Acquiring the Idea of Pure Transcendental Consciousness

Abstract

When Husserl’s various “introductions to phenomenology” are looked at together in order to discern the structure (or what I have called the “schema”) of the line of thought which runs through them all, one finds after a discussion of the motivating problem an attempt by Husserl to demonstrate that conscious-ness constitutes the world, i.e., that the being there for us of the world and of what is in it is an achievement of consciousness. This demonstration is a general argument whose premises are supplied by non-transcendental, phenomenological analyses, phenomenological analyses carried out in the natural attitude. This aspect of the “one” introduction to phenomenology which I am constructing from Husserl’s texts has two main sections. In the first, the “natural attitude” is descriptively analyzed in order to disclose its “general thesis,” the belief in the being “on hand” (Vorhandenheit) and in the “actuality” (Wirklichkeit) of the world. Once this is achieved, the possibility of suspending this belief is raised, a procedure which is called the “transcendental phenomenological epoche.” This is followed by the second main section, which is a psychological investigation of consciousness. The purpose of this investigation is to yield those premises needed for the conclusion that consciousness constitutes the world.