What is Reality? A New Phenomenological-Historical Approach

It seems trivial that there is an experience in which we perceive something as real or unreal, or, more broadly, as reality or non-reality. However, a conceptually precise grasp of this phenomenon only began with Karl Jaspers' psychopathological inquiries. Even in the decades since, remarkably few scholars have addressed the topic by grounding their work in extensive empirical research—ranging from schizophrenia to near-death experiences, from deep meditation to psychedelics—while simultaneously striving for authentic conceptual rigor.

This presentation offers a systematic phenomenology of reality that encompasses the whole of our reality experience in all its structural complexity. In doing so, it corrects the fundamental shortcomings of previous theories (Spiegelberg, Aegerness, M. Johnson, Kusters, Chalmers, Fortier, Farkas), which often suffered from either excessive reductionism or a lack of integrative breadth, and synthesizes those elements that still required conceptual unification.

Specifically, the presentation examines the crucial role of the intersubjective sense of reality, offers a novel reinterpretation of the apodictic sense of reality, and draws key consequences for the phenomenology of reality from contemporary empirical research on pure awareness. In contrast to prevailing neuroscientific representationalism—which treats reality as an internal brain-generated simulation—the presentation interprets the phenomenology of the experience of reality within a dynamic, embodied, and enactivist framework.

Furthermore, this phenomenological analysis is supplemented by a critical conceptual-historical investigation. The ahistorical and naive approach of previous literature has routinely obscured fundamental structural dimensions of the experience of reality. In accordance with this insight, the presentation undertakes a rigorous deconstruction of the contingent Western concept of reality that has prevailed since the 13th century.

Finally, the presentation positions itself within ongoing debates in the field, building directly upon my article "Contributions to the Phenomenology of Heightened Reality" (doi.org/10.15388/Problemos.2023.103.9). I will specifically engage with Jaime Rojas-Hernández and Lucas F. Borkel's study, "Feelings of Reality: Toward a Phenomenology of Experiential Realness" (doi.org/10.1177/108926802614682), which references my work extensively while proposing an alternative model that I intend to critically evaluate.