Hannah and her Sisters: Theorizing Gender and Leadership Through the Lens of Feminist Phenomenology

This article explores how feminist phenomenology can add conceptual richness to gender and leadership theorizing. Although some leadership scholars engage with phenomenological and existential inquiry, feminist phenomenology receives far less attention. By addressing this critical gap in the scholarship, this article illustrates how feminist phenomenology can enrich gender and leadership scholarship. Specifically, by engaging with the work of four women existential phenomenologists - Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Marion Young, and Sara Ahmed, the rich diversity of phenomenological inquiry is explored. First, Arendt shows the benefits of conceptualizing leadership as collective action, rather than as concentrated in one person, or organization. Second, Simone de Beauvoir highlights how women’s situation, and potential, is affected negatively by gender hierarchy. Third, Iris Marion Young builds on Beauvoir’s work, exploring how female modality is limited by the social construction of gender. Finally, Sara Ahmed takes phenomenology in a queer direction, showing us how normative ways of thinking about sexuality are limiting to those who do not fit the dominant, familiar pattern. Additionally, in the discussion and concluding sections, the merits and limitations of feminist phenomenology are explored as they relate to gender and leadership theorizing, and suggestions for future research are made

Material Engagement Theory and Extensive Enactivism Within the 4E Cognitive Debate: A Phenomenological Approach to Material Agency and Application to Current Technology

4E Cognition is a fairly new field of study within cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and cognitive philosophy. The various approaches to cognition namely embodied, embedded, extended and enacted cognition; provide multi-faceted approaches to cognition. A common claim of these approaches is that cognition may have various contributing factors such as the role of the brain, body and its environments. Thus challenges the traditional idea that cognition exists purely mentally within the confines of the brain and skull. However, even within the 4E Cognition family, some nuanced arguments are hotly debated, particularly among the proponents of Embedded Theories (EmT) and Extended Theories (ExT). The main area of dispute centres on the idea of what process(es) can be classified as ‘cognitive’. Both enterprises try to answer the pertinent question regarding what makes a cognitive state the process of a particularly cognitive kind. In other words, both theories try to answer what and where the mark of the cognitive is. EmT argues that a particular context, situation, or an environment where the body is located shapes one’s cognition. The environment, context, or situation constitutes the mark of the cognitive. However, although the body is deeply embedded with the surrounding environment, the processes that can be considered ‘cognitive’ remain within the domain of the neural system. ExT on the other hand, through the coupling principle, argues that if external resources have the same functionality with internal processes located inside the brain, then these external processes can be considered ‘cognitive’ processes. For ExT, cognition extends to external resources if and only if, extracranial resources have the same functionality as internal or neural processes inside the brain and the skull. Although, ExT and EmT vary to some degree on what constitutes the mark of cognition, they agree on where cognition predominantly resides – both agree that it is very much a “heady” affair! Still, both ExT and EmT are susceptible to the assumption that the only processes that can be classified as ‘cognitive’ processes are the internal or neural processes. However, this does not tell us how ‘cognition’ comes to be, nor does it answer the question of what makes a cognitive state the process of a particularly cognitive kind. My main aim in this thesis is to provide a possible theory, an alternative theory that can tease out the mark of the cognitive we need to settle the dispute between EmT and ExT. The first commitment we require from this theory is that it needs to renounce any knowledge claim assumption that ‘cognition’ has an a priori location inside the head. Therefore, this thesis will propose a theory that will not assume ‘cognition’ as mainly a “heady” affair, it will instead, start from the assumption that 5 | P a g e ‘cognition’ has no a priori location. Drawing from Lambros Malafouris’ framework of Material Engagement Theory (MET) seen through the lens of Extensive Enactivism (EE), I will argue that this is the theory required to tease out the mark of cognition. In addition, by giving special attention to the phenomenological perception of material things, which is that things matter and should be taken seriously since the default mode of our place in the world is ours always, and already involved in habitual engagement with things or technologies in the world. In that sense, our cognitive engagement with external things do not just scaffold or extend cognition, but rather, it is radically embodied and dynamically conflated – incorporating our brains, bodies, things, technologies, and environments. These conglomeration of contributing factors to our cognitive processes, I believe, form the mark of cognition

Intellectual autonomy, epistemic dependence and cognitive enhancement

Intellectual autonomy has long been identified as an epistemic virtue, one that has been championed influentially by (among others) Kant, Hume and Emerson. Manifesting intellectual autonomy, at least, in a virtuous way, does not require that we form our beliefs in cognitive isolation. Rather, as Roberts and Wood (Intellectual virtues: an essay in regulative epistemology, OUP Oxford, Oxford, pp. 259–260, 2007) note, intellectually virtuous autonomy involves reliance and outsourcing (e.g., on other individuals, technology, medicine, etc.) to an appropriate extent, while at the same time maintaining intellectual self-direction. In this essay, I want to investigate the ramifications for intellectual autonomy of a particular kind of epistemic dependence: cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancements (as opposed to therapeutic cognitive improvements) involve the use of technology and medicine to improve cognitive capacities in healthy individuals, through mechanisms ranging from smart drugs to brain-computer interfaces. With reference to case studies in bioethics, as well as the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, it is shown that epistemic dependence, in this extreme form, poses a prima facie threat to the retention of intellectual autonomy, specifically, by threatening to undermine our intellectual self-direction. My aim will be to show why certain kinds of cognitive enhancements are subject to this objection from self-direction, while others are not. Once this is established, we’ll see that even some extreme kinds of cognitive enhancement might be not merely compatible with, but constitutive of, virtuous intellectual autonomy

Privatio Dialogus: Toward a Phenomenology of Aloneness for the Philosophy of Communication

The intent of this dissertation is to utilize the phenomenological method to elucidate the experience of aloneness and its relationship with human communication. Aloneness, for the purposes of this research, is understood as the broad experience of feeling alone. This dissertation first seeks to understand some essential principles of previous interdisciplinary literature on this topic before establishing a typology of experiences of aloneness, including isolation, escapism, and solitude. I present a phenomenology of each of these types of aloneness through a representative philosopher for each one, with Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Henry David Thoreau, respectively. Finally, I conclude that the experience of aloneness is fundamentally a privation of interpersonal dialogue and that the type of aloneness experienced is a result of who initiates that privation

Spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in dance performance

In this paper we present a study of spectators’ aesthetic experiences of sound and movement in live dance performance. A multidisciplinary team comprising a choreographer, neuroscientists and qualitative researchers investigated the effects of different sound scores on dance spectators. What would be the impact of auditory stimulation on kinesthetic experience and/or aesthetic appreciation of the dance? What would be the effect of removing music altogether, so that spectators watched dance while hearing only the performers’ breathing and footfalls? We investigated audience experience through qualitative research, using post-performance focus groups, while a separately conducted functional brain imaging (fMRI) study measured the synchrony in brain activity across spectators when they watched dance with sound or breathing only. When audiences watched dance accompanied by music the fMRI data revealed evidence of greater intersubject synchronisation in a brain region consistent with complex auditory processing. The audience research found that some spectators derived pleasure from finding convergences between two complex stimuli (dance and music). The removal of music and the resulting audibility of the performers’ breathing had a significant impact on spectators’ aesthetic experience. The fMRI analysis showed increased synchronisation among observers, suggesting greater influence of the body when interpreting the dance stimuli. The audience research found evidence of similar corporeally focused experience. The paper discusses possible connections between the findings of our different approaches, and considers the implications of this study for interdisciplinary research collaborations between arts and sciences

High School Visual Art Students\u27 Perceptions of Creativity

When high school art teachers do not understand how their students experience creativity, studio art programs are less effective in fostering student learning than they would otherwise be. Nevertheless, extant research does not reveal a consistent or comprehensive understanding of how adolescents experience creativity in art education. Drawing on Csikszentmihalyi\u27s theory of creativity and flow, this study explored students\u27 perceptions of creativity and its relationship to flow, or the state of consciousness associated with optimal pleasure. This phenomenological study investigated students\u27 perceptions of creativity and flow by interviewing nine high school advanced placement students in a public high school in southwest Florida. Data were drawn from three structured interviews with each subject and a field journal kept by the researcher. The Think Aloud technique used for the second interview provided rich descriptions while participants were in the midst of doing art. Field journal entries were organized according to Bailey\u27s guide to field note classification. Moustakas\u27s interpretation and modifications of the Van Kaam method of analysis provided a systematic approach to transcript reduction. The results of the investigation revealed four themes in the ways students perceive their own creativity, namely, influences, mindset, self-efficacy, and emotions. As they reflected on their perceptions of creativity and flow, students gained a greater awareness of their experience while creating art. Among the study\u27s implications for social change, as art educators elicit these understandings, they foster creativity and transform students\u27 lives in school and potentially, the wider society

Peripheral Minds: An Abridged Phenomenological Analysis of Dyslexia

This paper endeavors to provide a novel way of understanding Dyslexia through the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Dyslexia is currently defined as a neurodevelopmental disorder. It is “a specific and persistent learning disability affecting the acquisition and development of the written language code (reading and spelling) and causing significant handicap to academic achievement and/or activities of daily life.” This medicalized definition has several conceptual problems and does not commensurate with the lived experience of Dyslexic people. Dyslexia is therefore defined by negation—it is defined through what it is not. This paper utilizes Husserlian phenomenology to work toward a definition of what Dyslexia is. Phenomenology helps illuminate a collection of attributes of Dyslexia and enables us to conceptualize it as something more than a disability which must be fixed and remediated. Lanei Rodemeyer’s work explicates Husserl’s analysis of embodiment on 5 distinct but interconnected levels: Hyletic Flow, Passive Synthesis, Active Synthesis, Intersubjectivity-1, and Intersubjectivity-2. This paper analyzes Dyslexia at the first 3 levels, focusing on Active Constitution. Several studies have demonstrated that Dyslexics have stronger peripheral vision and weaker focal vision compared to controls. With a “peripheral bias,” a Dyslexic experiences raw Hyletic sense-data differently than a neurotypical person. This leads to differences on the level of Passive Syntheses, namely a comparative difference in orthoaesthetic, motivated sensations, associations, and affectivity. On the level of Active Synthesis, Dyslexics can consequently conduct categorial syntheses through the faculty of Phantasy, i.e. Dyslexics can think visually rather than linguistically, a phenomenon widely reported by Dyslexics

Educating for a profession: a phenomenological case study of professional practice preparation for nursing from a sociocultural perspective

This thesis reports a study concerning a professional education program and involving 61 members of a cohort of nursing students and 13 nursing academic staff members working at a multi-campus university in Australia. The goal of the study was to investigate the essence of lived experiences in professional practice preparation, to construct theoretical understandings of the relevance of such experiences to future practice. Using the education of nurses at an Australian university as a case study, the research investigated the problem, 'What does it mean to prepare for professional practice?' The theoretical framework that informed the study engaged with complementary constructs of learning and development from a sociocultural perspective, and professional education, as understood through the thinking, respectively, of Lev Vygotsky (1978) and his followers, and Lee Shulman (2005) and his colleagues. The methodological approach deployed phenomenological case study research - a fusion of hermeneutic phenomenology and case study methodologies, specifically conceived for this investigation. Visual, written, spoken and observed data were analysed using an approach called a phenomenological case study data analysis spiral, also purposely developed for this research. Such methodological and analytical approaches enabled access to the complex and often tacit nature of the phenomenon under investigation, and they provided a means of interpreting participants’ lived experiences of preparing for professional practice. The thesis explicated the social conditions needed and the distinctive characteristics of learning contexts that shaped and facilitated the students’ learning of professionally valued understandings, skills and dispositions. Four interrelated themes were revealed in the study, which represented key elements that influenced and enhanced the preparation of students for professional practice, namely: 1) the student and his/her personal qualities influenced educational outcomes; 2) bounding aspects of regulatory importance influenced the make up and administration of an academic program; 3) the social environment influenced and enhanced the learning journeys of students; and 4) domainspecific pedagogies influenced and enriched the professional formation of students. All four themes were interrelated and represented an aggregate of all participants’ interpretations and elements that they experienced as embodying their experiences of preparing for professional practice. Each theme contributed to a deeper understanding of the significance of experiences of preparing for professional practice at university, and the significance of such experiences for the contemporary enactment of professional practice in a professional field. The thesis presented a sociocultural view of preparing for professional practice that may be used to develop further the process of engaging in professional practice preparation and, more broadly, the professional development of not only students but also of teachers and clinical facilitators