PHD Discussions Logo

Ask, Learn and Accelerate in your PhD Research

Question Icon Post Your Answer

Question Icon

1 year ago in Philosophy By Venu M

What in your view, constitutes the substantive core or ground of human existence?

As I work on my dissertation in phenomenology, I find the Cartesian cogito to be a necessary starting point but an ultimately isolated one. It feels abstracted from the lived reality of being human. I'm asking because I want to understand what other substantive, perhaps more holistic, grounds for existence have been proposed or experienced that account for our embodied, relational, and worldly nature.

 

All Answers (1 Answers In All)

By Raghav V Answered 1 year ago

In my work bridging philosophy and cognitive science, I've seen the cogito act as a conceptual trap, reducing existence to a spectator intellect. I would recommend looking towards the phenomenological tradition, particularly the concept of "being-in-the-world" as articulated by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Here, the substantive ground isn't solitary thought, but our pre-reflective, practical engagement with the world through an embodied and situated consciousness. Our existence is fundamentally an active, meaningful involvement with things and others, long before it becomes a theoretical object of thought. This shift from "thinking thing" to "engaged being" offers a far richer ontology.

 

Your Answer