Uldis Vēgners

This article aimed to show the analytical potential of the life-world concept in the field of public health, which has not received much attention in the phenomenological literature. Specifically, based on phenomenologically grounded qualitative research, we aimed to show how the life-world concept, as worked out in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy, can offer new insights on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Although there are many ways in which the life-world can motivate vaccine hesitancy, we have narrowed our focus to one of them. Our aim is to argue that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is motivated by discrepancies and conflicts between the perceptual life-world and the scientific knowledge. If the scientific knowledge about the pandemic and the vaccine is not integrated in the life-world—which in its core is an embodied, perceptual world—and instead conflicts with it, people are more likely to become disinclined to get vaccinated rather than motivated to pursue vaccination. We conclude the discussion by outlining ideas on how the insights offered by our analysis could be potentially used in devising management and communication strategies in public health crises, such as a pandemic outbreak.

Many studies have used ideas from phenomenological philosophy to explore health and health care, yet topics related to public health have often been overlooked. We argue that at least one crucial issue in public health—the question of adherence (or lack thereof) to preventive health measures—can benefit from a phenomenological perspective. While numerous studies have examined the factors influencing adherence, none have addressed the role that embodiment plays in shaping adherence. Building on existing phenomenological research on adherence, we demonstrate that phenomenology can offer a novel, embodied perspective on this issue. This article draws on data from our phenomenologically grounded empirical study on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, which involved 16 in-depth interviews with individuals reluctant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, the aim of this article is not to present the specific findings about vaccine hesitancy. Instead, referring to both theoretical research within phenomenological tradition and interview data, we seek to generate new insights into the motivational orientation toward preventive health measures more broadly. We demonstrate that adherence to a preventive measure depends on the type of bodily objectification involved—whether it is good or bad objectification. Good objectification involves a focus on one’s body that is compatible with one’s subjectivity, whereas bad objectification involves a focus on one’s body that disrupts subjectivity. We conclude that from an embodied perspective, nonadherence is grounded in a person’s wish to avoid the disruption of her subjectivity. By recognizing the role that our embodied being in-the-world plays in our willingness or unwillingness to comply with preventive measures, this study offers a deeper understanding of the embodied motivation behind adherence and provides insights for both developing strategies to enhance adherence to preventive health measures and new directions for future phenomenological research in relation to public health.

Many studies have used ideas from phenomenological philosophy to explore health and health care, yet topics related to public health have often been overlooked. We argue that at least one crucial issue in public health—the question of adherence (or lack thereof) to preventive health measures—can benefit from a phenomenological perspective. While numerous studies have examined the factors influencing adherence, none have addressed the role that embodiment plays in shaping adherence. Building on existing phenomenological research on adherence, we demonstrate that phenomenology can offer a novel, embodied perspective on this issue. This article draws on data from our phenomenologically grounded empirical study on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, which involved 16 in-depth interviews with individuals reluctant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, the aim of this article is not to present the specific findings about vaccine hesitancy. Instead, referring to both theoretical research within phenomenological tradition and interview data, we seek to generate new insights into the motivational orientation toward preventive health measures more broadly. We demonstrate that adherence to a preventive measure depends on the type of bodily objectification involved—whether it is good or bad objectification. Good objectification involves a focus on one’s body that is compatible with one’s subjectivity, whereas bad objectification involves a focus on one’s body that disrupts subjectivity. We conclude that from an embodied perspective, nonadherence is grounded in a person’s wish to avoid the disruption of her subjectivity. By recognizing the role that our embodied being in-the-world plays in our willingness or unwillingness to comply with preventive measures, this study offers a deeper understanding of the embodied motivation behind adherence and provides insights for both developing strategies to enhance adherence to preventive health measures and new directions for future phenomenological research in relation to public health.

This article aimed to show the analytical potential of the life-world concept in the field of public health, which has not received much attention in the phenomenological literature. Specifically, based on phenomenologically grounded qualitative research, we aimed to show how the life-world concept, as worked out in Edmund Husserl’s philosophy, can offer new insights on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Although there are many ways in which the life-world can motivate vaccine hesitancy, we have narrowed our focus to one of them. Our aim is to argue that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is motivated by discrepancies and conflicts between the perceptual life-world and the scientific knowledge. If the scientific knowledge about the pandemic and the vaccine is not integrated in the life-world—which in its core is an embodied, perceptual world—and instead conflicts with it, people are more likely to become disinclined to get vaccinated rather than motivated to pursue vaccination. We conclude the discussion by outlining ideas on how the insights offered by our analysis could be potentially used in devising management and communication strategies in public health crises, such as a pandemic outbreak.

It was in his research manuscripts from 1905, also known as the Seefelder Blätter, where Edmund Husserl for the first time introduced the idea of the phenomenological reduction. The introduction of this idea, which he developed and refined years to come, marked the beginning not only of an important turn in Husserl’s philosophy toward transcendental phenomenology, but also the advent of a growing frustration and critique even among Husserl’s own students. The discussion about the ontological status of reality is otherwise known as the realism–idealism controversy. One of the first critiques in a published form came from the Latvian philosopher and Husserl’s student in Freiburg, Theodor Celms, in his book Der phänomenologische Idealismus Husserls (1928). The current chapter will present a historically contextualized account of Celms’ contribution to the realism–idealism controversy, including his relationship with the phenomenological movement, main points of his critical interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism, and the following reception of his work.

The most fundamental question in Husserl’s unceasing analyses of inner time-consciousness is the possibility of the experience of succession or movement. This question, determining Husserl’s analyses already from his analysis in winter semester of 1904/1905, is based on a thesis that actuality of one moment of a succession precludes the actuality of any other. But if it is true that there is always only one actual moment, how is it possible to be aware of a succession that requires at least two moments? Husserl’s general answer to this problem is that the moments that are not actually given are nevertheless somehow present in The aim of this paper is to show that Husserl’s adherence to the aforementioned thesis in his analyses implies a problem that undermines all his endeavors to explain the possibility of inner time-consciousness. The problem is that all the other non-present moments notwithstanding in what way they are apprehended are still static, and it is impossible to arrive at a proper succession from a multiplicity of simultaneously given static moments.