Husserl’s phenomenology: A short introduction for psychologists

August 2012

Marc Applebaum, PhD

Faculty of Psychology and Interdisciplinary InquiryAssociate Editor, Journal of Phenomenological PsychologyFounding Editor, PhenomenologyBlog

Acknowledgment

This presentation is deeply indebted to the many lectures of Amedeo Giorgi’s I have been fortunate to attend over the years…

An attitude of open expectancy

Phenomenology is not simply an approach to philosophy, but more than that, as Giorgi has said, it is a way of seeing.

This course is an introduction to this way of seeing, an invitation to what Gendlin (1982) might term a “felt sense” of phenomenology.

What is phenomenology?

Introduction to some core concepts in Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy

Φαινόμενoν that which appears or is seenΛόγος a discourse or reasoned account

Phainomenon + Logos

Phenomenology is a practice of carefully describing and unfolding what is given to us in perception

A provisional definition…

For phenomenology, consciousness is privileged because it is the medium through which anything whatsoever is knownConsciousness is not “thing-like;” it is that by means of which we encounter the world and others

Consciousness—our means of access to the world

The fundamental attribute of consciousness is that it presents

Attention to lived perception is the foundation of phenomenological praxis

For phenomenology…

Phenomenology offers a presentational theory of consciousness, not a representational theoryFor Husserl, we perceive the “things themselves,” not representations of thingsOf course, perception is fallible and always in the process of self-correcting…

Perceptual presence

The German term for intuition, Anschauung, can also be translated as “perception”The Latin root of intuition is intueri, “looking upon”In philosophy this means that an object is present in perception for a subject

“Intuition”—the presentational faculty of consciousness

For phenomenology, consciousness “reaches out” to an object—this quality of reaching out is called the intentionality of consciousnessThe Latin root of intend is intendere, “stretching out toward”

Intentionality

This stretching out is a distinctive activity of consciousness…

Anything we can be conscious of is referred to as an “object of consciousness”We can distinguish between different types of objects--For example, there are objects that transcend the conscious acts that grasp them

Objects of consciousness

And there are objects that are immanent in the conscious acts

Likewise phenomenology distinguishes between real and irreal objects—Real objects are located in space, time, and causality—like this table, Abraham Lincoln, or Chicago

Real and irreal objects

Irreal objects lack one or more of these attributes—a unicorn, a triangle, or the idea of justice

Though they are different kinds of objects, both are genuine objects for consciousness

Real and irreal objects

The natural attitude is the way in which we encounter the world in everyday life—objects are assumed to be real and the world is assumed to be the way we grasp it…The natural attitude is usually not recognized as an attitudeThis is contrasted to chosen, reflective attitudes such as a scientific attitude

The natural attitude

An object’s factual attributes are those that locate it in space, time, and causalityPositivist philosophy seeks to ground science in only these attributes Phenomenology rejects reducing human phenomena to (only) their facticityBecause this would imply viewing human phenomena as merely thing-like

Facticity

Husserl’s phenomenological philosophical method

To investigate a phenomenon, we adopt the attitude of the phenomenological reduction, which means—

We bracket past knowledge of that phenomenon, andWe withhold affirming existentially that that the phenomenon “is” as it appears, in order to carefully describe how it appears

Is a shift in attitude that frees the researcher from the natural attitudeReduction means returning something to a more primordial mode

The reduction--

We set aside the facticity of the object, and describe it just as it appears to us, as a presence

ἐποχή means suspending or “withholding from”We withhold from making the habitual existential affirmation regarding what we perceive By doing this, we become free to linger with and examine the perceptions themselves as presences instead of as facts

In doing this we employ an epoché

1. We employ the reduction and epoché, 2. We view the given as a phenomenal

presence,3. We next seek to identify the essential

structure of the phenomenon using imaginative variation

Review of methodical steps so far…

We use our imagination to change any aspect of the phenomenon we’re examining, in order to discover what’s essential and what isn’tThe test for what’s essential is: if we remove an essential constituent, the phenomenon is no longer be recognizable as itself—

Free imaginative variation

Demonstrates that for phenomenology, possibilities are as important as factsHusserl didn’t claim to be inventing this technique, he was relying upon and clarifying something consciousness does all the time…

This methodical varying---

We will be working with the research method developed by Giorgi (2009)As you will see, the descriptive method closely follows Husserl’s methodical steps for phenomenological inquiry

The psychological research method

Selected ReferencesGendlin, E. T. (1978). Focusing. (first edition). New York:

Everest House.Giorgi, A. (2009). The descriptive phenomenological

method in psychology: A modified Husserlian approach. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.

Giorgi, A. (2000). Psychology as a human science revisited. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 40 (3): 56-73.

Mohanty, J. N. (1987). Philosophical description and descriptive philosophy. In Phenomenology: Descriptive or hermeneutic? (pp. 40-61). The First Annual Symposium of the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA.