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On the Varieties and Particularities of Cultural Experience
Author(s) -
Hollan Douglas
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1352.2011.01230.x
Subject(s) - phenomenology (philosophy) , subjectivity , destiny (iss module) , solipsism , epistemology , experiential learning , disenchantment , aesthetics , dissimilation , sociology , psychology , psychoanalysis , philosophy , law , pedagogy , linguistics , physics , astronomy , politics , political science
I argue that certain varieties of psychoanalysis and cultural phenomenology are not antithetical, and that indeed, their respective foci and methodologies each have strengths that balance out the other's limitations. Put more strongly, the two perspectives need one another. Experience should not be reduced to solipsism, nor should specific individuals, each marked by their own “pinch of destiny” and experiential heaviness, be lost in the haze of ever receding future horizons. The unfolding of self‐awareness and experience is indeed an autopoietic, recursive process whose complexities surely escape any single perspective. [cultural phenomenology, psychoanalysis, pinch of destiny, varieties of cultural experience, subjectivity]