PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION

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PH ENO M ENO LOG IC A L ID E A L IS M . See T R A N SC E N D EN TAL IDEALISM . PHENOM ENOLOGICAL M ETHOD. The phenomenological method has four main components: the phenomenological reduction , by means of which the phenomenological attitude is adopted and the intentional correlation between noesis and noem a is thematized while questions regarding real (real) or actual existence are bracketed or put out of play; the limitation, without presupposing or aiming at causal explanation , to the description of the intentionality at work in experience ; eidetic reduction , which proceeds by eidetic variation and discloses the essence , the essential structures, of experience; and eidetic intuition , in which is evidently given the structures disclosed by eidetic reduction. See also BRACKETING; DESCRIPTIVE SCIENCE; THEORETICAL SCIENCE. P H E N O M E N O L O G IC A L P SY C H O L O G Y. H usserl distinguishes phenomenological psychology from both phenomenology proper, that is, transcendental phenomenology , and from empirical, causal-genetic, psy cho lo g y . Ph en o m e no lo gic a l p s yc ho lo gy is d is tinguis he d from em p irical p sycho logy insofar as the latter is a th eo retica l sc ie n c e concerned with the explanation of psychic events as real (real) occurrences in the actual world . Phenomenological psychology, on the other hand, is a descriptive science that takes as its subject matter the intentional directedness of consciousness to the world. Phenomenological psychology is distinguished from transcendental phenomenology insofar as it does not completely effect the phenomenological reduction . W hile it brackets the existence of the objects of experience, it continues to accept the psychic events upon which it reflects as real (real) or actual occurrences in the world. Transcendental phenomenology, on the other hand, puts all questions of existence out of play and considers experience as possible experience in order to disclose what is essential not merely to actual, psychological experience but to all possible experience. See also BRACKETING; ESSENCE. P H E N O M E N O L O G IC A L R E D U C T IO N . T he phenomenological reduction, which Husserl sometimes calls the transcendental reduction or transcendental-phenomenological reduction , is a methodological device that introd uces a particular reflective attitude in which the attention of the one reflecting is led back (reductus) from the object straightforwardly experienced to the experience in which the object is given and to which it is the correlate. The modifier phenomenological in this context focuses attention on the phenomenon , the appearing of