Husserl & the Adventure of Phenomenology - In 12 Minutes
Summary
TLDRThis script explores the philosophy of phenomenology, pioneered by Edmund Husserl, focusing on the subjective experience of reality. It distinguishes between pure phenomenology, with its static and genetic forms, and existential phenomenology, associated with thinkers like Heidegger and Sartre. The script delves into Husserl's methods, such as the phenomenological reduction and eidetic reduction, aiming to uncover the essence of experiences like dreaming. It also touches on phenomenology's influence on psychology and its potential to address the crisis in modern philosophy and culture by fostering a deeper understanding of consciousness and the life world.
Takeaways
- 📚 Phenomenology is a philosophical approach that seeks to understand how things appear to our consciousness and the world as we experience it subjectively.
- 🎓 The modern philosophical concept of phenomenology originated with Edmund Husserl, a Czech-German philosopher who lived from 1859 to 1938.
- 🔍 There are two main variants of phenomenology: pure (or transcendental) phenomenology and existential phenomenology, associated with later thinkers like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre.
- 🧠 Pure phenomenology is further divided by Husserl into static and genetic forms, focusing on the essential structures of consciousness and their development over time.
- 🌐 Existential phenomenology emphasizes the individual's experience of reality, including the intersubjective and social aspects of the 'life-world'.
- 🤔 The phenomenological attitude involves suspending or bracketing our natural beliefs about reality to focus on the structures of consciousness that constitute our experience.
- 🕊️ The 'epoché' is a method of phenomenology that allows us to bracket our assumptions and beliefs about the world to examine our experiences more closely.
- 🔬 Husserl's 'eidetic reduction' and 'imaginary variation' are techniques used to explore the essential features of experiences, like what makes a dream a dream.
- 🧘♂️ Intentionality, a key concept in phenomenology, describes consciousness as both active (action-oriented) and referential (always referring to something).
- 🌟 Phenomenology has influenced psychology, leading to the development of phenomenological psychology, which focuses on the subjective experience of psychological phenomena.
- 🌱 Husserl's later work emphasized the 'life-world' and the need to understand the experiential basis of our existence to address the crises in philosophy, culture, and the modern world.
Q & A
What is phenomenology and why is it significant in modern philosophy?
-Phenomenology is a philosophical approach that seeks to provide an account of how things appear to our awareness and how the world appears to us in terms of our subjective experience. It is significant because it reflects on everyday experience to understand its underlying order, structure, and coherence, offering insights into the fundamental nature of reality and consciousness.
Who is Edmund Husserl and what role did he play in the development of phenomenology?
-Edmund Husserl was a Czech-German philosopher who lived from 1859 to 1938. He is considered the founder of modern philosophical phenomenology, which he developed as a method to understand the structures of consciousness and the world as it appears to us.
What is the difference between pure phenomenology and existential phenomenology?
-Pure phenomenology, also known as transcendental phenomenology, focuses on the structures of consciousness and the essence of experiences. Existential phenomenology, associated with thinkers like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, emphasizes the individual's subjective experience and existence in the world.
What is the 'natural attitude' in Husserl's framework?
-The 'natural attitude' refers to the common belief that the reality we inhabit is fundamentally separable from our subjective experience of it. It is the everyday way we see reality, assuming the world is 'out there' relative to our experience.
Can you explain the phenomenological attitude and its significance?
-The phenomenological attitude involves suspending or bracketing our belief in the natural attitude to focus on the ongoing activity of consciousness that constitutes our experience of reality. This shift in perspective can lead to insights into the fundamental nature of things and is significant for understanding the experiential basis of our lives.
What is the 'epoché' or 'bracketing' in phenomenology?
-The 'epoché' is an act of bracketing or suspending judgment about the natural world to focus on the experiential terrain. It allows us to turn our attention to how our consciousness constitutes our experience of reality, which is a key part of the phenomenological reduction.
How does the concept of 'intentionality' in phenomenology differ from its everyday use?
-In phenomenology, 'intentionality' is a technical term indicating that consciousness is both active and referential. It means that consciousness is always about something, involving an active process and a reference to an object or state of affairs.
What is the 'eidetic reduction' and how is it used in phenomenology?
-The 'eidetic reduction' is a method used in phenomenology to explore the essential features of an experience by employing 'imaginary variation'. It helps to bring about an intuition into the essential nature of an experience by varying all possible attributes to determine what is truly necessary for it to be what it is.
What is Husserl's concept of the 'life world' and its importance?
-The 'life world' is Husserl's term for the total assemblage of the entire world as we know it, including the intersubjective and social spheres. It represents a shift in emphasis towards understanding the world from an experiential perspective and is important for grounding philosophy, science, and our technological world in a thoughtful understanding of our experience.
How has phenomenology influenced the field of psychology?
-Phenomenology has inspired phenomenological psychology, a school of thought that explores people's experiences of psychological phenomena. It uses qualitative research methods to analyze personal descriptions of experiences to reveal their underlying psychological meaning, shifting psychology towards a more subjective understanding of experiences.
What crisis does Husserl identify in relation to the natural attitude in Western philosophy and science?
-Husserl identifies a crisis in Western philosophy and science due to their reliance on the natural attitude without exploring the experiential basis that underlies it. This has led to a crisis in European humanity and the total meaningfulness of its cultural life, contributing to chaos and devastation in the modern world.
Outlines
🔍 Introduction to Phenomenology
This paragraph introduces the concept of phenomenology, distinguishing it from its Enlightenment origins to its modern philosophical form initiated by Edmund Husserl. It explains phenomenology as a method to understand the appearance of things to our consciousness and the world from a subjective experience. Husserl's phenomenology is divided into pure (transcendental) and its static and genetic forms, and existential phenomenology, associated with thinkers like Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. The natural attitude, where we assume the world is separate from our experience, is contrasted with the phenomenological attitude, which involves bracketing our assumptions to focus on the constitution of reality through consciousness. Husserl's concept of phenomenological reduction is introduced as a shift in perspective to gain insights into the nature of reality and consciousness.
🌌 Exploring Consciousness and the Life World
This paragraph delves into Husserl's techniques for exploring consciousness, such as the search for essences or eide through phenomenological and eidetic reductions. It describes the method of imaginary variation to understand the essential nature of experiences like dreaming. The intentionality of consciousness is highlighted, emphasizing its active and referential nature. Husserl's later work shifts focus to the 'life world,' encompassing the entire world as we know it, including social and intersubjective dimensions. This shift leads to existential phenomenology, which influences phenomenological psychology, focusing on personal experiences of psychological phenomena and their underlying meanings.
🌟 The Significance of Phenomenology in Philosophy and Culture
The final paragraph discusses the importance of phenomenology in addressing the crisis in Western philosophy and culture by grounding our understanding of the world in our experiential basis. Husserl's view is presented that the lack of exploration into the experiential foundation has led to chaos and devastation in the modern world. Phenomenology is posited as a means to provide a thoughtful and methodical understanding of our consciousness and existence, thereby offering a potential remedy to the crisis by reorienting philosophy, science, and technology towards a deeper comprehension of our life world.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Phenomenology
💡Edmund Husserl
💡Natural Attitude
💡Phenomenological Attitude
💡Eidetic Reduction
💡Imaginary Variation
💡Intentionality
💡Life World
💡Existential Phenomenology
💡Phenomenological Psychology
💡Crisis of Philosophy
Highlights
Phenomenology is a philosophical approach to understanding how things appear to our awareness and the world as we experience it.
Modern philosophical phenomenology originated with Edmund Husserl, focusing on subjective experience.
Phenomenology involves reflecting on everyday experience to uncover its underlying structure and coherence.
Pure phenomenology, also known as transcendental phenomenology, is associated with Husserl's work.
Existential phenomenology, associated with thinkers like Heidegger and Sartre, focuses on the individual's experience.
The natural attitude is our usual way of perceiving reality as separate from our subjective experience.
The phenomenological attitude involves suspending belief in the natural attitude to focus on consciousness.
The epoché, or bracketing, allows us to focus on the experiential terrain of consciousness.
The phenomenological reduction is the shift in perspective that comes from adopting a phenomenological attitude.
Phenomenology can reveal insights into the fundamental nature of things, such as the variability of time's meaning.
Phenomenology is an adventurous activity that involves becoming aware of the basic structure of our lives.
Husserl's method involves searching for the essences or eide of experience through phenomenological reduction.
The eidetic reduction and imaginary variation help to explore the essential nature of experiences like dreaming.
Intentionality in phenomenology refers to consciousness being both active and referential.
Husserl's later work focused on exploring the life world, which includes the intersubjective and social spheres.
Existential phenomenology was influenced by Husserl's ideas and further developed by philosophers like Heidegger.
Phenomenology has influenced the field of psychology, leading to the development of phenomenological psychology.
Phenomenological psychology uses qualitative research methods to analyze personal experiences of psychological phenomena.
Husserl believed that the lack of exploration of experiential basis in Western philosophy and science has led to a crisis.
Modern phenomenology aims to address the crisis in philosophy and culture by understanding our experience and consciousness.
Transcripts
Edmund Husserl and the adventure of
phenomenology in 12 minutes
what is the adventure of phenomenology
before examining this question it's
probably good to spend a few seconds on
disambiguation since the term
phenomenology appears in more than one
context the term first came into
prominence during the Enlightenment
period when philosophers such as Conte
and Hegel began using it however
phenomenology in its modern
philosophical sense began with the work
of the Czech German philosopher Edmund
Husserl
who lived from 1859 to 1938 and has
continued through the 20th and 21st
centuries basically modern philosophical
phenomenology is about trying to provide
an account of how things appear to our
awareness and ultimately how the world
appears to us in terms of our subjective
experience of it in other words
phenomenology is about reflecting upon
our everyday experience in order to gain
some sense of its underlying order
structure and coherence within the broad
scope of this project there are two
basic variants pure phenomenology which
is also sometimes known as
transcendental phenomenology is the type
of phenomenology associated with who
sural over the course of his career who
Cyril further divided pure phenomenology
into what are known as its static and
genetic forms however in contrast to
pure phenomenology existential
phenomenon G is a type of
phenomenological inquiry associated with
later thinkers such as Martin Heidegger
Maurice merleau-ponty
and jean-paul Sartre within whorls
framework the usual way we see reality
is in terms of what he calls the natural
attitude where we proceed through our
lives with the common natural belief
that the reality we inhabit is
fundamentally separable from our
subjective experience of it that the
world is out there relative to our
experience of it however in contrast to
the natural attitude it is possible to
adopt a phenomenological attitude
wherein we suspend or bracket our belief
in the natural
by recognizing that it is just that a
kind of belief
note that this is very different from
disbelieving in the natural attitude
this act of bracketing which is
sometimes known as the epic a allows us
to turn our attention to the ongoing
activity of consciousness through which
our experience of reality is ultimately
constituted postural calls the overall
act of using the Epoque a to reveal this
experiential terrain the
phenomenological reduction the basic
shift in perspective that comes from
employing the phenomenological reduction
to assume a phenomenological attitude
toward our experience can produce some
surprising insights into the fundamental
nature of things for instance from the
point of view of the natural attitude a
minute of time is simply a minute of
time regardless of how or where we spend
it however from the point of view of the
phenomenological attitude a minute of
time depends on how we actually
experience it for instance a minute of
time may pass very quickly for us if
we're excited or very slowly if we're
bored the upshot here is that the
meaning of time can vary considerably
depending upon whether we're viewing it
from the perspective of the natural
attitude or from that of the
phenomenological attitude but of course
the same thing applies to all the other
facets of our lives their significance
varies quite a bit depending upon
whether we're viewing them from a
natural or a phenomenological
perspective this is part of what makes
phenomenology and adventurous activity
because phenomenology involves becoming
aware the basic structure of our lives
things like the nature of reality and
consciousness and exploring them instead
of just taking them for granted although
the specific techniques for doing this
are somewhat complex let's take a few
seconds to give you a general sense for
them as hosts oral describes and one of
his main works a work called ideas the
way to go about exploring consciousness
is to undertake a search for what he
calls its essences or I das that is the
features of our experience that are both
necessary and invariant and that
consequently make our experience what it
is but how does one do that once one has
turned one's reflective awareness toward
experience by employing the
phenomenological reduction one can then
undertake a second reduction called nyuk
reduction with respect to some more
specific question such as what makes a
dream a dream what ho Cyril is after is
a special moment in the enquires
reflective awareness a moment that he
calls an intuition in which the Enquirer
realizes the essential nature of say a
dream
the eidetic reduction helps bring about
an intuition into something's essence by
employing a method known as imaginary
variation in imaginary variation The
Inquirer varies all the possible
attributes of an experience as a way of
exploring what is truly necessary for it
to be what it is to explore what makes a
dream a dream for instance for example
would it still be a dream if nothing
weird ever happened in it would it still
be a dream if I couldn't remember having
fallen asleep beforehand would it still
be a dream if my consciousness felt
sharp rather than slightly fuzzy etc
hopefully this kind of exploration helps
the Inquirer have a special moment of
intuition a kind of aha moment in which
he or she realizes the experiences
overall essential nature as Husserl once
famously characterized his project back
to the things themselves by which he
meant the things as we experience them
rather than as we take them typically
for granted one of the first important
realizations that appear in pure
phenomenology is the realization that
consciousness is intentional which here
is a technical term that's definitely
not identical to the normal English word
in phenomenological parlance
intentionality denotes two things
simultaneously the intentionality of
consciousness means that consciousness
is action alinder that it is a kind of
activity or doing second intentionality
means that consciousness is referential
in
sure the consciousness is always
referring to something let's look at an
example the kind of consciousness we
have when we're dreaming involves the
actual activity of dreaming this is the
action-oriented side of dream
consciousness which is sometimes known
as an oasis technically at the same time
dream consciousness involves a referent
in this case a specific dream which is
sometimes known as a no way m'a
technically basically as who learned
from his mentor
Franz Brentano consciousness is not like
a box that contains perceptions instead
consciousness is an active ongoing
referential process but in terms of our
subjective experience what makes dream
consciousness different from other modes
of consciousness what would the essence
of dreaming be what would be its
necessary and invariant features the
answer would reside in giving an account
of how no a sees and no Amata go here
and unfold over time in dream
consciousness and a phenomenology of
dream consciousness would aim at
exploring how that specifically happens
exploring consciousness in this way
occupied Husserl for several decades
however toward the end of his life he
recast his vision of phenomenology in
terms of exploring what he called the
life world basically the life world is
the total assemblage of the entire world
as we know it including the inter
subjective and social spheres this shift
in emphasis also heralded the advent of
existential phenomenology whose
exponents such as Heidegger Marilu Ponte
and Sartre would become household names
in the decades that followed
phenomenology x' emphasis on exploring
different states of consciousness and
the life world from an experiential
perspective has also helped to gain
inroads into the domain of psychology
and indeed phenomenology has inspired
and influenced an entire school of
psychological thought known naturally
enough as phenomenological psychology
basically phenomenological psychology
proceeds on the basis of the theoretical
and methodological foundation
established not only by huh Cyril but
also by the existential phenomenological
thinkers who followed him given that
foundation in phenomenological
philosophy phenomenological psychology
seeks to explore people's experiences of
various psychological phenomena such as
the experience of living through major
depression or recovering from drug
addiction often this takes the form of
asking people to describe their personal
experiences of these sorts of things and
then applying a stepwise qualitative
research method to analyze those
descriptions in order to reveal their
underlying psychological meaning all in
all phenomenology z' influence on
psychology was also one among many
forces that have invited psychology to
shift its center away from being a
purely objective istic undertaking - one
that is also able to embrace and
understand psychological phenomena in
more subjective experience all terms but
why is all of this important in the
final analysis why does it matter
whether we explore our consciousness or
our existence or our being in the way
that phenomenological thinkers like who
Cyril described in his last unfinished
work Horrell gives at least a partial
answer to that question for her Cyril
the fact that Western philosophy and
science have proceeded almost entirely
on the basis of the natural attitude
without truly exploring the experiential
basis that underlies it has produced a
kind of crisis in both philosophy and
culture and ultimately in the world as
we know it as he writes the crisis of
philosophy implies the crisis of all
modern Sciences as members of the
philosophical universe at first a latent
then a more and more prominent crisis of
European humanity itself in respect to
the total meaningfulness of its cultural
life it's total existence for instance
isn't this a big part of why our modern
world ends up giving birth to so much
chaos and devastation on such a regular
basis isn't it largely because we're
proceeding through modernity with no
real understanding of the most
fundamental
of our lives such as our consciousness
our being and existence as such modern
phenomenology represents an attempt to
address that crisis by grounding both
philosophy and science and by
implication the whole of our
technological world in a thoughtful
methodical understanding of our
experience our consciousness and
ultimately the life world that we
inhabit and that's literal in 12 minutes
you
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