Lec 3 Phenomenology

Methods of
Philosophizing
Lecture Notes #3
What is Philosophizing?
• It refers to thinking and expressing oneself

in a philosophical manner
• It discusses matters from a philosophical

standpoint
Phenomenology: On
Consciousness
• First formally introduced by Edmund Husserl (2)
(1859-1938) on the Introduction to the second
volume of the first edition of his Logische
Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations)
• A radical, anti-traditional way of doing philosophy

• Focuses on the careful inspection and
description of phenomena or
appearances*
Phenomena/appearances
From the Greek word phainomenon
meaning appearance
any object of conscious experience; that
which we are conscious of
1) A method for finding and guaranteeing the truth
2) A description of the givens of immediate

experience.
3) An attempt to capture experience in process as lived,

through descriptive analysis.
• studies how things appear to consciousness or are given in
experience, and not how they are in themselves,
For instance, assault victims may
experience fear for months or years
after the assault, even when no
apparent danger exists. What does this
fear mean? Where does it come from?
How is it experienced? The answers
bring us closer to the phenomenon that
is lived.
4) A method of knowing that "begins with the things
themselves, that tries to find a 'first opening' on the
world free of our perceptions and interpretations,
together with a methodology for reducing the
interference of our preconceptions.
5) A method of learning about another person by
listening to their descriptions of what their subjective world
is like for them, together with an attempt to understand this
in their own terms as fully as possible, free of our
preconceptions and interferences.
• In ordinary life, we "capture" and conceptualize everything,

using our preconceptions to turn everything into something
other than it actually is, one or two steps removed from direct
unfiltered experience.
• Phenomenology strives to clarify our receiving abilities and
rediscover the actuality of what is.
• Whatever appears in the manner in which it
appears, as it manifests itself into our
consciousness, to the experiencer
• The first step of phenomenology is to seek

to avoid all misconstructions and
impositions placed on experience in
advance
• Explanations should not be imposed before a
phenomena is understood from within
THESIS
• Consciousness is intentional. Every act of
consciousness is directed at some object, material or
ideal (freedom).
• A phenomenologist distinguishes and describes the

nature of intentional acts of consciousness and the
intentional objects of consciousness, which are
defined through the content of consciousness
• One can describe the content and object of consciousness
without any particular commitment to the actuality or
existence of that object
• Hence, you can describe a dream in the same terms as you
describe the contents of a movie or a scene from a novel
• The inspection and description are supposed to be done
without any presuppositions, including as to whether such
objects of consciousness are “real”; or to what their causes
or consequences may be
• Sample Phenomena: time consciousness, mathematics,

logic; perception and experience of the social world; moral,
aesthetic and religious experiences
• Phenomenology is a way of unfolding the
dimensions of human experience &
consciousness ;how we exist in, live in, our
world. It examines:
• What is distinct in each person's experience

• What is common to the experience of groups of
people who have shared the same events or
circumstances
Principles of Research Approach
• Don't test hypotheses
• Don't use a theoretical model to determine the question.
"PRIMACY OF THE LIFE-WORLD" means that our approach to
understanding is "pre-theoretical." (Yes, in a sense of course this is a
contradiction because we are describing a theory. But the theory
includes methods to minimize its impact on The nature of the data
obtained.)
• Try to come as close as you can to understanding the experiences
being lived by the participants as they do.
• There is no claim that phenomenological results are predictive
or replicable. Several studies that probe the same phenomenon may
discover similar meanings, each described from a unique
perspective. These perspectives may also lead to the discovery of
new and different meanings.
METHODS: How do you apply the idea of phenomenology, of
appreciating things in an unbiased manner, in concrete situations?
• DESCRIBE, DESCRIBE, DESCRIBE is a key part of

the phenomenological orientation.
• The people in question tell their own story, in their own
terms. So "fidelity to the phenomenon as it is lived" means
apprehending and understanding it in the lived context of
the person living through the situation.
METHODS cont..
• BRACKETING is suspending or setting aside our biases,
everyday unerstandings, theories, beliefs, habitual modes
of thought, and judgments. Part of the larger process of
epoche´.
• Since bias is an inevitable part of the study of human beings,
phenomenologists deal with it by putting it completely in the
situation, by attemping to become aware of theiir preconceptions
and biases before beginning the study and while the study is
occurring, and then "bracketing" or suspending them so as to be
as open as possible to what the subject wants to share.
METHODS cont..
• EPOCHE´: Learning to look at things in a way such
that we see only what stands before our eyes, only
what we can describe and define.
• FACTICITY: a belief in factual characteristics of real

objects. In phenomenology, by bracketing our
facticity, we transfer our focus from assumed things
"out there" to our experience.
METHODS cont..
• "FIRST OPENING": (A direct experience of a person,
object, or event, before any of our mental screens of
filters change it.)
• "PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION" is (1) an attempt

to suspend the observer's viewpoint. (2) Hearing another
person's reality and focusing on the central, dominant, or
recurring themes which represent the essential qualities
or meanings of that person's experience.
CONCLUSION
The interest of a phenomenologist are the contents of
consciousness, not on the things of the natural world.
• Natural World: our ordinary everyday viewpoint
and the ordinary stance of the natural sciences in
describing things and state of affairs
• Phenomenological Standpoint: the special
viewpoint that is achieved by a phenomenologist as
he or she focuses not on things but our consciousness
of things

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Methods of

• It refers to thinking and expressing oneself

• It discusses matters from a philosophical

• A radical, anti-traditional way of doing philosophy

2) A description of the givens of immediate

3) An attempt to capture experience in process as lived,

• In ordinary life, we "capture" and conceptualize everything,

• The first step of phenomenology is to seek

• A phenomenologist distinguishes and describes the

• Sample Phenomena: time consciousness, mathematics,

• What is distinct in each person's experience

• DESCRIBE, DESCRIBE, DESCRIBE is a key part of

• FACTICITY: a belief in factual characteristics of real

• "PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION" is (1) an attempt

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