Papers by Line Ryberg Ingerslev
Human studies, Apr 2, 2024
Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, Feb 9, 2024
TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology
Sigmund Freud’s reflections on transience left him surprised that someone could revolt against th... more Sigmund Freud’s reflections on transience left him surprised that someone could revolt against the process of mourning. In Jonathan Lear’s interpretation of transience, the revolt is not simply a passing struggle of the mind, but a response to a difficulty of reality, that is, an existential struggle. Central to the experience of transience, according to Lear, is the disbelief in the existence of an afterlife. How might we understand the idea of an afterlife philosophically? I first consider three different philosophical conceptions of the afterlife that—in different ways—underline the relation between collective memory and the process of mourning. These reflections make it clearer which aspects of the afterlife play a role in the existential struggle that Lear describes. However, a further analysis of the temporality at stake in the denial of an afterlife is needed. I therefore look at two psychoanalytic interpretations of the refusal to mourn. The first considers the refusal to mo...
Philosophical Explorations
Journal Of The British Society For Phenomenology, Apr 3, 2022
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 2021
Frontiers in Psychology, 2020
The paper addresses the question of how to approach consciousness in unreflective actions. Unrefl... more The paper addresses the question of how to approach consciousness in unreflective actions. Unreflective actions differ from reflective, conscious actions in that the intentional description under which the agent knows what she is doing is not available or present to the agent at the moment of acting. Yet, unreflective actions belong to the field in which an agent experiences herself as capable of acting. Some unreflective actions, however, narrow this field and can be characterized by intentionality being inhibited. By studying inhibited intentionality in unreflective actions, the aim of the paper is to show how weaker forms of action urge us to expand our overall understanding of action. If we expand the field of actions such that it encompasses also some of the involuntary aspects of action, we are able to understand how unreflective actions can remain actions and do not fall under the scope of automatic behavior. With the notion of weak agency, the paper thus addresses one aspect...
A rational agent is someone who knows what she is doing and why; and we hold her responsible for ... more A rational agent is someone who knows what she is doing and why; and we hold her responsible for her actions. However, in our everyday lives we often act automatically and even involuntarily. The aim of this paper is to motivate a reconsideration of agency such that we can conceive of basic forms of the unconscious, the involuntary and the unreflective as being part of human responsive agency. The paper dwells on the structure of self-experience in habits to reveal how temporal displacements, disintegration and self-alienation are part of human self-experience. The central claim is that the responsive structure of habits form a possibility for re-appropriation of our own actions. This will allow us to acknowledge that a large part of our actions and decisions are less rational and deliberate than we might have hoped, while avoiding the unfortunate conclusion that such behaviour is impersonal and simply a complex form of reflex.
Cultural, Existential and Phenomenological Dimensions of Grief Experience, 2021
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2018
An action is typically carried out over time, unified by an intention that is known to the agent ... more An action is typically carried out over time, unified by an intention that is known to the agent under some description. In some of our habitual doings, however, we are often not aware of what or why we do as we do. Not knowing this, we must ask what kind of agency is at stake in these habitual doings, if any. This paper aims to show how habitual doings can still be considered actions of a subject even while they involve a sense of involuntariness and there is a temporal displacement in the self-understanding they afford. It turns out that in some forms of habitual agency, we do not have the relevant intentional description at hand when we are engaged in the process of doing what we so typically do; on the contrary, such a description can only be appropriated with effort and subsequent to the time of the action. I will focus on two approaches to habits, broadly construed; a phenomenological and an action theoretic one, and I will suggest that both approaches focus too narrowly on a synchronic relation between habitual action and self-understanding. I will suggest that we need a diachronic account of the potential for self-understanding required for agency that allows us to explain the experience of diminished control and alienation involved in certain of our habitual actions. The suggested perspective enables us to explain how some habits can be experienced as both momentarily involuntary and unconscious while at the same time they play a significant role for self-understanding.
Continental Philosophy Review, 2017
Peter Goldie's account of grief as a narrative process that unfolds over time allow us to address... more Peter Goldie's account of grief as a narrative process that unfolds over time allow us to address the structure of self-understanding in the experience of loss. Taking up the Goldie's idea that narrativity plays a crucial role in grief, I will argue that the experience of desynchronization and an altered relation to language disrupt even of our ability to compose narratives and to think narratively. Further, I will argue that Goldie's account of grief as a narratively structured process focus on the process having come to an end. By contrast, I will propose the idea that grief can be understood as an open-ended rehearsal of our capacity to be alone in the company of an absent other. This makes grief a relational activity that differs from composing narratives about one's past and about one's process of grieving. Thus, grief is not primarily a process of recollecting our past narratively; rather, it can be seen as a dedicational activity which involves a future-oriented and open-ended rehearsal of relatedness despite irrevocable absence.
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 2017
How can bodily manifestations in psychopathology be conceived of as modes of speaking and how can... more How can bodily manifestations in psychopathology be conceived of as modes of speaking and how can a patient manifesting bodily symptoms be listened to and responded to? We consider these questions in the framework both of phenomenology and psychoanalysis. On the one hand, a phenomenological approach helps considering the body as expressive; however, expression ought to be differentiated from communication to better capture the phenomenon of body language. On the other hand, a psychoanalytic approach helps considering the clinical strength of an encounter where the only vehicle is the speech one addresses another; however, this should not occur at the expense of bodily manifestations, which are expressive and can be communicative. We propose that a symptom can be listened to from a responsive stance, where the clinician responds to the patient’s bodily manifestation, as to a demand to be recognized as a subject of communication.
Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie, 2012
Wie Husserl schrieb, wohnt der Frage nach demVerhältnis zwischen Natur undMensch methodologisch e... more Wie Husserl schrieb, wohnt der Frage nach demVerhältnis zwischen Natur undMensch methodologisch ein schlechter Zirkel inne: „Denn setzen wir zu Anfang die Natur schlechthin, in der Weise, wie es jeder Naturforscher und jeder naturalistisch Eingestellte sonst tut, und faßten wir die Menschen als Realitäten, die über ihre physische Leiblichkeit ein plus haben, so waren die Personen untergeordnete Naturobjekte, Bestandstücke der Natur. Gingen wir aber demWesen der Personalität nach, so stellte sich Natur als ein im intersubjektiven Verband der Personen sich Konstituierendes, also ihnVoraussetzendes dar“ (Husserl 1954, 210). Aber gibt es keinenAnsatz zumVerständnis der menschlichen Lebensform, der nicht in diesen Zirkel gerät? Gibt es keinenAnsatz, in dem Personalität und physisches Leben nicht auseinanderfallen, in dem Geist und Natur in derAnalyse menschlicher Lebensformen einander komplementieren? Und gibt es keinenAnsatz, der zwar nicht in diesen Zirkel gerät, der aber gleichwohl die Frage nach dem Verhältnis zwischen Mensch und Natur als eine Gesamtfrage stellen könnte? Soll heißen, ohne den Menschen auf ein Naturobjekt zu reduzieren, und umgekehrt: Ohne die Natur oder den Menschen zu einer rein intersubjektiven Konstruktion zu vereinfachen. Das Problem ist nicht, dass es zwei Einstellungen gibt, sondern, dass diese einander nicht tolerieren und deshalb das Verhältnis zwischen Mensch und Natur verfehlen, weil sie entweder nicht aus demMenschlichen oder aus dem Natürlichen herauskommen. Die Einsicht Helmuth Plessners, wonach die Frage nach der Natur zugleich die anthropologische Frage nach dem Menschen mit impliziert, bietet eine alternative Einstellung,
Topoi, 2013
A phenomenological insight in the debate on empathy is that it is possible to directly perceive o... more A phenomenological insight in the debate on empathy is that it is possible to directly perceive other people’s emotions in their expressive bodily behaviour. Contrary to what is suggested by many phenomenologists, namely that this perceptual skill is immediately available if one has vision, this paper argues that the perceptual skill for empathy is acquired. Such a skill requires that we have undergone certain emotional experiences ourselves and that we have had the experience of seeing the world differently, which is a form of pretence. By investigating how we retain knowledge of what is real while pretending, that is, how we anchor the experience of pretence in something that is not pretended, the paper argues that we split our experiential perspective into a double perspective, which differs from the cognitive act of understanding what a perspective is. With this notion in hand, we can return to the debate on empathy. It is argued that in order to have the capacity for direct empathic perception, one must have undergone experiences involving a double perspective.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2011
... In a contemporary version of what I call the Familiarity Objection, Matthew Ratcliffe argues ... more ... In a contemporary version of what I call the Familiarity Objection, Matthew Ratcliffe argues that ... objectification as a question of either-or, there are good reasons to support Ratcliffe. ... says, maybe I have to intellectualize mood. (ibid.: 10) To intellectualize moods means always to ...
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 2017
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Papers by Line Ryberg Ingerslev