Making Sense of the “Common Sense” on the Ground of Trust in the Others

Season 7 continues with another presentation from our 2022 annual conference, Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Spatiality.   This episode features a presentation from Wun Chung Yan of The University of Cologne, Germany   Abstract: In ordinary language, “common sense” is understood as certain “sense” that is taken for granted (selbstverständlich). However, is the “sense” of common sense an unquestioned feeling towards the world or is it rather certain common understanding of it? Through a phenomenological investigation of schizophrenia, I argue that the common sense does not only encompass both but also a third dimension, namely, the affective trust and familiarity (Vertrautheit) with the world constituted intersubjectively. In their study of schizophrenia, Blankenburg and Thomas Fuchs understand the common sense (Selbstverständlichkeit) lost in the schizophrenic patients principally as a kind of feeling or affectivity. Blankenburg terms it the Feingefühl and identifies it with the Heideggerian concept of Bewandtnis- and Verweisungszusammenhang, as distinguished from the objective apperception of things that remains unscathed. Fuchs, similarly, argues that it is the disorder and modification of the mood (Stimmung) into the Wahnstimmung that underlies the modification of lived-experiences of the patients characterized by their constant questioning (Infragestellung) of one’s existence and paranoiac delusions. Revisiting Heidegger’s account of Bewandtniszusammenhang as constituted by both understanding and attunement (Befindlichkeit), I contend with two concrete arguments that the basic sense of the world as Bewandtniszusammenhang is preserved by the patients. What is lacking in the patients is instead the “capacity” to devote oneself to (sich hingeben) the retained sense of world. Here I introduce Husserl’s distinction between the simple value-perception (schlichte Wertnehmung) of something as valuable/invaluable and the subject’s affective position-taking (Gemütsstellungnahme) towards those apperceived qualities. The dedication (Hingabe) requires the subject’s affective trust and familiarity with the world and others, which is established throughout one’s lived-experiences in the intersubjectively constituted life-world.  Once this essential sense of trust, or Urvertrauen, is destroyed (through e.g., traumatic experiences), the subject would no longer be able to truly embrace any kind of common sense as unquestioned.   Biography: Graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I am now a PhD candidate of Prof. Thiemo Breyer and a DAAD-scholarship holder at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School from the University of Cologne. My research project is dedicated to the problematic of the unconscious, understood as the sedimentations in the Husserlian sense, and its relation to the normal as well as so-called pathological life of consciousness such as schizophrenia and borderline-personality disorder. Last year, I held a presentation titled “Der Urboden des Bewusstseins – die Stimmung und die Frage nach dem Unbewussten” in the colloquium organized by Prof. Thomas Fuchs in Jena.     Further Information: This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2022: Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Sociality (Exeter, UK / Hybrid) with the University of Exeter. Sponsored by the Wellcome Centre, Egenis, and the Shame and Medicine project. For the conference our speakers either presented in person at Exeter or remotely to people online and in-room, and the podcast episodes are recorded from the live broadcast feeds.   The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast.   About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/   About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/