The project is run by the University of Iceland, along with its partners, the University of Groningen, the University of Ljubljana, the University of Applied Sciences Jena and Technion Israel Institute of Technology as well as the projects associate partner, ETH Zurich. The Micro-phenomenology Lab in Paris is an affiliate partner of TECT.
Prof. Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir - University of Iceland
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Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir is a professor in philosophy at the University of Iceland and principal investigator of the ECT project (www.ect.hi.is). She has published on Nietzsche ́s philosophy, gender philosophy, philosophy of embodiment, the environment and transnational feminist philosophy (as one of the founders of the Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme under the auspices of Unesco). She is board member and chair of the Committee on Gender Issues of FISP, the world organisation of philosophical societies that sponsors the World Congress of Philosophy held every five years, with the last one in Beijing in 2018.
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Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir has previously led a successful Erasmus+ project with three other universities on Gender and Philosophy from 2015-2017. Thorgeirsdottir ́s expertise on Embodied Critical Thinking grew out of her research into embodiment and gender, and she views it as putting into practice of the theoretical work she has pursued all along. ECT is important for her as a teacher of philosophy, training her students to think for themselves. She and Donata Schoeller as well as members and partner organisations of their international research group on ECT are instrumental in advancing this novel field of research. They view TECT as a break-through methodology for scientific, critical, and philosophical thinking that has implications for education and pedagogy on all levels of education.
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Professor Donata Schoeller is a guest professor in philosophy at the University of Iceland, a senior lecturer at the University of Koblenz and a principal investigator of the Embodied Critical Thinking project (see ect.hi.is.).Having a philosophical background in classical German philosophy, German mysticism, French phenomenology, American Pragmatism, philosophy of language and contemporary approaches to embodied cognition, she has in recent years become a pioneer in the newly budding research field of Embodied Critical Thinking methods, and a leading expert on the philosophy of Eugene Gendlin (University of Chicago). After her PhD on the concept of humility, she developed the concept of “close talking” to philosophically grasp a gradual unfolding of meaning from experiential backgrounds (funded by the Swiss National Science Fund). At the same time she underwent thorough trainings in Focusing, Thinking-at-the-Edge, Micro-phenomenology and meditation techniques. On the basis of this theoretical work and years of practical training, she developed Embodied Critical Thinking together with Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir. She is an internationally invited teacher of embodied critical thinking approaches and methods. Donata Schoeller has formed a vibrant and motivated community of interdisciplinary research on Embodied Critical Thinking and has published extensively on ECT methods and approaches.
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Prof. Donata Schoeller - University of Iceland
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Prof. Guðbjörg R. Jóhannesdóttir - University of Iceland
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Guðbjörg Rannveig Jóhannesdóttir is an assistant professor at Iceland University of the Arts' department of art education and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Iceland's Institute for philosophy. Environmental philosophy has been at the center of her works from the start of her philosophy studies at the University of Iceland. She completed an MA in Values and the Environment at Lancaster University in 2006 and then returned to the University of Iceland where she completed her PhD studies in 2015. During her studies she also worked as a part-time lecturer, at the University of Iceland from 2006, and at the Iceland University of the Arts from 2012-2015. Her research centers on environmental ethics, phenomenology and aesthetics, and she has published papers and book chapters on landscape, beauty and sensuous knowledge.
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In her PhD project, Icelandic Landscapes: Beauty and the Aesthetic in Environmental Decision-making, she provides a phenomenological account of the concepts of landscape and beauty, and discusses the meaning and values that are derived from aesthetic experiences of landscapes and the role of such values in environmental decision-making. Her current research within phenomenology and aesthetics focuses on human-environment / body-landscape relations and processes, and their role in human thinking and understanding. She has been an active member of the ECT research team and has training in Thinking at the edge and Focusing. In her teaching at the IUA she has been developing ways to integrate ECT methods into research practices in art and education.
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University of Groningen is the academic home of Marieke van Vugt who is an expert in computation cognitive neuroscience of mind-wandering, meditation, and decision making. She is the worldwide expert of using computational models to study the effects of meditation on cognition, and used that to demonstrate how to cultivating a process of metacognitive checking of the contents of your thoughts leads to improvements in sustained attention. In addition, she has recently started working with Tibetan monks at Sera Jey monastic university in India to study their practice of monastic debate. Of particular relevance to TECT, monastic debate is an embodied practice (accompanied by moving, shouting, specific gestures) in which participants test their knowledge of a particular topic and explore the consequences of adopting a particular logical position.
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Prof. Marieke van Vugt - University of Groningen
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While it is increasingly used in high schools outside the Tibetan monastery, relatively little research has been done on its effects. Dr. van Vugt is one of the pioneers in doing EEG and behavioral research in this domain. As part of TECT, dr. van Vugt will be teaching lectures in which participants explore their own thinking using the third-person methods of mind-wandering research and first-person methods of mindfulness practice. In addition, she will be involved, together with several Tibetan Buddhist monks, in cross-cultural explorations of embodied critical thinking in West and East, using her expertise on the psychology and neuroscience of Tibetan monastic debate. The TECT network will be attractive to the students in the Artificial Intelligence program where Dr. van Vugt is currently teaching because it does not have many courses on ethics and philosophy, a gap TECT can fill. She has also been experimenting with using this debating method in her own classroom at the University of Groningen.
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The Center for Cognitive Science of the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Education is primarily focused on interdisciplinary integration of the plethora of research disciplines, constituting the current research on the human mind. As home to the Middle European interdisciplinary master’s program in Cognitive Science at the University of Ljubljana, we are constantly exploring different strategies of bringing together knowledge from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, philosophy, AI, linguistics, and phenomenology. We are leading and participating in several interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research endeavors, joining contributions from AI, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and phenomenology. The interdisciplinary and connecting work aside, the primary focus of our research work is empirical phenomenology, i.e. the empirical inquiry of lived human experience. We are dedicated to exploring new methodological venues of gathering valid data on human experience and investigating the possibilities of combining data on experience with neuroscientific, and other types of third-person data (i. e., neurophenomenology). Empirical phenomenology research team at the Center for Cognitive Science is currently, among other things, engaged in researching the following topics:
The TECT project in Ljubljana will be carried out by Urban Kordeš, Toma Strle, and Ema Demšar at the Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education. Assoc. prof. Urban Kordeš, the leader of the team, is currently serving as the head of the Middle European interdisciplinary master’s program in Cognitive Science at the University of Ljubljana and the director of the Center for Cognitive Science. He has more than 15 years of research experience within the fields of in-depth empirical phenomenological research, contemplative science, neurophenomenology, collaborative knowledge creation, as well as epistemological and methodological issues in the research of non-trivial systems. He has extensive experience in collaborating in and leading interdisciplinary teams and projects. |
Prof. Urban Kordes - University of Ljubljana
Assist. prof. Toma Strle - University of Ljubljana
Assist. Ema Demsar - University of Ljubljana
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Assist. prof. Toma Strle teaches within the Middle European interdisciplinary master’s program in Cognitive Science. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a doctorate in philosophy of cognitive science. He has ca 10 years of experience with theoretical research in the fields of cognitive science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics (particularly neuroethics), and decision-making. Assist. Ema Demšar works as an assistant at the same study program and a researcher in the fields of first-person research and neurophenomenology, currently focusing on empirical research into lived experience and the study of epistemological and methodological challenges encountered in such research within the context of cognitive science.
Prof. Mike Sandbothe - University of Applied Science, Jena
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The German Network Mindful Universities was conceived and founded in 2017 at the University of Applied Sciences (UAS) in Jena by Professor Mike Sandbothe. He led the innovation project Healthy "Teaching and Learning" at the UAS (2015-2019) and the Thuringian model project "Mindful Universities in the Digital Society" (2017-2019). Both projects were funded by AOK PLUS and the Thuringian Ministry of Science with a total of 1.5 million euros. Together they constitute the world's first program package for the implementation of mindfulness training in the different institutional areas of universities, which has become known throughout Germany as the Thuringian Model Mindful Universities. |
Since 2015, the UAS Jena has gained experience with the twelve-week "Mindfulness Student Training" (MBST) program developed within the framework described above within the faculties of social welfare, business administration and industrial engineering. The effectiveness of MBST was investigated by the Institute for Innovative Health Technologies at the UAS Jena using the means of cardiorespiratory regulation diagnostics. First results show that already after 8 weeks a significant improvement of the physiological stress regulation in the area of the vascular system (especially blood pressure and pulse rate) can be proven.
The socio-scientific evaluation was based on questionnaire-surveys regarding mindfulness, stress, well-being and internet use. The results show that the participants displayed a significantly higher level of mindfulness as well as a lower stress perception after MBST training, whereby higher mindfulness is associated with lower stress levels. It was also found that mindfulness seminars can significantly reduce excessive internet use. The research was conducted by the director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UAS Jena. Professor Mike Sandbothe has more than 20 years of experience in the field of body-based learning and mindfulness approaches in academic learning and teaching settings at different universities in Germany, Denmark, and Finland. He framed the pragmatist approach of the Thuringian Model Mindful Universities and works in close cooperation with Prof. Claus Otto Scharmer (MIT, Cambridge/USA). Scharmer developed the awareness-based approach of action research (Theory U) that Sandbothe blended in his projects with Richard Rorty’s and Robert Brandom’s neo-pragmatism.
The socio-scientific evaluation was based on questionnaire-surveys regarding mindfulness, stress, well-being and internet use. The results show that the participants displayed a significantly higher level of mindfulness as well as a lower stress perception after MBST training, whereby higher mindfulness is associated with lower stress levels. It was also found that mindfulness seminars can significantly reduce excessive internet use. The research was conducted by the director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UAS Jena. Professor Mike Sandbothe has more than 20 years of experience in the field of body-based learning and mindfulness approaches in academic learning and teaching settings at different universities in Germany, Denmark, and Finland. He framed the pragmatist approach of the Thuringian Model Mindful Universities and works in close cooperation with Prof. Claus Otto Scharmer (MIT, Cambridge/USA). Scharmer developed the awareness-based approach of action research (Theory U) that Sandbothe blended in his projects with Richard Rorty’s and Robert Brandom’s neo-pragmatism.
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Technion in Haifa and its environmental designers are forerunners in applying methods of embodied thinking in teaching and research. Professor Ram Eisenberg is a pioneer in applying methods such as Focusing and Thinking-at-the-Edge in the training of students in landscape architecture and design thinking in the context of environment. His research and work with students, demonstrates that experiencing environments more fully and letting oneself be informed by the embodied experience of landscapes fosters a critical awareness of the vulnerability of environmental balances. This awareness enhances creative solutions and a thinking out of the box. Ram Eisenberg has been an active partner of the Icelandic initiative Embodied Critical Thinking, contributing to the group the environmental relevance of theories and practices of embodied cognition. |
Assist. prof. Ram Eisenberg - Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
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Through these interventions, ECT has been integrated at the Technion as a pedagogical tool for training in design thinking in the context of environments. Ram Eisenberg has developed a course, together with lecturer Dana Ganihar, that incorporates ECT in the faculty’s curriculum, combining it with the work of the landscape architecture studio. He has also organized several workshops at the Technion with leading international ECT experts. Currently, he is heading a monthly/bimonthly ECT group for faculty and advanced researchers. At the Technion, ECT has further been developed for scientific research by Prof. Daniel Orenstein and Dr. Yael Teff-Seker, who are the first to use ECT for the assessment of cultural ecosystem services, which is intended to support environmental planning and management. In their work, they developed a new and innovative application of “focusing”, an ECT approach established by philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin. Dr. Teff-Seker is currently further developing the potential applications of focusing and ECT as a method for scientific discovery, analysis and reflection. The environmental emphasis of the work done at the Technion is particularly relevant to ECT.
Associate partner
Prof. Thomas Hofman - ETH
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ETH Institute for Machine Learning at the Department of Computer Science is where you find the Lab of Thomas Hofmann. His work on a wide range of machine learning problems, specifically deep learning and mathematical analysis of models and algorithms, but also on applications in natural language understanding, computer vision and the physical sciences. The group currently consists of himself, a senior researcher, a postdoc, and fourteen Ph.D. students. The lab also has five to ten master level students, working on diverse projects within the lab. |
Mr. Hofmann reached out to the initiators of TECT because it responds to the concern of a one-sided technological progress of AI that leaves little room to reflect its own directions, motivations and values, first and foremost the value of human experience. One of Thomas Hofmann ́s goals are to adapt methods of embodied critical thinking to “technologist” students and professionals of informatics, data science and artificial intelligence. With this cooperation, he aims at establishing a methodological counterpart to the proliferation of computational thinking at his institution. His motivation to cooperate with TECT has grown out of his experiences that one-sided education of computational thinking has led to self-alienation of students and professionals, in more broader terms, to subordination of human thinking to the networks of digitalization.
Affiliate partner
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The Micro-phenomenology Laboratory is a globally leading center in establishing micro-phenomenology as a new scientific discipline that enables one to explore lived experience very finely: what's happening when an idea comes? When suddenly an intuition comes back? When we feel motivated? When we approach an interesting subject matter, or are overwhelmed with a research task? When we read a scientific text, or write a paper? These phenomena, which constitute the very texture of our cognitive life, are difficult to describe, and have thus far been excluded from scientific investigation. Research of the Micro-phenomenology Laboratory demonstrates how one can learn to describe experience very accurately and reliably, and discover its ordinarily inaccessible dimensions, through appropriate methods.The development of this "psychological microscope" opens vast fields of investigation in the educational, technological, artistic and contemplative domains.
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Prof. Claire Petitmengin - The Micro-phenomenology Laboratory
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The participation of Prof. Claire Petitmengin, who is the scientific director of the Micro-phenomenology Laboratory, is thus of key importance for the TECT. With the practice of micro-phenomenology students, trainees and researchers gain a new relation to the richness and the precision of their experience. This practice has the potential to unsettle a limited and one-sided conceptual, technical or computational grasp of one's understanding of a problem. Many members of the TECT-consortium have been trained or are undergoing training offered by Claire Petitmengin and co-teachers at the Micro-phenomenology Lab in Paris.
