Phenomenology: WTF? Time and Phenomenology explained!
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- In this latest episode of What the Theory? I take a look at phenomenology, time and dasein (Heidegger's concept of consciousness) through the example of Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, the narrative of which is incredibly playful with how human beings experience time and consciousness.
After the success of my video on semiotics, I was keen to move beyond those Cartesian modes of interpreting the world to those which engage in a more existentialist approach.
Further Reading
Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction by Simon Critchley
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UK: amzn.to/2Vx11Rq
Introducing Heidegger: A Graphic Guide by Jeff Collins & Howard Selina
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UK: amzn.to/2BXwaWU
[The above are affiliate links. I receive a small kickback from anything you buy which, in turn, helps to support the channel.]
If you've enjoyed this video then please do check out the rest of my channel where I put out a whole range of videos discussing theatre and playwriting from the perspective of an aspirant and (some might say) emerging playwright and theatre maker as well as reflecting on my experience as a PhD Student.
Twitter: @Tom_Nicholas
Website: www.tomnicholas.com
Thanks for watching!
Hi all! Thanks for watching, I hope you found the video enlightening in some small way! If you'd like to help me to make more videos like this, and to influence what topics I cover next, then I've just launched a Patreon. I'd love it if you'd check it out and, if you're able, to consider supporting my channel. Thanks! Tom. www.patreon.com/tomnicholas
i just want to say thank you - i have to do a presentation at uni about phenomenology and it wasn't until watching this video that i actually understand what it is about!! so helpful and clear
Boy can teach! You are one of the most natural teachers I've every come across. I love that news reader clip! So perfect. Thank you, it's all communicated really well. I read about phenomenology about 10 years ago (in 'Witness to Hope' by George Weigel, phenomenology underpinning the value of the human person, especially in the assertion that using another person as a means to an end is morally corrupt) and thought I could still summarise it, but just spent about an hour reading through articles online, trying to recap and and be able to synopsise it, without much success!! 'Our own awareness of our own consciousness actually comes to influence how we understand the world around us'. Poof. There goes my brain. Haven't been able to match this concept up with the fantastic example given of Dunkirk yet, but I'ma keep trying!! Someone else mentioned one of my favourite films, Arrival, as another example, which can only mean that I need to binge watch films for the cause of greater good. YAS! Go philosophical confusion! Thanks again, I'm going to look up your other videos : )
A clear and concise explanation of a complex subject!
In my experience time doesn't fly when you have fun as fast as it does when you have to meet a deadline.
same
Agreed. Because of the experience of looming deadlines, I had a greater understanding what he says at 8:42 i.e. "rather than suggesting that time gains meaning through us measuring it in hours and minutes and seconds [...] it suggests that our experience of time only gains meaning once we know what we're set against". Thanks Tom - this was helpful.
so happy to see your comment when I have 23 hours left to submit my rubbish...
@@Lasia1109 I feel you. Been there myself. I wish you the best of luck with your... rubbish
Okay, now I feel ready! time to crack open some Heidegge-
*oh god*
I think Heidegger is like the tunnel at the end of which you find the needle-eye that is Husserl. Further down the rabbit hole?
So I think Heidegger is a good start towards Husserl. As Marx is to Hegel, Heidegger is to Husserl. As I see it. It can make the whole process of learning this stuff less problematic if you are able to think of the terms mathematically.
I thought Heidegger was funny, but I guess you had to be there.
I’ve learnt more in these 9 minutes than listening to an hour lecture at my university. Excellent work! 👍
the dunkirk example was very helpful!
I immensely enjoyed Heidegger’s Being and Time. I remember waking up at 3am for weeks so I could process the material. It had a huge impact on my practice and it’ll continue to be something I will revisit for years to come
This was amazing, so so helpful; also it’s interesting to realise the understanding of these concepts has existed in your consciousness for years but without names so it’s great to deconstruct what we see, and analyse and articulate. Thank you! ☺️
I feel like all of these abstract concepts in my brain just locked into place, and everything suddenly makes so much more sense. Thank you! Subscribed :D
I'm a visual arts grad student in the US, and a lot of the critical writing that I'm coming across presumes familiarity with a lot of the concepts you are so helpfully introducing. Whether it's phenomenology, semiotics, or even postmodern theatre and dramaturgy...I've kept cringing at my poor education as I nervously tiptoe around terms that come up again and again. Interestingly, the book I'm reading about the sculpture work of the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres goes so far as to actually include essays by Brecht and Barthes, as they are so pertinent to appreciating the work. So I went to Google and ended up on your channel. These little introductions are incredibly helpful! Long comment, but I thought you might enjoy the testimony. Thanks a lot.
Got to build up on your structuralism! 😉
just started reading at the existentialist cafe and came here and this guy just brought up my one of my favorite movie as an example to describe phenomenology, your sick
I'm the exact same 😂
Currently finishing my Anthropology degree in the US and turned to your channel (specifically this video) after becoming confused when reading a literary piece about Phenomenology. Your video does a superb job of explaining and demonstrating the philosophical study of phenomenology. Thank you!
The best explanation of phenomenology I have seen on CZcams, using words whose meaning has been defined, something rare among professional philosophers.
This video was recommended to me as part of resources for my masters in psychotherapy. Great work Tom!
This is such a good introduction to a very complex subject, you describe it really well. Thanks for making the vid! :)
Forever helping me out along my postgraduate journey🙏🏽 thank you, Tom.
It was a form of genius to connect Dunkirk's storytelling with phenomenology.
Dude this is the easiest-to-understand explanation out there! Thanks a lot.
It would be a great help if we could have another video only about heidegger concept of dasein. Tnx for your great videos :)
mohammad assadi I agree
@@bigbeefscorcho Me too.
Hey Tom . Well done for tackling what is a challenging topic . Your enthusiasm and style are very self evident and as a student of psychology the dunkirk example was brilliant . well done . thanks for sharing yourself and your hard work with the rest of us. Today you made the world a better place ! keep it up :))
Thank you Tom. Great presentation on a tough subject. Love the Dunkirk example for the explanation of time phenomenology. You have scripted and explained it superbly.
1:51 I forogt that this was recorded years before the lockdown and so this scene seemed perfectly normal, if a tad silly.
A truly excellent channel, with great introductions into very complex topics! My suggestion is to make a video about Husserl's epoche as a sort of part 2, as that might further clarify the method behind phenomenology. Briefly, when doing phenomenology, we are supposed to disregard the natural attitude that ascribes existence to the external world, focusing only on the meaning-giving and structures of experiences and meaning that we find in our own consciousness. There's also the discussion of the transcendental ego, which is the condition for experiencing as such, and is in that sense "outside of the world", something that cannot be objectified since it is the condition for the idea of objectivity itself.
I watch a lot of videos like yours, but I love the unique way you Recommend a movie that would help with understanding something very complex. Thanks for the tip.
Thank you, I'm really glad you found it helpful!
Thanks for explaining this in an engaging and enthusistic manner. I'm such a fan of your explainations as a fellow theatre kid ❤
Brilliant explanation! Thank you. The time time is perceived can impact your day.
I've learned a lot on this video because his explanation is clear and also he explained about the Cartesian approach.
Related to time being "squishy": When sundials were the primary tool for marking time, the day was divided in 12 hours. However, in the summertime, those hours would be longer than in the wintertime. So an hour was 1/12 of daylight, but in the summer that would be 1 hour and 20 minutes and in the winter that hour would be 40 minutes long (I'm just using example numbers. The actual durations would depend on one's location).
A lot of this is a really great way of explaining phenomenology to those who may be struggling with it. I really enjoyed this video! However, while time is viewed phenomenologically via the way we experience it rather than through a quantified Cartesian sense, this explanation of our being (Dasein) and our experience of time is simplified and distorted to the extreme. For example, Heidegger's conception of time as experienced by Dasien is not that it can sometimes feel shorter than it is or longer than it is, but rather that it is linear from one point to another. Heidegger has trouble with viewing time from a past-present-future perspective and believes that they are interlinked in our experience more than what is classically understood. Both human history and our own personal histories have a direct effect on our being, the relationship we have to the future also has a distinct effect on this as well. Being and Time is supposed to illustrate that time is connected to our being in a way that it motivates and is involved in our being, and consequently as a result of this gives meaning to our being. Although it is correct that phenomenology seeks to understand phenomena from our experience of it and indeed we do experience time in varying ways, this is not the core of Heidegger's phenomenology. Heidegger would also take issue with your usage of the word consciousness as well, as this is not a concept Heidegger deems necessary in any way for the purposes of onotology or phenomenology.
Yes, for length of time, there is a huge amount of simplification here (the balance between depth and accessibility/video length is always a tough one!). Thank you for adding some further thoughts here, I'm sure this will be really useful to others popping by. I'd like to do something more specific to Heidegger at some point but have a long list of videos to make already, haha.
I'm taking my first Phenomenology course as a junior in college and to be honest I feel SO LOST! This video has helped immensely. Great Job!!
The opposition with Descartes’ vision of the world was a game changer for my understanding of phenomenology. Thanks!
No worries, sometimes it ends up being a single sentence that helps everything else click into place!
way more helpful than listening a college professor give a lecture for 2 hrs.
Unless that professor is Jordan Peterson😁
@@andrewmckeown6786 lmao yea
Your videos are so clear and concise. I really appreciate you making these!
Thank you for the amazing video. Your talk is so understandable and a pleasure to listen to. Somehow, it is fun. I don't know why it is so fun. Maybe it's because you don't flatter the audience but you care which part might be hard to listen to/understand for the audience. That is, you are a kind lecturer as well as a learned person.
Among my academia colleagues, I always joke that if you find some theory hard to digest, go to CZcams. Someone gonna explain it in plain and simple English. Well today I had a hard time trying to understand my colleagues who research "phenomenologically". Then I found this video. Now I understand what they do.
using the Dunkirk film as an example of how we experience time was clever and I enjoyed it. Thx.
honestly this is one of the best explanations of phenomenology, thank you!
Not sure if you're still checking these comments, but how would you compare this particular phenomenology of time to the way Bergson (and then later Deleuze in Cinema 1 & 2) define time? This question is open to anyone still reading this! Thanks!
Good stuff Mr Nicholas. Useful pieces of my particular puzzle. Thanks and keep doing what you're doing.
Great work, Tom, such a nice balance of thorough explanation, succinct (not not rushed) narration, compelling examples, and all without falling back on dense inaccessible language -- the "brick wall of text" you have mentioned elsewhere. Out of curiousity, your analogy of Dunkirk -- did you develop that or come across it somewhere?
Thank you so much!!!! This was the clearest description I have heard yet. It finally makes sense!
Using the Dunkirk film was a great example, thank you!
Thank you :) Your video is great. I started to discover phenomenology for my studies and you helped me grab the definition of it.
Hi! Wow, I never saw Dunkirk that way. I'm gonna rewatch it just in case my brain decides to cooperate for understand this topic. A lot of thanks for the further reading section, too. Kisses!
No worries, hope this has helped in some small way!
Hey! I'd suggest there's a massive hole here in the statement that we can't feel time emotionally. Deadlines? Trauma responses to time pressure? Feeling proud of being able to count seconds accurately in your head and being therefore motivated to do it? Those are emotional measures of time as a strictly measured thing (not to say that is the only way to conceive of it).
Thank you! I have just started a MSC in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health and I'm struggling to decode a lot of the language and terminology used. This helped enormously and I will definitely look in your patreon. x x
Superb video, thank you for taking the time to put it together.
Great small explanation of this difficult subject. I'm currently working on a phenomenological analysis of populists behavior. Why choose an authoritarian antidemocratic leader when freedom is so important to you. It's about how we sculpture our belief system. I think (with Kant) that intentions are determining factors in how we shape a healthy belief system.
thank you for this. I have a presentation on phenomenology in my theories of theatre class on Monday and I understand the concept in a much better light
it was really helpful for me to grasp this concept of phenomenology, bundle of thanks
This video was so helpful, thank you for taking the time to make it :)
The explanation with Dunkirk was very clever and helpful, excellent narrating skills though. Thanks!!!
Perfect lecture in a small amount of time!
Very good description of Phenomology.
Thanks for letting me understand this "phenomenology", your video was dope. Although i am still a bit confused to relate it with my current study of psychiatry. 😂
Glad you found it helpful. It can often be a challenge adapting such broad ideas as phenomenology to specific disciplines but there's likely to be some useful articles, book chapters or even blogposts out there that can help you out. Psychiatry is very far from my own discipline though so I'm not sure I could be much help there!
You may find phenomenological psychology of interest. m.czcams.com/video/Vhm21qEnzds/video.html
I'm trying to understand phenomenology so someone correct me if I'm off here. I would watch Memento as the protagonists interpretation of reality defines it. It still implies there's a real world but it focuses on how his delusions become oddly functional within a world he oddly creates. So when medicating someone you might be not be "fixing" but forcing them to operate and behave in a world they do not understand or know how to act in. Even if their world is private it's still their world.
Thank you! Trying to get this I think I understand now 🙌🏼
Good Job with such a dense subject!!
this is absolutely spectacular, so clearly and concisely explained and very interestingly aligns quite well with Buddhist philosophy.
It actually follows the german idealism that subject is substance
Thank you so much for this! Finally makes sense!
Thank you for such a great insight in a short space of time - making it understandable! My first insight into phenomenology.
This was very informative and easy to understand. Well delivered, thank you!
This was a great explanation! Thank you
Ridiculous that a ten minute video can hammer into my brain these concepts that my university reading list is majorly failing at
Don ihde’s book, experimental phenomenology, is very good as an intro.
Phenomenology: from the Greek PHAINÓMENON= that which appears.
And so phenomenology, generally speaking is studying what appears before is when we are experiencing.
the Cartesian tradition divided the world into mental stuff and physical stuff. And that subjective feelings are confined to the mental substance, and all non-mental or non-subjective phenomena have been confined to physical-substance. And so we have the physical substances, per the Cartesian tradition, occurring OUTSIDE of our mental world.
Phenomenology says, waitasec, when I have an experience, I experience both mental and physical, so-called, phenomena. So, when you have an experience, phenomenologically speaking, the observation is of the total landscape of what lays before you when you experience. There is no saying, or jumping to the conclusion that physical stuff is outside of mental stuff. In other words, as far as I can tell, phenomenologists don’t limit empiricism to only have as its scope the “non-mental substances”. They regard as fair game all that is “given” to you to experience.
For example you may measure the speed of a shooting star while being in awe of it. And so that which appears is what?
Phenomenology also suspends any judgements about what’s being experienced. This is where many may have an issue, because as an example, phenomenology is not going to say that experience comes from the function of the brain. BUT BUT they won’t deny it either. They are merely suspending judgement in what’s called the “epoche”, which is a bracketing or suspension of any judgements or metaphysics. I suppose they won’t leap to a materialism or idealism or anything. They just want to accurately describe what we are experiencing and uncover what the invariant or consistent or unchanging structures of
Experience are.
One such structure is INTENTIONALITY, which says that all experiencing is has an arrow. You are always conscious OF some phenomena. This is what Parmenides said to a young Socrates, when Socrates tried to say that the FORMS were structures of the mind, and Parmenides said, but isn’t thought “of something?”
In other words, our thoughts are directed to, refer to, are about, are of something. And so this is a pre-requisite or a-priori structure,I think.
At any rate, reading Plato’s Theatetus, sophist, and Parmenides are good to have under your belt for Don ihde’s intro. At least for me they’re good.
Amazingly helpful explanation! Thanks so much!
No worries, glad you found it helpful Sarah!
Wow, thank you so much. I'm trying to understand enactivism, and I saw that phenomenology is one possible first step to it. The video was very helpful!
THANK YOU. It finally makes sense!
Enjoyed this and also the post modernist explanation. Clearly and simply stated
Great explanation, thank you, it helps a lot with my architectural project!
No worries, best of luck with the project!
I loved "conciusness is situated", I´ll use it after the "history writting is situated" that I allways tell my students
Great video. Serious praise to this hidden gem of a channel for making clear and concise videos about initially difficult concepts.
I wanted to ask about the "Cartesian Approach," mentioned roughly at 1:35, where you explained it to be the approach of the world "as a logical place."
I understand this concept to be synonymous with "Cartesianism" as it holds (quoting Wikipedia) that: "sensation and the perception of reality are the source of untruth and illusions."
I interpret that as meaning that our subjective perceptions of reality, colored by our emotions and preconceived notions, are deviations from an objective reality.
I define a meta-narrative to be: a supposed objective and comprehensive narrative of the present world, as a product of present and historical narrative, offering the implementation of an objectively beneficial master idea.
Would this cartesian idea of a "logical" and objective reality be synonymous with the objective narratives of reality meta-narrative or modernist accounts, claim to present?
Cheers for the kind words!
Here, I was using "logical" as opposed to "sensory". Cartesian philosophy generally tends to view the world as a measurable, quantifiable place. So, a Cartesian approach to how we understand the world might suggest that we "understand" or "decode" it whereas phenomenological approaches are more interested in how we "experience" or "feel" the world. Particularly, Descartes suggested that there is a distinct separation between mind and body and, therefore, the physical world and mental world, phenomenological approaches suggest that they are interwoven.
Hope that helps?
@@Tom_Nicholas this response, and the video as a whole, is incredibly helpful! In my current course, the instructor is assigning heavy reading with no lecture or instruction making the concepts impossible. Thank you for your videos!
This is awesome... You managed to give an idea of phenomenology and that example was great too ❤️
Thank you, really glad the video did the job!
tom you're an angel for this!
I really enjoy watching this video, it's helpful......thanks
Who are you? What a passionate explanation with an extremely good vocabulary.
If your way of speaking about this subjects instills in me a pleasant curiosity, how would you describe this influence on a phenomenological or cartesian thought?!
Absolutely tremendous interpretation. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Is time maybe made up, though? I got here because I have started to look at time as mostly a function of memory and custom. But memory itself seems to be an experience in of itself. My memory not only differs from yours but even from what I remembered before, when I reflected on some event. Or seem to have remembered. It's a recording, but then again, I listen to old recordings and they seem different to me from 'time' to another -- maybe not always radically, but at least somewhat. I'm listening to one of mine as I write (I am a singer/songwriter/bandleader). I am hearing it in a very very different light! Even physicists are saying that 'time' is not what we think it is -- the 4th-grade interpretation of a wall hanging across your classroom with different events going in a very specific order.
Thank you for your explanation, can you make more video about the phenomenology?
Tom, darling, I've been loving your videos!
Though sometimes you have to sacrifice the explanation of concepts to make it short.
A question on (the concept of) "consciousness": is it (1) an entity (like an object) with dynamic capabilities or is it (2) a loose set of processes?
Funny. I just recently watched videos on existentialism and both used Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy to illustrate their point (Batman Begins was drawn upon to elucidate Camus’ absurdism; and the Dark Knight was drawn upon to elucidate Nietzsche's moral nihilism). Then I stumble upon this video on phenomenology and it draws upon Nolan's Dunkirk to elucidate the point.
Now I guess I'm just waiting for a video on psychoanalysis to draw from Inception, a video on Marxism that draws from the Prestige, and a video on theoretical physics to draw from Interstellar lmao.
Great explanation, Thank you
This is excellent. Thank you. Lucid and insightful.
Very good. Definitely help me Understand phenomenology a bit better
Ah, I'm glad. That's the aim!
What a fantastic find this is, you have a wonderful way of painting an interesting picture while staying connected to the topic at hand...I love the time example and using a movie to explain it. Nice work!
Thank you for saying so, I'm really glad you found it interesting!
This is an incredible explanation. Condensed yet both copious and compelling! Thank you! I would be forever grateful if you could dig into Martin Heidegger’s article: Building, Dwelling and Thinking!🙏🏼
Phenomenology is a philosophy of experience. for phenomenology, the ultimae source of all meaning and value is the lived experience of human being.. All philosophical systems, scientific theories or aesthetic judgements have the statuts of abstrauctions from the ebb and flow of the lived flow. the task of philosophical according to phenomenology, is to describe the structures of experience , in particular consciousness, the imaginations, relations with other persons, and the situatednessof the human subject and history .
You explain this so well! Thank you!
If someone asked me what the this channel was I would describe as early Philosophy Tube, but better.
this was really useful, thank you
Hi! Amazing video, thank you very much!
Enjoyed the lecture.
What if we looked at life in terms of intensity of experiences? For instance, I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast 2 days ago but I remember every single detail of the car accident we had when I was 9 where my brother was almost killed and spent 8 hours in neurosurgery.
Thankyou. Really good description analogy and application.
Cheers Martin, glad you thought so!
Thanks for a educational content.💗
Thank goodness for TOM NICKOLAS. You help simplify all this Ph.D. stuff.
Thanks for your kind words Rhonda!
Ok I need a ringtone of our host saying “literature” on repeat.
We should take a moment to appreciate the symmetry of the scenery.
It is a very beautifully shot film.
Wow! Great example to explain the phenomenology of time. Thank you.
Cheers for your kind words!
Chronological time vs. the psychological time has been explained in detail by J . Krishnamurti, in case anyone who wants to investigate it.
Great Dunkirk example
I always want to discuss with qualitative researchers about this constructivism perspective of reality (or in this case meaning). Qualitative researchers often try to frame it as something distinct from traditional science. I disagree. The traditional perspective is that there is a physical reality out there, that can be approximated by scientific theories or models with errors. Qualitative researchers say the reality depends on a person's interpretation. First, traditional scientists are well aware the fact that for the same temperature, some people can feel warm, other can feel cold. Second, I believe qualitative researchers' argument is nothing but a shift of topic: from the study of physical reality to the study of the effect of physical reality on a person's consciousness. However, from traditional science perspective, a person's experience of a situation depends almost completely on the current state of the brain, which can be influenced by environment, genetic, personal history, cultures etc. Since personal experiences depends on a physical object, the brain, and the factors that shape the brain, traditional science can be used to study subjective experience. There is no contradiction. Qualitative researchers often create the impression that traditional science can only study physical reality but not subjective meaning., which to me is a misunderstanding of traditional science.
In which way does the Cartesian approach to interpreting reality differs from the Platonic approach ?