Phenomenology is the study of lived experience, of what it is like to live here and now. Attention is central to this philosophical discipline — as William James puts it, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” This experimental graduate-style seminar focuses on three key figures: Edmund Husserl (known as the founder of phenomenology), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (who pioneered the phenomenology of the body), and Martin Heidegger (Husserl’s most famous student, and an intellectual giant of the twentieth century).  

Since attention is a major theme for each of these thinkers, we will engage their thinking through first-person attention practices that “activate” key ideas in their work. Our focus on attention will enable us to do phenomenology on day one, not “just think” about it. Through readings, discussions, and practices, we will explore what phenomenology reveals about the simplest aspects of our daily lives, and about the subtle movements of attention that occur as we go through the day. We will also develop a toolkit and a vocabulary to better understand and guide our attention — and therefore, to push back against the coercive forces that seek to reduce attention (the medium of boundless human experience) to the crude metrics of money value. How can phenomenology help us to create the conditions for human flourishing?

No philosophical background is necessary, just a thirst for knowledge!

Led by Lawrence Berger, a philosopher and professor at Marist University.