Protoexistence: A Liminal Layer in the Architecture of Pre-Reflective Consciousness

Area of Science:

• Phenomenological research
• Embodied cognition
• Affective science

Background:

• Conventional qualitative research often prioritizes coherence, potentially excluding crucial affective and somatic dimensions of experience.
• Existing phenomenological frameworks may not fully capture pre-reflective, affective layers of lived experience.
• Foundational insights from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty highlight the complexities of internal time-consciousness and the visible/invisible.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and conceptually elaborate the notion of protoexistence.
• To explore how affective experiences emerge through rupture, silence, and bodily intensity, rather than articulated meaning.
• To propose an adaptation of Phenomenological Mapping (PM) for investigating unstable phenomena.

Main Methods:

• Conceptual elaboration of protoexistence, drawing on phenomenological philosophy.
• Critique of qualitative research methodologies that favor coherence.
• Extension of Phenomenological Mapping (PM) with innovations for tracing affective gaps, somatic dislocations, and temporal incoherence.

Main Results:

• Protoexistence is theorized as a pre-reflective, affective layer of experience resistant to narrative integration.
• The adapted PM method offers a framework for exploring ungraspable residues of experience, including affective gaps and temporal suspensions.
• The study challenges dominant assumptions about subjectivity and expands phenomenological inquiry.

Conclusions:

• Protoexistence offers a new lens for understanding lived experience beyond articulated meaning.
• Phenomenological Mapping (PM) can be innovatively adapted to study pre-reflective affective phenomena.
• This reconceptualization broadens the epistemological scope of phenomenology and embodied research.