Husserl is famous for his phenomenological moto of a
"return to things themselves", but what does he mean by
"thing"?
According to Husserl, anything that "manifests itself
in itself" can be a thing. This means a real object, a thought, an
horizon, a reference and even nothingness. All this can be the objects or
'things" of phenomenological study.
According to Husserl, nothing we perceive gives itself to
us completely. Perception and intentionality only ever see one of the
sides of the thing, the others being suggested, so that the thing, which
emerges through endless retouching, can never be given to me in an absolute
way.
"Thing"
in later Phenomenology
For Maurice Merleau-Ponty a thing can never be separated
from the person who perceives it . However he remarks that even if one cannot
conceive of the thing perceived without someone who perceives it, the fact
remains that the thing presents itself to the very person who perceives it as a
thing “in itself”. But since Husserl observed that the "thing" can
never be wholly perceived as "in itself", it follows that "things"
are not positive objects. That is, they are always perceived incompletely
through horizons we no definite meaning of their own.
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