PHENOMENON

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phenomenological investigation. Hence, Husserl developed the methodological conception of the transcendental-phenomenological reduction . The performance of the reduction directs the researchers attention to the intentional correlation between consciousness and its objects and, more generally, between subjectivity and the phenomenon of the world . Phenomenology is the descriptive science of this domain. Its subject matter is that individual and absolute concretum that is transcendental consciousness (including both its real [reell] and intentional contents ). Phenomenology seeks to identify and relate the essential moments and structures of this transcendental consciousness and its intentional experiences. Phenomenology has as its concern, therefore, to describe the essential structures of intentionality and the necessary connections among different kinds of experiences insofar as these essential structures and connections are intuitively knowable. Each statement of an essence or essential connection is an a priori statement in the sense of the material a priori . Phenomenologys analyses are both static and genetic . Static phenomenology , while abstracting from the temporality of experience, identifies the moments and structures that belong to a whole of intentional experience and object. Genetic phenomenology considers experiences in their temporal dimension and seeks to disclose the origins of experiences in the temporal flux of consciousness. See also IDEAL CONTENT; IRREAL CONTENTS. PHENOM ENON. Much like the term appearance , there is an ambiguity in Husserls use of the term phenomenon. Appearance can refer both to th e a c t w hich is the ap p ea ring of the object o r to the o b je c t a s appearing, and Husserls use of phenomenon repeats this ambiguity, altho ugh he d o es no t use phe nomenon to re fe r to the c omple x of sensation-contents. In the context of Husserls phenomenology , however, the term phenomenon can also be understood as having a broader and a narrower meaning. Its broader meaning denotes the experience on which the phenomenologist reflects and which is given in inner perception . In its broad meaning, the phenomenon comprises the experience with its object. Its narrower meaning denotes the object just as it appears. W hile this sense alludes to the experience in which the object appears, this allusion, because of the direction of the intentional relation, does not turn the researchers attention to the experience in the way that the broad meaning of phenomenon turns the researchers attention to the object given in the experience. See also HYLETIC DATA.