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Titelbild TransHumanities 2020

Abstract Anita Galuschek

The concepts of empathy and care are already well-investigated in cultural and social sciences. They are used to describe and study the realization and perception of the other as an acting human and interaction partner who has the same needs as oneself. Phenomenologically, a movement towards the other is described with these terms. That implies that a person has a particular Theory of Mind about the cognitives schemata and needs of the other. For this reason, she interacts with the other in a certain way. Thus, it can be concluded the phenomenological “that” of personal motivation to interact in a certain way with the other is also well-investigated. In my graduate thesis I want to carry out research on the one person’s interaction with the other as an act of motivation and practical interest. Therefore, I will high-profile the hermeneutical “ how” motivation is constituted, instead of the phenomenological “that” it is constituted. An approach like that needs to ask the question of the perception and recognition of the other once again. In other words, it is not the point that the other claims recognition by a person and the person submits the claim expecting to get recognition by the other as well. Rather, the point is the person has an inherent motivation to give recognition. By that means, she wants to give recognition without the prospect getting recognition by the other right back. That leads to the question: how could the concept of recognition be constituted as inherent motivation? Hence, if the willing of giving recognition is assumed, then the acting person is focused in that investigation: On the one hand, it is the person who gives recognition (what is her motivation?), on the other hand an other person receives recognition (what is her quality?). Since, the concept of recognition as social recognition used so far in social sciences is not subtle enough to perform on the level of single persons. Based on a sociocentric and cosmomorph notion of the person (Leenhardt; Clifford) who takes responsibility for her acting (Harris) and with help of Psychology of Child Development (Erikson; Tomasello), I want to introduce acting motivation and practical interest (Maslow; Damasio) in the context of phenomenology of the body and phenomenology of emotions (Schmitz; Damasio). Thereby, I will show that acting motivation and practical interest are developed since childhood. Taking love as “movement towards something” and interpreting it as practical interest (Scheler; Schütz) the acting person has always a particular, inherent desire to act in her lifeworld. According to that desire, she draws her acting motivation. That makes her a homo performans (Turner). As a result, identity itself can be conceived neither static, nor in a static or linear time flow. In fact, it has to be conceived in phenomenological-hermeneutical context, therein the person admittedly exists in time, but in a relative relation (Ricoeur). This implies that time is not perceived in the same way by particular persons, rather it is dependent on subjective practical interests in one person’s acting and her biography. Therefore, she occupies spaces and objects in her lifeworld with symbols as socio-cultural contexts she gained through experience and knowledge during her every-day communication and interaction with others (Schütz; Ricoeur). In this way, she can understand her own identity biographically, but she does not remain in a linear flow of narratives, rather she constructs and constitutes her new biographical narrative thread (Ricoeur). Therein, empathy has a central role. Thus, conjunct to sympathy it guarantees a particular knowledge of understanding the other (Scheler; Gadamer; Cavell). This leads to a personbased concept of recognition. Therefore, I argue for a multi-staged concept of recognition which starts on an individual-personal level. As it will be shown, personal recognition understood as recognition of the own self and the other’s self builds the basis for social recognition.

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