Phenomenology

Central Problem

The chapter addresses the fundamental problem of how philosophy can become a rigorous science capable of grasping essential truths about consciousness and the world. The central question is: how can we access the essential structures of experience and consciousness, moving beyond both naive realism (which assumes the independent existence of external objects) and psychologism (which reduces logical truths to psychological facts)?

The phenomenological approach seeks to overcome the limitations of both positions by developing a method that suspends (“brackets”) our natural assumptions about reality in order to focus on how objects appear to consciousness — not as facts among other facts, but as phenomena revealing their essential structures. This requires clarifying the nature of consciousness itself as intentionality: consciousness is always consciousness of something.

A further problem emerges in Husserl‘s later work: the crisis of modern science, which has become alienated from the “world of life” (Lebenswelt) through its mathematization and objectivism, losing touch with the human subject who is the source and purpose of all scientific activity.

Main Thesis

Phenomenology, as developed by Husserl, conceives philosophy as the analysis of consciousness in its intentionality. Since consciousness is essentially intentionality — always consciousness of something — analyzing it means examining all possible ways in which something can be “given” to consciousness and all types of “meaning” or “validity” that can be attributed to objects of consciousness.

The Phenomenological Method: Two fundamental operations are required:

• Eidetic Reduction: Replacing consideration of facts or natural things with the intuition of essences (eide) — universal, invariant structures of which individual objects are merely particular instances
• Epoché (Bracketing): Suspending the thesis of the effective existence of the real world — not denying it, but putting it “out of action” to focus on phenomena as they appear to consciousness

The Structure of Consciousness: Husserl distinguishes:

• Noesis: The acts of consciousness (perceiving, remembering, imagining)
• Noema: The objective element of lived experience — the object considered in its various modes of being given (perceived, remembered, imagined)
• The object itself remains a transcendent pole around which noematic experiences are oriented

The Transcendental Turn: In his later works, Husserl moves toward a transcendental idealism, positing a transcendental ego that cannot itself be subjected to epoché since it is the very subject performing the bracketing. This raises the problem of solipsism, which Husserl addresses through the concept of intersubjectivity: the world must be founded on the constitutive activity of multiple co-subjects within transcendental subjectivity.

The Crisis of European Sciences: Husserl‘s final work diagnoses modern science as having lost contact with the Lebenswelt — the pre-categorical, concrete dimension of lived experience. Science has become a “sustruzione” (construction upon) that covers over its vital roots. The task of phenomenology is to restore science’s connection to human life and to reassert the philosopher’s role as “functionary of humanity.”

Historical Context

Phenomenology emerged in the early 20th century as a response to two dominant tendencies: the psychologism that sought to ground logic and mathematics in psychological processes, and the positivist-naturalist worldview that reduced all knowledge to factual sciences.

Husserl (1859-1938) was born in Moravia to a Jewish family. He studied mathematics in Berlin with Weierstrass and Kronecker before encountering Brentano in Vienna, which turned him toward philosophy. He converted to Protestantism in 1886 and began his academic career at Halle (1887), later moving to Göttingen (1901) and Freiburg (1916).

The phenomenological movement grew through the circles at Munich and Göttingen, including figures like Adolf Reinach, Alexandre Koyré, Roman Ingarden, and Edith Stein. Husserl’s relationship with Heidegger, initially one of friendship and collaboration, soured after Being and Time (1927) developed phenomenology in a direction Husserl found incompatible with his own.

In 1933, following the Nazi rise to power, Husserl was removed from the academic body due to his Jewish origins. He remained in Germany, continuing to work on The Crisis of European Sciences until his death in 1938. His massive archive of over 40,000 pages of stenographic manuscripts was saved by the Franciscan friar Herman Leo van Breda and transferred to the Husserl Archives at Leuven.

Philosophical Lineage

flowchart TD
    Kant --> Bolzano
    Kant --> Brentano
    Aristotle --> Brentano
    Bolzano --> Husserl
    Brentano --> Husserl
    Frege --> Husserl
    Descartes --> Husserl
    Husserl --> Heidegger
    Husserl --> Scheler
    Husserl --> Merleau-Ponty
    Husserl --> Sartre
    Husserl --> Ingarden
    Husserl --> Stein
    Scheler --> Value-Ethics

    class Kant,Bolzano,Brentano,Aristotle,Husserl,Frege,Descartes,Heidegger,Scheler,Merleau-Ponty,Sartre,Ingarden,Stein,Value-Ethics internal-link;

Key Thinkers

Thinker	Dates	Movement	Main Work	Core Concept
Bolzano	1781-1848	Logic	Theory of Science	Proposition-in-itself, truth-in-itself
Brentano	1838-1917	Descriptive Psychology	Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint	Intentionality of consciousness
Husserl	1859-1938	Phenomenology	Logical Investigations, Ideas I	Epoché, eidetic reduction, lifeworld
Scheler	1874-1928	Phenomenology	Formalism in Ethics	Material value ethics, emotional intuition
Frege	1848-1925	Logic	Foundations of Arithmetic	Anti-psychologism, sense and reference

Key Concepts

Concept	Definition	Related to
Intentionality	The essential nature of consciousness as always being consciousness of something; every cogito has its cogitatum	Brentano, Husserl
Epoché	Phenomenological suspension of the natural attitude’s affirmation of reality; “bracketing” the world to focus on consciousness	Husserl, Phenomenology
Eidetic Reduction	Transition from consideration of individual facts to intuition of essences (eide) — universal, invariant structures	Husserl, essence
Noesis/Noema	Noesis: acts of consciousness (perceiving, remembering); Noema: object in its modes of being given to consciousness	Husserl, intentionality
Phenomenological Residue	What remains after epoché — consciousness itself, which cannot be bracketed since it performs the bracketing	Husserl, transcendental ego
Transcendental Ego	The pure ego presupposed by all reduction, protagonist of meaning-conferral, distinct from empirical-natural ego	Husserl, Phenomenology
Lebenswelt (Lifeworld)	The pre-categorical dimension of concrete lived experience; the “realm of original evidences” underlying science	Husserl, Crisis
Intersubjectivity	The constitutive role of other egos as co-subjects; solution to the problem of transcendental solipsism	Husserl, phenomenology
Material Value Ethics	Ethics based on objective values given to emotional intuition, contrasted with Kant’s formal ethics	Scheler, values
Sustruzione	Construction-upon: science’s overlay on the lifeworld that conceals its vital roots	Husserl, Crisis

Authors Comparison

Theme	Husserl	Brentano	Scheler
Intentionality	Constitutive of consciousness; basis for phenomenology	Distinguishing mark of psychic phenomena	Applied to emotional life
Objects	Can be real or ideal; constituted in consciousness	Initially both real/unreal; later only real	Values as objects of emotional intuition
Method	Eidetic reduction, epoché	Descriptive psychology	Phenomenological analysis of emotions
Ethics	Implicit in responsibility toward humanity	Origin of moral knowledge	Material ethics based on value hierarchy
Focus	Consciousness, essences, lifeworld	Classification of psychic phenomena	Values, sympathy, religious experience

Influences & Connections

• Predecessors: Husserl ← influenced by ← Brentano (intentionality), Bolzano (logic), Frege (anti-psychologism), Descartes (cogito), Kant (transcendental method)
• Contemporaries: Husserl ↔ dialogue with ↔ Scheler, Heidegger (later rupture), Munich and Göttingen circles
• Followers: Husserl → influenced → Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Ricoeur, Stein, Ingarden
• Opposing views: Husserl ← criticized by ← psychologism, naturalism, Heidegger (existential turn)

Summary Formulas

• Husserl: Phenomenology is the rigorous science of consciousness in its intentionality; through epoché and eidetic reduction, we access essential structures of experience and restore philosophy’s foundational role for science and human existence.
• Brentano: Every psychic phenomenon is characterized by intentionality — the reference to an immanent object; this distinguishes mental from physical phenomena.
• Bolzano: Beyond subjective acts of thought exist “propositions-in-themselves” and “truths-in-themselves” — the objective logical dimension independent of whether they are expressed or thought.
• Scheler: Values are objective essences given to emotional intuition in a hierarchical order (sensible → vital → spiritual → religious); material ethics overcomes the limitations of Kantian formalism.

Timeline

Year	Event
1837	Bolzano publishes Theory of Science
1859	Husserl born in Prossnitz, Moravia
1874	Brentano publishes Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint
1891	Husserl publishes Philosophy of Arithmetic (psychologistic phase)
1900-01	Husserl publishes Logical Investigations (break with psychologism)
1907	Husserl develops the notion of phenomenological reduction in The Idea of Phenomenology
1913	Husserl publishes Ideas I; Scheler begins Formalism in Ethics
1916	Husserl moves to Freiburg; meets Heidegger
1929	Husserl delivers Cartesian Meditations in Paris
1933	Husserl removed from academic body by Nazi regime
1936	First parts of The Crisis of European Sciences published
1938	Husserl dies in Freiburg; archives saved by van Breda

Notable Quotes

“We put out of action the general thesis which belongs to the essence of the natural attitude; we place in brackets everything it embraces from an ontic standpoint: thus the entire natural world.” — Husserl

“In the misery of our life — so we hear — this science has nothing to say to us. It excludes in principle precisely those questions which are the most burning for human beings.” — Husserl

“Philosophers become functionaries of humanity, responsible not only before themselves, but before the destiny of the species.” — Husserl

---

NOTE

This summary has been created to present the key points from the source text, which was automatically extracted using LLM. Please note that the summary may contain errors. It serves as an essential starting point for study and reference purposes.