Chapter 5. How implicit is surprise?
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Audrey Gerlain
Abstract
As if it challenged the subject, surprise upsets somebody’s routine: it hastes one to realize how he usually thinks and acts, if it still fits with reality after that surprising event, even if he must create other ways of thinking and acting. Is surprise an experience that makes me aware of an implicit world which suddenly appears through a surprising event? Or, does surprise question that world as taken for granted, by constraining the subject to assess his implicit way of experiencing the world? Surprise is not always what happens in the underlying intentionality. In a practical sense, surprise is a kind of reality check: it urges to go back to reality. Describing the implicit intentionality in my lived experience, this paper aims at asking to what extent a surprising experience converges with the implicit world the subject takes for granted: firstly, thanks to a phenomenological approach of surprise as an implicit lived experience (Husserl, Schutz); secondly, by crossing that phenomenological description with a pragmatist approach (Dewey, Peirce), namely the radical Peirce’s thesis on surprise as a challenging experience; finally, by dealing with differences between phenomenology and pragmatism about the relation between emotion and cognition, subject’s self-control and passivity.
Abstract
As if it challenged the subject, surprise upsets somebody’s routine: it hastes one to realize how he usually thinks and acts, if it still fits with reality after that surprising event, even if he must create other ways of thinking and acting. Is surprise an experience that makes me aware of an implicit world which suddenly appears through a surprising event? Or, does surprise question that world as taken for granted, by constraining the subject to assess his implicit way of experiencing the world? Surprise is not always what happens in the underlying intentionality. In a practical sense, surprise is a kind of reality check: it urges to go back to reality. Describing the implicit intentionality in my lived experience, this paper aims at asking to what extent a surprising experience converges with the implicit world the subject takes for granted: firstly, thanks to a phenomenological approach of surprise as an implicit lived experience (Husserl, Schutz); secondly, by crossing that phenomenological description with a pragmatist approach (Dewey, Peirce), namely the radical Peirce’s thesis on surprise as a challenging experience; finally, by dealing with differences between phenomenology and pragmatism about the relation between emotion and cognition, subject’s self-control and passivity.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
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Part I. The temporality of surprise
- Chapter 1. Neurophenomenology of surprise 9
- Chapter 2. Shock, twofold dynamics, cascade 23
- Chapter 3. The representation of surprise in English and the retroactive construction of possible paths 43
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Part II. Verbal interaction and action
- Chapter 4. Encoding surprise in English novels 59
- Chapter 5. How implicit is surprise? 77
- Chapter 6. Surprise in native, bilingual and non-native spontaneous and stimulated recall speech 91
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Part III. Emotional experience, expression and description
- Chapter 7. Interrogatives in surprise contexts in English 117
- Chapter 8. Looking at ‘unexpectedness’ 139
- Chapter 9. Is surprise necessarily disappointing? 171
- Index 181
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. The temporality of surprise
- Chapter 1. Neurophenomenology of surprise 9
- Chapter 2. Shock, twofold dynamics, cascade 23
- Chapter 3. The representation of surprise in English and the retroactive construction of possible paths 43
-
Part II. Verbal interaction and action
- Chapter 4. Encoding surprise in English novels 59
- Chapter 5. How implicit is surprise? 77
- Chapter 6. Surprise in native, bilingual and non-native spontaneous and stimulated recall speech 91
-
Part III. Emotional experience, expression and description
- Chapter 7. Interrogatives in surprise contexts in English 117
- Chapter 8. Looking at ‘unexpectedness’ 139
- Chapter 9. Is surprise necessarily disappointing? 171
- Index 181
