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Phenomenological Views on Intersubjectivity: Towards a Reinterpretation of Consciousness

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Abstract

Intersubjectivity and consciousness are reinterpreted according to the dynamic and relational coordinates of lived experience. Consciousness is not just another property of the subject, but rather the condition itself of his/her own being-in-the-world. The different aspects of consciousness are the moments and movements which constitute its intentional structure. These structures lead us to reinterpret material embodiment, temporality, and intersubjectivity as the “complex” steps taken by consciousness, which in its movements does not turn inward, on itself like a transcendental, reasoning, and self-centred consciousness, but, on the contrary, as an embodied consciousness immersed in others and in the world.

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Notes

  1. The German language has a linguistic advantage over other modern languages, as it has two forms that correspond to the word “body,” both of which have been adopted by the French phenomenological tradition since its inception. On the one hand, there is the idea of object body, called Körper, which corresponds to the body of radiographic measure and of physical structure. On the other hand, there is Leib, also denominated body proper, which indicates the lived body’s dimension, embodied in a concrete subjectivity.

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Correspondence to Luis Manuel Flores-González.

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Flores-González, L.M. Phenomenological Views on Intersubjectivity: Towards a Reinterpretation of Consciousness. Integr. psych. behav. 42, 187–193 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-007-9044-5

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