Center for Subjectivity Research

Last updated
Center for Subjectivity Research
Nyekua.jpg
CategoryResearch Center
Location Copenhagen University, Faculty of Humanities
Foundation2002
DirectorDan Zahavi
Web-site http://cfs.ku.dk

The Center for Subjectivity Research (CFS) is an interdisciplinary research center at the University of Copenhagen, directed by Dan Zahavi. They work on a number of different topics: subjectivity, intentionality, empathy, action, perception, embodiment, naturalism, self-consciousness, self-disorders, schizophrenia, autism, cerebral palsy, normativity, anxiety, and trust, and do scholarly work on classical thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Ricoeur. They put a variety of philosophical and empirical perspectives on subjectivity into play to obtain mutual enlightenment, and methodological and conceptual pluralism. Hence, they have had collaborations within different disciplines such as phenomenology, analytic philosophy, hermeneutics, psychiatry, neuroscience, philosophy of religion, Asian philosophy, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, and cognitive science.

Contents

Introduction

History

CFS was established in 2002, by Dan Zahavi (Professor of Philosophy), Josef Parnas (Professor of Psychiatry) and Arne Grøn (Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion) to allow a “systematic exploration of subjectivity” through “an ‘interphilosophical’ and ‘interdisciplinary’ approach”. [1] In the period 2002-2012, it was funded as a "Center of Excellence" by the Danish National Research Foundation. [1] Since 2012 CFS has been hosting a number of externally funded research projects, and is currently part of the Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, at the University of Copenhagen. CFS has received funding from, e.g., the European Science Foundation, The Danish Council for Independent Research, The European Commission (6th and 7th Framework Program), the Carlsberg Foundation, the VELUX Foundation, and the University of Copenhagen Excellence Program for Interdisciplinary Research. [2]

Theoretical framework: Subjectivity

The notion of Subjectivity (rather than for instance consciousness) was chosen as essential to the center, because it has a long and complex history in Western thought, thus providing a strong connection to tradition. [1] Since Descartes, and in particularly since Kant, subjectivity has been of ongoing concern to many philosophers working within the German and French traditions (continental philosophy). In the period from Kant to Hegel, occasionally labeled as the reign of the philosophy of subjectivity, subjectivity was considered to constitute at least one of the most important themes and principles of philosophy. [3] In 20th century philosophy, this theoretical orientation probably found its most significant continuation in phenomenology.

Honor and awards

In 2006 Dan Zahavi was awarded the Elite Research Prize of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The prize is given to an outstanding Danish researcher for an excellent contribution to Danish science. In 2009 Claudia Welz, then Post.doc at CFS, received the Templeton Award for Theological Promise. In 2010 Andrea Raballo, then Early Stage Researcher at CFS, won the European Psychiatric Association's Research Prize 2010 in the category "Clinical Psychopathology and refinement of psychiatric diagnostic categories." In 2011, Adrian Alsmith (currently postdoc at CFS), first won the Barbara Wengeler Prize for his PhD-dissertation and then the Sapere Aude - DFF Young Elite Researcher award. In 2011, Dan Zahavi received the Carlsberg Foundation's Research Prize from the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. In 2012, Josef Parnas received the Kurt Schneider Scientific Award. [1]

Projects and collaboration

Advisory board

CFS has an advisory board composed of the following scholars: Ingolf U. Dalferth (Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion, Universität Zürich, Switzerland), Günter Figal (Professor of Philosophy, Freiburg Universität, Germany), Shaun Gallagher (Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Memphis, USA), Axel Honneth (Professor of Philosophy, University of Frankfurt, Germany), Alva Noë (Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, USA), Philippe Rochat (Professor of Psychology, Emory University, USA), Yves Rossetti (Professor of Neuropsychology, Lyon Medical School, France), Louis Sass (Professor of Clinical Psychology, Rutgers University, USA), Galen Strawson (Professor of Philosophy, University of Reading, UK), Evan Thompson (Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Canada).

Academic activities

Dan Zahavi, director of CFS is co-editor in chief of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences [ permanent dead link ], an international journal at the intersections between phenomenology, empirical science, and analytic philosophy of mind. [4]

Highlights among different recent research projects [5]

Practical application

CFS also works in projects extending outside of academic boundaries, e.g., projects with clinical application or art projects.

Examples of projects with clinical application:

Examples of collaborations with artists and on art projects:

Education and student relation

Master's in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind

Through the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication CFS is involved in and offers courses on a 2-year master specialization in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind.

Summer school

Since 2010 during August it has hosted the Copenhagen Summer School in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind. [1] The summer school which is partially funded by the PhD School at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen, typically attracts around 80-100 PhD students from all over the world, but is also open to advanced MA students.

CFS engages in research training for PhD-students, full-degrees, and visiting students.

Selected bibliography

Related Research Articles

Edmund Husserl German philosopher, known as the father of phenomenology

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a German philosopher who established the school of phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic based on analyses of intentionality. In his mature work, he sought to develop a systematic foundational science based on the so-called phenomenological reduction. Arguing that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge, Husserl redefined phenomenology as a transcendental-idealist philosophy. Husserl's thought profoundly influenced the landscape of 20th-century philosophy, and he remains a notable figure in contemporary philosophy and beyond.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty French phenomenological philosopher

Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest and he wrote on perception, art, and politics. He was on the editorial board of Les Temps modernes, the leftist magazine established by Jean-Paul Sartre in 1945.

Phenomenology is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness. As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.

Neurophenomenology refers to a scientific research program aimed to address the hard problem of consciousness in a pragmatic way. It combines neuroscience with phenomenology in order to study experience, mind, and consciousness with an emphasis on the embodied condition of the human mind. The field is very much linked to fields such as neuropsychology, neuroanthropology and behavioral neuroscience and the study of phenomenology in psychology.

Phenomenology in architecture can be understood as a discursive and realist attempt to understand and embody the philosophical insights of phenomenology.

Phenomenology may refer to:

Theodor Lipps was a German philosopher, famed for his theory regarding aesthetics, creating the framework for the concept of Einfühlung (empathy), defined as, "projecting oneself onto the object of perception." This has then led onto opening up a new branch of interdisciplinary research in the overlap between psychology and philosophy.

Shaun Gallagher American philosopher

Shaun Gallagher is an American philosopher who works on embodied cognition, social cognition, agency and the philosophy of psychopathology. Since 2011 he has held the Lillian and Morrie Moss Chair of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis and was awarded the Anneliese Maier Research Award by the Humboldt Foundation (2012-2018). Since 2014 he has been professorial fellow on the Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts at the University of Wollongong in Australia. He has held visiting positions at Keble College, Oxford; Humboldt University, Berlin; Ruhr Universität, Bochum; Husserl Archives, ENS, Paris; École Normale Supérieure, Lyon; University of Copenhagen; and the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University.

Human science studies the philosophical, biological, social, and cultural aspects of human life. Human Science aims to expand our understanding of the human world through a broad interdisciplinary approach. It encompasses a wide range of fields - including history, philosophy, genetics, sociology, psychology, evolutionary biology, biochemistry, neurosciences, folkloristics, and anthropology. It is the study and interpretation of the experiences, activities, constructs, and artifacts associated with human beings. The study of the human sciences attempts to expand and enlighten the human being's knowledge of their existence, its interrelationship with other species and systems, and the development of artifacts to perpetuate the human expression and thought. It is the study of human phenomena. The study of the human experience is historical and current in nature. It requires the evaluation and interpretation of the historic human experience and the analysis of current human activity to gain an understanding of human phenomena and to project the outlines of human evolution. Human science is the objective, informed critique of human existence and how it relates to reality.

David Andrew Bell is a British philosopher. He is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield, He studied in Dublin, Göttingen and Canada, and is best known for his work on the philosophers Gottlob Frege, Immanuel Kant, and Edmund Husserl, and also on topics such as solipsism, phenomenology, the theory of thought and judgement, and the history of the Analytic Tradition.

Dan Zahavi Danish philosopher

Dan Zahavi is a Danish philosopher. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at University of Copenhagen and University of Oxford.

Dermot Moran is an Irish philosopher specialising in phenomenology and in medieval philosophy, and he is also active in the dialogue between analytic and continental philosophy. He is currently the inaugural holder of the Joseph Chair in Catholic Philosophy at Boston College. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Founding Editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

Jitendra Nath Mohanty is an emeritus professor of philosophy at Temple University. Born in Cuttack, in 1928 in Orissa, India, Professor Mohanty had a distinguished career where he stood first in all public examinations and in B.A. and M.A. examinations at the University of Calcutta. Subsequently, he did a Ph.D. from University of Göttingen in 1954. In his long academic career, he had taught at the University of Burdwan, University of Calcutta, New School for Social Research, University of Oklahoma, Emory University, and Temple University and has held visiting professorships at many renowned universities.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka American philosopher

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was a Polish American philosopher, phenomenologist, founder and president of The World Phenomenology Institute, and editor of the book series, Analecta Husserliana. She had a thirty-year friendship with Pope John Paul II.

Alva Noë is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. The focus of his work is the theory of perception and consciousness. In addition to these problems in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, he is interested in phenomenology, the theory of art, Wittgenstein, and the origins of analytic philosophy.

Maurice Alexander Natanson (1924–1996) was an American philosopher "who helped introduce the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Edmund Husserl in the United States". He was a student of Alfred Schutz at the New School for Social Research and helped popularize Schutz' work from the 1960s onward.

Cathrine Hasse Danish anthropologist

Cathrine Hasse is a professor of cultural anthropology and learning at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Her research lies in the intersection between culture, learning and technology.

Early phenomenology refers to the early phase of the phenomenological movement, from the 1890s until the Second World War. The figures associated with the early phenomenology are Edmund Husserl and his followers and students, particularly the members of the Göttingen and Munich Circles, as well as a number of other students of Carl Stumpf and Theodor Lipps, and excludes the later existential phenomenology inspired by Martin Heidegger. Early phenomenology can be divided into two theoretical camps: realist phenomenology, and transcendental or constitutive phenomenology.

Burt C. Hopkins is an American philosopher. He is an Associate Member of the University of Lille, UMR-CNRS 8163 STL, Permanent Faculty member of the Summer School of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, Ca’Foscari University of Venice, former Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Seattle University (1989-2016) and Permanent Secretary of the Husserl Circle. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of Nanjing, China (2013), Visiting Professor at The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and the Koyré Center, Paris, France (2015-17), Senior Fellow at The Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2018), and most recently Researcher at The Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Science, Prague, The Capital, Czech Republic (2019).

David Carr is an American phenomenology scholar and a Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from Emory University.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Center for Subjectivity Research 2002-2012
  2. CFS Annual Reports
  3. The Oxford Companion to Consciousness, "Subjectivity" section, ed. Tim Bayne, Axel Cleeremans, Patrick Wilken. Oxford University Press 2009
  4. Springer site: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
  5. CFS Research Activities
  6. Frank, Lone & Martiny, Kristian M. "Man må ha' det i benene", Weekendavisen, 15 June 2012
  7. Martiny et al. ”Kan Verden ’vejes’ Visuelt”, Videnskab.dk, 19 June 2014
  8. Ebdrup, Niels. ”Ny teater forestilling er et videnskabeligt eksperiment”, Videnskab.dk, 19 September 2014
  9. Radio Program: "Nørderne Kommer – Om musikken og Sindet”, Radio DR P2, 16 December 2013