This text aims to probe the vigour of phenomenology. Its starting point is a critique. Given the fact that phenomenology is multifaceted and includes several diverse perspectives and that individual handling of the phenomeno¬logical project can take differing forms, and also given the many critical re¬jections of different aspects of the phenomenological method, the first aim of this text is to clarify how I understand phenomenology. This clarification will be undertaken by a delineation of the concept of experience, especially as it relates to the problem of the subject. I will then use the concept of ex¬perience thus delineated in my investigation of psychedelic experiences. Psy¬chedelic experiences present a specific field of phenomena and of the ways of their givenness. If we think according to these experiencies—i.e. let ourselves be led by them in our thinking—a view of human situatedness will open itself to us, which is interestingly analogous to some phenomenological analyses. I would like to demonstrate this analogous approach by way of the “theory of the multi faceted self”, formulated on the borders of psychology and phe¬nomenology. In other words, the aim of this text is to enter, with phenome¬nology, into the psychedelic labyrinth and record what that encounter brings, that is, what consequences it will have on the one hand for phenomenology as thinking from experience—and not about experience—and on the other hand for the understanding of the domain of psychedelic experiences.
This work deals with the worldview of autochtonous polish speaking ethnic group in Teschen Silesia inhabiting the area of both sides of current Czech-Polish border. It is importantfor our research that this ethnoculture maintains specific traditional traits, whether on the level of full meanings or of their symbolic sedimentation, which itself may serve as a source for reconstuction of these full meanings via structural-ermeneutical method. The analysis of narrative materials allows us to revealsome representative features of the researched worldview. By the notion of worldview we mean specific world description and world model (or pattern) as well. In our attempt to reconstruct a part of the worldview we aspire to show full potential of cognitive-linguistic analysis, taking note of both phenomenological and structural approaches. We understand the worldview notion as correlative to language and culture, and, on the other hand, as universal relative to man as bodily subject. We consider any worldview correlative to language and culture, alongside with being correlative to sensual human subject as well. This bilateral correlation is the source ofparadoxical nature of a worldview. Our research reveals that a worldview as a product of categorizing animal man makes reality simpler and stable on the one hand, but on the other hand can notget rid of it's own inconsistence and ambivalence. We attempt to prove that a worldview consists of a system for which general interpretation matrix can be found, but that this very system is equally confused, ambivalent, heterogeneous and includes multiple different layers. We also attempt to prove that cognitive structures specific for a member of the researched ethnoculture may occur outside this ethnoculture and that conlusions resulting from our analysis may have more general validity.
This text aims to interpret human corporeal being as a part of the system of modern industrial civilization. The corporeality of human existence is explained in the context of its integration into the complex web of biological and cultural processes, by which it is shaped on the one hand and which it shapes on the other hand. Our situation in the world is primarily conditioned by our corporeal presence in it. But even as natural corporeal beings we are today part of an artificial space built by industrial technology. This space is called the technosphere in this text and is conceived as a global sphere, analogically to the atmosphere or biosphere. The technosphere covers all the planet in the same way as the biosphere does. As a product of natural corporeal beings, interwoven via their corporeality into the whole of planetary life, it is itself originally a product of the biosphere. Nevertheless it shows a very strong and clear tendency to rule it in a parasitic way. The notion of the technosphere is therefore formulated in this text as a hyperparasitical net with no stable power center and no plan or will to control life, but with the urge and need for self-sustainability common to all living systems. The text also explores the notion of corporeality as a fully integrated part of the technosphere, which is controlled and shaped by it (and shapes it) as its living source.