Open peer commentary on the article “An Analysis Procedure for the Micro-Phenomenological Interview” by Camila Valenzuela-Moguillansky & Alejandra Vásquez-Rosati. Abstract: Valenzuela-Moguillansky & Vásquez-Rosati have framed out a detailed and meaningful procedure to analyze micro-phenomenological interviews. Here, we comment on two aspects: the place of verbal descriptions during data collection and analysis, and whether the authors’ analytical procedure can be scaled to large sets of interviews.

Open peer commentary on the article “Anchoring in Lived Experience as an Act of Resistance” by Claire Petitmengin. Abstract: I provide some accounts showing similarities to Petitmengin’s position. While being totally in line with the argument of anchoring in experience as an act of resistance facing the social and ecological crisis we are witnessing, I raise two main concerns: a first one regarding the question of unity and multiplicity as for humans and nature, in relation to the “how to live together?” question; a second one to challenge the author on the conditions under which her proposal can be implemented.

Abstract: We discuss how to strengthen the empirical study of first encounters, and how to possibly reduce tensions between theoretical and empirical approaches to intersubjectivity.

Context: There is little research currently on first encounters with a first-person epistemology and empirical evidence. Problem: We want to provide an answer to the question: “What is the lived experience of being with others for the first time?” Method: We rely on a first-person epistemology and a second-person method, namely the explicitation interview, a technique of guided retrospective introspection. We analyze a corpus of 24 interviews conducted after planned first encounters. We identify generic descriptive categories of subjects’ lived experience. Results: We propose a typology of the micro-moments that constitute people’s intersubjective experiences during first encounters. We identify five descriptive categories of these experiences: act, mode of intersubjectivity, sense of agency, experiential modality, and content in terms of involved persons. Implications: This article highlights what a careful investigation of subjective experience can bring to the understanding of intersubjectivity. It shows in particular how an applied phenomenology can complement and revisit less empirical philosophical approaches. It can be useful to scholars conducting third-person studies on first encounters. This study is a first step toward investigating more spontaneous encounters, occurring for instance in everyday situations or in less usual settings. We are currently analyzing interviews on first encounters between health practitioners and their clients, which will offer practical advice to both sides. Constructivist content: Constructivist approaches argue that “reality” is actively brought forth by the subject rather than passively acquired. Questioning the separation between the objective world and subjective experience, they examine how people build their own reality through their perceptions, through their experience of the world, and through their interactions with others. Our study focuses on first encounters “from within,” listening to subjects’ accounts of their lived experience. We aim to defend and promote the experiential perspective in the field of cognitive science. We therefore follow Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, for whom the “concern is to open a space of possibilities in which the circulation between cognitive science and human experience can be fully appreciated and to foster the transformative possibilities of human experience in a scientific culture.”

Key words: Intersubjectivity, experience, first encounter, first-person epistemology, micro-phenomenology, explicitation interview, micro-experiential phenomenon, generic descriptive category

This article describes a research programme aimed at integrating a disciplined study of lived experience as a part of cognitive science, thanks to new methods which make it possible to obtain a precise and rigorous description of the “ first person” experience of the subject. After presenting the procedures involved in these methods, their epistemological foundations, and the process of circulation between analysis in the first person and third person, we explore possible applications of these methods in clinical and therapeutic domains, in the domains of education transfer.