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Phenomenology for Consciousness Studies
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Course 2 of 4

The Existential Turn in Phenomenology

Follow phenomenology as it moved from pure consciousness to embodied, worldly existence. You'll study Martin Heidegger's account of being-in-the-world, including tools, moods, and care. You'll then meet the French thinkers who shaped the ground Merleau-Ponty worked on: Henri Bergson on lived time, the Gestalt psychologists and Kurt Goldstein on perception and the organism, Jean-Paul Sartre on consciousness and the body, and Simone de Beauvoir on the body as situation. These ideas remain central to how philosophers and cognitive scientists think about skill, embodiment, and meaning.

2 modules · 6 lessons · 59 items · 8h 28m

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Who this is for

You'll get the most out of this course if you can explain intentionality and the phenomenological reduction in your own words and are comfortable with dense philosophical prose.

What you will learn

  • Explain how Heidegger redirected phenomenology from consciousness to being-in-the-world
  • Use the ready-to-hand and present-at-hand distinction to analyze skilled activity
  • Explain how Bergson and Gestalt psychology challenged atomistic accounts of time and perception
  • Compare Sartre's and Beauvoir's accounts of the lived body

Contents

  1. Module 1 Heidegger: Being-in-the-World 3 lessons

    Learn Martin Heidegger's account of being-in-the-world from Being and Time: why he turned phenomenology from consciousness to the question of being, how everyday tools reveal a world of practical meaning, and how moods, understanding, and care disclose that world. You'll use the distinction between the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand to analyze skilled activity in your own life and work. These ideas shaped later accounts of skill, expertise, and embodied cognition, including influential critiques of artificial intelligence.

    Module overview and further reading

    1. 1.1Being-in-the-World: The Question of Being1h 3m
    2. 1.2Being-in-the-World: Ready-to-Hand and Present-at-Hand1h 3m
    3. 1.3Being-in-the-World: Mood, Understanding, and Care1h 33m
  2. Module 2 Before Merleau-Ponty: Bergson to Beauvoir 3 lessons

    Meet the thinkers who shaped French phenomenology in the first half of the 20th century: Henri Bergson on lived time, the Gestalt psychologists and Kurt Goldstein on perception and the organism, Jean-Paul Sartre on consciousness and the body, and Simone de Beauvoir on the body as situation. You'll learn how each challenged the idea that experience is built from isolated sensations or moments, and you'll compare competing accounts of how we live our bodies among others. These ideas still inform research on temporal experience, perceptual organization, neuropsychology, and embodiment.

    Module overview and further reading

    1. 2.1Bergson to Beauvoir: Bergson's Duration1h 3m
    2. 2.2Bergson to Beauvoir: Gestalt and the Organism1h 3m
    3. 2.3Bergson to Beauvoir: Sartre and Beauvoir on the Body1h 33m

Course project

Analyze a Skilled Activity In this project, you'll analyze a skilled activity you know well, such as running, cooking, playing music, coaching, surgery, or teaching, as a form of being-in-the-world. You'll use the ready-to-hand and present-at-hand distinction, mood, lived time or… 3 items · 1h 10m