Page 75 - Contribution To Phenomenology

68 OSBORNE WIGGINS

I shall sketch some of LakofFs and Johnson's views and indicate their
similarities to certain phenomenological views. I shall then suggest ways
in which Lakoffs experiential realism can be critically addressed from a
phenomenological vantagepoint.

II. Phenomenology and Experiential Realism: Common Theses

I would like first to mention six of the philosophical theses which, in my
judgment, Lakoffs and Johnson's positions share with phenomenology.
1) Epistemological thesis of embodiment: Any adequate philosophy of
the knowing mind must conceive it as an embodied mind (Gurwitsch,
1979 and 1985; Merleau-Ponty, 1962).^
2) Existentialist thesis of the primacy of the lifeworld: The practical
activities of everyday social life are largely preconceptual, and the
structures of these preconceptual activities provide the necessary basis for
all conceptualization, including natural, technical, and formal languages
(Husserl, 1973; Gurwitsch, 1974; Merleau-Ponty, 1964).
3) Phenomenal thesis of Gestalt organization: The objects and situations
encountered in the lifeworld exhibit a phenomenal structure that is best
described in terms of Gestalt part-whole relationships (Gurwitsch, 1964;
Merleau-Ponty, 1962).
4) Constructivist thesis of science, logic, and mathematics: Science, logic,
and mathematics must be understood as constructed through processes of
generalization, formahzation, and ideaUzation that presuppose the more
basic preconceptual, embodied experiences of the lifeworld (Husserl, 1970;
Gurwitsch, 1974; Merleau-Ponty 1962).
5) Transcendental thesis of constitution: The structure of the ex-
perienced world must be conceived as dependent on the structure and
activities of embodied mind (Husserl, 1970; Gurwitsch, 1966;
Merleau-Ponty, 1962).
6) Ontological thesis of realism: The experienced (constituted) world is
also a real world, and this real world includes the real embodied mind
that experiences and constitutes it (Merleau-Ponty, 1962 and 1964).

^ The thesis I have expressed here should be compared with Mark Johnson's
formulation of his position: "any adequate account of meaning and rationality must give a
central place to embodied and imaginative structures of understanding by which we grasp our
world" (1987, p. xiii).