Husserl & phenomenology

Introduction to the subject.

 What is Robert up to?

Horizonal concept
Appears all sorts of places
A form of explanation

Explanation
Pedagogics
Management
Science
What happens when you do not
manage Henry properly
Analogy & metaphor
 Edmund Husserl
Born April 8th, 1859

Prossnitz (Moravia - eastern Czechloslovakia, was a part

of Austria)

Leipzig mathematics, physics, philosophy

Wilhelm Wundt - founder of the first institute for

experimental psychology

Habilitation dissertation On the Concept of Number, 1887

 The professor
1901 to 1916 Professor, University of Gotttingen

1907 Lecture series

The Idea of a Phenomenology

1913
Ideas: General Introduction to Phenomenology

1916 to 1929 Professor, University of Freiburg

1933 Nazis refuse to let him teach

Breaks with Heidegger

Died1938
 Brentanos challenge

Franz Brentano (German, 1838-1917) - criticized British empiricism for its tendency to present consciousness in terms of ideas or
representations.

Descartes' dualism:
physical world mental world
physical objects mental objects
physical objects sense data

Correspondence the real world and our perceptions

Brentano - intentionality the key constituent of mental states

To be conscious you must be conscious of something
To think you must think about something
The something is named the intentional object of consciousness
Hence, the mind is mobile or dynamic, not static as per any theory of correspondence

Two responses to this at the end of the 19th Century:

English speaking philosophy focus on the objects of consciousness. Science supported by analytic philosophy: restrict investigations to the
empirical (what you can get through the senses, verifiably with other people)
Continental philosophy Husserl

A difference of opinion
Kant we construct the objects of consciousness
Brentano consciousness just points to the objects of consciousness (they come from elsewhere)
 Psychologism
Husserls first response to Brentano

Philosophy of Arithmetic, 1891 - psychological

foundation of arithmetic

Criticized for its

psychologism by Gottlob Frege

Husserl moves from psychologism to

phenomenology
 Psychologism its all in the mind
The tendency to interpret events or
arguments subjectively, or to exaggerate
the relevance of psychological factors.
The basis for all branches of philosophy,
including science, logic, mathematics.

Leading opponents:
Frege The Foundations of Arithmetic
Husserl The Prolegomena of Pure Logic
 Phenomenology
Husserls reaction against psychologism
The lived world
Intentionality
Bracketing
Essences
 The lived world
Husserl:
Acknowledged founder of the phenomenological response
Consciousness the main topic for philosophy
Discovered "the natural standpoint":

I am aware of a world, spread out in space endlessly, and in time becoming and
become, without end.

I am aware of it, that means, first of all, I discover it immediately, intuitively, I

experience it. Through sight, touch, hearing, etc corporeal things somehow spatially
distributed are for me simply there,..."present," whether or not I pay them special
attention by busying myself with them, considering, thinking, feeling, willing.

He means:
This is the world as it is actually lived by an individual. Although we can develop "worlds"
of arithmetic or science by our knowledge of things from a particular standpoint, the
natural standpoint - the world as actually lived by individuals - is always prior to, and
conditioning of, any particular knowledge possible.
 The scientific world
Key contrast with the lived world
(phenomenology)

Why do we not like science?

Objectivism (Descarte) eg ancient symbols
Scientism all meaningful questions
Technicism manipulation of nature
Ahistorical, collectivism
Problems with models and laws
 Intentionality
A feature of consciousness
of something
Think
Feel
Touch
Hate
Hope
Know
Understand
 Bracketing out
Bracketing = phenomenological reduction

All you know of an object is what it actually presents to your consciousness.

However, we add in information when we see an object.

For example, we might see an object from an aesthetic or scientific point of view. We might use logic to deduce things
about an object. When we see a part of something we assume the rest is present. Symbols might upset us
because of what they mean to us.

Consequently, we must bracket things out. The brackets go round categories of information. These categories are then
tossed from our minds. In this way, we will be left with the object itself that is what we must study.

Husserl referred to this suspension of judgment as epoch.

This is similar to a psychological technique used by the French to resist torture.

Some examples: Knowing a flower, a colleague, a student, a number, a symbol, a colour, a word, a car.

Only phenomenological knowledge is certain, and then only to the individual.

 Essences
Eidetic reduction is the abstraction of essences
(eidetic = mental image)
What is intelligible?
Phenomena are found in consciousness
The goal is to find the basic components of a phenomena
Mathematics
Logic
Time
Space
Physical objects
Green is green, not blue and yellow mixed, not involving of
mathematics, nor theory
Husserl Platonic forms are all there is - subjective
 Your residue of knowledge
What is important to you is that which can be experienced by your senses. After reduction and
abstraction, what remains is what an individual knows, regardless of the scientific or
transcendental data.

After removing the scientific and transcendental, what remains is called the Phenomenological
Residue of the phenomena.

This residue exists in three forms: cogitata, cogito, & ego

Cogitata are the subjects of thought or objects of consideration. One cannot deny or understand nothing -
something must be under consideration for thought to occur.

Cogito or cogitations comprise all the acts of consciousness, including doubting, understanding, affirming,
denying, et cetera. The ego exists only as a result of these cogitations and these cogitations continue only
as long as we are self-aware.

Phenomenological Ego - the stream of consciousness in which one acquires meaning and reality from the
surrounding environment.

Husserl considered it a great mystery and wonder that a group of beings was aware of their own existence.
In effect, human consciousness is the phenomenological result of introspection. By observing that "I can
touch and see my being," we recognize that we exist. The science proving we exist is not of value to human
consciousness. The ego is always present, or nothing exists for the individual.
 Husserl to Heidegger
Heidegger draws upon
Aristotle
Kant
Husserl

Being has been forgotten, both

the specific being
Being as a general event

Redirects hermeneutics
 Hermeneutics
Initially, the interpretation of texts, eg as per Medieval scholars & the Bible
Heideggers hermeneutics
Ontological investigation your own project (not to seek the meaning of text, but
to use the text to reveal what helps you).
Being is fixed by history, race, & culture
Gadamer
Born Marberg, 1920 (died aged 102)
Doctorate supervised by Heidegger between the wars
Difficult to write without that accursed feeling that Heidegger was looking over my
shoulder
Truth and Method, 1960
Being is located by language. If there is no word for it, it is not there. "Being that can be
understood is language. If I have no word for something, it does not exist for me, so
existence, or failure to exist, happens within language. Without language, there is no
understanding, and language is a product of history and culture.
How to discover the meaning of texts
The importance of oracy
Hermeneutics as a form of literary criticism
 Summary
Husserl began a discipline
Phenomenology, the antithesis of science
Key directions include
Ontology (narrow, Heidegger)
Hermeneutics (more broad, from Heidegger)