PHENOMENOLOGY

a school of philosophy that arose at the turn of the 20th century with the work of Edmund Husserl. Its primary objective has been to take a fresh approach to concretely experienced phenomena through the direct investigation of the data of consciousness-without theories about their causal explanation and as free as possible from unexamined presuppositions-and to attempt to describe them as faithfully as possible. By carefully exploring examples, one can thus fathom the essential structures and relationships of phenomena. Phenomenology developed gradually through many reformulations by Husserl, but its central features may be enumerated as follows: The first step in the phenomenological method is the so-called phenomenological reduction, or epoche, by which is meant the description of mental acts in a way that is free of theories and presuppositions, either about those acts themselves or about the existence of objects in the world. In contrast to the psychologist, the phenomenologist disregards the causes, consequences, and physical accompaniments of mental acts. Objects, however, do not disappear altogether in such a process; for Husserl inherited from the German philosopher of psychology Franz Brentano the doctrine that every mental act is intentional, that it is "of" or "about" an object. The object need not actually exist; one can believe in dragons or see pink rats whether or not such things exist in the conventional sense. The object may also be an "irreal" one, such as a number. The description of mental acts thus involves a description of their objects, but only as phenomena and without assuming their existence. The second step in phenomenological analysis is the eidetic reduction, through which by reflecting on a particular act (e.g., seeing a tree) and by imaginatively varying certain of its features, the essence, or eidos, not merely of this particular act but of any comparable one (e.g., of seeing as such) may be intuited. Any object of vision must, for example, have colour, extension, and shape. Eidetic reduction may be used in examining not only sensory perception and its objects but also mathematical objects, as well as values, moods, and desires. Finally, the phenomenological view takes into account the process by which objects are constituted or built up in the cognition of them. Seeing a tree entails a diversity of visual experiences as the tree is seen at different times, from different angles, and at different distances, yet what is seen continues to be apprehended as a single persistent object. In his earlier writings, Husserl did not seriously doubt that objects exist independently of mental acts. The reduction is simply a device for focusing on them as phenomena. Later, however, he introduced the problematic notion of a transcendental phenomenological reduction, by which is discovered the transcendental ego, which is distinct from the phenomenal ego of ordinary awareness. At this stage Husserl moves away from his earlier realism toward a form of Kantian idealism, in which objects are regarded as not merely accessible to the ego but rather that their perceived nature is constituted by and dependent upon it. Husserl continually grappled with the problems thus presented for the common belief-itself a phenomenon-that objects exist independently of one's consciousness of them and that there are several distinct selves of equal status (intersubjectivity). In doing so, he came to regard the world as existing not for a single ego, but for a community of egos; in this light, the task of phenomenology is thus to reflect upon and describe this communal experience and its essential structures. Husserl's early concern with scientific knowledge gives way to the idea of the Lebenswelt ("life-world"), the world of lived experience, from which the world of science is seen ultimately to derive. While the interpretation and value of Husserl's doctrines are controversial, his influence has been extensive and diverse, particularly, but not exclusively, in continental Europe. He has influenced not only philosophers but also psychologists and sociologists. His existentialist followers-notably Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty-have called themselves phenomenologists, while discarding such Husserlian features of phenomenology as the view of philosophy as a rigorous science, the concern with epistemology, the epoche, and the transcendental ego. They are in general less concerned with cognition than with action, though Husserl's seminal notion of the Lebenswelt brings him closer to them. Additional reading Most of the classical works on Phenomenology were written by Edmund Husserl himself. In his Logische Untersuchungen, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1913-21; Eng. trans., Logical Investigations, 2 vol., 1970), one of the fundamental texts on Phenomenology, the phenomenological method is applied in the area of logic. The following works by Husserl appeared in the journal Jahrbuch fr Philosophie und phnomenologische Forschung (1913-30); Husserl's Ideen zu einer reinen Phnomenologie und phnomenologischen Philosophie (1913; Eng. trans., Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, 1931, reprinted 1969), through which Phenomenology established itself as transcendental philosophy and received worldwide reaction; Vorlesungen zur Phnomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1928; Eng. trans., The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness, 1964); and Formale und transzendentale Logik (1929; Eng. trans., Formal and Transcendental Logic, 1969); Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik (1916); and Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (1927; Eng. trans., Being and Time, 1962). The following works appeared in the series Husserliana (Husserl's collected works): Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vortrge (1950; Eng. trans., The Paris Lectures, 1964), which contains the text of the Paris lectures of 1929 and the subsequent elaboration; Die Idee der Phnomenologie (1950: Eng. trans., The Idea of Phenomenology, 1964), an introduction to Phenomenology in five lectures from 1907; Ideen, 3 vol. (1950-52); Die Krisis der europischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phnomenologie (1954; Eng. trans., The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, 1970), Husserl's later work (1934-37), significant for the problems regarding the life-world; Erste Philosophie, 2 vol. (1956-59), a critical history of ideas and a theory of reduction presented in a series of lectures, 1923-24; Phnomenologische Psychologie (1962), lectures from 1925, a different wording of the Encyclopdia Britannica article of 1927, with remarks by Heidegger and the Amsterdam addresses of 1925; Zur Phnomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (1966), text on the problem of time from 1893-1917 with lectures (in the middle) from 1905 on the inner time-consciousness (first edited by Heidegger); Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (1966), a phenomenological analysis having sensation as its subject matter; and Philosophie der Arithmetik (1970), early manuscripts from 1890 to 1901. His The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, trans. by Albert Hofstadter (1982; originally published in German., 1975), reproduces a course of lectures given in 1927. See also Joseph J. Kockelmans, Edmund Husserl's Phenomenological Psychology (1967); and Rudolf Boehm, Vom Gesichtspunkt der Phnomenologie (1968).In the series "Phaenomenologica" works are published that are written from a Phenomenological perspective; Herbert Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological Movement, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1965), worthy of particular mention, also appeared in this series. The journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is by no means, however, exclusively dedicated to Phenomenology. In England The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology first appeared in 1970. In the United States the following journals have appeared: Journal of Phenomenological Psychology (semi-annual); Research in Phenomenology (1971); and Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research.