rotenotes @rotenotes@qoto.org

From the “#Ideen” onward, Husserl concentrated on the ideal, essential structures of #consciousness. The metaphysical problem of establishing the #material reality of what we perceive was of little interest to Husserl in spite of his being a #transcendental #idealist. Husserl proposed that the world of objects and ways in which we direct ourselves toward and perceive those objects is normally conceived of in what he called the “natural standpoint”, which is characterized by a belief that objects materially exist and exhibit properties that we see as emanating from them. Husserl proposed a radical new #phenomenological way of looking at objects by examining how we, in our many ways of being #intentionally directed toward them, actually “#constitute” them (to be distinguished from materially creating objects or objects merely being figments of the imagination); in the Phenomenological standpoint, the object ceases to be something simply “external” and ceases to be seen as providing indicators about what it is, and becomes a grouping of perceptual and functional aspects that imply one another under the idea of a particular object or “type”. The notion of objects as real is not expelled by #phenomenology, but “#bracketed” as a way in which we regard objects instead of a feature that inheres in an object’s essence founded in the relation between the object and the perceiver. In order to better understand the world of appearances and objects, phenomenology attempts to identify the invariant features of how objects are perceived and pushes attributions of reality into their role as an attribution about the things we perceive (or an assumption underlying how we perceive objects).

Edmund #Husserl - Wikipedia

One would have to distinguish between the act of #consciousness and the #phenomena at which it is directed (the objects as intended). Knowledge of essences would only be possible by “#bracketing” all assumptions about the existence of an external world. This procedure #Husserl called “#epoché”.

#phenomenology

“People ‘have an effect upon’ one another: Not by virtue of their nature, but rather by virtue of #motivations brought forth through #mutual #understanding.”

— Edmund #Husserl, Basic Problems of Phenomenology, p. 172

All of modern #philosophy springs from of #Descartes’ #Meditations. Let us transform this historical proposition into a substantive one: Every genuine beginning of philosophy springs from meditation, from the experience of solitary self-reflection. When it is rooted in its origins, an #autonomous philosophy (and we live in the age when humanity has awakened to its autonomy) becomes the #solitary and #radical #self-responsibility of the one who is philosophizing. Only in solitude and meditation does one become a philosopher; only in this way is philosophy born in us, emerging of necessity from within us. What others and the #tradition accept as knowledge and scientific foundations is what I, as an autonomous ego, must pursue to its ultimate grounding, and I must do so exclusively in terms of my own sense of its #evidentness. This ultimate grounding must be immediately and apodictically evident. Only in this way can I be absolutely #responsible; only thus can I #justify matters absolutely. Therefore I must let no previous judgment, no matter how indisputable it may seem to be, go unquestioned and ungrounded.

— Edmund #Husserl, PHENOMENOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY, June, 1931

“The #spirit and in fact only the spirit is a being in itself and for itself; it is #autonomous and is capable of being handled in a genuinely #rational, genuinely and thoroughly #scientific way only in this autonomy.”

— Edmund #Husserl, Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man