Beata Stawarska Department of Philosophy University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-1295 stawarsk@uoregon.edu (541) 346-5545 :Office (541) 346-5544 :FAX

CURRENT RESEARCH I am currently working in the interdisciplinary research area that combines phenomenology, especially the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, with recent developments in developmental psychology to address the interrelated questions of embodiment and sociality. The empirical research I have focused on includes neonate imitation and mutual gaze in infancy. I am looking into the philosophical consequences of these developmental studies, i. e., how they help to enrich our understanding of the earliest forms of social interaction. I am also interested in providing alternative theoretical paradigms for interpreting developmental research than the currently dominant 'theory of mind' model by drawing on phenomenological theories of social relations and ecological psychology. I am currently preparing a book manuscript under the working title The Dialogue and the Self. In this monograph, I challenge the traditional view that the self resides in an isolated locus of consciousness and argue that the self is constituted by relations to other people. Specifically, I look into the influential intellectual tradition which posits the ego as an irreducible core of personal identity. This ego is typically construed as an inner and private subjective agency which can be located within the conscious mind by introspective insight and is necessary to account for self-awareness. However, it is unclear that there is experiential evidence for the ego and that it provides the necessary condition of possibility of self-awareness. Importantly, the ego concept arises as a result of the philosophers having internalized the (Latin) first person pronoun, and misconstrued ordinary grammar by treating it as a singular substantive rather than as an index of a speaker who addresses others in a conversational context. This departure from the original context of personal pronoun use profoundly distorts our understanding of the self and it limits our ability to account for the relations with other people. I argue therefore that an alternative is needed which corrects this ego-centered bias and returns the self to its native ground of dialogue. I put together such an alternative by combining insights from three traditions of inquiry: linguistics, developmental psychology, and the philosophy of dialogue. Linguistics makes the case for an inescapable connectedness between I and you. Developmental psychology helps to show how the mastery of I-you pronouns in discourse emerges out of the earliest forms of face-to-face interaction. Finally, the philosophy of dialogue provides a properly speaking philosophical interpretation of the evidence for the dialogic self mounted by linguistics and psychology. Combined, these multidisciplinary contributions make a strong case for the fact that the self is born and lives in dialogue.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Selected Book Chapters "Persons, Pronouns, and Perspectives. Linguistic and Developmental Contributions to Dialogical Phenomenology." Folk Psychology Reassessed. Ed. M. Ratcliffe and J. Hutto. Springer (in press). "Childhood as Challenge to 'the I' of Modernity." The Empty Throne: Childhood and the Crisis of Modernity. Ed. R. Davis and J. Dunne. Cambridge University Press (in press). "Merleau-Ponty and Psychoanalysis." Key Concepts: Merleau-Ponty. Ed. J. Reynolds and R. Diprose. Acumen Press. (in press). "Social Cognition." Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science. Ed. S. Gallagher and D. Schmicking. Springer (in progress). "From the Body Proper to Flesh: Merleau-Ponty on Intersubjectivity." Feminist Interpretations of Merleau-Ponty. Penn State University Press (Feminists Read, the Canon Series, ed. Nancy Tuana), 2006. Ed. Dorothea Olkowski and Gail Weiss. "Worlds Apart? Sartre's and Merleau-Ponty's Transition from Transcendental to Ontological Perspective on the Nature of the World." Does the World Exist? Ed. A. T. Tymieniecka. Analecta Husserliana, vol. 79, pp. 239-258, 2004. "The Body, the Mirror and the Other in Merleau-Ponty and Sartre." Ipseity and Alterity: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intersubjectivity. Rouen: Presses Universitaires de Rouen, 2004, pp. 175-186. Ed. S. Gallagher and S. Watson. Selected Articles "Mutual Gaze and Social Cognition." Journal of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, special edition on Intersubjectivity and Embodiment, 2005 (in press). "Merleau-Ponty in Dialogue with the Cognitive Sciences in Light of Recent Imitation Research." Selected Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, Philosophy Today 2004, pp. 89-99. "Anonymity and Sociality. The Convergence of Psychological and Philosophical Currents in Merleau-Ponty's Ontological Theory of Intersubjectivity." CHIASMI International, vol. 5, pp. 295-309, 2004. "Facial Embodiment in 'Invisible' Imitation." Embodiment and Awareness: Perspectives from Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, special edition of Theoria et Historia Scientiarum: International Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. 7, N° 1, pp. 139-162, 2003. "Memory and Subjectivity: Sartre in Dialogue with Husserl." Sartre Studies International, Vol. 8, N° 2, pp. 94-111, 2002. "Reversibility and Intersubjectivity in Merleau-Ponty's Ontology." Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 33, N° 2, 155-166, 2002. "Pictorial Representation or Subjective Scenario? Sartre on Imagination." Sartre Studies International, Vol. 7, N° 2, 2001, pp. 87-111.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE Member of the Board of Advisors: Association for Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences Book Review Editor: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.

TEACHING INTERESTS My teaching interests have focused in the area of phenomenology, the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology, including the philosophy of psychoanalysis. Even though philosophy of mind has become largely integrated into the domain of analytic philosophy, my teaching is representative not only of the main analytic theories of mind but also of the theoretical contributions to our understanding of the mind made by phenomenological, pragmatist and psychoanalytic authors. They include Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, William James, and Freud. I also draw on empirical research in neurology in my teaching, e. g. the work by Damasio and Ramachandran. I have a strong teaching interest in the history of Modern Philosophy. I am especially interested in the relation between the Modern empiricist tradition (Locke, Hume, Berkeley) and the contemporary phenomenological tradition (Husserl), insofar as both traditions rely heavily on the experiential dimension of our knowledge. I have taught upper level courses on Modern Authors, e. g. Berkeley. Courses offered at the University of Oregon: Philosophical Psychology Philosophy of Mind Psychoanalysis Author: Merleau-Ponty Author: Sartre Author: Berkeley History of Modern Philosophy Human Nature Metaphysics

COURSE LINKS PHIL 463/563 Derrida PHIL 463/563 Freud

OTHER LINKS Society for Interdisciplinary Feminist Phenomenology

 

[Home] [Faculty] [Traditions] [Areas of Specialization] [Departmental Concentrations] [Undergraduate Program] [Graduate Program] [Courses] [Events] [Staff] [Links of Interest] [Site Map]