Saturday, September 24, 2022

Meaning of Transcendental Phenomenology Explained

Edmund Husserl is the founder of what is known as "transcendental phenomenology", which was for him an attempt at a scientific renewal of philosophy. Husserlian phenomenology tries to describing the meaning that the world has for us before all theoretical and speculative conceptions of it.​ This is primarily achieved through phenomenological reduction which goes "back to the things themselves" as Husserl's motto calls. The aim of phenomenology is to thus render things as themselves and describe being as being. 

 

Applying Transcendental Phenomenology

Husserl was against philosophy's reliance on theories and terms that were like "castles in the air". He was especially critical of psychologism. Phenomenological reduction is aimed at clearing the fog and bringing philosophy back to the ground of things themselves. Another central concept of transcendental phenomenology is that of intentionality, which means that things that gain meaning are always intended by our consciousness. An additional fundamental concept is that of evidence or intuition, which is an extension of the concept of perception and which refers to a more original truth than the propositional one: this truth is that of what appears.

Transcendental phenomenology can be considered a radical form of philosophical empiricism. However, it avoids the classic distinction  between empiricism and rationalism by making empirical data a conscious activity.


Husserl's legacy

Husserl thought that his method should be a strict science in the sense or relying only on given known things. He also thought that it should progress as a collective project that unites many thinkers.

However later phenomenologists took different directions. Collective aspirations aside, phenomenology progressed as philosophy usually does through debate and dialectics. Husserl's theory of transcendental phenomenology took various shifts and turns with following thinkers. These, Like Heidegger, sought to make existence itself an intentional object of study, while others, like Levinas, sought to go beyond experience towards realms like infinity. 

 

See also: Introduction to Husserl's Phenomenology

What is Phenomenology