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Syllabus of a Course of Four Lectures

on Phenomenological Method and
Phenomenological Philosophy
a

Edmund Husserl
a

Delivered at University College, London, June 6, 8, 9, 12, 1922

Published online: 21 Oct 2014.

To cite this article: Edmund Husserl (1970) Syllabus of a Course of Four Lectures on
Phenomenological Method and Phenomenological Philosophy, Journal of the British Society for
Phenomenology, 1:1, 18-23, DOI: 10.1080/00071773.1970.11006095
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071773.1970.11006095

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SYLLABUS OF A COURSE OF FOUR LECTURES ON

"PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD AND
PHENOMENOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY"
BY EDMUND HUSSERL

Delivered at University College, London,

June 6, 8, 9, 12, 1922

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LECTURE I
Introductory : The Aim of Phenomenological Philosophy.
The phenomenological method is a procedure that has arisen from fundamental considerations
and through which a radical change of the attitude of natural experience and knowledge is rendered
possible. A peculiar realm of given entities, concretely and intuitively perceived, is thereby opened
out. The ego cogito. This transcendental phenomenological subjectivity, as immediate givenness of
phenomenological self-experience, is not the "soul," the givenness of psychological experience. There
has been made possible, and is now on foot, a new a priori science extracted purely from concrete
phenomenological intuition (Anschauung), the science, namely, of transcendental phenomenology,
which inquires into the totality of ideal possibilit:es that fall within the framework of phenomenological subjectivity, according to their typical forms and laws of being.
In the proper line of its explication lies the development of the originally " egological "
(referred to the ego of the philosophising subject for the time being) phenomenology into a transcendental sociological phenomenology having reference to a manifest multiplicity of conscious
subjects communicating with one another. A systematically consistent development of phenomenology leads necessarily to an all-comprehensive logic concerned with the correlates ; knowing-act,
knowledge-significance, and knowledge-objectivity. The unfolding in special directions of this widereaching logic leads by an inner necessity to the systematically arranged totality of all possible a
priori sciences. Accordingly there is realised in transcendental phenomenology the necessary idea of
a "first philosophy". It makes possible sciences of fact as "philosophies" ("second philosophies"), as sciences, namely, which in their methodical working out are completely and" absolutely"
justified as being derived from absolutely clear and ultimate principles. Ideally speaking, phenomenology is the in itself absolutely clear science of these sources ; it contains in itself the theoretical
system of the absolutely explicated principles of all possible sciences, the principles of construction
for the a priori forms of all the sciences of realities for all possible worlds, and consequently these
forms themselves.
On the basis of phenomenology the original ideal of philosophy evinces itself as a practical
ideal ; the ideal, namely, of a system to be constructed of all sciences as of absolutely strict and
certain theories the rationality of which in all its stages rests on a priori insight. At the back of the
system, as an inner unified totality, of such philosophical sciences there cannot be still further
possible a "metaphysic", and beside these sciences there can be no special sciences (transcendental
and philosophically naive) that rest upon themselves. Accordingly, the source of all that is philosophical, of all that is in the highest sense, scientific, lies in phenomenology. Its systematic development is the greatest of all the scientific problems of our time.

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The Cartesian way to the ego cogito and the method of phenomenological reduction.
Historical connexion with Plato, the creator of the idea of philosophy as a universal system
of absolutely justifiable knowledge and the pioneer of the idea of a preliminary rational science
of method. Ancient philosophy and scepticism. Descartes' revival of the Platonic intentions. What
was lost of the Platonic Ethos : philosophy as fulfilment and correlate of an ethical demand, the
cognitive-ethical demand of radical intellectual conscientiousness. The cognitive-ethical resolve
through which the philosopher becomes first of all in his own estimation a philosopher. The necessary consequences ; the Cartesian " revolution " and the search for an absolutely unquestionable
beginning. The transformation of the Cartesian way to such beginning (i.e., to the ego cogito) in
its main outlines, through which it becomes the phenomenological introductory method.
a. General preliminary considerations. The necessary form of the philosophical beginning as
meditation on the "I". The question as to the meaning of "absolutely justified" knowledge.
Unquestionableness as norm of such knowledge and its fundamental significance. Evidence and
adequate evidence. The source of all absolute justification must lie in adequate evidence. Apodictic
character of this evidence. Mediate and immediate adequacy. The beginning we are in search of
must be immediately and apodictically evident. Thus the ultimate basis of all philosophy must be
a basis of experience (always accessible for him who philosophises) but a basis of apodictic
experience.
b. The historical way pursued by Descartes to the ego cogito by means of the methodical
negation of the sensuous world. The justification of this way in its fundamental re-interpretation.
The "I am", the "I think" of naturally naive evidence, is not the ego cogito grasped in virtue of
this method in apodictic experiential evidence. The method is needed in order to subordinate the
naive attitude in experience and knowledge generally, in order to render possible the new phenomenological attitude and to make the ego cogito capable of being experienced as a field of view
unique and complete in itself. This " transcendental phenomenological subjectivity " is not the
Cartesian mens as pure soul ; phenomenological experience of self is not psychologically " inner "
experience.

LECTURE ll
The Realm of phenomenological Experience and the possibility of a phenomenological science.
Transcendental Phenomenology as science of essence in respect of transcendental subjectivity.

1
What is to be our mode of setting out theoretically with the ego cogito ? A Cartesian metaphysic ? A speculative philosophy of the ego ? We must remember the demand for adequate
apodictic evidence as principle of the " beginning. In view of the wholly unfamiliar character of
the phenomenological field, it is necessary at the outset to explore it as inquirers, to become
acquainted with it in tentative observations and to describe it. The necessary guarantee of confining
oneself to phenomenological territory and of the purity of phenomenological description by the rule
of phenomenological bracketing or putting between quotation marks (Einklammerung). That rule
prohibits any naively natural assertion and the use of any objective judgments whatsoever ; it
permits only reflective judgments upon such judgments as my "phenomena", upon my belief and
that which is thereby believed as such, and likewise judgments upon any kind of " I feel or
immediately experience" (lch erlebe), and upon all that is immanent therein.
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Adequate descriptions according to the threefold title : ego, cogito, cogitatum. By way of
example, analyses along the parallel lines, cogito, cogitatum, whereby manifold modifications of
intentionality emerge.
Perception as immediate presentness. Recollection as immediate pastness. Modes of mediate
presentness and pastness through gesture, picture, sign and expression. Einfuhlung and expression
of a mental life in a body. Modes of intuitiveness and non-intuitiveness, of determinateness and
indeterminateness. of knownness and strangeness. Modes of attention. A fragment of phenomenological analysis in the case of a perceived spatial thing : the multiplicity of its perspective ways of
appearing, form-perspective, colour-perspective, etc. Manifoldness of the modes of orientation. The
absolute "here", the manifold "there", near and far, the far horizon. Discrimination of the body,
etc. Continuous perception and synthetic unity in continuity. The continuously one and the same
object of perception. Discrete synthesis and the identical One.
The ideality of the object in the multiplicity of vital experiences ( Erlebnisse) which are consciousness of it: it is involved in them not as an activ part but as "intentional pole". The object as in
a certain sense what is meant or intended : even the sensuous form is not an actual part of the vital
experiences. " Intentional form " as contrasted with " actual " moments of vital experience.
Modalities of belief and the intentional modes of being (being, possible being, probable being,
doubtful being, etc.). Presumptive intention as directly aimed and confirmation of the intention.
Presumptive being and being in the character " it is really so ". Opposite case of annulling.
Character of non-being. Realisation of the intentio in the transition into a self-giving (selbstgebende)
intuition or "evident justification "; intentional character of "true being." Analogous modalities of
feeling and willing. Endless multiplicity of such modalities.
Possible descriptions in reference to the ego as " centre " of the attending, convinced, acting
intentionality, as also "centre" of affective states. All such occurrences establish the fact of the
phenomenologically constituted I or ego. But they only indefinitely constitute the actually lived
stream of life of " the natural ego." Bifurcation of the ego in the transition into the phenomenological focus or attitude ; it becomes an " impartial spectator " of what belongs to itself. Phenomenological reftexion of a higher level : phenomenological experience and thought as subject-matter
of reftexion. All descriptions result in "pure intuition", in adequate experiential evidence. No
naturalistic prejudices, no tabula rasa interpretations.
2
The question as to the possibility of an egological science. A further consideration : the phenomenological subjectivity is experienced as extending beyond the range of the actually present, as
stretching forward into an endless past and future. Possibility of doubt in respect of my
recollected past, as also in respect to the future stream of experiences. Necessity of a fresh elimination for the reduction to the absolutely given. The impossibility of " objectively " fixed or scientific
expressions for the sphere of the merely present : accordingly a science of facts in respect of the
ego cogito cannot in the philosophical " beginning " be attained.
Radical removal of an empiricist prejudice : extension of the notion of " Experience ". Adequate
self-comprehension (adequate "experience") is also possible of pure possibilities; further, in
respect to pure possibilities, of " species " of a single one of a species, of particular and universal
possible relations, of essential necessities and mpossibilities. Independence of all such a priori
statements of experience in the ordinary sense-that is to say, of the trustworthiness of perception,
recollection, etc. Indubious possibility of intuitive and adequate apprehension of such a priori
certainties in the sphere of the transcendental ego. To the philosophising ego the totality (universum)
of its egological possibilities according to its essence and essential laws is accessible in the framework of adequate and apodicitic evidence. The phenomenological " bracketing " (EinklammerunR)
of all transcendental natural possibilities for the purpose of reduction to the sphere of purely
egological possibilities. An essential theory, operative within the boundaries of absolute evidence, of
20

my possible egological certainties (for possible ego, possible consciousness, possible intentional
forms) can and must be the first of all philosophies-the first in possible and absolute proof. And this
science is transcendental phenomenology, the mother of all a priori sciences.

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LECI'UREIR
.Transcendental phenomenology, and the problems of possible knowledge, possible science,
possible objectivities and worlds.
1
Difficulties of a systematic structure of phenomenology.
Transcendental subjectivity in the form of phenomenological time as the field of inquiry of
descriptive phenomenology. A wider range of problems of a still higher stage of reftexion. Phenomenology of the primordial consciousness of time.
Sketch of the systematic divisions of descriptive phenomenology,
Elimination of the relatively poor hyletical phenomenology (sense-data in the sensuous fields).
The endless realm of the phenomenology of intentionality. (a) The correlative problems in reference
to ego, consciousness and intentional objectivity prior to all question of justification, truth and
reality. (b) Higher stage: Phenomenology of reason. Its specialisation into rational theoretical disciplines in accordance with a priori distinguishable regions of intentional objectivity.
2
Realisation of these merely indicated differences by consideration of the meaning of the traditicnal Epistemology and its relation to phenomenology.
The problems of "right", of "validity", of knowledge and its relation to objectivities, to
things per se, to ideas, inherently valid. truths, theories, to ideals inherently valid and norms,
worths, etc. The problems of the possibility of transcendent knowledge and of the possible meaning
of a world which is knowable by the objective sciences. The subjectivity of all that is accomplished
by knowledge, e.g., in the passive bringing together of sensuous appearances, in the active production of notions, propositions, theories ; the objects of knowledge in itself as merely immanent substrata of experience and theory ; legitimate evidences, felt necessities of thought as subjective
characteristics in knowledge. How then can what is purely subjective acquire "transcendent " objective significance, or what meaning can such objective significance have ? The struggle with sceptical
negativism and agnosticism.
Thesis to be maintained: All rationally framed questions proposed to knowledge as the work
of reason are either transcendental phenomenological questions or confused and absurd questions.
It is I, and I indeed as the absolute ego, tha effectuates in my diversified cogito that assignment of significance through which everything that can have any meaning for me wins such meaning :
the meaning of mere opinion, genuine knowledge legitimate proof, empirical or a priori evidence,
etc.; but also of normal or delusive appearance, asserted truth and falsity, existence and nonexistence, etc.; and again of an intended and true object, of that which is in itself over against the
act of knowing, more specifically of thing, nature, social world, culture, etc. Only transcendental
phenomenology comprises and comprehends in its adequately evident method the absolutely unique
being of the knowing consciousness and all the correlations included within it, in all their stages and
forms. Only in its focus are the problems of knowledge (and all imaginable problems) capable of
being formulated in adequate clearness and of being apodictically solved.
General epistemology merges into general phenomenology and in a complete treatment would
be covered by the latter. But concrete theories of knowledge (constitutive phenomenologies) are
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necessary, e.g., a concrete phenomenology of the knowledge of nature, a systematic analysis of the
strata and stages of the experiencing subject and its intentional correlata (visual thing, a thing of
touch, a sensuous thing of many parts, an actually causal thing, etc.). The "Idea" of a complete
experience and insight into the complete working of a possible harmonious experience generally ;
its correlate the Idea of a " real " object of experience. The necessity of parallel constitutive disciplines for every region of objectivities.
3
Transcendental phenomenological subjectivity or monadologism as necessary consequence of the
transcendental phenomenological attitude. The knowledge that any objectivity is only what it is
through intentional meaning or significance shows that there is only one possibility for an absolute
and concrete being: the being of a concretely full transcendental subjectivity. It is the only genuine
" Substance ". The ego is what it is from its own fundamental meaning. The ego is in so far as it
constitutes itself for itself as being. All other being is merely being relative to the ego and is
encompassed within the regulated intentionality of subjectivity. It is only as " Ideal Pole ", be it as
a temporally individualised idea (empirical reality), be it as supra-temporal species, etc.
4
Problem of the alter ego (Phenomenology of Einfuhlung). Transcendental egology does not
signify solipsism. The ego that comes to expression in the body of another person is determined from
the peculiar meaning of the experience of Einfuhlung and its possible vindication not as relative to
an ego but as itself an ego. Thereby egological phenomenology acquires at the same time intersubjective validity. In further working out of the point of view, every actual or supra-temporal
object acquires relativity to the totality of the alter egos and to " everybody ". Phenomenological
monadology.
LEcruRE IV

The concrete idea of logic as a theory of scientific knowledge and the system of all
ontological inquiries. The concrete aim of phenomenological philosophy.
1

A reverting to the line of thought in the first lecture and to the treatment of the problem of
making a "philosophy " possible. In phenomenology, there is not only obtained a first and absolutely legitimate science, but as a radical theory of knowledge it contains the absolutely warranted
principles for the justification of all possible kinds of knowledge. The ideal that leads to the
philosophical "beginning", the ideal of absolute justification, of adequate evidence, is confirmed
in the sense that any ultimate justificat:on of knowledge is only possible in the form of an
adequate essential knowledge of knowledge, that is to say as transcendental phenomenology. The
true significance of the method of phenomenological " bracketing " (Einklammerung) does not lie
absolutely in the rejection of all transcendant knowledge and objects of knowledge but in the
rejection of all naively dogmatic knowledge in favour of the knowledge that is alone in the long
run justified from the phenomenological point of view of essence.
The logically legitimate function of the historically transmitted disciplines, e.g. of the
recently constituted mathematical syllogistic, of the disciplines of pure mathematics, of geometry,
of the pure theory of time, of motion, pure mechanics, etc. (We speak of "formal of and
"material ontologies " as a priori sciences of objects generally, or of objects of a special region
of being.) What these sciences as naively dogmatic have been able to achieve is insufficient.
Bracketing (Einklammerung) and phenomenological critique of these sciences. Constitutive phenomenology must in itself rest upon the fundamental notions and axioms of the logic of propositions

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and in like manner upon all ontological fundamental notions and axioms. But it obtains them in
their ultimately primitive clearness and legitimacy. Thus the phenomenology of the knowledge
of nature and of nature itself (as its intentional correlate) acquires the ultimately purified fundamental notions and propositions for material thing, space and spatial form, physical property,
physical causality, etc., which supply critical norms for all legitimate judgments of nature. A
systematically developed phenomenology needs no preceding sciences, ideally it contains within
itself the totality of all imaginable a priori sciences, and indeed as absolutely established " philosophical " sciences. It is, therefore, the universal a priori philosophy.
Precisely on this account it realises (thought of as developed) the original and genuine idea
of logic. For originally (in the Platonic dialectic) logic was to be the science of rendering clear
the significance, result and legitimacy of possible knowledge and was thereby to make possible
genuine wisdom and a universal philosophy. Necessarily it turned its gaze to all the correlative
sides, to the side of the " I " striving after truth and of the knowing consciousness (evidence,
proof), to the side of the meaning of knowledge (notion, proposition, truth). and to the side of
the object. The dogmatic character of the historical logic, the confused boundaries associated therewith, its clinging to mere generalities; its predominant psychologism. A dogmatic logic can be
no propaedeutic of genuine science, no theory of the principles of method, no absolute theory of
norms. Consideration of the necessary requirements of the idea of a logic as a theory of science
(Wissenschaftslehre) lead inevitably to transcendental phenomenology (for the historical development see my Logische Unteruchungen). The logical outcome leads beyond a universal phenomenological " logic " to the totality of the a priori sciences. an objectively directed and constitutive
phenomenology. It leads also to an a priori deduction of the system of all the categories of being
and thereby to that of the system of the a priori sciences. In like manner it leads to other problems of a universal systematic (e.g. the necessary constituents of the idea of a world of individuals).
The transcendental monadism. which necessarily results from the retrospective reference to
absolute subjectivity, carries with it a peculiar a priori character over against the constituted
objectivities. that of the essence-requirements of the individual monads and of the conditions of
possibility for a universe of " compossible " monads. To this " metaphysical " inquiry there thus
belongs the essence-necessity of the " harmonious accord " of the monads through their relation
to an objective world mutually constituted in them, the problems of teleology, of the meaning
of the world and of the world's history, the problem of God.
Transition from the a priori to the factum. The philosophy of reality. I, my life, my world,
the multiplicity of other egos, as factum, as a single possibility in the universal system of a priori
possibilities. An ultimately established knowledg of possibilities. A perfectly strict empirical
science presupposes for its possibility an absolutely valid universal logic, and that is transcendental phenomenology. The naively dogmatic sciences of fact and their phenomenological critique.
Their transformation into correlate sciences and therewith into scientific phenomenologies of
matters of fact. The ideal of the future is essentially that of phenomenologically based (" philosophical ") sciences, in unitary relation to an absolute theory of monads. Phenomenology as " first
philosophy" and as method of all " secondary " philosophies. Thus phenomenology is the realisation of the way to a universal philosophy in the .old sense. There cannot be independent
sciences side by side and as one amongst them philosophy. but only a single universal science on
a single absolute foundation.

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