Some dissimilarities between Gendlin’s doctoral dissertation and “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning”

Gendlin’s doctoral dissertation, “The Function of Experiencing in Symbolization” (Gendlin, 1958), and its official publication, “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (ECM)” (Gendlin, 1962/1997), are almost identical in that they both consist of seven chapters.

However, when this dissertation was retitled and officially published, some sections were deleted, and others were added. One section that has been entirely deleted is “D. Review of other philosophers concerning the problem” (Gendlin, 1958, pp. 21–30), which originally appeared in Chapter I. In this section, Plato, Aristotle, Vico, Husserl, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty are listed and discussed as philosophers who preceded the dissertation.

For example, in the part on Plato, the “Dialogue between Socrates and Polemarchus” in the first volume of his masterpiece “Republic (Politeia)” is examined in detail. The fact that the same dialogue is later examined further in the “Monads” section of the appendix to VIII of “A Process Model (APM)” (Gendlin,1997/2018, p. 242, 246, & 274) suggests that it was an object of Gendlin’s consistent examination throughout his life.

What is interesting about the part on Aristotle is that he is not mentioned at all as the giant who created and systematized deductive inference. What is mentioned are the faculty of probable inferences, which are “quick wit (anchinoia),” a faculty of hitting upon the middle term instantaneously in Book I, Chapter 34, and “intuitive induction (epagoge)” in Book II, Chapter 19, both in “Posterior Analytics.” Gendlin’s focus on these probable inferences is typical of his later refusal to explain experiencing or living processes solely in terms of necessary inference such as deduction, as exemplified by the idea of “non-Laplacian sequence” in his later writings (Gendlin, 1991, p. 95; 1997/2018, p. 32).

Also mentioned in the dissertation is “On the Soul (De anima),” on which he would later write a lengthy commentary (Gendlin, 2004).

When I interviewed Gendlin in New York in 2004 and showed him this deleted section, he responded that he did not know it had been deleted (Tanaka, 2023, April). So, there is no way now to be sure how much the deletions reflected his intentions.

The “Appendix to Chapter I” (Gendlin, 1958, pp, 266–84), also in the published ECM (Gendlin, 1962/1997, pp. 275-93), is a collection of excerpts from the works of Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and I. A. Richards, intended to be read in conjunction with the deleted commentary sections.

When ECM was first published by Free Press Glencoe in 1962, its “Preface” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, pp. xxv-xxix) and its “Introduction” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, pp. 1-43) were added before the first chapter, a “Brief statement” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, pp. 44, 63, 90, 138, 173, 205, & 226) was added at the beginning of each of the seven chapters, and its “Index” was added to the last chapter. In addition, when the book was republished by Northwestern University Press in 1997, a further “Preface to the paper edition” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, pp. xi-xxiii) was added. The preface, written in the 1990s, uses many terms, such as “carrying forward,” which were not used in the original ECM. So, this later preface is just his commentary on a work about 30 years old, and I deliberately try not to confuse it with the original.

References

Aristotle (trans, 1941). The basic works of Aristotle (edited by R. P. McKeon). Random House.

Gendlin, E.T. (1958). The Function of Experiencing in Symbolization. Doctoral dissertation. University of Chicago, Department of Philosophy.

Gendlin, E.T. (1962/1997). Experiencing and the creation of meaning: a philosophical and psychological approach to the subjective (Paper ed.). Northwestern University Press.

Gendlin, E. T. (1991). Thinking beyond patterns: body, language and situations. In B. den Ouden, & M. Moen (Eds.), The Presence of Feeling in Thought (pp. 21–151). Peter Lang.

Gendlin, E. T. (1997/2018). A process model. Northwestern University Press.

Gendlin, E.T. (2004). Line by line commentary on Aristotle's De Anima II & III. Unpublished draft.

Tanaka, H. (2023, April). Recollections of My Visit to Dr. Gendlin.