Understanding Selfhood to Elucidate the Phenomenology of Mindfulness

Higgins, Joe (2022) Understanding Selfhood to Elucidate the Phenomenology of Mindfulness. Philosophia, 50 (2). pp. 551-566. ISSN 0048-3893

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Abstract

The health benefits of practising mindfulness are well documented, yet the phenomenological mechanisms of such practice remain under-theorised from both ontogenetic and social perspectives. By leveraging an enactive perspective on selfhood, these lacunae can be addressed: firstly, it is argued that proper understanding of mindfulness – and the health benefits that mindfulness practices seek – relies on recognising the socio-embodied nature of the self; consequently, occasions in which the therapeutic need for mindfulness are most pressing will be shown to be inextricably tied to socio-embodied fluctuations across different stages of life. What emerges is a phenomenological understanding of mindfulness as allowing one to dwell in the sensuous density of the present and, through this, remain connected to the social world of open possibilities.

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