Unless your eyes are closed, right now you’re seeing something: it might be the road ahead of you, the dishes in your sink, a jogging trail; an apple; a falling leaf. Is your perception of those objects only in your head? Is your experience reducible to the activity of neurons in your brain? While many philosophers and cognitive scientists would answer “yes,” philosophers in the tradition known as phenomenology would answer “no.” We are not, they would say, self-enclosed consciousnesses desperately trying to find our way into the world; instead, when we really pay attention, when we attend to what is directly given in experience, we find that we are already embedded in the world in the first place. Today’s conversation about phenomenology with Professor of Philosophy Chad Engelland touches on these subjects as well as, among others, Cezanne’s still life paintings, what it means to study “the experience of experience,” and how thinking about a hammer can help us understand the wondrous web of relationships that enmesh objects we encounter every day. The Cezanne painting we discuss can be viewed here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435883 And Dr. Engelland’s book “Phenomenology” can be purchased here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/phenomenology

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