The Slow Death of Phenomenology

Abstract

The question of evidence within phenomenology is not only central, but also a potential pitfall. Beginning with the status of indubitable evidence in the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, specifically as outlined in his Cartesian Mediations, Paul J. Ennis argues that the immediacy sought after by Husserl is an example of the Sellarsian myth of the given. He then turns to the question of the self within transcendental phenomenology in light of Thomas Metzinger’s claim that the self of traditional philosophy, conceived in light of developments in contemporary neuroscience, does not exist. Finally, Ennis presents Paul Churchland’s Prototype Vector Activation theory of cognition as a better alternative to understanding the questions once posed by the phenomenological tradition.