920
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Since January 1, 2014
- A History of the World since 1300 (67)
- History of Rock, 1970-Present (50)
- A Brief History of Humankind (48)
- The Modern World: Global History since 1760 (35)
- Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science (33)
- The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future (28)
- Introduction aux éthiques philosophiques (27)
- Roman Architecture (25)
- Jesus in Scripture and Tradition (25)
- Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender (23)
- Descubriendo la pintura europea de 1400 a 1800 (22)
- Introduction aux droits de l'homme (19)
- Buddhism and Modern Psychology (18)
- Calvin: Histoire et réception d'une Réforme (17)
- The Ancient Greeks (16)
- The French Revolution (15)
- À la découverte du théâtre classique français (15)
- Christianisme et philosophie dans l'Antiquité (14)
- Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases (14)
- Letters of the Apostle Paul (14)
- Egiptología (12)
- Western Music History through Performance (10)
- Phenomenology and the Conscious Mind (9)
- Human Evolution: Past and Future (9)
- Greek and Roman Mythology (9)
- Alexander the Great (9)
- The Great War and Modern Philosophy (9)
- The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture (9)
- Villes africaines: la planification urbaine (8)
- Masterpieces of World Literature (8)
- Programming Mobile Applications for Android (7)
- Introduction to Psychology (7)
- Fundamentos de la escritura en español (7)
- MongoDB for Node.js Developers (7)
- Pensamiento Científico (7)
- Greeks at War: Homer at Troy (7)
- Lingua e cultura italiana: avanzata (6)
- A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior (6)
- The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (6)
- Reason and Persuasion Through Plato's Dialogues (6)
- Fake News, Facts, and Alternative Facts (6)
- Karl der Große - Pater Europae (6)
- The Rooseveltian Century (6)
- Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas (5)
- Dinosaur Paleobiology (5)
- Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity (5)
- L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (5)
- Designing Cities (4)
- Problèmes métaphysiques à l'épreuve de la politique, 1943-1968 (4)
- The Kennedy Half Century (4)
- Introduction to Public Speaking (4)
- Emergence of Life (4)
- War for the Greater Middle East (4)
- Postwar Abstract Painting (3)
- Découvrir l'anthropologie (3)
- Analyzing the Universe (3)
- The Music of the Beatles (3)
- La visione del mondo della Relatività e della Meccanica Quantistica (3)
- Initiation à la programmation en Java (3)
- Formation of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Life (3)
- History of Rock and Roll, Part One (3)
- La Commedia di Dante (3)
- Devenir entrepreneur du changement (3)
- Moons of Our Solar System (3)
- Orientierung Geschichte (3)
- Paleontology: Early Vertebrate Evolution (3)
- Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe (3)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (2)
- L'art des structures 1 : Câbles et arcs (2)
- Art History for Artists, Animators and Gamers (2)
- Introduction to Classical Music (2)
- Galaxies and Cosmology (2)
- The Science of Gastronomy (2)
- The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (2)
- Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity (2)
- Philosophy and the Sciences (2)
- Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication (2)
- The European Discovery of China (2)
- Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes (2)
- Découvrir la science politique (2)
- Introduction à la programmation en C++ (2)
- Introduction à la philosophie de Friedrich Nietzsche (2)
- Géopolitique de l'Europe (2)
- Gestion des aires protégées en Afrique (2)
- Lingua e letteratura in italiano (2)
- The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome (2)
- Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know (2)
- Highlights of Modern Astronomy (2)
- La Philanthropie : Comprendre et Agir (2)
- The Science of Religion (2)
- Advertising and Society (1)
- America Through Foreign Eyes (1)
- Superpowers of the Ancient World: the Near East (1)
- The Art of Poetry (1)
- Bemerkenswerte Menschen (1)
- Big History: From the Big Bang until Today (1)
- Controversies of British Imperialism (1)
- Age of Cathedrals (1)
- Christianity: From Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200-1650) (1)
- Narratives of Nonviolence in the American Civil Rights Movement (1)
- Constitutional Law - The Structure of Government (1)
- Contagious: How Things Catch On (1)
- Care of Elders with Alzheimer's Disease (1)
- The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art (1)
- Programming Mobile Services for Android Handheld Systems (1)
- Animal Behaviour (1)
- From the Big Bang to Dark Energy (1)
- Configuring the World (1)
- Introduction to Data Science (1)
- Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society (1)
- The Law of the European Union (1)
- 21st Century American Foreign Policy (1)
- Éléments de Géomatique (1)
- History and Future of Higher Education (1)
- The Age of Jefferson (1)
- The Magna Carta and its Legacy (1)
- A New History for a New China, 1700-2000 (1)
- The New Nordic Diet (1)
- A la recherche du Grand Paris (1)
- What Managers Can Learn from Great Philosophers (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1)
- Exercise Physiology: Understanding the Athlete Within (1)
- Physique générale - mécanique (1)
- Subsistence Marketplaces (1)
- Practicing Tolerance in a Religious Society (1)
- Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life (1)
- Andy Warhol (1)
- Web Intelligence and Big Data (1)
- Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (1)
- Learning How to Learn (1)
- Imagining Other Earths (1)
- Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us (1)
- Développement durable (1)
- Dinosaur Ecosystems (1)
- The Civil War and Reconstruction (1)
- Shakespeare: On the Page and in Performance (1)
- Introducción a la genética y la evolución (1)
- Poetry in America: Whitman (1)
- Anthropology of Current World Issues (1)
- Escribir para Convencer (1)
- Découvrir le marketing (1)
- Créer et développer une startup technologique (1)
- Frontières en tous genres (1)
- Une introduction à la géographicité (1)
- Gestion et Politique de l'eau (1)
- Theater and Globalization (1)
- Handel’s Messiah and Baroque Oratorio (1)
- Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1)
- From Goddard to Apollo: The History of Rockets (1)
- Miracles of Human Language (1)
- Human Origins (1)
- The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone (1)
- Intellectual Humility (1)
- Introduction to Italian Opera (1)
- Magic in the Middle Ages (1)
- Making Sense of News (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (1)
- Mobilité et urbanisme (1)
- Moral Foundations of Politics (1)
- Mountains 101 (1)
- The Biology of Music (1)
- Oriental Beliefs: Between Reason and Traditions (1)
- In the Night Sky: Orion (1)
- Visualizing Postwar Tokyo (1)
- The Renaissance and Baroque City (1)
- The Rise of China (1)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (1)
- Социокультурные аспекты социальной робототехники (1)
- Science of Exercise (1)
- El Mediterráneo del Renacimiento a la Ilustración (1)
- Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1)
- The World of the String Quartet (1)
- Switzerland in Europe (1)
- The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction (1)
- William Wordsworth: Poetry, People and Place (1)
- Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis (1)
- The World of Wine (1)
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:




Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:
Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
Epoché: The Suspended Attitude
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on May 18, 2016 (go to class or lectures)


Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
circumspect, semi-sensory, otherwise, parentheses, inquisitiveness, posit, obvious, epoché, attitude, alternative, weird, notice, double, more, background, else, ordinary, jokes, suspension, wrong, complex, opposite, physically, conversation
we make assumptions all the time to make our way through a world
usually these assumptions are operating in the
they shape things if we think about them or not
sometimes our assumptions are
what we expect to experience and what we do experience can diverge
phenomenology lurks in illusions, , riddles, and many other forms of art and inquiry
the phenomenological attitude is one of and imagination
it begins with the suspicion that things might not be as they seem
maybe the first, most impression is not the only possibility
that playful outlook makes us reach for the
in doing phenomenology, we deliberately provoke the -take
we undermine every assumption and thereby illuminate the dimensions of consciousness that normally unfold beneath
this is the rich meaning of observation, of seeing more
the active creation of variations in consciousness
in these ways we learn to increasingly see
the phenomenologist has two toolboxes
1. what ?
question the first interpretation of what you hear, see, or think
spin out every conceivable
the tool of observation
tools to get behind observation, considering the (parts of e.g. 3D objects that you don't actually see) and the super-sensory (abstract terms that don't refer directly to objects, e.g. love)
2. what if?
here we are invited to change our situation
either altering it
or envisioning an alternative scenario
the tool of experimental variation
change the situation in reality or in imagination and watch what happens
this reveals contrasts among states of consciousness
if nothing else, with these toolboxes, you will never be at a loss for
before we began to practice phenomenology, we engaged the world with a natural
it just is what it is
after doing some phenomenology, we still believe in reality
but perhaps our attitude toward the world shifts
from the ordinary, natural, unreflective take on the world
we become
we acknowledge that it might be
that the way we see the world is contingent
we don't need to take it for granted
the world, in short, is suspended in
we believe in its reality but we recognize that we constitute that reality
our own perceptual activity, the doing of seeing, objects around us
and we become aware that this is something we do rather than something that is just sitting there
phenomenologies have a term for this questioning attitude:
a Greek word meaning
we're used to the suspension of disbelieve, pretending that fictional characters are real
epoché is the
the suspension of belief
we regard the real as if it were fiction
the world is still there right in front of us, but it is a world that consciousness makes, not the world of physics
Ideas and Concepts:
Reads like a creed, via tonight's phenomenology class: "Phenomenology lurks in illusions, jokes, riddles, and many other forms of art and inquiry. The phenomenological attitude is one of inquisitiveness and imagination. It begins with the suspicion that things might not be as they seem, that maybe the first, most obvious impression is not the only possibility, and this playful outlook makes us reach for the weird. In doing phenomenology, we deliberately provoke the double-take. We undermine every assumption and thereby illuminate the dimensions of consciousness that normally unfold beneath notice. This is the rich meaning of observation, of seeing more."
The two toolboxes of phenomenology, via tonight's phenomenology class:
"As phenomenologists, we have two toolboxes at our disposal.
The first toolbox is labeled "What else?" In it we find the tool of observation, but also tools to get behind observation, allowing us to consider the semi-sensory (e.g. the hidden sides of objects that we don't actually see) and the super-sensory (e.g. abstract terms that don't refer directly to physical objects, e.g. hope, love or heaven). Using tools in the first toolbox teaches us to question the first interpretation of things we hear, see, or think, and spin out conceivable alternatives.
The second toolbox is labeled "What if?" In this toolbox we have the tool of experimental variation, which allows us to change our situation in reality or in our imagination, and watch what happens. This reveals contrasts among states of consciousness and invites us to experiment with alternative scenarios.
With these two toolboxes, if nothing else, you will never be at a loss for conversation."
"As phenomenologists, we have two toolboxes at our disposal.
The first toolbox is labeled "What else?" In it we find the tool of observation, but also tools to get behind observation, allowing us to consider the semi-sensory (e.g. the hidden sides of objects that we don't actually see) and the super-sensory (e.g. abstract terms that don't refer directly to physical objects, e.g. hope, love or heaven). Using tools in the first toolbox teaches us to question the first interpretation of things we hear, see, or think, and spin out conceivable alternatives.
The second toolbox is labeled "What if?" In this toolbox we have the tool of experimental variation, which allows us to change our situation in reality or in our imagination, and watch what happens. This reveals contrasts among states of consciousness and invites us to experiment with alternative scenarios.
With these two toolboxes, if nothing else, you will never be at a loss for conversation."

On the suspended attitude, via this afternoon's phenomenology class: "Before we began to practice phenomenology, we engaged the world with a natural attitude, or the belief that the world is just is what it is. After doing some phenomenology, we still believe in ordinary reality, but perhaps our attitude toward the world shifts from the ordinary, natural, unreflective take on the world, to a take on the world in which we have become circumspect, i.e. we acknowledge that the world might be otherwise, that the way we see the world is contingent, at some level being produced, that we don't need to take it for granted the way it is. The world, in short, is suspended in parentheses. We believe in its reality but we recognize that our consciousness constitutes that reality. Our own perceptual activity, the doing of seeing, posits objects around us and we become aware that the world is something posited rather than something that is just sitting there waiting for us, exterior to us. Phenomenologists have a term for this questioning attitude:epoché [ἐποχή], a Greek word that means suspension. We're used to the suspension of disbelief, i.e. enjoying a work of literature or a play by temporarily pretending fictional characters are real so that we can enjoy the story. Epoché is the opposite:we suspend belief in the real. We regard the real as if it were fiction, get behind it, and thus experience it as malleable. The world is still there right in front of us, but it is a world that consciousness makes, not the world of physics."