College aantekeningen
Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology: Key Concepts
- Vak
- Instelling
This lecture notes discusses the key concepts of Edmund Husserl's phenomenology.
[Meer zien]Voorbeeld 2 van de 6 pagina's
Voorbeeld 2 van de 6 pagina's
In winkelwagen
In winkelwagen
gesponsord bericht van onze partner
1 beoordeling
Door: jofriston • 3 jaar geleden
Verkoper
Volgen
jeffocs
Ontvangen beoordelingen
Voorbeeld van de inhoud
Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology: Key ConceptsPhenomenology comes from the two Greek words phainomenon, which means
“appearance,” and logos, which means “reason” or “study.” Hence, etymologically
speaking, phenomenology means “study of phenomenon.” The term phenomenon
means anything that exists of which the mind is conscious. A “book” is a concrete
example of a phenomenon. A book is there existing materially, and the mind is
conscious of it. However, phenomenology is formally defined as the investigation of the
essence or the nature of material things or things that appear to us.
It is important to note that Husserl did not invent phenomenology out of a vacuum.
The context here is that realism and idealism had reached an impasse toward the end of
the nineteenth century regarding that status of the knower and the thing known. As is
well known, the realists argue for the independence of the “object” of knowledge, while
the idealists argue for the primacy of the “subject,” that is, the knower. It is in view of
this impasse that Husserl offered his phenomenology as a way out. But instead of
making a philosophical speculation of the nature of reality, Husserl argued for the need
for philosophy to turn to a pure description of the “what is,” of the thing as it appears to
us. Thus, the famous Husserlian motto: “back to the things themselves.” In Irrational
Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, William Barrett writes: “For Husserl,
phenomenology was a discipline that attempts to describe what is given to us in
experience without obscuring preconceptions or hypothetical speculations.”
With this note, let me now briefly sketch Husserl’s notion of phenomenology as a
method of philosophizing. Please note that I will not discuss in great detail Husserl’s
model of phenomenology as our concern here is just to know the nature and dynamics
of phenomenology as a method of philosophizing. For a detailed discussion on the
nature and dynamics of Husserl’s model of phenomenology, see Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, “The Phenomenological Reduction,” http://www.iep.utm.edu/phen-
red/#SSH5a.i
Again, phenomenology for Husserl is a discipline that attempts to describe (or
understand) what is given to us in experience. In other words, phenomenology for
Husserl provides an account of how things (phenomena) appear to our awareness or,
ultimately, how the world appears to us in terms of our subjective experience of it. That
is why, according to Gerry and Rhiza, phenomenology deals primarily with the
determination of the nature and structure of human conscious experience. Indeed,
, phenomenology is about reflecting upon our everyday immediate or lived experiences
in order to gain some understanding of its underlying order, coherence, and structure.
To begin with, within Husserl’s model of phenomenology (which is called pure
phenomenology, in contradistinction to the existential phenomenology of his
followers, such as Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre) is
the idea that we normally view reality from the vantage point of what Husserl calls “The
Natural Attitude.” For Husserl, this natural attitude toward things suggests that people
conduct their life with the common natural belief that the reality that they inhabit is
fundamentally separable from their subjective experience of it. In other words, for
those people with a natural attitude, the world is out there relative to their experience
of it.
In contrast to this natural attitude, Husserl claims that it is possible for people to adopt a
phenomenological attitude, wherein they suspend or “bracket” their belief and natural
attitude, and eventually recognize that it is just a natural attitude―that the knowledge
that they gained from this attitude is not real or true knowledge. This act of bracketing,
which is also called epoche, allows people to turn their attention on the ongoing activity
of their consciousness to which their experience of reality or things is ultimately
constituted.
According to Husserl, the overall act of employing epoche, that is, suspending or
bracketing all preconceived notions and prejudices about a particular phenomenon
under study―and then record, identify, and then put to one side―in order for us to
gain an understanding of the true nature of reality, is called phenomenological
reduction. According to Richard Schmitt, it is called “phenomenological” because it
transforms the world into a phenomenon, and it is called “reduction” because it leads us
back to the source of the meaning and existence of the experienced world.
According to Frogstuff, “The concept [of epoche or bracketing] can be better understood
in terms of the phenomenological activity it is supposed to make possible: the
‘unpacking’ of phenomena, or, in other words, systematically peeling away their
symbolic meanings like layers of an onion until only the thing itself as meant and
experienced remains. Thus, one’s subjective perception of the bracketed phenomenon
is examined and analyzed in its purity.”
It must be noted, however, that in phenomenological reduction, the mind does not
make up features of reality that everything must conform to. On the contrary, objects in
the world (phenomena) already have some kind of structure or unity, and these
objective meaningful features of the things (phenomena) are disclosed to us in our
Dit zijn jouw voordelen als je samenvattingen koopt bij Stuvia:
Bewezen kwaliteit door reviews
Studenten hebben al meer dan 850.000 samenvattingen beoordeeld. Zo weet jij zeker dat je de beste keuze maakt!
In een paar klikken geregeld
Geen gedoe — betaal gewoon eenmalig met iDeal, creditcard of je Stuvia-tegoed en je bent klaar. Geen abonnement nodig.
Direct to-the-point
Studenten maken samenvattingen voor studenten. Dat betekent: actuele inhoud waar jij écht wat aan hebt. Geen overbodige details!
Veelgestelde vragen
Wat krijg ik als ik dit document koop?
Je krijgt een PDF, die direct beschikbaar is na je aankoop. Het gekochte document is altijd, overal en oneindig toegankelijk via je profiel.
Tevredenheidsgarantie: hoe werkt dat?
Onze tevredenheidsgarantie zorgt ervoor dat je altijd een studiedocument vindt dat goed bij je past. Je vult een formulier in en onze klantenservice regelt de rest.
Van wie koop ik deze samenvatting?
Stuvia is een marktplaats, je koop dit document dus niet van ons, maar van verkoper jeffocs. Stuvia faciliteert de betaling aan de verkoper.
Zit ik meteen vast aan een abonnement?
Nee, je koopt alleen deze samenvatting voor €5,38. Je zit daarna nergens aan vast.
Is Stuvia te vertrouwen?
4,6 sterren op Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
Afgelopen 30 dagen zijn er 67418 samenvattingen verkocht
Opgericht in 2010, al 15 jaar dé plek om samenvattingen te kopen