Consciousness has been a central issue and a key concept in Phenomenology. Husserl gave several accounts of consciousness that were developed throughout his own work and in later Phenomenology.
The first sense that Husserl gave consciousness is the
unity of the same flow of experience. This means that consciousness is what
ties together the changing experience of the world.
In a second sense, it is the internal apperception of one's own experiences grasped in their living selfhood. In a simple definition, this means that consciousness is the awareness of continuously being aware of things.
Husserl's third definition of consciousness is based
on his notion of intentionality. In this variation, consciousness
is everything experienced as intentional. For Husserl, everything that has
meaning for us is something our consciousness "intends". Things don't just "stand"
outside of us but appear from within a cognitive relation. Consciousness is
simply the other end of this intentional relationship to experience.
Implications of Husserl's Consciousness
Consciousness as defined through continued temporal experience makes it something which survives the Phenomenological Reduction and Epoché. This means that it cannot be denied or doubted that there is "something" perceiving experience (this is similar to Descartes' Cogito)
Husserl adds a few distinctions within his understanding to the term. First, Consciousness is intertwined with the natural world as both lived consciousness and world consciousness. These spheres are not the same, and we are simultaneously aware of both the world and our perception of the world.
Second, Husserl distinguishes between intentional
consciousness and absolute consciousness; a distinction which is based on the
fact that intentional acts flow in time whereas absolute consciousness is an
apprehension of time which itself is not in time. Temporal predicates such as
'now', 'before', 'successively', 'simultaneously' do not apply to absolute
consciousness itself, but only to immanent temporal objects such as intentional
experiences of perception.
See also: Husserl on Transcendental Subjectivity and the Transcendental I
