Phenomenology of Life

The Symphony of Sentience, in Cosmos and Life: In Memoriam A.-T.T.

In this tribute to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, I will examine whether phenomenology, as a cognitive enterprise of sentience, extends beyond the death of the physical body. In the First Movement, Allegro, I will set the stage by drawing distinctions between sentience as viewed in the Phenomenology of Life and intentionality of consciousness as viewed in cognitive phenomenology, which features a strong legacy of Husserl’s ideas. In the Second Movement, Moderato, I will follow the Tymienieckian thread of sentience in the labyrinth of life in order to show the ontopoietic patterns of complexity and emergence in animate and inanimate nature. I will establish a link between the Phenomenology of Life and complexity theory. As the dance of nonlinear complexity of the brain and the so called qualia of thought unfolds in the Third Movement, Minuet, the informational patterns of consciousness, cosmos and life are recognized as sentience. Whence, sentience is not a property of the human brain, but rather, is borrowed from the cosmos and appropriated as the self in the human condition; inter-subjectivity is a derivative of sentience, and subjectivity is an instance of inter-subjectivity. Since sentience brings with it intuition of life, intuition continues in dying and has no reason not to continue beyond. In the Fourth Movement, Finale Glorioso, I will describe patterns of sentience in the soul’s final ascent, and honor the intuitional gifts which proceed from the passage of a great soul.  

64th Congress of Phenomenology
jointly convened by
The World Phenomenology Institute and
International Society of Phenomenology
and Sciences of Life 
(Macerata, Italy)
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Milan, Italy, Largo Gemelli 1
October 1-3, 2014

Topic:
Eco-Phenomenology:
Life, Human Life, Post-Human Life
in the Harmony of the Cosmos

Related Publications

  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2014. The seal of philosophy: Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology of Life in Islamic metaphysical perspective. In O.
  • Louchakova-Schwartz & D. Quintern (Eds.) Islamic and Occidental Philosophy in Dialogue. Analecta Hiusserliana, xx-xx, Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2014. Dia-Log(os): Genesis of Communicological Virtues in the Phenomenology of Life, with the reference to the Advaita Vedanta of Sa?kara. Analecta Husserliana, pp. 193-206. Springer.
  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2014. A paradox of the New Enlightenment: The “endangered” self in the path(o)s of individualizing life. Acts of the Vie Della Fenomenologia nella “post-modernita.” [Phenomenological Paths in Post-Modernity], pp. 205-220. Confronto con la Fenomenologia della Vita di Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Pontifical Univesità Antonianum, Rome, Italy.
  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2013. Direct intuition: Strategies of knowledge in the Phenomenology of Life, with reference to the Philosophy of Illumination. In A.-T.-Tymeiniecka (ed.),  Phenomenology and the Human Positioning in the Cosmos, Book 1.  Analecta Husserliana CXIII, 291-315. Dordrecht: Springer.  
  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2012. Self in the Path(o)s of the New Enlightenment: Towards a New Clinical Theory. Agathos. An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume 3, Issue 1 / 2012,
  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2012, Intuition of life in Tymieniecka’s Phenomenology with a reference to intuition of Sat in Sa?kara’s Advaita Vedanta.  Culture &Philosophy: A Journal for Phenomenological Inquiry, 2011, 40-60.
  • Louchakova-Schwartz, O. 2011. Self and world: Vedanta, Sufism, and Presocratics in a phenomenological view.  In A.-T. Tymieniecka (Ed.), Phenomenology/Ontopoiesis: Retrieving Cosmic Horizons of Antiquity (pp. 423-438)Dordrecht, Netherlands:Springer.
  • Louchakova, O. 2007. Ontopoiesis and spiritual emergence: Bridging Tymieniecka's Phenomenology of Life and transpersonal psychology.  In A.-T.Tymieniecka (ed.), Analecta Husserliana: From the Animal Soul to the Human Mind (Vol. 94) (pp. 43-68). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.
  • Louchakova, O. 2005. Ontopoiesis and union in the Prayer of the Heart: Contributions to psychotherapy and learning. In A.-T.Tymeiniecka (Ed.), Analecta Husserliana: Logos of phenomenology and phenomenology of the logos. Book four: The logos of scientific interrogation. Participating in nature–life–sharing in life (Vol. 91) (pp. 289-311). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer.