A New Model for Mindfulness 

Research aims and objectives

The project has four aims and four scientific objectives. The first aim is to introduce critical research on Stoic philosophy to the University of Cyprus (UCY) and to the Cypriot academy and intellectual community in general. Stoicism was founded by the Cypriot philosopher Zeno of Citium, and it still is the most influential Cypriot philosophical movement. There have been some important attempts at rejuvenating research in Stoicism in Cyprus, for example, with the creation of the Digital Museum of Zeno of Citium and Stoicism in 2012. These efforts have not been taken up at an institutional level by UCY, and so this research is partly motivated by a desire to introduce critical study of Stoicism into UCY.

The second aim is to critically assess Stoic “mindfulness” (SM) as regards its philosophical presuppositions as well as the psychotherapeutic effects it has on persons practicing it, and to propose an alternative model for “mindfulness,” based on the phenomenological philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The project aims to show that SM fails because of its altogether mistaken approach as regards the nature of emotive states. The research will use empirical evidence from Cognitive Neuroscience, as well as evidence afforded by phenomenology, in order to show that SM is mistaken in seeing emotions as a problem that needs to be overcome, and specifically in seeing emotions as cognitive appraisals that can be corrected by focusing on the cognitive aspects of subjectivity. The project will therefore develop an alternative model of “mindfulness” –Heideggerian Mindfulness—(HM), based on Heidegger’s phenomenology. According to Heidegger, emotions are not cognitive appraisals, but they are necessary conditions for cognitive appraisals, forming the very basis of understanding and the capacity to judge. It is via emotions that the world is meaningful to us. For Heidegger, therefore, the “good life” does not see emotion as a problem per se that needs to be dissolved, but rather as an essential feature without which no good life can arise and sustain itself. In this context, anxiety is indeed an emotion that can be overcome, but Heidegger proposes an entirely different method to the one offered by SM. HM does not try to neutralize emotive states or neutralize anxiety-inducing judgments, but rather calls us to embrace emotive states. The first step to overcoming anxiety involves releasing ourselves to it and authentically embracing it. The second step involves a deeper philosophical transformation through the practice of mindfulness so as to overcome the conditions that create anxiety.

The third aim is to disseminate the research findings to a wider audience outside academic circles, so as to cultivate the nascent popular philosophical culture in Cyprus. The project will aim to connect with the “mindfulness” community in Cyprus and elsewhere in Europe, invite them to workshops and educate them on the philosophical principles of “mindfulness”.

The fourth aim is the introduction of a young postdoctoral researcher into the Cyprus System of Research and Innovation. The project will enable the researcher to repatriate and continue his cutting edge research in Cyprus, and enable him to develop new long-term research programmes that will benefit both the researcher as well as the Cypriot public.

The research has four specific objectives. The first scientific objective is to expose the philosophical presuppositions that determine Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy’s (MBCT) normative criteria and to analyze them in their original philosophical context (i.e. Stoic texts) so as to attain clarity as regards the key ontological concepts: the concept of the “good life”, the concept of the “sage”, and most importantly, the concept of “emotion”. The objective is therefore to spell out the Stoic theory of emotion. The second scientific objective is to offer a phenomenological critique of SM based on Heidegger’s ontology. Specifically, the researcher will offer a critique of the following Stoic concepts: (a) the rational nature of human beings; (b) the Socratic ideal of the “sage” and the “good life”; and (c) the Stoic theory of emotions. The researcher will give more weight on the emotional dimension of Stoic philosophy, so as to explicate its nature vis-à-vis “appraisal theories” of emotion, which further break up into two species, cognitive theories and perceptualist theories. Once the researcher establishes how SM adopts a variation of these “appraisal theories” of emotion, the researcher will turn to Heidegger proper in order to construct an alternative theory of emotion, which the researcher tentatively calls “affective realism,” carefully situating it in other appraisal theories of emotion. This will be the third scientific objective of the research. The fourth scientific objective, will be to develop a model for HM, based on Heidegger’s early writings on authenticity as well as on his later writings on releasement [Gelassenheit] and mindfulness [Besinnung]. The researcher will analyze how, for Heidegger, anxiety is constitutive of the way we concernfully engage with the world. If we are to become authentic, Heidegger says, we need to embrace latent anxiety: “Anxiety brings one into the mood for a possible resolution.” (BT 394/344). The researcher will also analyze how, for the late Heidegger, fundamental moods provide the force for “awakening” and bringing about cultural change. The researcher will connect this insight with how HM involves both a transformation of the very way we view emotions, and brings about an overcoming of the modern condition, with the aim of offering a new theory of ‘mindfulness’ that will replace SM.