Reduction to Evidence as a Liberation of Thinking

Husserls Idea of Phenomenology and the Origin of Phenomenological Reduction 1 Shigeru Taguchi
Hokkaido University

Abstract Husserls theory of the phenomenological reduction is often explained by a radical change of attitude. Such an explanation is useful but sometimes misleading. The Idea of Phenomenology clearly shows that the original idea of the reduction was achieved through a radicalized critique of evidence. Although Husserls appeal to evidence has often been criticized as an unjustied limitation of philosophical thinking, a close examination of Husserls lectures reveals that the very limitation to the phenomenological evidence (or self-givenness) breaks our natural inclination toward objective identities and liberates our thinking from the natural but misleading division between transcendence and immanence. Thus, the phenomenological reduction can be interpreted as a transition from the thinking without regard to evidence (i.e., based on naively positing things and their divisions without understanding their reason) to the philosophizing intrinsically mediated by evidence, which can secure access for intuitive analysis to every conceivable type of givenness insofar as it manifests itself.

What is fundamental is to apprehend the sense of absolute givenness, the absolute clarity of being given [...] Hua II, 9/662

Introduction

The idea of phenomenological reduction has sometimes been criticized for being too esoteric or even mystic. Such an impression might be created if phenomenologists emphasize the change of attitude that is supposed to be understood only when it has already carried out. It is true that the phenomenological change of attitude (Einstellungsnderung) is a highly important issue that Husserl himself stressed since Ideen I (1913). However, the original idea of phenomenological reduction in the lectures published under the title The Idea of Phenomenology (1907) does not necessarily depend on the theory of change in attitude. The radical transformation of attitude is neither the means nor the aim, but a result of phenomenological reduction. At least, it can be
1 The original version of this paper was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, June 23, 2010, New School for Social Research, New York. I thank Nicolas de Warren for his highly valuable comments on the original manuscript. My thanks are also due to George Heernan, who acted as commentator on this paper in its originally presented form, and to the participants of the meeting who helped me with their comments and questions to increase the quality of this paper. This work was supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientic Research (C) of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (22520006).

Shigeru Taguchi

said that it is inappropriate to rely just on the description of the change of attitude to explain what is the reduction. 2 In the following I propose to re-examine Husserls discovery of the phenomenological reduction in The Idea of Phenomenology to clarify what the reduction originally means. In these famous Five Lectures and the relevant texts written during the same period it is well documented how Husserl became explicitly aware of the function of the critique of evidence (Evidenzkritik), which is not suciently emphasized in the literature. In my view, it is a radicalization of his critique of evidence that leads Husserl to the full development of his theory of the reduction. Whereas Ideen I might give an inadequate impression that the reduction is a limitation to a particular domain of being which alone is evident, The Idea of Phenomenology clearly shows that the reduction leads to a new mode of philosophizing mediated by rediscovered evidence alone. This interpretation makes it possible to understand why the phenomenological reduction is not a sort of retreat or withdrawal into a merely subjective, individual consciousness, but a method of liberating ones thinking. The reduction does not disclose a merely wider sphere of being, but it provides us with a completely dierent foothold of thinking that enables us to discuss another dimension of truth and its unknown order. 3 It must be noted that the Five Lectures lack an easily comprehensible, systematic structure because through them Husserl is struggling for a clear understanding of his own phenomenology. It thus becomes necessary to reconstitute Husserls train of thought through these lectures. Husserl himself attempted such a self-interpretation and reconstruction in a short text written immediately after the lectures. 4 Though this self-interpretation is still not sucient, it can be more clearly understood through this short text how the examination of evidence can shed light on the perplexing presentation of these lectures. In what follows I will clarify his train of thought by accentuating the direction of Husserls self-interpretation. In this way, I will show how Husserls conception of phenomenological reduction makes it possible to liberate our philosophical thinking from its natural limitation based on insucient interpretations of immanence and transcendence, and how fundamentally the theory of evidence contributes to this self-liberation of thinking. 5
2 I basically sympathize with Fllesdals attempt (2006) to interpret Husserls reductions in relation to the changes of attitudes that are already done in our everyday life, but it cannot be explained in this way how the phenomenological changes of attitudes in such a radical form are motivated. Especially the systematic performance of the transition from the eidetic to the transcendental reduction is not motivated in the natural attitude. As Drummond points out, mere description of dierent attitudes is not sucient to explain to one who remains in the natural attitude why he should abandon it when doing philosophy. (Drummond 1975, 47). It is indispensable to critically examine the starting point for philosophy in regard to its evidential character of apodicticity (Drummond 1975, 48). 3 At this point, I completely agree with Sokolowski 2008: What Husserl does in the reduction is to establish his own philosophy as a distinct intellectual project, one that both secures and tries to understand the achievement of truth Sokolowski 2008, 170-171. He also notes: Instead of speaking about a special kind of reection and a new kind of attitude, we would do well to speak about a new kind of vocabulary and discourse, one proper to phenomenology Sokolowski 2008, 172. In the following, I also attempt to propose a way of speaking about the reduction that is based on the critique of evidence rather than the change of attitude. 4 The train of thought in the lectures (Hua II, 3-14/61-70). 5 John Brough convincingly argues by clarifying Husserls argumentations in The Idea of Phenomenology that consciousness is not a bag or container that cannot go beyond itself Brough 2008. In contrast to his approach that attempts to show the whole range and richness of Husserls argumentations in the lectures, I will rather focus on the reason why the bag conception of consciousness could be overcome through a mere examination of the givenness of phenomena. As for this approach to the problem of the Kapsel-Vorstellung of consciousness, see also Chapter I, 12 and Chapter II of Taguchi 2006.

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What is given? Immanence and Transcendence

The Five Lectures Husserl gave in the spring of 1907 are motivated by the riddle of knowledge or the question: How is objective knowledge possible? In the natural attitude, we take it for granted that objects of our knowledge are given to us. Philosophical questioning, however, severely shakes this natural condence. How can knowledge go beyond itself and reach its objects reliably? What appears to natural thinking as the matter-of-fact givenness of known objects within knowledge becomes a riddle.6 In the face of such a riddle, Husserl radicalizes an interrogation regarding what is (really) given? This can be interpreted as a straightforward expression of his evidence-theoretical motivation to secure a truly reliable starting point for philosophical thinking. At the rst stage, a clue is provided by the conceptual pair immanence and transcendence. What is to be transcendent can be typically exemplied by physical things in the outer world. Closer examination reveals, however, that such thingstranscendent thingscannot be free from skepticism. This is showed by the Cartesian doubt which is based on a type of the argument from illusion: every perception cannot fundamentally exclude the possibility that it may prove to be an illusion. Therefore, it cannot be considered to be absolutely reliable. Such a methodological doubt shows that the transcendent object cannot be a starting point of a critical philosophical thinking. In opposition to the transcendent, what is immanent, understood as cogitatio, can bear the test of critical skepticism. For in making the judgment that everything is doubtful it cannot be doubted that I am making this judgment (Hua II, 30/23). Even if the object of my mental act proved to be an illusion, it is undeniable that I am perceiving, judging, imagining, etc. At least, I cannot think that I am not performing these acts while performing them. This classical argument, however, is used by Husserl for an intrinsically dierent purpose than that of Descartes. At the beginning, Husserl himself was not aware of the signicance of his reinterpretation of the Cartesian consideration, which I will now explicate in the next section.

Radicalized Thinking of Evidence

In the Second Lecture, Husserl makes a short, relatively modest comment on the Cartesian procedure that he just introduced. Descartes made use of this consideration for other purposes; but with the appropriate modications, we can use it here as well (Hua II, 30/24). Husserl does not intend to secure the thinking ego as a substance on the basis of which he can build a logically deduced system of theory. 7 Rather, he concentrates on the reason why the cogitatio can be regarded as absolutely given. Husserl rst calls attention to the intuitive givenness of experience, especially that of perception. He nds an absolute ground in it: [...] the perception, as long as it lasts, is and remains an absolute entity, a this-here, that is what it is in itself, something that I can refer to as a nal criterion in determining what being and being-given might mean, and here must mean, at least for the manner of being and givenness exemplied
II, 20/17. Hua Mat III, 89, 90-91. Ungleich Cartesius suchen wir nicht nach den absolut sicheren Fundamenten, auf denen wir nach absolut sicheren Prinzipien das Gesamtgebude menschlichen Wissens aufbauen knnten [...] (Hua Mat III, 90). The same type of criticism can be found in many of Husserls writings. See especially 10 of the Cartesian Meditations (Hua I, 63-64).
6 Hua 7 Cf.

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by the this-here. And this holds for all specic forms of thought, no matter how they are given (Hua II, 31/24-25). 8 The manner of givenness that is signied by this-here, that is what it is in itself, is characterized by immanence: [...] because of such immanence, this form of knowledge is free of that enigmatic character which is the source of all skeptical predicaments (Hua II, 33/26). However, in the meantime, immanence has already acquired a dierent meaning from that originally suggested at the rst stage of the lectures. Husserl now becomes aware of this ambiguity and draws a clear distinction between the immanence as real [reelle] containment in the experience of knowing and an entirely dierent kind of immanence, namely, absolute and clear givenness, selfgivenness in the absolute sense (Hua II, 35/27). It is obvious that such a characterization of givenness can be expressed by the term evidence in Husserls terminology. In fact, he paraphrases self-givenness as follows: This givenness, which excludes any meaningful doubt, consists of an immediate act of seeing and apprehending the meant objectivity itself as it is. It constitutes the precise concept of evidence, understood as immediate evidence (Hua II, 35/27-28). We can reconstitute this train of thought by simplifying it in the following way: Why can we consider real [reelle] immanence as being given? Because it is clear and distinct, i.e., evident. It is not immanence that makes things evident. Rather, it is the evidence that gives the reason why immanence can be conceived as being absolutely given. In this way, Husserl radically transposes his foothold of thinking. The natural, naive distinction between immanence and transcendence cannot be a reliable basis of phenomenological thinking. It cannot be a starting point to think that only that which is really [reell] contained in the psychological consciousness is indubitable, that which transcends it is dubitable. Rather, the only criterion of phenomenological givenness is whether something is evident or not. It is not the distinction between immanence and transcendence that makes it possible to distinguish evidence from non-evidence. Conversely, it is evidence that enables us to dene what is immanent and what is transcendent in phenomenological sense. 9 This fundamental insight into the methodological peculiarity of phenomenological thinking is fully expressed in the Third Lecture, where Husserl retrospectively refers to the Cartesian doubt and the two senses of immanence.
Descartes asked, as you will recall, after he had established the evidence of the cogitatio [...]: What is it that assures me of this basic givenness? The answer: clear and distinct perception [clara et distincta perceptio]. We can latch onto this point. I need not mention the fact that we have already grasped the matter in a purer and deeper way than Descartes did, and that we have thus grasped and understood evidence, clear and distinct perception, in a purer sense. With Descartes we can now take the additional step (mutatis mutandis): whatever is given through clear and distinct perception, as it is in any singular cogitatio, we are entitled to accept (Hua II, 49/37; bold emphasis added).

In my view, this is the most crucial move in these ve lectures and even one of the most decisive moments in Husserls philosophical life. He gained a clear
8 With nal criterion Husserl implies evidence, which is rst mentioned in the recapitulation in the middle of the second lecture (Hua II, 33/26). 9 This is the insight which, de facto, Husserl has already gained in the Appendix of Logical Investigations (External and Internal Perception: Physical and Psychical Phenomena). The Idea of Phenomenology enables Husserl to break through to a new level of understanding of his own phenomenology on the basis of that insight. Cf. Hua XIX/2, 751-775/ 852-869. The fundamental signicance of this Appendix for a phenomenological turn of Husserls thinking is elaborated by Nicolas de Warren (2003).

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insight into a new style of philosophizing in which we can accept whatever is given in evidence. This newly discovered principle of phenomenology, which apparently becomes echoed in the principle of all principles of Ideas I, 10 continues to determine the character of Husserls phenomenology until the latest period of its development. 11 It is important to keep in mind that Husserl did not achieve a particular domain of being or experience, but a new way of thinking that is exclusively mediated by evidence in the phenomenological sense, instead by something particular that is supposed to be evident. In what follows, I will show how the strict observance of the principle of evidence, against naive expectations, opens our eyes to the whole range of phenomenological givenness.

Essences are also given

The next question is: What does the new principle bring about in phenomenology? The Cartesian doubt led Husserl to the evidence of cogitatio. However, a philosophical science cannot begin with such eeting cogitationes (or an eternal Heraclitean stream of phenomena) from which we can grasp nothing other than individual facts of experiencing, nothing other than this here! As Husserl asks: What statements can I make about it? (Hua II, 47/36) It is impossible to make something clear only by saying: This, this, this! or Here, here, here! Therefore, it is necessary to nd other types of self-givenness. In any case, it is illuminating to note that the possibility of a critique of knowledge depends on the indication of forms of absolute givenness other than the reduced cogitationes (Hua II, 50/38). Husserl then indicates that not only particulars, but also universals, universal objects, and universal states of aairs can be brought to absolute givenness (Hua II, 51/39). This indication is elaborated in the next, Fourth Lecture. As Husserl writes: [C]an universality, can general essences [...] actually achieve the same kind of self-givenness that a cogitatio does? (Hua II, 55/41) This is a crucial question, for universality apparently transcends acts of knowing; it cannot be found in the real (reell) stream of consciousness as its real (reell) component. The self-givenness of such a transcendent object is something incomprehensible insofar as we conceive that only the real (reell) immanence of consciousness assures self-givenness. However, we now have the new principle of phenomenology that is discovered in the Third Lecture: Whatever is given through clear and distinct perception, i.e., evidence, we are entitled to accept. According to this principle, we can reasonably accept universality if it is self-given. 12 Not only can the real (reell) experience of cogitatio satisfy the critical criterion of evidence; but also the givenness of universality can be clear and distinct, or evident, insofar as a universal object is given in the intuitive consciousness. It can easily
10 [...] The principles of all principles: that every originary presentive intuition is a legitimizing source of cognition, that everything originarily (so to speak, in its personal actuality) oered to us in intuition is to be accepted simply as what it is presented as being, but also only within the limits in which it is presented there. (Hua III/1, 51/44). 11 See also Husserls remark in the Cartesian Meditations: Naturally everything depends on strictly preserving the absolute unprejudicedness of the description and thereby satisfying the principle of pure evidence, which we laid down in advance (Hua I, 74/36). 12 To discuss the theory of essence on the basis of the relevant argumentations in Logical Investigations is beyond the scope of this brief paper. For my purpose, it is enough to show that there are such types of givenness that cannot be reduced to real (reell) givenness; they transcend real (reell) immanence and are evidently given at the same time. As George Heenan pointed out in his comment on the initial version of this paper, a more critical and detailed discussion is needed to convincingly show whether and how universality can be regarded as phenomenological givenness.

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be conrmed that we cannot pick up and pin down only an individual moment of sensation. Such an absolutely isolated impression is nothing other than an abstraction from concrete givenness. 13 Every impression is given with its relation to other impressions that are concretely united with it in succession or coexistence. 14 Thus, concrete intuitive experience always contains intuitive givenness of relations that go beyond a single impression. Let us take the typical example employed by Husserl. If we see a red thing, we cannot help nding it in relation to other things that are also called red. What we call the essence of red is such a moment of intuitive experience that makes it possible to equally describe various objects as red. Without this universal moment we cannot compare those objects exactly in that specic way. [...] if two species of red are given to us, two nuances of red, can we not judge that they are similar to each othernot these particular, individual red phenomena, but rather the species, the nuances as such? Isnt the relation of similarity a universal that is absolutely given? (Hua II, 57/42) If a universal object is only meant as universal, it is incomprehensible or meaningless to say that it is not what it is. Insofar as essence is concerned, it is nonsense to say: Red can be something dierent from what we understand by red; because red in specie is exactly what we mean by red. If we take another expression: It is possible that the red we know is not the true red, then what is meant is not the essence of red as it is, but a red specied in a certain way. Such specication would be meaningless if we dont know what is specied. The essence of red is a simple moment of consciousness without which all consciousness and verbal expressions of red are meaningless; in other words, a type of primitive givenness which enables us concerning various objects to say: I see a red or It is red. 15 The givenness of red does not necessarily need to have such absolutely identiable contents as mathematical objects do. However, we must know what is red so as to discuss whether an object is red or not; otherwise we cannot even know if we talk about the same topic or not. Thus, such discussion already presupposes the red in specie as a certain kind of givenness that is dierent from the factual, individual datum of sensation. Insofar as such a non-individual kind of primitive givenness is meant, it is impossible to think that red as red is not what it is given to us. Thus it is senseless to question and to doubt what the essence of red is, or what the sense of red is, provided that, while one is seeing red and grasping it in terms of its specic kind, one means by the word red exactly what is grasped and seen (Hua II, 57/42-43). It must be noted that the intuitive consciousness of the essence of red does not imply that we can have an image of the very essence itself. To have the essence of red as intuitive givenness, we need not to be imagining or picturing the essence of red next to a red thing. Rather, intuition here corresponds to adequateness. If what is meant is fullled as it is exactly meant and does not contain any empty intention that can be further fullled, we can then appropriately refer to the intuition as adequateness. 16
Hua X, 326/338. seems to support this interpretation. See Fllesdal 2006, 109-110. 15 Essence is not a metaphysical entity, but a sort of extremely simple and obvious givenness, whose obviousness makes it dicult to grasp in reection. Husserl indicates such obviousness in Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft: Der Bann des urwchsigen Naturalismus besteht auch darin, da er es uns allen so schwer macht, Wesen, Ideen zu sehen oder vielmehr, da wir sie ja doch sozusagen bestndig sehen, sie in ihrer Eigenart gelten zu lassen, statt sie widersinnig zu naturalisieren. Wesensschauung birgt nicht mehr Schwierigkeiten oder mystische Geheimnisse als Wahrnehmung (Hua XXV, 32); cf. Hua XXV, 36; XX/1, 282. 16 Cf. Hua XXV, 32f. Incidentally, it is not necessary for the validity of essence to be adequately intuited.
13 See 14 Fllesdal

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And it is exactly such a kind of evidence that requires us to accept universality in its phenomenological givenness. Universal objectivities and states of aairs come to self-givenness for us, and they are in the same sense [as cogitatio] unquestionably given, in the strongest sense adequately self-given (Hua II, 60/45). Thus, it seems reasonable to suppose that repudiation of universal givenness would lead to abstraction from concrete givenness. Assuming it to be true, it may be concluded that universality can be counted as phenomenological immanence. Thus this givenness is a purely immanent givenness, not immanent in the false sense, namely, existing in the sphere of individual consciousness (Hua II, 57/42). Universal objects which are initially considered as transcendent are now integrated into the sphere of phenomenological immanence so that such objects can be phenomenologically analyzed on the basis of evidence. It is clear that this integration is enabled by the evidence-theoretical reinterpretation of immanence. Through this consideration, we can conrm again that the appeal to evidence works as a principle: Not the real (reell) immanence, but evidence assures us phenomenological givenness. This point is now more clearly noticed by Husserl himself: One must get especially clear on the fact that the absolute phenomenon, the reduced cogitatio, does not count as an absolute givenness because it is a particular, but rather because it displays itself in pure seeing after the phenomenological reduction as something that is absolutely self-given. But in pure seeing we can discover that universality is no less such an absolute givenness (Hua II, 56/42).

Extension of the Given through Intentionality

Based on the principle of evidence, Husserl further extends the sphere of phenomenological givenness. As already announced at the beginning of the Fourth Lecture, phenomenological immanence also includes that which is intentionally given. [...] here we will not only be concerned with what is really [reell] immanent, but also with what is immanent in the intentional sense (Hua II, 55/41). This insight is fully developed in the Fifth Lecture. Finally, at this stage, the phenomenological immanence covers the whole sphere of the given that is conceivable (at least at this stage). At the rst stage, the phenomenological reduction was applied to the objective transcendence. As Husserl notes in the Second Lecture, all transcendence that comes into play here must be excluded, must be supplied with the index of indierence, of epistemological nullity (Hua II, 39/30). 17 However, Husserl now asks in the Fifth Lecture whether transcendent objects are also phenomenologically given in a peculiar sense: In the perception of an external thing, say the house standing before us, it is precisely the thing that is perceived. This house is a transcendence, and forfeits its existence after the phenomenological reduction. What is then actually given is the appearing of the house, this cogitatio, emerging in the stream of consciousness and eventually owing away. In this house-phenomenon we nd a red-phenomenon, an extension-phenomenon, etc. And these are given with evidence. But is it not also evident that a house appears in the house-phenomenon, thus giving us a reason to call it a house-perception? (Hua II, 72/53) If we separated the house from the house-phenomenon, we could not call it
Husserl accepts the essence-intuition in a broader sense than the adequate one (cf. Hua III/1, 15). See also the distinction between empirical universal and pure essence or eidos by Sokolowski Sokolowski 1974, 58-62. 17 At this stage, phenomenological reduction is called epistemological reduction (Hua II, 39/30, 43/33). The term phenomenological reduction rst appears in the third lecture (Hua II, 44/34).

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house-phenomenon anymore, since, in this case, it would be an intrinsically dierent phenomenon. The phenomenon contains that moment on account of which it is called house-phenomenon; and furthermore, what is appearing in this phenomenon is not the house in general, but a particular house. So, this phenomenon has particular moments and characteristics without which it cannot be the phenomenon of the very house that is standing in front of me, a brick building, with a slate roof, etc. Such characteristics are descriptive moments in the phenomenon, which means that they are given in intuitive evidence. The same applies to objects of imagination and symbolic thinking. In imagining, St. George is an appearing, transcendent object, but manifests itself within the appearances as a givenness (Hua II, 72/53). As for the symbolic thinking of countersensical objects (for example: round rectangle) are also given as it is thought in this thinking. We think exactly that object which is round and rectangular at the same time. Here an intentional object is nevertheless obviously there (ibid.). In this way, every intentional object can be counted as phenomenological givenness, insofar as it cannot arbitrarily be separated from the phenomenon that gives the object as the very object which is given in the phenomenon. In regard to this phenomenon, not only the intentional act as cogitatio but also the intentional object can have phenomenological givenness, because they are the decisive moments of that phenomenon in which they are inseparably related. That is to say, various modes of intentionality can also be regarded as self-given. What is indicated in the Third Lecture can now be understood in detail: The relating-itself-to-something-transcendent, to refer to it in one way or another, is an inner characteristic of the phenomenon (Hua II, 46/35). On the basis of this inner characteristic of the phenomenon, it is possible to exhibit the dierent modes of genuine givenness, and, in this regard, the constitution of the dierent modes of objectivity and their relation to each other (Hua II, 74/54). In such an investigation of genuine givenness, an object and its appearing cannot be separated; they must be examined in correlation; and the essential correlation between appearing and that which appears (Hua II, 14/69) is not an external relation like that between a sack and a thing in it, but another expression of constitution, i.e., the phenomenon in which the object constitutes itself (Hua II, 74-75/55). This everywhere ongoing occurrence is also lived as an experience, and can thus be phenomenologically analyzed. Thus, all types of givenness that have been examined so far whether it manifests itself in connection with something merely represented or truly existing, real or ideal, possible or impossible (Hua II, 74/54) fall into the sphere of phenomenological givenness. At the beginning, the phenomenological reduction had to exclude all that is posited as transcendent (Hua II, 5/63). At the nal stage of lectures, all that was excluded comes back to the sphere of phenomenological givenness; what is more, it is enriched with an intrinsically deeper understanding. This outcome of the phenomenological reduction is fully expressed in the lecture Einfhrung in die Phnomenologie der Erkenntnis (1909):
Vermge der Intentionalitt der cogitatio oder des Bewusstseins [...] umspannt die Phnomenologie, die wir auch als Wissenschaft vom reinen Bewusstsein bezeichnen knnten, in gewisser Weise all das, was sie so sorgfltig ausgeschaltet hat; sie umspannt alle Erkenntnisse, alle Wissenschaften und in gegenstndlicher Hinsicht alle Gegenstndlichkeiten, auch die gesamte Natur. Die Wirklichkeit der Natur, die Wirklichkeit von Himmel und Erde, von Menschen und Tieren, von eigenem Ich und fremdem Ich schaltet sie freilich aus, aber sozusagen ihre Seele, ihrem Sinn behlt sie zurck (Hua Mat VII, 64).

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Reduction to Evidence as a Liberation of Thinking

In this passage, we can glimpse the mature expressions of the phenomenological reduction of later years, in which a kind of regaining by abandoning is stressed: I must lose the world by epoch, in order to regain it by a universal self-examination (Hua I, 183/157). 18

Conclusion

According to Husserls considerations in the Five Lectures, nothing is left as givenness that cannot be treated in the sphere of phenomenological immanence. In this sense, phenomenological immanence does not stand opposed to a particular region of givenness or subject-matters, but to a certain kind of attitude or way of seeing; that is to say, the transcendence vis--vis the phenomenological immanence would consist in naively positing such objects as we naturally believe to have without sucient reason, i.e., without evidence. Therefore, the reduction to the phenomenological immanence though this term immanence seems not appropriate anymore 19 does not mean a withdrawal into the real consciousness conceived as a bag or capsule. Instead, the reduction expresses a movement in which the thinking that is imprisoned by its groundless beliefs breaks its limit and becomes open to every conceivable type of givenness as it manifests itself, namely, to the things themselves. 20 Thus, the phenomenological reduction proves to have a liberating function that is enabled by the critique of evidence. The radicalization of the appeal to evidence makes it possible for phenomenological thinking to free itself from the naively presupposed division between the real [reelle], psychological immanence and that which transcends it, so that all conceivable kinds of givenness can be phenomenologically analyzed. 21 The Idea of Phenomenology clearly shows that there is nothing esoteric about the operation of the phenomenological reduction; rather, it represents the evidence-theoretical transformation of philosophical thinking that, once it has gained greater clarity in the Five Lectures, continues to determine Husserls thought. I will nish by quoting a passage from the Fourth of the Five Lectures, which may serve as evidence for my conclusion:
Accordingly, the phenomenological reduction does not signify the limitation of the investigation to the sphere of real [reellen] immanence, to the sphere of what is really [reell] contained in the absolute this of the cogitatio, and it does not at all signify the limitation to the sphere of the cogitatio, but rather the limitation to the sphere of pure self-givenness, to the sphere of what is not merely talked about and referred to; but also not to the sphere of what is perceived, but rather to what is given in exactly the same sense in which it is meant and self-given in the strictest sense in such a way that nothing that is meant fails to be given. In a word, it is a limitation to the sphere of pure evidence (Hua II, 60-61/45).

also Hua VIII, 166: [...] alles preisgeben heit, alles gewinnen. another paper Taguchi 2011 I showed how Husserl overcame the abstract dichotomy of immanence and transcendence through his radicalized thinking of evidence. 20 In this sense, it is striking that James Dodd characterizes the reduction as phenomenalizationDodd 2004, 188. 21 In this paper, I focused on the liberating function of evidence, but of course this is not the only signicance of this concept. After the whole sphere of phenomenological givenness was secured, the concept of evidence should be dierentiated in order to discriminate various types of givenness while uncovering the interrelation between them. See Brough 2009; Taguchi 2006, 48, 200.
19 In

18 See

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Shigeru Taguchi

References
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Sokolowski, R. 2008, Husserls Discovery of Philosophical Discourse, in Husserl Studies, 24, 167175. Taguchi, S. 2006, Das Problem des Ur-Ich bei Edmund Husserl. Die Frage nach der selbstverstndlichen Nhe des Selbst, Phaenomenologica 178, Springer, Dordrecht. Taguchi, S. 2011, Die Medialitt der Evidenz und das Fremde der Vernunft: Eine berlegung anhand des Immanenz- und Transzendenzbegris bei Husserl, in Aufnahme und Antwort: Phnomenologie in Japan I, ed. by T. Tani and Y. Nitta, Perspektiven 23, Orbis Phaenomenologicus, Prag, pp. 118133.

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