Är upplevelsen av musik meningsfull och på vilket sätt är det möjligt för ett musikstycke att gestalta en yttre värld? I denna uppsats undersöker jag lite kort vad inom musiken skulle kunna förstås som en mening. Genom att se till olika förhållanden av meningsfullhet och musikalisk upplevelse går det att förstå dess breda förklaringssvårigheter. Meningen ter sig subjektiv men kan också bidra till en kollektiv samstämmighet om ett musikstyckes meningsfullhet. Upplevelsen av musik i sin tur kan hjälpa en kompositör eller artist att gestalta en omvärld för sig själv. Denna gestaltning bebor inte musiken på liknande sätt som en manual beskriver ett tillvägagångssätt utan med hjälp av medlet musik kan artisten uttrycka något som en vokabulär inte möjligtvis är kapabelt till. Med kroppen som länk mellan den yttre världen och subjektets vilja används vanan av att bruka ett instrument som en förlängning för kroppen. Att utgå från kroppen som en medvetandehorisont är något som är nära besläktat till Merleau-Pontys existentiella fenomenologi i Phenomenology of Percetion och utgör en bra grund för denna uppsats. Även om jag inte kommer fram till ett svar ifall musik besitter en mening så har upplevelsen av musik utforskats genom olika musikaliska verk och hur musikalisk gestaltning kan användas för varseblivning. / Is the experience of music meaningful and in which way is it possible for a musical arrangement to depict an external world? This essay will firstly examine what meaning within music might refer to. Though there are difficulties to pinpoint an exact definition of meaning in regard to several different experiences of music it seems to originate from the subject itself. Even so, music can possess a collective acceptance within their respective social groups. The experience of music can help a composer to portray a surrounding, not by the virtue of musical characteristics, but by mediating the will of the composer. Unlike a manual which is guiding the reader to take certain steps the composer can express what a vocabulary is lacking by the habit and familiarity of ones instrument as an extension of the performers body to link an external world. This is very much related to the existential phenomenology put forward by Merleau-Ponty in Phenomenology of Perception and on which I base my arguments on. Even though I might not find a meaning within music I have examined the possibility for experiencing music as a way of portraying the surrounding world.

The following essay seeks to explore Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of expression in order to tease out a perspective on language and communication that might be of interest for contemporary rhetoric. The point of departure is located in Merleau-Ponty’s claim that language (in the way we use it) is inherently meaningful and a privileged aspect of the human being-in and orientation-towards the world. Furthermore, »what we do with words« cannot be reduced to the implementation of already constituted sets of meaningful expressions, ready-at-hand ideas or the obvious assembling of unambiguous words, but must, according to Merleau-Ponty, be acknowledged as a response to a particular horizon of possibilities within which the speaker finds herself. By employing the already established language at hand she is able to conjure a meaningful expression as a response to the (rhetorical, if you will) situation, with more or less creative astuteness. Consequently the speaker always already finds herself within a denominated world, a cultural-historically structured context – i.e. within »the nameable and the sayable« – yet this world bears within it an ever present possibility of renegotiation, and the as of yet unforesayable. To speak then, according to Merleau-Ponty, is to form an expression between the lines of repetition and invention. Or in his own words: »the operative Word is the obscure region whence comes the instituted light«.  Drawing most importantly from Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between »speaking« speech (parole parlante) and »spoken« or empirical speech (parole parlée), I approach some rhetorical notions of both classic and modern kind. I argue that the creative dimension Merleau-Ponty ascribes to our linguistic abilities, offers interesting perspectives on both Doxa and Topoi, as well as it problematizes the classical distinction between Inventio and Elocutio, and that the gestural dimension of expression that Merleau-Ponty is recurringly talking about can be read as an elaboration on Actio. From a more modern rhetorical perspective I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of expression, and its modes of (or interplay between) institution and conquest, may offer a fruitful ground for understanding the creation and sedimentation of social meaning, taken in a broader sense. Lastly, if we wish to follow Merleau-Ponty’s account of how language is a fundamental part of the way in which we inhabit our world, rhetoric must recognize not only persuasion (in a shallow sense of the word), but the deep reaching, existentially (and culturally) transformative dimensions that are at play in our creating, exchanging and appropriation of meaning – linguistic or otherwise.

This thesis is concerned with the philosophical problem of the universal and the particular and its application to identity and difference, specifically in relation to cultural identity. Merleau-Ponty's philosophy mediates between the extremes of a modernist view that seeks to subsume all difference in identity and a postmodem perspective that only validates our essential differences. Neither position offers a viable option for ethical relations or action. While the conclusion reached in the present work affirms the superiority of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological view of difference and identity over either a modernist or a postmodemist perspective, initially Merleau-Ponty's notion of intersubjectivity is criticized. In the Phenomenology of Perception, MerleauPonty makes the claim that we can only ever live in one linguistic/social and cultural world. This claim does not account for the experience of immigrants, which attests to a borderland between worlds. In fact this claims seems to suggest that cultural worlds are to be viewed as hermetic localities. However, if Merleau-Ponty's earlier works are read in relation to the ontology of The Visible and the Invisible, the problems of subjectivism in his earlier works may be resolved. The notions of Flesh and Reversibility illustrate that Merleau-Ponty viewed identities as creative enterprises and by extension the intersubjective (t.e cultural and social ) world as one that is constantly re-creating boundary limits. This thesis explores the hermeneutical implications of the notions of Flesh and Reversibility in relation to cultural identity through the use of personal narrative. Identities are posited as imaginary idenitites and cultures are shown to be mutually implicated with each other. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Uppsatsens syfte är att bidra med kunskap om det komplexa begreppet kreativitet. Utifrån ettfenomenologiskt perspektiv är det upplevelsen av kreativitet i en datorsimulerad virtuell miljö som är ifokus. Studien vilar på ett teoretiskt ramverk i Maurice Merleau-Pontys anda med tankar om attutgångspunkten för all vår kunskap, sinnesintryck och erfarenhet fås genom våra levande kroppar.I studien fick undersökningsgruppen bestående av fyra deltagare till uppgift att utan föreskrifter, på egenhand utan tidspress, skapa någonting i en virtuell miljö med hjälp av den grafiska programvaran Tilt Brush.Studien är kvalitativ och bygger på intervjuer före aktiviteten i VR, observationer under aktiviteten ochintervjuer efter aktiviteten i VR. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats enligt den deskriptivafenomenologiska metoden grundad av Amadeo Giorgio. Metoden har en tydlig förankring i denfenomenologiska filosofin och kännetecknas av att erhålla en sådan exakt beskrivning som möjligt av detundersökta fenomenet.Resultatet visar att de generella kännetecken som tillsammans formar upplevelsen av kreativitet går atturskilja via tre huvudteman: förändring i tid och rum, en förmåga och vitalitet. Utifrån det fenomenologiskaperspektivet i studien är det möjligt att urskilja en kreativ process som tar sig till uttryck enligt två teman:aktiv process eller koncentrerad process. Den aktiva processen utmärker sig hos deltagarna utan erfarenhetav VR och representerar en kreativ upplevelse med mycket kroppsliga rörelser, ett utforskande och ett skedeför att skaffa kunskap om verktyget. Den koncentrerade processen utmärker sig hos deltagarna mederfarenhet av verktyget och representera en kreativ upplevelse med mindre kroppsliga rörelser på en mindreyta. Studiens resultat bekräftar i många avseende mycket av den forskning som redan finns: ett fenomenmed en hög nivå av komplexitet i och med deltagarnas svårighet att definiera begreppet och prata om sinaupplevelser

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Chronic pain disorders are estimated to affect a significant proportion of the global population. These disorders are often debilitating and pose a substantial challenge to the everyday life of those affected. Modern medicine has made great strides in understanding the physiological processes involved in chronic pain. However, chronic pain is more than merely a physiological process. Chronic pain is an embodied mode of being-in-the-world that manifests in multiple aspects of lived experience, from the ability to perform day-to-day tasks to the relationship between body and self. Consequently, it is essential to cultivate a rich appreciation of chronic pain as a lived experience. To rely solely on physiological knowledge in conceptualizing chronic pain precludes the development of such an appreciation. This work examines the ways that phenomenology can be leveraged to broaden the current medical understanding of chronic pain to better incorporate subjective experience. As a rigorous methodology for studying embodied consciousness, phenomenology provides the theoretical and conceptual tools to form a rich description of chronic pain's lived experience. First, a brief history of theories of pain is presented to contextualize the development of modern medical understandings of chronic pain. Following this, the writings of three classical phenomenologists—Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty—are presented, and key phenomenological concepts are introduced. Phenomenology is then used to examine the lived experience of chronic pain. Finally, means of integrating phenomenology into the current medical framework are explored.

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In the Sellarsian idiom, the space of reasons distinguishes rational beings as those invested in the game of giving and asking for reasons as set apart from beings merely susceptible to the space of causes, i.e. the realm of law. In this work I open a path toward perceiving and thinking that human beings characteristically live their lives in the space of motivations, an intelligible realm of perception, thought, and action whereby non-rational, non-causal descriptions and explanations of behavior serve as the primary and legitimating backdrop of those lives. The idea of motivations stems from the underdeveloped notion within the corpus of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In preparing a path toward the space of motivations, I argue for three claims. First, in the philosophy of mind, I argue for what I call the attentionality thesis (chapter 1), which states that the mind is primarily structured by attention in two senses: that consciousness has the capacity for re-direction toward different and multiple intentional objects, and that remaining directed toward an intentional object reveals different qualitative features of that object or mode of comportment. The attentionality thesis, which I draw from Merleau-Ponty's work, broadens the Brentano-Husserl intentionality thesis. I further argue that the attentionality thesis undercuts the distinction in kind between cognitive intentionality and motor intentionality (chapter 2), reveals shared problematic presuppositions of qualia theorists and functionalists (chapter 3), and challenges key concepts in Alva Noë's enactive theory of mind. Second, in light of the attentionality thesis, I diagnose concerns about whether perception is conceptual or nonconceptual, particularly with respect to John McDowell's conceptualism and Hubert Dreyfus's and Sean Kelly's nonconceptualism. I show that considerations of these arguments suggest an impasse between the claims that perception is conceptual, even in motor intentional comportments (chapter 2), and nonconceptual, in light of the fineness of grain argument (chapter 4). This leads to the final claim that the primary way to understand human perception, thought, and action is not via conceptual or nonconceptual considerations, but rather via motivations in the significance they lend (chapter 5). / Philosophy

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.