang="EN-US">(</span></b><b><big><span lang="EN-US"></span></big></b><b><span lang="EN-US">4) Descriptive Foundations<u></u><u></u></span></b><small><br>
</small><b> </b><span lang="EN-US"></span><span lang="EN-US">While it is common to speak
laudingly of the keenness and scope of <u></u><u></u>Darwin<u></u><u></u>'s observations, it
is not commonly <span> </span>recognized,
certainly not explicitly, that his observations, as written,
describe his experiences. His written observations are in fact
equivalent to his experiences in the sense that they detail
what he saw, felt, heard, smelled, and even tasted. Though
focal attention is consistently--one might even say,
exclusively--riveted on <span> </span>his
<span> </span>theory <span> </span>of natural selection, <u></u><u></u>Darwin<u></u><u></u>'s
descriptive writings are of fundamental significance, for it
is these descriptive writings <span> </span>that
ground <span> </span>his theory,
that are its foundation. More broadly, evolutionary
understandings and explanations of Nature are in the end
tethered to an experientially-derived descriptive literature.
Reading this literature, we learn a good <span> </span>deal about <span></span>nonhuman animals. We learn <span> </span>that <span> </span>they are perceptive, <span> </span>thoughtful, and <span> </span>affectively moved <span> </span>by creatures and <span> </span>things in their
environment, and <span> </span>we
learn further that their perceptive, affective, and thoughtful
ways are intimately related<span> </span>to
our own. In short, <u></u><u></u>Darwin<u></u><u></u>'s
descriptive accounts of the natural living world reveal
something about the lives of others and in turn something
about our own lives.<u></u><u></u></span><small><br>
</small> <small><br>
</small><span lang="EN-US">I highlight the descriptive
foundations of evolutionary theory in part because these
descriptive foundations have fallen by the wayside,
particularly in the highly visible present-day writings on
evolution by neuroscientists and cognitive scientists.
“Darwinian bodies” are not automatons. Neither are they robots
lumbering <span> </span>about <span> </span>on behalf <span> </span>of selfish genes nor are
they head-end neurological mechanisms, as per cognitivists of
all stripe who collapse bodies into brains. I highlight the
descriptive foundations of evolutionary theory equally to call
attention to experience, specifically to the fact that
descriptive foundations are grounded in experience.
Descriptive foundations do not come by way of reducing the
living world to genes, collapsing it into brains, or modeling
it along the lines of a computer. Descriptive foundations are
laid by way of direct experience of the living world. Only by
hewing to experiences of that world have we the possibility of
arriving at veridical descriptive accounts of nature and in
turn, at explanations of nature.</span><small><br>
</small><span lang="EN-US"><u></u><u></u></span><small><br>
</small> <span lang="EN-US">I follow up these aspects of
Darwinian evolutionary biology to show their confluence with
phenomenology. Phenomenology, like Darwinian evolutionary
biology, is methodologically essential to understandings of
human nature; like Darwinian evolutionary biology, it too is
tethered to experience and is basically a descriptive project;
and again, like Darwinian evolutionary biology, it too is
concerned with origins. What we think of and separate
academically as disparate fields of knowledge are undergirded
by descriptive foundations. The descriptive challenge lies in
languaging experience and being true to the truths of
experience, a challenge common to both fields of study.<br>
<br>
</span></div>
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<p style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><small><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></small></p>
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<br>
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<pre cols="72"> </pre></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
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