OUTLINE ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

Traditional study of philosophy begins with logic, then metaphysics, then cosmology and ends with
philosophical psychology or philosophical anthropology (philosophy of man)

1. Man defined by traditional scholastic philosophy as rational animal, a composite of body of soul.
 Under the aspect of body, man is like any other animal, a substance, mortal, limited by time and space.
 Under the aspect of soul, man is rational, free, immortal.
 The soul is deduced from the behavior of man to think and decide.
2. Our critique of the traditional definition of man is that (a) it is dualistic; ( b) it looks at man more as an
object, an animal; (c) it proceeds from external to internal.
3. The pnomenlogical approach, on the other hand, is: (a) holistic;
(b) It describes man from what is properly human; (c) proceeds from internal to external.
4. Phenomenology was started by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) whose aim was to arrive at “philosophy as a
rigorous science”
 By “philosophy as arigorous science” Husserl meant “presuppositionless philosophy”, a philosophy with
the least number of presuppositions.
 Unlike descartes, Husserl was dissatisfied with the sciences of his time because they start with a complex
presuppositions.
 In particular, he was reacting against the naturalistic psychology which treats mantal activity as causally
conditioned by events of nature, in terms of S-R relationship (stimulus-reaction). Presupposition here is
that man is a mechanistic animal.
5. So, Husserl wanted philosphy to be “science of ultimate grounds” where the presuppositions are so basic
and primary that they cannot be reduced further.
6. How does one arrive at Philosophy? By trascending the natuural attitude.
 The natural attitude is the scientific attitude which was predominant in Husserl’s tim,e and carried to the
extreme to become scientistic.
 The scietific attituden observes things, expresses their workings in singular judgements,then by induction
and deduction, arrives at concrete result.
7. But this attitude contains a lot of assumptions:
 It assumes that there is no need to ask how we know.
 It assumes that the world (object) is oput there there, existing and explainable in objective laws, while
man the subject is pure consciousness, clear to itself able to know the world as it is.
 It takes for granted the world-totality.
8. In short, the natural attitude looks at reality as things, a“fact world”.
 The way of knowing in the natural attitude is fragmented, partial, fixed, clear, precise, manipulative, and
there is no room for mystery. It was moving away from the heart of reality.
9. So, the motto for Husserl and the Phenomenologistswas “back to things themselves !”
 By “back to things Themselves” Husserl meant the entire field of original experience.
 The ultimate root of philosophy was not to be found in a concept, nor in a principle, not in Cogito.
 Phenomenology attempts to go back to the phenomenon, to that which presents itself to man, to see
things as they really are, independent of any prejudice. Thus phenomenology is the “Logos of the
Phenomenon”.

II. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL

ATTITUDE.

1. Certain Characteristics of the phenomenological attitude clearly fulfills the aim of Husserl & Co. to go back
to things themselves.
 The phenomenologist posits unity first before analyzing the parts or aspects of this unity.
 By positing unity first, he is faithful to original experience because in original experience, we see no
opposition between subject and object.

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  When he is interested in a part, it is insofar as this lies in the context of totality of human experience. E.g.
language is not just the body of words butembodiment of thought, of culture.
 The phenomenologist describes, explicitates, unfolds , what is already there.
2. Because reality is so rich and inexaustible, the description is never final.
 The phenomenologist is primarily concern with experience and with man, with the world as lived by man.
 The phenomenologist uses “epoche” the bracketing of the natural attitude.

III. IMPORTANT STEPS IN THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

1. Epoche literally means “bracketing” which Husserl borrowed from Mathematics and applied to the natural
attitude.
 What I bracket in the Epoche is my natural attitude towards the object I am investigating, my prejudice,
my clear and conceptual knowledge of it that is unquestioned.
 When I bracket, I do not deny nor affirm but simply hold in abeyance: I suspend judgment on it.
 Epoche is important in order to see the world with “new eyes” and to return to the original experience
from where our conceptual natural attitude was derived.

2. Eidetic Reduction is one of the important reductions in the phenomenological method.

 “Reduction” is another mathematical term to refer to the procedure by which we are placed in the
“transcendental sphere” the sphere in which we can see things as they really are, independent of any
prejudice.
 “Eidetic” is derived from “eidos” which means essence. In eidetic reduction I reduce the experience to its
essence.
 I arrive at the essence of the experience by starting out with an individual example, then finding out what
changes can be made without ceasing to be what it is. That which I cannot change without making the
object cease to be the thing it is, is the invariant, the eidos of the experience.
 For example, I am doing a phenomenology of Love. I start bracketing my biases on love. Then I reduce the
object love to the phenomenon of love. In eidetic reduction, I begin with an example of a relationship of
love between two people. I change their age, race, social status and all these do not matter in love. What
is it that I cannot change? Perhaps, the unconditional giving of self to the other as he is. This then forms
part of the essence of Love.

3. Phenomenological Transcendental Reduction reduces the experience further to the very activity of my
consciousness, to my loving, my seeing, my hearing..etc.
 Here I now become conscious of the subject, the “I” who must decide on the validity of the object.
 I now become aware of the subjective aspects of the object when I inquire into the beliefs, feelings,
desires which shape the experience.
 The object is seen in relation to the subject and the subject in relation to the object.
 In our example of love, maybe I see the essence of love as giving of oneself to the other because of my
perspective as a lover. If I take the perspective of the beloved, maybe the essence is more receiving than
giving. If I take the perspective of a religious, maybe love is seen as activity of God.

IV. It is the transcendental reduction that Edmund Husserl came up with the main insight of Phenomenology:
INTENTIONALITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
 Intentionality of consciousness means that consciousness is intentional, that consciousness is always
consciousness of something other than consciousness itself.
 There is no object without a subject, and no subject without an object. The subject-of-the-object is called
noesis; the object-for- the-subject is called noema.
 There is no world without man, and no man without a world.

V.Gabriel Marcel uses a Phenomenological Method less technical than Husserl.

He calls it SECONDARY REFLECTION.
 Reflection is rooted inexperience, but there are two kinds: Primary and secondary.
 Primary Reflection breaks the unity of experience and is the foundation of scientific knowledge. This is
equivalent to the Natural Attitude in Husserl.

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  Secondary Reflection recuperates the unity of original experience. It does not go against the data of
primary reflection but refuses to accept it as final.
 Example: Who am I?
 Primary Reflection: I am so and so…,born on this day…, in such a place…, with height and weight…etc..
items on the I.D. card.
 Secondary Reflection: I am more than the items above.. I enter into my inner core.
 Example: My Body
 Primary Reflection: a body is like other bodies..,detached from the “I” , the body examined by a doctor,
studied by medical students or the body sold by the prostitute.
 Secondary Reflection: I am my body, I feel the pain when my dentist pulls my tooth. I feel a terrible
feeling when I sell my body ( prostitute).

VII. Summary: Phenomenology as a method is a method in which the relation between the investigator and
the investigated object is considered to belong essentially to the object itself.
 In cases where the object of investigation is Human Being, phenomenology becomes the Method in which
all relevant items of research are exclusively considered only with regard to the totality of Human Being.

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