Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2006) 5: 155–169

DOI: 10.1007/s11097-005-9007-6 
C Springer 2006

Heidegger’s phenomenology of boredom, and the scientific

investigation of conscious experience

SUE P. STAFFORD and WANDA TORRES GREGORY

Department of Philosophy, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston MA 02115
(∗ E-mail: torres@simmons.edu)

Abstract. This paper argues that Heidegger’s phenomenology of boredom in The Fundamental
Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude (1983) could be a promising addition
to the ‘toolbox’ of scientists investigating conscious experience. We describe Heidegger’s
methodological principles and show how he applies these in describing three forms of boredom.
Each form is shown to have two structural moments – being held in limbo and being left empty
– as well as a characteristic relation to passing the time. In our conclusion, we suggest specific
ways in which Heidegger’s phenomenological description can be used in scientific investigations
of boredom.

Key words: boredom, cognitive science, Heidegger, methodology, phenomenology

Introduction

Along with all of the impressive advances of cognitive science, the problem of
how to explain conscious experience continues to perplex, challenge, or annoy
philosophers of mind. Chalmers argues that ‘the really hard problem of con-
sciousness is the problem of experience’ (Chalmers 1995), and Varela laments
the lack of a ‘disciplined approach’ to human experience (Varela 1995, p. 337).
Even those who regard much of the emphasis on the problem as an ‘illusion
generator’ (Dennett 1995, p. 33) address the subject regularly (Dennett 2001).
Perhaps the most compelling expression of the problem is Nagel’s in 1970: we
believe that our experiences have a subjective character, yet the ‘facts about
what it is like for the experiencing organism’ are accessible from only one
point of view–that of the experiencer (Nagel 1979, p. 172). Nagel’s formu-
lation presupposes a split between subjective conscious experience, which is
accessible from only one point of view, and the objective phenomena studied
by natural science, which are accessible from multiple points of view. How
can cognitive science bridge the gap and address something that appears to
be private and publicly inaccessible?
Over the past fifteen years there have been increasingly articulate and de-
tailed proposals suggesting that phenomenology might provide the elusive
bridge.1 In this paper we seek to broaden the path taken by earlier researchers
by considering the work of phenomenologist Martin Heidegger in The Funda-
mental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude (FCM), where he
156 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

asks about the essence of the mood or attunement (Stimmung) of boredom. By

‘essence,’ Heidegger generally understands the way of being that is proper to
something, how something is something (cf. Inwood 1999, pp. 52–54). Hei-
degger claims that an attunement, such as joy, bliss, grief, or boredom is ‘not a
mere emotional event or a state, in the way that a metal is liquid or solid, given
that attunements indeed belong to the being of man’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 65).
Rather, an attunement is a fundamental manner and way of our being, of the
distinctively human existence (Dasein), which Heidegger defines as a being-
there (Da-sein) with one another. It is how ‘we find ourselves disposed in such
and such a way’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 67). Thus, Heidegger is asking how does
boredom unfold as boredom, or what is it like for us to be bored? Moreover, he
wants to be able to ‘see and say what is happening here’ (Heidegger 1983, p.
67) by applying principles of his existential phenomenology to the attunement
of boredom.
The aim of this paper is to describe Heidegger’s phenomenological ap-
proach, to illustrate the efficacy of his methodology as he applies it in the de-
scription of the attunement of boredom, and to suggest how the understanding
that is developed can be used by cognitive scientists for hypothesis generation.

Heidegger’s methodology

Edmund Husserl’s maxim ‘Back to the things themselves!’ (Husserl 1973,

p. 6) served to define phenomenology in general as a method of description
that approaches things directly, as they appear, and not through theories. Phe-
nomenology for Heidegger means ‘to let see something from itself as it shows
itself’ (Heidegger 1962, pp. 51–58; see 1983, pp. 27–29).
The first principle that is operative in Heidegger’s approach to boredom is
‘to let this attunement be as it is, as this attunement’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 65).
It is ‘a matter of seeing boredom as it bores us’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 95).
Heidegger claims that if we are to let boredom be as it is, we must strive to
preserve and maintain the immediacy of our everyday existence. Our ordinary
tendency is to shake off and drive away boredom, to make it fall asleep.
However, if we are to let boredom show itself from and as itself, we must go
against this tendency. Heidegger calls this methodological effort ‘awakening’
(see Heidegger 1983, pp. 79–91, 95).
Letting boredom be as it is involves dispelling attitudes and breaking away
from traditional theories. Heidegger insists that ‘what is required is the re-
leasement [Gelassenheit] of our free and everyday perspective – free from
psychological and other theories of consciousness, of the stream of lived
experience and suchlike’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 91). He claims that our con-
cepts of consciousness, subject, I, person, or rational being, as well as our
use of these concepts to define human being, must be put into question if
 HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BOREDOM, AND THE SCIENTIFIC 157

we wish to see boredom as it shows itself (Heidegger 1983 p. 133). The

reason is that all those concepts are already infused with theory, and divert
our attention away from ‘the thing itself.’ To pose the problem of conscious-
ness as a problem about the subjective character of conscious experience is
to presuppose the theoretical constructs of subjectivity, objectivity, and con-
sciousness. However, if we attend to boredom as it bores us, we don’t see
objects, consciousness, or a subject. If we are to look directly at boredom as it
unfolds, i.e., in its immediacy, we must dispense with the mediation that the-
ory provides. While Heidegger acknowledges that ‘we are permeated by such
theories’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 91), he insists that the awakening of boredom
does ‘not want to explain the facts of the matter by rash theories – no matter
how current or acknowledged they may be’ or ‘how self-evident’ they seem.
Rather, the point is to explain boredom as it unfolds ‘straightaway’. Theories
‘distort . . . from the outset’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 86), ‘preventing our access
to’ the essence of boredom (Heidegger 1983, p. 133). Releasement will thus
free us to uncover and open up this essence.
However, releasement poses a special challenge to those of us steeped in
the analytic philosophical tradition. Heidegger is well aware that he is also
putting into question ‘our access to consciousness in the Cartesian sense of
the method of grasping consciousness’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 133). He classifies
such a mode of access or method as an ‘ascertaining.’ To ascertain is to grasp
something as an object, to interpret it as an entity at hand or an extant thing
with certain characteristics. Yet, an attunement cannot be ascertained at all,
for it is not a what, but a how, i.e., a fundamental way and manner of our being
(Heidegger 1983, pp. 65, 78). If we seek to ascertain boredom, we make it
‘into an object swimming in the stream of consciousness which we observers
gaze after’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 90). Yet, if we attend to boredom as it bores us,
we don’t see an object, a subject, or a stream of consciousness. Ascertaining
does not let us see what it is to be bored:

In this way we precisely do not enter our originary relationship to boredom, nor its rela-
tionship to us. When we make it into an object in this way then we refuse it precisely the
role it is supposed to have in keeping with the most proper intention of our questioning. We
refuse it the possibility of unfolding its essence as such, as the boredom in which we are
bored . . . (Heidegger 1983, p. 90).

This is why Heidegger prescribes that an attunement

ought not to be ascertained, even if it were possible to do so. For all ascertaining means bring-
ing to consciousness. With respect to attunement, all making conscious means destroying,
altering in each case . . . (Heidegger 1983, p. 65).

A second principle of Heidegger’s approach to boredom, then, is that ascer-

taining must be avoided, ‘for in the end there is nothing at all to be found by
158 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

observation – no matter how astute’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 60). This entails that
the scientific approach, which is a mode of ascertaining par excellence, is to
be eschewed. Thus, we must dismiss ‘the psychology of feelings, experiences
and consciousness’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 67; see p. 82). This includes rejecting
methods such as surveys (Heidegger 1983, p. 60), laboratory investigations
(Heidegger 1983, p. 89), efforts to transpose ourselves or to imagine ourselves
in the mood of boredom so as to observe and determine its characteristics (Hei-
degger 1983, p. 90), and ‘concocting a region of lived experiences, of working
our way into a stratum of interrelations of consciousness’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 91). Moreover, Heidegger argues that setting ‘the guideline that all inves-
tigation must see to it that each object is brought under the best conditions of
observability,’ so that ‘in each case they can be made the object of scientific
observation . . . not only tells us nothing, but fundamentally leads us astray’
in the path to the essence of boredom (Heidegger 1983, pp. 94–5; see pp.
89–90). He suggests that it is

meaningless to ask in general about the pervasiveness and universality of attunement or to

brood over the universal validity of something ascertained this way. In other words, it is not
necessarily an objection . . . if one of you, or even many, or all of you assure us that you are
unable to ascertain such attunement in yourselves when you observe yourselves (Heidegger
1983, p. 60).

Heidegger’s contrast between awakening and ascertaining is framed within

a fundamental distinction between philosophy and science. Metaphysics is
a questioning into beings as a whole that always involves us as questioners,
while science investigates fields of beings (via biology, chemistry, physics,
etc.), and demands objectivity and detachment (Heidegger 1983, pp. 2–7).
This distinction is not, however, tantamount to a wholesale rejection of science.
According to Heidegger, there is an ‘inner unity’ between metaphysics and
science (Heidegger 1983, p. 189)2 and it is not as if ‘one side provides the
fundamental concepts while the other delivers the facts’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 191).3 The awakening of boredom is thus a distinctively philosophical
interpretation that does not propose to be ‘a piece of knowledge that we now
have at our disposal, but instead offers ‘directives’ (Heidegger 1983, pp. 155,
137). We argue later that these directives may be taken up by cognitive science
in its ascertaining.4

Applying the methodology

The fecundity and value of Heidegger’s methodology can be evaluated by its

application to the attunement of boredom. Heidegger begins by insisting that
boredom is question-worthy: ‘Who is not acquainted with it – and yet who can
 HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BOREDOM, AND THE SCIENTIFIC 159

say freely what this universally familiar phenomenon is?’ (Heidegger 1983, p.
79). The German word for boredom, Langeweile, means literally ‘long while.’
We can all agree that when we are bored, time becomes long and drawn out,
but can we say more about this relation of boredom to time? Our tendency
to try ‘to escape’ from boredom by shaking it off and driving it away, i.e.,
by ‘making it fall asleep,’ also suggests that ‘we do not want to know about
it’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 78). Thus, in the effort to awaken boredom, we must
learn ‘not to resist straightaway, but to let resonate (Heidegger 1983, p. 82).
As Heidegger allows the attunement to awaken, three forms of boredom are
progressively revealed: becoming bored by . . . (gelangweiltwerden von . . . ),
being bored with . . . (sich langweilen mit/bei . . . ), and profound boredom
(tiefe Langeweile). Each form of boredom will show itself in relation to pass-
ing the time (die Zeit vertreiben), and will show two structural moments –
being held in limbo (Hingehaltenheit) and being left empty (Leergelassen-
heit). These structural moments, or elements that configure boredom, will
manifest themselves differently, according to each form of boredom. We will
now take a closer look into each form of boredom by highlighting the main
steps of Heidegger’s ever-deepening interpretation.

The first form of boredom: Becoming bored by . . .

If in our phenomenological effort to disclose boredom we ‘follow what ev-

eryday speaking, comportment and judgment expresses,’ we see ‘that things
themselves, people themselves, events and places themselves are boring’ (Hei-
degger 1983, p. 83). For example, we find a book boring and say that it is bor-
ing; ‘what we address as boring we draw from the thing itself, and also mean
it as belonging to the thing’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 86). However, we don’t un-
derstand the boringness of the book as ‘some exclusively objective property.’
What is essential about the boringness of the book ‘lies precisely in its relation
to us, in the way in which we are affected or not affected’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 86). From this Heidegger concludes: ‘The characteristic of ‘boring’ thus
belongs to the object and is at the same time related to the subject’ (Heidegger
1983, p. 84). Put differently, this means that ‘boredom – and thus ultimately
every attunement – is a hybrid, partly objective, partly subjective’ (Heidegger
1983, p. 88).
By focusing on how we understand ‘boring’ straightaway, Heidegger is able
to gain an initial disclosure of the two structural moments of boredom: being
held in limbo and being left empty.

We straightaway take ‘boring’ as meaning wearisome, tedious, which is not to say indifferent.
For if something is wearisome and tedious, then this entails that it has not left us completely
indifferent, but on the contrary: we are present while reading, given over to it, but not taken
[hingennomen] by it. Wearisome means: it does not rivet us; we are given over to it, yet
160 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

not taken by it, but merely held in limbo [hingehalten] by it. Tedious means: it does not
engross us, we are left empty [leer gelassen] . . . [That] which bores us, which is boring, is
that which holds us in limbo and yet leaves us empty (Heidegger 1983, pp. 86–7).

Passing the time is itself initially disclosed by looking at what happens

when we are bored, that is, by considering ‘the way that we move within it’
(Heidegger 1983, 91). Boredom is ‘uncomfortable for us; we ‘immediately
try to drive it away’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 90).
Passing the time is ‘the way that we seek to drive it away’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 91). By focusing on this reaction against boredom, we thus gain further
insight into the essence of boredom itself.

[If] boredom is something that we are fundamentally opposed to from the beginning, then it
will originally manifest itself as that to which we are opposed wherever we are opposed to
it, wherever we drive it away – whether we do so consciously or unconsciously. This occurs
wherever we create a diversion from boredom for ourselves, where we in each case pass the
time in such and such a way and with this intent. Precisely wherever we are opposed to it,
boredom itself must want to assert itself, and wherever it presses to the fore in such a way,
it must impress itself upon us in its essence (Heidegger 1983, p. 90).

In his effort to deepen his interpretation of the first form of boredom and
its particular structural moments, Heidegger considers a detailed example.
We are sitting in a tasteless, rural railway station waiting for the train, which
will not arrive for four hours. The station and the district are uninspiring. We
have a book, but it too fails to inspire us. We read the timetables, the banal
advertisements, then look at our watch. Only fifteen minutes have passed. We
walk out onto the local road, and count the trees as we walk back and forth.
We glance again at our watch; exactly five minutes have passed since we last
looked. Fed up, we sit down and draw figures in the dirt. We look at the watch
again . . . and so on. This everyday situation in which we become bored by the
train station illustrates a specific form of passing the time. When we become
bored by something, we try to make time pass by driving it on (Heidegger
1983, p. 93).
By focusing on the relation of boredom to time, we gain insight into the
structural moment of being held in limbo. In our becoming bored by the train
station we continually look at our watch. We seek to shorten time, to make
it pass more quickly. In this passing the time, we are thus in ‘a confrontation
with time’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 96), ‘we fight against the progress of time
which is slowing down and is too slow for us’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 97). Time
drags and thus affects us in a paralyzing way (Heidegger 1983, pp. 97-8).
Thus, ‘becoming bored is a being held in limbo by time as it drags over an
interval of time’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 100).
Deepening his interpretation, Heidegger discloses the structural moment
of ‘being left empty’ by attending to how we pass the time when we become
 HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BOREDOM, AND THE SCIENTIFIC 161

bored by something. As the example of the train station illustrates, we try to

occupy ourselves with something, such as counting the trees, but we are not
interested in the trees or in the counting. We do this simply because we wish to
escape from being left empty. In our everyday dealings with particular things at
hand, such as the train station and its surroundings, we expect them to offer us
something particular, to satisfy us in a particular way. When we become bored,
we are left empty by the refusal of things to fulfill our particular expectations;
the train station refuses us the possibility of departing immediately (Heidegger
1983, pp. 101-4).

The second form of boredom: Being bored with . . .

In the first form of boredom, we become bored by . . . within a particular

situation, and what bores us is something quite determinate, specific, and
familiar. However, this is not the only way we can be bored. Heidegger has us
consider an example that illustrates a different form of boredom, being bored
with . . . We have been invited somewhere for the evening. We do not need
to go, but it has been a stressful day, and we have the time. The evening is
filled with the usual tasty food and pleasant conversations, and everything is
witty and amusing. There is nothing at all that might have been boring about
this charming evening, so we come home quite satisfied. Yet, in retrospect, it
becomes clear: ‘I was bored after all this evening.’
Heidegger begins by noting that there is no ‘fluttering unease of passing
the time, in looking for something to occupy us’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 111).
No single activity during the evening, such as listening to music or smok-
ing a cigar, is a deliberate way of being occupied. Rather, it is ‘our entire
comportment and behavior that is our passing the time’ (Heidegger 1983, p.
112). In this sense, ‘[the] evening is that with which we are bored, and si-
multaneously, what we are bored with is passing the time’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 113). Heidegger also draws our attention to the fact that what bores us is
not a determinate boring thing, but an ‘I know not what’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 114). Moreover, we are not ill at ease by a time that passes too slowly, but
instead have given ourselves time for the evening. So, we are not being held
in limbo by a dragging of time. Nor are we left empty by the refusal of the
beings surrounding us, for we are ‘quite taken by everything’ and ‘the evening
satisfies us’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 115).
The second form of boredom, then, manifests itself quite differently from
the first form, and this prompts Heidegger to inquire further into its structural
moments. In what sense are we left empty in being bored with the evening?
With a sense of casualness, we are there chatting away, letting ourselves be
swept along by the train of events of the evening, and abandoning ourselves to
simply being part of what happens. We seek nothing from the evening: ‘any
seeking to be satisfied by beings is absent in advance . . . is already obstructed
162 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

by such casualness. We are thus left empty through an ‘obstructive casual-

ness’ (Heidegger 1983, pp. 117-118). In this casualness, we not only abandon
ourselves to what goes on, but also leave our proper self behind; we slip away
from ourselves. Thus, in ‘leaving ourselves behind in abandoning ourselves
to whatever there is going on, an emptiness can form’ (Heidegger 1983, p.
119). Rather than an already present emptiness that remains unfulfilled by the
refusal of beings to satisfy us, as with the first form of boredom, the emptiness
first comes from us. This is why we speak of ourselves as being bored.
In an effort to disclose how we are held in limbo in the second form of
boredom, Heidegger highlights the role of time in the example of the evening.

He proceeds by recalling how the whole situation is determined in advance. We have left
ourselves time for the evening. We have taken time for the evening. What does it mean to
take time? What time have we taken for ourselves here? Some span of time that is freely
lying around and belongs to no one? Or does the time that we take belong to someone? It
belongs to us. We take time from that time which is apportioned to us; from the time to
which our whole Dasein is given over; from the time of whose scale, moreover, we are not
at all certain (Heidegger 1983, p. 123).

We thus do something with our time by leaving ourselves time and taking
time for the evening. What, then, do we do with our time? Heidegger proposes
that we ‘spend it,’ ‘waste it,’ ‘we take time in such a way that we do not have to
reckon with it,’ and thereby ‘transform time in a certain way’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 123). We transform our time, which is familiar to us as that which passes
and flows, by bringing it to a stand during the evening. Yet, this time that
stops flowing does not vanish. In bringing time to a stand, we close ourselves
off from the sequence of nows, and become stuck in one ‘stretched ‘now”
(Heidegger 1983, p. 125). We are entirely present for whatever comes up, and
as such, we are cut off from what we have been and from what we will be, from
our past and our future (Heidegger 1983, pp. 123–25). Stuck in the standing
now, we are

being bound to our time. This not being released from our time, from our time which im-
presses itself upon us in the direction of the standing ‘now’ is our being held in limbo
to time in its standing, and is thus the sought-after structural moment of being bored
with . . . (Heidegger 1983, p. 126).

The second form of boredom seems to be a ‘more profound boredom’ in

that it ‘grasps more at the roots of our Dasein’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 107).
Moreover, the interpretation of the second form of boredom has taken us
deeper into the essence of boredom and its relation to time, for it now appears
to be clearer that boredom is grounded in or ‘springs from the temporality of
Dasein’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 127). However, these are not conclusions, but
directives that point toward a third form of boredom.
 HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BOREDOM, AND THE SCIENTIFIC 163

The third form of boredom: Profound boredom

Heidegger proposes that profound boredom discloses itself ‘whenever we

say or . . . silently know that it is boring for one’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 134).
The expression ‘It is boring for one’ is revealing in itself. The indeterminate
‘it’ and the impersonal ‘for one’ point to the fact ‘that we here become an
undifferentiated no one’ where ‘[name], standing, vocation, role, age and
fate as mine and yours disappear’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 135). This profound
boredom is not relative to any particular situation or circumstance; it ‘can
occur out of the blue’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 135). Thus, the occasion of this
third form of boredom could be anything, such as ‘it is boring for one’ to walk
through the streets of a large city on a Sunday afternoon’ (Heidegger 1983,
p. 135).
Passing the time is not only ‘powerless against’ profound boredom, but is
‘no longer permitted by us at all’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 136). We do not react or
respond to profound boredom by seeking to be occupied or by distracting our-
selves, as with the first and second forms of boredom. Rather, we understand
its ‘overpowering nature,’ in which it ‘manifests how things stand concerning
us’ and compels us ‘to listen’ to what it makes manifest (Heidegger 1983, p.
136). This is a boredom that overcomes us in such a way that we can neither
struggle against nor evade it by passing the time, for we sense that it tells us
something important about ourselves.
With respect to the structural moment of being left empty, the emptiness
that we feel when we are profoundly bored lies in our being indifferent to
everything at once – to whatever situation we may be in, to the specific beings
surrounding us, and to ourselves as particular persons. In Heidegger’s terms,
the emptiness ‘consists in the indifference enveloping beings as a whole’
(Heidegger 1983, p. 138). Heidegger emphasizes that profound boredom is not
about finding everything boring ‘for me’ as a particular person, but ‘for one’
as a particular human existence. When it is boring for one, then, everything
faces one as indifferent, including oneself as a me, with all of my personal
features. Nothing appeals to one and one feels that there is nothing one can do
to get oneself interested or involved. Everything appears in such a way that it
denies one those possibilities and thus leaves one empty. As Heidegger puts it:

[The] beings that surround us offer no further possibility of acting and no further possibility
of doing anything. There is a telling refusal on the part of beings as a whole with respect
to these possibilities . . . Being left empty in this third form of boredom is Dasein’s being
delivered over to beings’ telling refusal as a whole (Heidegger 1983, p. 139).

Heidegger works out the structural moment of being held in limbo by

focusing more closely on what is involved in being left empty. The refusal is a
telling refusal of beings as a whole in the sense that it points to or announces
164 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

the unexploited possibilities of our existence (Heidegger 1983, pp. 140–41).

As everything recedes into indifference and leaves us in the lurch, as it were,
we become aware that we are able to, but do not, exist in other possible ways.
This is not an awareness of what I as a particular individual am able to do, but
do not do, e.g., change careers, for such personal details are irrelevant when
it is boring for one. Profound boredom ‘brings the self in all its nakedness to
itself as the self that is there’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 143). In this sense, Heidegger
proposes that we are held in limbo by ‘being impelled toward the originary
making-possible of Dasein as such’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 144).
Heidegger claims that ‘the more profound it becomes, the more completely
boredom is rooted in time’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 133). It is important to note
that he does ‘not regard time as something we find within our consciousness
or as a subjective form,’ for such is the view of ascertaining (Heidegger 1983,
p. 133). Rather, it is ‘the time that we ourselves are’ (Heidegger 1983, p. 133);
our existence itself unfolds in terms of time. Every moment of our existence
is oriented simultaneously to who we will be, who we have been, and who
we are. Future, past, and present are the unified directions in which we exist.
Heidegger refers to this threefold unity as the ‘horizon’ of time (Heidegger
1983, p. 145). Time is not ‘some neutral container’ of beings, but ‘participates’
in making them manifest (Heidegger 1983, p. 145 and p. 150). Thus, all beings,
including ourselves, are manifest to us in the threefold temporality of being.
The temporal character of profound boredom clarifies this form of boredom
further. In the emptiness that we feel when we are profoundly bored, ‘in
every respect, in retrospect and prospect, beings simultaneously withdraw’
(Heidegger 1983. p. 145). We become indifferent at once to what is (present),
what was (past), and what will be (future), and find ourselves unable to get
involved with anything that is. We are thus left empty because we are numb
with regard to these temporal dimensions. As Heidegger puts it, ‘being left
empty is possible only as our being entranced by the temporal horizon as such’
(Heidegger 1983, p. 147).5 In profound boredom, then, we are spellbound by
time as an undifferentiated whole. Time is what leaves us empty and what
holds us in limbo in profound boredom (Heidegger 1983, p. 149). Boredom
springs from our very essence as temporal beings.

Hypothesis generation

Applying Heidegger’s methodology to the phenomenon of boredom has

brought us to an awakened understanding that provides rich material for hy-
pothesis generation in cognitive science. This shift from Heidegger’s phe-
nomenology to cognitive science represents a move from the awakening to
the ascertaining of the three forms of boredom with their structural moments
and modes of passing the time. Heidegger’s awakening of boredom strove to
 HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BOREDOM, AND THE SCIENTIFIC 165

preserve the immediacy of this mood, releasing it from the theoretical con-
structs of subjectivity, objectivity, and consciousness, so that it could unfold
‘straightaway.’ The insights into what it is like to be bored were gained from
such releasement, and not from trying to ascertain boredom from the start
by treating it as an object to be observed in a detached manner. We propose
that the understanding that is thereby awakened offers a new starting point
for cognitive scientists to ascertain boredom as they formulate and test their
hypotheses.
Our proposal differs significantly from those made by both analytic philoso-
phers of mind and neurophenomenologists because both of these groups begin
and end with ascertaining. Dennett’s heterophenomenological method, for ex-
ample, ‘maintains a constructive and sympathetic neutrality’ with regard to the
‘assertions of subjects’ as they report their experiences (Dennett 1991, p. 83),
and thus offers descriptions of the subject’s ‘stream of consciousness’ (Den-
nett 1991, p. 98). Another example of an ascertaining approach can be found
in Varela’s neurophenomenology, which offers analyses of ‘lived experience’
(Varela 1995, p. 341) that involve examining the objects of consciousness as
they appear in the stream of consciousness (Varela 1995, p. 344). Heidegger’s
existential phenomenology cuts through these theoretical assumptions about
subjects and objects of consciousness or lived experience in the attempt to go
more deeply into boredom itself. The approach points to new directions that
could be followed by cognitive scientists in their investigations. In the spirit
of exemplifying the move from awakening to ascertaining, we suggest that
Heidegger’s phenomenological description of the three forms of boredom be
used as material for the generation of hypotheses about the psychology and
neurophysiology of boredom.
Researchers seeking to understand boredom proneness and the cognitive
and affective aspects of boredom might use Heidegger’s phenomenological
interpretations to focus their investigations. For example, studies report the
difficulty in distinguishing boredom from dislike (Perkins and Hill 1985, p.
222), from dissatisfaction and frustration (Mikulas and Vodanovich 1993, p.
5.), and from depression, loneliness, and hopelessness (Kass, et al. 2001).
The structural moments of the three types of boredom might be a means of
distinguishing boredom from these and other states of consciousness.
Seib and Vodanovich (1998) report on studies that relate boredom to at-
tention (see Hamilton et al. 1984). The phenomenon of passing the time in
the three forms of boredom should be directly relevant to these studies. In
the first form we deliberately attend to specific things. In the second form of
boredom, our attention is grabbed by the elements of the situation rather than
being directed by us. In the third form, attention is held in the undifferen-
tiated unity of time, focused on the telling refusal of beings and the telling
announcement of unexploited but contentless possibilities. From the first to
the third form, then, attention becomes less under the control of the subject,
166 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

as well as less deliberately focused on particular things at hand. Studies of the

mechanisms of attention should detect this waning of attention and internal
control.
Seib and Vodanovich (1998) also report on studies that relate boredom
to cognitive effort (see Leary et al., 1986). Heidegger’s phenomenology of
passing the time should be directly relevant to these studies. The three forms
of boredom each prompt a response of passing the time, but the response is
significantly different in each case. From the first to the third form, the strength
of the hold intensifies, and we are increasingly unable, or unwilling, to try to
abandon the source of our boredom. In the first form, we work hard to drive
time on and shake off boredom. In the second form, our entire comportment
and behavior is an effortless passing of the time, and it is this with which we are
bored. In the third form of boredom, passing the time is immediately thwarted,
and we neither struggle against nor evade boredom. We actively struggle to
drive time on in the first form of boredom, less effort is expended in the second
form, and the third form exhibits no effort at all, as subjects succumb to the
overpowering nature of profound boredom. In addition, this activity should be
reflected in the neurophysiology underlying the phenomenon of effort (Freude
and Ullsperger 2000).
Heidegger’s understandings concerning boredom should also be relevant to
researchers exploring the neural and biochemical basis for moods in general
and changes in mood. Moods have been linked to changes in neurotransmitters
and neural electrolytes, as well as to changes in the endocrine system (Griffiths
1997, pp 248–253). Thus, we might expect that the three forms of boredom
would be identifiable in terms of specific changes in these mechanisms and
systems. The increasing intensity and profundity of the experience of bore-
dom ought to be reflected in whatever mechanisms underlie variations in the
intensity of mood. The decreasing expenditure of effort and involvement of
self as boredom becomes more profound should also be reflected in neural
and biochemical findings
In all three forms of boredom we are held in limbo, and our experience of
time is characteristically changed. In the first form, we are held in limbo by time
as it drags. In the second form, we are stuck in the standing now. In the third
form, we are entranced by time as an undifferentiated unity and held in its grip.
This suggests that those neural mechanisms involved in temporality operate
differently in these three modes. In the first form of boredom, where time drags,
researchers should be able to detect neural mechanisms suggestive of excessive
attention to the present, and neglect of past and future states. In the second
form of boredom, where subjects who are bored with a situation are stuck in the
standing now, researchers should be able to detect more dramatic changes in
the neural mechanisms responsible for representing the past and projecting the
future. Similarly, the brains of subjects experiencing profound boredom should
not represent prior states and possible futures at all. Techniques pioneered by
 HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF BOREDOM, AND THE SCIENTIFIC 167

Dan Lloyd using fMRI data and neural networks might be appropriate for this
investigation (Lloyd 2002).
Each form of boredom also exhibits the structural moment of being left
empty. In the first form, particular things leave us empty. In the second form,
the emptiness comes from ourselves as we leave ourselves behind. In the
third form, emptiness consists in the telling refusal of beings as a whole; we
are indifferent to everything. From the first to the third form of boredom, the
experience of being left empty becomes more profound and pervasive, and we
are left increasingly unfulfilled. These characteristics may have implications
for researchers investigating the nature of satisfaction and frustration (Hill
and Perkins 1985).
The research directions we have noted are merely suggestive; we leave to
cognitive scientists the task of explaining the psychology and neurophysiol-
ogy of boredom. What is important here is that Heidegger’s methodology can
suggest structured approaches to these and other investigations of conscious
experience. Heidegger’s phenomenological approach is thus a promising ad-
dition to the ‘tool box’ of cognitive scientists.

Notes

1. In 1987, Jackendoff discussed the need to bring the phenomenological mind into the
ken of cognitive science (Jackendoff 1987). Flanagan suggested in 1992 that cog-
nitive science consider phenomenological descriptions along with the hypotheses of
experimental psychology and neuroscience (Flanagan 1992). More detailed propos-
als have come from phenomenologists suggesting that a ‘naturalized’ phenomenology
might bridge the explanatory gap. 1991 saw the publication of The Embodied Mind
in which Varela, Thompson, and Rosch drew on insights from the Buddhist theory of
mind as well as the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty to offer a pragmatic path to-
ward ‘circulation between cognitive science and human experience’ (Varela et al. 1991).
Subsequently, Varela introduced neurophenomenology as a remedy for the hard prob-
lem (Varela 1995). The publication in 1999 of Naturalizing Phenomenology provided
detailed examinations of how Husserlian phenomenology might contribute to a sci-
entific theory of cognition (Petitot et al. 1999). Velmans’ Investigating Phenomenal
Consciousness follows a similar path but broadens the array of approaches (Velmans
2000).
2. Though they are distinct modes of inquiry, metaphysics and science both must satisfy the
‘essential connection between being and truth’ (Heidegger 1983, pp. 89–90). Heidegger
defines truth as ‘manifestness’ or ‘unconcealment’ (Heidegger 1983, pp. 28–30), and argues
that how beings manifest themselves determines how we can understand and come to know
them. At the same time, the nature of a being will determine how it may reveal itself or
make itself manifest.
3. For a sample of Heidegger’s reflections on the relation between science and philosophy,
see: (Heidegger 1966, 1968), ‘The Age of the World Picture’ and ‘Science and Reflection’
in (Heidegger 1977), and ‘What is Metaphysics?’ and ‘Modern Science, Metaphysics, and
Mathematics’ in (Krell 1993).
168 S. P. STAFFORD, AND W. TORRES GREGORY

4. Heidegger himself was involved in a similar exchange of ideas with the Swiss psychiatrist,
Medard Boss, and his students, where they considered various psychological theories,
including psychoanalysis, and discussed some psychiatric cases (Heidegger 2001).
5. This temporal entrancement can be ruptured only by something that is itself temporal.
Following Kierkegaard, Heidegger calls it the moment of vision (Augenblick) (Heideg-
ger 1983, p. 149). It is that instant in which see ourselves as who we can be here and
now. Such seeing involves not merely an awareness, but also a determination to be who
we can be in a specific situation. In Heidegger’s terms, it is the look of resolute dis-
closure (Blick der Entschlossenheit). It is that instant in which who we will be, have
been, and are steps forth as one concrete me. When we are profoundly bored, we are
thus thrust into the moment of vision because it is what makes possible the particular
me in each case. The temporal character of being held in limbo lies in the moment of
vision.

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