Modern Social Science Research

Perception has traditionally been understood as the channel through which the subject gains access to external objects, and within epistemological metaphysics it is assigned the task of providing experiential certainty. Such an understanding, however, presupposes a subject–object dualistic framework, within which perception is confined to an act of grasping governed by a theoretical attitude. Although Husserl, through phenomenological reduction, breaks with the Kantian transcendental structure, his analyses of intentionality and givenness nevertheless take the intentional acts of consciousness as the ground of appearing, thereby obscuring the very mode of occurrence of appearance itself. Beginning with a critique of the theoretical attitude, Heidegger asks how beings can show themselves prior to perception, and in doing so opens a path toward “Vernehmen”.

Contemplation; Perception; Being; Heidegger