Phenomenology

Abstract

From the very start on, Husserl was obsessed with the questions of how to begin as a philosopher and, more particularly, of how to appropriately begin with phenomenological reflections. On the one hand, Husserl never gave up the Cartesian search for an apodictic and absolute certainty. On the other hand, Husserl never lost track of his empirical and psychological roots. In order to open up a fresh methodological perspective for the upcoming chapters, this opening section will offer a refreshed perspective on Husserl’s methodological premises. It will be shown that the problematic of the reduction and the search for an absolute beginning for phenomenological considerations can be grounded in anthropological considerations, which combine both the Cartesian and the empiricist perspective. Whereas the Cartesian moment is most visible in Husserl’s attempt to let all phenomenological insights emerge out of the “phenomenological reduction,” the empiricist moment can be located in the eidetic variation. While the central concept for the former perspective is the concept of reflection, the central concept for the latter perspective is the concept of imagination. The intelligibility (or lack of intelligibility) of Husserl’s theory of reduction has been disputed ever since it was introduced. As a consequence, however, the second component of phenomenological philosophy, namely, Husserl’s introduction of eidetic intuition, has receded into the background.¹ In what follows, I shall attempt to give the latter notion a new reading in order to show that if we want to trace it to its roots, we must look not toward method, but toward the realm of the factual. Thus, despite Husserl’s own rejection of anthropological considerations, it is precisely these sorts of considerations that can serve as a transcendental leading clue for the proper combination of absolute reflection and anthropological imagination.²