University of Ljubljana
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO EXAMINE EXPERIENCE?

Regardless of the method employed for collecting reports on experience, there is no way of independently evaluating whether the acts of observation and reporting constructed the result or whether they merely retrieved information about experience. In the absence of the possibility of intersubjective and intersituational corroboration of acquired data, how can one make sure that the acquired data are results of examining – rather than disturbing or even inventing – the examined experience? As Depraz, Varela & Vermersch (2003, p. 8) put it: “How do you know that by exploring experience with a method you are not, in fact, deforming or even creating what you claim to ‘experience’? Experience being what it is, what is the possible meaning of your so-called ‘examination’ of it?”

It appears that answering this question has the potential of either grounding or renouncing the soundness of any attempt of examination of consciousness “from within”.

We propose a view that conceives phenomenal data not as descriptions of a domain existing independently of the acts of examination, but as descriptions of this domain’s reactions to particular ways of probing: the way in which one examines their experience plays a crucial role in what ends up being reported as a result of examination. Therefore, in order to understand what we see in experience (the acquired phenomenal data), we must understand the perspective of looking at it (the way of acquiring data, from first turning towards the experiential field to generating the description). I will propose that our quest to understand the consciousness from within should include not only gathering of phenomenal data, but also studying perspectives or horizons through which experience is being examined.



REFERENCES
Depraz, N., Varela, F. J., & Vermersch, P. (Eds.). (2003). On becoming aware: A pragmatics of experiencing. John Benjamins Publishing.

FURTHER READING
Kordeš, U. (2015). A better metaphor for understanding consciousness? Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, 13(4), 525-533.
Kordeš, U. (2016). Going beyond theory: Constructivism and empirical phenomenology. Constructivist Foundations, 11(2), 375–385.
Kordeš, U. & Demšar, E. (2018a). Excavating belief about past experience: experiential dynamics of the reflective act. Constructivist Foundations, 13(2), 219–229.
Kordeš, U. & Demšar, E. (2018b). Authors’ response: If first-person knowledge is excavated, what kind of research follows?. Constructivist Foundations, 13(2), 241–249.